Women's Divination in Biblical Literature: Prophecy, Necromancy, and Other Arts of Knowledge (The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library) 9780300178913, 0274749904, 9780274749904, 0300178913

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Women’s Divination in Biblical Literature

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T h e Anch or Y al e Bible R e f e r e n c e L i b r a ry is a project of international and interfaith scope in which Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish scholars from many countries contribute individual volumes. The project is not sponsored by any ecclesiastical organization and is not intended to reflect any particular theological doctrine. The series is committed to producing volumes in the tradition established half a century ago by the founders of the Anchor Bible, William Foxwell Albright and David Noel Freedman. It aims to present the best contemporary scholarship in a way that is accessible not only to scholars but also to the educated nonspecialist. It is committed to work of sound philological and historical scholarship, supplemented by insight from modern methods, such as sociological and literary criticism. John J. Collins General Editor

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Th e Anch or Y al e Bible R e f e r e n c e L i b r a ry

Women’s Divination in Biblical Literature Prophecy, Necromancy, and Other Arts of Knowledge

esther j. hamori

new haven and AY B R L

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london

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“Anchor Yale Bible” and the Anchor Yale logo are registered trademarks of Yale University. Published with assistance from the Mary Cady Tew Memorial Fund. Copyright © 2015 by Yale University. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Permission to reprint an excerpt from Dumuzi’s Dream: Aspects of Oral Poetry in a Sumerian Myth, by Bendt Alster, is granted by Akademisk Forlag. Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for educational, business, or promotional use. For information, please e-mail sales.press@yale .edu (U.S. office) or [email protected] (U.K. office). Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hamori, Esther J., author. Women’s divination in biblical literature : prophecy, necromancy, and other arts of knowledge / Esther J. Hamori. pages cm. — (Anchor Yale Bible reference library) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-300-17891-3 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Women in the Bible. 2. Divination in the Bible. 3. Bible. Old Testament—Criticism, interpretation, etc. I. Title. bs575.h286 2015 220.8'1333—dc23 2014034359 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This paper meets the requirements of ansi/niso z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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DRH

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He woke up—a dream! He shivered—a sleep! He rubbed his eyes, was terrified! “Bring, bring, bring my sister! Bring my Geštinanna, bring my sister! Bring my tablet knowing scribe, bring my sister! Bring my song knowing singer, bring my sister! Bring my skillful girl, who knows the meaning of words, bring my sister! Bring my wise woman, who knows the portent of dreams, bring my sister! Let me relate the dream to her.” —“Dumuzi’s Dream,” trans. Bendt Alster

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Contents

Preface, ix List of Abbreviations, xi

part one: women’s div inat ion and t h e a rt s of k now l e d g e 1. Access to Divine Knowledge, 3 2. Setting the Stage, 19

part t wo: biblic al perspect iv e s on women’s div in at ion 3. Rebekah the Aramean, 43 4. Miriam, 61 5. Deborah, 82 6. Hannah, 94 7. The Necromancer of En-dor, 105 8. The “Wise Women” of 2 Samuel, 131 9. Huldah, 148 10. The Prophet Who Conceived and Gave Birth to a Son, 160 11. “The Daughters of Your People Who Prophesy,” 167 12. The Women of Joel’s Radical Vision, 184

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viii

Contents

13. Noadiah, 186 14. Rachel, the Mother of Micah, and the Teraphim, 189 15. What a Witch: Divination Imagery and Metaphor, 203 Concluding Reflections, 217

Bibliography, 225 Index of Subjects, 247 Index of Ancient Texts, 260 Index of Key Ancient Terms, 270

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Preface

Slim were the chances that my love of the eerie—from tales of ghouls and golems to my absolute certainty that there were alligators in the sewers under my grandparents’ apartment on East Twenty-first Street in Manhattan—would somehow come together with my research interests in ancient Israelite and other Near Eastern religious thought. But what did the ancients believe was out there in the great beyond, and how did they imagine the otherworldly entering into their everyday lives? Such were the ponderings that led to my last several years of immersion into these greatly varied and complex literary traditions, with their equally varied reflections on how people might contact the world beyond and how its deities, spirits, and ghosts might communicate with them. In the spirit of recognizing how we construct our identities through the narratives of our ancestors, I pause to remember my own: my grandfather Rezső Sajó, killed in a Jewish forced-labor battalion in January 1943; my grandfather Ferenc Hámori, who mixed his butter and honey together before putting it on his bread; my grandmother Jolán Szántó Hámori, who lived through everything and then ate off of cheery yellow plates, of which I have broken only a few; my grandfather Charles D. Enselberg, who fixed up hearts and did silly dances in the living room; and my grandmother Minna Stitch Enselberg, who played a mean game of bridge and still bought her candy on the Lower East Side well into her nineties. They raised my parents, Andras Hamori and Ruth Enselberg Hamori, whom I count myself impossibly fortunate to have and to know. They are exceptional people. I have benefited from the support, challenges, questions, suggestions, and musings of many people, including Jonathan Stökl, Ilona Zsolnay, and the members of my quarterly working group, Karina Martin Hogan, Amy Kalmanofsky, Adriane Leveen, and Andrea Weiss. I am particularly grateful to several colleagues and friends for their support for this project and for their encouragement during various stages throughout the writing process:

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Preface

Susan Ackerman, Mary Boys, John Collins, Daniel Fleming, Martti Nissinen, Mark Smith, Stuart Weeks, Cornel West, and Lauren Winner. Special thanks to Carolyn Klaasen, Christopher Hooker, and Ryan Armstrong for their help in preparing the final manuscript, to Kate Mertes for her wonderful indexing work, and to everyone at Yale University Press. And to Jack, for your support in this, as in everything: thank you. All translations of Hebrew and cognate languages are my own, except where otherwise specified.

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Abbreviations

Aes. Ag. Ant. Aristot. ARM ASV BDB

Ber. BHS

CAD

ch./chs. Civ. COS

CT CTA

Aeschylus Agamemnon Antiquities of the Jews Aristotle Archives royales de Mari American Standard Version Brown, F., S. R. Driver, and C. A. Briggs. A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament. Oxford: Clarendon, 1907. Berakhot Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. Edited by Karl Elliger and Wilhelm Rudolph et al. 5th rev. ed. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1997. The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Chicago: Oriental Institute, 1956–. chapter(s) City of God The Context of Scripture. Edited by William W. Hallo and K. Lawson Younger. 3 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1997–2002. Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum Corpus des tablettes en cunéiformes alphabétiques découvertes à Ras Shamra-Ugarit de 1929 à 1939. Edited by A. Herdner. Mission de Ras Shamra

xi

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xii

Abbreviations

CTH Eng. ePSD ESV ETCSL Exod. R. fem. Gilg GKC

IBHS JPS KAR KTU

KUB

Lev. R. li. LXX masc. Meg. MT n., nn. NASB

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10. Bibliothèque archéologique et historique 79. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1963. E. Laroche. Catalogue des textes hittites. Paris: Klincksieck, 1971. English The Electronic Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary English Standard Version The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature Exodus Rabbah feminine Gilgamesh Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar. Edited by E. Kautzsch. Translated by A. E. Cowley. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon, 1910. B. K. Waltke and M. O’Connor. An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990. Jewish Publication Society Keilschrifttexte aus Assur religiösen Inhalts. Edited by E. Ebeling. Leipzig: Hinrich, 1919–1923. The Cuneiform Alphabetic Texts from Ugarit, Ras Ibn Hani, and Other Places (Die keilalphabetischen Texte aus Ugarit: 2nd. enlarged ed.). Edited by M. Dietrich, O. Loretz, and J. Sanmartín. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1995. Keilschrifturkunden aus Boghazköi, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Vorderasiatische Abteilung. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1921–. Leviticus Rabbah line(s) Septuagint masculine Megillah Masoretic Text note(s) New American Standard Bible

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Abbreviations

NIV NJPS

NKJV NPNF1

OB Od. Oed. tyr. P pi. pl. PN Pol. RA SAA Sam. Pent. SBV sing. Soph. Syr. Tg. Neb. Tg. Ps.-J. v./vv.

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xiii

New International Version Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures: The New JPS Translation According to the Traditional Hebrew Text. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1988. New King James Version Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series 1. Vol. 2. Edited by Philip Schaff. 14 vols., 1886–1889. Reprint, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994. Old Babylonian Odyssey Oedipus tyrannus Penn Tablet, Gilgamesh epic piel plural proper name Politica Revue d’assyriologie et d’archéologie orientale State Archives of Assyria Samaritan Pentateuch Standard Babylonian Version singular Sophocles Syriac Targum of the Prophets Targum Pseudo-Jonathan verse(s)

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part

1

Women’s Divination and the Arts of Knowledge

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1 Access to Divine Knowledge Who has access to divine knowledge? Biblical traditions are permeated with an interest in the question of who has special access to divine knowledge and who does not. This distinction is not only present in the prophetic literature, where it is perhaps most starkly drawn and best recognized. We also see an awareness of the issue sprinkled through the stories of the early monarchy, for instance, where it is one of the defining distinctions between David, who is repeatedly able to “inquire” of Yahweh and obtain a clear verbal response (1 Sam 23:2–4, 9–12; 1 Sam 30:7–8; 2 Sam 2:1), and Saul, who is abandoned by the spirit of Yahweh and thus unable to receive knowledge (1 Sam 16:14; 1 Sam 28:6, 15–16). After unsuccessfully attempting to hear from Yahweh through multiple means of divination, Saul laments to the ghost of Samuel, whom the necromancer of En-dor has raised: “God has turned away from me and doesn’t answer me anymore, not through prophets or through dreams!” (1 Sam 28:15). And according to many a narrated comment in the broader tradition, he is quite correct on this front: “Yahweh was with [David], but had left Saul,” ‫היה יהוה עמו ומעם שאול סר‬-‫כי‬s(1 Sam 18:12). This contrast is also depicted as a vital distinction among nations and peoples. When Aaron and the Egyptian “magicians” perform suspiciously similar acts, we see time and again that unlike the handiwork of the Egyptians, Aaron’s “signs” originate in Yahweh’s direct and ongoing verbal instruction to Moses (Exod 6:28–14:31). The question of access to divine knowledge is part of a larger constellation of concerns in biblical literature over who has access: to the temple, to the people of Israel, to God. Issues of physical proximity and divine-human contact are particularly evident in legal material (who can enter the holy of

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holies? Who can offer a sacrifice?), though they appear in prose narrative as well (who can approach the Ark? Certainly not the Philistines, we find out in 1 Sam 5–6, nor Uzzah, who meets an unfortunate end in 2 Sam 6:6–7). Reflections on divine-human communication, while also found in a range of genres, are more concentrated in prose texts. Prophetic oracles and collections are the result of belief in privileged divine-human communication, but it is more frequently in the narration of divinatory activity that views on access are revealed.

Divination and the “Arts of Knowledge” Until recently, scholars consistently referred to “divination” as the counterpoint to “prophecy.” This was one reflection of a scholarly tendency to accept certain biblical polemics at face value, as if objective and factual: in this case, polemics referring to “divination” as false and foreign, even in spite of other biblical traditions presenting numerous forms of divination as authentic, Israelite, and legitimate. The acceptance of this polemical position stemmed in part from the lingering application of outdated theories of religion, according to which “magic” was defined negatively in contrast to “religion.” This is now understood to be an artificial distinction, based on a view of “magic” as Other, such that for virtually any group, one’s own beliefs and practices are considered religious, and those of the Other are considered magical and illicit. “Prophecy” was thus accepted as a proper religious phenomenon, while “divination” was seen as magical. Now that the polemical nature of this framework has been recognized, however, divination is coming to be used as an umbrella term. I will define it here as any type of action culturally understood to allow acquisition of knowledge otherwise restricted to the divine realm. Such actions—including prophecy, necromancy, technical “inquiry,” and more—differ in their details, but not in their fundamental assumptions and goals. It is increasingly recognized that prophecy is simply one type of divination. 1. This was recognized already by Long in 1973 (“The Effect of Divination upon Israelite Literature,” 489–97), and by Grabbe in 1995 (Priests, Prophets, Diviners, Sages, 124, 139–41). See next the formative framework of Pongratz-Leisten, Herrschaftswissen in Mesopotamien, and Cancik-Kirschbaum, “Prophetismus und Divination,” 33–53; and among several relevant discussions of the issue by Martti Nissinen, see esp. “What Is Prophecy? An Ancient Near Eastern Perspective,” and “Prophecy and Omen Divination,” 341–47. Most recently, see Stökl, Prophecy in the Ancient Near East, 7–11.

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To some readers, the idea of prophecy may still feel different from technical divination—and to be sure, each form of divination does have its own unique characteristics—but prophecy can no more be extricated from the broader category than any other form of divinatory activity. Attempts to establish a principled distinction between prophecy on the one hand and divination on the other have not succeeded, as I discuss in detail in the next chapter. Divination, then, refers to a range of means of acquiring privileged divine knowledge, but gaining such knowledge does not by itself constitute divination. Divination should include one or more of three elements: intent, interpretation (whether through technical skill or divine inspiration), or an indication of the special identity of the diviner (whether through training or divine call). Various aspects of dream divination will illustrate this. Dream incubation, the inducement of a so-called significant dream (that is, one with a divinely sent message), especially through sleeping at a sanctuary or other sacred place, is a clear example of intent. Gleaning knowledge from a “symbolic-message” dream (that is, one that must be deciphered)—whether incubated or spontaneous, and whether one’s own dream or another’s—requires interpretation. Receiving divine knowledge through a spontaneous “message” dream (that is, one with a clear verbal statement) constitutes divination if, but only if, the recipient is depicted as having a special identity as a diviner, like Joseph. Whether or not a modern reader would consider a spontaneously received message dream from God to constitute remarkable, even prophetic, communication, the biblical texts do not do so. No divination is present when an individual receives a dream passively and without implication of the character having special access to divine knowledge (Abimelech, Gen 20:3; Laban, Gen 31:24). Dreams of this last type are comparable to the patriarchs’ waking conversations with God, which, in the biblical authors’ theologically romanticized view of the past, are portrayed as everyday occurrences. Any single one of these three factors—intent, interpretation, or special identity—may indicate divinatory particularity: receipt of a prophetic call constitutes identification as an individual whose divine-human communication is privileged. There is more frequently a combination of these 2. On fundamentals of “message” and “symbolic-message” dreams, see S. A. L. Butler, Mesopotamian Conceptions of Dreams and Dream Rituals, 15–19; and on incubation, 217–39. For a more recent and fuller treatment, see Zgoll, Traum und Welterleben im antiken Mesopotamien.

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elements present: necromancy requires intent as well as possibly the special identity of the necromancer, but probably not interpretation; extispicy (the professional reading of the innards of an animal sacrificed for this purpose) requires intent, interpretation of the findings, and the special identity of the diviner. The suggestion that “divination” consists in having special access to divine knowledge, and that it should reflect some combination of intent, interpretation, and/or special identity, is not intended to be a hard-and-fast list of requirements. Ancient authors did not define divination, were not restricted to categorizing each act as either divinatory or not divinatory, and differed in their portrayals of such activity. It does, however, attempt to explain why some things seem to be portrayed as special access to divine knowledge and some do not. By this definition, the type of casual divine-human conversation portrayed as common for the patriarchs is excluded: their ongoing conversations include none of the previously mentioned requirements. On the other hand, while Jonah intends not to prophesy, and God’s statements to him do not require interpretation, his conversations with God constitute divinatory activity because he is identified through title and depiction as an individual with privileged divine-human communication. Most angelic appearances are not acts of divination, as they require no human intent or interpretation and assume no special identity of a diviner. Angelic communications should be considered to have a range of types, like dreams, including direct messages (as in the straightforward communications scattered throughout Genesis) and symbolic messages (as in late prophecy and apocalyptic literature); only the latter would involve divination on the part of the human character. In each case—workaday divine-human conversations, resisted prophetic messages, spontaneous angelic appearances—a key factor is whether or not the interaction was understood within its own sociocultural context to constitute a type of communication from the deity that was out of the ordinary in form, method, or content. It is tempting to consider the ability to interpret to be the defining feature of divination, and indeed, it is often central: the diviner might have special skills, but certainly has special understanding. It is not the holder of a message who divines, but the interpreter. For example, it is not necessarily the dreamer who divines, any more than the sheep examines its own liver (though the former is perhaps more common). Thus, when the imprisoned Egyptian butler and baker each have a dream, they are despondent and say

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to Joseph, “‘We each had a dream, but there is no one to interpret them.’ So Joseph said to them, ‘Doesn’t God have the interpretations? So tell me’” (Gen 40:8). They proceed to tell him their dreams, and he—the one with special access to knowledge from the divine realm—interprets. Here the dreamer is not the diviner. While dreaming itself plays little part in the present study, because there are no dreams reported for female characters in the Bible, this example should illustrate the interpretive role of the diviner. I refer here to the range of methods of divination as the “arts of knowledge,” as inspired by the Greek concept of divinatory activity as τέχνη (art, craft, skill). The term is sometimes used even to refer to ecstatic prophecy, as in Aristotle’s reference to Onomacritus practicing “the art of prophecy,” τέχνην μαντικήν (Aristot. Pol. 1274a.28), and Jocasta’s denial of any human being having “prophetic art” μαντικη̑ ς ἔχον τέχνης (Soph. Oed. tyr. 709), both using μαντικός in conjunction with τέχνη. Aeschylus portrays prophecy similarly: at one point in Agamemnon, as the chorus continues to express bafflement at Cassandra’s ecstatic prophecies, they question what good can come of “the wordy arts” of prophecy, πολυεπεῖς τέχναι (Aes. Ag. 1134). Shortly thereafter, they ask Cassandra if she had been “seized by the prophetic arts,” ἤδη τέχναισιν ἐνθέοις ᾑρημένη (Aes. Ag. 1209 [Lloyd-Jones]). The term τέχνη lends itself to a range of interpretations, especially when used in combination with other divination language. The last phrase in the previous paragraph (Aes. Ag. 1209), for instance, is rendered alternately as “possessed by the skill the god inspires” (Collard), “possessed by the arts of divine prophecy” (Young), and perhaps best, “seized by the inspired arts” (Flower). By “the arts of knowledge” I mean to indicate the full range of senses of the term: the array of types of divination, from prophecy to use of technical instruments, is characterized by the privileged access gained through τέχνη, through craft, art, technique, skill. 3. Other examples include the dreams of Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar interpreted by Joseph and Daniel, respectively, and the charming vignette of Gideon coming upon two men chatting, one telling his dream and the other interpreting it ( Judg 7:13–15). 4. Lloyd-Jones, Aeschylus: The Oresteia; Collard, Aeschylus: Oresteia; Young, Aeschylus: The Oresteia; and Flower, The Seer in Ancient Greece. Flower also mentions the use of τέχνη together with μαντική in his work on Greek divination, and summarizes: “What Greeks called ‘the craft of divination’ (mantikē technē) was the art of interpreting the meaning of signs that were sent by the gods” (Flower, The Seer in Ancient Greece, 72).

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I am primarily interested in ancient Israelite ideas about divination: how did various authors conceive of who had access to divine knowledge? Who could gain direct access to such knowledge, when, and how? These questions of who has access to direct divine-human contact and communication are the Israelites’ own, as seen in the examples earlier in this chapter. In what follows, I ask these questions specifically in regard to women.

Why Women? As we know, most biblical texts are focused on male activity and written from a male perspective. This is old news. In addition, most scholarly attention to divinatory activity has been focused on prophecy. There are only a few female prophets in the Bible; there are, however, many more women who engage in other types of divination. This combination of factors has resulted in a flawed picture of the world of Israelite divination. In current scholarship, the prevailing image is still one dominated by prophets, almost all male. An examination of the full spectrum of women’s divinatory activity should break this open. What comes into view instead is a world full of people attempting to access divine knowledge in a multitude of ways. The focus here on women’s divination should provide valuable information in itself, but it also fleshes out the picture of the manifold divinatory roles in biblical literature overall. My hope in writing this work is not (only) that it should bring to light the many biblical reflections of women’s divinatory activity, but that in doing so, it might color our view of the vastly complex, rich, and diverse world of ancient Israelite divination. I noted earlier that the question of who has privileged divine access is the Israelites’ own. Questions regarding the status of groups not in the biblical spotlight (for example, Moabites) are also found in the traditions themselves. A good deal of biblical writing appears to have been motivated 5. Throughout this book, I use the term “Israelite” broadly in recognition of a tie that binds authors and editors from a range of places and periods, those whose eventually collected writings reflect a shared sense of their origins in Israel. Terms such as “biblical authors” and “biblical thought” are imperfect as well, since in the first case the concept would be meaningless to the writers themselves, and in the second case the phrase is theologically loaded and too often employed in methodologically unsound ways. Among imperfect ways to refer to the broad and complex group of thinkers and their written reflections, I find the term “Israelite” to be the most logical.

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by issues of communal identity formation in relation to the “Other.” This often takes the form of defining Israel and Israelite identity in opposition to other nations. Upon further reflection, though, it is evident that many texts are concerned more specifically with defining Israelite male identity. This is not only a matter of male authorial perspective in a general sense, but is frequently a more overt (if unstated) concern. It is patently the case, for instance, in legal material addressing issues of how to deal with wives and other women, which female relatives one should not have sex with, and other matters specific to men. The concern with male identity is also evident in a structure common to many narrative texts, featuring men who are defined by their heredity, geographical origin, and deity, and including women who are defined secondarily as relatives (wife, mother, daughter, sister) of a male character. In addition to this identity pyramid, the literature often reflects an interest in how the men as primary characters address issues in society relating to women as secondary characters. The poetic texts describing female activity are concerned primarily with the dangers posed by women (the archetypal foreign woman, the evil city personified as a woman, and so on). Two aspects of Israel’s self-understanding as reflected in biblical texts are then evident. First, the authors’ concerns with who has access to divine knowledge and who does not are fused with broader issues of identity construction in relation to the “Other,” including individuals (David versus Saul) and groups (Israel versus Egypt). Second, within many texts, the concern is specifically Israelite male identity, and women comprise a significant category of “Other.” It should be of interest, then, to consider how various traditions conceive of women’s access to the divine. Recent years have shown a growing interest in women’s prophecy throughout the ancient Near East, and including Israel. There has been no significant work, however, on the range of women’s divination in biblical literature. The three existing monographs on the subject of the female biblical prophets have been concerned specifically with prophecy, and not the broader phenomenon of divination. Meanwhile, recent influential works 6. And within that, these texts reflect the perspectives and interests of male heads of household, as opposed to servants, resident aliens, and so on. 7. Fischer, Gotteskünderinnen; Butting, Prophetinnen Gefragt; and Gafney, Daughters of Miriam. All three are interested in the presence or influence of female “prophets” beyond those so titled in the texts, but in no case is this a matter of exploring the fuller picture of divination (see further discussion in ch. 2 of the present book).

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on divination have not included particular attention to women. There is not yet any study of women’s divination in the Bible. The methodological segregation does not stem from the “prophetic” side alone, or from scholars focused on biblical texts. Work on ancient Near Eastern divination tends to focus on technical or academic methods, such as extispicy and omen compendia—logically enough, since these are by definition the types for which we have the most textual evidence. Because academic divination was overwhelmingly a male profession, such research is naturally focused on men. The next step is more problematic: divination is then circularly defined to be male. (An added factor is that even while we note that there are many varieties of divination, we tend to have the barû in mind when we say “diviner.”) The slippage from discussing technical or academic divination to “divination,” thus framing all divination in terms of the types practiced almost exclusively by men, is often subtle. It occurs even in the work of scholars clearly familiar with the full range of divinatory methods, and even where the possible presence of women’s divination is addressed overtly. Frederick Cryer, for instance, concludes that female diviners were extremely rare: Since divination is always held to produce real knowledge, and, as I have also mentioned, since access to knowledge is invariably restricted in any society (whether by economic pressures, fiat, tabu, or whatever is unimportant), one should note that access to the sort of knowledge produced by divination in the ancient Near East was also in many ways severely restricted. Thus, for example, to take only the most obvious point of departure, there were virtually no female diviners, so that, in spite of the fact that women apparently could consult the diviner, there was no doubt a good deal they could not talk meaningfully with him about.

This must be understood in terms of Cryer’s stated primary interest in technical, scribal divination (he uses the term “divination” to mean “technical divination” throughout his book), but the broader claim it implies is more explicit elsewhere. He states, for instance, that “Mesopotamian divination was very much a literate phenomenon” (and here “divination” cannot be shorthand for scribal divination, since that would result in an absurd 8. The works of Cryer and Jeffers both reflect the newer understanding of prophecy as a type of divination, but both focus on male activity (not explicitly), on which more follows in the text. Cryer, Divination in Ancient Israel; Jeffers, Magic and Divination. 9. Cryer, Divination in Ancient Israel, 213.

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tautological statement). When we read divination texts, we are seeing evidence specifically of scribal divination. The practical result of this, though, is that “divination” is then conceived primarily in terms of scribal—male— practices. For example, Cryer acknowledges that “every document we possess of ancient Near Eastern divination derives from the upper echelons of society, that is, from the tiny literate minority. This implies that many more types of divination and other magics may have been practised in society at large than we shall ever have evidence for”; nonetheless, his work on biblical evidence of divination includes no mention of the women of Ezekiel 13. But if the obstacle is that the practitioners featured in scribal divination are overwhelmingly male, then what kinds of divination did women practice, and to what sort of material can we look for evidence? Other types of divination—that is, nonscribal—would by definition leave less of a tablet trail. We do see the activity of women in some texts that are primarily and overtly about divination, such as the female prophets (with various titles and untitled) of the Mari letters and the Neo-Assyrian oracles. Within the Mari letters, we also have reports of female dreamers, and the letter in which Šibtu, the queen, reports practicing a form of technical or ritual divination: she gives drink to a group of male and female prophets to inquire about signs (ARM 26 207). The examination of what we might call “divination texts”—that is, texts primarily and overtly about divination—does thus yield some information about female diviners, as does a consideration of particular vocabulary. This is the case in the study of Israelite texts as well. But if we limit ourselves to divination texts and texts characterized by a technical vocabulary, we will only get a partial picture of ancient Israelite ideas about women’s divination. Other kinds of literary texts bear witness that the Israelite cultural imaginary encompassed more than the practices of academic divination. Whether these literary texts reflect realities on the ground, or only the web of ideas through which people viewed the world and their relations 10. Ibid., 138. Or similarly, continuing to view divination in terms of academic methods, Cryer writes (in a section subtitled “Unusual Genres”) that some practices, such as necromancy and prophecy, “cannot be said to have been central to the tradition” of Mesopotamian divination (180–81). 11. Ibid., 209. 12. For texts, see Nissinen, Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East, and Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies. 13. Sasson, “The Posting of Letters with Divine Messages,” 308; Durand, “In Vino Veritas,” 43–50.

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to other human beings, is a different question. Certainly, literary portrayals of women’s divination (encompassing a range of literary genres) must be distinguished from historical sources. Depictions in narrative literature do not expand our knowledge about divinatory practice in a straightforward way. We have no information regarding women’s divination in Israel except for what we read in assorted literary texts that went through long processes of revision. As we approach these texts, it is good to remember that Mesopotamia, which left us voluminous collections of elite male divination, also produced literary texts in which women perform acts of divination. Israel is not set apart by the fact that its cultural imaginary finds female divination to be a significant theme. For this reason, literary compositions from other parts of the Near East provide a more relevant point of comparison than many historical “divination texts.” Consider the following three depictions of women as dream interpreters. The goddess Nanše is known for this skill, as seen for instance in “The Building of Ningirsu’s Temple.” Gudea has a dream, but as we are told: “Outstanding though his mind was, the message remained to be understood for him.” He says, then: “Profound things (?) came suddenly to me, the shepherd, but I do not understand the meaning of what the nocturnal vision brought to me. So I will take my dream to my mother and I will ask my dream-interpreter, an expert on her own, my divine sister from Sirara, Nanše, to reveal its meaning to me . . . I want to make [your house] perfect for you [Ningirsu], so I will ask your sister, the child born of Eridug, an authority on her own, the lady, the dream-interpreter among the gods, my divine sister from Sirara, Nanše, to show me the way . . . Nanše, mighty lady, lady of most precious (?) powers, lady who like Enlil determines fates, my Nanše, what you say is trustworthy and takes precedence. You are the interpreter of dreams among the gods, you are the lady of all the lands. 14. As noted by Stuart Weeks, “By understanding the biblical prophetic literature principally in terms of Israelite prophetic activity, which may be as egregious a category confusion as anything ever done to Genesis, traditional scholarship on prophecy has justified the rejection as irrelevant of texts which could shed much light on that literature” (“Predictive and Prophetic Literature: Can Neferti Help Us Read the Bible?” 43). 15. Translation of Black, The Literature of Ancient Sumer, 44–52, li. 23–32, 43–50, and 93–100.

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One would not ordinarily refer to a goddess as performing divination; a divine being, after all, should not need to do too much to access divine knowledge. Within the context of the literature, though, this is not a relevant distinction, and Nanše is called a “dream-interpreter” repeatedly. Note the range of epithets presenting her as a diviner—that is, as having this special knowledge not because she is a goddess, but because she is skilled at dream interpretation: she is “my dream-interpreter, an expert on her own . . . an authority on her own, the lady, the dream-interpreter among the gods . . . lady of most precious (?) powers.” Nanše then interprets the dream in detail, and Gudea responds accordingly, after which he receives a message in a second dream, which he confirms through extispicy. The two forms of divination in response to the dreams are treated similarly in the text. There is no indication of a hierarchical relationship between divination through dream interpretation and through extispicy. This is not an isolated phenomenon. In OB Gilgamesh as well, we see a goddess portrayed as a dream interpreter. Gilgamesh is disturbed by strange dreams and tells them to his mother, Ninsun. She interprets each dream in turn, introduced each time as “the mother of Gilgamesh, knowing everything” (P 15, 37). The third literary reflection of women’s dream interpretation is found in “Dumuzi’s Dream,” where Dumuzi wakes up from a terrible dream and turns to his sister Geštinanna for an interpretation: He woke up—a dream! He shivered—a sleep! He rubbed his eyes, was terrified! “Bring, bring, bring my sister! Bring my Geštinanna, bring my sister! Bring my tablet knowing scribe, bring my sister! Bring my song knowing singer, bring my sister! Bring my skillful girl, who knows the meaning of words, bring my sister! Bring my wise woman, who knows the portent of dreams, bring my sister! Let me relate the dream to her.”

The series of epithets Dumuzi rattles off is astonishing. He begins by calling Geštinanna “my tablet knowing scribe,” and then names her abundant other skills. The first epithet does not indicate formal scribal dream 16. The goddess Gula is also called a “diviner,” as discussed in a later chapter. 17. Alster, Dumuzi’s Dream, 55, li. 19–25.

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interpretation. It is, rather, part of an expression of the wide-ranging knowledge and wisdom of Geštinanna. The last lines characterize her specifically as having divinatory abilities. Dumuzi cries: “Bring my skillful girl, who knows the meaning of words! . . . Bring my wise woman, who knows the portent of dreams, bring my sister! Let me relate the dream to her.” Geštinanna’s extensive wisdom includes the special insight of dream interpretation, as well as insight into “the meaning of words.” The epithet “wise woman” itself, discussed in a later chapter, can also carry a connotation of divinatory ability. The portrayal of “skillful” Geštinanna, then, encompasses a range of types of special insight. She is a dream interpreter, and a tablet-knowing scribe; she is a wise woman, knowing the meaning of words and the portent of dreams. Note the emphasis on knowledge throughout: Geštinanna does not just read texts, she knows tablets, knows the meaning of words, knows the portent of dreams. Ninsun is also poetically portrayed as having special knowledge, in her repeated epithet: “the mother of Gilgamesh, knowing everything.” Nanše, similarly, is described as an “expert,” “authority,” “lady of precious powers,” and “dream-interpreter.” In each case, the interpretations are shown to be correct—not surprisingly, since the women are known as dream interpreters and sought out in each story by the hero for that purpose. Divinatory skill does not define the role of the female characters, however. In the latter two texts in particular, the primary sense of the character is relational: the epic is about Gilgamesh, and in one scene he is comforted and instructed by his mother; and the hero of the last text is Dumuzi, who turns to Geštinanna to interpret his dream not only because she is particularly skilled, but because she is his sister. Interpret she does, and her dismay is greater than his own at the meaning of the dream. The poetic description of her grief, first as she interprets his dream and then as he flees for his life, is as poignant as any moment in Near Eastern literature (and beyond). His dream begins with an image of rushes and reeds, tearing and shaking, including a “twin reed” being removed from him (li. 29). His sister interprets and grieves: “My brother, your dream is not favorable, it is very clear to me! The twin reed of which one was being removed from you (is) I and you—one will be removed from you . . . My hair will whirl around in heaven for you . . . I shall scratch my cheeks with my finger nails like a comb for you . . .”

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Geštinanna cried toward heaven, cried toward earth. (Her) cries covered the horizon completely like a cloth and were spread out like linen. She scratched the eyes, she scratched the face, She scratched the ears, the “public” place, She scratched the buttocks, the “secret” place. “My brother! I will [walk around] in the streets [ for you]!” If Geštinanna had not known where Dumuzi was, How terribly she would have looked! How terribly she would have screamed!

This is not a “divination text”: it is unrelated to the various genres of historical sources that inform us about divinatory methods, personnel, or interpretation of findings. It is also not a fiction about divination. It is above all a work of literature expressing something of the angst of the human experience. In the course of this literary portrait, we see a girl interpret her brother’s dream. We see similar reflections in the other two examples as well. Gudea knows that the dream is important and that it involves something preternatural. The text raises his need to know to mythic intensity. Gilgamesh’s dreams relate to the coming of Enkidu, who will change his life, and whose death will lead to Gilgamesh’s tragic quest. Dumuzi is terrified. In each of the three stories, a woman—a “divine sister,” a mother, and a sister—is called upon to divine something of ultimate concern in the dreamer’s life. In the cultural imagination of the Mesopotamians, as in that of the Israelites, as we shall see, divination by women is a live theme. The circular definition of divination as a male endeavor is not solved simply by expanding the source material to include literary texts: certain presuppositions must also be set aside. In the continuation of his statement on the virtual nonexistence of female diviners (quoted earlier), Cryer, having briefly noted earlier the activities of Geštinanna and the mother of Gilgamesh, still concludes, “Admittedly, there was, as we have seen, a female dream-interpreter (ša’iltu), but I have argued that dream interpreting was among the types of divination which became ‘popular’ in the course of the first millennium, and so was of lesser authority.” Both of these examples,

18. Ibid., 59, 61, 81, li. 42, 48–49, 67–69, 240–48. The final couplet also appears in description of the old woman who briefly hides Dumuzi (li. 205–15), but in her case this is all we see; in Geštinanna’s case, it caps the depiction of her grief. 19. Cryer, Divination in Ancient Israel, 213.

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of course, come from long before the first millennium, and in both texts, the woman’s dream interpretation is treated as authoritative. Even despite having noted that Ninsun’s interpretation of her son’s dreams is juxtaposed with Gilgamesh’s and Enkidu’s attempts to interpret one another’s dreams, when “they almost invariably get it wrong, with catastrophic consequences,” Cryer assumes an overall picture according to which women’s divination, in the one form he observes, lacked authority. The setting aside of women’s divination as exceptional, “popular,” and lacking authority seems tenuous and based on prior suppositions. In each of the three examples mentioned, the woman who performs divination is extolled as an expert. As we see in these literary works, women’s dream interpretation had significant authority for the characters; this reveals something of the authors’ world of ideas. There were surely gendered differences in society that can be observed, but they must not be assumed. Most obviously, professional academic divination was predominantly male, and in the parts of society where that had primary authority, women’s divination would presumably have less. We have seen, however, that even the great literary traditions (that is, of the male scribal elite) reflect ideas about significant, authoritative, and effective women’s divination. These myths show that women’s divination looms large in the mythological imagination of the Mesopotamians. But the biblical stories are about human agents, and this can lead to complex questions regarding the historical accuracy of their portrayals of women’s divination during various periods. The texts were composed by many hands at different times. Scholars have worked to tease apart the strands, to ascribe motifs in a story to different historical periods, and to interpret texts according to the dates they assign them. Sometimes this is extremely useful; sometimes it becomes circular, and creates an obstacle to understanding what the text may actually be presenting in its picture of divinatory activity. An additional problematic aspect of interpreting this literature through the lens of proposed authorial contexts is that it tends to rely on the assumption that we 20. Ibid., 157. Women are also virtually absent in Jeffers, Magic and Divination. 21. For example, while the Huldah tradition contains some clear indications that certain events had not yet transpired, the assignment of the Miriam tradition to the Persian period (based, in my view, on less solid evidence) can circularly shape or confirm interpretation of what the texts show of her divinatory role.

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know what an author set out to do, and what precise knowledge the author had about the relevant form of divination. The En-dor story may serve as an example of how the layers of literary possibilities can render historical conclusions all but impossible. The writer of the story clearly has a goal that is not simply reporting a set of facts. The author has something to say about Saul and is turning to the authority of Samuel for this purpose. But what of the presentation of the divining woman? On the most basic level, she is simply necessary for the plot. In order to use the authority of a character who has already died, the character must be somehow brought back. Does the story of the medium of En-dor demonstrate that necromancy was commonly practiced in Israel, or might it just be the author’s best means of turning to the authority of Samuel after he has died? Perhaps necromancy was indeed common but looked nothing like this (presumably the goal could not have been the visible raising of the dead, or it would not generally have been seen as successful), and here it is just a necessary plot device. Or might the author have used a convention of a certain kind of woman performing a common form of divination, because he knew it from his day? Or, as suggested earlier regarding the birth omen, maybe this is how the author imagined things happening in earlier times. Then again, it could be a throwback, but reasonably accurate. Or was some form of necromancy common in the author’s day, but not the author’s social location? Is it possible that the author drew a somewhat stereotypical and inaccurate picture of what people did out in the villages, when he himself had firsthand knowledge only of the religious circles of the elite? My aim here is to examine the texts that depict women’s divination without depending on specific proposals regarding the authors’ contexts. I will try to show that the divinatory activity of women is an important and enormously varied motif in the Bible; I will try to bring out, without historical or theological preconception, how the texts view the diviners (whom they often place in tense, dramatic situations), and I will suggest that a synoptic view of the female diviners allows some interesting patterns to come to light. I do not take an overall fixed position on the epistemological status of these stories. At a minimum, they make clear that the image of the female diviner had a notable place in the Israelite cultural imagination. In my view, a realistic maximalist position would be that actual women’s divination bore some resemblances to its portrayal in literary texts, not particularly more or less so than with other types of religious activity, and that

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perhaps under certain circumstances it had as much authority as did other kinds of divination. In what follows, I include every biblical text that I see either as reflecting a tradition of women’s divination or as otherwise significant for a thorough examination of the subject. I do so sticking closely to the Masoretic Text, not because no relevant or intriguing emendations could be found, but because it seems particularly important to be clear that none of the following interpretations are based on emendations or reconstructions. Divination, as defined in this book, does not privilege one type of divinatory activity over another; therefore, the cast of characters will include women familiar from scholarly discussions of prophecy (where usually a woman is taken into account because a biblical text labels her a prophet) as well as others whom the text shows engaging in divinatory activity. As the reader will see, the activities described in the various texts cannot be neatly categorized by title. This issue has been observed already in regard to men’s religious activity, and it is unsurprising that it is evident in the texts depicting women’s divination as well. Two women called “prophets” may function quite differently from one another, for example; meanwhile, a necromancer in one text may resemble a prophet in another text more than she does another necromancer. For this reason, I treat the various texts in ( Jewish) canonical order, rather than making some contrived effort to categorize them by type, which would be simplistic and misleading. Modes of divinatory activity were complex and overlapping, and in regard to “types” of divination—as in other ways as well—these portrayals of divination may not conform to our expectations. 22. I do not, however, address every text that has been proposed as an example of women’s intermediary activity. In particular, I do not think that there is adequate evidence to support the theory that the women who serve at the tent of meeting are acting as cult prophets. For that hypothesis, see Fischer, Gotteskünderinnen, 96–108. 23. On the common overlap between various roles, in contrast to “ideal types,” see Grabbe, “Shaman, Preacher, or Spirit Medium? The Israelite Prophet in the Light of Anthropological Models,” esp. 128–31.

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2 Setting the Stage Prophecy scholarship, as noted in the previous chapter, has been colored by the widespread assumption of a categorical distinction between prophecy and divination, itself a lingering symptom of the older distinction between religion and magic. Even when a family resemblance between prophecy and other forms of divination is recognized, divination in Israel is still frequently set apart in scholarly literature as a practice relegated to “popular religion” and as equivalent to “false prophecy.” Outdated approaches to studies involving women in biblical texts also persist. The transition from “women’s studies” to “gender studies” (a good academic expression of the shift from second-wave to third-wave feminism) is most evident in work explicitly on both men and women. Where it makes sense to focus on women’s activity, however—such as in a realm where it has yet to be recognized as existing or significant—it is often still done as if somehow extractable from a fully gendered society, essentializing women and ignoring the contextual realities of the social constructions of “male” and “female” identity. A study of the literary portrayal of female diviners must be attentive to the layers of gendered assumptions: first in the depiction of women’s religious activity by men in specific ancient Israelite cultural contexts, where the authors’ gendered views are precisely the point, and then in modern interpretation, where scholarly assumptions regarding gender are applied to ancient texts. The artificial dichotomies between prophecy and divination, religion and magic, official and popular religion, true and false prophecy, and inherently male and female gender roles have each been refuted, but these methodological corrections have largely remained field-specific and have

19

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not yet filtered into other specialized areas. The work of scholars who have moved beyond the model of “magic” versus “religion,” or the work of specialists in the study of divination, may at times continue to reflect outdated approaches to gender; those with expertise in gender studies may continue to assume a dichotomous relationship between “magic” and “religion,” “official” and “popular” religion; and so on. Across a range of topics relevant to this study, a good deal of scholarship continues to assume an older, outdated model in one or more of these areas. Thus, while it is not new to break down any particular one of the following pairs, the present work depends on the integration of more recent approaches in each area. The study of the literary portrayal of women’s divination must be set against the background of these newer (and changing) ideas.

Religion and Magic Until relatively recently in the history of scholarship, “religion” and “magic” were generally understood to stand in opposition to one another. More specifically, “magic” was seen as the negative counterpart to “religion.” Early ideas common in social scientific work included, in broad strokes, the notion that magic is primitive, while religion is advanced and theologically sophisticated; that magic is peripheral (that is, what outsiders do), while religion is central (what insiders do); that magic is clandestine, while religion is public; that magic is subversive, while religion is conventional; that magic is malevolent and dangerous, while religion is benevolent and safe; that magic is coercive, depending on human agency, while religion is faith-ful, depending on divine agency; that magic consists in illegitimate reaching for power or for the sacred, while religion represents legitimate, proper access; and so on. The development of these ideas in the formative period of modern anthropology and the sociology of religion has been traced in detail by many scholars already and need not be rehashed here. 1. This is in addition to the more deeply flawed work lacking contemporary methodology within its own area, such as work on prophets that assumes an objective opposition between “true” and “false” prophecy, or work on women that essentializes gender roles. 2. Readers interested in a detailed discussion of the history of these ideas should see Styers, Making Magic; Cunningham, Religion and Magic; and for a topical approach, including gender and witchcraft, Bowie, The Anthropology of Religion. See also the helpful surveys of Stratton, Naming the Witch, ix–xi and 1–18; and

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The last several decades have seen a radical shift in this area. Current scholarship recognizes the problematic nature of the dichotomy as based on cultural assumptions according to which one’s own beliefs and practices are considered “religious,” while those belonging to people(s) and groups different from one’s own are then defined as “magical.” These skewed views of magic as “other,” defined negatively in opposition to religion, characterized by its deviation from the “norm” of religion (and thus being deviant), undergird a vast amount of older work in biblical scholarship and religious studies, and the same assumptions or their influence can still be seen in a surprising amount of current work in biblical studies. However, modern scholars of religion would at the very least seriously challenge the older characterizations and point out the overlapping nature of magic and religion, and many would go further, arguing that religion and magic cannot helpfully be defined as two separable categories at all. Jonathan Z. Smith has bitingly articulated the problem and his response to it: In their turn, these flaws [in defining magic] have been brought about by the fact that in academic discourse “magic” has almost always been treated as a contrast term, a shadow reality known only by looking at the reflection of its opposite (“religion,” “science”) in a distorting fun-house mirror. Or, to put this another way, within the academy, “magic” has been made to play the role of an evaluative rather than an interpretive term, and, as such, usually bears a negative value . . . For these (and other) reasons, I see little merit in continuing the use of the substantive term “magic” in second-order, theoretical, academic discourse.

Klutz, “Reinterpreting ‘Magic’ in the World of Jewish and Christian Scripture: An Introduction,” 1–11; or Cryer, Divination in Ancient Israel, 42–95. 3. An early turning point was Alan F. Segal’s essay in which he challenged the scholarly assumption that “magic” is something specific and distinct from “religion,” on the grounds that the meaning of “magic” is relative, varies by social context, and in scholarly use reflects our own cultural biases (“Hellenistic Magic: Some Questions of Definition,” 349–75). More recently, see the important contributions of Gager, “Introduction,” in Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World, 22–25; J. Z. Smith, “Trading Places,” 13–27; J. Z. Smith, “Religion, Religions, Religious,” 269–81; and Remus, “‘Magic,’ Method, Madness,” 258–98. With direct bearing on biblical and other Near Eastern literature, see many relevant sections of Schmitt, Magie im Alten Testament. 4. J. Z. Smith, “Trading Places,” 16.

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The complication, as Smith and others observe, is that the use of “magic” as a negative contrast term is not restricted to such second-order, theoretical discourse, but is used also in first-order discourse, that is, within the societies (ancient and modern) that the academic work aims to analyze. Though there too it is still primarily used in reference to the illicit ritual activity of the “Other”—and thus can be used by conflicting groups to refer to one another’s practices, each considering their own to be legitimate— the employment of this language within virtually all societies has had a significant impact on scholarly assumptions about magic. It is thus neither necessary nor possible to throw out the term “magic” altogether. Newer scholarship is addressing the necessity of finding ways to discuss “magic” while recognizing the inherently problematic nature of the term. The current predominant approach is to shift the focus onto the use of accusations of magic as a means to silence others and to delegitimize positions or practices contrary to those of one’s own social or theological group. Given these complexities, it is often understood to be more useful to name an act than a category—for example, “curse” or “blessing,” without the judgment of whether a given incidence is a “religious” or “magical” curse. It is untenable at this point to define magic clearly as a category separate from and in opposition to religion. One only need look at Mesopotamia or Egypt, where we see “magical” rituals at the center of the societies’ religious systems, to realize the merit of this position. When it comes to 5. See the discussion of the unconvinced J. Z. Smith, ibid., 17–20; also Stratton, Naming the Witch, 1–38; Johnston, “Describing the Undefinable,” 50–54; Johnston, Ancient Greek Divination, 146–48; and Versnel, “Some Reflections on the Relationship Magic-Religion,” 177–97. 6. See for example Stratton, Naming the Witch, who understands magic as a form of social discourse (à la Foucault), with an interest in the power relations involved in what was defined as magic in various contexts, and by whom; and the key discussions she cites of Phillips, “The Sociology of Religious Knowledge in the Roman Empire,” 2677–773, and Garrett, The Demise of the Devil. As J. Z. Smith notes, though, this shift begs the question of whether anyone has “‘actually’ practiced ‘magic,’” a point that scholars who agree on the level of theory still debate regarding contexts from Africa to Salem (“Trading Places,” 20). 7. See Stratton, Naming the Witch, 8–9, for further discussion. 8. This is not to suggest that the concept of “magic” is so clear elsewhere in the Near East; note particularly van Binsbergen and Wiggermann, “Magic in History: A Theoretical Perspective, and Its Application to Ancient Mesopotamia,” 3–34. See also Ritner, “The Religious, Social, and Legal Parameters of Traditional

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Israelite religion, there is at times more hesitation either to label some practices magical, or to regard “magical” acts as legitimate parts of “religious” practice. Examples abound, however, of “magical” practice in Israelite religion and among major Israelite religious figures. One might consider the many acts of Elisha, such as when he tosses a stick into the water to make an iron axhead float (2 Kgs 6:5–7), or when he throws salt into water to make bad water good, an act that is accompanied by an incantation (2 Kgs 2:19–22). Moses, of course, has also been called a magician. He throws wood into the water at Marah, turning the bitter water sweet (Exod 15:22–25), and strikes a rock with his staff, resulting in a flow of water from the stone. He makes a bronze serpent, just the sight of which is said to heal the people who have been bitten by snakes (Num 21:9). He raises his staff on a hilltop, and keeps it raised all throughout a battle, in order to bring about victory over the Amalekites. There is a nice detail in the storytelling that emphasizes the nature of the magical act: Moses’s arms grow tired, but since each time he lowers the staff the Amalekites suddenly prevail in battle again, Aaron and Hur set up a stone for the weary Moses to sit on while they hold up his hands, thus bringing about Israelite victory (Exod 17:9–13). Joshua directly addresses the sun, telling it to stand still, and it does ( Josh 10:12–14). The list could go on. The question of “the Bible’s” own view of “magic” is not a simple one. While some texts, like many of those just mentioned, do not distinguish between what have been labeled “religious” and “magical” activities, other Egyptian Magic,” 43–60. In what is perhaps a telling Freudian slip on someone’s part, the header throughout reads “Traditional Egyptian Religion.” 9. On the use of magic as part of prophets’ divine-human mediation (i.e., not separable from their religious activity), with an emphasis on the Elijah-Elisha traditions, see Schmitt, Magie im Alten Testament, 289–94. 10. Vocabulary relating to magic is also informative. See Fritschel’s analysis of biblical terminology for practitioners of magic and divination, which she categorizes according to terms used for both Israelites and foreigners, and those used exclusively for foreigners (“Women and Magic in the Hebrew Bible,” 40–62). A readable collection of biblical “magical spells,” rites, and objects is available in Nigosian, Magic and Divination in the Old Testament, 17–46. Helpful also is Jeffers’s “whistle-stop tour” of the problems in defining magic in contrast to religion, and showing so-called magical activity as “part of a belief system within ancient Israelites’ variety of modes of intermediation with the divine” ( Jeffers, “Magic from Before the Dawn of Time,” 123–32; quotation 132).

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texts certainly do. In a few cases, different versions of one story subtly indicate an author’s concern with what might be seen as magic, as in the two texts telling of Moses bringing forth water from the rock. In Exodus 17:1–6, Moses strikes the rock at Yahweh’s command. Though the text presents the initiative as divine (commonly seen as a reason to label activity “religious”), the “magical” nature of the act—the rod is used virtually as a wand—can hardly be countered. In Numbers 20:1–13, however, Yahweh commands Moses only to tell the rock to produce water (v. 8) and condemns him afterward for using the rod. While these two means of providing flowing water from a rock, the one verbal and the other physical, are equally “magical” (or “religious”) from the angle of modern theory, the presence of the two distinct versions of the story demonstrates a difference in the traditions’ attitudes toward the physical action involved. In other cases, a narrator will more explicitly articulate a perceived difference between two types of actions—the difference being that those of the “Other” are magic. In the example cited in the previous chapter of Aaron and the Egyptian magicians performing essentially identical feats (the one rod-turned-serpent’s slightly higher position on the food chain does not a phenomenological distinction make), Aaron’s acts are presented as divinely inspired, and the Egyptians’ acts are emphatically described as sorcery: “So Moses and Aaron came to Pharaoh, and did just what Yahweh had commanded. Aaron threw his rod before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent. Then Pharaoh also called for the wise men (‫)לחכמים‬ and the sorcerers (‫)ולמכשפים‬, and they too, the magicians of Egypt (‫)חרטמי מצרים‬, did the same with their secret arts (‫( ”)בלהטיהם‬Exod 7:10– 11). This view, whether held by the biblical writers or by the scholars who accept the biblical perspectives as factual, typifies the rule of thumb that, for any given group, “religion is what We do; magic is what They do.” As put by Robert Grant in a now-classic description: “your magic is my miracle, and vice versa.” This captures an interesting moment in the process of communal identity formation. “Religion” and “magic” are both external descriptions, and the concept of a category of “religion” is in many ways a modern one. The 11. This theme is not original to the Bible. There is a similar magical dance-off, for instance, in the Sumerian “Enmerkar and Ensuhgirana,” in which the wise ˘ woman Sagˆburu defeats Ensuhgirana in a sorcery contest. ˘ 12. Grant, Gnosticism and Early Christianity, 93. 13. See again J. Z. Smith, “Religion, Religions, Religious.”

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concept of “magic” as its perceived point of contrast, however, appears to precede it. As counterintuitive as that may seem, the principle that “religion” is defined according to what it is not is well known. As summarized by Mark Taylor: “If structuralism and poststructuralism have taught us anything, it is that identity is inescapably differential: there can be no religion apart from its opposite.” So we witness in the writing of Exodus 7 a moment in Israelite history when the Israelite authors would not yet have described their own actions as “religion,” but already presented the Egyptians as performing “magic.” Having observed this biblical polemic against “magic”—even where the actions are identical, and alongside other texts that include no such polemic—it is apparent that academic articulations of a binary opposition between magic and religion did not come out of nowhere. This artificial dichotomy, as defined in older social scientific theory and still lingering in biblical studies, may be attributable to two main interrelated factors. First, it is at times simply a matter of scholars taking biblical polemic at its word— describing the feats of Aaron and the Egyptian “magicians” as phenomenologically different, for example. For a long time, scholars tended to interpret along Deuteronomistic lines (and many still do). This has been true in many areas within biblical studies, from reconstructions of Israelite history to views of “Canaanite” religion. Even where biblical texts offer a range of perspectives—some texts express discomfort with “magicians,” but for example, Elijah and Elisha both raise the dead (1 Kgs 17:8–24; 2 Kgs 4:18– 37)—mainstream scholarship used to take the Deuteronomistic party line (with a little Priestly material thrown in for good measure), assuming that the authors’ polemic represented an accurate historical picture. This is a little like accepting the view that Judah was in fact conquered because the people turned away from Yahweh, or that worship of Bel and Nebo could not have been as theologically sophisticated as worship of Yahweh. This particular type of biblical influence on Western academia was also at the root of the anthropological framework that set magic in opposition to religion more broadly. Second, the weighty influence of structuralism across modern academia cannot be overestimated. The assumption of a world full of clear binary 14. Taylor, “Introduction,” in Critical Terms for Religious Studies, 7. 15. For a lovely correction to this polemic, see Jacobsen, “The Graven Image,” 15–32. 16. Cryer has made a similar observation, and adds that this was why for so long scholars did not study Israelite magic (Divination in Ancient Israel, 234).

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opposites has reinforced the traditional acceptance of selective biblical polemic (even polemic explicitly countered by other biblical perspectives, such as those that present “magical” acts without criticism, or acts of ritual power that blur what would traditionally be called “religion” and “magic”). This is circular, of course: it is surely no coincidence that scholars milk-fed on the Bible, whether individually or culturally, subscribed to theories defining clear opposites that reflected certain biblical ideas. While the notion of “magic” as a category distinct from and opposed to “religion” is long since out of date in social scientific theory, and while this has been recognized by many scholars of Israelite religion, the assumptions continue to filter through biblical studies in subtle (and less subtle) ways. This is apparent, for instance, in the overwhelming description of “divination” as something separate from and opposite to “prophecy.”

Prophecy and Divination It is still quite common in biblical scholarship (unlike in the study of other ancient Near Eastern and Greek divination) to see “prophecy” understood as a religious phenomenon, and “divination” as magic, with all of the negative connotations generally attached to the term. Biblical traditions, however, are replete with examples of types of divination other than prophecy that are presented as indigenous, authentic, and effective. Dream divination is among the most widely recognized types and incorporates a range of activities, including the reception of certain dreams, dream interpretation, and dream incubation. In addition to the individuals who receive message dreams—though these dreams too may be “significant”—there are figures known for their divinatory skill as dream interpreters. Joseph, who is first depicted as a dreamer himself (Gen 37:5–11), is then revealed to have the insight of dream interpretation (Gen 40–41). 17. In the Mari letters, the evaluation of a dream as “significant” refers to its legitimacy as a divined dream; I import this concept here because biblical authors express similar judgments through narrative. 18. The implication in the former narrative, in which Joseph’s brothers are angered by the young whippersnapper’s dreams, is not that they too have any particular interpretive ability, but that the dreams Joseph has (and feels compelled to share) have a painfully obvious meaning. The distinction between “message” and “symbol” dreams is a modern scholarly one, and a gray area of intersection between them exists.

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Daniel too combines these roles: he makes his name as a diviner by interpreting Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, but only after its contents are revealed to him through his own dream (Dan 2). Daniel, the “chief magician” (‫רב חרטמיא‬, Dan 4:6), also has special interpretive abilities extending beyond dreams, as evidenced by his understanding of the mysterious writing on the wall (which he is beckoned to read because of his reputation for insight and interpretation, as emphasized repeatedly in 5:11–16). Solomon engages in dream incubation: he makes a monumental sacrifice to Yahweh at the shrine at Gibeon, immediately after which “at Gibeon Yahweh appeared to Solomon in a dream” (1 Kgs 3:4–15). Other forms of divination are presented as equally valid, including methods utilizing tools (which would likely be considered “magical” objects in the hands of a non-Israelite). When Joseph has his silver goblet planted in Benjamin’s bag, he instructs his accomplice upon search and seizure to emphasize the special value of the object, telling him to exclaim, “Isn’t this the one my master drinks from, and with which he practices divination?” (Gen 44:5). David twice uses the ephod as an instrument of divination, both times provided for him by the priest Abiathar (1 Sam 23:9; 1 Sam 30:7). The Ark serves either as an instrument of divination or, more likely, as a mobile sacred place allowing access to divine knowledge, thus working on the same principle as dream incubation: the Israelites “inquire” of Yahweh before the Ark ( Judg 20:27). We read also of the casting of lots to identify (accurately) a guilty party ( Josh 7:10–20; 1 Sam 14:37–43); the priestly use of the urim (Num 27:21); and so on. These various types of divination are interrelated, and many figures who engage in one engage in others as well, as seen in the examples of Joseph and Daniel. There is not one person who divines by dreams and a different person who uses instruments of divination—or another who prophesies. Some individuals are associated with one particular method of divination, to be sure—the prophet (‫)נביא‬, the dreamer or dream interpreter (‫בעל חלמות‬, as in Gen 37:19)—but just as we would not artificially 19. Two texts ring of accidental incubation: Jacob’s dream at Bethel is attributed to the sacred location—it is the “house of God” and the “gate of heaven”—though Jacob has said he did not know it (Gen 28:16–17). Samuel’s visual and auditory visions of God occur as he is “lying down in the temple of Yahweh, where the Ark of God was” (1 Sam 3:3), but neither he nor Eli initially understands what is happening.

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separate the one who interprets dreams from the one who uses a goblet or the ephod as a divinatory tool, it would be equally contrived to remove the one who prophesies from the overall category of divination. We see individuals with prophetic titles engage in forms of divination other than prophetic utterance (Elisha uses music to induce spirit possession, 2 Kgs 3:15; Ezekiel has elaborate visions and out-of-body experiences), and we see untitled people prophesy (such as Saul, who also attempts multiple other forms of divination, 1 Sam 28:6). This cannot be explained solely in terms of changing constructs and titles over time (and perhaps location). All of these overlapping roles and activities demonstrate the impossibility of extracting any one method and classifying it as qualitatively different from the others and separate from the general category of divination—including prophecy. Furthermore, even those individuals who are known as prophets are often said to “inquire of ” or “consult” (‫ )דרש‬Yahweh. This is recognizable divination terminology. We read of “inquiring of ” the dead (Deut 18:10–11; Isa 8:19b), mediums and spiritists (1 Sam 28:7; Isa 8:19a; Isa 19:3b), “idols” (Isa 19:3a), the Ark (1 Chr 13:3), and other gods (2 Kgs 1:2; Jer 8:2; 2 Chr 17:3; 2 Chr 25:20). In several texts, we see this terminology used in reference to inquiring of Yahweh and other entities in parallel: mediums, spiritists, God and the dead (Isa 8:19), a ghost and Yahweh (1 Chr 10:13–14), ‫ בעלים‬and God (2 Chr 17:3–4). Even when an author’s polemics express the view that these other objects of divination are improper, the statements themselves reflect the concept of the methods as parallel. Thus, when a prophet “inquires of ” Yahweh, or people “inquire of ” Yahweh through prophets, it is not an abstract theological notion of “seeking” God, but a use of the same divination terminology that is used in reference to other objects (1 Sam 9:9; 1 Kgs 22:5–8; 2 Kgs 3:11, 8:8, 22:13 and 18; Jer 21:2, 37:7; Ezek 14:3 and 7; 20:3 and 31; 21:1). This language alone is enough to refute another common misunderstanding. In the older (and persisting) framework, many assumed that “prophecy” and “divination” reflected a difference in agency, as in the old notions of “religion” as a matter of divine initiative and “magic” as human: God gives true prophecy and dreams, while humans fruitlessly examine kidneys, livers, and stars. In the future, the dichotomy between “prophecy” and “divination” will likely fade from academic discussion; however, newer 20. The range of accompanying prepositions is enormous, and the choice is not specific to the object.

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academic binary distinctions still serve to separate prophecy and dreams from other divinatory methods, even when all are recognized as forms of divination. For example, the distinction between divine and human agency (or one might say, inspired and induced revelation) used to constitute a basic assumption regarding “prophecy” and “divination”; it lingers on in subtler form, still separating types of divination essentially along the lines of the traditionally highlighted biblical polemic. The identical language for “consulting” or “inquiring of ” the dead, mediums, “idols,” ritual objects, and Yahweh demonstrates the identical human initiative of each method. If prophets often “inquire of ” Yahweh, then human agency cannot be seen as a means to distinguish prophecy from other forms of divination. There are other methods of inducing prophecy as well. When Elisha wants to make divine contact in 2 Kings 3:15, he orders: “‘And now, get me a musician!’ And as the musician played, the hand of Yahweh came upon [Elisha],” and he prophesied. Elisha’s use of music to cause the hand of Yahweh to fall upon him constitutes technically induced prophecy as clearly as Šibtu giving drink to the prophets in ARM 26 207. Dream incubation—that is, instigating receipt of a divine message—is similarly treated as effective in biblical texts. Conversely, there are types of divination traditionally seen as “false” that cannot possibly be initiated by humans, such as celestial divination. It would be difficult to justify separating the interpretation of astrological omens from the interpretation of dreams on the grounds of agency. There is divination that is initiated by humans, and some that is clearly seen as initiated by God; there is also a spectrum between the inspired and the induced. If we feel compelled to replace the old framework of “prophecy” versus “divination” with another binary distinction within divination (for example, inductive versus deductive, technical versus intuitive, direct versus indirect), there are others to be had: perhaps practiced versus spontaneous, independent versus mediated. Each of these may be a helpful distinction in some context, each may offer insight into a particular act—but none of 21. Thus, while I concur with most of Stökl’s new discussion of prophecy as a type of divination, I disagree somewhat with the extent of his distinction between technical and intuitive divination, such that, for example, a dream interpreter falls under the heading of “technical diviner,” while a dreamer falls under the heading of “intuitive” (Prophecy in the Ancient Near East, 7–11).

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them is a basis for sustained categorical distinction. Prophets and dreamers spontaneously receive inspiration and induce it; they receive divine words and interpret mysterious symbols and events, as one might an astrological omen. Omen readers slice up animals to find meaning, read entries in academic omen compendia, and interpret celestial signs thrown in their paths. Perhaps it is best to refer to an individual divinatory act as induced or inspired, technical or intuitive, and the like—or in many cases, some combination of these—and to be more precise in describing the various components of specific acts as well as entire methods. Elisha’s act in 2 Kings 3:15, for instance, is technically induced; the state he falls into would qualify as divinely inspired; the message he receives is direct; and so on. Some of the distinctions are difficult to apply to all scenarios: Is Elisha’s divination independent or mediated? As a diviner, he receives a message directly from Yahweh, that is, unmediated; his receipt of the message is dependent on the participation of the musician, who sparks the mantic state. This type of description is not nearly as convenient as, for example, “inspired.” It is, however, preferable to err on the side of precision. Terminology relating to divination is very new to biblical studies and not yet used clearly and precisely. While we continue in the joint effort to find appropriate language for the many moving parts of the complex world of ancient divination, we ought also continually to be aware of when our instinctive binary distinctions align with biblical polemics, and when they do, to be very sure of whether this is more than theological habit. The attempt to distinguish authentic and inauthentic forms of divination is not unique to the Bible. Sarah Iles Johnston notes that the Greek diviner Artemidorus lists many methods of divination in his dream book, “about half of which he says are unreliable (including divination from cheese, whatever that is).” There are differences between the many forms of divination referenced in biblical texts, and it is not surprising that the authors were concerned with which were legitimate and authentic and which were not, but from the perspective of a historian of religion, this is not phenomenologically different from the list of Artemidorus. On the same principle as that prompting the shift in the study of “magic” to a focus on the social realities behind accusations of magic and witchcraft, we cannot take Israelite condemnation of certain practices at face value as objective 22. Johnston, Ancient Greek Divination, 8; Artemidorus, Interpretation of Dreams 2.69.

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statements about “divination,” but we can glean useful information about underlying social realities. Cryer’s etymological examination of the terminology for practices that Deuteronomy 18:9–14 bans and attributes to foreigners should illustrate this. Of the relevant vocabulary (,‫ חבר חבר‬,‫ מכשף‬,‫ מנחש‬,‫ מעונן‬,‫קסם קסמים‬ ‫המתים‬-‫ דרש אל‬,‫)שאל אוב וידעני‬, he finds that there is no record of a cognate term in the literature of the surrounding peoples attested as early as the Deuteronomic use for almost any of the words. On the other hand, cognates of ‫חזה‬, “to see,” are well attested in reference to prophecy. He summarizes, “the only conclusion historical linguistics permits is that prophetic terminology, if not the phenomenon itself, was derived from Israel’s ‘neighbours,’ whereas Israel’s various forms of magic were in all likelihood domestic.” So we have seen that biblical characters engage in a variety of types of divination, and that prophecy is no more separable from the whole than any other method. While some texts display a polemical view that one method is superior to another, or that some methods are illicit and foreign, other texts and traditions seem completely comfortable with a range of means of divination and are not polemical in the least.

Official Cult and Popular Religion It is also not the case that “divination” can be relegated to the private sphere, to the realm of so-called popular religion. Many forms of divination are evident in the public cult, as seen in the examples cited earlier, and for that matter, there is ample indication in the Bible that prophecy had a place in local religious activity unconnected to the cult. Nonetheless, the assumption that divinatory activity other than prophecy is a phenomenon of “popular” as opposed to “official” religion lingers on. Both the method and the consequence of this will be familiar from the above discussions: it has first required the selective highlighting of certain biblical polemics, and has then had the advantage for some scholars of distancing what is seen as magical, foreign, or false from “biblical” religion. As with the artificial 23. Cryer, Divination in Ancient Israel, 262. He notes the cognate for ‫ מכשף‬, and the attestation of the practice of inquiring of the dead, both in Mesopotamia, and the possibility that ‫ נחש‬may have a cognate if related to ‫לחש‬, but no attestations otherwise of cognates in Israel’s surroundings older than the relevant biblical texts (256–62).

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contrasts discussed earlier, the faulty framework of this model has been recognized in many areas of biblical study, but continues to surface in statements concerning divination. There was not a single form of “official” religion surrounded by separate and subversive forms of “popular” religion. Religious belief and practice varied according to context—whether urban or rural, royal complex or farming family, temple or household, Jerusalem temple or other temples and sanctuaries (in addition to region and date). There are also inescapable overlaps between these categories, and forms of religious activity presented as illicit in some traditions appear in other texts without comment. The story of Michal, for instance, prominently displays teraphim in the royal palace, a fact toward which the authors seem neutral. Is this then “official” and “royal” religion, or “popular” and “household”? What about Passover, which is an official household ritual? Then there is Saul and Samuel’s participation in the cultic activity at a local shrine (1 Sam 9–10); David’s divination by ephod, brought to him by the priest Abiathar (1 Sam 23:9–12); or Elisha directing King Joash in a Yahwistic magical ritual that included the king shooting an arrow, the prophet speaking an incantation, and the king striking the ground with arrows a certain number of times to bring about corresponding victory over Syria (2 Kgs 13:17–19). Some will extend the question of “official” and “popular” religion to that of “Israelite” and “foreign” influence. This is usually shorthand for Israelite and “Canaanite,” with the difficulty being that, although Israelite religion obviously took on its own characteristics, it is not clear exactly at what point and in what ways it becomes appropriate to distinguish between “Israelite” and the broader environment, particularly the “Canaanite.” The hard distinction between the two at an early date has been corrected in many areas of the field. Though we continue to see divination referred to 24. As Stavrakopoulou and Barton point out, the plurality of religious views and practices in ancient Israel is so emphasized in current scholarship that it is reflected even in the titles of many recent works on the subject (“Introduction: Religious Diversity in Ancient Israel and Judah,” 1 n.1, noting for example Zevit, The Religions of Ancient Israel; Hess, Israelite Religions; and Edelman, ed., The Triumph of Elohim: From Yahwisms to Judaisms. 25. See esp. Lemche, The Canaanites and Their Land; M. Smith, The Origins of Biblical Monotheism; M. Smith, The Early History of God; and Niehr, “‘Israelite’ and ‘Canaanite’ Religion,” 23–36.

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in terms of folk religion, popular religion, or “foreign” Canaanite religion, it is abundantly clear that many types of divination were very much at home throughout Israelite religion.

True and False Prophecy So “prophecy” and “divination” are not phenomenologically different, and prophetic and other divinatory methods do not belong to separate spheres of activity. They also do not represent “true” and “false” mediation, although that is how some biblical texts present it and how traditional biblical scholars used to understand it. At this point, however, it has been widely observed that there are no great differences between the “true” and “false” prophets of the Bible. The criteria for “true” and “false” prophecy vary between texts and are sometimes contradictory. For example, if the criterion is that the prophecy must not lead people to other gods (as in Deut 13:2), this does not explain the “false” Yahwistic prophets of the Bible. If the criterion is that the prophecy must come true (as in Deut 18:22), we must consider that Deuteronomy 13:1–3 allows for “false” prophecy to come true. For that matter, we might also note the prophecies of “true” prophets that are not fulfilled. The classic example of the social reality behind biblical claims of “true” and “false” prophecy is the conflict between Jeremiah and Hananiah in Jeremiah 28. Both men are called prophets of Yahweh, and they each consider the other to be a false prophet. While we might instinctively be persuaded to Jeremiah’s side—through only having access to it, and not to a book of Hananiah reflecting a somewhat different perspective—we can see that there is no particular difference between the two aside from their conflict (and that Hananiah’s prophecy even bears a resemblance to other biblical prophecy). It is now preferable in the field to frame the issue as anthropologists do, in terms of “prophetic conflict,” indicating that there is not “true” and “false” prophecy, but conflict between representatives of different groups or viewpoints. The anthropological approaches of a few scholars of biblical prophecy have helped to shed light on this. Lester Grabbe has shown that the dynamics that biblical texts describe as rivalry between “true” and “false” prophets are common to many other societies. His discussions of the Wana shamans of Sulawesi, Indonesia, the 26. See esp. Long, “Social Dimensions of Prophetic Conflict,” 31–43.

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Mongol shamans, and the case of Alice Lakwena of Uganda are particularly illustrative. As with the previous false binaries, this shift in scholarly understanding has been important in its most immediate area of the field but has been slow to trickle out. The connection of “divination” to “false prophecy” is not academically defensible, but it is still commonly assumed.

Public Men, Private Women While there is no existing work on women’s divination in the Bible, it seems likely that misconceptions that have influenced other work on women in biblical texts and in ancient Israel could color ideas in this area as well. One assumption with particular potential to shape readers’ expectations regarding divination is that men operated in the public sphere, while women were generally active in the private sphere. There were of course authoritative public roles held exclusively or overwhelmingly by men (consider kings, priests, and judges), but the assumption of a general public/private divide is faulty. Carol Meyers has demonstrated that the picture of public men and private women stems from the inappropriate superimposing of models and theories from other contexts. She argues that the gendered public/private dichotomy known from some other texts and societies, periods, and religious groups has been wrongly applied to ancient Israel, and that as a consequence, many scholars have assumed that women had limited involvement in the public life of their communities. As she observes, in agrarian Israelite society, home and work were not generally separate spaces. Women’s roles were crucial for the economic well-being of each household and, thus, of the village. Women may also have been central in the religious and political activities of the community, including, for instance, arranging strategic marriages. In this society, connections between households and kinship groups were a key aspect of political activity, and women, who often worked in groups spanning multiple households and through this could even have networks with more villages, may have had the information necessary to make such connections. In addition to kinship and social networks, some skilled women also had professional networks that took them beyond the 27. Grabbe, “Shaman, Preacher, or Spirit Medium? The Israelite Prophet in the Light of Anthropological Models,” 117–32. See also the brief earlier discussion in Wilson, Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel, 247–51.

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household and village. Meyers discusses examples of professional women, including musicians, women serving in the sanctuary (Exod 38:8 and 1 Sam 2:22), weavers, bakers, prophets, and more. In short, the gendered division between public and private spheres characteristic of industrialized society should not be anachronistically applied to ancient Israel. Specifically, such ideas should not predetermine readers’ interpretations of the divination texts. Should we assume that the men in the first oracle of Ezekiel 13 act in public, while the women in the second oracle of the chapter act in private? Surely not. And how exactly would one categorize the spheres of activity of Miriam in the desert, or a wandering man of God; Huldah, prophesying in her home at the request of the king, or the divining priest in the private sanctuary? There is no clear pattern, and in many cases the categories “private” and “public” do not seem apt.

Male and Female In identifying male and female as another artificial dichotomy that has colored biblical interpretation, I do not refer to the ongoing discussion within modern gender studies (and filtering outward) regarding to what extent “male” and “female” are absolute categories. Rather, I mean that culturally specific assumptions regarding differences between men and women have been layered onto biblical stories in ways that obstruct our view of what might be presented in the texts themselves. The authors had their own preconceptions, not ours. Now, clearly there were many ways in which men and women had different roles in ancient Israelite society. However, some assumed differences have been translated from other contexts or exaggerated, as with the gendered public/private division addressed earlier, and at some points, we see that women and men could function in the same roles and in the same ways. Meyers has provided several examples of this in various parts of Israelite society. 28. Meyers, “In the Household and Beyond: The Social World of Israelite Women,” 19–41. Ebeling’s work on the daily life of village women in the central highlands in Iron I Israel also illustrates the intersection of spheres (Women’s Lives in Biblical Times). 29. See, classically, J. Butler, Gender Trouble, the influence of whose understanding of gender as performative cannot be overestimated.

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While the relationship between men’s and women’s roles in Israelite society is relevant background for the present study, choices regarding literary portrayal are of more immediate interest. These are not unrelated, naturally, but neither should they be equated. As in other subject areas, in work on women in biblical texts, clear distinctions between analyses of literature and of history are often lacking. Statements about women in a biblical story transition almost imperceptibly, without comment, to statements about women in Israelite culture; gender roles in stories are taken to be accurate reflections of the historical situation, with no room for the authors’ particular elite perspective, imagination, assumptions, or wishes for society. Gendered assumptions come in many forms. Scholars from a range of perspectives continue to assume that biblical texts must portray women differently from men, and then read accordingly. Some traditional scholars, for their part, have focused on the power structures that were dominated by men and have therefore seen the lack of women in those particular areas. Some feminist scholars, for their part, have taken traditional gendered assumptions and looked at them belly-up, reading subversively—but assuming the reality of the same underlying dichotomies. For example, it has become commonplace to interpret stories about many women in the Bible in terms of a trickster motif—that is, that women, lacking social power, use subversive means to accomplish their goals. The tone of such interpretation is positive, reflecting the view that even through the fog of how a story’s author has presented a woman, it is just barely visible that it was in fact courageous, clever, and so on, for her to figure out how to accomplish her goals and then act accordingly (note the blurred line between literature and history in this common approach). Here is the problem: with the exception of a very few male characters, women who figure out how to achieve their goals are seen as tricksters, while men are seen as strategists. Granted, the trickster theme is based on the recognition that subversive action is necessary for those lacking the social power required for effective conventional action, but male characters in the Bible also very 30. There are exceptions to this approach; see Niditch, “Samson as Culture Hero, Trickster, and Bandit,” 610–12. However, the most common male character frequently read as a “trickster” is Jacob, for reasons that may have more to do with older Christian attitudes toward Jews and Judaism ( Jacob is “Israel,” after all) than with gender issues.

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often lack power in relation to those with whom they are in conflict. David, for instance, is not frequently characterized as a trickster, though he uses subversive strategies to remain safe from the more powerful Saul. Some feminist biblical scholarship also reflects an inclination to categorize and label female characters in other ways that are not frequently seen for male characters. For a long time, it was not uncommon to hear such approaches referred to as the “celebration” of women and female characters. This approach is sometimes overt, but at times less so, taking the form of blanket positive statements about women in the Bible, and in doing so falling into the trap of hypercorrection and essentializing. Frymer-Kensky, for instance, claims that until the influence of Hellenism, “there is no real ‘woman question’ in the Bible,” and offers as an example, “There are no evil mother-figures in the Bible. On the contrary, mothers are always supportive of their children and loyal to them.” While this may describe the majority of presentations, the story of the two mothers and the boiled son in 2 Kings 6:28–29 is enough to belie the claim. For that matter, Rebekah might have been a supportive mother to Jacob, but Esau’s perspective would have been a bit different. The problems of older interpretive trends cannot be solved by trying to cast all women in a positive light. Depictions of female characters in the Bible run the gamut, as depictions of male characters do. Each of these types of approaches has appeared in work on the female prophets. There is no shortage of traditional work on prophecy and the prophets that fails to mention most or all of the titled female prophets. Then, as the female prophets have come into focus in recent study, some feminist approaches have focused on “redeeming” them, either from invisibility or from a negative assessment they attribute to the ancient authors. In some cases, modern theological (and practical) problems associated 31. Note the title of Bellis’s Helpmates, Harlots, and Heroes: Women’s Stories in the Hebrew Bible; and in Frymer-Kensky, Reading the Women of the Bible, the section headings “Victors,” “Victims,” “Virgins,” and “Voice.” 32. Frymer-Kensky, In the Wake of the Goddesses, 121. 33. Fuchs, for instance, sees the female prophets as silenced, limited, and suppressed, and argues that their presentation “reflects reluctance on the part of the narrator to admit or reveal the extent of women’s prophetic activity” (“Prophecy and the Construction of Women: Inscription and Erasure,” 57).

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with the lack of recognition of female prophets are explicitly at stake. Others focus on developments in postbiblical interpretation of the female prophets. The three monographs on the female prophets, though different in many ways, all reflect an interest in expanding the number of female prophets. Butting focuses on the titled prophets but notes the possibility of women’s prophecy recorded in the books attributed to male prophets. Fischer’s main interest is in how the authors conceived of various women as “true” or “false” prophets in the succession of Moses and according to the legislation in Deuteronomy 18:9–14, which she sees consistently in the background. Her discussions of each woman and each text are thus all framed in these terms. She adds to the list of titled female prophets in three ways: she observes that the plural ‫ נביאים‬is not gender-specific and should be read as potentially including both male and female prophets; she considers the women who serve at the tent of meeting to be cult prophets; and she discusses the story of the medium of En-dor, which she sees as a presentation of “false prophecy” by an author who had Deuteronomy 18:9–14 in mind. Gafney attributes her interest in adding more biblical women to the list of “prophets” to the theological issue mentioned earlier. She addresses the problem by explicitly using a loose definition of prophecy. She follows 34. Gafney begins her book by noting the modern restriction of women’s religious authority on what some traditions see as biblical grounds. In addition to her explicit acknowledgment of this concern, it is implicit in her framing of her book with blessings upon the reader (Daughters of Miriam, 1, 21, 165). 35. Bronner, From Eve to Esther: Rabbinic Reconstructions of Biblical Women, 163–84; and Elior, “Changing Perspectives: Female Prophets in the Bible and Rabbinic Perspective,” 15–21. Gafney also gathers some of these sources, in addition to early Christian traditions surrounding the female prophets. 36. Butting, Prophetinnen Gefragt, 9. Butting devotes more of her attention, however, to constructing a model according to which the titled female prophets reflect the relationship, as she sees it, between Torah and prophets. 37. Fischer, Gotteskünderinnen, 18–19, 96–108, 131–57. Overall, Fischer uses the term “prophecy” broadly, seeing the legislation in Deut 18 as demonstrating that various other practices were understood to stand within the general range of “prophecy” but were seen as objectionable (44–49). Her use of the term “prophecy” is thus close to the way most now would use the term “divination.” However, I find this a bit imprecise, since Hebrew terminology relating to prophecy and other forms of divination is specific.

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Fischer’s first two additions, and then includes several more women and groups of women for whom, in her terms, she will “construct a prophetic identity.” This is fitting for Gafney’s stated goal; it does mean, however, that she is invested specifically in looking for women she can identify as “prophets,” and establishing that they are portrayed positively. One primary way in which my approach differs from these contributions—in addition to the central issue of examining all types of divination together—is that I see no systematic presentation of female diviners and no consistent authorial concern behind the texts. This is the case among the titled prophets, where I see a range of depictions and attitudes toward the characters and their activities, as well as among the women engaging in other forms of divination. Some scholars have recognized that the female prophets are not depicted particularly differently from the male, and have their positive and negative portrayals. Ackerman, for example, has found nothing inherently different in the depictions of the female prophets, though she considers them anomalous. Grabbe noted already in his work on the major religious specialists of ancient Israel that in both behavior and message, the female prophets are no different from the male, and that there is no bias shown in the texts. Stökl has reached the same conclusion in regard to female 38. Gafney, Daughters of Miriam, 17–18, 165. Gafney’s use of the term “prophet” is far broader than Fischer’s, and not based on the practices associated with divination in Deut 18. She thus includes not only the temple personnel of 1 Chr 25:1–6, for example, but also female mourners, and the mother of Lemuel in Prov 31:1. Cf. the list of the range of activities she includes as “prophetic”; Daughters of Miriam, 151–52. 39. Fischer sees the women portrayed both positively and negatively, but because she sees each text as reflecting the authors’ judgments regarding “true” and “false” prophecy in light of the legislation of Deut 18, her work is necessarily defined around each woman’s relationship to this standard of “true” prophecy; hence, she argues that Huldah is presented positively as a “true” prophet, and the woman of En-dor is presented negatively as a “false” prophet. 40. Ackerman, “Why Is Miriam Also among the Prophets?” 47–80. Others have made related, if more general, statements, such as A. Brenner’s conclusion that although the prophetic activity of women appears in most respects to be like that of men, the female prophets were much less significant (The Israelite Woman, 57–58; 66). 41. Grabbe, Priests, Prophets, Diviners, Sages, 115.

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prophets elsewhere in the Near East. I concur with these analyses; what I find beyond this is a surprising spectrum of viewpoints within biblical literature in regard to a range of women’s divinatory activities. It is with these provisos in mind that I approach my subject. As I examine the stories in which female diviners play a role as primary or secondary characters, I hope to bring into relief, by studying them individually, the nuanced attitudes toward such figures and to show, by studying them side by side, where patterns emerge and where they do not. 42. Stökl, “Female Prophets in the Ancient Near East,” 47–61.

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Biblical Perspectives on Women’s Divination

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3 Rebekah the Aramean The story of Rebekah is written as a conjuring of a former time, ancient already to the author. It is no coincidence that a somewhat hazy picture of divinatory activity is canonically the first. The Genesis stories envision a world far removed from that of their authors. They imagine the distant past, reflecting impressions of the ways of the ancestors as simultaneously foreign to the author and pointedly proto-Israelite. This is perhaps especially evident in the stories of Rebekah of Aram-naharaim, who must be brought in from the old country to be a suitable wife for a patriarch in a land later called Israel. These impressions of olden times, somehow before the author’s own world—of Israel back in a day when people had easy access to God, and perhaps also of ancient Syria, reflecting a more positive version of the sense that divination was “foreign”—color the story of the ancestress who inquired of Yahweh and interpreted an omen. The tale of the matriarch’s divination in Genesis 25:19–26 comes on the heels of the picture of Rebekah at home in Syria in chapter 24, which is where we must begin.

In Her Mother’s House Rebekah is strongly associated with the land of the ancestors from the moment of our introduction to her. Abraham sends his servant back to 1. The traditions emphasize that Rebekah is rooted in this area, whether called Aram-naharaim or Paddan-aram. I find it appropriate to identify her as “Rebekah the Aramean,” to signify that she is portrayed this way as much as “Laban the Aramean.” The term “Syria” will be employed here as a useful anachronism.

43

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Aram-naharaim (“to my land, to my birthplace,” Gen 24:4) to find a wife for Isaac. Rebekah enters the scene, beautiful and kind, pictured from the first as the ideal young woman of that faraway land. After meeting Rebekah by the well, the servant visits her family, who hesitate to let her go: the poignancy is palpable. After Rebekah leaves, we continue to see her ties to her homeland. Later, long after the divination scene, when the boys are all grown up, Rebekah will be the one—she, and not Isaac—to send Jacob back to Laban in her motherland (Gen 27). There are three main Rebekah stories: those of her last days in her mother’s house before emigrating (ch. 24), her pregnancy and the birth of her twins (ch. 25), and her strategic role in acquiring preferential status and security for the son she favors (ch. 27). Recognizing the author’s portrayal of Rebekah as decidedly Aramean in both the first and third of these narratives, as noted above, may later illuminate how this theme also colors the story in between, that of her divination related to pregnancy and childbirth. The other theme present throughout the three Rebekah stories is the matriarch’s singular personality, which comes through vividly with just a few brushstrokes: in each of the three episodes, she acts with notable autonomy, making key decisions for herself and her family, and thus for the future of Israel. Again, a moment of attention to this theme in the Rebekah narratives preceding and following the divination text will be helpful later in examining the divination story itself. In the first story, after her odd encounter with the servant at the well, we find Rebekah running home to her mother’s house (‫לבית אמה‬, Gen 24:28). When her mother and brother ask Abraham’s servant to let her stay with them for another few days, the servant initially refuses, but they respond by calling Rebekah and asking her to say for herself what she wants (‫פיה‬-‫ונשאלה את‬, 24:57). They ask, “Will you go with this man?” and she decides, “I will go.” We are set up for this crucial exchange already in Genesis 24:5–8, where we see the agreement between Abraham and his servant in which if the woman whom the servant meets is unwilling to leave with him, he will be released from his obligation to bring back a wife for Isaac. Much is at stake in the question of whether Rebekah will agree to leave her homeland. Her (surprisingly) autonomous decision is pivotal here. 2. It is a touching note that when Rebekah does finally leave her mother’s house, Isaac takes her back to his mother’s tent (‫ ;)האהלה שרה אמו‬and thus he was comforted after the death of his mother (Gen 24:67).

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We see Rebekah’s initiative—again in combination with her ties to her homeland—also in chapter 27, when she orchestrates Jacob’s blessing and then sends him back to Laban in Haran. The degree to which she oversees the activity is almost funny: she does not merely tell Jacob to disguise himself as Esau, but in fact dresses him in Esau’s clothing herself, and puts the goatskins on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck (27:15–16). Three times she tells Jacob to obey her (‫שמע בקלי‬, Gen 27:8, 13, 43). The first two are during the planning phases of securing the blessing for her preferred son. The third occurrence is when she instructs him to flee to Haran. Note the shift in agency from the model of the previous generation: Abraham sent his servant to find a wife for Isaac, but it is Rebekah who sends Jacob. This seems in line with her agency in chapter 24, where it is highlighted that she herself chooses to emigrate. This combination of traits—Rebekah’s close ties to the “old country,” and her independent and decisive action in family matters—colors the two narratives of the matriarch before and after the divination text. This characterization of Rebekah has a role in shaping the story of her divinatory activity as well.

Isaac Prays; Rebekah Divines The story of Rebekah’s divination in Genesis 25:19–26 comes in between these other two stories, both of which reflect her Aramean identity and her independent actions. Rebekah’s act of divine-human communication is not the first one we see here, though. As the story begins, Isaac and Rebekah have been married for some time, and she is said to be infertile. Isaac prays, and in the next verse, Rebekah inquires of Yahweh. The juxtaposition of these two acts of divine-human communication is telling. Within the world of the story, the acts are separated in time by several months (from the time of conception until Rebekah can feel the twins harming each other inside her), and there is no reason to assume a similarity to the 3. Isaac’s blessing may not be the only one at stake here. Perhaps Rebekah’s interest is equally in seeing her own family blessing, the one she received from her mother and brother upon leaving her ‫( בת אם‬Gen 24:60), passed on to her preferred son. 4. When Isaac sends Jacob at the beginning of the next chapter (explicitly to go to Rebekah’s family, Gen 28:1–2), this is at the behest of Rebekah, who has already ordered Jacob to flee and then speaks to her husband about it (27:43, 46).

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types of activity. Within the literary form of the story, the two types of divine-human communication are separated by just a few words, and there is good reason to consider their contrasting features. Isaac makes supplication: ‫( ויעתר יצחק ליהוה‬Gen 25:21). The verb ‫עתר‬ has a bit of a cultic feel to it, with its origins in making supplication with offerings. While the verb in biblical Hebrew no longer carries this precise meaning, related nouns still hint at it. We see the ‫ עתר‬of incense—either the smell or the smoke, but either way, the cloud that rises from the ritual burning—in Ezekiel 8:11, and a similar noun referring to the supplicant(s) bringing an offering in Zephaniah 3:10. The verb does not imply sacrifice, but does connote a type of supplication not evident from the generic English verb “to pray.” Isaac did not “pray” (‫ויתפלל‬, as used for example of Abraham in Gen 20:17); he made supplication, and with a whiff of the cultic about it. After this, Rebekah engages in a type of divine-human communication that differs in both its form and its goal: “she went to inquire of Yahweh” (‫יהוה‬-‫ותלך לדרש את‬, Gen 25:22). The form of Isaac’s communication is entreaty: he asks for an event to occur, and it occurs. The form of Rebekah’s communication is inquiry: she requests knowledge from God, and she receives it. He seeks an outcome; she seeks knowledge. We see this clearly in the description of each act, but it is also evident from the vocabulary itself, from the juxtaposition of ‫ עתר‬and ‫דרש‬. 5. Cognates such as Arabic ‘atara, “to slaughter, sacrifice,” and Ugaritic g´tr, “to slaughter,” reflect this original sense as well. The lingering connotation in Gen 25:21 is evident in the other biblical texts mentioned here, however, and does not depend on the etymology. 6. Isaac makes supplication in front of Rebekah: the use of ‫ לנכח‬to mean “on behalf of ” would be quite exceptional. Moreover, the verb ‫ עתר‬is often used without a beneficiary, and among uses that specify for whom the entreaty is made, the preposition is virtually always a lamed—as in the second half of this very verse: ‫ויעתר לו יהוה‬, “and Yahweh was entreated for him” (Gen 25:21b). Isaac requests offspring, but there is no reason to assume that this is a prayer for his wife (to conceive) any more than for himself (to have an heir), or for them together (to have children), or more realistically, for the family line (to continue and be remembered). All the text tells us is that Isaac entreats God, in whatever precise formulation, in front of Rebekah. Given the plot, the scene, and the use of ‫עתר‬, it is tempting to imagine that Isaac is performing some sort of ritual common to household religion; cf. Danil’s sacrifices in supplication for an heir at the beginning of Aqhat. 7. Westermann argues that vv. 22–23 are a later insertion, but this does not work well on several levels. First, he makes a circular argument on the grounds that Re-

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The verb ‫דרש‬, while usually understood correctly to refer to divination by inquiry when used with potential sources of divine knowledge other than Yahweh (for example, to “inquire of ” the dead, Isa 8:19), is often taken in a more Deuteronomically approved fashion when referring to inquiring of God (that is, as “seeking God”). The word is indeed at times used as a general expression of seeking God (occasionally in parallel with ‫בקש‬, for example, Deut 4:29), but the choice to take this abstraction as the default meaning is a historically and theologically skewed one. As discussed in chapter 2, one can “inquire of ” the dead (Deut 18:10–11; Isa 8:19b), “idols” (Isa 19:3a), the Ark (1 Chr 13:3), and so on. When someone “inquires of ” Yahweh, this is not suddenly a picture of the person “seeking” God in some abstract sense, but a use of the same terminology as when a person divines by “inquiring of ” other divine sources and objects. In any case, the word cannot have the sense of “seeking” God in this context. Rebekah inquires of God, and God responds. Given the explicit nature of the question-and-answer format (the question itself is not reported, bekah’s inquiry “presupposes the institution of consulting an oracle which arose only in the sedentary period” (Genesis 12–36, 413). In other words, Rebekah’s act must reflect a particular later institution, and thus the text must be a later insertion. There is no reason to assume that Rebekah’s inquiry is reflective of a specific institution, when the phenomenon of inquiring of a deity is known from a very early date, and this text offers quite a general picture of inquiry. Second, I see no reason to identify any part of the text as pre-sedentary, and thus even if vv. 22–23 are identified as stemming from the sedentary period, this does not indicate that they are a later insertion. Third, the excising of these verses from the surrounding text eliminates what otherwise appears to be a clear literary device—Isaac and Rebekah are presented with a problem, Isaac asks God for something, and God responds (in action); this creates a new problem, Rebekah asks God for something, and God responds (in words). If Westermann’s circular argument and his assumptions regarding divine consultation are excluded, then his only remaining argument is that v. 24 “must follow directly” v. 21 (Genesis 12–36, 411–12). While skipping the scene of Rebekah’s divination would still leave a readable text, this is a shaky reason to excise part of a story that is also perfectly readable as is, and an especially shaky choice when doing so actually dismantles the story structure. With all of this said, I should add that if indeed the story of Rebekah’s divination were a later insertion, that would be fascinating. What would that indicate about this later view? What would this tell us about the author, or about the context of the author, who chose to put this oracle defining the Jacob-Esau relationship within a tale of Rebekah’s divination, instead of simply tacking it on as a verbal response to Isaac’s prayer?

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but the fact of the inquiry is), the verb ‫ דרש‬has been understood as referring to divination in this text perhaps more than in some others, though still not in the majority of readings. Most scholars who recognize this as divination language, however, still assume that “Rebekah went to inquire of Yahweh” means that Rebekah went to some third party so that he could inquire of Yahweh for her. The assumption that Rebekah goes to someone else who can communicate with God on her behalf depends circularly on whether the interpreter begins with the notion that Rebekah could conceivably inquire directly or not. The Genesis narratives envision a world in which the ancestors (male and female) had ongoing direct access to God. Part of this picture of the days of yore—this glowy-edged impression of how the ancients lived—was an idealized image of their communication with God, back when it was unnecessary to use intermediaries. 8. Hamilton observes the difference between Isaac and Rebekah’s approaches and identifies Rebekah’s act explicitly as divination and, moreover, as direct consultation, that is, without an intermediary (The Book of Genesis, 176–77). Cryer also explicitly refers to Rebekah’s activity as divination (Divination in Ancient Israel, 229). Even without using the term “divination,” those who refer to Rebekah consulting an oracle thus understand this to be some sort of divinatory practice. Coats, for instance, refers to Rebekah’s “complaint” as “a formal request for an oracle” on the basis of the verb ‫( דרש‬Genesis, 184). Fokkelman identifies the phrase as a “technical term to indicate the consulting of God by means of an oracle” (Narrative Art in Genesis, 88 n.4). Cotter observes more generally, “There is no indication that Isaac heard anything back from God as a result of his prayer. Rather, it is Rebekah who seeks and receives an oracle from God” (Genesis, 189). Gafney also sees the significance of the verb here, and on this basis identifies Rebekah as a “prophet.” Even recognizing Gafney’s choice to treat the category of “prophecy” loosely, this label seems difficult. The core statement in her paragraph on Rebekah is a definition with which I do not quite agree: “Rebekah’s intercession on her own behalf is prophetic, as are all such acts using the verb d-r-sh, whether the prophet’s intermediary work is on behalf of an individual or group, for the benefit of others or oneself ” (Daughters of Miriam, 153). 9. Vawter, for instance, writes of Rebekah’s inquiry, “We are at some sacred place where prophet or priest mediates divine revelation to the clients of the local deity” (On Genesis, 287). Van der Toorn similarly claims that when Rebekah inquired, it was “no doubt through the mediation of a man of God” (From Her Cradle to Her Grave, 82). Cryer also refers to “Rebekah’s consultation with the diviner” (Divination in Ancient Israel, 320).

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The tradition gives us no indication that we should be adding a silent player to the Rebekah story, and we have every reason to assume that we should not. There is not one single reference in Genesis to any protoIsraelite figure needing an intermediary to converse with God, from Adam, Eve, Cain, and Noah, to Abraham, Sarah, Jacob, and Joseph. In fact, the only Genesis narratives in which anyone requires an intermediary are the stories of the various Egyptians who need Joseph to interpret their dreams. Even Joseph’s brothers and father understand his dreams without requiring any explanation from him (Gen 37:8, 10). We should read the Rebekah story in light of this: the ancestors had rather casual conversations with the Almighty; the Genesis narratives include stories of women as well as men speaking directly with God (for example, Sarah outside the door of the tent in Gen 18); and other biblical texts provide examples of women performing divination. It is far more befitting the ethos of these narratives to understand the matriarch as having direct divine access. The term itself is not specific: one can ‫ דרש‬independently or through an intermediary. Sometimes when a person is said to go inquire of God, an intermediary is then mentioned: in 1 Samuel 9:9 the person who wants to inquire goes to a seer (‫)ראה‬, and in 2 Kings 22:13 and 18 the men Josiah sends to “inquire” go to the prophet Huldah. However, in many cases it is apparent that the person “inquiring” is doing so directly. Two related texts in Jeremiah illustrate the point. In both texts, King Zedekiah sends men to Jeremiah to inquire of God, and in both cases the verb ‫ דרש‬is used with the clear meaning of divinatory inquiry. In Jeremiah 21:2, when the king sends his men to the prophet to ask him to consult on their behalf, the prophet is the one to ‫ ;דרש‬in Jeremiah 37:7, it is the king’s men who have been sent to inquire, and they ‫ דרש‬by going to the prophet. We see direct inquiry in other cases as well (that is, where the person who is said to ‫ דרש‬is the one who consults directly), for example when the people consult the Ark, and in the classic statement against diviners of different kinds in Deuteronomy 18:10–11, where one of the diviners is the one who inquires of the dead (‫המתים‬-‫)דרש אל‬. In an article focused on establishing that Rebekah engages in “independent divination” (that is, without an intermediary), Erin Fleming has demonstrated that the use of the term ‫ דרש‬in this text does not match the narrative pattern in descriptions of “inquiry” through an intermediary. She 10. E. Fleming, “‘She Went to Inquire of the Lord’: Independent Divination in Genesis 25:22,” 3–6. See Fleming’s details as well on the prominence of direct

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then offers several examples of independent divination, such as the dream incubation of Solomon at Gibeon in 1 Kings 3:3–15, the story of Gideon and the fleece in Judges 6:36–40, and the repeated references to David’s direct inquiries of God in 1 Samuel 23:2 and 4, 1 Samuel 30:8, 2 Samuel 2:1, and 2 Samuel 5:23 (using the verb ‫)שאל‬. As noted on page 3 of this book, these stories of David inquiring of God, in which God always responds, are reflective of one of the defining distinctions between David and Saul: that where Saul repeatedly fails in his attempts to access divine knowledge, David consistently succeeds. In that narrative battle, every round goes to David. As stated at the outset, questions regarding who has divine access permeate biblical traditions. If we appreciate the narrative significance of David always receiving a clear verbal response from God in the Samuel texts, we should likewise recognize the significance of Rebekah receiving a direct verbal response from God here. In this case, the successful diviner is not paired with an unsuccessful one, but with a successful supplicant, Isaac. The highlighted contrast is not between the ability to divine and the inability, but between divination and supplication, or specifically inquiry and entreaty. There is nothing unique about Rebekah as an untitled woman engaging in independent divination. In the broader literary realm, recall Geštinanna, the sister of Dumuzi, discussed in chapter 1. She is her brother’s dream interpreter of choice, whom he calls “my wise woman, who knows the portent of dreams.” Nor is this a phenomenon restricted to the literary imagination. We see the independent divination of laypeople in the Mari letters, and this includes women as well as men. There are untitled women who have dreams and visions (see, for example, ARM 26 227, 229, and 236), and one letter reports that a servant girl went into a trance and prophesied (ARM 26 214). divine access throughout Genesis; she notes that “virtually every chapter between Genesis 2 and 35 involves some sort of direct communication between YHWH and a particular human being, whether through a divine speech or dialogue, vision, dream, or theophany” (p. 5). 11. Ibid., 7–8. As E. Fleming observes, where Abiathar the priest appears in 1 Sam 30:7, it is only to bring David the ephod; David then inquires of God directly in v. 8. 12. ARM 26 227 and 229 report dreams. ARM 26 236 seems to refer to a vision, rather than a dream: in her report regarding what the untitled woman Kakka-lidi has seen, Šibtu states only that “she saw” (īmur) certain things, with no reference to a “dream” (šuttum). It is possible, however, that Šibtu simply does not feel the

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One untitled woman, Zunana, reports her own dream, and specifies that Dagan appeared to her in a dream “even though nobody had performed an incubation ritual on me” (ARM 26 232). Even if we assume that her intent in stating that no one performed an incubation ritual on her is to emphasize the significance of the dream by highlighting its spontaneity, this also has the effect of emphasizing for us her independent divination, especially in combination with what follows. After reporting the content of her dream, Zunana tells Zimri-lim how to comply with Dagan’s message to him; her dreaming, reporting, and interpreting all demonstrate aspects of her independent divination. With the references to untitled women’s independent divination among both literary figures and historical ones, with no indication in the Genesis text that Rebekah visits an intermediary, and with the positive evidence that God speaks directly to her in the text as to other ancestors throughout Genesis, we should recognize this as Rebekah’s own action and not try to supply a missing intermediary. In the juxtaposition of Isaac’s entreaty and Rebekah’s inquiry, the ancient author makes no judgment regarding relative value: there is no assessment of the greater worth of either act, no greater esteem for either character. The acts are different because the needs are different. The story is structured around these two consecutive responses to two consecutive problems. The first problem (which Isaac and Rebekah share, though it is presented from Isaac’s perspective) is a concrete lack; Isaac asks God for something (offspring), and God responds by giving it. This creates a new problem, Rebekah’s physical struggle in pregnancy, which sparks her existential struggle; Rebekah asks God for something (knowledge), and God responds by giving it. These two types of divine-human communication, serving different functions, are depicted in the same matter-of-fact way as other interactions between God and the ancestors. For our purposes here, it is particularly noteworthy that the female character’s divination is portrayed as simply and bluntly as the male character’s supplication. It is in one sense a nonissue: the author gives no indication that the roles in the entreaty/inquiry pairing have anything to do with gender (except insofar need to clarify the precise form of divination for our sake. On the complexity of the distinction between dreams and visions, see Zgoll, Traum und Welterleben im antiken Mesopotamien, 164; and Stökl, Prophecy in the Ancient Near East, 79–81. 13. Translation of Martti Nissinen (Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East, 61).

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as the subject of this particular inquiry relates to pregnancy). At the same time, between Isaac’s entreaty and Rebekah’s inquiry, there is a narrative emphasis on the latter. Isaac’s supplication is mentioned almost in passing, in just a few words, and with no insight into his internal world. When it comes to Rebekah, we hear of the physical struggle she feels following conception, the depths of her despair, God’s full response, and the confirmation of the oracle in the birth of the twins. Having explored the closeness of Rebekah’s ties to Syria and noting the absence of other similar “inquiries” among the ancestors, one must wonder whether these two features of Rebekah’s portrayal are connected. It may not be coincidental that the only woman in the ancestor narratives who explicitly engages in divinatory activity is also depicted pointedly as being from the land of the ancestors. The notion that divination is “foreign” to Israel is mistaken wherever it occurs, even if the association is positive; but historical accuracy aside, it may be that, in the author’s imagination, Rebekah the Aramean still exhibits the ways of the old world.

Oracle and Omen: Divination in Pregnancy and Childbirth When Rebekah “went to inquire of Yahweh,” Yahweh spoke directly to her concerning the destiny of her two sons and the nations they would father. In addition to the oracular content of God’s response, the poetic form of God’s speech here is indicative of an oracle, and not casual (divinehuman) conversation. Now at this point in the story, Rebekah’s pregnancy is in crisis. She had been infertile and has finally conceived, but the boys “crushed one another (‫ )ויתרצצו‬within her” (Gen 25:22). This word does not mean “they struggled,” as it is frequently rendered; it means “they crushed,” and in no other text do translators habitually soften it so. Verbs derived from the root ‫ רצץ‬are translated in the harsher sense in references to crushing the heads of Leviathan (Ps 74:14), crushing the skull of Abimelech with an upper millstone dropped from a tower ( Judg 9:53), crushing a golden bowl (Eccl 12:6), and metaphorical references to being crushed with oppression (for example, Am 4:1; Hos 5:11). When the twins are crushing 14. The other woman who is explicitly brought in from the old country is Rachel. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that Rachel absconds with a divinatory object from home: Is the association with divination an image the authors had of these ancient women from the old country?

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one another within her, Rebekah is portrayed as being desolate to the point of having lost the will to live. She is not merely worried about the meaning of the twins’ strife, as might be assumed from Yahweh’s response to her divinatory inquiry. Whether or not she knows yet that she is carrying twins (Yahweh’s response could be taken to introduce this information or just to give a glimpse into their future lines), she feels mortal danger and despairs of the worth of her own life. This reaction would be neurotically out of proportion for a concern over the meaning of the boys’ fighting; on grounds logical and philological, it is evident that Rebekah thinks at the very least that her pregnancy may be ending. While scholarly commentary on Jeremiah’s longing to die abounds—interpreters regularly note the gravity of the prophet’s emotional trauma in his many laments, and consider the same in Job and even Jonah—there is not to my knowledge any equivalent work on Rebekah despairing of life itself. Her tormented question, “If it is like this, why am I even alive?” (‫כן למה זה אנכי‬-‫)אם‬, should be read in the same light as Jeremiah’s, “Why was I even born?” (‫למה זה מרחם יצאתי‬, Jer 20:18). This is not the question she asks Yahweh; it is also not the question Yahweh answers. She utters the anguished rhetorical question (‫ותאמר‬, not ‫)ותשאל‬. How poignant this one line is—a remark so brief, and apparently asked of no one in particular. It is only after this that Rebekah goes to inquire. What she does then ask Yahweh we do not get to see, though if we err on the side of assuming his answer will relate in some way to her question (not an area of perfect consistency for him, but of some reliability), we can surmise that it had more to do with the fate of the infants than with the value of her own life. Each part of this one verse, then, reveals a fullness of experience not always recognized in the character:

.‫יהוה‬-‫ ותלך לדרש את‬. . . ‫כן למה זה אנכי‬-‫ ותאמר אם‬. . . ‫ויתרצצו הבנים בקרבה‬ 15. As in Pseudo-Jonathan, the twins “pressed in her womb as men doing battle.” 16. Even if one reads Rebekah as given to hyperbole (Gen 27:46)—not unlike Jeremiah—there is still explicitly cause here for her despair. 17. The verb ‫ אמר‬does at times introduce a question posed to another character, but the combination of ‫אמר‬, the absence of another character (human or divine), and the unanswerable nature of the question indicates that it is rhetorical, as in Gen 21:7, ‫ותאמר מי מלל לאברהם היניקה בנים שרה‬: “She said, ‘Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children?’” 18. In addition, the phrasing of her despairing rhetorical question is not what one would expect of someone posing an oracular inquiry.

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Yahweh then responds directly to Rebekah: “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples will be separated from your body; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger” (Gen 25:23). The oracle that Yahweh gives Rebekah is confirmed: when it was time for her to give birth, sure enough, there were twins in her womb (‫והנה תומם בבטנה‬, Gen 25:24). The presence of twins verifies the first divine message; the unusual birth appearance of the twins is then received as a second. The first boy was born red and covered with hair, and the second was born holding on to the heel of the first (Gen 25:25–26). If one pretends for a moment not to be blindly familiar with the story, this is a bit startling. The unusual birth events are then interpreted: Rebekah and Isaac name the twins based on their odd appearance and behavior, and these names (on which more below) point to the boys’ future traits. And indeed, we see soon afterward that the interpretation expressed in the naming of the twins is confirmed: Jacob grabs Esau’s inheritance, and Esau tries to crush Jacob, or at least so Jacob fears. The interpretation of newborn appearances is well known from Babylonian, Hittite, and other contexts, and is represented for example in the series Šumma izbu. It is difficult to know to what extent birth omens were actually used even where we know they existed. In the case of Šumma izbu, given the preponderance of unrealistic images (for example, “If a woman gives birth to a lion . . . to a wolf . . . to a dog . . . to a pig,” I 5–8), it is clear that much of the series was not used for interpretation of actual events. However, many omens in the series do concern realistic appearance (“If a woman gives birth, and both ears [of the child] are [abnormally] small,” II 7) or 19. Leichty, The Omen Series Šumma Izbu, 7–20. Translations of Šumma izbu here are Leichty’s. The passing suggestion that the birth of Rebekah’s twins constitutes an omen has been made before: Westermann notes simply that “there was an omen in the birth of twin boys” (Genesis 12–36, 413). Erin Fleming also mentions the possibility that Rebekah wants to know whether her pregnancy with twins is a good or bad omen, citing an example of a negative omen regarding twin boys and a positive omen regarding twin girls (“She Went to Inquire of the Lord,” 9 n.21, citing in turn Leichty, The Omen Series Šumma Izbu, I 83 and I 100, pp. 39, 42). Cryer includes this story among several he sees as demonstrating that the tradition of physiognomic and diagnostic omens was known in Israel, and in this case particularly “misbirth-omens”: “The phenomenology should be clear in this instance: Rebekah has felt or heard some inexplicable ‘sign’ in her innards, and accordingly visits the appropriate specialist to secure its interpretation” (Divination in Ancient Israel, 320).

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disability (“If a woman gives birth to a deaf child—that house will prosper outside [of its city],” I 63). While Leichty may overstate the case with the claim that “the overwhelming majority of omens in the series Šumma izbu actually do occur in nature,” his primary arguments for the historical use of the series are the higher rate of birth anomalies in the ancient world, and the preponderance of similar types of birth divination among the Hittites, Etruscans, and Romans. Remembering especially that such birth anomalies include miscarriages, the range of fetal appearances must have been broader than we might care to imagine (perhaps, for example, II 19). Several factors thus suggest the omens’ use to some degree in actual birth divination (if one disregards the zoological diversity). More to the point, the omens demonstrate an interest in birth appearances as divine signs meriting interpretation, just as astrological omens—which include realistic and unrealistic occurrences—demonstrate such a view of celestial events. Among the more realistic omens in Šumma izbu are those regarding multiple births (I 83–131). Most of these concern twins. The first of these omens, for instance, reads: “If a woman gives birth to two boys—there will be hard times in the land; the land will experience unhappiness; there will be bad times for the house of their father” (I 83). Elsewhere, four omens in a row concern newborns with unusual hair: one “covered with wool,” one “already bearded,” one “already covered with goat hair,” and the last, “If a woman gives birth, and at birth (the child) already has (a head of ) hair— hard times will seize the land” (IV 31–34). The physiognomic handbook Alandimmû also contains interpretations of a person’s hair, including, for instance, “If the hair on his head is red, (variant) he is trustworthy” (II 87). There are also omens based on a person’s behavior. 20. On the attachment of extrinsic meaning to disability and other physical differences in Šumma izbu, see Schipper, Disability Studies and the Hebrew Bible, 71–73. 21. Leichty, The Omen Series Šumma Izbu, 20. 22. Rochberg explains the impossibility of some astrological omens (The Heavenly Writing: Divination, Horoscopy, and Astronomy in Mesopotamian Culture, 67–68). 23. Translation of Mladen Popovič, Reading the Human Body, 69. Böck, Die babylonisch-assyrische Morphoskopie; Böck, “Physiognomy in Ancient Mesopotamia and Beyond,” 199–224. 24. For behavioral omens, see Guinan, “A Severed Head Laughed: Stories of Divinatory Interpretation,” 15, 24–28. This type of physiognomic omen interpretation should not be confused with some notion of primitive medicine; it is distinct from medical approaches to physical symptoms. Heeßel, “Diagnosis,

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This is not to imply that Rebekah engaged in formal omen interpretation (that is, based on traditionally identified omens, whether oral or written). Rather, what this may illustrate is that elsewhere in the Near East, unusual birth events were taken seriously in the interests of divination, and that while the realism of the omens varies, those likely to occur in reality include the birth of twins and the unusually hairy appearance of a baby. The Genesis text fits well into a world in which such birth events would have been considered significant and worthy of interpretation. Rebekah has just gone to “inquire” regarding the fetal violence she is experiencing, so we are already in the realm of birth divination; in the next verse, we are told of the unusual appearance of the twins at birth. As it happens, while almost all of Šumma izbu concerns newborns (of humans or animals), the first four omens concern fetal activity (“If a woman is pregnant, and her foetus cries—the land will experience misfortune,” I 1). The logical relationship between pregnancy omens and birth omens seen there is apparent also in the Genesis text, as Rebekah’s divination while pregnant is followed by the observation and interpretation of the unusual appearance and behavior of the newborns. The interpretation is obvious in the naming of Jacob, who is born holding on to his twin’s heel. I propose that Esau is named for his (pre-) natal character as well: that Esau, ‫ ֵעשָׂו‬, is derived from ‫( ִעשָּׂה‬pi.), meaning to “press” or “squeeze” (all three biblical uses refer to squeezing body parts, in those cases breasts; Ezek 23:3, 8, 21). The twins “crushed one another” in Divination, and Disease: Towards an Understanding of the Rationale Behind the Babylonian Diagnostic Handbook,” 97–116. 25. It is not entirely clear who interprets through naming; it appears that Rebekah and Isaac participate in this together. “They” named Esau (‫)ויקראו‬, and the singular is accordingly corrected to a plural for Jacob’s naming as well. 26. In the Biblical Hebrew corpus (as also in Aramaic) this verb is attested only in the piel. Its Arabic cognate g´ašiya (with g´ašāwa as one of its verbal nouns) is however quite common in the qal. Possibly, ‫ ֵעשָׂו‬goes back to a qital form from a root ‫( עשו‬as ‫ ֵרעֶה‬, “friend,” likely goes back to a qital form from root ‫ ;רעי‬GKC §84a, p. 231). Arabic g´ašiya has the basic meaning “cover, conceal,” but also has the meaning “come upon” or “rush at.” Lane cites classical lexicographers as follows: “it came upon [or invaded, so as to surprise and so as to overwhelm . . .].” He includes among his examples the Qur’anic phrase describing the “overwhelming” of Pharaoh’s troops: fa-g´ašiyahum min al-yammi mā g´ašiyahum. As translated by Yusuf Ali: “Then Pharaoh pursued them with his forces, but the waters

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Rebekah’s womb, and they came out doing such and such; she essentially names the first “Presser” and the second “Grabber.” The common attempt to connect the naming of Esau to the noun ‫( שער‬hair) is based, quite reasonably, on the author’s explanation of the name: the baby came out red and hairy, “so they named him Esau.” I see two options here. One, we should translate “and they named him Esau,” without assuming that the name is based on the first part of the verse. Two—and I find this hypothesis most plausible—the text as it stands does assume the ‫ שער‬connection, but just as we see in the explanation of Samuel’s name that there must have been confusion with an earlier tradition (in that case with another specific character), we see here indication of an original tradition different than what the author implies. In storytelling terms, the child could be named after the “crushing” of verse 22 or the “hair” of verse 25a, but the name ‫ ֵעשָׂו‬can plausibly be etymologically related to ‫ ִעשָּׂה‬, and not to ‫שער‬. There are certainly names that depend on wordplay rather than direct etymological connection, but where we have a choice between the two, both of which suit the story, the latter is preferable. There are many biblical narratives in which women name their children based on their own experience (Cain, Gen 4:1; Isaac, Gen 18:13, 15; 21:6), or on God’s actions (Ishmael, Gen 16:11). It is less common for texts to explain children’s names according to their birth appearance or actions. Even where this does happen, the naming of children after birth traits does not necessarily constitute the interpretation of a birth omen. In Genesis 25, the completely overwhelmed them and covered them up” (Surah 20:81, according to Lane; = 20:78 in Yusuf Ali’s translation). Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, 2261. 27. Older articulations of this remain influential but unsatisfying. Driver assumed that the description of Esau as “hairy” was a play on Se’ir, and thought that the meaning of the name Esau was “not discoverable from Hebrew” but that given the context it should be taken to connote hairiness (The Book of Genesis, 246). Speiser followed suit and called the naming of Esau an “indirect word play,” adding, “To make the aetiology explicit, the text should have said ‘they named him Seir,’ since only this synonym for Edom, and not the eponym Esau, is at all evoked by se‘ar ‘hair’” (Genesis, 195.) Similarly Sarna, Genesis, 180, and others. 28. It is conceivable that the unusual birth of Tamar’s twins is also interpreted as a sign of their future. One of the twins starts to appear, and the midwife ties a scarlet thread around his exposed hand, saying, “This one came out first.” But then his twin somehow comes out before him, and the midwife continues: “‘How have you broken through? A breach be upon you,’ and she gave him the name

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narrative context is relevant: Rebekah “inquires” once while pregnant and receives an oracle about her twins’ destinies. She then engages in divinatory activity a second time (now together with Isaac) in her interpretation of their unusual birth appearance. The initial oracle is confirmed by the birth of twins, and the birth omen, as interpreted in the twins’ names, is confirmed by the subsequent events of the story.

Embodying, Inquiring, Interpreting: Rebekah as Diviner and Divined Perhaps it is part of the author’s romanticized impression of the “old country” that Rebekah engages in these types of divinatory activity. There are other oracles and omens related to pregnancy and childbirth in the Bible, but nothing as reminiscent of other Near Eastern birth omens as this. Moreover, hints of Rebekah’s association with divination appear as a thread through each of her three narratives. Rebekah does not only inquire and interpret signs; from the moment of her entry onto the scene, Rebekah embodies a sign. When Abraham’s servant goes to Aram-naharaim, he asks Yahweh to give him a sign of which girl to bring home for Isaac, through her specific response to his request for water from her jug: “when I say x, let her say y” (Gen 24:10–14). Rebekah comes along and enacts the basic content of what the servant has requested, but not the form. Humorously, at least to this reader, Rebekah’s response thus leaves the servant a bit stumped: “the man stared at her dumbfounded, trying to figure out if Yahweh had made his trip successful or not” (‫לא‬-‫והאיש משתאה לה מחריש לדעת ההצליח יהוה דרכו אם‬, Gen 24:21). Literary charm aside, the servant’s hesitation further demonstrates that he is looking for a particular interpretable sign. Had he prayed for general guidance, Perez” (Gen 38:29; read ‫ ותקרא‬in both vv. 29 and 30 with some manuscripts of Sam. Pent., Syr., Tg. Ps.-J.). Zerah, who had started to appear first, is named on the basis of his birth, but there is no indication that the name has anything more than symbolic significance (i.e., it may only commemorate his birth and not be meant to represent anything in his personality or life looking forward). Perez too is named for his birth attributes, but in this case the name is explicitly meant to have ongoing significance. Whatever precisely ‫ עליך פרץ‬means, it appears to be a statement about a lasting trait or future event. It is intriguing that it is the midwife who names him and pronounces this blessing or curse. 29. Hamori, “Heavenly Bodies: Pregnancy and Birth Omens in Israel,” 479–99.

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he would now have no reason to remain unsure: he had asked for the right woman to offer a drink to him and to his camels, and this one did. Why then his lingering doubt? Reading the scene in light of the particularity of omens and omen interpretation, it makes sense: he had asked for the sign of the specific response, “Drink, and I will also give water to your camels,” and this woman said, “Drink,” and then he drank; after that, she offered to give water to his camels, at which point she went back to the well to draw more water for them. How awkwardly close to the requested sign, without actually quite matching it—no wonder he stared at her dumbfounded. We soon find out, of course, that this is indeed the fulfillment of the requested sign. Rebekah’s family also understands this to be the case: when Abraham’s servant tells them the whole story and asks if they will let Rebekah go, they acknowledge that the matter has been decided by Yahweh, so it is not for them to say whether it is good or bad (Gen 24:50–51). (The servant has made matters easier for them in the retelling: note his adjustment of Rebekah’s language in v. 46 to match his own.) From her first appearance in the story, Rebekah is a walking omen. At the beginning of the divination scene in Genesis 25, Rebekah again embodies a sign. It is the physical tumult within her own body that leads her to inquire of Yahweh. If she was a passive sign to be interpreted in chapter 24, she is now active in seeking the interpretation of the sign she carries in her body. Later, when the twins are born, Rebekah moves from embodying signs and inquiring about signs to interpreting them: now it is the next generation that embodies the omen. In the third and final scene featuring Rebekah, the matriarch acts on the knowledge she received through her divination, through both God’s response to her oracular inquiry and the confirmation of it that she interprets in the unusual birth appearances of her children. Knowing that the descendants of her younger son are to be served by those of the elder, she arranges for Jacob to acquire the blessing of the firstborn from his father. This scene, 30. I use “sign” and “omen” somewhat interchangeably, and intentionally so: we are accustomed to seeing “sign” used for biblical examples and “omen” for Mesopotamian, and this creates an inaccurate sense of an inherent difference between the phenomena. On the widespread notion of signs and omens in Near Eastern literature, including in the Bible, see Annus, “On the Beginnings and Continuities of Omen Sciences in the Ancient World,” esp. 9–13; and Noegel, “‘Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign’: Script, Power, and Interpretation in the Ancient Near East,” 143–62.

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in all of its wonderful detail—from her strategizing to her dressing of Jacob in Esau’s clothing and goatskins—is all a result of Rebekah’s earlier divinatory activity. The character of Rebekah the Aramean incorporates every facet of the divinatory process: she has been the sign, the inquirer, and the interpreter. In the end, it is her action again—based on her divined knowledge—that brings Jacob back to Syria, where he will encounter another Aramean woman, who will be the subject of another chapter.

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4 Miriam Unlike Rebekah, who is portrayed engaging in divinatory activity but is not a titled diviner, Miriam is called a prophet but is never said to prophesy. She is the canon’s first titled female prophet (‫)נביאה‬, and the sister of Moses; as such, she has not infrequently been viewed as the paradigmatic ‫נביאה‬ and the female counterpart to Moses’s role as chief among (male) prophets. While some find this idea hermeneutically useful, its underlying assumptions are problematic, as it first presupposes that male and female prophets should be understood according to different models, and, second, frames Miriam’s activity in particular—usually her singing and sometimes her opposition to Moses—as archetypal for female prophets. Huldah, meanwhile, 1. This takes a variety of forms. Trible presents Miriam as the archetypal female prophet in her influential article, “Bringing Miriam Out of the Shadows,” 182. Fuchs remarks that she agrees with Trible only on one part of this: “Miriam prefigures a succession of woman prophets in the Hebrew Bible, but in my reading she prefigures their erasure, not their authority” (“Prophecy and the Construction of Women,” 60). Gafney, introducing the various women she will choose to identify as prophets, writes: “Each of them is a daughter of Miriam, the mother of all women-prophets” (Daughters of Miriam, x). For others, it is more a matter of positing an ancient perspective: Butting sees Miriam as the embodiment of prophecy in the Torah (Prophetinnen Gefragt, e.g., 10, 77), following generally Kessler’s view of Miriam as the post-exilic symbol of prophecy, noting Mic 6:4, where he sees Moses, Aaron, and Miriam as standing for Torah, cult, and prophecy (“Miriam and the Prophecy of the Persian Period,” 77–86). Of course, even the view noted earlier of Moses as the paradigmatic male prophet is based only on certain biblical sources and not others.

61

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delivers an oracle to the king; should we really consider Miriam’s role to be paradigmatic? Male prophets differ radically from one another, and while Moses might be called chief among them, it is evident that this does not refer to paradigmatic behavior. This is not the case in discussion of female prophets, where more homogeneity is often assumed. Perhaps it is not so hermeneutically useful after all to refer to a woman who sings, but does not prophesy, as the female prophet par excellence.

Portrait of the Prophet as a Young Girl In a surprising coincidence, this character too is pictured at home in her mother’s house, in her younger days. Of course, the original story of Moses’s older sister in Exodus 2 has nothing to do with Miriam. A separate tradition names her as the sister of Moses (Num 26:59), and only when these came together could the story of the young girl who rescues her baby brother at the Nile’s edge be associated with the Miriam we meet later. Nonetheless, the joining of these traditions reflects an early view of Miriam that may color our view of the character as an adult. This connection does not only lend greater significance to the girl’s actions in this story; the later Miriam-Moses story is also altered through the addition of this introduction. Young Miriam (or the girl in this tradition who comes to be associated with Miriam) is credited with rescuing her infant brother, thus paving the way for the rest of the story of Moses. But is Miriam’s behavior so clearly benevolent, or might she have some sense of conflict? Moses’s mother has protected her son for as long as she can. When he is three months old, she exposes him. Miriam hides and watches, and when the Egyptian princess discovers the baby, Moses’s quick-thinking sister offers their own mother as a nurse. This is a brilliant response to the sight of the Pharaoh’s daughter saving Moses, but what if the princess had not come along just then? Surely babies do not generally live long on the banks of the Nile. A basket on the Nile’s edge does not protect an infant from crocodiles, and if the basket were well enough “sealed with bitumen and pitch” (Exod 2:3) to keep the water from flooding in, the infant would suffocate. The reader knows the child will survive, but the character in the story does not: the suspense is 2. On the development of texts through added introductions, see the useful approach of Milstein, “Reworking Ancient Texts: Revision through Introduction in Biblical and Mesopotamian Literature.”

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derived from the expectation that the infant will surely die, whether by flood or fang. So from a literary perspective, the Pharaoh’s daughter was always going to come save the boy and the day, but young Miriam is not there to fend off crocodiles until a princess appears: she is watching Moses’s basket “at a distance, to see what would happen to him” (‫ותתצב אחתו מרחק לדעה‬ ‫יעשה לו‬-‫מה‬, Exod 2:4). This sounds more like morbid curiosity than heroism. The narrator introduces a miraculous rescue by the princess, and with it an opportunity for the older sister to act strategically, but within the world of the story, this cannot be what she is expecting. Once this tradition is joined with that of Miriam as Moses’s sister, the tension as she stands at a distance, waiting and watching him, may even foreshadow the conflict to come.

Is the Song of Miriam Prophetic Activity? It is frequently assumed that Miriam’s song constitutes either some or all of her prophetic activity. This view is generally based on the fact that Miriam and Deborah both sing, and thus that their songs must be their prophecy; the further conclusion is sometimes drawn that women’s prophecy in general involved singing. There are, however, several problems with the idea that Miriam’s song has to do with prophecy at all. I will first address the contents of the Song of the Sea as a whole, and the question of whether 3. Williamson associates the songs of Miriam and Deborah and suggests that this could be why they were considered prophets; he states later, “Probably the most consistent element in the portrayal of the prophetess is the association with inspired singing with accompanying instruments and dancing, suggestive of feverish enthusiasm if not necessarily ecstasy” (“Prophetesses in the Hebrew Bible,” 69–70, 73). Meyers sees Miriam as having an archetypal role, and prepares the reader considering “female prophetic traditions” for “the presence of a gender-specific tradition, grounded in musical performance” (“Miriam, Music, and Miracles,” 27–28). Gafney too sees this as central: “Miriam’s prophetic identity is revealed in the text at the moment she and her dancing disciples perform the song of thanksgiving that she choreographed to celebrate salvation through the waters of the Sea of Reeds” (Daughters of Miriam, 80–81). Fuchs also connects Miriam’s and Deborah’s songs to their prophetic titles (“Prophecy and the Construction of Women,” 57–58). Butting sees Miriam’s song as an example of a connection between music and prophecy as well, but not one that is specific to women (Prophetinnen Gefragt, 43–44).

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the association of similar songs with both Miriam and Deborah indicates anything about prophetic status; I will then discuss the vexed question of how much of the song should be considered the Song of Miriam; and finally I will consider some scholars’ intuition that something in the nature of poetry itself points to prophetic inspiration. Nothing in the contents of what is sung in Exodus 15:1–21 looks especially prophetic. The Song of the Sea is explicitly a psalm of victory against the enemy (“Horse and rider he has hurled into the sea . . . This is my God and I will praise him, the God of my father and I will exalt him . . . You stretched out your right hand, and the earth swallowed them up,” Exod 15:1, 2, 12). Even those who consider Miriam’s song to be her prophetic activity do not do so on the basis of its content, but of its form: it is the very fact that it is a song, and the coincidence of the prophet Deborah participating in a song as well, that leads to this assumption. There is, however, a better explanation. The Song of the Sea—like the song in Judges 5, to be discussed later—is a clear example of the “victory song” tradition. This is not simply a loose term for a celebratory song that might somehow also be prophecy. It is a narrowly defined category, identifiable by its specific literary form and narrative contexts, religious and military content, and even musical terminology, with related examples from other Near Eastern contexts as well. The particularity of this genre also explains the attribution of such songs to both Miriam and Deborah. It is not because the songs are somehow mysteriously prophetic, in spite of their apparently nonprophetic content; it is because such victory songs are especially associated with women. In 1 Samuel 18:6–7, for instance, a group of women from all of the towns of Israel come out to greet Saul and David after battle, singing a song and playing hand drums and dancing (‫ תפים‬and ‫מחלות‬, as also in Exod 15:20). In that context, the women have no prophetic role, and the victory song is clearly just that. The tradition appears again in Judges 11:34, where Jephthah’s daughter comes to welcome him home from battle with hand drums 4. See especially Poethig, “The Victory Song Tradition of the Women of Israel.” The literary genre had been recognized previously by many other scholars; Poethig’s primary contribution is the addition of solid evidence that the “victory song” is also a specific identifiable musical tradition. 5. On the ‫ תפים‬and ‫ מחלות‬tradition and its significance in the women’s victory song genre, with attention to both philological and archaeological evidence, see ibid., 31–68.

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and dancing (again ‫ תפים‬and ‫)מחלות‬, in a victory celebration she might later come to regret. That the victory songs of Exodus 15 and Judges 5 are (partially) attributed to women is not such a coincidence after all, and should not be linked artificially to the women’s prophetic titles. Scholars have disagreed on how much of the song was originally associated with Miriam. The Song of the Sea is introduced as one that Moses and the Israelites sing to Yahweh (Exod 15:1), and it closes with an ascription of at least one line to Miriam, who leads with singing and beating on drums (Exod 15:20–21). The relationship between these two elements has been much debated: whether they represent two separate traditions of the same song, one ascribing the whole to Moses and the other to Miriam; whether they are two separate songs, first the much longer Song of the Sea (that is, Moses’s) and then the brief Song of Miriam; or whether it is one tradition of one song, with sections sung in turn by different parties. Each major category here has its divergent subtheories: for instance, in the last category, the older assumption was that Moses and “the Israelites” (that is, men) sang, and Miriam and the women responded antiphonally—an idea perhaps more rooted in musical traditions from other places and times, for which there is no evidence in the Hebrew Bible (antiphony, 6. Meyers points out that the victory song genre is logically female when the tradition is for the people who are at home (women) to come greet the returning soldiers (men) (Exodus, 117–18). This is not the only reason, though, since other such singing and drumming is also specific to women. On the broader traditions of women’s singing and drumming, see Meyers, “Miriam, Music, and Miracles”; Paz, Drums, Women, and Goddesses, esp. 86–101; Meyers, “Guilds and Gatherings,” 166–67; and Meyers, “Miriam the Musician,” 207–30. 7. On the correction of the usual translation “tambourine” to the more accurate “drum,” see Meyers, “Miriam, Music, and Miracles,” 31–36. 8. Classically, Cross and Freedman, “The Song of Miriam,” 237–50; and Cross and Freedman, Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry, based on their 1950 joint dissertation at Johns Hopkins University. They made no claim about actual authorship, but only about “the superiority of the tradition (E?) which associates the song with Miriam rather than with Moses” (Cross and Freedman, “The Song of Miriam,” 237). 9. A recent prime example: Dozeman, Exodus, 326–43. 10. E.g., Houtman, Exodus. Houtman’s argument against the two-song theory is especially sharp (Exodus, 2:240–41). M. Brenner sees a male chorus and a dancing female chorus, and views the whole as a post-exilic retrojection of cultic psalm performance in the model of Levitical singers (The Song of the Sea, 40–46).

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yes; arrangement by gender, no). In recent decades, some have argued that Miriam leads all of the people in singing (on which more below), and others have argued for the model of a group round. I will not detail the various arguments here; for clear summaries, readers may consult Dozeman, who gives particular attention to the history of various generic identifications, and Meyers, who focuses on work from different approaches that highlights the role of Miriam, including that of Phyllis Trible, J. Gerald Janzen, Susan Ackerman, and others. Some see Miriam’s role as having been unfairly diminished through the editorial process; others defend her as especially highly extolled, even in the current text. There is some indication that Miriam may have had more of a hand in leading the song than it first appears. Moses and the people begin with “I will sing” (‫אשירה‬, or cohortative, “Let me sing”), and Miriam begins in 15:21 with the imperative “Sing!” (‫שירו‬, masc. pl.). It is tempting to see these as belonging in the other order. This is by no means certain, though, and would not exclude the possibility of a song sung back and forth. Furthermore, we must keep in mind that we know extremely little of ancient Israelite musical styles, and we should not assume that this song matches a pattern we know. Additionally, I find it suspicious that the models artificially retrojected generally happen to match styles especially common in white Western contexts. Even among group song patterns we might artificially export, the models of a round, or of song leader and chorus (“Sing!” And the people sang . . .), are no likelier than the model of singers and respondents 11. Houtman pictures the song sung in rounds, with some verses sung by Moses, then some by various choirs, then the key verse by Miriam (Exodus, 2:245–46). 12. Dozeman, Exodus, 326–33; and Meyers, “Miriam, Music, and Miracles,” 28–31; Trible, “Bringing Miriam Out of the Shadows”; Janzen, “Song of Moses, Song of Miriam: Who Is Seconding Whom?” 211–20; Ackerman, “Why Is Miriam Also among the Prophets?” 47–80; Brooke, “The Long-Lost Song of Miriam,” 62–65. 13. Fuchs sees Miriam’s song as a poor replacement for actual prophetic speech (“Prophecy and the Construction of Women,” 57–58). Hamilton proposes that Exodus 15, “far from demoting Miriam, instead puts her on a pedestal” (Exodus, 235). I do not see that it must be one extreme or the other; perhaps it’s just that she’s no Moses. Who is? 14. So also Janzen, “Song of Moses, Song of Miriam,” 216; Hamilton, Exodus, 234– 35; van Dijk-Hemmes, “Some Recent Views on the Presentation of the Song of Miriam,” 200.

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(The people sang; one or more responded, “Yes, sing!”). I am not suggesting that Miriam actually responded by calling out, “Sing it!” (“Preach it!”), but this example should demonstrate that there is more of a breadth of possibilities than is customarily acknowledged, and the range of options along with the distance and inaccessibility of the musical tradition leave us no clearer on the extent of Miriam’s role than when we began. What we do know is that Miriam took up a drum and sang out to the people (‫)ותען להם מרים‬. The use of ‫ ותען‬is often understood as referring to Miriam “answering” the men, but this is not a good reading, since the verb ‫ ענה‬also means “sing.” The two meanings of ‫ ענה‬come from separate proto-Semitic roots, and are found as separate lexical entries (for example, BDB 777a). There are many texts in which the verb ‫ ענה‬clearly means “sing.” Significantly, these include all references to the women’s victory song when David returned after killing the giant. To celebrate this improbable victory, the women came out drumming and dancing, and they sang (‫ותענינה הנשים‬, 1 Sam 18:6–7, and as referenced again in 1 Sam 21:12 [Eng. 21:11] and 29:5). The context is reminiscent of the victory song scene in Exodus 15. Other uses of this verb also carry a connotation of either particularly celebratory singing, or battle cries, or both. In Ezra 3:10–11, the song is joyful and raucous, accompanied by trumpets and cymbals and great shouting. In Isaiah 13:22, the verb refers metaphorically to jackals that will sing, paired with the image in the previous verse that the goats will dance (13:21). In Exodus 32:18, the verb is used to describe both the sound of battle cries and the sound of singing; they are so similar that Joshua initially mistakes the people’s singing for the sound of either victory or defeat. This sheds light on the way the verb is used twice in Jeremiah: in Jeremiah 51:14 it refers to the people’s battle cry, and in Jeremiah 25:30, to God’s battle cry, used in parallel to God roaring (‫ )שאג ישאג‬and uttering his voice (‫)יתן קולו‬. This collection of uses is telling: victory songs and raucous celebrations, calls to sing, battle cries, and the paired usage for battle cries and victory celebration. The verb ‫—ענה‬which perhaps we should render “sing out”—further reflects the 15. Contra Fischer, who does see the song as demonstrating Miriam’s prophetic activity, but not because she is singing: rather, she “answers” on behalf of the people as a whole, thus mediating divine-human communication by representing the group in her response to divine acts (Gotteskünderinnen, 66–67). 16. E.g., Ps 88:1; 119:172; and 147:7 (where it is used in parallel with ‫זמרו‬, “sing”); Num 21:17, to a well, and Isa 27:2, the call to sing to the vineyard.

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nature of Exodus 15 as a victory song, used of Miriam in this text as it is of the women in 1 Samuel. Whatever the extent of Miriam’s role, she was participating in a victory song, not an act of prophetic speech. Even if she is interpreted to have led the whole song, this does not suddenly constitute prophetic activity: it only aligns the text more closely with the other victory songs led by women (for example, 1 Sam 18:6–7). Yet the instinct to connect the song to Miriam’s prophetic title is understandable. There seem to be three main reasons for it. She is first called a prophet in Exodus 15:20, when she picks up her drum; two of the five female prophets sing; and there is some broader connection between prophecy and poetry. However, her introduction as a prophet in 15:20 need not be connected to the song, since this is also her introduction as a character in general, the first mention of her name, and comes alongside her other descriptor, “the sister of Aaron.” Two female prophets sing, but three do not, and the songs of the first two are better explained by the victory song tradition than by the women’s prophetic titles. I will return to that argument in the next chapter; for the moment, note simply that in neither case is the pattern related to prophecy. The third reason, the notion of a close relationship between prophecy and poetry, warrants more attention here. This is an assumption that comes in many forms. Some are appropriately cautious, seeing a possible connection between Miriam as prophet and poet but drawing no firm conclusion. Others, as noted previously, assume that the song in which Miriam participates must be prophetic activity—at least for her, if not for “Moses and the Israelites” (15:1). For some, this is clearly a matter of gendered interpretation. For others, however, it seems to 17. Sarna observes that in Exod 14–15 and Judg 4–5, the recounting of a battle scene in which “a historic prose account is followed by a triumphal ode extolling the victory” is a literary pattern also known from New Kingdom Egyptian texts (Exodus, 75). 18. Propp considers various possibilities: “In Numbers 12, Miriam will claim prophetic powers like those of Aaron and Moses himself. Why is her vocation mentioned already in 15:20? Perhaps her prophetic office is directly related to her musical performance. Deborah, too, is singer and prophetess . . . Perhaps certain singers were considered inspired, like the Greek bards (Odyssey 22:349). But most likely, ‘Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister’ is simply Miriam’s full title, used here upon her first appearance” (Exodus 1–18, 546–47).

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stem from a general sense of a link between prophecy and poetry. In some cases, this is built on an antiquated model, whether found in older sources or more recent ones. Robert Lowth saw the prophets as singing or chanting to music; more recently, Joyce Rilett Wood has imagined the early biblical prophets as “performing poets,” relying on the tradition of Greek poetic performance. In other cases, scholars with no such overall views still see Miriam’s verse as the expression of her prophetic role. What is there, then, to this assumption of a link between prophecy and poetry, found in so many forms, in the work of such a diverse group of scholars? It is well established that there is a close relationship between prophecy and poetry, various aspects of their interplay in many periods and contexts having been explored, with attention to spontaneous mantic verse and to written oracle, to both the religious concepts and the social realities behind the relationship. On the most basic level, one might suggest that poetry is somehow speech on a higher plane (though a writer of prose might object), speech meant to elicit a pause, provoke a response on what might be considered a mystical or spiritual level. While poetry is notoriously difficult to define, and thankfully doing so is not necessary here, it seems clear that poetic speech is commonly received differently than prose is, inviting special 19. Lowth, Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews; Wood, “Prophecy and Poetic Dialogue,” 309; see also M. Brenner, The Song of the Sea, 44. 20. In addition to those cited above, see, e.g., Dozeman, who suggests that Miriam’s prophetic identity “provides guidelines for interpreting her song. It is more than an antiphon to the Song of the Sea; it contains its own prophetic interpretation of the exodus,” refocusing the reader’s attention on the events at the sea, and so “her prophetic song provides a countervoice to the prophecy of Moses in the Song of the Sea” (Exodus, 343). 21. See especially the range of collected essays in Kugel, ed., Poetry and Prophecy. On the relationship between poetry and prophecy in a range of cultural contexts, see, e.g., Nishimura, “Retrospective Comprehension: Japanese Foretelling Songs,” 45–66; Shaughnessy, “Arousing Images: The Poetry of Divination and the Divination of Poetry,” esp. 67–73 on Chinese divinatory poems; Mendenhall, “Prophecy and Poetry in Modern Yemen,” 340–43; Muessig, “Prophecy and Song: Teaching and Preaching by Medieval Women,” 146–58. See also Leavitt, ed., Poetry and Prophecy: The Anthropology of Inspiration, a compilation of essays representing many different cultures and periods, from Mayan divination to Himalayan ritual discourse, as well as a range of methodologies. 22. See, e.g., Eagleton, How to Read a Poem, 25–47; Kugel, The Idea of Biblical Poetry, 59–95.

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attention not only to its ideas as expressed through intentional and meaningful wording (as is the case with prose), but lending greater weight to the significance of each word and phrase; perhaps in some way the weight is shifted in poetry even more toward the import of each word choice and the resulting combinations, interactions, jarring juxtapositions. The significance of specific wording and phrasing should be present in prose, but it is the essence of poetry. In the reception of prophetic speech, too, special significance and theological import is attached not only to the underlying ideas of the message, but to the particularity of its wording. Many explanations for the relationship between prophecy and poetry begin with a theological version of this sense of the special nature of poetic language—that poetry is, or is commonly seen as, “inspired.” Poetic speech is thus seen as an indicator of inspiration. This is the approach, for example, of Freedman, who concludes his exploration of the relationship between prophecy and poetry with the suggestion that poetic speech served the purpose of helping to confirm authentic revelation, when other standards (such as the conflicting and otherwise difficult ones in Deuteronomy) did not work: “Instead of trying to decide the ultimate issues of truth and falsehood, which are best left to the eschaton and to the Almighty, we may examine the more immediate question facing Israel: the test of a prophet was the presence and power of the Spirit in his message, what he said, and how he said it. Since the Spirit was the direct source of both prophecy and poetry, they were the basic indicators and primary evidence of its presence and activity.” The sense that poetic form lends an air of authenticity to an oracle is seen elsewhere as well. The correspondence is by no means absolute or consistent, however, and should not be exported to the biblical context. In addition to the wide range of perspectives on the relationship between poetry and prophecy in different historical and cultural contexts, there can be significant variation within a given context. The spectrum within Greek society may serve as an example: In some cases, poetry could be seen as indicating inspiration specifically because it lay beyond the human being’s normal power of speech. There was in some contexts a preference for an uneducated person to serve as an oracle, speaking in verse or singing, because such a person might not be thought to have composed the verse autonomously. The Clarian Oracle, for instance, was uneducated, and thus 23. Freedman, “Pottery, Poetry, and Prophecy,” esp. 15–26; quotation 25.

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his poetry indicated the authenticity of his message. Johnston notes that according to Tacitus, the prophet at Claros would drink from the sacred water there and answer questions posed by visitors (without knowing what they had asked, as further confirmation of authenticity; cf. Dan 2), and, as Johnston writes, “The man was usually illiterate and ignorant of poetry, but managed nonetheless to compose his replies in good meter.” Even among the Greek oracles, however, poetry could be seen instead as a reflection of the human speaker’s agency. The Oracle at Delphi demonstrates the range of views within Greek society: some Pythia spoke in poetry, and some in prose, depending on each woman’s education and ability. It was recognized that the Oracle had agency in the expression of the inspired message. So there was real variety even among the Greek oracles (and granted, there is a significant time span in this context, but so is there in biblical prophecy). Poetry could be taken as a sign of inspiration, but it could also be understood specifically as a reflection of the prophet’s own abilities. At least at Delphi, these could be seen as compatible; a poetic oracle could reflect the prophet’s own background as well as its inspired character. This is not always the case. The strongest statement of the incompatibility of human creative agency and divine inspiration is found in Islam, where the recognition of poetry as a sign of human agency is utterly counter to any notion of poetry as indicating authentic inspiration. Within the Qur’an itself and throughout the tradition, it is maintained that Muhammad was no poet and that his prophecy was not poetry. To make the point, the prophet and his authentic revelation are juxtaposed with the kuhhān (traditional diviners) and their short rhyming oracles. And yet, for all this, apparently the distinction 24. Johnston, Ancient Greek Divination, 77. Johnston notes variations both in the ancient tradition and in modern scholarly interpretation: some scholars would argue that the messages were only put into verse after the original delivery, but Johnston (while acknowledging that there may have been changes through the period of the Oracle’s existence) concludes the above. 25. Ibid., 50–51. Here Johnston is firmer than in regard to the Clarian Oracle: the old scholarly notion that the Oracle would spout divine messages in an ecstatic frenzy that would then be “translated” into poetry by the priest is not supported by the evidence. 26. Zwettler, “A Mantic Manifesto: The Sūra of ‘The Poets’ and the Qur’ānic Foundations of Prophetic Authority,” 75–119. For examples, a few of which Zwettler addresses, see 21:5; 36:69; 37:36–37; 52:30; 69:40–43.

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must be strenuously asserted because otherwise a person might indeed look at the Qur’an and call it poetry. With just these few examples, we have on one end of the spectrum the sense that poetry is a sign of inspiration (especially when delivered by the uneducated, so high is it above common speech), and on the other end, precisely the opposite: the sense that poetry is a human creation and thus indicates the lack of authentic revelation. Somewhere in between these, we have the world of thought expressed in the biblical context. It is surely no more uniform in Israelite thought than in Greek. As seen above, even where there is a close association between prophecy and poetry in Greek society, it is not at all consistent, and not remotely in the sense of a oneto-one correspondence. In the biblical context, we see a far closer link between prophecy and poetry in late material. Earlier on (to varying degrees), prophets are not known for poetry and song (for example, Elijah, Elisha), and several significant songs are associated with characters who are not prophets (for example, Jacob, Barak, David). No particular correspondence should be assumed, especially for material as early as the song of Exodus 15. The picture in early Israel is more like what we have in other parts of the ancient Near East, where there is no particular connection between prophecy and poetic speech. The prophets’ speech in the Mari letters is entirely prose, and almost all of the Neo-Assyrian oracles are prose. In the latter corpus, there are a few texts one might imagine could be considered more “poetic” (for example, SAA 9 1.6), but even this might be a 27. Freedman, for instance, writes that the words of Muhammad in the Qur’an “are all considered poetic . . . prophet and poet are one, and the two categories are coterminous. In the Quran, poetry and prophecy are the same” (“Pottery, Poetry, and Prophecy,” 24). This is certainly the impression a reader might get, but vehemently not the view within the tradition. 28. See Flower, The Seer in Ancient Greece, 58–65, on the relationship between seers and oracle-singers; and for another approach, Nagy, “Ancient Greek Poetry, Prophecy, and Concepts of Theory,” esp. 56. 29. On the early date, see Russell, Images of Egypt in Early Biblical Literature, 127–76. 30. See also Stökl’s demonstration that there is no particular connection between music and prophecy in other Near Eastern literature; Prophecy in the Ancient Near East, 211–15.

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stretch. Interestingly, among these texts, as well as in the Zakkur stela and the Deir ‘Alla texts, when prophets speak their own words and the words of deities, the latter are more likely to seem poetic—that is, the words attributed to deities at times reflect more features of poetic language than the words only attributed to the prophets. Even allowing for this possible pattern, however, the Song of the Sea would not look like prophecy, since it is about divine action and does not convey divine speech. All in all, the association between poetry and prophecy is far too simplistic. While the two are related in a few senses and in a variety of historical and cultural contexts, the relationship is complex and inconsistent, and neither the biblical traditions about early prophets nor the other Near Eastern prophetic material supports the theory of a close relationship in this particular setting. One additional consideration is whether a female prophet might be especially likely to use the medium of song. Any suggestion of this that rests on some notion that women’s modes of expression differ from men’s can be discarded without further comment. There is one issue, however, that may lend some support to the theory. Where poetic form is understood to point to authentic inspiration, this can be seen either in terms of reception (an oracle’s content being “confirmed” by its form), or in terms of exploitation (poetic form being utilized in order to signify an oracle’s import). Which of these is in play in a given context is a matter of perspective. If poetic speech is seen as a strategy for the one delivering an oracle, the use of poetic form then serves those with limited social power. Where poetry carries a sense of inspiration and thus implies the authenticity of an oracle, it would allow those with limited social power to make pronouncements with authority. However, this would only apply to a social context in which poetic form was indeed seen as linked to prophetic authority. This may well have been the case in some Greek contexts, as in some other cultural contexts. It was not, however, the case with early Israelite prophecy. There is no reason left, then, to associate the Song of Miriam (whether contained in v. 21 or even comprising the whole Song of the Sea) with prophecy. Nothing in the song’s form, content, setting, or performance 31. For text and translation of SAA 9 1.6 (formatted as prose, but it could be a poetic exception), see Nissinen, Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East, 106–8.

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indicates that it is prophetic; each one of these indicates instead that it is a classic example of the victory song tradition. Whatever prophetic activity Miriam engaged in, this song is not a reflection of it.

The Prophetic Conflict of Numbers 12 We come, then, to a text that directly addresses the question of Miriam’s ability or right to speak for Yahweh. Some see the conflict in Numbers 12 as only about Miriam’s opposition to Moses’s marriage, using the issue of prophecy as a red herring; others see the text as a denial that Miriam is a prophet. It is neither. The story is explicitly about prophetic authority: Miriam and Aaron contend that Yahweh speaks through them as well as through Moses; Yahweh’s response is an explanation of how he speaks to prophets in comparison to how he speaks with Moses; and then Miriam is punished. When the tradition openly reflects on Miriam’s claim to prophetic status, the aim may be to highlight the special nature of Yahweh’s communication to Moses (and its later written form), but an additional consequence is that it reveals that the tension surrounding Miriam’s status as a prophet is not a by-product of modern ideologically driven concerns, but an ancient conflict buried in the heart of the tradition itself. As the story begins, Miriam and Aaron are displeased with Moses’s marriage to a Cushite woman, and they speak against him. They ask, “Has Yahweh indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken also 32. As Wilson summarizes, in identifying this as a “dispute over prophetic authority . . . The problem which gave rise to the original story thus seems to have been one which plagues any society containing more than one intermediary: how are the authority claims of the intermediaries to be adjudicated, particularly when they bring conflicting messages from the divine world?” Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel, 155–56. 33. Knierim and Coats suggest that Miriam’s challenge is directly related to Moses’s marriage to the Cushite, and that it is thus about “the right to define the nature of the family (or tribal) group. Significantly, the attack results in leprosy for Miriam and her subsequent exclusion from the tribe” (Numbers, 181). Some, such as E. Davies (Numbers, 113–14, 120) and Robinson, conclude that we have two interwoven stories here (with Robinson seeing the result as more successful). As Robinson points out, it is “poetic justice” that Miriam is excluded from the community after having wanted the Cushite wife excluded (“The Jealousy of Miriam,” 432).

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through us?” Yahweh’s response to this is a resounding, “Sort of.” He has overheard their question and responds directly—but not before the narrator interjects the reminder that Moses was the humblest man on earth. Yahweh calls to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, saying, “You three come out to the tent of meeting.” He then comes down in a pillar of cloud and stands at the door of the tent. After having called to the three of them together, he now singles out Miriam and Aaron and rebukes them. In front of Moses, highlighting the distinction between them, Yahweh has Miriam and Aaron step forward. He tells them in no uncertain terms, “Now hear my words: if there is a prophet among you, I, Yahweh, will make myself known to him in a vision, I will speak with him in a dream. Not so my servant Moses—he is the most trusted in all my house—I speak with him mouth to mouth, visibly, and not in riddles, and he gazes upon the form of Yahweh. Why were you not afraid to speak against my servant, against Moses?” Yahweh leaves angry. The pillar of cloud lifts, and Miriam—only Miriam—has been struck with a skin disease. The repetition in verse 10 emphasizes this: when the cloud disappeared, Miriam was diseased, and Aaron turned to Miriam, and ‫הנה‬, she was diseased. Even here, we do not have Miriam’s perspective, but Aaron’s. He turns to face Miriam (“and bam! Diseased!” ‫)והנה מצרעת‬, and then looks to Moses for help, first begging mercy for the two of them, and then voicing a plea on Miriam’s behalf: “Do not let her be like one stillborn, half of whose flesh is eaten away when it comes out of its mother’s womb” (Num 12:12). The chain of authority 34. In 12:1, Miriam and Aaron speak ‫במשה‬, “against Moses”; their question, which refers to Moses in the third person, makes evident that it is not spoken “with” him. In 12:2, they ask whether Yahweh has spoken only ‫במשה‬, “through Moses,” and not also ‫בנו‬, “through us.” The preposition ‫ ב‬here clearly means “through,” and not only “with”; there is no conflict over whether Yahweh speaks with them, as he does in fact in the very next verse. That the preposition in v. 1 means “against” and in v. 2 means “through” is clear also from Yahweh’s response in vv. 6–8. On these meanings here, see Milgrom, Numbers, 93–94, and many others; Levine, Numbers 1–20, 328–33; Knierim and Coats, Numbers, 180; Budd, Numbers, 136. 35. The traditional rendering of ‫ מצרעת‬as “leprous” (i.e., having Hansen’s disease) is probably not accurate. On this particular skin disease, see esp. Levine, Numbers 1–20, 332–33 and 184–86; E. Davies, Numbers, 124 and 44–46; and Budd, Numbers, 137. 36. Milgrom sees Aaron’s actions here in light of his priestly role: “Since Aaron was a priest, his seeing her condition confirmed the diagnosis (cf. Lev. 13:2–17).”

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continues as Moses then turns to Yahweh and prays for Miriam to be healed. Yahweh responds—to Moses—that if Miriam’s father had spit in her face she would bear the shame for seven days, so she should now be shut out of the camp for seven days and then brought back in; and so she was. This is a particularly shameful punishment, consisting not only of the skin disease itself, but of the shame it represents, requiring exclusion from community. Read in isolation, this story would seem to condemn the claim to prophetic status. Read as it stands, however, in tandem with the story in chapter 11, the picture begins to look different. Yahweh has instructed Moses to bring seventy elders to the tent so he can put his spirit on them and let them share Moses’s burden. The result of this is that all of the gathered elders prophesy. When it is reported that Eldad and Medad also received the spirit and prophesied, although they had not gone to the tent, Joshua asks Moses to make them stop. Moses’s response is not what Joshua expects: “Are you jealous on my behalf? Would that all of Yahweh’s people were prophets, that Yahweh would put his spirit upon them!” (Num 11:29). Moses’s explicit statement that the prophecy of others is not only acceptable but desirable, and the more the better, sets the stage for the conflict with Miriam. The editorial choice to present the story of chapter 12 in light of the events of chapter 11 affects the sense of the text. When Miriam and Aaron voice their complaint right after this scene, including Moses’s declaration above, we should not assume that the problem is a general claim Milgrom, Numbers, 97. See also Kessler, “Miriam and the Prophecy of the Persian Period,” 78. 37. The comparison to spitting highlights the punishment through shame (cf. Deut 25:9 and Isa 50:6; Milgrom, Numbers, 98). According to Lev 13:4, the initial quarantine period for a person who appears to have this ailment is seven days, after which the priest checks for signs of improvement or ongoing symptoms and acts accordingly. For somewhat different interpretations of how Miriam’s exclusion relates to Levitical requirements, see Milgrom, Numbers, 98, and Levine, Numbers 1–20, 333. 38. I find myself unconvinced by various expressions of the argument that Miriam is identified in the Persian period as the symbol of prophecy (see Kessler, Fischer, and Butting, as noted previously), and though I agree that the perspective of Num 12 differs from the full embrace of prophecy in Num 11, I am more struck—as will become evident below—by the ways in which the text does not restrict Miriam’s authority.

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of prophetic ability. Rather, they suggest that Yahweh speaks through them just as he speaks through Moses. They claim equality. The position of this story is that Yahweh does communicate with the prophets, but that this hardly compares to his direct appearance and speech to Moses. Had Miriam and Aaron prophesied, they presumably would have been fine. Instead, they gave Yahweh a reason to draw a very clear distinction between mere prophets, with whom he communicated through dreams and visions, and Moses, with whom he spoke visibly, and directly. The aim of the story is not to deny Miriam’s prophetic authority, but to place this—and all prophetic authority—clearly and firmly below the authority of Moses. Yahweh does speak to Miriam and Aaron even in this moment, but he does not do so face-to-face (lit., “mouth to mouth”). This story is about the uniqueness of Moses, not the insufficiency of Miriam in particular. This is illustrated as Yahweh calls all three to come to the tent, and then has Aaron and Miriam step forward so he can rebuke them in front of Moses. This demonstration of preferential communication embodies the public statement of Moses’s unique status. The central question, then, is why Miriam is singled out for punishment. Aaron too has implied that Yahweh speaks through him as he speaks through Moses. Why is Aaron not punished? Some have assumed that the consequences to Miriam must be related to gender, such as Graetz, who suggests that “Miriam was punished with leprosy because women in the 39. The position of Burns, that Miriam was not a prophet but a cultic leader, is not supported by the evidence, and such a position renders this scene unintelligible (Has the Lord Indeed Spoken Only Through Moses?). For a strong concise argument against Burns’s major theses, see E. Davies, Numbers, 115–16. 40. For various takes on how the story juxtaposes prophetic authority and Mosaic authority, see, e.g., Kessler, “Miriam and the Prophecy of the Persian Period,” 77–86, esp. 78, 84; Fischer, Gotteskünderinnen, 73–79; Budd, Numbers, 135, 138–39; and Sperling, “Miriam, Aaron and Moses: Sibling Rivalry,” 39–55. 41. Milgrom considers Yahweh’s response to Miriam and Aaron here to constitute “direct discourse, which provides an ironic twist. The Lord declares that He speaks directly only to Moses (v. 8) but here He avoids Moses and speaks directly to Aaron and Miriam” (Numbers, 94). See similarly Sperling, “Miriam, Aaron and Moses: Sibling Rivalry,” 54. By the terms of the story, though, it is not “direct”—i.e., even if Miriam and Aaron see the cloud, Yahweh does not speak with them visibly, as this story defines it, i.e., mouth to mouth. 42. Levine’s reflection on Moses’s prophetic leadership in Num 11–12 together is particularly insightful (Numbers 1–20, 338–43).

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Biblical world were not supposed to be leaders of men, and that women with initiative were reproved when they asserted themselves with the only weapon they had, their power of language.” This lacks evidence and should not be read into the text. The question of why Miriam alone is punished may have a simpler answer: this tradition recognizes that Miriam is known as a prophet and Aaron is not. Since the offense in question is the claim that prophets have authority equal to that of Moses—and judging by Yahweh’s detailed response in verses 6–8, this is the contested assertion—then the greater offender in making such a claim would be the prophet, the one who stands to gain. Perhaps Yahweh—here detective as well as judge—considers who benefits from this crime, and the answer is evident. When the challenge to Moses’s unique authority is raised, the potential threat must be put down, and that realistic threat is not Aaron or the siblings together, but Miriam the prophet. The verb in Numbers 12:1 is feminine singular: “she spoke” (‫)ותדבר‬. This does not mean that the words were Miriam’s alone—Aaron is immediately named as a participant, after all—but the initial feminine singular verb may already indicate that this story does not haphazardly, alarmingly, have Miriam unfairly punished for an offense equally attributable to Aaron, but that this story focuses on a claim that is in some sense specific to Miriam. Even if the underlying concern is to establish Mosaic authority as it pertains to a later time, the author frames this story as one of prophetic conflict. Miriam contests the supposition that Yahweh speaks only through Moses, claiming that he speaks also through her; the storyteller has Yahweh respond in terms of divinatory communication. The text, even if meant to temper aspects of Numbers 11, must allow for the fact that Moses has just repeatedly been said to have the spirit of Yahweh upon him (Num 11:17 and 25). Unless we posit an unthinking redactor, the story of Numbers 12 must reckon with the implication of divinatory activity on both sides of this conflict. We should not overlook, then, how the story as it is framed 43. Graetz, “Miriam: Guilty or Not Guilty?” 184. 44. Similarly Budd, Numbers, 138; and Robinson, who observes that Miriam the prophet was “in a position to question any idea that Moses had a monopoly of divine guidance; but Aaron could not with credibility make such a claim on his own account, since he was not a prophet of God, only of Moses (Ex 7,1)” (“The Jealousy of Miriam,” 430–31). He goes further, though, and argues that the fem. sing. verb indicates that this was really all Miriam’s doing, and “Aaron is merely Miriam’s stooge” (p. 432). 45. As opposed to the plural in v. 2.

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presents the prophetic conflict. And Miriam’s challenge is not treated like other challenges to preferred prophets. This is a spin on the classic prophetic conflict. Instead of prophets who represent different social groups or positions claiming that their counterparts are false—whether within Yahwism, as in the conflict between Jeremiah and Hananiah, or between Yahwists and others, as in the conflict between Elijah and the prophets of Baal—we have here two prophets of Yahweh, working together but in conflict over their relative authority. Neither one suggests that the other is a false prophet. Miriam objects to the notion that Moses alone has access to divine knowledge—apparently Moses’s behavior sparks this (Num 12:1)—and the opposing position in the text upholds the reality of Miriam’s prophetic access to divine knowledge, but tempers it with a conversation-stopping confirmation of Moses’s unique access. A few elements of this brief interaction stand out. First, the favored prophet is relieved of the responsibility of defending himself. The rhetorical impact of this is significant: whereas Jeremiah had to prophesy in opposition to Hananiah and then wait for the course of events to prove him right, and Elijah had to set up an elaborate demonstration, directly and repeatedly challenging his opponents and waiting for the fire from heaven to prove him right, Moses says nothing. Moses does nothing. Yahweh, unprompted, having overheard the challenge to Moses, swoops in and defends his man. In any story of prophetic conflict, such an unprompted and sudden divine act (Yahweh even broke in ‫פתאם‬, Num 12:4) would command special attention. In this text in particular, it has a dual function. It not only confirms who the favored prophet is, it enacts its own specific point: Yahweh will go above and beyond for Moses. Moses’s innocence and goodwill is further emphasized by his prayer for Miriam to be healed of the disease with which Yahweh has just stricken her: this prophet, the humblest man on earth (Num 12:3), tries to help his challenger. (It is the reader’s choice whether to see this as a demonstration of Moses’s humility or as a suspicious insistence on his wide-eyed innocence.) However, the fact that Yahweh speaks on Moses’s behalf creates the risk that the most significant difference between this and other stories of prophetic conflict will be obscured. Yahweh does not actually disagree with Miriam. Miriam challenges the notion that Moses has exclusive access to Yahweh, and Yahweh responds by explaining that Moses has superior access to him. In a scene oddly like 46. Contra Kessler, who argues that Num 12 is a “countertext” to Mic 6:4, which in his view places Miriam as an equal to Moses, and that here we see that

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telling two fighting children that they are each right in their own way, Yahweh explicitly confirms that he really does speak to the prophets, and that there really is a unique character to his communication with Moses. A writer wanting to dismiss Miriam would have, or should have, gone to greater lengths to do so. Miriam, as a prophet of Yahweh, challenges Moses by insisting that Yahweh speaks through her too, and the writer, far from attacking Miriam’s legitimacy as a prophet, confirms that Yahweh really does communicate with prophets, with an important caveat (the divine “Sort of ”). Compare the outcomes of other prophetic conflicts, in which the prophets not preferred by the author fare less well. Hananiah drops dead, just as Jeremiah warned him he would as a direct result of his rebellion, and Elijah has every last one of the prophets of Baal seized and slaughtered ( Jer 28:16–17; 1 Kgs 18:40). Miriam, in contrast, receives a slap on the wrist. As grave as her public denigration is, her disease and her shame are temporary. It is not surprising that the tradition favors Moses; what is surprising, what is so unusual that we should sit up and take notice, is that in a story framed as prophetic conflict between these two, the tradition also acknowledges the legitimacy of Miriam’s role as a prophet of Yahweh, whose authority is diminished only in comparison to the unsurpassed authority of Moses. Where the biblical tradition would usually portray the one opposing the favored prophet as a false prophet (even in the case of a prophet of Yahweh, as in Jer 28), Numbers 12 uses the very validity of Miriam’s claim to prophetic status as the way to establish that Moses’s claim to divine access lies even beyond prophecy. The tradition thus preserves a conflicted sense about Miriam, remembering her as a prophet but not recalling any of her prophetic words or activity. Moreover, when she herself complains of being undervalued as a prophet, she is punished with a skin disease and its associated shame. Her disease is remembered again in Deuteronomy 24:9, and some readers see an added emphasis on Miriam’s rebellion. However, the context “prophecy besides Moses’ prophecy or, worse, against him is a form of blasphemy” (Kessler, “Miriam and the Prophecy of the Persian Period,” 78). 47. This problem is solved in rabbinic tradition by attributing to young Miriam a prophecy about the birth of Moses (Exod. R. 1:13; Sot.ah 12b). For further discussion, see Bronner, From Eve to Esther, 167–70. 48. Burns, for example, reads into the text an admonition to “remember what happened to one of our ancestors when she questioned the authority of the Levites” (Has the Lord Indeed Spoken Only Through Moses? 106).

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is a list of assorted regulations: what to do if two successive men divorce a woman, what to do if you catch a kidnapper, what to do in cases of this particular skin disease, ‫צרעת‬. The statement regarding such skin disease is a stern reminder, stated emphatically, to be very sure to do everything the Levitical priests instruct. This is followed by the remark, “Remember what Yahweh your God did to Miriam on your way out of Egypt.” Not “Remember what Miriam did to Moses,” and not “Remember how God punished that damned rebel,” but “Remember what God did to Miriam” in her case of ‫צרעת‬, referring to the fact that he temporarily exiled her from the community. The point is either that even Yahweh did what the Levitical priests instruct in cases of ‫צרעת‬, or that this was done even to Miriam. In any event, the statement relates to how one should respond to a case of ‫צרעת‬, not to how Miriam became ‫מצרעת‬. By contrast, the extremely similar phrase in Deuteronomy 25:17, “Remember what Amalek did to you on your way out of Egypt,” relates to the offense of the character named and incites a reaction against him. In comparison, the lack of any blame on Miriam whatsoever is striking. Though some would argue that Miriam’s role as a prophet is suppressed, it seems noteworthy that in both of the two primary stories in which she is named (Exod 15 and Num 12), she is remembered as a prophet. In the first, she is called a ‫ ;נביאה‬in the second, she makes a claim regarding her prophetic authority, and while Yahweh reprimands her for thinking herself equal to Moses, he affirms that he does indeed speak to the prophets, confirming the legitimacy of her prophetic claim while limiting its authority. Miriam is thus primarily remembered in connection to her role as a prophet, if in a deeply conflicted fashion. By the time the tradition of the prophet Miriam has come together with the genealogical material (Num 26:59; 1 Chr 5:29 [Eng. 6:3]), the character has a rich history. The connection to the story in Exodus 2 now adds another literary dimension to the prophetic conflict in Numbers 12. All of a sudden, Miriam is the older sister who had saved Moses’s life, paving the way for all that followed. What new tension this lends to the story! Here she is, angry that her prophetic authority is being overlooked in comparison to that of Moses, that infant who owed his very life to her strategy. Who wouldn’t object?

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5 Deborah The inclination to connect Deborah’s prophetic role to Miriam’s on the basis of their songs is apparently quite strong. Assumptions about their similarity are so common as to make citing examples here an absurd endeavor. The instinct is understandable—only a few women in the Bible are given the title ‫נביאה‬, and two of them sing—but the similarity ends right about here. Deborah’s role in society is different from Miriam’s, as is her role in her song. The traditions remember these two ‫ נביאות‬quite differently.

The Song of Deborah and Barak Only a few points need be added to the previous chapter’s arguments regarding the lack of any association between the Song of the Sea and prophetic activity. The Song of Deborah and Barak too is a victory song. Some analyses of the genre imply that drumming (which does not appear in Judg 5) is a necessary component, but this surely misses the point: generic assignments are scholarly creations, and it is one thing to recognize a pattern among victory songs, but another thing entirely to exclude an obvious example from the category on the grounds that drums are not mentioned. 1. Paz falls somewhere in the middle, observing that although there is no reference to drumming in Judg 5, the song’s structure and content indicate a connection to the victory song genre (Drums, Women, and Goddesses, 90). Meyers had gone further, seeing implied drumming in the song (“Of Drums and Damsels: Women’s Performance in Ancient Israel,” 22). Beyond the matter of drumming: although some earlier commentators had posited a precise and consistent set of elements for victory songs and their contexts (e.g., Noth, Exodus, 122), more

82

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I argued that the Song of the Sea is not Miriam’s prophetic activity; neither is the victory song in Judges 5 an example of Deborah’s prophetic activity. As a reminder, it has been established that victory songs are primarily associated with women, so the partial attribution of these two songs to women is not coincidental—it is just not about the fact that each woman is at some point called a ‫נביאה‬. The notion that Deborah’s song is indicative of her role as a prophet is problematic for other reasons as well. Deborah does not sing alone. She sings this song with Barak, who is not a prophet. If for Barak, leading this victory song is not a sign of prophetic identity, it is safe to assume that it is not for Deborah either. In addition to the fact that the songs of Exodus 15 and Judges 5 belong to a particular genre that has examples elsewhere and is demonstrably not associated with prophecy, and the fact that Deborah’s coleader in song is not a prophet, one must consider how the women’s specific singing roles relate to one another. Deborah’s role is not the same as Miriam’s. In the song of victory over Sisera, Deborah and Barak sing ( Judg 5:1), and the people come in with an exhortation to them: “Arise arise, Deborah! Arise arise, sing a song! Get on up, Barak! Take your captives, son of Abinoam!” ( Judg 5:12). Depending on how one understands the background of Exodus 15, Miriam may participate in leading the song that “Moses and the Israelites” sing together (15:1), or she may have a special role in one part of the song, where she exhorts others, “Sing to Yahweh!” (15:21), or, as some recent work has demonstrated the internal diversity of the victory song. See especially Hauser, “Two Songs of Victory: A Comparison of Exodus 15 and Judges 5,” 265–84. Brettler objects to the identification of Judg 5 as a victory song and strongly criticizes Hauser for overreaching—and indeed, for example, Hauser’s notion of the water motif as a key component is untenable—but Brettler’s alternative explanation that Judg 5 was a “poem recited before war” has its own challenges (The Book of Judges, 66–69, quotation 69). Overall, if one lands on a definition of the victory song genre that does not allow for inclusion of these military chiefs singing a song about their victory, then that definition is too narrow. 2. In Judg 5:1, as in Num 12:1, a fem. sing. verb is followed by the names of both the female and male speakers. In Numbers, however, the text goes on to reveal that the greater accountability was Miriam’s; in Judges, the text goes on specifically to affirm the participation of both characters ( Judg 5:12, quoted above). Perhaps the fem. sing. verb in Judg 5:1 is used simply because Deborah is the main character.

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have reconstructed it, a whole song may originally have been attributed to Miriam alone. In no case is the picture of Miriam’s role parallel to Deborah’s in Judges 5, where Deborah and Barak sing together and the people respond, exhorting the leaders to sing. The fact that Miriam and Deborah take different roles in their songs should present a significant problem for those claiming that the women’s roles in singing are due to their prophetic identities. Just as the Song of the Sea does not reflect Miriam’s prophetic role, the Song of Deborah and Barak does not reflect Deborah’s prophetic status simply by virtue of her being one of its singers—any more than it would show Barak to be engaging in prophetic activity. In this case, however, the victory song will be seen to contain an allusion to the prophet’s function.

“A Mother in Israel” In the prose story of Judges 4, Deborah is remembered as a prophet and a judge. In the poetry of Judges 5, she is called something else: “a mother in Israel” (‫אם בישראל‬, Judg 5:7). This is not a sudden non sequitur defining Deborah by the existence of children who are mentioned nowhere in the poetry or prose; it is an epithet referring to her advisory role. The epithet occurs one other time, in the speech of the wise woman of Abel (2 Sam 20:18), where it is sometimes taken to refer to the city, but more straightforwardly should refer to the woman herself. The sense of ‫ אם בישראל‬as referring to some sort of advisory role has been observed before, in Judges 5 alone, 2 Samuel 20, or the two together. Boling reads the phrase “a mother in Israel” as praising Deborah for her oracular consultation and prophetic speech. Lindars sees it more generally as most likely a reference to Deborah as a prophet. Ackerman has discussed the phrase as it is used in both Judges 5 and 2 Samuel 20, and 3. Though not a crucial matter for the present discussion, the verbs in v. 7b are best read as second person (“until you arose, Deborah”); Lindars, Judges 1–5, 238. 4. Targum Jonathan of Judg 5 adds explicit and repeated references to Deborah prophesying, but interestingly leaves out the phrase ‫ אם בישראל‬altogether. This is particularly intriguing since, as Harrington points out on this text, the Targum includes almost every word of the biblical version (“The Prophecy of Deborah: Interpretive Homiletics in Targum Jonathan of Judges 5,” 439). 5. Boling, Judges, 99, 109. 6. Lindars, Judges 1–5, 238–39; he sees her specifically as a war prophet, p. 182.

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concludes that in both contexts the term refers to a woman who functions as a wise counselor. Olson also sees that “the phrase is probably more than just an endearing title,” and suggests, based on Judges 4, Judges 5, and 2 Samuel 20 all taken together, that the epithet ‫“ אם בישראל‬may represent the place and office of a wise woman prophet who delivers divine oracles to resolve disputes (see 4:5; 2 Sam 20:16–19).” (The divinatory role of the wise woman of Abel will be detailed in the chapter devoted to her and her Tekoan counterpart.) In a significant footnote, Block reads ‫ אם בישראל‬differently: “This affectionate title conjures up notions of warmth and security” (one could imagine Olson’s statement above as a direct response to Block’s). However, he then offers a list of “masculine counterparts” to the phrase, which I believe actually provides strong support for the reading of ‫אם בישראל‬ as a divinatory epithet. He includes Micah’s priest and “father,” who later defects to become a priest and “father” to the Danites ( Judg 17:10, 18:19), and who engages in oracular inquiry (18:5); Elisha calling to Elijah, “My father, my father!” (2 Kgs 2:12); and Elisha in turn being called “father” twice explicitly (2 Kgs 6:21, 13:14) and once implicitly when Hazael refers to the king of Aram as Elisha’s “son” (2 Kgs 8:9). Block observes that the use of this language for the prophets is the closest to the sense of the phrase in Judges 5, but he still sees it as identifying a “sense of security.” Almost every one of these “masculine counterparts” shows metaphorical parent language applied to a prophet; the exception is a priest. The language does not just connote a sense of “warmth and security.” These examples demonstrate that such terminology refers to religious intermediaries and, most commonly, to prophets. Additionally—though this is not crucial— the only one of the list who is not a prophet, the priest of Micah’s home 7. Ackerman, Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen, 38–43. 8. Olson, “Judges,” 787. 9. Block, “Deborah Among the Judges,” 246–47 n.67. (He also mentions Job as “a father to the needy” [ Job 29:16], as a secondary level of comparison.) Fischer also notes the use of ‫ אם בישראל‬as an honorific parallel to the one used of Elijah (and only Elijah; Gotteskünderinnen, 118). Gafney adopts the Elijah model broadly, positing that most female prophets worked in guilds, some of which were led by “mothers,” but where the phrase ‫ אם בישראל‬is actually used, she sees it as part of Deborah’s portrayal as “a warrior for God. . . . As a mother, Deborah provided military and political security for all of her children” (Daughters of Miriam, 92; cf. 108, 113, 116).

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sanctuary, is associated with Micah’s teraphim (ancestor figurines sometimes used for divination, as discussed in a later chapter). The metaphorical parent language is specific to intermediaries and, overwhelmingly—or possibly exclusively—those with divinatory roles. While it may not be possible to pinpoint precisely what the poet of Judges 5 had in mind using the term ‫אם בישראל‬, we can gather its rough outlines. Given its use in 2 Samuel 20, where it refers to a wise woman (‫ )אשה חכמה‬but not a prophet, I would go less far than Boling in deeming it specifically “prophetic” in Judges 5. Because it is used in these two texts to describe different types of diviners, I would also go less far than Olson in proposing a formal office. Judging by its use in both cases to refer to a woman with a divinatory role, but not the same role—as well as the use of comparable “father” language overwhelmingly for intermediaries—the epithet appears to be broad enough to encompass different types of advisory roles, but specific to those with a divinatory facet.

Deborah, Prophet and Judge The prose narrative fleshes out the picture. The writer introduces Deborah as a prophet who was judging Israel ( Judg 4:4). Since the terms ‫נביא‬ and ‫ שפט‬each signify different things during different periods and are thus both shifting targets, pinpointing the relationship between them is complicated. The salient matter here is that during the period described in the story, these are not entirely separate roles, but neither are they synonymous. The connection between these functions is evident in Moses’s initial description of his role as judge. We are told that he is acting as a judge for the people, who inundate him with their needs from morning till night. When Jethro asks Moses why he is sitting all day surrounded, Moses explains, “Because the people come to me to inquire of God” (‫;)לדרש אלהים‬ they present their issues, and he judges between them and makes known to them the instructions of God (Exod 18:15–16). The logical overlap between going to inquire of Yahweh’s judge and going to inquire of the prophet is clear. The relationship is not an easy one, however, and not only from the perspective of the modern scholar. The story of the seventy elders is telling. Moses needs help leading Israel; or, put a little more colorfully in classic Moses style, he would rather Yahweh just kill him dead right then and there than have to lead the people by himself anymore (Num 11:

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11–15). Yahweh instructs Moses to gather seventy elders, and tells him that he will take some of the spirit he had put on Moses and distribute it among them (11:16–17). Moses complies, but when Yahweh does his part, there is an intriguing detail: when the spirit came upon the elders, “they prophesied—but they did not do it again” (‫ויתנבאו ולא יספו‬, 11:25). The bestowing of Yahwistic spirit that gives the elders the ability to judge also causes them to prophesy—once. Immediately after this comes the conflict over whether Eldad and Medad really ought to be prophesying ( Joshua: Stop them! Moses: Now, now, would that all the people of Yahweh were prophets!). This is part of a larger series of conflicts over who among Israel’s leaders can claim prophetic authority. So the relationship between judging and prophesying is a close but tense one. In Exodus 18 and the scenes from Numbers, the roles explicitly overlap but are not identical. Then we come to the book of Judges, where the role of the “judge” changes dramatically, becoming centered almost exclusively on military leadership. One would expect less of an overlap with prophecy here. The area of intersection is again evident, though, in different forms. Throughout the book of Judges, the spirit of Yahweh repeatedly comes upon people, either to inaugurate them as judges or to assist in special circumstances, such as giving Samson bursts of superstrength ( Judg 3:10, 6:34, 11:29, 13:25, 14:6 and 19, 15:14). This particular type of inspiration from Yahweh creates the capacity to succeed in battle, just as it did to judge between concerned parties and to prophesy. And yet, the only two figures aside from Deborah who are said to be both prophet and judge are Moses, the first judge (or proto-judge), and Samuel, the last. That Deborah is called a prophet while other judges are not may be related to the fact that Deborah is a judge in the model of Moses. While she is strongly associated with military victory as well, she is introduced as a judge in the other sense, as the leader to whom the people go for consultation: “She would sit under the Palm of Deborah . . . and the Israelites would come up to her for judgment” (‫ויעלו אליה בני ישראל למשפט‬, Judg 4:5). One approach that scholars have taken to Deborah’s dual role as prophet and judge is to excise one element or the other. Some remove the legal function, which requires providing a different explanation for the meaning of ‫משפט‬. In Boling’s view, the term here refers to oracular decisions. He sees the delivery of oracles as part of Deborah’s role as a military chief, reflecting a time when such leaders were responsible for oracular inquiry before

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battles. While this sounds plausible in theory, there is a certain paucity of evidence. He cites as examples Gideon in Judges 6–8, Micah in Judges 17– 18, and the birth of Samson in Judges 13; of these, only the first actually presents the picture he is describing. The lack of other examples is not in itself decisive—after all, I too am proposing that Deborah served a combined function that only two others shared, though these two characters seem to me to be significant ones. The more decisive factor is that verse 5 does not say that Deborah handed down ‫ משפט‬before battle. It says that she would sit under the Palm of Deborah, and the people, the Israelites, would come up to her for ‫משפט‬. This is not a picture of ad hoc martial divination, but of ongoing negotiation for all of the people who would come to her. Others remove the role of prophet from the description of Deborah’s functions. With baffling frequency, interpreters question whether Deborah was “really” a prophet. Some who take the designation seriously still suggest that it did not quite mean “prophet” in the sense of one who delivers messages from God. Matthews, for instance, understands Deborah’s prophetic role to be limited to the specific duty of mobilizing the military chief. By his summary, Deborah is then not quite a prophet and not quite a chief: “Deborah’s status as a prophet as well as a judge is found in this portrait of her summoning a military leader. Similar scenes for other prophets are found in Deut 31:7, where Moses summons Joshua . . . and in 1 Sam 15:2–3, where Samuel summons Saul.” It is unclear why her status as a prophet could not equally parallel other activities of Moses and Samuel, and ones 10. Boling, Judges, 95, 99–100. 11. Other readings arguing against the most straightforward meaning of ‫ משפט‬in Judg 4:5 seem more forced. Block takes the fact that other judges are not depicted as serving a legal function as an indication that Deborah must not be either, and so reads ‫ משפט‬as referring to oracles rather than legal matters: in other words, if Deborah seems to be unlike others in the book of Judges in this way, then the reading must be wrong. He argues on other grounds as well, notably that “in the present context it is difficult to see a connection between such a judicial function and her role in the rest of the narrative”; in other words, the judicial role must be separate from the rest, so we must not be seeing them together in this text. Block, “Deborah Among the Judges,” 236–44, quotation 237. Further afield is Spronk’s suggestion, using ‫ משפט‬as a springboard, that Judg 4: 4–5 is repressing an original tradition according to which Deborah practiced necromancy (“Deborah, a Prophetess: The Meaning and Background of Judges 4: 4–5,” 232–42). 12. Matthews, Judges and Ruth, 65.

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that are a bit more characteristic of their broader functions as prophets, even allowing for differences among all three. It is not necessary to explain away either part of Deborah’s role. The description is straightforward, and with both the lack of specific evidence to the contrary and the precedent of the same dual roles attributed to Moses and Samuel before and after her, we should assume that ‫ נביאה‬here refers to some actual prophetic role and that ‫ משפט‬refers to the legal judgments for which the people would come to her. Some do read the text this way, of course, but it is surprisingly rare. Soggin, for example, who understands Deborah as a prophet, takes issue with Boling’s reading of ‫ משפט‬and argues that the term refers here, as it does elsewhere, to “the administration of justice in general and all the problems connected with it.” He adds later, though, that the story of Deborah is “the only instance in which the forensic function of the judge coincides with the exercise of a prophetic ministry.” In fact, that Deborah combines these roles is not unique. Her role as a judge in the “forensic” sense is related to her role as a prophet, because these functions have a natural overlap, as seen in Moses’s description to Jethro in Exodus 18. However, these overlapping roles are also distinct, as seen in the tensions regarding the claim to prophetic authority among Moses’s judging assistants in Numbers 11. It is therefore not surprising that the explicit combination occurs, but infrequently. For whatever reason—the text does not specify, and to search for cause at some point becomes artificial—Deborah is seen as having a legitimate claim to prophetic authority, along with only Moses and Samuel among the judges. The definitive statement of Moses’s prophetic role in Deuteronomy 34: 9–12 encompasses the traits and actions of both prophet and judge, and judge in the senses of both advisor and chief. He had wisdom (by implication, since Joshua becomes full of the spirit of wisdom because Moses laid his hands on him), he knew Yahweh face-to-face, and he performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh in Egypt. Hosea’s reference to Moses includes the roles of prophet and of judge in the latter sense: “By a prophet Yahweh brought Israel up from Egypt” (Hos 12:14 [Eng. 12:13]). Like Moses, Deborah is remembered as a prophet and a judge, and the latter in both an advisory role as the people come up to her for ‫משפט‬, and a martial role as she (with others) frees her people from an oppressor. 13. Soggin, Judges, 64. 14. Ibid., 71.

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I argued above that the frequent reflexive comments that Deborah is like Miriam are incorrect, based as they are on the faulty assumption that their prophetic roles are enacted in the songs of Exodus 15 and Judges 5. We have seen so far that, in fact, Miriam’s claim to prophetic authority comes in her own statement in Numbers 12 that Yahweh speaks through her. I add to this now that Deborah’s prophetic authority is connected to her role as judge, as was Moses’s. Miriam’s prophetic role is overtly contested within one story (resulting in the unpleasantness at Hazerot), and the accumulated tradition is conflicted, here preserving her title as ‫נביאה‬, there limiting her authority. Deborah, in contrast, is remembered as an esteemed prophet and judge, without any sense of conflict. It is not Miriam whom Deborah resembles, but Moses. The presupposition that Deborah is similar to Miriam—which then obscures her actual presentation and role—naturally stems in large part from a sense that gender is somehow key to her depiction. This is not so. Most scholars who approach the text this way focus on the narrative of Judges 4. And to be sure, that text is highly gender-conscious—but the gender in question is not Deborah’s. An eyebrow is raised at the masculinity of the male characters. Deborah’s gender is not really an issue, except insofar as it serves to make Barak look the fool. It is noteworthy, given the prominent role of women and the raised eyebrow at the men, that the depiction of Deborah does not reflect any correlative criticism. One could easily imagine a narrator pointing to the weakness of the male characters by overdrawing the female, but in this story, Deborah’s gender only highlights that Barak cannot “man up”—“even a woman” can do what he cannot. This 15. Fischer sees Deborah framed as a successor to both Miriam and Moses. She notes that Deborah’s song is usually compared to Miriam’s, and draws an interesting comparison instead to the song of Moses, but then concludes that Deborah’s military role (e.g., her divine command to Barak) and her literary position as the first titled prophet after Moses depict her in Mosaic succession, while her song identifies her with the prophetic role of Miriam (Gotteskünderinnen, 120–23). Fischer also sees a line of succession from Moses to Deborah to Samuel, based in part on their shared combination of roles, but also on other literary details she sees linking the stories (pp. 126–27). 16. As summarized well by Lindars: “In general, the characterization of both Deborah and Jael shows an absence of stereotypes and presupposes a freedom of action which suggest a greater degree of social equality of women and men in old Israel than obtained after the rise of the monarchy” (Judges 1–5, 172).

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obviously reflects the author’s sense of normative gender roles, but this is different than an author aiming to depict a particular female character in a certain way. The author’s goal is to illustrate that the men are not living up to gender norms and that this reflects on Israel, but even throughout the rest of the story, the narrator does not do the same with the women. The portrayal of Deborah herself is just not strongly gendered, either negatively or positively. Among those who understand the story of the female prophet and judge to be about the fact that she is female, some are moderate. McCann, for example, reads the line introducing Deborah as an expression of amazement at her gender, and as the author’s further illustration after Judges 3 that Israel lacked suitable male leaders: “Ehud was a clever left-handed trickster; Shamgar may not even have been an Israelite; and now, the next judge is a woman!” This is a reasonable suggestion, but I see no more indication that the present story is about Deborah’s gender than that the previous story is about Ehud’s left-handedness. The introductory line may emphasize gender: “Now Deborah, a female prophet, the wife of Lappidot, she was judging Israel at that time” ( Judg 4:4). If it does, this is only through the phrase ‫ ;אשה נביאה‬but as Williamson has observed, the parallel phrase ‫ איש נביא‬occurs in the introduction to the next story ( Judg 6:8). Even if the line emphasizes gender, this still does not indicate surprise at the existence of a female prophet and judge; it sets the scene for the mockery of Barak, and later Sisera. Butler also focuses on this verse, stating repeatedly that “Deborah is first and foremost a woman.” After the second statement of this, he adds, “As such she holds offices most commonly held by men—judge and prophet—while also conforming to expectations as a wife. The emphasis on her gender points to the lack of men to fill such roles and to Deborah’s extraordinary talents. She points away from herself ” to the surprise hero, Jael. He concludes later that the first part of the text “focuses only on a female judge, prophetess, wife far removed from the enemy leaders.” While Butler reasonably objects to some overly positive views of Deborah (“Commentators easily make too much of Deborah”), he may then go a bit far 17. McCann, Judges, 49. 18. Williamson, “Prophetesses in the Hebrew Bible,” 68. Williamson sees Deborah’s introduction as “something of an editorial catch-all”; p. 69. 19. T. Butler, Judges, 92, 94, 95.

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in the other direction. The focus on this verse is puzzling, since the rest of the story is much more concerned with Deborah’s various actions: delivering ‫משפט‬, summoning Barak and telling him what Yahweh has commanded of him, instructing him in the specifics of what he should do on the battlefield, joining him in battle, and commanding him once more in the field in the name of Yahweh. On the optimistic end, some read the introductory verse as describing Deborah’s personality. The character is introduced as ‫דבורה אשה נביאה אשת‬ ‫לפידות‬. Even taken alone, ‫ אשת לפידות‬should be taken as a reference to Deborah’s husband (though see Niditch on Vaticanus, noted below). Given the parallel with Huldah, who is introduced as ‫חלדה הנביאה אשת שלם‬, it is unlikely that the phrase in Judges 4:4 means anything different. Nonetheless, many scholars suggest for ‫ אשת לפידות‬some version of “fiery woman,” which does not work well grammatically and has no precedent. Finally, there are those who see in the depiction of Deborah overall a celebration, defense, or vindication of womankind. There is no good indication that the ancient author was preoccupied with Deborah’s gender or intended to write a story about Deborah “as a woman,” let alone a story about womankind. As to Deborah’s role as judge, we should not be amazed to see a woman portrayed in a leadership position in Iron I Israel, as Meyers has established. As Ackerman has observed, the story of Deborah reflects what one might expect from the archaeological and ethnographic data supplied by Meyers. There are certainly both 20. Ibid., 91. 21. E.g., Schneider (“a fiery one”; Judges, 66); McCann (“Torch Lady”; Judges, 51–52); Niditch (“a woman of fire”; Judges, 60); and others. Niditch considers several possibilities, and points out that Codex Vaticanus translates “a woman of Lappidoth,” i.e., a location (Judges, 62), but in the end prefers the “fire” reading (p. 65). Gafney writes: “Her appellation ‘woman of Lappidoth’ does not clearly indicate that she is married; there is no role in her judicial administration, nor in her military campaign or prophetic compositions, for a spouse” (Daughters of Miriam, 116). 22. E.g., Bal, Murder and Difference: Gender, Genre, and Scholarship on Sisera’s Death; Yee, who reads the story as entirely about gender, and lauds Deborah for her strategic guerilla warfare, which in her view includes Jael’s actions (“By the Hand of a Woman: The Metaphor of the Woman Warrior in Judges 4,” 113–14). 23. Meyers, Discovering Eve, and Meyers’s later works. 24. Ackerman, “Digging Up Deborah,” 175–77.

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positive and negative depictions of female characters in Judges, but these match the range of depictions of men in Judges. As to her role as prophet, in some biblical texts about female diviners, gender is certainly an issue; in others, it is not. The story of Deborah—prophet and judge, more like Moses than like Miriam—falls into the latter category. 25. See similarly Olson, “Judges,” 782–83.

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6 Hannah Hannah does not prophesy in the Bible, but she is considered a prophet in later tradition. In Targum Jonathan, her poem is overtly and emphatically portrayed as a prophetic oracle, beginning with the introduction: “Hannah prayed in a spirit of prophecy and said . . .” The content is then structured around a series of future kings and kingdoms: “Concerning Sennacherib the king of Assyria—she prophesied and said . . .”; “concerning Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon—she prophesied and said . . .”; and so on, through Greece and Rome, as well as those walking in darkness in Gehenna. Hannah is also included in the list of seven female prophets in the Talmud, in Megillah 14a. The brief discussion there cites the opening verse of her psalm, “My heart rejoices in Yahweh, and my horn is exalted in 1. Harrington and Saldarini, Targum Jonathan of the Former Prophets, 105–6. While the additions to the text are remarkable, they are not unique to Hannah in Tg. Neb. The only other long additions are also made to poems: the song of Deborah and the song of David in 2 Sam 22 are expanded in a mode Harrington and Saldarini call “interpretative homiletics,” and the poem of 2 Sam 23:1–7 becomes “prophetic apocalypse” (pp. 10–12). On the early interpretation of Hannah, see Cook, Hannah’s Desire, God’s Design: Early Interpretation of the Story of Hannah. 2. The list in Meg. 14a (with continued discussion in Meg. 14b) includes Miriam, Deborah, and Huldah, and adds Sarah, Hannah, Esther, and Abigail, but leaves out the unnamed female prophet of Isa 8:3 and Noadiah. I treat Hannah here and not the other rabbinic additions because it is only in her case that specific features of the biblical text beg the question. For more on each of the others, see Bronner, From Eve to Esther, 163–84, and Elior, “Changing Perspectives: Female Prophets in the Bible and Rabbinic Perspective,” 15–21.

94

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Yahweh” (1 Sam 2:1), explaining that this refers to the kingdom of David, who was anointed with a horn. The interpretation of Hannah as a prophet in Christian tradition is also based on her poem. In the New Testament, Mary’s psalm includes strong allusions to Hannah’s, making Hannah’s look like fulfilled prophecy (Luke 1: 46–55). The final line of Hannah’s poem becomes central in later Christian interpretation. Augustine devotes an entire chapter in City of God to an explanation of Hannah’s words as prophecy, which he bases largely on the reference to the king as Yahweh’s “anointed,” or for Augustine, “His Christ.” This remained an explicit factor in later Christian formative interpretation of the poem as prophecy. The question, then, is whether the later traditions that see Hannah as a prophet are picking up on anything in the biblical text itself that indicates that the character is meant to be understood this way. Indeed, Hannah’s psalm does in some ways resemble a prophetic oracle—unlike, for example, the Song of the Sea. It includes a series of reversals of fortune of a familiar prophetic type (for example, Isa 35:1–10, 54:1), and then there is the final verse, in which Hannah proclaims that Yahweh “will give strength to his king, and raise the horn of his anointed” ( ‫עז למלכו וירם קרן משיחו‬-‫ויתן‬, 1 Sam 2:10), having only just weaned the boy who would anoint the first king. However, the psalm is not original to the story of Hannah. At whatever point it was written, as an independent poem it would not constitute prophecy. It is the editorial act of placing it in Hannah’s mouth—the mother of Samuel, speaking of the anointed king—that gives it its prophetic tone. What are we to make of this? Should we assume that the redactor saw the general appropriateness of the psalm and threw it in in spite of the anachronistic line about the monarchy? This hardly makes sense; the reference to 3. An interesting choice of a verse to cite, considering the reference to the king in the last line of the poem. 4. Augustine, Civ., 17.4. 5. E.g., from Matthew Henry’s introduction to 1 Samuel: “The song of Hannah concludes with a prophecy of our Lord, in which He is, for the first time, predicted expressly as the Messiah, the Anointed of God” (The Comprehensive Commentary on the Whole Bible, 2:19). 6. For different views on the dating of the song and its insertion into the text, see McCarter, 1 Samuel, 75; Klein, 1 Samuel, 14–15; and Willis, “The Song of Hannah and Psalm 113,” 139–54.

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the monarchy is more likely part of what makes the poem relevant to Hannah as she gives thanks for the birth of Samuel. Whatever the redactor’s thought process here, the choice to attribute this psalm to Hannah upon the birth of her son forms the beginning of her association with prophecy. We are dealing with three stages of development, then: the original Hannah narrative, the addition of the poem, and later Jewish and Christian interpretation naming Hannah as a prophet. At which stage did Hannah’s association with prophecy become deliberate? Was there a hook already in the narrative, leading the redactor to respond to the existing story by placing a psalm in Hannah’s mouth that rings of the prophetic? Or if nothing in the original story points to this, is the poem itself “prophetic” enough to warrant identifying Hannah as a biblical prophet? Or, if neither of these is the case, what was it in the combination of the poetry and prose that led to such a strong trend in later interpretation?

Hannah’s Story The story of Hannah is primarily the story of her struggle with infertility and the conflicts and frustrations this brings. The first thing we are told about Hannah is that, unlike Peninnah, she has no children. Peninnah already has at least four children, referred to as “all of her sons and daughters” (1 Sam 1:4). We do not know for how long this situation lasted, but we know that it was significant in both time and trauma. We hear that Yahweh has closed Hannah’s womb, and Peninnah angers her on account of her barrenness; year after year, whenever they went up to Shiloh, she would make Hannah angry, and Hannah would cry and not eat (v. 7). Hannah is then said to be bitter of spirit, ‫( מרת נפש‬1 Sam 1:10); one naturally thinks here of Hushai’s warning to Absalom, mid-usurpation attempt, that David and his men are “embittered, like a bear robbed [of her cubs] in the wild” (‫ומרי נפש המה כדב שכול בשדה‬, 2 Sam 17:8). Note that ‫ מרי נפש‬in that context is often translated as “fierce” (NASB, NIV ) or “enraged” (NKJV, ESV ). And indeed, Hannah too is enraged. Verbal and nominal forms of the word ‫ כעס‬occur four times in the first section of this story: “her rival angered her, such anger” (‫כעס‬-‫;וכעסתה צרתה גם‬ assuming the emphatic use of ‫גם‬, 1 Sam 1:6); year after year “she made her angry” (‫תכעסנה‬, v. 7). The verse is not generally rendered this way: translators and other interpreters would have Peninnah “taunt” (NJPS), 7. Or as Rashi understands: ‫ כעס אחר כעס‬:‫כעס‬-‫גם‬.

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“irritate” (NASB), or “provoke” (NKJV ) Hannah. This is not what the text says. We are told only that Peninnah angers Hannah; perhaps she does something, but for all we know, it is the mere sight of the innocent but fortunate wife that makes Hannah angry, just as Saul will become angry at the innocent but frustratingly successful David. The assumption that Peninnah “taunts” Hannah is laden with gendered stereotypes of female competition. It is not what the verb means, and I have not found it translated as such in any other context. The fourth use of ‫כעס‬, the one in Hannah’s own voice, provides a vivid picture of the scene. When Eli accuses Hannah of drunkenness, she protests that she has been speaking “out of the greatness of my complaint and my anger” (‫מרב שיחי וכעסי‬, v. 16). This too is softened in translation, or perhaps “feminized,” as various renditions make Hannah speak out of her “anguish and distress” (NJPS), “concern and provocation” (NASB), “complaint and grief ” (NKJV), and so on. But no: Hannah is not sad, she is angry. This also sheds light on Eli’s reaction. It is not that no one had ever silently mouthed prayers before, as is sometimes suggested, but that Hannah is silently “pouring out [her] soul” in complaint and rage. What must that have looked like? No wonder Eli thinks she is drunk. So Hannah prays and sobs (‫ובכה תבכה‬, v. 10) in her anger, makes her vow to Yahweh, and explains to Eli: “I am a hard-spirited woman” (‫רוח אנכי‬-‫אשה קשת‬, v. 15), again softened to “unhappy” (NJPS) or “sorrowful” (NKJV). It is unclear what particular brand of misery this expresses—what it means to be hard, severe, harsh of spirit—but “unhappy” seems mild. We read that she and Elkanah went home and had sex, and Yahweh remembered her. The text continues to give unusual attention to Hannah’s inner world, not just labeling her “barren” (or infertile), but offering a window onto her experience of and feelings about childlessness. Once Samuel is finally born, we see Hannah’s reluctance to give up the boy too soon: when Elkanah and the household go back up to Shiloh, she does not go with them, telling her husband, “Until the boy is weaned (‫ !)עד יגמל הנער‬Then I will bring him; for when he appears before Yahweh, he will stay there forever” (1 Sam 1:22). 8. According to Ber. 31a, Hannah’s silent prayer is a model for all; by my reading, this would make for quite a global scene. 9. And little does he know: she indeed is no ‫בליעל‬-‫( בת‬1:16), unlike his sons, soon shown to be quite the ‫( בני בליעל‬2:12). 10. The phrasing is adjusted to work in English in all sorts of ways, many of which are perfectly reasonable (e.g., “Not until the boy is weaned”). My rendering here is direct and perhaps too literal, but the abbreviated insistence expresses

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Each detail lingers on Hannah’s attachment to her son. Having already witnessed the conversation between Hannah and Elkanah agreeing to keep Samuel at home until he is weaned (with this phrase repeated a second time), we now hear again, “So she nursed her son until she weaned him” (‫גמלה אתו‬-‫בנה עד‬-‫ותינק את‬, 1 Sam 1:23). And then a fourth time: “So, she brought him up with her when she had weaned him” (v. 24). Here again, we cannot escape how young he is: Hannah finally brings little Samuel to Shiloh, “and the boy was just a boy” (‫והנער נער‬, 1:24). If the Akedah famously shows Abraham’s tenderness toward Isaac through such repetition (“my son . . . my only”), this story reveals Hannah’s toward Samuel. Just as that story is not about Isaac but about Abraham, torn as he is between his devotion to his beloved child and his devotion to Yahweh, this story is about Hannah’s dual devotion as she comes to terms with giving up her son to Yahweh. The poignant details continue after the inserted prayer also, as the author notes how every year Hannah would make Samuel a new little robe (1 Sam 2:19). The whole story to this point has centered on Hannah’s inner world: first her anger and pain, then her poignant attachment to her child—‫—והנער נער‬ and reluctance to let him go. Finally, Hannah and Elkanah make their sacrifice and turn the boy over to Eli. Yes, Eli: the very man who had insulted Hannah when he mistook her impassioned prayer for drunken raving. She remembers this accusation: she tells Eli that she is the woman he saw praying that day, that this is the boy she had prayed for, and that Yahweh answered her prayer and gave her what she had requested. This is the moment of her vindication— and it is at this juncture that the redactor inserts Hannah’s prayer.

Hannah’s Prayer The poem of 1 Samuel 2:1–10 is usually referred to as a “song,” presumably by analogy with other inserted poems where the vocabulary of something otherwise lost: a tone of urgency? A hint, even, that this is not the first occurrence of the conversation? Perhaps: Elkanah agrees, but adds, “May Yahweh nevertheless confirm his word” (‫דברו‬-‫אך יקם יהוה את‬, v. 23), i.e., to take Samuel as a Nazirite. In other words, “Okay, but I hope Yahweh will still want him.” 11. This phrase may well be corrupt, but it does also make good sense, as it must have at some point to an ancient eye. 12. For different takes on 1:20, in which Samuel’s name is explained using the verb ‫שאל‬, see McCarter, 1 Samuel, 62–63; Hertzberg, 1 and 2 Samuel, 25–26; and Gordon, 1 and 2 Samuel, 23–24.

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song is used (for example, ‫שירה‬, Deut 31:30, 32:44; ‫ שירה‬,‫ישיר‬, and so on, Exod 15:1; ‫ותשר‬, Judg 5:1; ‫שירה‬,i2 Sam 22:1). This is not a song, however, but a spoken prayer: “Hannah prayed and said . . .” (. . . ‫ותתפלל חנה ותאמר‬, 1 Sam 2:1). The terms “psalm” and “song” are used imprecisely and inconsistently in scholarly discussion of biblical texts. We can refer to Hannah’s words as a song if by this we mean that it is a sudden inbreaking of poetry, but this terminology is misleading, since the narrative does not present it as sung. The word “song” is at times used this way in the field, but not in normal English. What distinguishes a poem from a song is that the latter is sung, and by this very basic standard, the prayer of Hannah in 1 Samuel 2:1–10 is not a song. If Eli has mistaken Hannah’s first prayer as one kind of outburst, we have mistaken her second prayer as another. The risk here is that the image of a woman singing a song could create an unwarranted association with Miriam and Deborah, the two women given the title ‫נביאה‬, to whom songs are attributed. Even if Hannah were said to “sing,” this would not constitute a reason to consider her a prophet. As discussed in the previous two chapters, the songs partially attributed to Miriam and Deborah do not reflect these women’s prophetic status. To move ahead under such a misapprehension here, and then draw a conclusion regarding Hannah’s role as a “prophet” based on a mistaken view of her prayer as a “song,” would be wrong on any number of levels. If the designation of the poem as a “song” leads to an overemphasis on its hypothetical nature as prophecy, it also leads to an underemphasis on its nature as prayer, which is how it is explicitly described. It matters that this is 13. The form ‫ לאמר‬may be used to introduce the words of a song where it is specified through the primary verb that it is in fact a song (‫ לאמר‬. . . ‫ותשר‬, Judg 5:1), but in 1 Sam 2:1–10, there is no song terminology used at all; the primary verb in the introductory phrase implies speech, and the form of ‫ אמר‬has the connotation of actual speaking (‫ ותאמר‬. . . ‫)ותתפלל‬. 14. The general association is common. Fischer understands the connection in a more specific, albeit complex, way. As noted earlier, she sees Deborah depicted as a successor both to Miriam (in her song) and to Moses, and then Samuel as the successor to Deborah. She describes the prophetic succession as passed through Hannah (in literary terms). In Fischer’s view, Hannah’s song reflects her prophetic function in the model of Miriam, and she passes on this role to her son Samuel, who, as prophet, judge, and military leader, stands in succession to both Deborah and Moses (Gotteskünderinnen, 125–27).

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a prayer: read this way, it is utterly in line with the characterization of Hannah so far. This is her second prayer, and in several ways it mirrors her first. Beginning with the more obvious mirroring, the two prayers are a “please” and “thank you.” Hannah’s first prayer (1:10–11) was a request; this one is now its counterpart, her prayer of thanksgiving after the request has been granted. Then there is the reference in the second prayer to the barren woman bearing children, which addresses the specifics of Hannah’s request (and is the clear hook for the redactor in attributing the poem to Hannah). The mirroring extends considerably beyond this. The prayer in 1 Sam 2: 1–10 reflects Hannah’s experience and her strongest feelings, which were emphasized in the original narrative. This is evident in verse 5, where Hannah does not celebrate only that “the barren woman gives birth to seven,” but also that “the mother of many pines away” (‫)ורבת בנים אמללה‬. The second phrase does not automatically go with the first; consider Psalm 113:9, where Yahweh is praised for making the barren woman a joyful mother of children—and that is all. In contrast, the ill wishes here against the mother of many are striking. Since when does thanking Yahweh involve such schadenfreude? Of course, Hannah’s bitter anger is nothing new. Just as her first prayer was introduced, “She was embittered of spirit and she prayed to Yahweh, sobbing,” her second prayer reflects her embittered spirit as well. The core of the poem is a series of great reversals of fortune at the hand of Yahweh—the strong warriors and the weak, the rich and the poor—and so the inclusion of the barren woman’s counterpart makes sense in this context, even apart from any correlation to the Hannah story. But the connection to Hannah’s experience should not be downplayed for this reason. Whether because the redactor found an extremely relevant fit or did some writing of his own here, the points of connection are surprisingly close. The poem does not contain a stock reference to the peculiar biblical category of the “post-barren” woman, but a strikingly relevant contrast between two women. As with each other reversal of fortune, the second part is as important as the first. If we understand that the “post-barren” mother of seven in the poem alludes to Hannah, we can equally assume that the mother of many alludes to Peninnah. Hannah’s first prayer was a focal point in the author’s portrayal of her distress: she prayed with such bitterness and sobbing that Eli thought her a lush; she explained to him that she was not drunk, but hard-spirited. Her anger was also emphasized over and over again in the narrative. Now, in her second prayer, Hannah celebrates not only that the barren woman has

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borne children, but that her counterpart, the mother of many, languishes. Apparently she is not quite over her anger. The poem’s points of connection to the story of Hannah are not limited to the line juxtaposing the “post-barren” woman with the mother of many. Framing the series of reversals that comprises the core of the poem (1 Sam 2: 4–8), there are two more lines that are germane to Hannah’s experience. Just before this core section is the line, “Do not keep talking so utterly proudly, with arrogance spilling out of your mouths” (1 Sam 2:3), and just after it, “The wicked will be silenced” (2:9). Though we do not know that Peninnah “taunted” Hannah, we do know that the narrative frames her as Hannah’s adversary at whom she is deeply angry. Eli has certainly spoken wrongly to Hannah, falsely accusing her of drunkenness when she was in fact praying. This episode is particularly relevant, since the poem is inserted just at the moment of Hannah’s vindication before Eli. The paired lines in the poem about silencing the arrogant seem to suit the narrative as well. In addition, part of the opening line of the prayer is about the speaker smiling over her enemies. The poem is not a reflexive insertion that hinges solely on one allusion to motherhood. From its opening on smiling over one’s enemies and its theme of silencing the smug, to the speaker’s satisfaction at the mother of many languishing, the prayer ties into Hannah’s experiences throughout the story. This poem works extremely well as the prayer of a woman who is described repeatedly as angry and angered (with four uses of ‫ כעס‬in one short narrative), ‫מרת נפש‬, and ‫רוח‬-‫קשת‬, contrasted with Peninnah and in conflict with Eli. There is still the matter of the last line. The final couplet of the poem refers to the king, who does not yet exist. While this line is not directly relevant to the story of Hannah as presented in 1 Samuel 1, it could easily be another hook for the redactor, who sees the bigger picture of Hannah giving birth to the new order. The Hannah story points to the monarchy, as she bears the child who will anoint the first kings. The reference in the poem to Yahweh exalting the horn of his anointed then comes across as a matter of literary foreshadowing. There is no indication that it goes beyond this, that it is intended to be a sudden prophetic utterance. All signs point to the contrary. The poem is rich with themes relevant to Hannah’s personal experience, and thus appears more as a prayer of praise and thanksgiving than as a lead-in to a prophetic outburst. There is also no hint of earlier divinatory activity that would lead to an oracle here: what Hannah asks for in the narrative is a son, and not knowledge, and the redactor inserts this prayer as her response to receiving what she requested. The theme of reversals of fortune,

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while also present in some prophetic texts, is not automatically an identifier of prophecy (for example, Ps 20:8–9 [Eng. 20:7–8]). The theme is a natural fit here, in the context of Hannah’s psalm of vindication. Even the final couplet rings of Hannah’s own vindication. The poem closes with the declaration that Yahweh will exalt the horn of his anointed (‫)וירם קרן משיחו‬, but this parallels the opening verse, in which it is the speaker’s horn that is exalted (‫)רמה קרני ביהוה‬. The poem vindicates the speaker from start to finish. As noted earlier, the explanation of Hannah’s prophetic role in Megillah 14a rests on the exalted horn image, though interestingly it is the first line of the poem that is cited, rather than the last. The horn is explained there—even in the first line, about the speaker—as a symbol of the Davidic dynasty. Note that although the last line explicitly mentions the king, the phrase itself need not refer to the horn of anointing. In Psalm 75, for example, the psalmist tells the fools not to exalt their own horns in arrogance (75:6 [Eng. 75:5]) and then concludes with the proclamation that he will cut off the horns of the wicked, but the horns of the righteous will be exalted (75:11 [Eng. 75:10]). This is also the sense of the idiom in the first line of Hannah’s prayer. It is hard not to notice a generally chiastic structure to the poem: A: Horn (of speaker) is exalted B: Vindication over enemies (smiling over them) C: Stop speaking in arrogance! D: Series of reversals of fortune at the hands of Yahweh C: The wicked will be silenced B: Vindication over adversaries (they are broken) A: Horn (of anointed) is exalted

Identifying this structure is useful for highlighting themes and for clarity of discussion, but these themes are present whether or not one views the poem as a chiasm. The speaker emphasizes her vindication before her 15. This structure suggests that the final couplet regarding the king is not a later addition, as is sometimes proposed. For other arguments that the couplet is original to the poem, see Lewis, “The Textual History of the Song of Hannah: 1 Sam II 1–10,” 43–44. 16. I am generally suspicious of interpretations that purport to work in the other direction—i.e., that supposedly begin with an objectively observed chiastic structure—since it is possible to delimit texts in a variety of ways according to one’s view of what the pinnacle of the chiasm should be. I am therefore of the

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enemies, who have spoken smugly but should be silent and will in fact be silenced, while her horn and the horn of Yahweh’s anointed will be exalted. Hannah’s prayer does not reflect prophetic activity by virtue of being a woman’s “song,” nor by virtue of its final line regarding the king. On the first issue, even if a woman’s song were in fact an indicator of her prophetic role (and it is not), this poem is explicitly not a song, but a spoken prayer. On the second issue, the mention of the king is not central to the poem and not the main hook for the redactor. If it was part of the redactor’s rationale in inserting the prayer, it was due to Hannah’s literary position and her role as mother of the new order, not because of any intent to depict her as a prophet. Had that been the redactor’s aim, he could have done far better. This is a psalm of vindication, with themes from Hannah’s experience reverberating throughout, and the redactor’s choice to attribute the poem to Hannah must be based on its close relevance to her (or includes additional editing that makes it so). The final line is a moment of literary foreshadowing, not a portrayal of a person engaging in divination. Even that line parallels the speaker’s own exaltation: it is Hannah who is exalted and vindicated here. In the end, it is not about Samuel, David, or anyone else, but about Hannah.

Whence Hannah the Prophet? Coming back to the three stages of development, we can see first that there is nothing in the original narrative portrayal of Hannah that should associate her with prophecy. Her defining traits and experiences are her conflict with Peninnah, her anger about this, which is emphasized repeatedly, and her prayer, which she utters with such bitter sobbing that Eli takes her to be drunk. Unlike Rebekah, who requests knowledge about the twins she is carrying, Hannah only requests a child. Second, there is also nothing in the form or content of the inserted prayer to suggest that the redactor intends to depict Hannah as engaging in prophetic activity. The matters of the “song” and the foreshadowing of the king have been covered. The theme of reversals of fortune appears in some prophetic texts, but also appears elsewhere. For that matter, if the reversals are not “prophetic” for their overarching theme, they are even less so for their particulars. As Randall Bailey points out, through the rest of Samuel, opinion that noting a chiastic structure may be helpful for discussion, but not definitive for interpretation.

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Yahweh does not in fact “raise up the poor from the dust” or “the needy from the ash heap.” So it is only in the third stage, that of Jewish and Christian interpretation after the period of the writing of the Hebrew Bible, that Hannah comes to be associated with prophecy. The reasons for this association in both Jewish and Christian traditions are understandable, but this is quite different than the character actually being portrayed as engaging in divinatory activity. There is nothing either in the original narrative or in the inserted psalm of vindication that would register as an act of divination in any sense native to the ancient framework. Seeing Hannah as a prophet (which requires seeing her poem as prophecy) is not a harmless expansion of her role. In addition to being imprecise regarding textual details and matters of what constitutes divinatory activity, it also takes away from the actual depiction of the character by reading her prayer as being about some later figure, rather than about Hannah herself. She utters this prayer—inserted at the moment of her vindication before Eli—still bitter enough to exhort her enemies to stop being so arrogant, to celebrate the silencing of her adversary, and to take satisfaction in the languishing of the mother of many. This prayer is about her. With this said, there is one line in the poem that I do like to read as an allusion to a future event, though it is certainly not intended that way. Among the series of reversals of fortune, one is particularly intriguing. What does it mean to say, “Yahweh kills and makes live, brings down to Sheol and brings up” (‫יהוה ממית ומחיה מוריד שאול ויעל‬,i1 Sam 2:6)? To kill and to make live, sure; but if Yahweh is bringing some people down to Sheol . . . whom is he bringing up? With full acknowledgment that this is not the redactor’s goal, I like to see in this a hint of another story, which is the topic of the next chapter. 17. Bailey, “The Redemption of YHWH: A Literary Critical Function of the Songs of Hannah and David,” 117–18.

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7 The Necromancer of En-dor The story in 1 Samuel 28 of the necromancer of En-dor—all too often referred to as the “witch” of En-dor—is the Bible’s only narrative description of necromancy. Perhaps no other text discussed in this volume has had a history so thoroughly colored by the misconceptions discussed in chapter 2. The woman has been viewed as practicing dark magic rather than engaging in religious activity; as performing a type of divination that must be either foreign or idolatrous, and in either case is certainly “false”; as working the shady back rooms of “popular” religion; and so on. At the same time, perhaps no other story of a female diviner so fully exhibits the range of perspectives on divinatory practices among biblical traditions.

The ‫אוב‬-‫בעלת‬

‫אשת‬

The character is not a witch. This is not simply a matter of interpretation. The word ‫מכשפה‬, “sorceress” or “witch” (as in Exod 22:17 [Eng. 22:18]), does not appear here; nor does a feminine form of ‫חבר חבר‬, the “spell caster” who follows the ‫ מכשפה‬in the list of magicians and diviners in Deuteronomy 18:10–11. The term ‫בעלת כשפים‬, “sorceress” (Nah 3:4), could have been used here and was not. The woman is instead called an ‫אוב‬-‫אשת בעלת‬, a “woman who is a ghost-diviner.” The technical terminology matches the description of the woman’s actions: she does not practice witchcraft or cast a spell, but acts as an intermediary between the living and the dead. The vocabulary used throughout the rest of the text also consistently points to the woman’s role as a necromancer, and not to witchcraft. Saul is not looking for someone to cast a spell, but to raise a ghost (‫)אוב‬. The setup to the story prepares the reader for the irony of Saul resorting to this type of 105

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diviner: he has exiled the mediums and spiritists (‫הידענים‬-‫)האבות ואת‬, then seeks out an ‫אוב‬-‫אשת בעלת‬, and says to her, “Divine for me by a ghost” (‫נא לי באוב‬-‫)קסמי‬. The term ‫אוב‬-‫ אשת בעלת‬does not appear elsewhere in the Bible, but the implication is that, at least within the world of the story, it is a recognized role. Saul asks his servants to find him an ‫אוב‬-‫אשת בעלת‬, and they do not cock their heads and look at him funny: they reply that there is an ‫אוב‬-‫ אשת בעלת‬in En-dor (1 Sam 28:7). The construction of the term has been treated as odd or even mysterious, but it has clear relationships to other divinatory titles. To begin with ‫אוב‬-‫ בעלת‬by itself: the formulation x-‫ בעל‬to refer to a diviner appears elsewhere as well. In Genesis 37:19, Joseph’s brothers mock him, saying, ‫הנה בעל החלמות הלזה בה‬, “Oh look, here comes that dream-diviner!” As Joseph is characterized by his dreaming, the ‫אוב‬-‫ בעלת‬is characterized by her affiliation with ghosts: as he is a “dream-diviner,” she is a “ghost-diviner.” The construction ‫אוב‬-‫ בעלת‬is analogous to the Akkadian term for “necromancer,” ša et.emmi, which is the lexical equivalent of LÚ GIDIM. MA, as seen in the Sumerian-Akkadian lexical lists of professions (OB Lu A and B-C). The use of LÚ=ša in these titles is the semantic equivalent of the Hebrew use of x-‫ בעל‬in the sense of “person of x; one who possesses x; one characterized by x.” The performance of the role need not be the same across such a span of time and space, but the analogous terminology demonstrates further that ‫אוב‬-‫ בעלת‬is not merely a description, but a title. The overall form ‫אוב‬-‫ אשת בעלת‬is similar to the construct chain ‫ערף‬-‫קשה‬-‫עם‬, a stiff-necked people (Exod 32:9), where the second and 1. Ketiv ‫ ;קסומי‬Qere ‫קסמי‬. On the verb ‫קסם‬, which may originally have had to do with drawing lots but came to be used more broadly for any type of divination, see Jeffers’s study of Hebrew and other Northwest Semitic vocabulary relating to divination (Magic and Divination, 96–98), as well as Cryer, Divination in Ancient Israel, 255–63. 2. In contrast with McCarter’s “ghostwife,” which reflects a choice of the symbolic marital sense of [ ‫ בעל]ה‬rather than the sense of being characterized by or having mastery over something (McCarter, I Samuel, 417–23). Klein’s translation, “a woman dealing with ancestral spirits,” may reflect the latter sense of the phrase (1 Samuel, 267). 3. OB Lu-azlag A 356 and OB Lu-azlag B-C, Seg. 6, 3; in the latter as ša it․emmi. CAD E 401a, ePSD; also see Civil, ed., The Series lú = ša and Related Texts, 168:356 and 226:148. I see that the same point has been made by Tropper, Nekromantie, 225.

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third terms form one construct (‫ערף‬-‫קשה‬, “stiff-of-neck,” and ‫אוב‬-‫בעלת‬, “ghost-diviner”), and that unit together with the first term form another construct. In both cases, the first term refers generically to a person or people and is understood as relative to the second unit: “a people who are stiff-necked” and “a woman who is a ghost-diviner,” so “a stubborn people” and “a necromancer.” The term ‫ אוב‬is not without its complexities. The word has multiple meanings, including “ghost” (or “spirit of the dead”), the practitioner who consults the dead, and images of the dead, and it is not always clear which texts reflect which meanings. By my reading, of the sixteen uses of the word, nine refer to spirits of the dead (with a possible tenth, mentioned below). In eight cases, this is certain: Leviticus 20:27 (‫יהיה בהם אוב או ידעני‬-‫אשה כי‬-‫)איש או‬, Deuteronomy 18:11 (‫ שאל אוב‬used in parallel with ‫המתים‬-‫)דרש אל‬, 4. The constructs formed by the second and third terms (B+C) are of different types—‫אוב‬-‫ בעלת‬is essentially an attributive construct, and ‫ערף‬-‫ קשה‬is epexegetical, i.e., the direction of modification is reversed (see both as discussed in IBHS §9.5.3c)—but the unusual chains A+(B+C), both meaning A=(B+C), are of the same type. It is not necessary to posit a conflation of two terms, ‫אשת אוב‬ and ‫אוב‬-‫—בעלת‬in both occurrences of the full phrase in the text—as McCarter does (1 Samuel, 418). The LXX should not have priority here. 5. The word’s notoriously unclear etymology has bedeviled scholars and led to an array of propositions, which have at times been too quick to correlate a precise meaning in first millennium Hebrew texts to those in second millennium Hittite, Sumerian, Akkadian, and Ugaritic. A prime and influential example of this would be the “ritual pit” theory of Hoffner, “Second Millennium Antecedents to the Hebrew ’ô-b,” 385–401, based largely on Hittite api, “pit,” as well as other cognates. Other chief theories of derivation include Arabic ’āba, “to return” (Schmidt, Israel’s Beneficent Dead, 151; Lewis, Cults of the Dead in Ancient Israel and Ugarit, 113 n.36); and ‫אב‬, father, so “ancestor spirit” (Lust, “On Wizards and Prophets,” 133–42; Tropper, Nekromantie, 191–92). See Tropper’s overview of arguments regarding the ‫ אוב‬and ‫( ידעני‬pp. 189–204), and his own argument that the biblical texts do not always make a precise distinction between ‫אבות‬ and ‫( אָבות‬312–16). For a very brief summary, see also Tropper, “Spirit of the Dead,” 806–9; and for a lengthy discussion of relevant issues and full bibliography, see Kleiner, Saul in En-Dor, 57–184. 6. There is no uniformity in the use of the terms “spirit of the dead” and “ghost” in English. The former better reflects the ancient concept in its overlap with deity language, but in modern parlance the latter may better connote a being that can appear, visibly. The concept does not translate. I will use both of these two closest equivalents here.

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1 Samuel 28:7 (‫אוב‬-‫בעלת‬, twice) and 28:8 (‫נא לי באוב‬-‫)קסומי‬, Isaiah 8:19 (‫האבות‬-‫דרשו אל‬, used in parallel with both ‫ מתים‬and ‫)אלהיו‬, and Isaiah 29:4 (‫)כאוב מארץ‬. In two more cases, the word is at times translated differently but must also refer to spirits of the dead, rather than necromancers: Leviticus 20:6 (‫הידענים לזנות אחריהם‬-‫האבת ואל‬-‫)והנפש אשר תפנה אל‬, because in the sexual idiom characterizing “idolatry,” one does not prostitute oneself after people, only after deities; and Leviticus 19:31 (‫תבקשו לטמאה בהם‬-‫הידענים אל‬-‫האבת ואל‬-‫תפנו אל‬-‫)אל‬, which, given its proximity to Leviticus 20:6 and shared ‫ תפנו‬language, should have the same meaning. Three uses refer to the human specialists who divine by these types of spirits: in 1 Samuel 28:3 and 28:9, Saul removes the ‫ אבות‬and ‫ ידענים‬from the land. Where the story is encapsulated in 1 Chronicles 10:13, the phrasing implies the same usage (‫)לשאול באוב לדרוש‬. In three texts, the term refers to a physical object, apparently a cultic representation of a spirit (that is, an ancestor). In 2 Kings 23:24, Josiah burns ‫ אבות‬along with other cultic items (‫הגללים‬-‫התרפים ואת‬-‫הידענים ואת‬-‫האבות ואת‬-‫)את‬. The other two (nearly) parallel texts refer to Manasseh having “made” an ‫אוב‬, after which he places in the temple an image of Asherah that he has also “made” (2 Kgs 21:6–7 ≈ 2 Chr 33:6–7; Chronicles has an unnamed “idol”). The final reference, in Isaiah 19:3 (‫הידענים‬-‫האבות ואל‬-‫האטים ואל‬-‫האלילים ואל‬-‫)ודרשו אל‬, could be understood as images of the dead or the dead themselves. The term thus most often means “ghost” or “spirit of the dead.” This meaning should be considered primary, with the less frequent meanings of “image of the dead” and “ghost-diviner” derived from it. The usage of the term to mean “image of the dead” is comparable to the use of words for “god” to refer to the statue of a god. The use of the term to mean “ghostdiviner” could conceivably have been based on a notion that the spirit of the deceased could enter the necromancer, though that is certainly not what happens in this narrative. See Leviticus 20:27, though, where it is 7. Tropper and Loretz both see the plural references to ‫ אבות‬and ‫ ידענים‬at the beginning of 1 Sam 28 as images as well, but this seems a difficult reading. I do not see that in the present context we are meant to think that Saul could have had all such images removed from the land; would this then include household images of the dead? They do both see ‫ אוב‬in the singular later in 1 Sam 28 as referring to the spirit of the dead. Tropper, Nekromantie, 223–25; Loretz, “Nekromantie und Totenevokation in Mesopotamien, Ugarit und Israel,” 308–9.

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deemed necessary to stone the man or woman who has an ‫ אוב‬or ‫ ידעני‬in them (‫יהיה בהם אוב או ידעני‬-‫אשה כי‬-‫)איש או‬. ‫( אוב‬or ‫ )אבות‬is frequently used in parallel with ‫ידענים‬, which has a similar range of meanings (a knowing spirit, the spiritist who divines through it, and a cultic object representing the spirit in some way). Given the feminine and masculine forms of the plurals, some have suggested that ‫ אבות‬and ‫ ידענים‬refer to female and male necromancers, respectively. Others understand these as female and male practitioners of different kinds: Jobling, for instance, refers to the “women mediums of Israel . . . paired with a male group, the ‘wizards.’” However, the evidence does not suggest that necromancers were more likely to be female (as I will discuss). Moreover, the grammatical gender of a plural ending does not have to indicate actual gender. There is a further logical problem in this instance: ‫ אבות‬only occasionally and secondarily refers to necromancers, and primarily means “ghosts,” where the grammatically feminine plural ending clearly does not specify the sex of the ghosts. Some view the terms ‫ אוב‬and ‫ ידעני‬as synonymous, but if this were the case, one would have to wonder on what basis entirely different terminology developed, and why the terms would regularly be used in tandem. 8. Loretz understands this as a late reference to divination by means of ventriloquism (“Nekromantie und Totenevokation,” 311), but note Lee’s observation of the language in Lev 20:27 in relation to the surrounding physical descriptions of people with skin disease and other ailments “in” or “on” them. She also suggests that the term ‫אוב‬-‫ בעלת‬may indicate a greater level of agency or control than the phrase in Lev 20:27, where such possession could be seen as accidental. Lee, “Embodiment of a Spirit and Pronouncement of Its Words: Necromancers in Leviticus 20:27.” 9. In eleven of its sixteen occurrences, ‫ אוב‬is paired with ‫ידעני‬. In six cases, both terms are in the plural, in three cases both are singular, and twice one is singular and the other plural. There is no correspondence between the range of meanings and the sing. and pl. uses. 10. Lewis, Cults of the Dead, 114. 11. Jobling, 1 Samuel, 185–86. 12. If those who see ‫ אוב‬as etymologically connected to ‫ אָב‬are correct, this would provide another obvious reason not to read too much into the feminine plural. 13. Jeffers considers the terms synonymous, on the grounds that “it is hard to prove . . . that the two terms are distinct” (Magic and Divination, 172). Lewis suggests that it may have been a common hendiadys (Cults of the Dead, 114). If the pairing is a hendiadys representing “different aspects of the same spirit,” with the second term as an interpretation of the first, “in complete harmony

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Without evidence to the contrary, we should assume that the different vocabulary is indicative of different concepts; these nouns are no more likely to be synonymous than ‫ תרפים‬and ‫גללים‬, which follow them in 2 Kings 23:24. While we cannot be certain based on the data available, it is conceivable, for instance, that ‫ אוב‬refers to a spirit of the dead, and ‫ ידעני‬refers to a knowledgeable spirit, but not one of a dead person. People might inquire of ‫ אבות‬or ‫ידענים‬, but a necromancer (‫אוב‬-‫ )בעלת‬divines by an ‫( אוב‬as Saul specifically requests). This is conjecture, though, and narrow and systematic definitions should not be assumed at all, let alone based on the amount of evidence available. In 1 Samuel 28, then, we have a “ghost-diviner”—a woman whose title is recognized by the characters in the story, and unlikely to be a spontaneous fiction, analogous as it is to the professional title ša et.emmi (and its lexical equivalent LÚ GIDIM.MA). This woman is, by implication, one of the ‫ אבות‬Saul aimed to throw out of the land in verse 3. In this story alone, the expansive vocabulary for the world of spirits and their diviners reflects a breadth of necromantic activity: the ‫ אבות‬and ‫ידענים‬ have been exiled; one of the ‫ אבות‬comes into view, now called by the title ‫אוב‬-‫ ;אשת בעלת‬she is asked to divine (‫ )קסם‬by an ‫ ;אוב‬she complies, raising an ‫אלהים‬. In addition to “ghost-diviner,” I use both the terms “medium” and “necromancer” here, in order to convey the presence of a combination of elements in the text that do not line up with the modern Western usage of either term alone: the woman seeks divine knowledge from the spirit of the dead (the act of a necromancer), and creates a way for the speech of the deceased to be heard, though Saul sees nothing (typically the modern Western understanding of the role of the “medium”).

Foreignness, Idolatry, and Sexual Deviance in Interpretation of the Necromancer I will, in the following sections, be arguing for quite a positive reading of the necromancer. This is not a modern ideologically driven phenomenon. Some ancient and medieval commentators offered strongly positive interpretations of the character. Josephus, for instance, wrote: “Now it is but with the usages of Hebrew parallelism,” as suggested by T. Davies, one would still need to account for the wholly different vocabulary (Magic, Divination, and Demonology among the Hebrews and Their Neighbours, 88–89).

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just to recommend the generosity of this woman, because when the king had forbidden her to use that art whence her circumstances were bettered and improved . . . she still did not remember to his disadvantage that he had condemned her sort of learning . . . but she had compassion upon him, and comforted him . . . It would be well therefore to imitate [her] example” ( Josephus, Ant. 6.14.4 [Whiston]). However, several particular negative images dominate scholarly interpretation of the woman. The most basic of these is the (mis)labeling of the woman as a “witch,” as has been common from ancient and medieval commentary through modern scholarship. Some who do not use the word “witch” nonetheless hold to the traditional view of the woman as wicked. This line of interpretation can also be seen in a plethora of artistic renditions of the episode, from the grotesque portrayal of the “witch” by William Sydney Mount, to the dark, threatening landscape of the story for Gustave Doré, and the (wonderful) bacchanalian revelry imagined by Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen. It is frequently assumed that the woman must be either an “idolatrous” Israelite or a Canaanite. It is not generally imagined that she could simply be an Israelite woman practicing Israelite religion. Many presume that 14. See the useful survey of Smelik, “The Witch of Endor: 1 Samuel 28 in Rabbinic and Christian Exegesis till 800 A.D.,” 160–79, though Smelik is more interested in the question of which interpreters were willing to take the text’s portrayal of necromancy at face value. Among modern scholars who have noted that negative views of the woman are more attributable to interpreters than to the narrator, see esp. Jobling, 1 Samuel, 185–89. 15. Examples are too abundant to list, but include even scholars discussing necromancy (e.g., Schmidt, Israel’s Beneficent Dead, 201–20), and those interested in positive readings of the character (Reis, “Eating the Blood: Saul and the Witch of Endor,” 3). See also Simon, who refers to the woman consistently as a “witch,” but as alternately “sinful” and “kind” (“A Balanced Story: The Stern Prophet and the Kind Witch,” 159–71). 16. This too comes even from surprising sources, such as Frymer-Kensky, who includes the woman of En-dor in a discussion of “the evil women of the Bible” (In the Wake of the Goddesses, 126–27). 17. On musical interpretations, see Leneman, Love, Lust, and Lunacy: The Stories of Saul and David in Music, ch. 7, and Angert-Quilter and Wall, “The ‘Spirit Wife’ at Endor,” 55–72. On modern creative interpretation, note the role of Endora on the classic television show Bewitched. There is such a thing as a good witch on the show, and Endora is not it.

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the story tells of foreign practice. Cogan, for instance, claims that the text “is evidence for Israelite aversion to Canaanite divinatory practices,” and “sheds light on the injunction in Deut 18:9–13 prohibiting the adoption by Israel of foreign divinatory practices.” Even Schmidt, who argues that the attribution of necromancy to the Canaanites is an Israelite polemic, sees it instead as a Mesopotamian form of divination. We see similar references to the woman’s “pagan religion” and to the woman as an “idolatrous shaman” and a polytheist, even though the man she raises is the prophet of Yahweh and the message she divines is overtly Yahwistic. Such readings seem to try hard to dissociate necromancy from Israelite religion. Some point to the location of En-dor as a sign of the woman’s foreignness. A difficulty with this approach is that we do not know the location of En-dor. In addition to the fact that nothing in the text suggests that the woman is not an Israelite, it should be recalled here that the narrative setup for the irony of Saul consulting a necromancer is that he has exiled the ‫ אבות‬from the land. The implication is that she is from the land—she, along with many other necromancers and spirit-diviners. The impetus to read the character as foreign is the assumption that such religious activity must not be Israelite. That is to say, the concern is 18. Cogan, “The Road to En-dor,” 319–26, here 326. 19. Schmidt, Israel’s Beneficent Dead, 138–43; on the En-dor story in particular as a late composition reflecting Mesopotamian ideas about necromancy, since he sees no evidence for necromancy in the immediate region, 201–20; and in an essay focusing on this argument, Schmidt, “The ‘Witch’ of En-Dor, 1 Samuel 28, and Ancient Near Eastern Necromancy,” 111–29. Schmidt’s argument regarding necromancy is part of his broader argument that there was no ancestor worship in Israel; responding to him, see Nihan, “1 Samuel 28 and the Condemnation of Necromancy in Persian Yehud,” esp. 25–26 n.7, and Scurlock, “Ghosts in the Ancient Near East: Weak or Powerful?” 77–96. 20. Beuken, “1 Samuel 28: The Prophet as ‘Hammer of Witches,’” 10. Although the text itself describes Samuel as an ‫אלהים‬, Beuken must argue around this: “the woman expected a ghost but saw a divine being, divine in terms of her pagan religion.” 21. Reis, “Eating the Blood,” 4, 21. 22. E.g., Jobling, 1 Samuel, 186. 23. On the difficulty of locating En-dor, see, e.g., Cogan, “The Road to En-dor,” 319, and Margalith, “Dor and En-Dor,” 109–111, focused on his critique of the geographic identification of En-dor by Brown, “The Mediterranean Seer and Shamanism,” 374–400. For a concise summary of etymological arguments and bibliography, and the tentative suggestion that the name itself rang of the ritual, see Lewis, Cults of the Dead, 113 n.34.

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that she is “a woman who is a necromancer.” Another widespread theme in commentary on the text has more to do with the fact that she is “a woman who is a necromancer.” It is the readings of sexual activity into the text that particularly reflect interpreters’ gendered preconceptions. It has not been infrequent to interpret the actions and intentions of the woman sexually, although there is no basis for this in the text. Such readings range from Matthew Arnold’s salacious comments about “the dark age of unbridled ecstasy symbolized by the Witch of Endor,” which might be termed sexual horror, to the milder suggestion that the woman may have made sexual advances. Many interpretations lie somewhere in between, such as that of Reis, who argues that the woman volunteered her sexual services to the king and his men. She claims, for reasons unclear, that the woman “takes the first desperate action that occurs to her, and, hoping to buy her life with her body, approaches Saul sexually.” Many interpretations are less blatant but employ suggestive language. Pigott, for example, calls the woman a “mistress of necromancy (a ‘lady of the night’ if you will!),” and Schmidt, in addition to assuming the woman is foreign, refers ambiguously but provocatively to Saul’s “rendezvous with the Canaanite woman of En-Dor.” Jobling captures well the power dynamic between the medium and the king in the story, noting that “the peril is hers: there does not seem to be any penalty for consulting a medium, just for being one,” and here he too hints at a sexual element, suggesting that “the dynamics of this story have much in common with those of a meeting between a prostitute and a john.” This is perhaps an understandable leap for an interpreter of our times, reading the story of an illicit nocturnal encounter between a woman and a man. It must be remembered, though, that night was also an appropriate time for necromancy. In addition, as I will argue, the judgment of the author is in 24. On Arnold’s discussion of sex and polytheism, see esp. Jobling, 1 Samuel, 210, 217. On the notion that the woman made sexual advances, see Edelman, King Saul in the Historiography of Judah, 250. 25. Reis, “Eating the Blood,” 13, 18. This is not a passing suggestion: Reis offers a detailed, if implausible, argument for this view. 26. Pigott, “1 Samuel 28—Saul and the Not So Wicked Witch of Endor,” 438; Schmidt, “The ‘Witch’ of En-Dor, 1 Samuel 28, and Ancient Near Eastern Necromancy,” 128. 27. Jobling, 1 Samuel, 187 and 187 n.14. 28. Some have argued that necromancy was generally practiced at nighttime and have suggested specific conscious rationale for this, most realistically the

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fact the opposite of what Jobling suggests: the woman in this story is never condemned, in stark contrast to the desperate king. Logic notwithstanding, the interpretive tendency is to read into the story things exotic and erotic. This is not warranted by anything in the text itself. Despite traditional and scholarly assumptions that the woman must be a witch, a foreigner, a polytheist, a sexual deviant, or all of the above, there is no indication in the text that she is anything other than a Yahwistic diviner providing her services of religious access for the king.

Saul’s Impotence, David’s Rise The story is focused, quite noticeably, not on the medium but on the presentation of Saul, who at times lacks power and at times wields it poorly. This is clear from the content of the passage as well as from its context. David, the up-and-comer, has spared Saul’s life twice in the previous few chapters, culminating in Saul humbling himself before the young upstart, weeping, apologizing, and acknowledging that David was more righteous than he and would succeed him, and asking for his future mercy (1 Sam 24: 16–21, 26:21–25). The reader, knowing the arc of the longer story (because epics are not aimed at first-time readers), already sees David’s trajectory as he overtakes the weaker Saul. We have also already seen Saul’s histrionics when the spirit of God leaves him and the harmful spirit of God falls upon him; Saul is, by the time we reach chapter 28, in dismal shape. As the chapter begins, battle is warming up with the Philistines. Moreover, as is emphasized twice in verses 1–2, David himself would be fighting association between darkness below and darkness above (e.g., Lewis, Cults of the Dead, 12, 114, 142–43). Whether or not this is provable as a consistent pattern, there is surely an element of human instinct here: ghouls like night. 29. This does not imply exclusive Yahwism. Her divination does, however, serve Yahweh. Note that the verb ‫ קסם‬is used both negatively and positively (see, e.g., the list of respected roles in Isa 3:2, including “the judge, prophet, diviner [‫]קסם‬ and elder”). Fischer too sees the woman as acting in the name of Yahweh, and thus calls her a prophet—only a false one. She reads the text as a deliberate commentary on the perils of false prophecy, with Deut 18 consciously in the ancient author’s mind (Gotteskünderinnen, 50, 131, 139). In this case, she sees the character herself as aware of the specific legislation (pp. 147–48, 153–54). In Fischer’s view, even though the woman passed on a “true” message, her method makes her a “false prophet”; moreover, even the “true” message is not a new one, and it is thus portrayed as being of no value, and even absurd (pp. 131, 147–50, 153, 221).

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alongside Achish, that is, against Saul. In verse 4, the Philistines march against Israel, and Saul gathers his army (lit. “all Israel”) and they encamp at Gilboa. In the next verse, we find out that Saul is terribly afraid (“he feared, and his heart trembled greatly”). Tellingly, this is the Bible’s only description of an Israelite king being afraid before battle. It is in this moment that Saul seeks divine knowledge. It was common throughout the Near East for a king to consult a diviner on the eve of battle: here, though, Saul’s motivation is portrayed not as custom, but as palpable fear. The odds for success are immediately stacked against him, since he has already removed the mediums and spiritists from the land. The thrust of the story—emphasized repeatedly within this text, and utterly characteristic of the entire arc of the Saul story—is Saul’s constant capacity for self-defeat. And alas, his first efforts are not successful: “Saul inquired of Yahweh, but Yahweh did not answer him—not by dreams, or by urim, or by prophets” (1 Sam 28:6). These various forms of divination are listed together: independent dreaming, use of a magical object, and consultation of approved intermediaries. When these methods fail—or more pointedly, when Saul fails to hear through these methods—he turns to a nonapproved intermediary. 30. Many scholars still adhere to the customary delimitations of the text that exclude these verses, preferring to see the story as beginning in v. 3, but this misses the pointed opposition between David and Saul, as expressed here in the anticipation of literal battle. Since vv. 1–2 are also not necessarily connected to the previous chapter, I see no reason to prefer excluding them from this one. Campbell also suggests that it is “unwise” to associate these verses with ch. 27 (1 Samuel, 280). 31. Saul’s expressions of fear provide further contrast with David. Saul will cry out to the ghost of Samuel, “I am greatly distressed! The Philistines are attacking me, and God has turned away from me, and doesn’t answer me anymore, not by prophets or by dreams, so I called you to tell me what to do!” (1 Sam 28:15). His concern is clearly for himself. Soon afterward, David, in contrast, laments for Jonathan, “I am distressed over you” (‫לי עליך‬-‫צר‬,i2 Sam 1:26). Saul says only ‫לי‬-‫צר‬, and continues, “The Philistines are attacking me,” and so forth. Saul acts out of fear, and more for himself than for Israel. Once again, the depiction of Saul reveals that he does not hold a candle to David. 32. Although there are other Near Eastern examples of divination through several means in turn (Cogan, “The Road to En-dor,” 321–25), in this context the string of failed attempts at divination clearly reflects Saul’s inability to hear from Yahweh. 33. The use of the verb ‫ שאל‬in v. 6 (‫ )וישאל שאול‬should not be taken as representing something phenomenologically distinct from ‫ דרש‬in v. 7. Although an author

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While it is clearly characteristic of the flawed king that he resorts to a type of divination he has prohibited, we should not assume that his attempt to get rid of mediums reflects poorly on the medium. After all, Saul has also just slaughtered eighty-five priests of Nob (1 Sam 22:17–18), and had an irrevocable falling out with Samuel (1 Sam 15:33–35), thus cutting off all sorts of intermediaries. Finally, of course, the person Saul has most persistently tried to get rid of is David. The irony of Saul exiling and then consulting a medium reflects primarily on the wisdom and leadership abilities of the king, who has shot himself in the foot, once again, by having just removed the mediums and spiritists from the land—and then finding that he needs one. The point of the story is that Saul needs the necromancer to mediate the message; he has tried more direct means of divination and failed. This illustrates the extent to which Saul is removed from God, or vice versa. This is the primary point of contrast between him and David in the story. Four surrounding texts show David’s successful divination (1 Sam 23:2–4 and 9–12 before this text, and 1 Sam 30:7–8 and 2 Sam 2:1 shortly after it). In all four, he simply asks Yahweh questions, and in two of them he also uses an ephod as an instrument for divination (1 Sam 23:9 and 30:7); he does not in any of these texts need to use an intermediary. He himself addresses Yahweh, and every time, Yahweh answers him immediately and directly. Although it is often claimed that negative comparison of Saul to David is implied in the En-dor story because of the great evil of necromancy, this is not what the text indicates. What the narrator, Saul, and Samuel all say is might have chosen to use the verb ‫ שאל‬in any case (as in several texts below), the alliterative effect should not be underestimated. 34. This should pose a problem for those who see the portrayal of Saul’s generally erroneous ways as implying a condemnation of the necromancer; e.g., Nihan, “1 Samuel 28 and the Condemnation of Necromancy in Persian Yehud,” 23–54. Note that the end of ch. 15 has a marvelous effect when read with ch. 28 in mind: Samuel left for Ramah, and never saw Saul again “until the day of his death”— though he did see him after that. 35. Arnold, for example, also sees the intentional juxtaposition of Saul and David’s modes of divine communication, but argues that the Deuteronomist’s point is to show David’s superiority through his use of “prophecy” rather than “magic,” concluding: “In Saul’s moment of crisis, he turned to the deplorable necromantic option, whereas David consistently and commendably relied on the prophetic word of Yhwh, as discerned through cleromancy” (“Necromancy and Cleromancy in 1 and 2 Samuel,” 199–213, quotation 213).

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that Yahweh had stopped communicating with Saul. The point in the story is that Saul does not hear anything from Yahweh—that is, until he consults the medium. Picture the hierarchy: David inquires of Yahweh directly, and always receives a clear answer. Other kings often inquire successfully through prophets—already intermediaries—and hear responses. Saul tries inquiring through multiple means, including dreams, urim, and live prophets, but gets nothing, and so he requires one intermediary to reach another. David has God’s ear; other kings are once removed; Saul is twice removed. In a classic storytelling style, the narrator has set up the story with the foreshadowing note that Samuel was already dead and buried, and that Saul had removed the mediums and spiritists from the land. The king is in a bind, then, when all else has failed, and he wants to turn to Samuel. In spite of his earlier action in banishing these diviners (and Saul so frequently acts in spite of himself ), he tells his servants to find him a necromancer. It is in the context of this focus on Saul’s impotence and ineffective divination that we come upon the story of the necromancer’s effective divination.

“Divine for Me by a Ghost” What do we know, then, of this particular diviner and her necromantic activity? I noted above that, within the world of the story, the term ‫אוב‬-‫ אשת בעלת‬represents a recognized role. It is also evident from the servants’ response that this particular woman is a known quantity. Saul’s servants know immediately where to find her. This may well be a humorous depiction of a court scene. The king has removed the mediums from the land . . . but his servants know just where to go to find one. It is unclear why Saul specifically seeks a female diviner. I used this text as an example in chapter 1 to demonstrate the difficulty of deriving historical evidence about diviners from these narratives. (For example, does the story indicate that necromancy was a common practice? Or that a later author thought it had been in Saul’s time? Or that it happened but looked nothing like this? And so on.) The same issues hold for the matter of Saul’s specific request for a female necromancer. Were necromancers more likely to be female? Or was the idea of a female medium out in the sticks a picture in the mind of an urban, scholarly author? The scant evidence seems to me to suggest the latter. There is no reason to think necromancy was uncommon in Israel—indeed, the collection of biblical allusions, proscriptions, and descriptions, in combination with its practice throughout the broader region, would suggest that necromancy

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was as common a type of divination in Israel as it was among its neighbors. Recognizing that this is one author’s story, rather than the sole and thoroughly characteristic representation of necromancy, there is no reason to assume that the form of divination itself was specific to women. There was certainly no such restriction among necromancers in Mesopotamia. The difference between a tale about a necromancer and texts presenting formal necromantic rituals must be taken into account here, given the predominance of men in scribal divination. Even so, biblical allusions to necromancers also refer to both men and women. References to people inquiring of the dead cannot be considered in this regard, since these may refer to visiting a necromancer or to consulting one’s ancestors directly. Consider Isaiah 8:19, however, where hypothetical necromancers are addressed in the masculine plural. The writer begins by condemning the people who request necromantic divination, those who say to the necromancers: “Inquire (‫ )דרשו‬of the ghosts and spirits that chirp and moan . . .” So we are left with a smattering of indications that both men and women could function as necromancers in Israel. This cannot answer the question of why Saul specifically requested a woman; it rather begs the question. Had he simply gone to a necromancer who happened to be female—the way Josiah’s men consult Huldah, whose sex is immaterial—that would be a different story. In this case, Saul’s request is specific. My inclination is to attribute this to a stereotype in the mind of a culturally distant author. Literary stereotypes of female witches, discussed in a later chapter, may also be a relevant point of comparison here. Then again, perhaps the author is simply making a conscious choice that will serve to heighten the power dynamics later in the story. The first few lines that Saul and the woman exchange are filled with lovely allusions of what is to come. Saul arrives incognito and begins with 36. See esp. Nihan, “1 Samuel 28 and the Condemnation of Necromancy in Persian Yehud,” 23–54; Loretz, “Nekromantie und Totenevokation,” 309, 313. 37. Tropper, for example, observes that the presence of a female necromancer in this text is not surprising, since women were prominent in Near Eastern magical activity, but that one cannot conclude that it was exclusively women who practiced necromancy; rather, what we see here is that women also could act as necromancers (Nekromantie, 225–26). 38. Note the practitioners in the necromancy texts discussed by Jo Ann Scurlock, “Magical Means of Dealing with Ghosts in Ancient Mesopotamia,” esp. 103–19, and Finkel, “Necromancy in Ancient Mesopotamia,” 1–17.

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an overt request: “Divine for me by a ghost, and raise for me the person I tell you to” (1 Sam 28:8). The woman, noting the ban on her kind, is well aware of the dangerous nature of her work. She asks Saul, “Why would you entrap me, to get me killed?” Her question uses entrapment imagery associated with necromancy in other texts—only with herself as the symbolic dead. Saul convinces her to proceed, swearing to her that all will be well. His first words to her are to divine for him ‫ ;באוב‬next he swears to her ‫ביהוה‬. These are not framed in opposition. We still have no indication that this activity is anything other than Yahwistic; Saul’s back-to-back references to these divine beings seem all of a piece. The description of the woman’s actions is unfortunately brief, and we learn only a little about the (meta)physics of necromancy. Saul makes his request and his oath, names Samuel as the man to raise, and—disappointingly, for the interested reader—the next thing we know, the necromancer has raised him. The fact that the crucial act is skipped over entirely suggests that the author’s interest is not primarily in the necromancer or necromancy itself. (It may also indicate the author’s lack of familiarity with actual necromantic practice, as noted earlier.) So we learn nothing from this about the mechanics of raising a ghost. We do, however, get to see one. Verse 3 reminds the reader that Samuel was buried in Ramah, so it is certainly a ghost the necromancer raises and not the dead body itself. The ethereal figure, called an ‫ אוב‬in anticipation of the conjuring, is now called an ‫אלהים‬. Saul, though, sees nothing—but when Samuel asks Saul a question, Saul can hear and answer, and a conversation ensues between the two. The rabbis tried to sort out the principle behind this: the midrash on Samuel says, “Three things are told about how a conjurer raises a ghost. He who conjures him up does see him but does not hear his voice. He who needs him does hear his voice but does not see him. He who does not need him does not hear him nor see him.” Those acquainted with modern popular images of the medium who enables others to hear the voice of the dead will not be surprised by the portrayal of Saul’s 39. As summed up in Lev. R. 26:7, “She did what she did, and she said what she said, and raised him.” Contra Fischer, who sees in the plural form of ‫ אלהים‬a reference to multiple spirits—and possibly foreign gods—rising up from the earth, who help her to raise Samuel (Gotteskünderinnen, 140). 40. Compare the parallel uses of ‫ אוב‬and ‫ אלהים‬in Isa 8:19–20. As in Mesopotamia, it is on occasion possible to see an ilu. 41. Beuken, “1 Samuel 28: The Prophet as ‘Hammer of Witches,’” 7.

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ability to hear the ghost whom he does not see. What is more surprising is the interpretation that the medium, who does see the ghost, cannot also hear him. The oddity of the necromancer’s recognition of Saul upon seeing Samuel has been discussed interminably and without solution. Saul has disguised himself, and the woman initially does not know him. After the initial exchange discussed above, Saul asks the woman to raise Samuel (v. 11). The next line appears to say that the woman saw Samuel and cried out, at which point she identified her client as Saul (v. 12). Some have argued that the oddity of this is due to a redactional layer, most notably McCarter, who claims that the difficulty is “a consequence of the incorporation of the figure of Samuel into the story of Saul’s interview with an originally anonymous ghost.” It remains unclear what function that would have had. Klein prefers instead to see the text as an original unity, over against this proposal and the common emendation of “Saul” to “Samuel” in verse 12, which, as he points out, still would not explain why the medium did not recognize Saul until then. He suggests charmingly, “Perhaps his appearance was more aweinspiring than the usual ‫אוב‬.” Many have attributed the necromancer’s recognition of Saul to something in his request itself. McCarter suggests that in the text as we have it, the woman recognizes Saul because he speaks with authority as only the king could. Klein notes that “there could be only one person who would want to see Samuel in these troubled times,” though this would not explain why it took seeing Samuel, and not only hearing the request to raise him, for the woman to react. Others explain it on the basis of something Samuel says or does. Beuken suggests that it is because it is the role of prophets to expose kings, and Reis claims that Samuel would only allow himself to be raised for Saul. Fischer explains 42. McCarter, 1 Samuel, 421. 43. Klein, 1 Samuel, 269. 44. McCarter, 1 Samuel, 421, 423. 45. Klein, 1 Samuel, 271. 46. There is a long-standing tradition of such explanations. According to Ginzberg, “In necromancy the peculiar rule holds good that, unless it is summoned by a king, a spirit raised from the dead appears head downward and feet in the air. Accordingly, when the figure of Samuel stood upright before them, the witch knew that the king was with her.” Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, 900; as in Lev. R. 26:7. 47. Beuken, “1 Samuel 28: The Prophet as ‘Hammer of Witches,’” 9; Reis, “Eating the Blood,” 9–10.

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it quite differently: she suggests that it is the presence of the ghost that causes the woman to become clairvoyant, and so when the ghost appears, she knows who Saul is. Campbell, meanwhile, concludes that the text is puzzling and that no previous readings have helped. One very small adjustment would actually allow the rest of these details to fall into place: if we emend the pointing of ‫ ותרא‬in verse 12 to match that of ‫ וירא‬in verse 5, everything suddenly works. In verse 5, we were told that Saul was afraid—‫ ַויּ ִָרא‬, spelled defectively—and it is possible that verse 12 should not read ‫שמואל ותזעק‬-‫“( וַתֵּ ֶרא האשה את‬and the woman saw Samuel and cried out”), but ‫שמואל ותזעק‬-‫“( וַתִּ ָרא האשה את‬but the woman feared Samuel and cried out”), again spelled defectively. Her fear of Samuel would be warranted, given the prophet’s final diatribe to Saul condemning his disobedience regarding Agag—“rebellion is like the sin of divination!” (‫קסם מרי‬-‫כי חטאת‬, 15:23)—after which Samuel died, and Saul expelled the mediums and then came to her with the request to divine by Samuel’s ghost. Moreover, after Samuel’s invective, Saul repented, but Samuel refused to forgive him, slaughtered Agag himself, and never spoke to Saul again. No wonder she fears Samuel and not Saul! According to this reading, the necromancer realizes it is Saul from his request to raise Samuel (that is, the prophet who used to advise the king), and not somehow mysteriously after seeing the ghost. Further supporting this reading, in verse 13, the woman says that she sees Samuel rising, and describes what she sees; that is, he has not yet risen in verse 12. Any reading of the text as a coherent narrative requires the assumption of a space, somewhere in these verses, during which the woman performs the actual raising of the ghost. The common view is that this happens between verses 11 and 12: Saul asks the medium to raise Samuel (v. 11)—in the narrative silence she obliges—and then she “sees” (‫ )וַתֵּ ֶרא‬Samuel and cries aloud, now somehow recognizing Saul (v. 12); he says, “Do not be afraid [of me]” (v. 13), and then she sees Samuel rising. The cause for general scholarly confusion is clear. If, however, we take seriously that the medium sees Samuel rising in verses 13–14 (‫)איש זקן עלה‬, then it makes better sense to assume that the action happens between verses 12 and 13: Saul asks the medium to raise Samuel, but she “fears” (‫ )וַתִּ ָרא‬Samuel, and tells Saul that she knows who he is (vv. 11–12)—though, knowing that he is the king, she does what he demands—but she fears the prophet, whom she now must face as 48. Fischer, Gotteskünderinnen, 139. 49. Campbell, 1 Samuel, 282–83.

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she raises him, and thus Saul says, “Do not be afraid [of Samuel]” (v. 13). Such a reading would explain the medium as having recognized Saul on the basis of his own words, appearance, or actions (or entourage), rather than somehow after raising the ghost, and would make sense of her description of Samuel rising from the ground in verses 13–14. In addition, this has the nice effect of demonstrating that—as we have already seen, and will see— the medium is much more afraid of Samuel, even after death, than of Saul. It is also debated how Saul recognizes Samuel on the basis of the medium’s statement. She describes what she sees: “I see an ‫ אלהים‬coming up from the earth . . . an old man is coming up, and he is wrapped in a robe,” and Saul understands that this is Samuel (vv. 13–14). It is sometimes posited that Saul knows this to be Samuel because the robe he is wearing is specifically a prophetic garment. This seems unlikely, given the lack of evidence that there was such a thing. It is tempting to wonder whether instead of a particular sort of garment, this is one particular robe: it may be remembered that in 1 Sam 15:27, Saul tore Samuel’s robe. The problem with such a theory is that it is only the necromancer who sees Samuel, and she says just that he is wearing “a robe.” But there is a far simpler reason why Saul would know that this was Samuel. The very question, though frequently posed, seems to miss a key point: Saul, having requested the ghost of Samuel, trusts that the necromancer will successfully raise him—so when a man is raised, neither Saul nor the narrator second-guesses how to identify him. It has been suggested that the food the woman prepares for Saul and his men after all of this is some kind of sacrificial ritual meal connected to necromancy. This interpretation lacks support. I admit that it would be 50. The MT reads ‫איש זקן‬, “an old man,” and the LXX reads ὄρθιον, i.e., ‫איש זקף‬ (to “raise up,” as in Ps 145:14), “a man standing upright.” McCarter prefers the latter on the principle of lectio difficilior (1 Samuel, 419); though if the LXX is preferable on this, perhaps the idea is not that the man is standing up, but raised up. 51. Beuken, “1 Samuel 28: The Prophet as ‘Hammer of Witches,’” 10; Klein has Samuel “in his usual prophetic robe” (1 Samuel, 269). 52. Fischer suggests that this is the same robe Saul saw Samuel wearing in 15:27 (Gotteskünderinnen, 140); McCarter refers to the robe as “Samuel’s characteristic garment,” citing 15:27 and 2:19, but does not think this is the basis for recognition (1 Samuel, 421). 53. Such proposals range from the more reasonable to the somewhat less so. Of the first type: Milgrom argues that ‫ זבח‬almost always refers to ritual slaughter, and

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appealing to see this as a ritual meal associated with the ancestor cult: the dead were symbolically invited to such meals, and here we have the literal presence of a divine ancestor. Moreover, the text never mentions Samuel going back down into the earth. It would be gleefully macabre to imagine that the necromancer is feeding not only Saul, but the dead Samuel as well. However, this seems, shall we say, improbable. First, even in a ritual of feeding the dead, we have no reason to expect a necromancer to be the one cooking. Second, it would be ill-advised to read too much into the fact that Samuel’s descent is not mentioned before the meal, since it is also not mentioned afterward. (This is another indication that the author is not deeply concerned with the act of necromancy itself.) The meal is most likely a matter of the king’s hunger and the medium’s safety. This would likely have been an expected act of hospitality; factoring in Saul’s headlong sprawl of terror and hunger (both specified in v. 20), the pressure would be mounting for any host to feed the guest in question. Considering then that our host has recognized that this is the king, it seems impossible that she would not offer him a meal (whether out of respect, fear, or some combination of the two). Lastly, those suggesting a ritual meal seem to overlook the medium’s own statement, in which she explains includes this episode as one such use (“Profane Slaughter and a Formulaic Key to the Composition of Deuteronomy,” 1–2); see also Loretz, “Nekromantie und Totenevokation,” 309, and Tropper, Nekromantie, 227. Fischer sees both practical and ritual aspects of the meal (Gotteskünderinnen, 142–46, 154). Of the second type: Reis claims that the meal is “a mantic sacrifice to the dead entailing the stringently proscribed eating of blood,” and “an unholy but legally effective covenant between God’s anointed and an idolatrous shaman.” She claims further that because the manner of preparation is not specified, the lamb must have been eaten raw, with the blood (“Eating the Blood,” 4, 17). In another vein, some suggest that it is an ironic ceremonial royal meal. Klein, following Beuken: “In a sense, as Beuken argues, the woman offered Saul a ceremonial royal meal even though he had just discovered that all hope of kingship was lost to him. The ironic touches persist” (1 Samuel, 273). 54. Lewis casts doubt on the closest supposed parallels, those at Ugarit, questioning the character of the marzeah ․ as a funerary feast comparable to the Mesopotamian kispu, and challenging the interpretations of the section of Aqhat at times called “The Duties of an Ideal Son” (CTA 17.1.26–34), and of the Dagan stelae (KTU 6.13, 6.14), as representing funerary meals (Lewis, Cults of the Dead, 53–98). For a more optimistic view of the feeding of the dead in biblical texts, see Bloch-Smith, Judahite Burial Practices and Beliefs about the Dead, 122–30.

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precisely why she is offering Saul food: “Eat, so that you have the strength to go on your way” (v. 22). We should not overlook what the text does not say. This is not a short encounter. The majority of the text—verses 8 to 23—portrays events as if in real time. The period of collapsed time in verses 24–25 is far longer than all of the rest of this, however. Although the medium hurried to slaughter the calf, the process of cooking it would take more time than the divination itself seems to have. The collapsed time indicates that the narrator does not see the content of the meal as the point. While the author was not interested in the mechanics of necromancy, the fact of the raising of Samuel was still overt. Here, the author is not concerned with any aspects of the meal that ring of ritual in any way, and we should not invent a subtext. Saul appears to have fasted in preparation for divination. This is a known practice, and we are given no alternative reason why he would have had nothing to eat all day or all night (v. 20). The meal may have had a vague connection to the act of divination in the sense that it was a break-fast, but on the notevery-excavated-cup-is-a-ritual-goblet principle, sometimes a meal is just a meal.

Agency and Authority Interpreters of the En-dor story tend to give divinatory credit disproportionately to Samuel. The text, however, does not. Certainly the mes55. Lewis compares this to David’s fasting and lying on the ground in 2 Sam 12:15–24, which he interprets as a ritual descent to the underworld (Cults of the Dead, 43–44). A closer comparison might be the various examples of fasting in preparation for divination, some also offered by Lewis, such as Jehoshaphat’s institution of a fast for all of Judah before inquiring of Yahweh in 2 Chr 20:3–4 (Cults of the Dead, 114). McCarter considers this a fast for purification (1 Samuel, 421). 56. Consider Beuken, for instance, who inexplicably claims that the initiative is Samuel’s: “In short, Samuel beats the woman to it. He does not allow himself to be conjured up: he appears. . . . The conjuration does not succeed. What happens to the woman appears to be more of a vision” (“1 Samuel 28: The Prophet as ‘Hammer of Witches,’” 8–9). Others have agreed that this is a good possibility, e.g., Klein, 1 Samuel, 271. Beuken then engages in a lengthy and rather strongly stated discussion of the woman’s incapability of understanding what is happening, though Saul understands: “The mysterious practices shackle her to a level of comprehension on which she cannot follow the prophet” (“1 Samuel 28: The

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sage comes from the prophet and not the medium, but this is what a medium does: she mediates a message from beyond the grave. In this case, she mediates a message from the prophet Samuel, who in turn mediates a message from Yahweh. Nevertheless, it is common for interpreters to ascribe less agency to the medium than the text does. We see at the beginning of the story (v. 3) the reminder not just that Samuel was dead, but that he was buried at Ramah. Samuel has not been raised from the dead in this story. The ghost of Samuel appears, courtesy of the necromancer. It should be observed that the tendency of interpreters to refer to “Samuel” and the “witch,” rather than “the ghost of Samuel” and the “medium,” distorts the roles and the agency of the characters as presented in the text. The ghost of Samuel speaks with authority once the medium has conjured him, but he did not come of his own accord. He in fact asks Saul (a bit irritably, perhaps understandable under the circumstances), “Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?” He did not want to be brought up, but finds himself there due to the agency and actions of the medium. Even when he speaks to Saul with Yahwistic authority, then, this is explicitly brought about only through the mediation of the necromancer. The ghost of Samuel is not the only one who speaks with authority. After the encounter with the ephemeral and ethereal Samuel, the medium says to Saul (translating quite literally for the moment), “Your maidservant has listened to your voice (‫ ;)שמעה שפחתך בקולך‬I took my life in my hands and heard your words (‫דבריך‬-‫ )ואשמע את‬which you spoke to me. So now you also listen to the voice of your maidservant (‫אתה בקול‬-‫נא גם‬-‫ועתה שמע‬ ‫שפחתך‬, vv. 21–22).” The issue of who listens to whose voice—not just in Prophet as ‘Hammer of Witches,’” 13). Fuchs writes similarly that the woman “is no match for God’s prophet” (“Prophecy and the Construction of Women,” 56). Reis gives agency to Samuel by arguing that he would only allow himself to be raised for Saul (“Eating the Blood,” 9–10); Simon does this by asking, “Why, though, did the prophet enable this woman, a purveyor of sin, to become the sole agent of mercy in this episode?” (“A Balanced Story,” 166). A subtler version of this comes from Brueggemann, who writes, “Even in death, Samuel dominates the narrative,” and in his discussion of the text pays almost no attention to the medium at all (First and Second Samuel, 193). 57. Although the particle ‫ נא‬is often translated “please,” this is a convention not grounded in either usage or etymology. Examining the usage of ‫ נא‬following the imperative in the prose of the Pentateuch and Former Prophets, Shulman counts

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the everyday sense, but in the sense of both hearing and heeding an authoritative voice—is a central theme throughout the text. The narrator’s setup of the story is that Saul no longer hears God, who refuses to answer him. Saul repeats this complaint to Samuel: “God has turned away from me and doesn’t answer me anymore, not through prophets or through dreams!” Samuel responds that God will punish Saul because he did not listen to his voice. Now, finally, Saul hears the answer from the divine realm he has been seeking, from the ghost of Samuel mediated by the diviner. The theme continues through the end of the chapter: Saul initially refuses to eat, but when the medium and his servants urge him together, he relents and heeds them—again, he listens to their voice. So when the medium turns to Saul and says, “I have heard your voice . . . now you hear my voice,” it is not an offhand remark that stands on its own—it picks up on this central theme, which runs through the whole story. She speaks boldly to the king, using the same phrase in regard to Saul heeding her that she has just used in regard to her heeding him (unlike the many translations with versions of “I obeyed you . . . now you please hear me out”). This kind of authority would not surprise readers from the mouth of a prophet; it most likely has not surprised anyone, verses earlier, from the mouth of Samuel. Perhaps 70 occasions on which the speaker is “superior” to the addressee, 36 on which the speaker is “inferior,” and 46 on which the speaker is “equal in status” (“The Particle ‫ נא‬in Biblical Hebrew Prose,” 67–74). While I differ with Shulman’s interpretation of the texts and thus of the meaning of ‫נא‬, her categorization demonstrates usage by a “superior” or an “equal” in more than three-quarters of these cases (116 out of 152). Christiansen argues that the particle should be understood as propositive, i.e., proposing action or indicating intent (“A Linguistic Analysis of the Biblical Hebrew Particle nā’: A Test Case,” 379–93). Christiansen also summarizes several significant etymological arguments (though I am not convinced that etymology dictates usage), perhaps most importantly that of Gottlieb, who traces through Arabic, Ugaritic, Amarna Akkadian, Hebrew, and Syriac the development of an energic form that eventually became independent (“The Hebrew Particle nā,” 47–54). See also the many nondeferential uses of the particle cited in IBHS §34.7, such as that in Yahweh’s soliloquy of Gen 18:21, ‫נא ואראה‬-‫ארדה‬, “I will go down and see.” Waltke and O’Connor do not offer a single instance of the use of ‫ נא‬to indicate politeness, and quote the argument of Lambdin that the particle instead “seems . . . to denote that the command in question is a logical consequence, either of an immediately preceding statement or of the general situation in which it is uttered” (Lambdin, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew, 170).

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it is just as natural for the necromancer to speak to the king with such authority. As indicated by both the narrative arc and the acceleration of the use of the thematic language, the medium’s declaration represents the peak use of this theme in the story. The theme appears in the setup in verse 6, in Saul’s words to Samuel in verse 15, in Samuel’s speech in verse 18, and then in the medium’s speech to Saul again, and again, and again: three times in verses 21–22. The only occurrence after this is when Saul listens and agrees to eat. In literary terms, the recurring theme of listening to a voice of authority climaxes in the medium’s speech to Saul, with her direction, “now you listen to me.” This underscores the key dramatic shift of the episode. At the beginning of the story, Saul still tries to act with authority, though he is already seriously faltering. He is trembling with fear before the Philistines and unable to divine an answer from God, but he will give orders to the medium: “Divine for me by a ghost, and bring up the one I tell you to!” (v. 8). The medium is rightly frightened in response, knowing she could be killed for doing this (v. 9). But by the end of the story, Saul is literally laid flat out on the ground, terrified by the words of the ghost—and also feeble from hunger, the story adds—and the medium stands above him and says, “I listened to you . . . now you listen to me” (vv. 20–22). His initial refusal is not a sign of any lingering strength or autonomy—it is the response of a petulant child, too hungry to get up to eat, too distraught to be comforted. The medium cannot do anything about Saul’s general weakness and terror, but at least she can get him off the floor and feed him. My claim that her speech is authoritative does not rest on an interpretation that she is annoyed, or that she just wants him to regain enough strength to go. Regardless of her motivation, which I do not pretend that we can see, she speaks to Saul, who is lying prostrate on the ground, weak from terror and hunger, with the authority with which he originally spoke to her. The medium’s authority is not diminished by any guilt of illicit activity; this issue is overtly addressed in the text. Saul swears to her that she will bear no guilt. The key phrase in the oath, ‫יקרך עון‬-‫( אם‬v. 10), is often rendered in ways that soften this, such as “you won’t get into trouble over this” (NJPS), or the same idea, “no punishment shall come upon you” (NKJV), and very similarly the NASB and others. However, the word ‫ עון‬almost always means “iniquity,” referring to an act, or “guilt,” which is the consequence of an act. Saul does not promise not to punish the medium; he tells

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her that she will not bear guilt. Rendering the word as “punishment” in this verse, rather than its vastly more common meaning “guilt,” is a choice that reflects a prior assumption about the text’s view of the woman. The lack of condemnation of necromancy and the necromancer is also evident in the content of the divined message. The ghost of Samuel reviles Saul for his disobedience to God in not slaughtering the Amalekites, and warns of all sorts of terrible things that will happen as a result—but he does not so much as mention the fact that Saul is in the act of consulting a medium. Samuel’s only complaint in regard to this event is that he did not want to be disturbed. It is noteworthy that a story that begins with the information that Saul had removed the mediums from the land, and which includes condemnation of Saul, does not contain any indication that Yahweh or the ghost of his prophet had a problem with this act of necromancy. The medium is never condemned, and Saul’s punishment is overtly for other reasons. Furthermore, that Saul’s guilt is connected to the Amalekites is emphasized after this story: David’s successful divination in 1 Samuel 30:7–8, mentioned above, is in regard to whether he should attack the Amalekites; God answers and says yes, and David promptly slaughters them. After this, in one of the two versions of Saul’s death, he is killed by an Amalekite (2 Sam 1: 1–16). The story of necromancy and the surrounding material are consistent in naming Saul’s disobedience regarding the Amalekites as his primary transgression, in not naming any disobedience on the part of the medium, and in not condemning this act of necromancy. Most significant, of course, is the very fact of the medium’s successful divination. Saul has tried to hear from Yahweh through dreams, through urim, and through prophets. This should not surprise the reader, since it is a continuation of an earlier plotline. In chapter 16, “the spirit of Yahweh had left Saul,” ‫ורוח יהוה סרה מעם שאול‬, and the harmful spirit of God came upon him (1 Sam 16:14), as it does again in chapter 19. Between these two stories, we see that Yahweh was with David, “but had left Saul,” ‫ומעם שאול סר‬ (1 Sam 18:12). The conversation between Saul and the ghost of Samuel picks up on this: Saul says that God has left him, ‫ואלהים סר מעלי‬, and Samuel confirms, ‫( ויהוה סר מעליך‬28:15–16). Saul cannot hear from Yahweh on his own, or through other direct divinatory methods. The one who successfully 58. Contra Fischer, who sees the whole as a cautionary tale with Deut 18:9–14 in the background, i.e., the king engages in a forbidden practice, and so the upcoming battle goes badly for him (Gotteskünderinnen, 147, 150, 154).

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provides the king with access to Yahweh’s message is the necromancer, but the story makes no comment on this fact. The main conflict in the story is not about necromancy; that is much more the conflict for interpreters. Saul’s recourse to a medium lends irony to the story, but assigns no guilt. The main conflict, the thing that gives the text its dramatic power, is that Saul cannot access divine knowledge, and it is resolved when the medium can, and Saul hears Yahweh’s message through the ghost mediated by the necromancer.

Divergent Traditions The story of the medium in 1 Samuel displays Saul’s many faults—his weakness and fear as a leader, his melodramatic wretchedness, and most of all his inability to hear God—but it does not include condemnation of the act of necromancy it describes. This, on the contrary, is the method through which God finally does answer Saul. Saul looks bad here, but the necromancer comes off well. The Chronicler has a different take on this: all of a sudden, one of Saul’s two major transgressions is consulting the necromancer. The story of the encounter itself is skipped, since the Chronicler is not concerned with Saul’s life, but he makes reference to it and in fact attributes Saul’s death partly to this incident (1 Chr 10:13–14). The author of the Samuel text presents the necromancer as successful, as the one who finally provides access to divine knowledge, and shows her overall in a remarkably positive light. The Chronicler then comes along and makes a necessary adjustment (for his ideology), demonstrating a concern with judging this type of divination that the author of Samuel does not. Given the Chronicler’s perspective, it is not surprising that a king’s consultation of a necromancer would suddenly be depicted so negatively in his retelling. What is more noteworthy is that reading the story in Samuel alongside Chronicles throws into relief the extent to which the earlier text is unconcerned with condemning the diviner. 59. For another approach leading to a similar conclusion, see the rhetorical analysis of Fritschel, who questions whether references to various forms of magic are pejorative in a selection of ten texts. As she notes concisely in regard to the story of the necromancer, “That her actions are not denounced demonstrates that the function of this text is not to denounce magic” (“Women and Magic in the Hebrew Bible,” 198). 60. For further discussion, see Hamori, “The Prophet and the Necromancer: Women’s Divination for Kings,” 827–43.

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The story in 1 Samuel is a literary delight—it is creepy, poignant, scathing, and eloquent. The portrayal of the ineffectual and misguided king is humorous, but also touching. We see his experience of fear, his repeated failed attempts (unlike David) to gain divine insight, and his cloaked visit to the medium. He laments to the ghost of Samuel, falls down full length on the ground, partly from fear and partly because he had not eaten anything, stubbornly refuses to eat, and so on. Even if King David is no prince, Saul is no David. Saul is painted as a weak character, but the medium is not. Saul is guilty and will be punished, as the ghost of the prophet proclaims; the medium is told explicitly that she bears no guilt. She is portrayed with agency in raising the ghost of Samuel, and speaks to the king with authority. If the text de-legitimates Saul (as many argue, and as seems clear), it correspondingly legitimates the medium. After Saul has slaughtered priests, alienated the living Samuel, and exiled the ghost-diviners and spirit-diviners, he needs a message from Yahweh—and this comes at last through the ‫אוב‬-‫אשת בעלת‬. The story of 1 Samuel 28 reveals a world filled with possibilities for divining by spirits (recalling the expansive terminology for the spirits as well as the diviners in this text alone). Against this backdrop, the necromancer is not characterized as some sort of Canaanite death-worshipping sexual deviant, but as the diviner who finally provides Saul with the access to Yahwistic knowledge he has been seeking, through raising the prophet of Yahweh. Necromancy may be portrayed as one step further removed from Yahweh, but this is a matter of degree, and not of kind.

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8 The “Wise Women” of 2 Samuel

“Wise women” in the Hebrew Bible have not been identified as having a divinatory role. Some of the “wise men” of the Bible are associated with divination, however, and wise women attested elsewhere in the region—especially the titled wise women of Hittite literature—explicitly function as diviners. The issue at hand is to consider whether the “wise women” in the stories of 2 Samuel 14 and 20 reflect any type of divinatory role, as these other wise men and wise women do.

Wise Men The range of depictions of wise men in the Bible extends far beyond what is pertinent here. In addition to the concept of “the wise” as exemplified in the wisdom literature, there are skilled craftsmen or artisans (for example, Exod 28:3; Isa 40:20; 2 Chr 2:6 [Eng. 2:7]), as well as heads of tribes who are designated to be leaders to assist Moses (Deut 1:15). The “wise men” relevant here are specifically those associated with divination. In the majority of cases, these men hold official positions, and they are generally mentioned in conjunction with other court figures. For example, when the Pharaoh needs a dream interpreter, he calls his wise men and his magicians (‫חכמיה‬-‫כל‬-‫חרטמי מצרים ואת‬-‫כל‬-‫את‬, Gen 41:8); then, where they fail, Joseph the diviner par excellence succeeds. When another Pharaoh needs some solid magic to combat that of Moses and Aaron, he summons the wise men, this time paired with the sorcerers 1. Grabbe offers a useful overview (Priests, Prophets, Diviners, Sages, 152–80).

131

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(‫)לחכמים ולמכשפים‬. These wise men and sorcerers, collectively called “the magicians of Egypt,” succeed in reproducing the feats of Moses and Aaron (‫הם חרטמי מצרים בלהטיהם כן‬-‫ויעשו גם‬, Exod 7:11). Written significantly later, the book of Daniel integrates various senses of wisdom. The hero and his three compatriots have “knowledge, erudition, and wisdom” (‫ספר וחכמה‬-‫ ;)מדע והשכל בכל‬in addition to the “book smarts” all four share, Daniel also has understanding of visions and dreams (‫חזון וחלמות‬-‫ודניאל הבין בכל‬, Dan 1:17). When Nebuchadnezzar inquires of these men, he finds them superior to all of his “magicians and conjurers” (‫החרטמים האשפים‬-‫ )כל‬in all matters of “wisdom and understanding” (Dan 1:20). After this, when the magicians, enchanters, and sorcerers fail to interpret Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams (‫ מכשפים‬,‫ אשפים‬,‫חרטמים‬, Dan 2:2), he orders the execution of all of the “wise men of Babylon,” with Daniel and friends among them (‫חכימי בבל‬, Dan 2:12–13). A few passages in the prophets may have in mind pictures similar to these foreign court scenes. In Isaiah 19:11, “the wisest of the counselors of Pharaoh” are mocked for their counsel, which has become befuddled. Isaiah carries on, “Where are your wise men now?” (‫אים אפוא חכמיך‬, 19:12). The reading of these wise men as having a divinatory role does not depend only on the Genesis and Exodus narratives about Pharaohs and their defeated wise men. Within Isaiah 19, this is not the first reference to befuddled counsel and fruitless divination. The passage describes a series of terrible things that will happen in Egypt, and it all begins with this combination: “I will obfuscate its counsel, and they will inquire” of idols and ‫אבות‬ and ‫ ידענים‬and so forth (Isa 19:3). So far, each of these texts has painted a picture of wise men in a foreign court—though not all foreign men, with Daniel the Jewish dream interpreter exalted as the wisest of Nebuchadnezzar’s wise men. Wise men within Israel are depicted as having divinatory abilities as well. Isaiah treats wise men in parallel with other diviners in an oracle about prophets, seers, and wise men all losing their special insight: Yahweh has closed the eyes of the prophets and covered the heads of the seers (they will be like illiterate people trying to read a book), and the wisdom of the wise men will expire (Isa 29:10–14). In a similar vein, when the prophet in Second Isaiah rejects diviners of whom he disapproves, he lists wise men among them: Yahweh will make ineffectual the signs of idle talkers, make fools of the diviners, and turn the wise men backward and make their knowledge look foolish (‫מפר אתות בדים וקסמים יהולל משיב חכמים אחור ודעתם ישכל‬, Isa 44:25).

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One of the types of wise men we see in biblical texts, then, is a person associated with divinatory knowledge. In some cases, this appears to be a particular role in a foreign court—as Jeffers defines them, “a professional class of wise magicians.” In other cases, the term encompasses a range of roles associated with sorcery and divination, as when various groups of specialists are together called “wise men.” Finally, there are the “wise men” of Israel who are mentioned in parallel with other diviners, such as prophets and seers. As a whole, the relevant group exhibits a range of overlapping functions, including those of counselor, diviner, magician, and speaker of 2. This is Jeffers’s identification of ‫ חכמים‬overall, in both Israelite and foreign courts, though in her fuller discussion she observes that they are not always associated with magic (Magic and Divination, 40–44). Jeffers does not mention wise women. 3. Isa 3:2–3 presents an intriguing case, where esteemed roles are grouped in categories: “the hero and the warrior and the judge; the prophet and the diviner (‫ )קסם‬and the elder; the leader of fifty and the upstanding man; the counselor and the ‫ חכם חרשים‬and the expert in charms.” Especially given the other references to the divinatory ‫ חכמים‬in First Isaiah, the placement of the ‫חכם חרשים‬ here between the “counselor” (‫ )יועץ‬and the “expert in charms” (‫ )נבון לחש‬is suggestive: perhaps the role of the ‫ חכם חרשים‬includes aspects of both the former and the latter. Jeffers also recognizes that this group of three is listed together with reason, and sees them all as “experts in giving counsels, who may use magical or other means” (though I would part with her where she goes on to suggest that the ‫“ חכמים‬would be those in charge of the forces of creation”; ibid., 43). The key is the meaning of ‫ חרש‬here. The sense of ‫ חרשים‬as artisans does not fit the context (though most translations render it this way). Jeffers understands the ‫ חרש‬in general as a “medicine man,” pointing especially to the use of a cognate in Kirta (KTU 1.16 V 25–28), since she sees the root of the Hebrew as unknown (pp. 49–51); and BDB 361b translates the word in Isa 3:3 alone as referring to magical arts or drugs, citing Aramaic and Ethiopic cognates. However, ‫ חרש‬is surely a cognate of Akkadian eršu, “wise” (CAD E 313–314 s.v. eršu A; in fact, the CAD itself notes the connection). In the phrase ‫חכם חרשים‬, then, each word refers either to wisdom or magical activity and carries a connotation of the other: these are the wisest of the wise magicians, or those most skilled in the magical arts of knowledge. Given the placement of ‫ חכם חרשים‬between the counselor and the expert in charms, the references to divinatory ‫ חכמים‬elsewhere in First Isaiah, and the potential semantic range of ‫חרשים‬, I believe that we have in Isa 3:3 a reference to magically skilled wise men listed among other leaders of society (all of whom Yahweh is about to wipe out—but this is not the point, since judges, prophets, and upstanding men are among them, too).

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words of wisdom, each associated in the above texts with special knowledge. Jeffers connects the various functions of the ‫ חכמים‬under the umbrella of “counsellor,” and suggests that “divining abilities are understood as part of a counsellor’s functions.” As another way to reflect their various intersecting abilities, perhaps we might think of the ‫ חכמים‬as those skilled in the “arts of knowledge.”

Hittite Wise Women The most clearly relevant of the “wise women” in the region are those well attested in Hittite literature. These women held a recognized role in society—that is, these are not references to women who happened to be described as “wise” (as the titles in 2 Samuel are usually taken), but to a group of people who served a particular function, who were called by a consistent title. The term MUNUSŠU.GI literally means “old woman,” but it is usually translated as “wise woman.” These women are associated with special knowledge, so the sense of emphasizing their great age is that it points to their great wisdom. These women, wizened and wisened, were magical specialists and diviners. The “old women” or “wise women” engaged in a range of activities, including oracular divination. They worked both alone 4. Jeffers, Magic and Divination, 42–43. 5. See most recently Mouton, “Sorcellerie Hittite,” 105–25. Mouton is interested here in magic (particularly harmful magic), but note esp. 109–11. For discussions and texts, see Ünal, “The Role of Magic in the Ancient Anatolian Religions according to the Cuneiform Texts from Boğazköy-Hattuša,” esp. 64–70; Haas ˘ and Thiel, Die Beschwörungsrituale der Allaiturah(h)i und verwandte Texte, 22–25; ˘ ˘ Gurney, Some Aspects of Hittite Religion, 44–63; and on a range of functions of the wise women, from divination to sorcery to funerary rituals, Bin-Nun, The Tawananna in the Hittite Kingdom, 117–39. Ünal notes that as of 1988, all attestations of the wise women were collected in Daddi, Mestieri, professioni e dignità nell’Anatolia ittita. 6. As discussed by Hass and Thiel, Die Beschwörungsrituale der Allaiturah(h)i und ˘ ˘ verwandte Texte, 22. 7. A helpful point of comparison may be the ETCSL rendering of Sumerian umma, lit. “old woman” (=Akk. šibtu), alternately as “wise woman” and “experienced woman.” 8. Gurney notes the central role of the KIN oracle (Some Aspects of Hittite Religion, 46); citing in turn Archi, “Il sistema KIN della divinazione ittita,” 113–44. Other

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and alongside other diviners, providing their services to the royal family as well as to other citizens. The wise women can be seen acting in their capacity as diviners, for example, in The Bilingual Edict of Hattušili I. Hattušili’s reign was appar˘ ˘ ently full of familial opposition and intrigue, and in this text, the king rails against one of his sons (Labarna) and defends his decision to disinherit him, and promotes another son (Muršili) as his heir. Toward the end of the Edict, Hattušili’s courtiers tell the king what the queen, Haštayar, has been ˘ ˘ up to in the midst of all of the hullabaloo: “She now still keeps on consulting the Old Women.” Although the MUNUSŠU.GI is known for both sorcery and divination, the women’s activity in this text is clearly divinatory and, as Mouton observes, has no obvious connection to sorcery at all. One peculiarity of the outdated approach according to which divination was considered “magical” (as opposed to prophecy, which was considered “religious”) is that the demonstration of divinatory insight and the performance of magical feats do not actually go hand in hand very frequently among the religious specialists of the Hebrew Bible. Elijah and Elisha exhibit this overlap, for instance, but throughout the biblical material, the intersection of these roles seems to be the exception rather than the norm. It is striking, then, that we do see this combination of divinatory ability and the performance of magical feats among the (relevant type of ) wise men of the Bible, as we do among the Hittite wise women. In both activities of the wise women included a “scapegoat” ritual involving a mouse (“I have taken the evil off you and attached it to this mouse. Let this mouse carry it on a long journey to the high mountains, hills and dales”), and one involving a puppy (“They take a live puppy and wave it over the king and queen, also in the palace the Old Woman waves it about, and she says: ‘Whatever evil thing is in the body of the king and queen and in the palace, now see! . . . It has vanquished it. Let it carry away the evil thing and bring it to the place that the gods have appointed.’ Then they take away the live puppy”). Less colorful but perhaps more relevant is a funerary ritual in which two wise women engage in symbolic actions and dialogue (Gurney, Some Aspects of Hittite Religion, 44–63). See also the elaborate ritual against impotence: Hoffner, “Paskuwatti’s Ritual Against Sexual Impotence (CTH 406),” 271–87, and a long excerpt adapted from Hoffner’s translation, in Frantz-Szabo, “Hittite Witchcraft, Magic, and Divination,” 2014. 9. Frantz-Szabo, “Hittite Witchcraft, Magic, and Divination,” 2009. 10. “The Bilingual Edict of Hattušili I,” translated by Gary Beckman (COS ˘ 2.15:79–81). 11. Mouton, “Sorcellerie Hittite, 109 n.14. The passage is KUB 1.16 + iii 65–69.

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cases, the functions overlap but are not identical: the figures are known for both areas of activity but can engage in them separately.

Other Wise Women? To my knowledge, there is no evidence for the regular use of “wise woman” as a title for a divinatory role in Mesopotamia, but related epithets do appear with specific reference to divinatory skill. Dumuzi’s series of epithets for his sister Geštinanna culminates with “wise woman,” explicitly based on her divinatory ability to interpret dreams: “Bring my wise woman [umma], who knows the portent of dreams, bring my sister! Let me relate the dream to her.” Nanše, known for dream interpretation as well, as discussed in chapter 1, is also referred to as a “wise woman” (nin umma; “A Hymn to Nanše [Nanše A],” li. 225). The goddess Gula is called a “wise woman” or “sage” in tandem with references to her roles in divination and sorcery: “she (Gula) is a wise woman, a diviner, an exorcizer” (apkallat bārât muššipat). Ninsun, when interpreting her son’s dreams, is repeatedly called “the mother of Gilgamesh, knowing everything” (mudeat kalama; P 15, 37). This is not to suggest that references to wise women or female sages are always related to divinatory skill. Epithets such as those above are noteworthy for their relationship to the sense of “wise man” and “wise woman” seen in the Israelite and Hittite material, respectively. Elsewhere, however, female deities described as “wise” are also associated with childbirth. There are several references to “wise Mami” in her role as “the midwife of the gods” (with various forms of eršu, “wise”; for example, Atrahasis I 193, 250; III iii 33). In Ugaritic literature, the ktrt are goddesses associated with conception and childbirth. The word itself indicates their wisdom or skill (like the god Kothar-wa-Hasis), and they are thus sometimes called “the wise women.” Pardee defines them as “apparently ‘the (female) skillful 12. Alster, Dumuzi’s Dream, 55, li. 24–25. On umma, see n.7 above. This text, in which Geštinanna is just a girl, is an excellent example of the ETCSL’s rationale for translating the term as “wise woman.” 13. Translated on ETCSL as “wise woman,” rather than “experienced woman,” in this case. 14. As translated in CAD B 112 s.v. bārītu; cf. C. J. Mullo-Weir, “Four Hymns to Gula,” 15, 17. 15. Lambert and Millard, Atra-Hasīs: The Babylonian Story of the Flood. ˘ 16. For example, by Coogan in his translation of Aqhat (Stories from Ancient Canaan, 34–35). For comparison, in Parker’s translation of Aqhat, they are simply “the Katharat” (Ugaritic Narrative Poetry, 56–57).

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ones.’” The ktrt appear for instance in Aqhat (KTU 1.17 II 24–40), where they seem to inspire a rousing change in Danil, who can then impregnate his wife. Their role as conception deities is evident again in KTU 1.24, a poem telling of the marriage of the deities Yarikh and Nikkal-Ib. If the role of the ktrt as goddesses of conception overlaps at all with activity usually associated with divination (and this is an “if ” with a very light touch), it might be found in one provocative line of this poem. Lines 5–6 begin an address, “To the Katharat,” and then it is not entirely clear who speaks the words of line 7, but it is presumably they: “Behold, the young woman shall give birth to a child” (hl g´lmt tld b[n . . .]). It would be interesting if their functions as birth goddesses included announcements of future births. Evidently, references to the wisdom or skill of a goddess (“wise Mami” and the ktrt) may relate to conception in some Mesopotamian and Ugaritic contexts. At the same time, in the cases above where “wise woman” is actually used as an epithet—for Geštinanna and Nanše in their roles as dream interpreters, and for Gula in her role as diviner and exorcist—it is explicitly related to divinatory skill (and in the latter case, also to sorcery). These terms are by no means uniform, even within a given body of literature, let alone across cultures. Divination and sorcery are functions of some “wise men” in Israelite literature and not others; the Hittite MUNUSŠU.GI 17. For a summary of disagreement over the meaning of the epithet, and for bibliography, see Pardee, “Kosharoth,” 491–92; and see discussion and bibliography in Marsman, Women in Ugarit and Israel, 214–16. For a different approach, see Ginsberg, who argued that they were human (“Women Singers and Wailers Among the Northern Canaanites,” 13–15). 18. El’s blessing of Danil points to Danil’s impotence as the cause of his lack of an heir (KTU 1.17 I 36–37). Then Danil makes seven days of sacrifices to the Katharat (II 24–40), after which we hear of the “joy of the bed” (II 41–42) and the counting of months. 19. “The Betrothal of Yarikh and Nikkal-Ib,” translated by David Marcus, in Parker, Ugaritic Narrative Poetry, 215–18. The ktrt are also mentioned in KTU 1.11 (“A Birth,” translated by Parker, in Parker, Ugaritic Narrative Poetry, 186–87), but the text is too fragmentary to draw any further conclusions about their activity. 20. As translated by Marcus (minus punctuation); as Marcus notes, the similarity to Isa 7:14 is obvious (in Parker, Ugaritic Narrative Poetry, 218 n.1). 21. On birth oracles as divinatory activity, see Hamori, “Heavenly Bodies: Pregnancy and Birth Omens in Israel,” 479–99. 22. It is also possible that the Hittite reading of MUNUSŠU.GI, hašawaš (or for ˘ Frantz-Szabo, haššawa-), may be a play on the word for “midwife.” Hass and ˘ Thiel, Die Beschwörungsrituale der Allaiturah(h)i und verwandte Texte, 22. ˘ ˘

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certainly specializes in these skills, but may perform them quite separately (an expiation ritual here, divinatory inquiry there). It is not that the epithet “wise woman” must carry a connotation of a divinatory function, but that, as seen in these examples across a range of Near Eastern literature, it at times has this sense, just as “wise man” within the Hebrew Bible does. On to the “wise woman” within the Bible itself, then.

Wise Women in 2 Samuel There is a range of traits and skills associated with “wise women” in biblical texts, as there is with “wise men,” albeit among a smaller sample. There are female artisans mentioned alongside the male (Exod 35:25 and 36:1), and women in some way associated with lamentation ( Jer 9:16 [Eng. 9:17]). There are two texts, however, in which the speech and activity of a wise woman is associated with a divinatory role. In the first story, Joab sends to Tekoa for a “wise woman” (‫)אשה חכמה‬ who can speak to David about Absalom, who killed his brother Amnon to avenge the rape of their sister Tamar. Joab is said to put words in her mouth; then the wise woman goes before the king and presents a covert parable featuring herself as the mother of two sons, one of whom killed the other, and she begs for the king not to let her surviving son be put to death: “They will extinguish my only remaining coal!” (2 Sam 14:7). After she enacts the parable and David has responded, predictably, by promising the safety of her surviving son, she turns and accuses the king of having incriminated himself. In the end, David asks her whether Joab was involved in this, and she and David have a brief conversation—one that Joab would not have been able to anticipate, so he cannot very well have put these words in her mouth (2 Sam 14:1–20). The fact that Joab has put some words in the woman’s mouth—the extent of this unfortunately we cannot know—renders her role unclear, but by no 23. The fleeting poetic mention in Judg 5:29 probably does not refer to anything relevant here. While it would be nice to see the mother of Sisera consulting wise women (or sing., with several versions and manuscripts) like the Hittite queen Haštayar in The Bilingual Edict of Hattušili I, the phrase does not really ˘ ˘ support such a reading. Perhaps the better comparison, though further afield, would be to the “wise men” who are the personal advisors of Haman. While the king’s “wise men” are royal legal advisors (Esth 1:13), Haman has his own “wise men” who advise him more generally on how to deal with Mordechai (6:13).

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means unimportant. We do know that this wise woman’s specialized services were required. We see from the beginning of the story that she has a specialized role: Joab has sent specifically for her, bringing her in from another city to perform this task. She is clearly not just any woman pulled in to deliver Joab’s lines; surely someone in all of Jerusalem could have done well enough at that. Though the details are obscured, it is evident that Joab has gone to some effort to bring in a person with a particular function. (One might recall here how the Hittite wise women served the king and private clients.) What then can we tell of this function, through the haze of Joab being responsible for some unknowable portion of her words? We know one key thing: whether the precise words of her accusation are hers or Joab’s, he has brought her in for this very purpose. She is not some upstart who waltzes in and rebukes the king at will, come what may. She is a “wise woman” whom Joab sees as having the authority to accuse the king of guilt—and from David’s reaction, we see that Joab was right. Joab will not say these things to the king himself, for whatever reason (fear of immediate death, perhaps?). The wise woman, however, can tell the king directly that he is guilty. She can face the king and accuse him of guilt, because Joab has sent to another city specifically for someone who can present not only the stealth parable, but also the rebuke, without which the parable is meaningless—or, put otherwise, someone like Nathan. The approach is precisely the same as the prophet Nathan’s two chapters earlier. Nathan presents a parable to David, in response to which the king acknowledges the wrongdoing of his parabolic stand-in. Then Nathan 24. Fontaine’s conclusion is optimistic: “That she listens to Joab as he puts words in her mouth is a sign of her wisdom, not some foolishness—the tradition is clear that a wise person listens to a variety of viewpoints, accounts and opinions before making a decision and putting it into action verbally” (Smooth Words: Women, Proverbs and Performance in Biblical Wisdom, 192). Others draw the opposite conclusion: A. A. Anderson, for example, sees her as something of a puppet (2 Samuel, 187). Surely there is a reasonable middle ground. 25. It has occasionally been suggested that she is an expert in lamentation, but this does not fit the context. McCarter, in arguing against that notion, momentarily seems to suggest that she is indeed there just to recite lines: “Joab is in need of an actress, not a professional mourner.” Just before this, however, he observes that the term “wise woman” “may express itself in a variety of skills and talents, most characteristically in an ability to use speech to achieve desired results” (2 Samuel, 345).

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accuses David of being guilty himself (“You are the man!” ‫אתה האיש‬, 2 Sam 12:7), and asks David why he has acted this way (“Why then have you treated the word of Yahweh with disdain?” ‫דבר יהוה‬-‫מדוע בזית את‬, v. 9). Like the prophet Nathan, the wise woman delivers her parable, asks the king why he has acted this way, and tells him that his own judgment against those guilty in the parable has incriminated him: “Why then have you thought this way when it comes to the people of God? On the basis of pronouncing this judgment, the king is like the guilty party” (‫ ומדבר המלך הדבר הזה כאשם‬. . . ‫ולמה חשבתה כזאת‬, v. 13). The wise woman’s post-parable “reveal” includes an accusation perhaps even more cutting than just the statement, “Based on your own words, you are the guilty one.” It also casts a harsher light on the parable itself. She had not merely said that one of her sons murdered the other. Rather, her two sons were fighting in the field, ‫—ואין מציל ביניהם‬no one intervened!—and so the one killed the other. Recalling what has led to the present crisis, that Absalom killed Amnon because when Tamar was raped, David did nothing—David was “very angry,” and then two years passed (2 Sam 13:21– 23), after which Absalom finally killed his brother—this suddenly becomes a particularly incisive line. So in the first story, we see a figure with a specialized role, someone brought in from elsewhere in order to function very much like the prophet Nathan, delivering a covert parable and its attendant accusation of the king’s guilt. Compare also the marvelous story of the prophet who gets himself beaten up so that he can appear bedraggled and bandaged before Ahab, and then enacts a parable that leads the king to incriminate himself (1 Kgs 20:35–43). The person Joab brings in to act like these prophets is called a “wise woman;” we know that “wise men” can have a divinatory role within Israelite literature, as can “wise women” in the literature of Israel’s neighbors. So far, it seems a reasonable bet that this is not totally coincidental. The story ends on an appropriate note. The woman’s closing line does more than just stroke David’s ego: “My lord is wise, like the wisdom of the angel of God, knowing everything on earth” (2 Sam 14:20). Within this

26. This one is a bit darker, what with that poor first gentleman who declines to beat on the prophet, only to be doomed to immediate death by lion. (Ahab, who goes away “sullen and vexed,” as the NASB charmingly puts it, should be relieved in comparison.)

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very story, and from the wise woman’s own mouth, we see a view of ‫ חכמה‬as privileged divine knowledge. In the second story, the encounter is between a wise woman and Joab himself. Joab, having previously brought in a wise woman to rebuke David for being too hard on Absalom, has recently rebuked David for being too grieved for his son (2 Sam 19:2–8 [Eng. 1–7]). Then, during the chaos following Absalom’s death, one Sheba ben Bichri appears on the scene and rallies all Israel to follow him instead of David (2 Sam 20:1–2). Joab and his men pursue Sheba, who flees into the city of Abel, and they start attacking the wall. Just then, a wise woman calls down to the people: “Listen, listen! Say to Joab, ‘Come here, so I can speak to you’” (2 Sam 20:16). It is implicit that the people comply; Joab approaches, the wise woman tells him to listen, and Joab replies, “I am listening” (20:17). Let us remember that at this moment, Joab is trying to defeat an enemy who until recently had “all Israel” abandoning David to follow him. The situation is a bit urgent. Joab’s only reason to stop and listen to the wise woman is if he sees her as having the authority to get him what he wants. Joab’s men assume she has this authority, just as Joab does: she calls down to them and says, “Get me Joab,” and they do; she wants him to approach, he approaches. The wise woman begins to speak to Joab: “They used to say in olden times: ‘Let them inquire at Abel,’ and thus they would be done with it” (‫דבר ידברו בראשנה לאמר שאל ישאלו באבל וכן התמו‬, 20:18). Her city has long been known, she says, as a place for authoritative oracular inquiry. This does not explicitly tell us who the woman is, but we now have three pieces of information to fit together: she is called a “wise woman,” she is portrayed as having authority, and all this in a city known specifically for authoritative oracular inquiry. She continues her rebuke of Joab for attacking such a place: “I am among the peaceable and faithful of Israel; you are seeking to kill off a city and a ‘mother in Israel’! Why would you swallow up the heritage of Yahweh?” (20:19). The first claim is straightforward; the last claim, regarding 27. McCarter observes another reversal here: in the first story, Joab told the wise woman what to do; in this story, the wise woman tells Joab what to do (2 Samuel, 431). 28. Or so it says; as McCarter points out, the rest of the story makes “all Israel” seem something of an exaggeration. Soon afterward, as he observes, “‘all Israel’ seems to have gone home” (2 Samuel, 431). 29. See ibid., 428–29, on the difficulties of this verse.

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the “heritage of Yahweh,” may refer either to Abel as the seat of oracular inquiry or to the woman’s role in it (or perhaps both). In between, we come to the only use of the phrase “a mother in Israel” outside of the song of Deborah and Barak. In the present context, the phrase is usually understood to refer to the city of Abel itself. Since the phrasing straightforwardly indicates two separate entities, a city and a mother in Israel (‫)עיר ואם בישראל‬, explaining it as a hendiadys for the city takes some doing. First, it requires a lack of recognition of “mother in Israel” even as a potential title for the female character speaking. Second, it depends on a peculiar reading of the phrase itself. The image of a “mother” city is interpreted by analogy with the few references to cities and their smaller “daughter” villages ( Josh 15:45; Judg 11:26). However, the cities in those texts are not called “mothers,” and there is no sense in this text of describing cities and villages in relation to one other. In addition, if there were no reference to a human being, the use of ‫ להמית‬would be rather odd. If the “mother in Israel” were not a person, then in the sentence ‫ אתה מבקש להמית עיר ואם בישראל‬several unusual things would be happening at once. The verb ‫להמית‬, “to kill,” would somehow take two inanimate objects (“to kill a city, a mother-town”). In this scenario, first the word ‫ עיר‬must be read as a reference to the people of the city (cf. 1 Sam 5:12), then the “mother in Israel” must be read as an unprecedented way of describing a city, and finally the two terms must be read in hendiadys. This seems awfully convoluted. More realistically, because the verb ‫להמית‬ is doing double duty, its first object either could be inanimate (“to destroy a city and kill a mother in Israel”) or could represent the people (“to kill off a city, and a mother in Israel”). Either way, the simplest explanation is that the woman, who has already just been talking about herself (“I am among the peaceable and faithful”), then refers to herself as “a mother in Israel.” On the basis of this text alone, the phrase ‫ אם בישראל‬should be understood to refer to the wise woman. The additional use of the same phrase to 30. Ackerman and Camp both address a possible relationship between the ‫נחלה‬ references of the two wise women (14:16, 20:19). Ackerman, Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen, 40; Camp, “The Wise Women of 2 Samuel,” 29. 31. For example, McCarter translates, “You’re trying to destroy one of Israel’s mother cities!” (2 Samuel, 426, 430); Hertzberg translates, “you seek to kill a city which is a mother in Israel” (1 and 2 Samuel, 370, 373). Even Camp, writing on the wise women, sees the city as the mother (“The Wise Women of 2 Samuel,” 27–28). Ackerman, on the other hand, understands ‫ אם בישראל‬to refer to both the city and the woman (Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen, 39–41).

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refer to Deborah in Judges 5:7 renders alternatives unnecessarily contrived. The term “a mother in Israel” refers in Judges 5 to Deborah’s advisory role, as discussed earlier. Ackerman brings the two texts together and observes that here too, the woman who is a “mother in Israel” is primarily known for her counsel. I would add that in each case—not circularly dependent on one other—the woman who is called an ‫ אם בישראל‬is associated with divination. Back to the wise woman’s question: “Why would you swallow up the heritage of Yahweh?” Joab answers, ‫ חלילה חלילה לי‬if I do any such thing! McCarter puts this nicely: “I’ll be damned if I’m going to afflict or destroy anything!” (Though Sheba probably did not see it this way.) Joab explains the situation to the wise woman and asks her to turn Sheba over, and she replies, “‘His head will be thrown to you over the wall.’ Then the woman went to all of the people in her wisdom,” and they chopped off the man’s head and tossed it over (2 Sam 20:21–22). We saw previously how Joab and his men outside of the city responded to the wise woman’s authority. As Ackerman points out, here we have good indication of how seriously the people within the city take her counsel: she goes to the people “to inform them of her plan to decapitate Sheba and throw his head over the city’s walls. . . . Presumably, she has to persuade the people of Abel to agree with this proposed course of action.” Everyone in this story—Joab, Joab’s army outside of the city walls, and the people of Abel within—all have listened with impressive obedience to the instructions of the wise woman. As with the prophet Miriam, we do not see this woman’s divinatory activity itself, but we do see her make a claim to divinatory authority. The character, introduced as a “wise woman,” reminds Joab that this place is known for authoritative oracular inquiry, speaks with authority within it, and calls herself an ‫אם בישראל‬. In this case, we also see the woman surrounded by people who uniformly receive her words as authoritative. We can then begin to identify the commonalities between the two wise women. I must disagree with the conclusion Camp draws, in the only sustained treatment of the wise women. Camp observes that the two wise 32. Ackerman also sees the military connection as a significant element of the “mother in Israel” role, partly on the basis of the military context of Judg 5 (Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen, 38–43). 33. McCarter, 2 Samuel, 426, 429. 34. Ackerman, Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen, 40. 35. That is, with attention to their identity: Wesselius is interested in the literary relationship between the two “wise woman” passages, and what they might tell us

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women both speak with authority, and compares them to royal advisors, but she then suggests that the women’s wise speech is reflected specifically in the fact that each woman at some point utters a proverb (2 Sam 14:14, 20:18). This is a problematic comparison, since the two phrases in question are different sorts of proverbs used for different purposes—that is, if 14:14 contains a proverb at all, rather than just a poetic analogy (“we are like water . . .”). In the opening oracle of Second Isaiah, is the prophet’s assertion that “all flesh is grass” a proverb (Isa 40:6)? I am inclined to think not. However, even if one accepts that “we are like water” is a type of proverbial language, the functions of the phrases in 14:14 and 20:18 are too dissimilar to warrant identifying them as the common element of these women’s speech. This problem is then reflected in Camp’s conclusion. Focusing on what she sees as a shared use of language, a difficulty remains for her in establishing what the two women’s shared role would be. She concludes: “The wise women of Tekoa and Abel, then, appear in situations in which they act in a manner associated with a prophet and a military leader, respectively, while using forms of language associated with the wisdom tradition.” By this about David—not about the wise women (“De wijze vrouwen in 2 Samuël 14 en 20,” 89–100). Occasional sustained treatments of one woman or the other also do not address the matter of role relevant here. In his book on the parable of the wise woman of Tekoa, Lyke is interested in various aspects of the proverb, and not the role of the woman herself, except to the extent that he thinks we cannot know much about it (King David with the Wise Woman of Tekoa, 21). A. Brenner briefly discusses these two women, concluding that they “belong to a specific institution—that of ‘wise women.’ These women are clever, articulate, involved in the political life of the community—in short, they enjoy a status similar to that of an elder, or a ‘wise man’” (The Israelite Woman, 34–38, quotation 38). 36. Camp, “The Wise Women of 2 Samuel,” 17–20. 37. Camp acknowledges that there is a difference, but defends her identification of 14:14 as a proverb (ibid., 20). 38. Ibid., 24. Fontaine follows Camp in focusing on the women’s “wise” speech, but seems to see the wise women here, and even in the Hittite texts, essentially as local den mothers. She extrapolates: “wives and mothers known for their common-sense teachings and ability to resolve conflicts might be drafted into the service of their neighborhoods, towns or cities. Such women are found in 2 Samuel as ‘wise women,’ and their sisters are well attested” among the Hittites. She pictures this as a phenomenon somewhat broader and clearer than what is represented in the biblical texts: “One of the most critical features of Israel’s wise women was, once again, their excellent and timely use of language

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analysis, their common trait is the use of some type of proverb, in some context, for some purpose, but in totally different roles. In a later essay, Camp attempts to align these roles more, arguing that “these women, especially she of Abel, seem to be doing what we would expect elders to do, in particular, representing their people in national political-military situations.” It is not clear, however, in what way the wise woman of Tekoa is either representing her people or serving a military function. Camp’s recognition of the authoritative speech of the two wise women is significant, but this does not yet explain what role the women actually have in common. What then are the unifying features in the depictions of the two women? To begin from the beginning: each character is introduced as a “wise woman.” These are generally taken as simple descriptions of women who happened to be wise, often referred to in the literature as “the woman of Tekoa” and “the woman of Abel,” as if the narrators might just as easily have mentioned “Beatrice from Schenectady, who was wise,” and later, “Estelle of Forest Hills, a clever woman.” Instead, the two women are both called by a specific epithet. The sense of “wise woman” (‫ )אשה חכמה‬as a title is highlighted when seen in contrast with an actual simple descriptive phrase: compare Abigail, who is described in 1 Samuel 25:3 as “an intelligent woman” (‫שכל‬-‫ )אשה טובת‬and does not serve a particular social function. In 2 Samuel 14 and 20, the “wise women” are introduced by their title—and by their title alone—and in each case, the “wise woman” is in the story because she is serving a specific social function. Based on the presence of in the resolution of conflicts (2 Sam. 14, 20). . . . What began as women’s wisdom in the world of the home has clearly gone public, to the good of all” (Fontaine, Smooth Words, 65). 39. Camp, “The Female Sage in Ancient Israel and in the Biblical Wisdom Literature,” 189. 40. Contra Schroer, who observes in regard to the women of 2 Sam that “In both cases, the ‘wise woman’ looks like a signifier of status or official position,” but then includes Abigail and Judith within the same subcategory, before moving on to discuss counseling mothers and wives (“Wise and Counselling Women in Ancient Israel,” 71–72). 41. As Camp observes, the author, at least, seems to have expected the audience to have a framework to understand such a figure (“The Wise Women of 2 Samuel,” 17). Camp goes further, though, arguing that the audience would recognize the “wise woman” both as a “culturally stereotyped character” and as a reflection of a historical political role.

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an equivalent male title in Israelite literature, an equivalent female title in Hittite literature, the association of both of those roles with divination, and the association of each “wise woman” in 2 Samuel with a divinatory function, “wise woman” should not be taken as an incidental description in these texts, but as a title. For this reason, I have continually referred to each as a “wise woman,” rather than the customary “woman of Tekoa” and “woman of Abel,” which imply that the adjective “wise” is simply a description. In both stories, we see that the character has a specialized role. In the first, Joab has to send to Tekoa for a wise woman who can do the job he needs done. If there were no specialized skill or function involved, Joab would not need to seek out this particular woman in this particular town. In the second, the wise woman asserts that she is an ‫ אם בישראל‬and demonstrably serves a particular function among the people of her city. In both cases, the specialized role of the wise woman is an authoritative one. Each woman speaks in a manner that demonstrates that she assumes she has authority: the wise woman of Tekoa accuses David of guilt with dangerous boldness, and the wise woman of Abel gives orders to Joab, Joab’s men outside of the city walls, and her own people within. In each case, the response of other characters shows that the wise woman’s authority is real and accepted: David accepts the rebuke of the wise woman of Tekoa, whom Joab has brought in to serve this very function, and everyone in sight complies with the instructions of the wise woman of Abel. So what is the nature of the authority with which they both speak? In both stories, the women’s authority is associated with divinatory speech. The wise woman of Tekoa interacts with David just as the prophet Nathan did only two chapters earlier—including the stealth parable, the questioning of why the king would act as he did, and the accusation of guilt—and as another prophet later would with Ahab. The wise woman of Abel has authoritative wisdom even within a town known for its wisdom. She reminds Joab that Abel has long been a seat of authoritative oracular inquiry—that is, authoritative divination—and then calls herself an ‫אם בישראל‬, an advisory role here as it is in reference to Deborah in Judges 5. 42. The removal of titles—or at least the lack of recognition and use of titles—is an interesting thing. It is similarly common to see references to “the woman of En-dor,” even though she is introduced as an ‫אוב‬-‫ אשת בעלת‬and only happens to live in En-dor, whereas one does not generally see references to unnamed “men of God” as “the man of Shiloh” (1 Sam 2:27–36) or “the man of Judah” (1 Kgs 13:1–10). Peculiar.

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The two roles are not necessarily identical. (The roles of all titled “prophets” are not identical either.) With one story about each of two wise women, one under assault at home in her city and the other brought temporarily to Jerusalem to serve a particular function there, there is not adequate data on which to judge the precise relationship between the two roles. At a minimum, both stories tell of figures titled “wise women” who have specialized roles; both texts portray figures with recognized authority, as demonstrated by each woman’s activity and confirmed by each woman’s reception within the story; and both of these authoritative specialized roles are related to divinatory speech, as one wise woman uses the specific rhetorical approach recognizable from the speech of the prophet just two chapters earlier, and the other explicitly associates herself with the speech of divinatory experts. To my knowledge, it has not been recognized that the wise women’s shared role is associated with divinatory speech. Even if little more can be determined about the exact nature of their roles, the wise women’s association with divination should be recognized on the basis of these texts alone, and then all the more so in light of the presence elsewhere of wise men and wise women who function as divinatory experts.

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9 Huldah This is the only story in the Hebrew Bible of a titled ‫ נביאה‬who delivers a classic prophetic oracle. Many have seen in the uniqueness of the story an indication of either the lack or marginalization of female prophets. However, there is nothing in the text to suggest that there was anything remarkable about the king consulting a female prophet in general, or that the narrator had any interest in the gender of this female prophet in particular. On the contrary, what is remarkable is that Huldah is remembered straightforwardly as the prophet of Yahweh who delivers the pivotal oracle to Josiah—in spite of the fact that she gets it wrong.

Huldah of Jerusalem Crisis has come to the temple. A scroll has been uncovered, its contents found to have been woefully neglected, and Josiah needs to consult a diviner. It is in this context that we meet Huldah. Those looking for signs of Huldah’s marginalization in the brevity of her introduction search in vain. In the balance, we know more about Huldah than we 1. I will include a few key examples, but readers may refer to the thorough work on the history of gender-related interpretation of Huldah by Handy, “Reading Huldah as Being a Woman,” 5–44. 2. While less common, the logic of looking for affirmation here is just as problematic. Weems argues that it is precisely the lack of information offered that brings such attention to Huldah: “The less we are allowed to know about the woman prophet, the larger she looms in both the narrative and in the reader’s imagination” (“Huldah, the Prophet: Reading a [Deuteronomistic] Woman’s Identity,” 324).

148

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do about some male prophets, and less than we do about others. She is identified by her husband’s name, just as a man would be identified by his father’s name. The additional details regarding her husband’s occupation and family line are there to provide more identifying information about Huldah, as such things went in those days. Similarly, rather than naming Huldah’s town of origin, the narrator says where she lives currently. The author gives the information relevant for the story, with the nice additional detail of her particular neighborhood: she lived in Jerusalem, in the Mishneh. Several major translations present Huldah’s identification through her husband as the primary point, and render the statement about where she lives as parenthetical (for example, NASB, NKJV, ASV). This is not the perspective of the text. The statement about where she lives is an independent clause and uses the feminine singular (‫והיא ישבת בירושלם במשנה‬, 2 Kgs 22:14). It is not that Josiah’s men went to “Huldah the prophet, the wife of Shallum ben Tikvah ben Harhas, the wardrobe keeper (who lived in Jerusalem in the Mishneh),” but rather that they went to “Huldah the prophet, the wife of Shallum ben Tikvah ben Harhas, the wardrobe keeper. She lived in Jerusalem, in the Mishneh.” This is a minor point, but for those concerned that Huldah is shortchanged in her introduction, it is a distinction worth observing. This is a succinct example of the complex interplay between the gendering of the text and of the characters by the Israelite tradition on the one hand (Huldah is indeed identified through her husband), and by modern interpreters on the other (there is no good textual reason to render the independent clause describing Huldah as subordinate to the appositional phrase identifying her husband). There are also those concerned that the overall presentation of Huldah marginalizes women. In her article on the construction of female prophets, Fuchs has observed that we do not see any of the female prophets’ discourses with Yahweh. She concludes that “The narratorial ambivalence toward women’s prophetic function is exposed in the suppression of the possibility of a female dialogue with yhwh,” and notes that a ‫“ נביאה‬may be shown to use the messenger formula, or a variation thereof, but there is no objective narratorial confirmation of the event. While the formula ‘yhwh spoke to Moses’ or ‘God spoke to Jeremiah’ appears frequently, this formula does not appear in the context of female prophecy.” This 3. Fuchs, “Prophecy and the Construction of Women,” 57–58.

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distinction between the prophets’ use of the messenger formula and the narrator’s presentation of Yahweh’s message is overemphasized. Deborah, for instance, proclaims what Yahweh has told her, speaking for Yahweh using the prophetic first person ( Judg 4:6–7); this and her other proclamations about what Yahweh is doing and will do (4:9, 14) are confirmed by the narrator throughout the story. Equally, there are texts in which male prophets proclaim messages from Yahweh that the reader is seeing for the first time. Huldah uses the formulaic phrase ‫כה אמר יהוה‬, “thus says Yahweh,” three times in five verses, in addition to an inserted ‫יהוה‬-‫נאם‬, “the oracle of Yahweh!” Her language reflects an assumption of prophetic authority in both form and content, and the narrator presents her as authoritative. Others, meanwhile, have seen Huldah presented as authoritative specifically as a woman. Butting and Fischer, for example, both emphasize the importance of the placement of Deborah and Huldah as the first and last prophets of the redacted books of the Former Prophets. Butting views this framing as a reflection of women’s prophetic authority, and specifically as it relates to Torah; she thus sees Huldah’s role as the prophetic counterpoint to Torah as represented in the story. Fischer, again focused on the question of how each female prophet is depicted in terms of Mosaic succession, sees the framing of the Former Prophets by Deborah and Huldah as evidence that both women are presented as “true” prophets in the line of Moses, and emphasizes that in this post-exilic framing, we actually see the increased influence of women in and upon scripture in the Persian period, contrary to common assumptions. She reads Huldah in particular as embodying the joining of prophecy and cult, making her an idealized successor to Moses. 4. Butting, Prophetinnen Gefragt, 99–100. The model of female prophets as embodying a counterpart to Torah is her guiding framework throughout, beginning with Noadiah as the prophetic counterpart to Nehemiah (pp. 10–11). In her view, it is also through the prophecy of the other female prophets that Torah is made present and relevant: she sees Miriam’s song as having this function in relation to the exodus narrative, and so also Deborah’s song in relation to the narrative of Judg 4 (pp. 44, 121). 5. Assumptions that, as she observes, are at times formulated in an anti-Jewish manner (Fischer, Gotteskünderinnen, 185; on women and scripture in the Persian period, see also pp. 276–77). 6. Ibid., 179–85.

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Huldah is often referred to in the literature as an “official” prophet. Even aside from the other difficulties with such terminology, it is unclear whether Huldah is the king’s prophet-on-call. Josiah tells his men to inquire of Yahweh, and they go consult Huldah (2 Kgs 22:13–14). Is she in the regular employ of the king or in some less “official” sense his go-to prophet, or did Josiah’s men select her for this task? This could be more like the picture in 1 Samuel 28, where Saul’s men know where to go to find a diviner. It is possible that the content of Huldah’s prophecy reflects a connection to the royal court. More than half of her oracle is focused on praising Josiah: Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel—say to the man who sent you to me— thus says Yahweh: “I am about to bring adversity upon this place and its inhabitants, in accordance with all the words of the scroll which the king of Judah read. Because they forsook me and made offerings to other gods, angering me with all of their deeds, my anger will burn against this place and will not be extinguished!” But as for the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of Yahweh, say this to him: Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel: “When you heard those words, because your heart was softened and you humbled yourself before Yahweh when you heard what I spoke against this place and its inhabitants, that it would become a wasteland and a curse, and because you tore your clothes and wept before me, I have indeed listened”—the oracle of Yahweh— “Therefore I will gather you to your fathers, and you will be gathered to your tomb in peace, and your eyes will not see all of the adversity that I bring upon this place.” (2 Kgs 22:15–20)

The first section of the oracle lays the blame fully with the people; the second, longer section explains why Josiah is exempt. So there is some sort of administrative process here whereby the king sends for divinatory 7. E.g., Fritz, who assumes an official position, writing that Huldah is “the only woman mentioned as the holder of this office” (1 & 2 Kings, 400). For a very different perspective, see Edelman, who argues that Huldah (if historical) would have been a prophet of Asherah (“Huldah the Prophet—of Yahweh or Asherah?” 248). 8. And in fact, the oracle does not do much beyond this. As Handy points out, “What is most noteworthy about this short speech by Huldah is how little it actually says about anything . . . For a biblical speech from Yahweh, this is truly vague” (“The Role of Huldah in Josiah’s Cult Reform,” 50).

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consultation, the diviner in question bears the title ‫נביאה‬, and her oracle unwaveringly favors the king. The similarity to the pep-talking court prophets of 1 Kings 22 and other texts is apparent. Then again, what dominates the larger story is the Deuteronomist’s presentation of Josiah as the good king who, in spite of his righteousness and his reform, is not able to save Judah from itself—so perhaps it is just that Huldah’s message suits the narrator’s message.

The Story of a Scroll The main character in this story is the scroll. Anything can happen to the rest of the characters, and in the end, it will make no difference: what matters is what happens in the life of the scroll. The scroll, uncovered in the process of temple repair, is a bit of a mystery. After some deliberation among a few court and temple officials, the decision is made to bring the scroll to someone who can inquire of Yahweh directly. Now, it is not unprecedented for a king to consult a diviner in order to confirm previous cultic instruction from a deity. Had the story included only this one attempt to validate the scroll, it would look as if Josiah were engaging in the practice of having a diviner “double-check” an earlier revelation. This is not how the narrative proceeds, however. As the text presents it, there are other religious authorities who might have verified the scroll, but one by one, they are unable to do so. The scroll is first found by the high priest Hilkiah. The high priest does not know what to make of it and gives it to the scribe Shaphan to read. Shaphan brings it to Josiah but discusses temple repair business with the king before coming to the subject of the scroll, apparently not quite recognizing its import. He then reads it to Josiah, and among the three men—the high priest, the scribe, and the king— 9. Fischer thinks that Huldah is definitely not a court prophet, because the delegation goes to her, rather than she to the court, and because she refers to Josiah not as “the king” but as “the one who sent you” (Gotteskünderinnen, 163–64). These suggestions strike me as reasonable but by no means conclusive. 10. Handy helpfully compares this to Mesopotamian literature in which kings are apparently expected to consult diviners in order to “double-check” or confirm previous cultic instructions from deities, and particularly to the cult restoration/ reform texts of Esarhaddon and Nabonidus (“The Role of Huldah in Josiah’s Cult Reform,” 40–53).

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they still must turn to a higher authority. Josiah concludes that divinatory expertise is required, and he sends Hilkiah the high priest and Shaphan the scribe (with their titles used repeatedly in the story) along with the king’s minister and two other men to inquire of Yahweh. It is only because each of the other religious authorities is stumped that they seek out the diviner who can consult Yahweh directly. This is not a presentation of a standard procedure of double-checking with a prophet: it is a matter of turning to a diviner who has access to divine knowledge that even the high priest and his colleagues do not have. The narrator thus attributes significant divinatory authority to Huldah. So, the men go to Huldah and she validates the scroll. The purpose of the narrative is the authorization of the book, and it is Huldah who gives her imprimatur. This also means, as is frequently observed, that Huldah is the first person to authorize a canonical text. It may be Josiah’s reform, but it is Huldah’s canon. Then again, as the story goes, the reform itself would not have happened without Huldah’s oracle either. So far, all Josiah has done is rend his clothes and send his men. It is only in response to Huldah’s divination that Josiah institutes the reform. He does not act on his own authority in response to the scroll—he acts on hers. As the narrative presents it, if instead of confirming “all the words of the scroll which the king of Judah read,” the prophet had said, “Thus says Yahweh: Don’t worry so much about the scroll, Josiah,” there would have been no reform. In spite of these many indications that Huldah had the same prophetic authority we see in male characters in other texts, many interpreters have questioned why Josiah would have consulted a woman. There is nothing in the text to indicate that this was unusual, and enough record of female prophets elsewhere, including in the roughly contemporary Neo-Assyrian oracles, to indicate that it was not. That Huldah is a woman is a nonissue 11. E.g., Camp, “Female Voice, Written Word: Women and Authority in Hebrew Scripture,” 100–101; Eskenazi, ed., and Weiss, assoc. ed., The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, xxxvii–xxxviii; Swindler, “In Search of Huldah,” 1783. Brueggemann holds precisely the opposite perspective: “Clearly Huldah as a prophetess has no autonomous function or voice, but is dependent on the Torah scroll and is in its service” (1 & 2 Kings, 549–50). Although this is part of a longer section in which Brueggemann argues that the passage sees temple, kingship, and prophecy all as subordinate to Torah (pp. 548–59), his stripping Huldah of all agency is perhaps a bit extreme.

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Biblical Perspectives on Women’s Divination

in the story. The inclination of scholars—from the rabbis to now—to ask why Josiah consulted a female prophet reflects the issues of interpreters, and not the text itself.

Huldah’s Mistake: Divergent Traditions So the Deuteronomist presents Huldah as having access to divine knowledge that even the high priest lacks, as speaking with prophetic authority in both form and content, and as fulfilling the function of validating the scroll and sparking the reform that is so crucial to the Deuteronomist’s story arc. There is a hitch, though: according to the narrative in Kings, Huldah is wrong. The final words of Huldah’s prophecy to Josiah are that he will die in peace. He does not. He institutes the reform, and shortly afterward is slaughtered by Neco. This is hard to get around. The structure and content both make the meaning clear. The first half of Huldah’s oracle concerns the fate of Judah: because the people have forsaken God, worshipped idols, and so on, something bad will happen. The second half concerns the fate of the king: because he has repented, rent his clothes, and wept, something good will happen. Huldah says, “I will gather you to your fathers, and you will be gathered to your grave in peace” (v. 20a). What do we do, then, with Huldah’s mistake? It is not uncommon to see the explanation that Huldah’s oracle means only that Josiah will die before—and thus not have to see—the national disaster. This explanation 12. In contrast to 1 Sam 28, where Saul specifies that he wants an ‫אוב‬-‫אשת בעלת‬. For a full reading of these two stories side by side and the implications of their similarities, see Hamori, “The Prophet and the Necromancer: Women’s Divination for Kings,” 827–43. 13. For discussion of rabbinic explanations (e.g., that Josiah expected a woman to be gentler and more merciful than a male prophet, such as Jeremiah), see esp. Halpern, “Why Manasseh Is Blamed for the Babylonian Exile,” 493, and Cogan and Tadmor, II Kings, 283–84. Others today explain Josiah’s choice of a female prophet differently. According to Weems, for example, the author chose a female prophet in order to surprise his audience, and her gender is pivotal to his theological message, i.e., that even a woman could see the coming disaster (“Huldah, the Prophet,” 321–39). Gafney observes the “nonchalant presentation” of Huldah as a female prophet, but also suggests that Huldah may have served Josiah’s mother, who would then have influenced her son (Daughters of Miriam, 97–98).

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requires focusing on the tail end of the oracle, “Your eyes will not see all of the harm I am bringing upon this place” (v. 20b), and pointing out that because Josiah dies, technically Huldah is correct. As interesting and creative as this interpretation may be, it works very hard to circumvent the plain meaning of the text. Huldah tells the king that because of his repentance he will be gathered to his grave in peace—after which he is promptly eliminated. It seems awkwardly contrived to emphasize the technical accuracy of the statement that Josiah will not see the coming disaster, while explaining away the inaccuracy of the reassuring promise on which this rests. Various interpretations have also been offered of what it means to be “gathered to your grave”—or better but less poetically “tomb”—but whatever is done with the rest of the oracle, it is not possible to get around the “in peace.” It would appear that some of these explanations betray more interest in verifying Huldah’s oracle than in judging the plain sense of the text. In some cases, scholars have overtly defended Huldah’s status as a “true prophet.” Naturally, other scholars have attributed the inconsistency between Huldah’s mistaken prophecy and the text’s silence about it to composite sources. However, the Deuteronomist is at no point concerned with this discrepancy. In a story overtly concerned with correct religious practice—as 14. Examples include Fischer, Gotteskünderinnen, 165–66, and Sweeney, I & II Kings, 439–42. Rashi and Kimhi had read the text this way, and as Halpern has pointed out, scholars still frequently resort to this explanation (Halpern, “Why Manasseh Is Blamed for the Babylonian Exile,” 497–505). This view is sometimes framed in terms of how God showed Josiah mercy by bringing about his death before the fall of Judah (e.g., Sweeney, I & II Kings, 440). This explanation might lead one to worry, for if this is God’s mercy . . . 15. Edelman, for instance, thinks that this could refer to the manner of burial (“Huldah the Prophet—of Yahweh or Asherah?” 240–41). However, Halpern observes that Kings makes a distinction between those who “lie with their fathers,” i.e., die in peace, and those who die violently; the phrases “to lie with the fathers” and “to be gathered to one’s kin,” both of which Halpern sees behind Huldah’s statement, only refer to natural deaths (“Why Manasseh Is Blamed for the Babylonian Exile,” 500; see further bibliography, 500 nn.59–61). Halpern elsewhere discusses the apparent exception of Ahab: Halpern and Vanderhooft, “The Editions of Kings in the 7th–6th Centuries b.c.e.,” 230–35; see also Stipp, “Ahabs Busse und die Komposition des deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerks,” 471–96. 16. Campbell and O’Brien, Unfolding the Deuteronomistic History, 458.

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seen in both the first half of Huldah’s oracle and in Josiah’s reform—the Deuteronomist has no problem with the fact that the second half of Huldah’s prophecy to Josiah is dead wrong. This is neatly fixed in Chronicles. The Chronicler evidently sees the problem and adjusts as necessary. The Kings version, which takes up all of one verse, says only that Neco went to fight the king of Assyria at the Euphrates, Josiah went out to engage him, and when Neco saw him he killed him at Megiddo (2 Kgs 23:29). The story in Chronicles is far more detailed, and elaborately excuses Huldah’s incorrect prophecy. Essentially as in Kings, Neco went up to fight at Carchemish on the Euphrates, and Josiah went out to engage him, but here we deviate from the earlier story. Neco sends messengers to Josiah to say: “What have I to do with you, King of Judah? I am not against you today, but against the kingdom with which I am at war, and God has ordered me to hurry! Stop impeding God, who is with me, that he may not destroy you!” (2 Chr 35:21). The Chronicler then explains that Josiah would not go away, but went to fight Neco anyway, “and did not listen to the words of Neco from the mouth of God” (2 Chr 35:22). Neco’s archers shoot Josiah, he is mortally wounded, and tells his men to get him out of there. (This is a little reminiscent of the story of Saul’s death, but must have been a common enough scenario.) Josiah’s servants get him out of his chariot and into another (unless his chariot was damaged in battle, this is presumably to disguise his movements), and they bring him to Jerusalem, where, the Chronicler writes, “he died and was buried in the tomb of his fathers” (2 Chr 35:24). Huldah’s incorrect oracle—“I will gather you to your fathers and you will be gathered to your tomb in peace”—has been explained away. Josiah had the chance to avoid battle and to die in peace, just as Huldah said he would—only he did not listen to the words of God through Neco. The Chronicler makes one other key adjustment as well: all of a sudden, Huldah no longer has a role in instigating the reform. In Kings, the 17. One implication of this, of course, is that the oracle is presumably from before Josiah’s violent death, i.e., predating its falsification. See, e.g., Cogan and Tadmor, II Kings, 284, and Halpern, “Why Manasseh Is Blamed for the Babylonian Exile,” 501. 18. Oddly, as opposed to the other way around (the words of God from the mouth of Neco). 19. These two key changes in Chronicles are mentioned also, in different ways, by Fischer, Gotteskünderinnen, 177–78, and Gafney, Daughters of Miriam, 96, 101.

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entire story takes place in the eighteenth year of Josiah’s reign, when the king is twenty-six years old. The scroll is found and read to him, he sends his men to consult Huldah, and in response to her oracle, he institutes reform. In Chronicles, Josiah has already begun his reform many years earlier. In the eighth year of his reign, he began to seek God (‫)לדרוש לאלהי דויד אביו‬, and in the twelfth year, he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem (2 Chr 34:3). The implication is either that Josiah sought God in some general sense or that he inquired of God through other prophets. Either way, the authority in having the divine knowledge to spark the reform is taken away from Huldah and given to Josiah or to other prophets. This is not a matter of scribal error concerning the numbers eight and eighteen; the text specifies that this happened in the eighth year of Josiah’s reign, “while he was still a youth,” and then, as in Kings, dates the finding of the scroll and the prophecy of Huldah to the eighteenth year. The text is rather heavy-handed with this emphasis on the order of events: in the eighteenth year of his reign, after purging the land and the temple, he sent some of his men to do temple repair. Then the scroll is found, and the king sends his men to consult the prophet. This section of the story is very close to the one in Kings. After this, Josiah renews the covenant—which of course cannot happen before the finding of the scroll—and then there is one pointedly brief statement that “Josiah removed all of the abominations from the whole land of the Israelites, and made all who were present in Israel serve Yahweh their God” (2 Chr 34:33). This is followed by a section on reinstituting Passover. 20. Minor changes include the detail of the finding of the scroll, names, and a last phrase attached to the end of Huldah’s oracle, which now refers to all of the harm Yahweh will bring upon this place “and upon its inhabitants” (2 Chr 34:28). It is interesting to note that one of the changes in this version is the absence of Achbor. In 2 Kgs, many of the names are those of similar types of animals: Huldah (rat), Achbor (mouse), and Shaphan (rock badger). Although I would certainly not argue that this is a folktale, the coincidence (?) of names rings of the genre: “Rat, Mouse, and Badger Instruct the King.” It is just conceivable that the Chronicler reacted to the folktale feel of the story, could not change the name of Huldah, and perhaps not that of Shaphan, who also appears as the grandfather of Gedaliah (2 Kgs 25:22, though if this were really the case one would expect him to be named as such in Chronicles as well), but could at least lose Achbor. This is wildly speculative, of course, but I find the possibility charming. (Additionally, all three animals are mentioned in Lev 11: ‫ שפן‬in 11:5, and ‫ חלד‬and ‫ עכבר‬in immediate succession in 11:29.)

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Had the Chronicler’s only major change been that Huldah’s oracle does not spark the reform, this might by itself raise the possibility of a negative view of Huldah. However, the first major change, which explains away Huldah’s error, makes this interpretation improbable. The Chronicler clearly has a vested interest in cleaning up the prophet’s record. Now, it is odd that in the execution of this, the Chronicler presents Neco as having more divine knowledge than Huldah, or at least updated information. But it is just as striking that Neco has more divine knowledge than Josiah. Since we would clearly be wrong to take from this that the Chronicler had a negative view of Josiah, we equally should not assume that this reflects a negative view of Huldah. Rather, the Chronicler provides an explanation for what would otherwise be inaccurate prophecy. The transfer of credit for instigating the reform from Huldah to Josiah, then, does not reflect the Chronicler’s interest in diminishing Huldah, but in promoting Josiah. This was perhaps especially desirable as a countermeasure to the nownecessary story of Josiah dying because he did not heed the word of God on the battlefield. The new story of Josiah’s violent death does not negate the Chronicler’s overall affirmation of Josiah. It is typical of Chronicles to provide some account of wrongdoing to explain a mysterious misfortune, and the death of a righteous king would be an obvious candidate for such an addition. It is not necessary to posit that the Chronicler’s sole interest in the battlefield insertion was in redeeming Huldah’s image, instead of in explaining tragedy through sin. After all, other prophets with undisputed standing made errors as well. Rather, we may note that the specific way in which the Chronicler explains righteous Josiah’s violent death is through providing a second, alternate prophecy. Lest it be unclear to his readers that this is what is happening, the Chronicler spells this out: Josiah “did not listen to the words of Neco from the mouth of God” (2 Chr 35:22). So one impetus for the addition may be the Chronicler’s abiding interest in providing cause for otherwise inexplicable tragedy, but the cause he provides demonstrates his recognition—and smoothing over—of Huldah’s mistake. 21. For other ideas on how the sequence of events might relate to Huldah’s role in the reform in Chronicles, see David A. Glatt-Gilad, “The Role of Huldah’s Prophecy in the Chronicler’s Portrayal of Josiah’s Reform,” 16–31. 22. On this theme, see Japhet, The Ideology of the Book of Chronicles and Its Place in Biblical Thought, 150–76, esp. 165–68.

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Between the two traditions, then, we have an original story in which the ‫ נביאה‬is assumed to be authoritative, in which her gender is a nonissue—as is her error—and a revision by the notorious clean-up crew of Chronicles, in which the prophet’s error is carefully explained away—and her gender remains a nonissue.

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10 The Prophet Who

Conceived and Gave Birth to a Son

The reference to the ‫ נביאה‬in the Isaiah memoir is fleeting. Yahweh tells Isaiah to take a stylus and engrave on a large tablet, “Le-Maher Shalal Hash Baz.” After calling upon his reliable witnesses, Isaiah narrates, “I went to the prophet, and she conceived, and she gave birth to a son” (‫הנביאה ותהר ותלד בן‬-‫ואקרב אל‬, Isa 8:3). Yahweh tells Isaiah to name him Maher Shalal Hash Baz. Some have argued that the ‫ נביאה‬is not a prophet, but simply Isaiah’s wife, and that she is given her title only for this reason. This has been shown to be unsupportable. Wildberger has summarized the key arguments effectively, including for instance that women were not generally referred to by a feminine form of a husband’s title (including the common example of ‫מלכה‬, “queen”; we have no example of an Israelite or Judean king’s wife so titled); it seems particularly doubtful that a term such as “prophetess” would be the exception and work this way; and that there are clear references elsewhere to ‫ נביאות‬who are indeed prophets. The main reason not to see the 1. The form (‫ל‬-PN) is the same as that found on many seals, bullae, jar handles, etc.; whether here this means “Concerning Maher,” “For Maher,” or “Belonging to Maher,” etc., is open to interpretation. A summary discussion of possibilities is available in Clements, Isaiah 1–39, 94. 2. Jensen, Isaiah 1–39, 101; Ackerman, “Isaiah,” 173. The implication that the ‫נביאה‬ is not really a prophet is evident also where her title is kept in quotation marks (“the ‘prophetess’”): Sweeney, Isaiah 1–39, 167. 3. Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12, 337, and further bibliography therein; see esp. Jepsen, “Die Nebiah in Jes 8, 3,” 267–68.

160

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‫ נביאה‬as a prophet—presumably the only reason—is that the significance of her role in the story is unrecognized. No great significance should be read into the brevity of Isaiah 8:3. After all, Isaiah 8:2 is equally terse: Should we assume that because we are not told explicitly that Isaiah follows through on Yahweh’s instructions to engrave the tablet that he does not actually do it? That he calls upon reliable witnesses instead in regard to the only action he does narrate, namely his impregnating the ‫ ?נביאה‬One would hope not. The narration is terse at every point, and we have no more reason to doubt that the ‫ נביאה‬is a ‫נביאה‬ than to doubt that the witnesses are witnesses, just because we lack a specific scene that they witness. It is true that the ‫ נביאה‬does not speak in this text. What she does in the story is perform a prophetic symbolic act: she bears a sign-child. This woman literally delivers an oracle.

The Prophetic Symbolic Act of the ‫נביאה‬ Here again, some interpreters find negative meaning in the brevity of the text. While obviously this prophet is not the one in the spotlight in Isaiah, rather than assuming she is a passive vessel, we should aim to identify what the verse is actually describing: the ‫ נביאה‬performs a prophetic symbolic act. She embodies her message, in a rather significant commitment to the prophetic sign-act. Such sign-acts appear elsewhere in the book as well, as in Isaiah 20, where Isaiah goes naked and barefoot for three years as a “sign and wonder” (‫אות ומופת‬, Isa 20:3); compare the conclusion to this story, where Isaiah proclaims that he and the children Yahweh has given him are for “signs and wonders” (‫לאתות ולמופתים‬, Isa 8:18). Maher Shalal Hash Baz is explicitly a sign-child, and his birth is part of a broader sign-act: “Maher Shalal Hash Baz” is literally written as a sign for people to read, even before it is given to him as a name. Isaiah is told to take a large tablet and engrave it with this phrase (Isa 8:1). Then Isaiah

4. Fuchs, for example, reads the ‫ נביאה‬as “a sexual object and reproductive object,” and summarizes: “The female prophetic word is replaced and displaced by the female body” (“Prophecy and the Construction of Women,” 65). 5. The tablet should be large presumably because it was for public display, as noted by Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12, 334–35; Kaiser, Isaiah 1–12, 180; and Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 1–39, 237–38. For discussion of divergent understandings of the tablet and stylus, see Clements, Isaiah 1–39, 94, and Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12, 330–32.

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calls upon witnesses, and later Yahweh tells him what to name the child. These details tell of the role of Isaiah, the child’s father. However, the verse attributing agency to the ‫נביאה‬, the child’s mother, is not parenthetical. He went; she conceived; she gave birth. The story is overtly one of prophetic symbolic action, and, not to put too fine a point on it, most of this action is hers. But in the ancient Israelite context, would not this still be viewed as Isaiah’s action? It is not so clear. Ordinarily, perhaps—compare the case of Gomer, discussed shortly—but two factors indicate that this is not so. First, we are told exactly one thing about the woman in this story about a prophetic sign-act: she is a prophet. Second, we have stories demonstrating that women were known to have agency in conception, and not just to be passive vessels, as is sometimes the caricature of ancient perspectives (consider Rachel, Leah, and the mandrakes; Gen 30). Should our default assumption be that the prophet who conceives and bears the sign-child in Isaiah 8:3 has agency or not? She is referred to as a ‫ ;נביאה‬there is no indication that the title here is an exception, being suddenly meaningless; and she is instrumental in the enactment of the sign over a long period of time (nine months; cf. Isaiah’s three years of nakedness). This is not to say that the action is all hers: both prophets participate in the sign-act. One 6. Isaiah’s part is also specified: the verb ‫ קרב‬should be understood with its sexual connotation here, as in Lev 18:6, Deut 22:14, Ezek 18:6, and elsewhere. 7. Fischer briefly discusses the text from a similar angle, observing that the female prophet is an integral part of the symbolic action, and that the importance of the action is stressed by the fact that both people involved are prophets (Gotteskünderinnen, 214, 216–17). She is not sure Isaiah is the child’s father, however, so it is unclear exactly what his involvement would be (p. 197). Fischer’s focus, however, is on identifying the Isa 8 prophet as a successor to the women who served at the tent of meeting, whom she reads as cult prophets (pp. 96–108, 191, 205–6). Gafney also has a sentence identifying the “prediction, conception, gestation, and delivery” of the child as a “joint prophetic undertaking between Isaiah and the Woman-Prophet” (Daughters of Miriam, 104). This does not appear to be central to her understanding of the woman’s prophetic activity; she concludes, “The reasons for Isaiah’s identification of this woman as a prophet are lost; yet one may assume that Isaiah understood her to have an authentic prophetic vocation, whether as an oracular poet, liturgical wordsmith, percussionist, or practitioner of any of the other activities that fell under this rubric” (p. 107). Butting, Fischer, and Gafney all speculate that this woman reflects possible female authorship at some stage: Butting, that the woman herself may be responsible for some of the

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prophetic parent carries and gives birth to the sign-child, and the other receives the words about what he symbolizes. Perhaps the elaboration of the sign-child’s name provides a nice reflection of this shared prophetic agency: “For before the boy knows how to call out, ‘My father!’ or ‘My mother!’ the wealth of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria will be carried off before the king of Assyria” (8:4). Out of context, this would seem to mean only, “while the boy is still talking baby talk.” We have just heard about this particular child and his particular parents, however; the image is of Maher calling out to his father and mother, to Isaiah and the ‫נביאה‬. While not significant in itself, this casts a warm light on the end of the story of the shared symbolic action of Isaiah and the ‫נביאה‬. The events of chapter 8 are part of a still broader series of symbolic actions beginning in chapter 7. Maher is not the only sign-child in this story. The first is Isaiah’s son She’ar Yashuv. He has no birth story, but his role as a prophetic symbol is evident in his name, in Yahweh’s instruction to Isaiah to bring him along to prophesy to Ahaz (Isa 7:3), and by analogy with the other two sign-children in Isaiah 7–8. The son’s symbolic function is highlighted through his father’s oracle, which is marked by repeated references to other men only as “sons”—that is, he calls them only “the son of Remaliah” (7:4, 5, 9) and “the son of Tabeal” (7:6). This is unusual, and four such usages in a six-verse oracle are striking. Isaiah brings his son before the king, and then refers to these men (though not Rezin) only as “sons,” with the thrust of his message alluded to in the name of his own son by his side. The juxtaposition of “sons” in the passage is pointed, and Isaiah’s son She’ar Yashuv stands out as a potent sign. The story of the second sign-child immediately follows. “Ask for a sign from Yahweh your god,” says Yahweh to Ahaz (Isa 7:11). Upon the king’s refusal, Isaiah proclaims to the house of David, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: the young woman is pregnant, and she will give birth to a son, and she will give him the name Immanu El” (7:14). The sign is not only the infant himself, but the pregnancy and the birth of the baby as prophetic writing attributed to men (Prophetinnen Gefragt, 9); Fischer, that a post-exilic prophecy group dominated by women writes itself into the prophetic books through this woman—and thus that women must have had a significant role in the redaction of the Bible, in addition to being involved in the writing of the prophetic books from the beginning (Gotteskünderinnen, 216, 218); and Gafney, that this woman could be responsible for some of the material in 2 Isa (Daughters of Miriam, 107).

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well. While the traditional Christian interpretation of this oracle seems to overlook the infant’s historical relevance in Isaiah’s own time, it does also rest on an understanding of the fact that the woman’s pregnancy itself is portrayed as a sign, which is something more historically oriented readings at times miss. Although the identity of the ‫ עלמה‬is not specified for the reader, she is not a mysterious future figure, “a young woman,” but probably someone known to Isaiah, “the young woman.” In this case we are not told who the father is either, though we might make an educated guess as to paternity, since the sign-children in the immediately preceding and following texts are Isaiah’s, and after the set of three he makes reference to his multiple signchildren (Isa 8:18). Some commentators argue that the ‫ עלמה‬is Isaiah’s wife, and that the ‫ נביאה‬is Isaiah’s wife, and thus that these are the same woman. This strikes me as a series of compounded assumptions: first that Immanu El is Isaiah’s son, second that a woman Isaiah impregnated must have been married to him, and third that he must have had only one wife. Each of these is possible, but the identification of the ‫ עלמה‬and the ‫ נביאה‬as the same woman and namely Isaiah’s wife relies on too many combined uncertainties. At the same time, this sign-child is in some ways closely connected to the next. While Immanu El is still eating baby food, the northern alliance will be defeated (7:15–16); while Maher is still talking baby talk, they will fall (8:4). That the reference to the ‫ נביאה‬giving birth to a sign-child is preceded by these two other stories of sign-children—one of whom has no backstory, and the other of whom is born to an ‫ עלמה‬of uncertain identity—raises the question of exactly what aspect of this prophet’s pregnancy and childbearing constitutes divinatory activity. It is certainly not simply that bearing a sign-child makes one a diviner. 8. The verse can reasonably be interpreted to mean either that the woman is already pregnant, reading the first noun-adjective phrase in the present tense, or that she will be pregnant, reading as if in the future, following the statement that Yahweh will give a sign. The latter option might imply that the conception of the child too is part of the sign. 9. Discussions of the range of views regarding whether Immanu El is Isaiah’s son and whether all three children have the same mother are available in countless commentaries; see e.g., Clements, who discusses various options, argues that all three children are Isaiah’s but are not necessarily born to the same woman, but concludes that the ‫ עלמה‬is Isaiah’s wife (Isaiah 1–39, 80–82, 88); and Kaiser, who address a range of categories of interpretations, and also notes that Jerome, Rashi, and Ibn Ezra all saw Immanu El as Isaiah’s son (Isaiah 1–12, 151–72).

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The sign-children born to Gomer in Hosea 1 illustrate the point well. Yahweh tells Hosea to go take “a whore of a woman and children of whoring, for the land utterly whores around” (‫זנה תזנה הארץ‬-‫אשת זנונים וילדי זנונים כי‬, Hos 1:2). Hosea complies, taking Gomer as his symbolic whore of a wife, and three times she conceives and bears a child. The identification of the infants as signs is overt: each time, Yahweh tells Hosea what to name the sign-child ( Jezreel, Lo-ruhamah, Lo-ammi) and why. But the reproduction itself is also a key part of the sign, as is explicit in Yahweh’s initial instruction to Hosea to have children with a whore. Yahweh then addresses the children directly, telling them what to proclaim to their brothers and sisters, and instructing them to plead with their mother, the whore (Hos 2:3–6 [Eng. 2:1–4]). The whoring metaphor is drawn out after this as well, in elaborate and graphic fashion. It is not only the children born to Gomer who are signs; the entire picture of the whore who gives birth to the children is the sign. The sign of the whore who gives birth to Hosea’s children is emphasized with each repetition of the act, with the sign-names and explanations interspersed: “she conceived, and she bore him a son . . . she conceived again, and bore a daughter . . . when she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived and bore a son” (Hos 1:3, 6, 8). The signs are not the names alone, but the events all told. The children’s significant names are part of a larger set of birth omens in which the whore giving birth to the prophet’s children signifies a particular message about Yahweh’s relationship with Israel. Unlike the ‫ נביאה‬in Isaiah 8, the mother of Hosea’s sign-children does not act in a divinatory capacity. In Isaiah 8, a character who is called a prophet participates in a prophetic symbolic act, and we should not assume she lacks agency; in Hosea, a character who is called a whore is explicitly part of the sign herself. So it is not the fact of bearing a sign-child alone that is an indicator of prophetic function, but the presentation of the actor and the act. In other words, the fact that the woman who participates in the symbolic action in Isaiah 8:3 is introduced as a prophet makes it prophetic activity. This is not as simplistic as it sounds, and is very much like some other areas of divinatory activity. When the Egyptian baker delivers a sign through his 10. The fact that this is horribly disturbing is not the point here, but perhaps should not go unmentioned. On a brighter note, it is intriguing that Yahweh speaks directly to the children and tells them what to proclaim. Would that not constitute prophetic activity on the part of the children?

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dream, he is not functioning as a diviner (the dream requires interpretation); when Joseph, the diviner par excellence, delivers a sign through his dream, it is portrayed as divinatory activity and as a product and signal of Joseph’s special divinatory role, even when his brothers too can interpret the dream. Why? Because Joseph is a dream diviner (and divines more broadly: ‫הוא נחש ינחש‬, Gen 44:5), so when he has a symbolic dream it is divinatory. The distinguishing factor in the stories of the births of sign-children is the description of the mother, just as it is in the description of the dreamer. The ‫ עלמה‬having a sign-child is like the Egyptian baker having a dream; the ‫ נביאה‬having a sign-child is like Joseph having a dream. What prior assumptions would need to be in place in order not to assume that when a female prophet gives birth to a sign-child, it is her symbolic action as well, and not only the father’s? Reading the story as a joint sign-act by the two prophets seems the most straightforward interpretation. Isaiah makes one final remark about his sign-children: “I and the children Yahweh has given me are signs and wonders in Israel, from Yahweh of hosts, who dwells in Mount Zion” (Isa 8:18). This is immediately followed by the sound rejection of necromancy: the writer condemns those who say, “Inquire of the ghosts and spirits that chirp and moan—should not a people inquire of their gods, the dead, on behalf of the living?” This is notable partly for the juxtaposed comments on different types of divinatory roles, the one an affirmation of both Yahweh and his prophet, and the other a rebuke of necromancers and those who use them. The rebuke is noteworthy also for its masculine plural address to the necromancers, as discussed earlier in reference to the woman of En-dor. In that story, we saw a positive depiction of an individual female necromancer; here, the people are rebuked for saying to the male (and maybe also female) necromancers: “Inquire (‫ )דרשו‬of the ghosts and spirits that chirp and moan . . .” Yet another point on the spectrum of biblical images of necromancers will come when a different prophet specifically targets women who practice necromancy, as we shall soon see. 11. Some have suggested that v. 19 is a later addition, but this is rooted partly in not seeing a relationship between the comments on different types of divinatory roles. On various possibilities, see Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12, 364–65; Clements, Isaiah 1–39, 101; and Kaiser, Isaiah 1–12, 200. Wildberger, for example, sees v. 19 as an addition, but vv. 16–18 as well.

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11 “The Daughters of Your People Who Prophesy”

In the course of a long diatribe against false prophets and prophecy, Ezekiel lays into a group of women who engage in some shadowy activities, the description of which (two and a half millennia later) leaves something to be desired, as far as the details are concerned. The murky picture includes hunting ‫נפשות‬, making live what should not live and making die what should not die, and using wrist-fetters and long shawls, with functions about which we can only speculate (Ezek 13:17–23). Ezekiel initially refers to these women as “the daughters of your people who prophesy.” As the passage continues, however, it becomes apparent that the activity mentioned does not include prophecy at all, but something else entirely. While the lack of prophecy has frequently been observed, there has been no consensus regarding the “something else.” The women are accused of performing some type of false divination that involves hunting ‫ נפשות‬and manipulating life and death. This should be understood—as it has been quite rarely—as necromancy.

Hocus-Pocus or Divination? Setting aside for the moment the oddity of Ezekiel introducing these women as “the daughters of your people who prophesy” and then embarking on a description of their activities that bears no resemblance to prophecy, the immediate question is whether previous interpretations have really been so far off the mark. If so few interpreters have understood the passage as referring to necromancy, is it not more likely that they were reading more straightforwardly, and that the present reading is a quirk?

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The most common assumption has been that the women of Ezekiel 13 are, whether by this name or another, witches. They are read, for example, as “fortune-tellers” engaged in “hocus-pocus” (Greenberg); as “making black magic” (Hals); as performing “minor mantic acts and magic” (Zimmerli); as “women who deal in magic on the sly” and “insolent woman soothsayers” engaged in “heathen demonism” (Eichrodt); and as involved in “the occult” (Blenkinsopp). These are not straightforward readings of the text, but oversimplifications that misrepresent the women’s activity. Though magic and sorcery are complex categories, they function in this type of analysis as a generalization. A notable exception is Nancy Bowen, who interprets the women’s activity as related to medical and ritual aspects of childbirth. Evidence for this is lacking, though, since there are no references in the text to birth, pregnancy, children, medical work, or healing, while there are references to divination. Neither line of interpretation—that the women are doing hocus-pocus or that they are childbirth specialists—is consistent with the literary context of the oracle. This part of Ezekiel is focused on the condemnation of what the prophet sees as false divination, and the oracle against women in 13:17–23 is framed as a clear parallel to the oracle against false male prophets in 13:1–16. Our assumption should be that the women’s activity is divinatory, and the burden would be on those who argue otherwise. Just before this, in 12:21–28, Ezekiel prophesies repeatedly that every vision and word will be fulfilled, “for there will no longer be any empty vision or flattering divination in the midst of the House of Israel” (‫חזון שוא ומקסם חלק בתוך בית ישראל‬-‫כי לא יהיה עוד כל‬, Ezek 12:24). Many of the key terms and phrases in this oracle—empty visions, false divinations—appear in various forms over and over again throughout chapter 13 as well. 1. Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20, 240; Hals, Ezekiel, 88–90; Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 296; Eichrodt, Ezekiel, 169, 172; Blenkinsopp, Ezekiel, 70. 2. Bowen, “The Daughters of Your People: Female Prophets in Ezekiel 13:17–23,” 417–33; and again in Bowen, Ezekiel, 71–73. Gafney follows Bowen’s reading (Daughters of Miriam, 109). 3. Bowen does see her proposed childbirth ritual as part of the women’s role as prophets, but it is not clear how this would work or what the evidence might be. However, her reasons for this reflect a welcome approach: Bowen concisely and effectively discusses the fallacy of the magic-religion dichotomy and its problematic effects on the interpretation of the text.

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The first section of chapter 13 is an oracle railing against male prophets. The indictment begins with a repetition of verbal and nominal forms of ‫ נבא‬heavy enough to appear sarcastic: “Prophesy to the prophets of Israel who prophesy, and say to those who prophesy from their own minds (‫הנבא‬ ‫נביאי ישראל הנבאים ואמרת לנביאי מלבם‬-‫אל‬,i13:2) . . . Woe to the foolish prophets who follow after their own spirits not having seen a thing!” (13:3). The prophets (so called again in v. 4), who are said to be like foxes among the ruins, “have seen empty visions and [offered] false divination” (‫חזו שוא וקסם כזב‬, i13:6) and have proclaimed “the oracle of Yahweh” when Yahweh did not send them. Ezekiel thus asks again, “Did you not see an empty vision, and speak false divination?” (‫שוא חזיתם ומקסם כזב אמרתם‬-‫הלוא מחזה‬,i13:7). These key phrases are repeated twice more in verses 8–9 (once with the previous noun-adjective pairings switched): “Because you have spoken emptiness and envisioned falsehood,” Ezekiel proclaims, God will be against you, “against the prophets who envision emptiness and who divine falsehood” (‫הנביאים החזים שוא והקסמים כזב‬-‫ אל‬. . . ‫)יען דברכם שוא וחזיתם כזב‬. Therefore, Ezekiel says, gone are “the prophets of Israel who prophesy to Jerusalem, and see for it a vision of peace when there is no peace” (13:16). Then Ezekiel is told to turn his face against “the daughters of your people who prophesy from their own minds” (‫בנות עמך המתנבאות מלבהן‬,i13:17). After this introduction paralleling that regarding the male prophets in 13:2, the oracle against the women continues with a description of mysterious, eerie activities, and concludes, “Therefore you will no longer see empty visions and practice divination” (‫תקסמנה עוד‬-‫)לכן שוא לא תחזינה וקסם לא‬, “and I will snatch my people from your hand, and you will know that I am Yahweh” (13:23). The statement that the women have been practicing divination could not be clearer. With the introduction claiming that they “prophesy” and the conclusion that they will cease to practice divination, there is no question: the women are diviners. Commentary on their “hocus-pocus,” “black magic,” “demonism,” activity in “the occult,” and so on misrepresent the women’s religious function. Labeling their activities as “magic” of any kind, even without the added layer of condemnation in these descriptors, inaccurately presents the women as engaged in an entirely different realm of activity from the men. Such characterizations imply that the men acted within the religious sphere (even if negatively), while the women were involved in a separate area of “magical” activity. This is rooted in the notion that “religion” and “magic” are distinct categories, and vividly demonstrates

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how the outdated theoretical model, whether held consciously or not, obstructs our ability to understand the spectrum of Israelite divination. These labels also reflect the tendency to attribute women’s religious activity to the latter category (“magic”), which then circularly limits our view of women’s activity in Israelite religion. The passage has only rarely been recognized as referring to necromancy. In an article on avian spirits, Marjo Korpel examined the representation of the spirits of the dead as birds or as birdlike in Ugaritic literature and in this text. Jonathan Stökl has recently argued that the women called munabbiātu in several texts from Emar and the ‫ מתנבאות‬of Ezekiel 13 are in both cases necromancers, based on internal evidence in each context as well as a new philological proposal regarding the verbs as equivalent forms. 4. Jost, on the other hand, reads Ezekiel’s own methods as equally “magical,” and sees the text as an example of conflicting prophetic positions (“The Daughters of Your People Prophesy,” 73). She considers the possibility that the women might have “prophesied (also?) in the name of Ishtar,” building on Spieckermann’s thesis that the text reflects Assyrian influence, noting the presence of the female prophets of Ishtar of Arbela in the seventh century (pp. 74–76). This seems an unnecessary leap. 5. Korpel, “Avian Spirits in Ugarit and in Ezekiel 13,” 99–113. Van der Toorn also understands the women of Ezek 13 as necromancers, reading the ‫ נפשות‬as the birdlike spirits of the dead (From Her Cradle to Her Grave, 123; also van der Toorn, Family Religion in Babylonia, Syria, and Israel, 232). Meyers includes the passage in a broader discussion of the presentation of women and female figures in Ezekiel, noting the need to set aside the tradition’s ideological opposition to the women as well as the dichotomy between “magic” and “religion,” and to recognize the religious practice of the women. Like Bowen, she reads the women’s activity as related to reproduction, but she mentions that it could possibly be additionally related to necromancy; Meyers, “Engendering Ezekiel: Female Figures Reconsidered,” 290–92. Schmitt sees the passage as having to do partly with spirits and the dead, but does not mention necromancy; he sees it rather as reflecting a general discomfort with female prophets (Magie im Alten Testament, 360–62). Surprising omissions of the text altogether include Loretz, “Nekromantie und Totenevokation,” Tropper, Nekromantie, and Cryer, Divination in Ancient Israel. 6. Stökl, “The ‫ מתנבאות‬in Ezekiel 13 Reconsidered,” 61–76. The verb nābû at Emar can refer to the invocation of the dead in inheritance arrangements. Building on the previous work of Daniel Fleming, who first connected the munabbiātu and nābû to the biblical Hebrew ‫ נביא‬in terms of both etymology and role as religious personnel, with the nābû involved in divinatory inquiry (explicitly at Mari) and the munabbiātu at Emar involved in a less clear type of invocation,

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Women Who Hunt ‫נפשות‬ The rarity of the identification of the women’s activity as necromancy is due in part to the obscurity of both language and objects: the references to the spirits of the dead are couched in metaphor, and the items and practices are unfamiliar to us. The indications are clear, however, after a bit of unfolding of the evidence. The oracle is worth including in its entirety: Woe to those who sew fetters on all wrists and make shawls for heads of every height, in order to hunt ‫נפשות‬. Will you hunt the ‫ נפשות‬of my people and make your ‫ נפשות‬live? You have profaned me to my people for handfuls of barley and pieces of bread, making die ‫ נפשות‬that should not die, and making live ‫ נפשות‬that should not live, while you lie to my people, you who listen to lies. Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: I will go up against your fetters with which you hunt the ‫ נפשות‬like birds, and I will tear them from your arms and shoo away the ‫ נפשות‬that you hunt, the ‫ נפשות‬like birds. I will tear off your shawls and snatch my people from your hand, and they will no longer be prey in your hands, and you will know that I am Yahweh. Because you intimidated the righteous with falsehood (and I did not harm him), and encouraged the wicked not to turn from his evil way that he might live, you will no longer see empty visions and practice divination, and I will snatch my people from your hand, and you will know that I am Yahweh. (Ezek 13:17–23)

The items the women use are certainly tools of the trade, though observing this does not do much to elucidate the process. The women sew fetters (‫ )כסתות‬on wrists and make shawls (‫ )מספחות‬to put upon heads, in order to hunt ‫( נפשות‬i13:18). The joints of hands (‫ )אצילי ידי‬should logically be wrists, though it is often read as “elbows.” The term is flexible; in Jeremiah 38:12 it must mean “armpits,” as required by the story line there. The ‫ כסתות‬on the wrists are sometimes rendered “cushions,” as in later Hebrew, and the word does seem already to have had this meaning by the time of the Septuagint, which translates προσκεφάλαια. Instead of reading through the lens of tannaitic Hebrew, though, observing the many forms of the Akkadian cognate offers a more logical meaning. Akkadian kasû A (CAD K 250–53) means “to put a person in fetters,” “to bind hands and feet,” “to bind Stökl argues that the evidence suggests that the invocation is necromantic, and also that munabbiātu and ‫ מתנבאות‬are equivalent verbal forms. D. Fleming, “Nābû and Munabbiātu: Two New Syrian Religious Personnel,” 175–83.

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magically”; kasītu (CAD K 243) refers to “binding magic”; and kīsu B (CAD K 432–33) refers to a “bond” or “fetter.” The prevalence of wrist-binding in Mesopotamian magic makes this reading a far more logical choice than the otherwise-mysterious cushions or elbow pads. The women also make “shawls for heads of every height”; the implication is that the shawls should be long, presumably covering from head to toe. Questions surrounding the nature of these mysterious items have often occupied interpreters’ attention more than the purpose of the items: the women sew wrist-fetters and so on “in order to hunt ‫”נפשות‬ (‫)לצודד נפשות‬. While we should certainly not think of ‫ נפש‬as the Hellenistic “soul,” we should also not overcorrect and lose the sense of ‫ נפש‬as something like the “life force,” to use Diethelm Michel’s preferred term. Greenberg’s translation of the phrase ‫( הנפשות תצודדנה לעמי‬v. 18) as “the persons of my people,” for instance, has little meaning. The semantic range of ‫ נפש‬does include the “inner life” or “life force.” Beyond this, as Michel and van der Toorn have argued, ‫ נפש‬can specifically refer to a “spirit of the dead” or “ghost.” A key indicator that the ‫ נפשות‬in this passage are indeed the spirits of the dead is their comparison to birds. Ezekiel proclaims God’s judgment: “I will go up against your fetters with which you hunt the ‫נפשות‬ 7. Other interpretations range from Greenberg on “what the prophet scoffingly calls cushions and rags” (Ezekiel 1–20, 244), to Korpel’s reading of the items as bird-catching nets based in one case on a word she acknowledges is etymologically unrelated (“Avian Spirits,” 102–3); and very differently again, to Bowen on ritual medical paraphernalia of some sort (“The Daughters of Your People,” 424). Jost suggests that the items may be like tefillin and tallit (“The Daughters of Your People Prophesy,” 71). Fischer describes the women as fabricating textiles, and sees this as not related to magic (though she notes the potential similarity to tefillin and tallit as well; Gotteskünderinnen, 228–29). 8. Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20, 233. He later specifically dismisses “theories based on the notion of the magical catching of disembodied souls” (citing Gaster in particular), claiming an “absence of evidence that nepeš ever has such a sense in Hebrew” (Ezekiel 1–20, 240). The present text is only one of several examples of such existing evidence. Gaster offers several cross-cultural examples of soul-catching, which should be useful for someone wishing to update the study from a more contemporary perspective (Myth, Legend, and Custom in the Old Testament, 2:615–17). 9. Diethelm Michel, “Nœp¯œš als Leichnam?” 81–84. Van der Toorn agrees with Michel’s assessment here, and additionally observes the “use of nbš (which corresponds to Akkadian et․emmu) in the Panammu inscription KAI 214” (Family Religion, 232 n.113).

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like birds [‫]לפרחות‬, and I will tear them from your arms and shoo away the ‫ נפשות‬that you hunt, the ‫ נפשים‬like birds” (13:20). The peculiar form of ‫ לפרחות‬can be taken in a few ways, but certainly refers to flying, and is usually translated “like birds.” The lamed could also be a possessive, in which case instead of hunting “‫ נפשות‬like birds,” the women would hunt the “‫ נפשות‬of the flying ones.” All versions of this are rooted in the notion of ‫ נפשות‬that fly like birds, which conjures up the image of the spirits of the dead. The bird imagery continues through Yahweh’s next warning as well: “I will snatch my people from your hand, and they will no longer be prey in your hands” (‫יהיו עוד בידכן למצודה‬-‫עמי מידכן ולא‬-‫והצלתי את‬, 13:21). The use of bird imagery for spirits of the dead is not uncommon in Near Eastern literature. Consider Enkidu’s description of his dream to Gilgamesh: [He struck] me, he turned me into a dove. [He bound] my arms like (the wings of ) a bird, to lead me captive to the house of darkness, the seat of Irkalla: 10. Even Greenberg, who reads ‫ נפשות‬as “persons” rather than any kind of “spirits” and finds the lamed of ‫ לפרחות‬unclear, translates “like birds” on the basis of Aramaic ‫פרחתא‬, “bird.” Allen, who finds the lamed difficult with either a participle, “flying,” or a noun, “bird,” points to Cornill’s proposition (in the following footnote) and suggests the phrase “(let go free) into the state of persons who fly away.” Greenberg, Allen, and Zimmerli all point to the Aramaic stem ‫פרח‬, “to fly,” and all suggest the comparison to a bird escaping from a snare in Ps 124:7; Greenberg and Zimmerli additionally note the comparison to Prov 6:5 (Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20, 240–41; Allen, Ezekiel 1–19, 191; Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 289). 11. The textual issues in v. 20 of the odd ‫נפשים‬-‫ את‬and the repetition of ‫ לפרחות‬do not affect the issues at stake here. It is possible that ‫נפשים‬-‫ את‬is not only an oddity but an error, but the most common proposal would still seem to describe necromancy: Cornill’s widely noted speculation was that ‫נפשים‬-‫ את‬was originally ‫לחפשים‬, “free,” based on the phrase ‫שלח לחפשים‬, “set free,” as in Deut 15:12–13 and elsewhere (Das Buch des Propheten Ezechiel, 251). Others have had simpler responses, for instance, Brownlee: “All critics of the passage have been aware of an excess number of souls in the passage. It is usual to delete several” (“Exorcising the Souls from Ezekiel 13:17–23,” 369). One could of course note the excess number of “passages” in Brownlee’s statement for an example of such redundancies as an author’s own work. 12. The mention of “people” in this verse does not affect the reading of ‫ נפש‬as the spirits of the dead; in Ezek 26:20, the people in Sheol are called the ‫עם עולם‬.

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Biblical Perspectives on Women’s Divination to the house which those who enter cannot leave, on the journey whose way cannot be retraced; to the house whose residents are deprived of light, where dust is their sustenance, their food clay. They are clad like birds in coats of feathers, And they cannot see light but dwell in darkness.

Much of this passage also appears in the descriptions of the underworld in The Descent of Ishtar (li. 4–10) and Nergal and Ereshkigal (iii 1–5). After the parallel section, Nergal and Ereshkigal adds, “[they moan] like doves” (iii 7). The key line describing the dead as “clad like birds in coats of feathers” appears in all three texts (for Gurney, “birds in garments of wings”; iii 4). On this line in The Descent of Ishtar (li. 10), Dalley notes that the image of feathered creatures in the underworld is common in Mesopotamian iconography as well. The use of bird imagery for the dead has been observed by Spronk and Korpel, among others. Spronk offers a range of examples of the widespread use of such imagery, including its important place in Egyptian religion, the winged Ugaritic rp’um, representation of the spirits of the dead as fluttering birds in Greek funerary art and its use in Homer (Od. 11, 207 and 222; 24, 6–9), and more, as far afield as Arabic and Persian concepts of the dead as birds; and related to this, the many Mesopotamian and Canaanite winged demons. While a few of these examples seem less certain on the basis of either the etymology or the relevance of the cultural origin, the more certain and relevant examples are more than enough to demonstrate the theme. 13. SBV Gilg VII 182–190; George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, 1:645. 14. The passage in Nergal and Ereshkigal begins at the end of column ii but is reconstructed in Gurney’s edition of the Sultantepe version I use here, with line numbers unknown due to missing lines beforehand; Gurney, “The Sultantepe Tablets VII. The Myth of Nergal and Ereshkigal,” 115; Lapinkivi, The NeoAssyrian Myth of Ištar’s Descent and Resurrection. 15. Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia, 160 n.3. 16. At times including reference to one or more of the above passages. In addition to Spronk and Korpel, note Bottéro, “La mythologie de la mort en Mésopotamie ancienne,” esp. 34; and Lewis, Cults of the Dead, 131. 17. Spronk, Beatific Afterlife in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East, 100, 100 n.3, and bibliography. On the rp’um, see Johannes de Moor, “Demons in Canaan,” 117–18. 18. For further examples and bibliography, see (in addition to Spronk, above) Korpel, “Avian Spirits,” 99–100, and Gaster, Myth, Legend, and Custom in the Old

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In her work on avian spirits, Korpel focuses first on some Ugaritic material, arguing that the Ugaritic rp’um texts “demonstrate that in Canaanite religion there existed a form of magic which enabled man to call up the spirits of the dead in the form of birds,” and then observes the presence of such a tradition in Ezekiel 13. A few others have also recognized that the use of bird imagery in Ezekiel 13 signifies that the ‫ נפשות‬are the spirits of the dead. Van der Toorn notes that the women in this text attempt “to communicate with the ‘spirits of the dead.’ The latter are called ‘souls’ by Ezekiel. According to a gloss in the text, meant as a clarification, they are ‘flying souls,’ an expression based on the idea that the dead can manifest themselves in the shape of birds.” Those who address the presence of this tradition in Ezekiel 13 seem to see it as exceptional in the Bible, or perhaps point to Isaiah 8:19. Even Korpel argues against the idea that the reference to birds in Ezekiel 13 is a late gloss partly on the grounds that “the idea of avian spirits is so foreign to the Old Testament but so common in ancient Canaanite folk religion.” In fact, the traditional use of bird imagery for the spirits of the dead is not so foreign to biblical traditions. The birdlike qualities of the spirits of the dead are visible in several other biblical texts. The clearest picture of this comes from a selection of texts in First Isaiah, where ghosts and birds are both described as chirping, in the same terms. Consider the hypothetical request for necromancy in Isaiah Testament, 769 (whose interests include occurrences of the idea that cannot be related, such as in China and Indonesia). Hays discusses the use of bird imagery for the dead in light of animal imagery more broadly (“Chirps from the Dust: The Affliction of Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4:30 in Its Ancient Near Eastern Context,” 305–25). 19. Korpel, “Avian Spirits,” 102. If the strongest form of her thesis is not fully proven, the general association between birds and the spirits of the dead certainly is. Her arguments regarding certain details of Ezek 13, such as her proposal that the items used by the women are bird-catching paraphernalia (pp. 102–3), are not necessary to the basic point. 20. Van der Toorn, From Her Cradle to Her Grave, 123. 21. Spronk mentions Isa 8:19 and 10:14, but also 59:11, which is quite different (Beatific Afterlife, 255). Lewis, conversely, notes the bird imagery in his discussion of Isa 8:19–20, but does not address Ezek 13 (Cults of the Dead, 131). 22. Korpel, “Avian Spirits,” 104. If the references to birds were an addition, all this would demonstrate is that at an early date, the somewhat opaque text about hunting ‫ נפשות‬was interpreted as referring to spirits of the dead.

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8:19, mentioned in the previous chapter: “Inquire of the ghosts and spirits that chirp and moan” (‫הידענים המצפצפים והמהגים‬-‫האבות ואל‬-‫)דרשו אל‬. The verbs ‫ צפף‬and ‫ הגה‬are used together to describe the chirping and moaning of birds elsewhere in First Isaiah: “I chirp like [such-and-such type of bird], I moan like a dove” (‫כסוס עגור כן אצפצף אהגה כיונה‬, Isa 38:14). In Isaiah 29:4, ‫ צפף‬is used alone in the comparison of the doomed city to a ghost: “You will be brought low and speak from the earth, and your speech will be from below the dust; your voice will be like a ghost from the earth, and your speech will chirp from the dust (‫ושפלת מארץ תדברי‬ ‫)ומעפר תשח אמרתך והיה כאוב מארץ קולך ומעפר אמרתך תצפצף‬. Assyria’s imagined boast in Isaiah 10:14 similarly uses ‫ צפף‬alone: Assyria has raided the people like raiding a nest and gathering the eggs, “and not one flapped a wing or opened a beak and chirped” (‫ולא היה נדד כנף ופצה פה ומצפצף‬, Isa 10:14). Thus, within the (relative) control group of First Isaiah, we hear of chirping ghosts in 8:19 (‫ )המצפצפים‬and 29:4 (‫)תצפצף‬, and chirping birds in 10:14 (‫ )ומצפצף‬and 38:14 (‫ ;)אצפצף‬Isaiah 8:19 pairs the ghosts’ chirping with moaning (‫)המצפצפים והמהגים‬, the same pairing of sounds attributed to birds in 38:14 (‫)אצפצף אהגה‬.

Make Your ‫ נפשות‬Live So the women in Ezekiel’s diatribe are condemned for hunting the spirits of the dead. What do they then do with them? Ezekiel asks the women, “Will you hunt the ‫ נפשות‬of my people, and make your ‫ נפשות‬live?” (‫)הנפשות תצודדנה לעמי ונפשות לכנה תחיינה‬. This statement is often taken to mean “and make your own ‫ נפשות‬live,” but in context this makes no sense. “Your ‫ ”נפשות‬refers to the ‫ נפשות‬that the women have just hunted, which are now theirs (belonging to them, or in their control). This is further clarified in the next verse, which describes the women manipulating the spirits, making die ‫ נפשות‬that should not die, and making live ‫ נפשות‬that should not live (‫תחיינה‬-‫תמותנה ולחיות נפשות אשר לא‬-‫)להמית נפשות אשר לא‬. Given that this is an oracle explicitly against some kind of divination (“you will no longer see empty visions and practice divination,” Ezek 13:23), the sense of making spirits of the dead live here must refer to necromantic communication. The use of chirping ghost imagery in the condemnation of necromancy in Isaiah 8:19 further supports this. Moreover, we know that 23. The later idea of the chirping of angels must be rooted in this tradition as well.

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the specific concept of raising spirits is indeed within the Israelite imagination. The story in 1 Samuel 28, though different from this oracle in so many ways, offers a clear precedent for the interpretation of the raising of a spirit or ghost (there called an ‫)אלהים‬. The beliefs and practices behind these two texts may be quite different, just as the terminology is different, but we do see the shared notion of making spirits of the dead live for the sake of divination. This then begins to get at what it means to “make live ‫ נפשות‬that should not live.” What then about the preceding phrase, to make die ‫נפשות‬ that should not die? While this adds to the murky picture of the women manipulating death, the precise meaning is not obvious. It should not be read as literally killing people (hence my somewhat awkward choice of “to make die”). There is another text that helps elucidate this phrase. The only other biblical text in which a person is said to “hunt ‫ ”נפש‬is Proverbs 6:26, there in reference to the predatory activity of the dangerous woman. The term does not refer to literal necromancy in that text, but is an example of the use of necromantic imagery that runs throughout the depictions of dangerous women in Proverbs 1–9. The relationship between the various representations of women in Proverbs 1–9 is not altogether clear, but in brief, the portrayals of dangerous women in those chapters are closely related to one another, not only in their function but in their shared use of specific phrasing and imagery. If they are not meant to form one consistent image, they are certainly overlapping personifications with recurring images and consistent behavior. In addition to the first point of connection with Ezekiel 13 (the hunting of ‫)נפש‬, those personifications include the comparison of the woman’s prey to birds (cf. Ezek 13:20), and the repeated images of a dangerous woman sending people to Sheol. It is this last connection that most concerns us here. This is a central theme in the representations of dangerous women in Proverbs 1–9: “her house sinks down to death and her tracks to the ‫;רפאים‬ none who come to her return and reach the paths of life” (2:16–19); “her feet go down to death, her steps take hold of Sheol” (5:5); “her house is the pathway of Sheol, descending to the chambers of death” (7:27); and finally, the foolish woman invites innocent passersby into her home, but her potential prey “does not know that the ‫ רפאים‬are there, that her guests are in 24. These issues, as well as that of the necromantic imagery and metaphor in Proverbs 1–9, are addressed in full in ch. 15 of this book.

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the depths of Sheol” (9:18). Returning to Ezekiel 13, the accusation that the women who hunt ‫ נפשות‬are “making die ‫ נפשות‬that should not die” may be at least somewhat clearer. In whatever precise sense, these women who manipulate death are seen as able to send their prey down to Death. We must also consider that the two key phrases—to make die and to make live, in that order—are not paired strictly as a description of necromancy. This plays on an earlier tradition in which Yahweh does just these things. Ezekiel deftly gives a sense both of the women’s activity itself, the manipulation of death, and of what he sees as the proper view that renders the women’s activity transgressive. In the Song of Moses, we find: “See now that I, I am he, and there is no god beside me! I make die and make live, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one snatches out of my hand” (‫ אני אמית ואחיה מחצתי ואני ארפה ואין מידי מציל‬. . . , Deut 32:39). In Hannah’s prayer as well: “Yahweh makes die and makes live, sends down to Sheol and raises up” (‫יהוה ממית ומחיה מוריד שאול ויעל‬, 1 Sam 2:6). Ezekiel 13 takes up this tradition, implying that it is because only Yahweh actually makes die and makes live that he will put an end to the divination of the necromancers. Yahweh will destroy the instruments of the necromancers’ work, those fetters and shawls, and says twice, “I will snatch my people from your hand” (‫עמי מידכן‬-‫)והצלתי את‬, “and you will know that I am Yahweh.”

What Exactly Makes This Necromancy “False”? The divination performed by this group of women is unquestionably described in strongly negative terms. This is a different issue from in precisely what sense it was deemed “false.” Given the variety of measures for recognizing “false” divination named in different traditions (cf. Deut 13:2–4 and Deut 18:20–22), as well as the tolerance of an effective act of Yahwistic necromancy in 1 Samuel 28, the identification of the women as necromancers is not quite enough to explain the accusation of falsehood. The section begins with the order to Ezekiel to turn his face against the daughters of his people “who prophesy from their own minds” (Ezek 13:17). It is clear immediately what is wrong with their activity—their divination comes “from their own minds” rather than from Yahweh—but it is 25. I use “snatch” in these proclamations rather than “deliver” in order to capture the sense of competition over control of the spirits (from the inability of others to take from Yahweh in the Song of Moses, to Yahweh’s taking of the spirits in Ezek 13), while setting this off against the image of the snaring of birds.

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well worth noticing what is not wrong: the women are said to prophesy. The use of the hitpael in verse 17 has frequently been taken as a signifier of pretense, that is, women “who play the prophet.” The hitpael of this verb does not imply pretense, however. This is evident, for instance, in Ezekiel’s use of the hitpael in reference to his own prophecy (Ezek 37:10), as noted already by Wilson in 1979. He argued that the original sense of the hitpael was indeed “to act like a prophet,” but without a sense of fabrication. It meant, rather, to act as a prophet does, to exhibit “characteristic prophetic behavior,” which as he notes would differ from group to group as well as over time. Wilson’s many examples include the clear illustration of 1 Kings 22:8, 10, 18, in which the prophecy of both Micaiah and the court prophets is described in the hitpael. Thus, at the very least, the use of the verb in Ezekiel 13:17 does not indicate that the women were only pretending to prophesy. Beyond that, it could possibly suggest that Ezekiel saw them as exhibiting what he understood to be characteristic prophetic behavior. One interesting possibility: if what seemed characteristic to Ezekiel was his own prophecy (37:10), and he was prone to elaborate visions, and he describes the women as prophesying and having visions, it is possible that in some ways their divination resembled his own. Ezekiel does charge the women with lying, but even here, the implication is not just that the women are deceiving, but that they are themselves deceived. Ezekiel accuses them of making ‫ נפשות‬live “while you lie to my people, you who listen to lies” (‫)בכזבכם לעמי שמעי כזב‬. The phrase ‫שמעי כזב‬ is usually taken to refer to the people “who listen to lies,” that is, those listening to the women, but the masculine plural of ‫ שמעי‬should not be decisive, since the previous phrase that explicitly refers to the women also has a masculine plural suffix (‫)בכזבכם לעמי‬. There are several such anomalous masculine suffixes in the passage, and it makes sense to read this full phrase as including matching suffixes—the women tell lies and listen to lies. This corresponds to the end of the oracle, where Ezekiel concludes 26. Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20, 233, 239. 27. Wilson, “Prophecy and Ecstasy,” 329–36, quotation 330–31. Even Fischer, who sees the text as a case study in the dangers of “false prophecy” (which for her means that the writers had in mind these prophets’ failures to function as successors to Moses), notes that translations of the hitpael as second-class prophecy only reflect the bias of translators (Gotteskünderinnen, 221–30). 28. Wilson, “Prophecy and Ecstasy,” 335. 29. Note ‫ זרועתיכם‬in v. 20 and ‫ מספחתיכם‬in v. 21.

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that the women will no longer see empty visions—that is, he refers to them listening to falsehood in verse 19 and seeing falsehood in verse 23. This is also in line with the oracle against the male false prophets, who see false visions and hear and see lies (13:6–9). Again, the women are told that they will no longer see visions; in other words, they have been until now. The perspective of the text is that these women are in fact experiencing visions. Their divination is also not “false” in the sense of being spoken in the name of a god other than Yahweh. The implication of verse 19, “You have profaned me to my people” (‫עמי‬-‫)ותחללנה אתי אל‬, is that these women have indeed spoken in Yahweh’s name. From their perspective, their divination is Yahwistic. From the author’s perspective, they have gotten it all dead wrong (“and you will know that I am Yahweh!”), but not because they have spoken in the name of some other god. On the contrary, the offense is precisely that they have spoken falsely in the name of this god. Nonetheless, their divination is effective. As in many other texts, the identification of the divinatory activity as “false” does not mean that it was perceived as ineffectual (cf. Deut 13:2–4 [Eng. 13:1–3]). This is consistent with the view of other maligned religious practices, which may be spurned for any number of reasons, but not because they are assumed to be unproductive—consider, for instance, the king of Moab’s effective child sacrifice in 2 Kings 3:27, which accomplishes its goal and causes Israel to retreat (regardless of child sacrifice having been banned along with “foreign” divination in Deut 18:10). Ezekiel’s oracle states that the women have in fact been “making die ‫ נפשות‬that should not die, and making live ‫ נפשות‬that should not live.” Yahweh’s response will be to strip them of the tools of their trade, thus preventing them from successfully continuing in their activities. As Eichrodt puts it, Ezekiel did not doubt the efficacy of the women’s acts in the name of Yahweh, but condemns “the falsehood of their claim to be acting with God’s commission or according to his will.” It is also not the fact that the women are paid for their work that makes it “false.” We see that many Yahwistic prophets were professionals. Neither is it a matter of greed, even among professionals. They receive “handfuls of barley and pieces of bread”—a rather modest living, as Jost points out. 30. Contra, e.g., Hals, who assumes it must be “some form of syncretistic practice” (Ezekiel, 89). 31. Eichrodt, Ezekiel, 171–72. 32. Jost, “The Daughters of Your People Prophesy,” 71. Greenberg’s alternate explanation of the barley and bread not as payment but as used in divination has

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Lastly, there is no indication of greater suspicion because they are female, as we see from the accusation against men’s false divination in the first oracle of chapter 13. So the women are said to prophesy with no implication of pretense; they do so based on visions Ezekiel believes they are actually having; they perform their divination in the name of Yahweh; and it is assumed to be effective. What then makes it “false”? From Ezekiel’s perspective, the women are mistaken—their “lying” is not a matter of inventing messages or prophesying in the name of another god, but of effectively divining in the name of Yahweh and being wrong. The crux of the problem is that their faulty divination is persuasive. The reasons given in the oracle for stopping the women’s visions are that they have profaned Yahweh to his people, intimidated the righteous with falsehood, and encouraged the wicked not to turn from his way. This then appears to be a matter of authority and access—the authority to claim divination in the name of Yahweh, access to divine knowledge, and access to the people. Ezekiel’s Yahweh warned the women in verse 21 that he would “snatch my people from your hand, and they will no longer be prey in your hands”; the oracle ends with Ezekiel’s second iteration of this: “you will no longer see empty visions and practice divination, and I will snatch my people from your hand, and you will know that I am Yahweh” (v. 23). In other words, because of the women’s effective divination in Yahweh’s name, the people have ended up in the wrong hands. (It is a nice touch that we get to see competition over control of the spirits: the ‫ נפשות‬are prey in the women’s hands, but Yahweh will shoo them away and snatch the birds from their hand . . . at which point they are in his.) These women represent a competing religious view within Yahwistic divination. Yahwism is in the eye of the beholder (diviner, worshipper): just as Jeroboam may have seen his golden calves as Yahwistic, while the author of the Kings story did not, these women engaged in Yahwistic necromancy, but the writer of Ezekiel 13 opposed them. According to the oracle, the women have so far been successful in a religious power struggle, as they have “intimidated the righteous” and “encouraged the wicked.” As a group its appeal, but seems unlikely. He notes that “in Mesopotamia breadcrumbs are offered exclusively to ghosts,” citing Oppenheim, but this is only a possibility Oppenheim considers, and he specifically distinguishes the scattering of breadcrumbs from actual bread, which is what is mentioned in Ezek 13. Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20, 240; Oppenheim, “Analysis of an Assyrian Ritual (KAR 139),” 258.

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of people experiencing visions and prophesying in the name of Yahweh, presumably their interpretation of this would be different. Ezekiel may condemn their manipulation of ‫נפשות‬, but from his own oracle we see that the women were convinced by their divination. Even Ezekiel himself cannot say anything of the women other than that their visions are wrong: this is not a portrait of malice, but a window onto an inner-Yahwistic divinatory conflict. In some cases the source of conflict between diviners is easily identifiable, as when prophets serve different gods and thus different social groups, the classic example being Elijah and the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18. In other cases, what identifies prophets as representatives of different social groups is less clear. Though Ezekiel portrays the women in this text as offensive to Yahweh, his rhetoric reveals that this is because they are acting in Yahweh’s name. Bowen, who comes to a similar conclusion regarding the oracle as reflecting conflict within Yahwism, identifies the core issue as Ezekiel’s desire to squelch the diversity of lingering pre-exilic Judahite Yahwistic practices. Whether Ezekiel objected to a range of lingering practices, or specifically Yahwistic necromancy, this condemnation would only be warranted if Ezekiel saw the women’s activity as a threat. The evidence beyond this oracle also indicates that we might be seeing a type of divination of some lasting social significance. Taken alone, this oracle might only point to a particular group of women whose practices Ezekiel opposed. The combined picture of the various necromancy texts, however, suggests something greater. We have one story in which a king consults a necromancer, whose work is effective, whose portrayal is positive, and whose title is analogous to a normal Akkadian term for necromancer; several admonitions against inquiring of the dead, indicating that this was something people were doing; and this oracle, in which the necromancers pose a threat because they are seen to actually make ‫ נפשות‬live, and practice in Yahweh’s name (thus profaning it). I noted earlier the expansive vocabulary relating to ghosts and spirits of the dead in 1 Samuel 28. The range of terminology relating to necromancy overall—to the spirits of the dead, to the practitioners, to the practice—throughout these texts all told becomes quite extensive indeed. The combined evidence, which includes a variety of literary genres, perspectives, and terminology, indicates that this form of divination had a stronger presence than is some33. Bowen, “The Daughters of Your People,” 431.

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times assumed—naturally enough, considering the long-standing practice elsewhere in the region. Moreover, these texts indicate that the practice of necromancy was not always seen as incompatible with Yahwism. The medium of En-dor provides the king with the access to the word of Yahweh that he has been seeking—first through dreams, urim, and prophets, and now through the necromancer—and the “daughters of your people who prophesy” lead the righteous astray and profane Yahweh by making ‫ נפשות‬live in his name. The conflict between these women and the Ezekiel school is less like that between Elijah and the prophets of Baal than like the competition between Jeremiah and Hananiah. Ezekiel sees this divination as “false” not because it is ineffective, “idolatrous,” and so on, but because it is not: these successful necromancers pose a threat within Yahwism, and they are perhaps more examples than outliers.

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12 The Women of Joel’s Radical Vision

The day of Yahweh is coming! Violence and destruction, starvation and misery, fire and drought—all manner of gloom and anguish will prevail on that day ( Joel 1:15–2:11). But perhaps there is still time to repent; and then there will be abundant rains and rich produce and heaps of wheat and vats of wine and the grazing animals will have nothing to fear and everyone will eat and be satisfied and there will be no more shame (2:12–27)! And then, Joel says, and then: “Afterward, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy; your old men will have dreams, and your young men will see visions. Even on the servant boys and servant girls will I pour out my spirit in those days!” Joel’s great vision in 3:1–2 (Eng. 2:28–29) is famous for its radical inclusivity. In the time to come, says Joel, everyone will have access to divine knowledge. This could be taken as a warm and wonderful statement about the equality of all humankind, except for one detail: the entire point is that this image reflects how things aren’t. Like the image of the impossibly rich abundance in nature that precedes it, this is a picture of something seen as both ideal and unattainable, thrown out into the imagined eschatological future. The apocalyptic oracle continues with a series of omens of the kind that typically accompany visions of the end times: “And I will give signs in the skies and on the earth! Blood, and fire, and plumes of smoke! The sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood” (3:3–4 [Eng. 2:30–31]). So we see two things in Joel’s oracle: that there was a concept of the broad distribution of divinatory access as an ideal, and that it was seen as not realizable in the author’s present, or perhaps in the regular course of history.

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So what does this eschatological ideal look like to Joel? There is the obvious symbolic representation of the whole spectrum of society: the sons and daughters, the old men and young men, and “even” the male and female servants. There is also a range of types of divination: prophesying, dreaming, and having visions, all brought about by Yahweh pouring out his spirit on all flesh. But this is worth a pause: if all of this is sparked by Yahweh choosing to pour his spirit onto everyone (as repeated in both verses), why then would he not have done this before? The answer remains a bit of a mystery: Yahweh is fickle, and pours out his spirit on whomever he chooses. Apparently it is only in the imagined future that this will include all types of people. Such disavowal of human responsibility for the distinctions between who can prophesy and who cannot is not out of place among biblical texts, but if this oracle is characterized by “an element of social revolution,” as Wolff writes, it is essentially a revolution against Yahweh’s previous choices. Wolff notes that Joel’s oracle is a “promise of the fulfillment of Moses’ wish” in Numbers 11:29. Moses exclaims there, “Would that all the people of Yahweh were prophets, that Yahweh would put his spirit on all of them!” Finally, in the last days, as Joel imagines them, Yahweh will catch up. 1. Though note that women of a certain age seem to be missing. 2. Wolff, Joel and Amos, 67. Perhaps Stuart has got it right, if possibly with a spin he did not intend, referring to “the democratization of the Spirit.” Apparently it was Yahweh who needed a little more democracy (Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, 260). 3. Wolff, Joel and Amos, 67. 4. Though Wolff sees the image in Joel as being only about “the existence of prophets,” and not about prophetic utterance. He argues that Joel envisions a “nation of prophets,” simply living in relation to Yahweh, but not proclaiming anything (ibid., 66). This is unsupportable partly because Joel explicitly says that people will prophesy, and partly because there is no evidence whatsoever for such a concept. The term “nation of prophets” also seems a bit sketchy for its implied juxtaposition with “nation of priests” (i.e., the “kingdom of priests and holy nation” that is actually mentioned in Exod 19:6, unlike a hypothetical “nation of prophets”). In addition, Moses’s exclamation in Numbers 11 is in direct response to a complaint about people going around prophesying.

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13 Noadiah The passing reference to Noadiah ‫( הנביאה‬Neh 6:14), the last named female prophet, is too brief to warrant concluding much of anything at all, except for that our hero Nehemiah sees her as an enemy. In this, she is in good company. The story of Nehemiah so far has included intermittent opposition and mockery from Tobiah and Sanballat, among others (Neh 2:10, 19; 4:1–7). As our text begins, Nehemiah’s enemies are plotting various ways to interfere with his work. In one of their more creative moves, they hire a prophet, Shemaiah, to tell Nehemiah he had better run for the hills (or the temple). Nehemiah figures out the ruse and shakes his fist in the air at Tobiah, Sanballat, “and also Noadiah the prophet, and the rest of the prophets who have been intimidating me” (6:14). The scene is rife with such conflict. Sanballat has recently written Nehemiah a letter, accusing him of having wrangled some prophets into proclaiming that he, Nehemiah, would be king (Neh 6:5–7). This could be Sanballat’s fiction, of course, part of a great smear campaign against Nehemiah (which is certainly how the latter sees it), but it could also be that there were in fact many active prophets with a range of views, with each party denouncing the prophets who represented opposing views, in a classic prophetic conflict. It is interesting that in this exchange (Neh 6:7 and 6:14), Sanballat and Nehemiah do not depict the prophets who oppose their positions as “false,” but as having been deployed and manipulated by the other—Sanballat sees them as Nehemiah’s pawns, and vice versa. The threat is not that of so-called false prophets, but of powerful political adversaries who use

186

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multiple means of opposition, one of which is some maneuvering of prophets. Perhaps Noadiah is one of the prophets being “handled” by Sanballat and friends, actually acting with the goal of scaring Nehemiah into submission; or perhaps we should take into account Nehemiah’s tendency toward dramatic antagonism and speculate that Noadiah is simply a prophet who opposes Nehemiah’s work, and so he sees her as being out to get him. From this text, one would be hard-pressed to conclude more about Noadiah than that Nehemiah saw her as an enemy. In fact, among the things that one would be hard-pressed to conclude is that Noadiah is actually female. Noadiah is male in the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic; this collection of textual witnesses alone would be significant. In addition, there is a Noadiah son of Binnui in Ezra 8:33. It would be quite a coincidence for Ezra-Nehemiah to include two characters named Noadiah, one male and one female. Finally, the reference in Ezra is to two Levites, Jozabad ben Jeshua and Noadiah ben Binnui; two Levites by the names of the two fathers, Jeshua and Binnui, appear together in Nehemiah 10:9 and 12:8. The most likely scenario may be that the versions of Nehemiah 6:14 in which the prophet Noadiah is male reflect the more reliable tradition. Then again, if the character were male, Nehemiah might have referred to “Noadiah and the rest of the prophets,” and not to “Noadiah the prophet and the rest of the prophets.” If Noadiah the prophet is indeed meant to be female, it is not clear whether there is particular attention drawn to her gender. The question is why Noadiah alone is named in this verse. Maybe she was especially prominent, or maybe Nehemiah had had a particularly bad experience with her, and maybe in either of these cases it had nothing to do with gender. 1. Contra Kessler, who finds it clear that Noadiah, among other prophets, was claiming Nehemiah as king, thus putting him at risk with the Persian authorities. He also sees the text as reflecting a position in this period that subordinates prophecy to Torah (“Miriam and the Prophecy of the Persian Period,” 82–84). Butting follows Kessler, seeing Noadiah as the exponent of prophecy, in conflict with Nehemiah as the exponent of Torah, and again argues that it is in a female prophet that the relationship of prophecy to Torah is expressed (Prophetinnen Gefragt, 10–11). Fischer sees in Noadiah the increased prophetic authority of women in the Persian period, from which point she sees other traditions of female prophets written back into the story of Israel’s prophetic past (Gotteskünderinnen, 255, 276–77).

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Or maybe she is singled out because she is female, and as Carroll suggests, female prophets who oppose male authority do not fare well. Carroll compares Miriam’s opposition to Moses in Numbers 12 and suggests that Noadiah may be meeting a similar fate here. This is certainly possible. However, no character who opposes the main positions taken in a given text fares too well, so the fact that this includes women does not indicate that in every case it is because they are women. Perhaps the safest conclusion to draw on the basis of the passing reference to Noadiah is that Nehemiah’s world full of dangerous enemies included a range of political opponents and representative prophetic conflict, and one player at one point may have been female; and if Noadiah was female, and if Nehemiah meant to draw attention to this, he did not succeed, as we can see from the significant variant traditions that understood the character as male. In this text’s fleeting reference to Noadiah, as in the brief passage in Joel discussed in the previous chapter, there is enough intriguing material to warrant inclusion in a work on women’s divination. However, while each passage raises a variety of issues that merit scrutiny, neither one throws much light on views of women’s divination, and I prefer to draw no conclusions beyond what the evidence can bear. 2. Carroll, “Coopting the Prophets: Nehemiah and Noadiah,” 94.

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14 Rachel, the Mother of

Micah, and the Teraphim

The texts discussed until now have all included portrayals of women engaging in or associated with divination. We turn here to two texts that are not in the same category, but that allude to divination, to differing degrees. The story of Rachel depicts the matriarch holding on to her family’s teraphim, which are frequently used for divination. The story of Micah includes a glimpse of his mother, whose range of religious activity in just a few verses includes the commissioning (but not use) of divinatory objects. The use of teraphim for divination is explicit in many texts. In Ezekiel 21, for instance, the king of Babylon is said to engage in divination (‫קסם‬-‫)לקסם‬ in several ways, including inquiring of the teraphim (‫שאל בתרפים‬, Ezek 21:26 [Eng. 21:21]). The divinatory function of teraphim is equally overt in Zechariah 10:2, and with a similarly negative judgment: “For the teraphim have spoken iniquity, and the diviners have seen false visions” (‫און והקוסמים חזו שקר‬-‫)כי התרפים דברו‬. First Samuel 15:23 uses ‫ קסם‬in parallel with teraphim (rebellion is like the sin of ‫קסם‬, stubbornness is like ‫ ;)און ותרפים‬and so on. While teraphim may have served other functions as well, their use in divination is suggested by most textual references. 1. Lewis too observes that the “divinatory function . . . is the best attested among the occurrences of te˘rāpîm in the OT.” He finds that the teraphim “are associated with divinatory practices of some kind in all of the passages” except for the Michal story and the possible exception of the Rachel story. Lewis, “Teraphim,” 849. Van der Toorn also emphasizes the divinatory function of teraphim in biblical texts (“The Nature of the Biblical Teraphim in the Light of the Cuneiform Evidence,” 211–17).

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The word (always grammatically plural) is usually translated “household gods.” This is accurate in a general sense, but more specifically, the teraphim were figurines representing deified ancestors. While this had been suggested before, van der Toorn’s extensive arguments based on the combination of comparative evidence from Nuzi and Emar and philological and contextual evidence from biblical texts have solidly demonstrated that this is the case, and the identification of the teraphim as ancestor figurines has at this point been widely accepted. The distinction between generic household gods and ancestor figurines is significant here because, as van der Toorn and others observe, the use of ancestor figurines in divination may indicate the practice of necromancy. The older theory that ownership of the family teraphim signified inheritance of property has been persuasively countered, but a more nuanced kin to this hypothesis remains. Ktziah Spanier has argued that in addition to being used for divination, the teraphim were “emblems of authority.” If this is the case, it is intriguing that this proposed function is not only compatible with divination, but particularly compatible with necromancy. Passing down an ancestor figurine as both an instrument for divination and an emblem of authority is perfectly logical: through the teraphim, one patriarch gains privileged access to another.

2. Van der Toorn, “The Nature of the Biblical Teraphim,” 203–22; van der Toorn and Lewis, “‫תְּ ָרפִים‬, t erāpîm,” 15:777–89. 3. Rouillard and Tropper had previously suggested that the teraphim were ancestor figurines, though (as van der Toorn observes) based on less strong evidence (“TRPYM rituels de guérison et culte des ancêtres d’après 1 Samuel XIX 11–17 et les textes parallèles d’Assur et de Nuzi,” 340–61, esp. 351–61). Lewis, “Teraphim,” 845–46; Cooper and Goldstein, “The Cult of the Dead and the Theme of Entry into the Land,” 295. 4. Van der Toorn, “The Nature of the Biblical Teraphim,” esp. 215–17. Lewis, “Teraphim,” 848–50. On the close relationship between teraphim and ‫אבות‬, see Rouillard and Tropper, “TRPYM rituels de guérison et culte des ancêtres,” 355–56. 5. Spanier argues that Rachel stole the teraphim in order to gain status as the primary or preferred wife, and to pass authority to her sons (“Rachel’s Theft of the Teraphim: Her Struggle for Family Primacy,” 404–12). Sarna had already pointed out that in this text the teraphim could not have been meant to guarantee legal land inheritance (against arguments such as that of Speiser, Genesis, 250), since they are leaving the land in question permanently; Sarna, Genesis, 216.

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Regardless of whether teraphim served other functions as well, it is clear that they were used for divination. The work of the present chapter in no way depends on the theory that this divination was specifically necromantic, but it should be noted that if it was, we might have here another association or two between women and necromancy.

Rachel’s Teraphim The suggestion that Rachel’s theft of the teraphim in Genesis 31:17–35 was related to their potential divinatory use is not new. Rashbam, Ibn Ezra, Kimhi, Nahmanides, and others argued that she took the teraphim in order to keep Laban from consulting them and discovering her whereabouts. This is of course a possibility. There is another possibility, however, which will presumably be evident to the reader by this point in the present work. Could it not be that Rachel herself wanted to be able to use the teraphim for divination? To my knowledge, this suggestion appears nowhere in ancient, medieval, or modern commentary. At the very least, if it has appeared anywhere, it has quietly disappeared as well. The author does not discuss Rachel’s motives for stealing the teraphim, so we cannot establish them with certainty. We can, however, establish that her motivation does not appear to be related to inheritance, as some have argued. When Jacob tells Rachel and Leah that he plans for them all to leave Laban’s land, the sisters respond with the observation that their future children’s inheritance is with Jacob now anyway. “Do we still have any portion or inheritance in our father’s house? Aren’t we like strangers to him? For he sold us, and utterly ate through our money. All of the wealth that God took from our father, that is ours and our children’s—so all that God 6. For examples and brief discussion, see Greenberg, “Another Look at Rachel’s Theft of the Teraphim,” 239; and Spanier, “Rachel’s Theft of the Teraphim,” 405. This tradition persists: Sarna, for instance, notes the use of the teraphim for divination and suggests, “Perhaps Rachel, by appropriating them, hoped to deprive her father of the ability to detect Jacob’s escape,” citing Rashbam and Ibn Ezra (Genesis, 216). 7. The reader may recall a similar default assumption of male agency in interpretation of the Rebekah story, where if divination is recognized at all, it is almost always assumed that Rebekah sought out a diviner or “man of God” to inquire on her behalf.

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has said to you, do” (Gen 31:14–16). The sisters state explicitly that their father has nothing left for them, and so they will emigrate with Jacob, and thus with their inheritance. After the women agree to emigrate, Rachel steals the teraphim. This is not presented as related to the subject of the inheritance; nor would it accomplish anything related to an inheritance that the sisters have just said no longer exists with Laban in any case. Note also that the sisters have been speaking and acting as a unit until now: they speak as one in 31:14–16, and then they are put on camels together in 31:17. In light of the bitter competition between the sisters—created by Laban in 29:21–30—which comprises virtually their entire story until now (29:31–30:24), their speech and action as a unit in the first part of this scene is rather pointed. It is immediately after this that Rachel steals the teraphim: this action is hers alone. Rachel’s sudden independent action here in taking the teraphim reflects something for which she has an independent desire. She wants to hold on to these items of her household religion. A reasonable default assumption is that Rachel’s desire to hold on to her family’s teraphim was not merely a desire to have the objects, but also to use them. Since they were primarily associated with divination, it seems most likely that she took the teraphim so she could utilize them for this purpose. The simplest explanation—that Rachel steals the teraphim because she wants them for a function they serve—seems straightforward even before we consider her place in the broader narrative. After all, what is specific to Rachel in the tradition? Her primary role in the literature is as the mother of Joseph. Mother and son are famously alike: they are both the most beloved of Jacob—Rachel more than her sister, and Joseph more than his brothers (29:30, 37:3). They are also both remarkably beautiful: Rachel and Joseph are identically said to be “attractive of form, and attractive of appearance” (‫תאר ויפת מראה‬-‫ורחל היתה יפת‬,i29:17; ‫תאר ויפה מראה‬-‫ויהי יוסף יפה‬,i39:6). 8. Because the word always appears in the plural, it is at times difficult to tell whether the intended meaning is singular or plural (like ‫אלהים‬, in more than one way). It is unclear whether Rachel steals one object or more. She is able to hide her teraphim beneath her, but since we know neither the size of the teraphim nor the baggage allowance of the camel (presumably large), the question remains open. I will use the plural here for the sake of convenience, but am not committed to the view that she must have taken more than one teraphim. 9. Van der Toorn’s brief discussion of how Rachel’s theft “indicates her reluctance to break with her father’s family religion” is instructive; Family Religion, 257.

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Joseph is also the biblical diviner par excellence. He is a dreamer (37:5–10) and an interpreter of dreams (chapters 40–41); he has a silver goblet that he uses for divination (44:5); and when he confronts his brothers before the great reveal, he reminds them that he is a diviner (‫נחש ינחש איש אשר כמני‬, 44:15). Do we have here another way in which mother and son are portrayed as similar? Perhaps Rachel too is associated with divination.

Petty Theft or Part of a Larger Motif? The scene is usually read as a petty crime. But how does Rachel’s theft fit into the themes of the story? The author uses the word ‫ גנב‬eight times between verses 19 and 39, playing with different senses of the word (for example, Jacob stole away unbeknownst to Laban, ‫לבן‬-‫ויגנב יעקב את‬, v. 20). This literary dexterity demonstrates the author’s conscious attention to the motif. Theft and accusations of theft appear repeatedly in the broader story (expressed through other terminology as well), and considering how the motif functions overall may shed light on how the author uses it here. First, within the Jacob-Laban story line: the pattern is that Laban tries not to give Jacob what the narrator presents as being rightfully Jacob’s through God’s blessing; Jacob acquires what is “his” but is then accused of having stolen from Laban; and then he is blessed anyway. In chapter 30, Laban wants to keep his flocks—as Jacob tells it later, Laban tries to cheat him by repeatedly changing his wages, adjusting between the speckled sheep and the stripes and solids—but Jacob, blessed by God and good at magic, always increases the flocks that are to be his wages. Laban’s sons then accuse Jacob of having taken their father’s wealth from him. The narrative confirms through Jacob’s dream report that the flocks were in fact given to him by God. The events surrounding Jacob’s marriage to Rachel reflect the same pattern. The narrator presents Rachel as the divinely intended wife, but Laban holds her back from Jacob; after Jacob has met Laban’s demand for seven extra years of service and tries to leave with his wives, Laban accuses Jacob of having absconded with his daughters like captives taken at swordpoint. He also accuses him twice of having stolen away unbeknownst to him, and once of having stolen his teraphim—all in verses 26–30. In chapter 31 in particular, from the first verse and all the way through, the chief thing at stake is the taking of someone else’s goods. As the chapter begins, Laban’s sons are angry that Jacob has stolen from their father. Jacob

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explains to Rachel and Leah that God has continually taken (‫ )ויצל‬Laban’s flocks and given them to him (31:7–9). The sisters acknowledge that God took (again ‫ )הציל‬this wealth away from their father and gave it to Jacob (31:16). Then, when the matter of the teraphim arises, the issue at stake is whether Jacob or someone in his party has once again stolen from Laban. Already within this material it is clear that in the matter of the teraphim, we are not dealing with an isolated instance of theft, but with one manifestation of a broader theme. Second, this is the theme that characterizes the Jacob-Esau story line. As Esau sums up in 27:36, Jacob has twice taken what was his: first the birthright and then the blessing. In both of those scenes, the narrative indicates that what Jacob took was divinely intended for him all along. We see this motif, then, from the early Jacob story in which Jacob is accused of having stolen the birthright and the blessing, to the Jacob v. Laban subplot, in which Jacob is accused of having stolen Laban’s flocks and his daughters, to the scene in question, in which Jacob’s party is accused of having stolen the teraphim. None of the previous acts of stealing are condemned: each time Jacob takes something from another person—who in each case feels the injustice of it and characterizes it as stealing—the narrator portrays Jacob’s actions as a strategic means to an end. From the author’s perspective, God is transferring Laban’s household to Jacob and his household, just as he had previously transferred Esau’s birthright and blessing to Jacob. If, when Jacob acquires Laban’s wealth through questionable means, this is understood as part of how God is transferring Laban’s household to Jacob, why not also when Rachel acquires Laban’s teraphim through questionable means? Laban’s response demonstrates that the teraphim are a valued part of his household, and they are now transferred to Jacob’s household. (The reader will recall that the ruse is never discovered, and Rachel keeps the teraphim.) Why assume that the narrator saw Jacob’s actions as justified, but Rachel’s as unjustified? When Laban’s sons are angry that Jacob has stolen their father’s flocks, we know that from the author’s perspective, God has given this wealth to Jacob. When a few verses later Laban is angry that someone in Jacob’s party has stolen his teraphim, perhaps here too the implication is that the accuser misses the point—that once again, Jacob’s household is increased while Laban’s is decreased. As with Esau in the formative episodes and with Laban’s sons moments earlier, so too with Laban now: the unfortunate unblessed smart at the injustice of their blessing and goods

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being snatched by Jacob, and fail to recognize that this is God transferring blessing to Jacob. It is unclear on what basis we would assume that this is the author’s perspective each of the other times that Jacob and his household are increased through deceit, but not this time. Perhaps here too the act is strategic, and the ends justify the means. The objections to this may be that in Rachel’s case, either the action or the thing stolen is more illicit. We have no indication that either of these was the narrator’s view. On the first possible objection: when Esau accuses Jacob of stealing his blessing, he is right. Jacob deceives his ailing father, takes advantage of his blindness, and steals the blessing from his brother. This is actually quite appalling. However, from the author’s perspective, Jacob is meant to have the blessing, and so even taking advantage of his aging father’s disability and stealing from his own brother is portrayed as part of how he acquires it. Likewise with the flocks: when Laban’s sons accuse Jacob of stealing their father’s flocks, their accusation is correct, or at least if it is incorrect, it is only very technically so because, playground-style, no one said you couldn’t control the outcome with magic (30:31–43). On the second possible objection, the teraphim are not seen as illicit here. We have no more reason to condemn the use of teraphim than to condemn Jacob’s use of magic. While both are denounced in other traditions, neither is in this one. Several texts reflect the acceptance of teraphim as part of Israelite religious life. The presence of teraphim in David’s palace in 1 Samuel 19 is presented as so perfectly acceptable as to be a nonissue. Hosea 3:4 includes a list of things Israel will have to survive without for a time: they will be without a king, a leader, a sacrifice, a matzevah, and without ephod and teraphim (as a pair). Afterward, the children of Israel will return to Yahweh their God and David their king, and fear God again (3:5). Later texts, such as those in Ezekiel and Zechariah, certainly take a critical view of the teraphim, but we cannot import this view backward, any more than we would with other aspects of Israelite religious life that later became problematic for Yahwists. 10. Van der Toorn also reads this to mean that according to this text, “an ephod and teraphim belonged to the normal equipment of an Israelite cult place” (ibid., 219); Grabbe considers the possibility that it may demonstrate Hosea’s acceptance of the teraphim as legitimate for divinatory purposes (Priests, Prophets, Diviners, Sages, 127).

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So, if we shake the preconceptions gifted to us by the ages—first, that Rachel’s stealing is unjustified while Jacob’s is justified, and second, that the teraphim were necessarily illicit—then what in the text actually indicates either of these? If nothing, then the safest conclusion is that this is yet another story of Laban’s household being transferred to Jacob’s family, through what the author portrays as questionable but justifiable means. Furthermore, if Rachel’s theft of the teraphim were seen as seriously illicit (that is, different from Jacob’s acts), one would expect to see some remark, some criticism, somewhere in the Rachel story. Instead, we see Rachel depicted as the divinely chosen wife, favored by both Jacob and the narrator, from her first appearance on. This does not require reading her behavior as ideal—all of the patriarchs and matriarchs are painted in full color, as complex and flawed people—but the positive portrait of Rachel is noteworthy. Rachel’s identity as the chosen wife is central to her story. This is how she is introduced and how her story develops. She also remains the favorite after this scene. As Jacob and his family are heading off from Haran, she takes the teraphim; as they are approaching their destination, she maintains the place of privilege. When Jacob sees Esau off in the distance coming toward him with four hundred men, he carefully divides his children according to their mothers, puts the servant women and their children in the most dangerous spot at the front, Leah and her children behind them, and Rachel and Joseph safely at the rear (Gen 33:1–2). While the author of this story is no Chronicler (heavy on the consequences of disobedience and immorality), characters who do things the author finds terrible do not tend to come out glowing and still so favored, as Rachel does. The overwhelmingly positive portrayal of Rachel as the divinely selected matriarch and Jacob’s preferred wife is, I think, pivotal in traditional interpretation of her actions. Since we know that teraphim could be used for divination, imagine how the story might be read if it were about, say, Jezebel. Would it not seem obvious that she wanted to have the teraphim for the sake of using them for divination? An interpreter’s preconceived notions about divination in general, or women’s divination in particular, may create an obstacle to drawing the simplest conclusion: that Rachel wants the teraphim because she wants to use them. Like the story of Rebekah, this is a picture imagining life in the world of the ancestors, long before the author’s own time. The larger story is rich with reflections of local religion—including Jacob’s memory of his earlier

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matzevah, Jacob and Laban’s matzevah, and their shared sacrifice—and in this context, the author imagines Rachel procuring her teraphim. A minimal reading is that the author’s impression of the days of yore includes a picture of a woman who wants her family’s divinatory objects, presumably in order to use them. We have here a portrait of another matriarch, also brought in from the ancestral land, who exhibits a personal interest in divination. A fuller, but still cautious, reading: the narrator sees this in a positive light. This is part of the larger theme of Laban’s household being transferred to Jacob’s, through the Jacob family stealing what the narrator sees as rightfully theirs, as part of God’s blessing and inheritance. Given the narrative patterns and the overwhelmingly positive depiction of the matriarch, interpreting Rachel’s stealing from Laban as different from and worse than Jacob’s requires reading into, or even against, the text.

The Mother of Micah, Benefactress In Judges 17, we meet the character of Micah the Ephraimite and, ever so briefly, his mother. She does not engage in divination, nor is there any reason to think she intended to. I include her here only because the very few verses that mention her pack in a good deal of religious activity, and one of her actions seems to be the commissioning of divinatory objects for her son’s sanctuary. The story that follows is Micah’s and not his mother’s, and so, as in the Rachel text, the narrator does not demonstrate particular interest in her motivations. Micah’s story begins: He said to his mother, “The eleven hundred pieces of silver which were taken from you, about which you uttered a curse in my ears—look, I have the silver. I took it.” His mother said, “Blessed be my son by Yahweh.” So he returned the eleven hundred pieces of silver to his mother, and his mother said, “I fully dedicate the silver to Yahweh from my hand, for my son, to make a graven image and a molten image. Now I will return it to you.” So when he returned the silver to his mother, his mother took two hundred pieces of silver and gave it to the craftsman, who made a graven image and a molten image; so they were in Micah’s house. This man Micah had a sanctuary, and he made an ephod and a teraphim, and consecrated one of his sons to be a priest for him. In those days, there was no king in Israel; a man did what was right in his own eyes. ( Judg 17:2–6)

Although the story is about Micah, the first several verses center on the religious activities of his mother. First, as Micah acknowledges, she had

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cursed him when he stole the silver. Then, when he admits his thievery and returns the silver, she blesses him in the name of Yahweh; unfortunately, we do not also get to see the content of her curse. Next, she proclaims that she is dedicating all of the silver to Yahweh, for her son. Finally, she gives a craftsman two hundred of her eleven hundred pieces of silver, and he makes the first pair of images for Micah’s private sanctuary (‫)בית אלהים‬, the ‫פסל‬ and the ‫מסכה‬. This leaves nine hundred pieces of Micah’s mother’s silver, which she has just said she is fully dedicating to Yahweh for her son. The next verse says that Micah made an ephod and a teraphim. Is the implication that these too are funded by his mother, with the silver that she has just pledged back to him for the express purpose of dedicating it to Yahweh on his behalf? All of the details of the transaction are skipped this time. A craftsman must have made these items as well, and been paid to do so, but we hear of no such person, and we hear neither about where the money for their construction came from nor to whom it was paid. It is safe to assume there was a craftsman and a financial transaction involved here too, just as there was the first time. Since Micah’s mother has dedicated eleven hundred pieces of silver to Yahweh for her son, used two hundred for one pair of sanctuary objects, nine hundred pieces remain, we are told that she gives the money back to her son, and then he commissions another pair of sanctuary objects, it seems likely that the funding for this pair comes from her as well. There seems to be little attention paid to Micah’s mother’s role here. Niditch does observe that there is a question regarding whether Micah or his mother commissions the pieces, though she suggests that the ambiguity might be attributable to multiple narrators. Otherwise, there is a good deal of attention to Micah as the owner of a home sanctuary, but not to his benefactress, the Doña Gracia of his private ‫בית אלהים‬. 11. I disagree with the idea that ‫ פסל ומסכה‬should be read as a hendiadys in order to match the singular verb that follows (Boling, for example, suggests, “sculpture and something poured out”; Judges, 256). For alternate views and bibliography on the question, see T. Butler, Judges, 378–89. Reading the two words as a hendiadys would not change the above interpretation, however. 12. Niditch, Judges, 177–78. 13. Cox and Ackerman have addressed the financial activity of Micah’s mother and attribute it to her recent widowhood (“Micah’s Teraphim,” 1–37). See Cox and Ackerman also for discussion of the teraphim in general and in this text, and of the ‫בית אלהים‬.

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Of these four cultic objects, we know that the ephod and teraphim could both be used for divination (see David’s use of the ephod for divination in 1 Sam 23:9 and 30:7). It seems the ‫ פסל‬and the ‫ מסכה‬were as well, based on the objection to this elsewhere. In Habakkuk 2:18–19, the ‫ פסל‬and ‫( מסכה‬called a “teacher of lies,” ‫ )מורה שקר‬are scorned together, in a Second Isaiah–style mocking of the absurdity of telling this wood and stone overlaid with silver and gold to awake and arise, saying, “It will teach!” Compare Zechariah 10:2, “For the teraphim have spoken iniquity, and the diviners have seen false visions.” It is not clear whether Micah uses all four objects for divination, but there is at least no separation drawn between those we know are divinatory and those that seem to have been. They are all listed together repeatedly, but in different orders, throughout the larger story ( Judg 18:14, 17; 18:18; and all but the ‫ מסכה‬in 18:20). In 18:24, Micah calls these items “my gods which I made.” It would not be surprising for representations of gods to be used for divination: that is, for the gods to be asked to speak (cf. the teraphim “speaking” in Zech 10:2). The four objects, two of which are certainly used for divination and two of which seem to have been, reside together in Micah’s sanctuary, where the Levite priest will soon “inquire” for the Danite spies ( Judg 18:5). The range of Micah’s mother’s religious activity in these very few verses is remarkable: when her son steals from her, she curses him, and when he returns her silver, she blesses him and funds his sanctuary. This may be most interesting for the parts that we do not get to see: would that we could hear the content of the curse she utters, and see the details of her role as benefactor in dedicating eleven hundred pieces of silver to Yahweh for her son. (This seems a tremendous amount; cf. the Levite’s pay, which is specified at ‫ עשרת כסף לימים‬in 17:10.) Finally, it is intriguing that she seems to fund the construction of divinatory objects for her son’s sanctuary. The benefactress is unknown to us. Many commentators—ancient, medieval, and modern—have noted that Delilah received eleven hundred 14. The range of possibilities for the ephod has been widely observed, but does not affect the present argument. 15. Cox and Ackerman argue that several elements of Judg 17–18 suggest that Micah’s father has recently died, and that the teraphim is thus commissioned as an image of the new deified ancestor (ibid., 11–16). The use of the ancestor figurine here for divination would then be necromantic inquiry.

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pieces of silver for her betrayal in Judges 16:5, and some have thus considered the possibility that Delilah was Micah’s mother. This is a stretch. While it is conceivable that a numerical detail in one story about a woman associated with a great deal of silver may have at some point filtered into another, this still would not indicate anything about the identity of the character in the Micah story as understood by the author. The suggestion that these were written as the same character is not supported. However, the placement of the narrative directly after the story of Samson and Delilah may be useful in interpretation in a different way, especially given its placement between that and the story of the Levite and his concubine. Ackerman has usefully juxtaposed Delilah’s relative autonomy with the concubine’s utter and tragic lack of the same. Both of these are in some ways surprising, as Ackerman observes: Delilah has more autonomy than the reader might expect given the constraints of the nonmarital sexual relationship, whereas the “concubine,” who turns out in fact to be the Levite’s wife (her father is referred to as his father-in-law in Judg 19:4, 7, and 9), has virtually none. If we consider the story of Micah bookended by these tales, his mother’s financial and religious autonomy is all the more striking. From start to finish, the story of Micah’s sanctuary is Yahwistic. His mother explicitly blesses him in Yahweh’s name, and Micah installs a Levite as priest of his sanctuary, because that way, he figures, Yahweh will be good to him ( Judg 17:13). The description of a private sanctuary with graven images does not match later “proper” Yahwism, of course, and thus some see it as “idolatry,” but it should be understood as comparable to the “sin” of Jeroboam—and, as I have argued, that of the women of Ezekiel 13: it is Yahwistic from the perspective of the characters, if questionable (or worse) from the perspective of the storyteller. These few verses, only there as a prologue to a much longer story, hint at a fascinating character: she utters a curse at her son, then blesses him in Yahweh’s name, and finally acts as an autonomous benefactress who 16. For examples of ancient and medieval commentary, see Gunn, Judges, 233. Among modern scholars, McCann (Judges, 120) and Matthews (Judges and Ruth, 170–71) note the possibility that Delilah was Micah’s mother, and Schneider argues for it (Judges, 231–33). 17. Ackerman, Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen, 224–40. 18. McCann sees Micah as having “created another god besides God” (Judges, 120), and as engaging in idolatry (120–22). Niditch, however, recognizes the Yahwism as comparable to that of Jeroboam (Judges, 181–82).

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chooses to fund the creation of sacred objects for her son’s private sanctuary. She commissions the ‫ פסל‬and ‫מסכה‬, which may serve a divinatory function, and likely also funds the ephod and teraphim, which are certainly divinatory objects. The allusions to this woman’s activities are tantalizing; the details are just beyond our reach.

Michal The story in which Michal uses a teraphim as a decoy after letting David down through a window to escape Saul is not related to divination (1 Sam 19:11–17). One poignant note, though: if we consider how Rachel’s desire to keep her father’s teraphim rings of her son Joseph’s divination and his divinatory objects, and Micah’s mother funds the construction of divinatory objects for her son’s sanctuary, then Michal’s utterly banal use of the teraphim also seems suddenly reminiscent of her father, Saul, who became known for his lack of access to divine knowledge. Far from being associated with divination, either successful or failing, Michal’s utilitarian appropriation of the teraphim reflects Saul’s legacy of limitation in this area.

Women and Their Teraphim? There was once a tendency to suggest that teraphim were particularly associated with women. Wellhausen, for instance, noted “the domestic worship of teraphim, to which the women are specially attached,” and Gunkel suggested that the Israelite authors were more comfortable portraying a woman’s use of teraphim than a man’s (that is, that of Rachel, but not Jacob, and Michal, but not David). Although these suggestions are logical, given the use of teraphim in household religion and the texts that connect them to female characters, the evidence does not support the theory. Van der Toorn still cautiously addresses this as a possibility, while acknowledging Wellhausen’s insufficient evidence, and adds that Laban’s anger over his missing teraphim demonstrates that “the cult of the teraphim was by no means the exclusive business of women.” While I disagree about the significance of Laban’s anger—his concern throughout the story is that people keep stealing from him, while Rachel’s desire for the teraphim cannot be 19. Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel, 32 n.1. Gunkel, Genesis, 334. 20. Van der Toorn, “The Nature of the Biblical Teraphim,” 210.

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explained in this way—the fact that they are his missing teraphim demonstrates that men also used these objects. In the story of Micah as well, though my interest is in the role of his mother, the text itself focuses on Micah who owns the teraphim, and the Levite priest, who “inquires” in Micah’s sanctuary. The only other gender-specific reference to divining by teraphim concerns the king of Babylon (Ezek 21:26 [Eng. 21:21]). Teraphim are not specific to the divinatory activity of women. The scholarly tendency to assign particular religious activities along gender lines is strong, as seen in the pervasive notion of female prophets as songstresses. The distinction between men’s and women’s roles is not warranted in the case of teraphim either. On the contrary, as we see encapsulated in Rachel and Laban’s tug of war over the teraphim, these are divinatory objects that might hold appeal for both women and men.

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15 What a Witch: Divination Imagery and Metaphor

The previous twelve chapters have been devoted to texts that reflect a broad range of views of women’s divination. As an addendum, there is one minor literary phenomenon that should be addressed here, partly because it reflects tinges of the later trajectory of interpretation of women’s divination. A few texts employ images of women’s divination, used metaphorically. In each context, the sense of the metaphor is pejorative.

Images of the Dangerous Woman in Proverbs 1–9 Proverbs 1–9 includes a series of images of women of whom the ancient reader should be wary. These depictions are closely linked through their shared phrasing and imagery (as well as their textual function). Without assuming they are meant to be a fully unified image, I will refer in the singular to this set of personifications, which includes, at the very least, a significant overlap in recurring images and consistent behavior. 1. On the relationship between the “foolish woman” of Prov 9 and the “foreign woman” of Prov 7 and earlier texts, see Weeks’s detailed observations regarding a range of connections, e.g., the foolish woman entertains guests in Sheol in 9:18, and the foreign woman’s house is the path to Sheol, 7:27; the uncommon word ‫ המיה‬is used of both, 7:11, 9:13; and both entice men into “illicit pleasures.” Weeks concludes that the foolish woman—here Folly—“is a personification, like Wisdom, but she is associated, possibly even identified with the type of woman portrayed in chapters 5–7” (Instruction and Imagery in Proverbs 1–9, 72). Both the foolish woman and the foreign woman “act as a counterpart to the figure of Wisdom,” and both lure men to their deaths; Weeks sees a probable identification

203

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The dangerous woman is described metaphorically as engaging in necromancy. In Proverbs 6:26, she is said to hunt ‫נפש‬i(‫ואשת איש נפש יקרה‬ ‫)תצוד‬. The phrase occurs only here and in the indictment of necromancy in Ezekiel 13, as discussed earlier. The phrase in Proverbs is translated in an enormous variety of ways, many of which seem to interpret it as connoting the sexual danger that the woman represents (for example, she “will snare a person of honor,” NJPS), but the Hebrew phrase would be odd for such a reading, and the very range of meanings proposed flags a need for further analysis. The Ezekiel passage has only rarely been recognized as describing necromancy, and so this has not factored into interpretations of the use of the phrase in Proverbs. The phrase refers to necromancy here, as it does there. This is by no means the only insinuation of necromancy, or something like it, in the portrayal of the dangerous woman in Proverbs. Among the allusions to necromantic activity before the reference to hunting ‫ נפש‬in 6:26, it is said of this woman that “her house sinks down to death and her tracks to the ‫רפאים‬i( ‫רפאים מעגלתיה‬-‫מות ביתה ואל‬-‫ ;)כי שחה אל‬none who come to her return and reach the paths of life” (2:18–19). This is not a description of your garden-variety temptress. It is not a foreign woman who entices men into illicit sex, or a foolish woman who lures men into danger. Her house “sinks down” to death (the verb ‫ שחה‬is also associated with Sheol and Death in Ps 49:15); and she leads not only to death, but to the ‫רפאים‬. Then in 5:5, “Her feet go down to death, her steps take hold of Sheol” ( ‫)רגליה ירדות מות שאול צעדיה יתמכו‬. That is, she herself in some sense goes down to Sheol. Note that the direction of movement here is to Sheol. It may be that this is not precisely necromantic language (it is after all metaphor), but it is also not simply an expression of generic doom. Recall that Ezekiel 13 also referred to the necromancers “making die what should not die.” The imagery—so far, all leading up to chapter 6—is a picture not merely of death, but of the pathways between the living and the dead. That these are allusions to necromantic activity—even if metaphorical—is further supported by the description of the need for apotropaic magic in the verses immediately preceding the reference to the woman hunting ‫נפש‬. To guard against this “evil woman,” the commandment and between the two women, who serve a similar function throughout these passages (128–29).

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teaching of the father and mother are to be worn as protective amulets: “Always bind them on your heart, tie them around your neck; when you walk around it will guide you, when you lie down it will guard over you, and when you are awake it will talk to you” (6:21–22). This is explicitly related to the need for protection against the woman: “For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light, and reproofs of discipline are the path of life, to guard you from the evil woman” (‫)לשמרך מאשת רע‬, who will attempt to reel you in with that persuasive speech, batting those eyelashes; she is a ‫זונה‬, and “hunts ‫( ”נפש‬6:23–24, 26). This would then function like the protective amulets from Ketef Hinnom, which Barkay and his colleagues have concluded were used apotropaically, based on reevaluation of the texts (using new higher-resolution images). Both Ketef Hinnom texts refer to protection against “evil,” ‫רע‬: Ketef Hinnom I refers to blessing “more than any [sna]re and more than Evil” (‫מכל ]פ[ח ומהרע‬, li. 9–10), and Ketef Hinnom II refers to Yahweh as “the rebuke of [E]vil” (‫הגער ב]ר[ע‬, li. 4–5). Both famously include the benediction for Yahweh to bless and guard (or traditionally “keep,” ‫)שמר‬ the wearer. The suggestion that Proverbs 6:20–22 describes either an amulet or a substitute for an amulet, and has some apotropaic function, has been made before. The additional comparison to the Ketef Hinnom amulets should now further establish this sense of the text. The man who needs protection from the “evil woman” who “hunts ‫”נפש‬ in 6:24–26 is then caught by her in 7:22–23, following her “as a bird speeds into a snare (‫פח‬-‫)אל‬, not knowing that it’s with his life.” This imagery for the danger of being ensnared by evil will now be familiar from Ketef Hinnom. It may additionally be a play on the language for ghosts—the man having followed the path to Sheol, rather than the path of life—given the 2. Text and translation of Barkay et al., “The Amulets from Ketef Hinnom: A New Edition and Evaluation,” 58–61, 65–68. 3. Fox also notes the concept of tying the words “like a pendant or amulet on a string around your neck,” and that “the metaphor also suggests amulet-like protection,” but sees this as indicating that the teachings “are a substitute” for an actual amulet (Proverbs 1–9, 228–29). See, however, Miller, “Apotropaic Imagery in Proverbs 6:20–22,” 129–30, briefly establishing the apotropaic function of these objects, building on Speiser’s work on the apotropaic use of the bound items in Deut 6:7–8 and 11:18–20 (Speiser, “Palil and Congeners: A Sampling of Apotropaic Symbols,” 389–93). The apotropaic function is assumed by others as well, e.g., Murphy, Proverbs, 39.

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ghosts elsewhere who flit and chirp like birds, this woman’s penchant for hunting ‫נפש‬, and the image in Ezekiel 13 of the women who hunt ‫נפשות‬ like birds (Ezek 13:20). This possibility is heightened by the fact that what follows is overtly about the fatal risk of following the woman: one is not to stray down her path, “for many are the pierced she has struck down, and numerous are all her slain; her house is the pathway of Sheol, descending to the chambers of death” (7:26–27). The portrayal of the woman’s contact with the dead continues. The description of the foolish woman calling out from the doorway of her house in 9:13–18 concludes with a vivid picture. She beckons the passersby in verse. 16 (just as Wisdom does in v. 4), but her potential victim “does not know that the ‫ רפאים‬are there, that her guests are in the depths of Sheol” (‫רפאים שם‬-‫ידע כי‬-‫ ;ולא‬9:18). This woman entertains the dead in Sheol. This is not a passing remark, but the closing statement of Proverbs 1–9. There are other references in Proverbs 1–9 to death and destruction resulting from consorting with the wrong people—Proverbs is full of this— but, by contrast, the troublemakers in 1:12 only compare themselves to the hungry maw of Sheol, saying “let us swallow them [our victims] alive like Sheol,” and in 2:12–13, the men who speak duplicitously follow the ways of darkness. Only the imagined woman controls the pathways to Sheol; only she plays host to the ‫רפאים‬. The religious danger this woman presents is not that she leads people into “idolatry,” as often assumed. She does not worship other gods or make questionable sacrifices: she is religiously dangerous because she manipulates the pathways to Sheol. The point is not necessarily that the imagined woman is literally meant to be a necromancer, but that the author depicts the dangerous woman using the language and imagery of necromancy. This is by no means the only option. The woman’s house could be the road to ruin, shame, loss, and so on, without being the road to Sheol; it could be described as a dismal whorehouse, not a ghost house, full of harlots upstairs, and not ghosts downstairs; her guests could be fools, and not the ‫רפאים‬. 4. Though he sees her primarily as an adulteress, Fox notes that in the conclusion to Prov 7 “the woman is described in nearly superhuman terms, as a mass murderer and an affiliate of the underworld” (Proverbs 1–9, 253). This depiction might fit better with the conclusions of Weeks, who argues that the emphasis in the images of the woman in Prov 1–9 is not on adultery, but on apostasy, with the stress on her persuasive speech (Instruction and Imagery in Proverbs 1–9, 84–88).

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The necromancy language is a choice. So why use this imagery—hunting ‫נפש‬, hosting the ‫רפאים‬, housing the pathways to Sheol—rather than simply the language of idolatry? I believe that this is rooted in the broader cultural trope of the religiously and sexually dangerous woman. This image is widespread, and in this trope, the religious danger is not only worship of the wrong deity, but something more nefarious. A brief look at another text may illustrate. Part of Proverbs 7 strikes me as quite reminiscent of a passage from the third tablet of Maqlû, the anti-witchcraft ritual. Many parts of Maqlû refer to sorcerers in pairs: may such-and-such happen to “my sorcerer and my sorceress,” ēpiši u ēpišti (II 172), “my male witch and my female witch,” kaššāpi u kaššāpti (II 15; cf. I 68, I 110–11, I 181). The beginning of Tablet III, however, suddenly portrays a hypothetical witch alone: “The witch who roams incessantly in the streets, who constantly enters houses, who prowls in the alleys, who lurks in the main street, turning again and again forward and behind, she has come out to the square and blocked the way, she has cut off the traffic. She robbed the good young man of his virility, she takes away the lusciousness of the good young woman, with her gaze she takes away her juiciness” (III 1–12). The woman in Proverbs 7 targets her man as he walks down the street; “Look, a woman comes out to meet him, with a whore’s clothes and a watchful mind. She is murmuring and rebellious; her feet won’t stay at home. Now in the street, now in the square, she lurks at every corner. She seized him and kissed him . . .” (Prov 7:10–13). A few verses later, he follows like an ox to slaughter, and like a bird into a snare, not knowing it will cost him his life (7:22–23). I am not suggesting a direct link between Proverbs 7 and Maqlû III. A more likely scenario is that the various personifications in Proverbs 1–9, like Maqlû, reflect the culturally live image of a dangerous woman who preys on 5. The most recent translation is Abusch and Schwemer, “Das AbwehrzauberRitual Maqlû (‘Verbrennung’),” 128–86. 6. I base my somewhat explicit translation of kuzubša, “her juiciness,” on the various meanings of kuzbu, which include luxuriance, sexual vigor, sexual organs (euphemistically), and abundant moisture, as in reference to well-irrigated vegetation and flowing canals (CAD K 614–15). Note that inbu and kuzbu are used in parallel also of Ishtar (RA 22 170:6 and 8); (CAD I 146–47). For the text of the relevant part of Tablet III, see Meier, Die assyrische Beschwörungssammlung Maqlû, 22–23; Tallqvist, Die assyrische Beschwörungsserie Maqlû, 54–55.

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men both spiritually (that is, relating to the world of spirits) and sexually. This trope is specific to women and is rooted in fears and suspicions about various powers women might hold over men. It thus necessarily includes religious danger that goes beyond the lure to “idolatry.” Before reflecting more on this trope, however, it remains to draw a preliminary conclusion regarding the allusions to necromancy in Proverbs 1–9, and to consider a few other texts. The main implication of the above is that the image of the dangerous woman in Proverbs is tinged with the language of necromancy because some form of such otherworldly power is native to the trope. The dangerous ability to manipulate the hidden spiritual world, and sexually tempting or even predatory behavior, are a set of traits that together depict peril personified. The image in Proverbs is not about necromancy, but about peril. The intimations of necromantic activity in Proverbs 1–9 function as a metaphor, and a profoundly negative one. As emphasized throughout this work, various biblical traditions exhibit a range of perspectives on different types of divination. The ideas reflected in Proverbs 1–9 are generally aligned with those traditions that equate certain forms of divination with foreign practice, illicit religious activity, and all manner of abominations.

Images of the Soothsayer and Whore in Isaiah 57:3–13 Isaiah has just been condemning the impotent leaders of Israel—the watchmen who are blind, the dogs with no bark, the shepherds with no knowledge (56:10–11)—and then he lays into them with this scandalous characterization: “You, come here, you sons of a soothsayer (‫)בני עננה‬, offspring of an adulterer and a whore” (‫זרע מנאף ותזנה‬, Isa 57:3). A lengthy 7. Note the common imagery of prowling, lurking, preying. Some of the language itself is also shared: as the woman “hunts,” ‫תצוד‬, in Prov 6:26, the witch in Maqlû “prowls.” This is the Akkadian cognate ․sâdu A (CAD ․S 57–58), “to hunt or prey on” (as well as “to whirl”), which is used in cuneiform texts to describe the predatory actions of malevolent beings, such as the utukku-demon “who prowls in the land” (CT 17 36 K.9272:9), and “the evil beings who prowl through the city” (CT 16 31:123f ). 8. Though the MT has the verb ‫תזנה‬, other versions have the logical noun, e.g., πορνείας in the LXX. The BHS critical apparatus suggests ‫מנאפת‬, as if “adulterer” is another reference to the woman, which has the odd effect of taking the father out of the picture entirely. The phrase makes the most sense as it stands:

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indictment of the people begins with this address to them as the children of a deviant woman, before turning into an image of the people collectively personified as the woman herself. The imagined woman in this text is again spiritually and sexually dangerous—she is both a soothsayer and a whore. In this case, however, she is explicitly not foreign—rather, she is essentially said to be “worse than a foreigner.” The depiction comes in the context of an oracle that juxtaposes righteous foreigners with unrighteous Israelites. After offering assurance to those who do what is right and just, who keep the Sabbath and do no harm—not only Israelites, but also the foreigner (‫הנכר‬-‫—)בן‬the prophet delivers this withering picture of Israel’s own leaders. The burnt offerings of righteous foreigners will be accepted on the mountain of God, and God’s house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples (56:1–7)—but not so for the Israelite leaders, who are the unrighteous ‫בני עננה‬, drawn in contrast to the righteous ‫הנכר‬-‫בן‬. In verse 6, we turn to the woman herself, and Isaiah dives into a litany of accusations of sexual and religious deviance. These intertwined images run through the whole passage, and include good old-fashioned “idolatry” as well as something more spiritually potent. The deviant woman’s activities mirror the initial twin labels of whore and soothsayer: “You’ve made your bed welcoming . . . you’ve loved their bed; you’ve seen ‘yad ’” (‫ אהבת משכבם יד חזית‬. . . ‫הרחבת משכבך‬, v. 8). And then: “You have sent your envoys afar, lowered them to Sheol” (‫שאול‬-‫ותשפילי עד‬, v. 9). The image of a woman who controls the pathways to Sheol is familiar by now. While the text does not portray communication with the dead—the woman is not the imagined parentage includes both father and mother, in the presumably realistic image of a male adulterer and a female prostitute. 9. Perhaps the image of Israel as the child of a transgressing woman just blurs into this next section addressing Israel as the same woman, or perhaps it is a brilliant literary move, in which the people repeat the sins of the fathers—or in this case the mothers—suggesting that the unrighteous leaders of Israel are continuing in a history of unrighteous leaders. 10. On some of these verses in Isa 57 as a creative expansion of material in Jer 2, see Holladay, “Was Trito-Isaiah Deutero-Isaiah After All?” 197–201. 11. The verb ‫ שפל‬also refers to being lowered to Sheol in Isa 29:4, in which Jerusalem is personified as a woman. In that context, the prophet compares the city after its collapse to a ghost chirping from beneath the ground (with no suggestion of the imagined woman controlling the path down).

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seeking knowledge from Sheol—the relationship to divinatory activity is evident from the earlier use of ‫עננה‬. Here too the divination language is derogatory. The word ‫ עננה‬itself is used as a slur, and the imagery throughout the oracle is wildly, radically derisive. The portrayal as a whole is phenomenally disparaging, with the imagined woman embodying the combination of religious and sexual danger in graphic and shocking ways.

Sorcery and Sexual Deviance in Literary Characterizations of Dangerous Women The images of a woman as both spiritually and sexually dangerous in Proverbs 1–9 and Isaiah 57:3–13 are part of a broader pattern. In these two texts, religious peril is signified by divination—hunting ‫נפש‬, soothsaying, manipulating the road to Sheol. In the trope as it generally appears, the danger stems specifically from women’s sorcery. It is the fact that the Proverbs and Isaiah traditions draw on the trope of sorcery and sexual deviance in their images of women’s divination that is of interest here, rather than a detailed rehearsal of the well-known trope itself. A brief reflection should suffice. Men are frequently said to “whore after” other gods (Exod 34:15–16; Lev 17:7 and 20:5–6; Deut 31:16; Judg 2:17 and 8:27, 33; and so on). Where the “whore” metaphor is used for men, however, they are said to be engaging in idolatry, not sorcery. The double-barreled accusation of sorcery and sexual deviance—being a witch and a whore—is applied, in every case, to a woman. It appears in reference to both female characters and imagined women (images, personifications), but never to men. There is ample evidence from biblical and other Near Eastern texts to demonstrate that both men and women engaged in sorcery. Sorcery itself was not specific to women in historical terms; rather, there was something specific to women about sorcery in literary terms. In Akkadian texts, 12. Not all “female whore” metaphors include sorcery (e.g., the personifications in Isa 1:21, Jer 2–3, Hos 1–4), but all whore metaphors that include sorcery refer to women. 13. In Naming the Witch, Stratton focuses on the rhetoric of stereotypes of witches and accusations of witchcraft, with significant attention to gender. Throughout her work, she addresses relevant patterns in Greek, Roman, early Christian, and rabbinic literature.

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for instance, the masculine noun kaššāpu (sorcerer) nearly always appears alongside the feminine noun kaššāptu (sorceress), while the sorceress is frequently mentioned by herself. Actual witches could be male or female; individual portraits and targets of accusations were generally female. Although my focus here is on the employment and adaptation of a literary trope, it is worth remembering that this was not only a literary phenomenon, but a historical association that affected women’s lives. Consider, among many possible examples, the joint accusations of sorcery and sexual deviance recorded in a Mari letter in which the wife of Yarkab-Addu is subjected to a river ordeal on charges of both sorcery (generically kišpum) and sexual betrayal (ARM 26 249). The image of the sorceress who preys on men both magically and sexually is seen in literature from Mesopotamia (as in Maqlû) to Greece (consider Circe, just to name one example), so it is not surprising to see it show up in Israel as well. The tandem accusation of a female character being a “witch” and a “whore” is a recurring motif, not specifically tied to Yahwistic monotheism but rooted in more widespread images of dangerous women. Where it appears in biblical literature, it should be recognized as an expression of this broader trope. 14. CAD K 291–92. The portrait of the lone female witch in Maqlû III, discussed above, is an example of this pattern. Consider in this light the sorceress of Exod 22:17 (Eng. 22:18). 15. On the stereotype of the female witch in Mesopotamia, see Abusch and Schwemer, Corpus of Mesopotamian Anti-Witchcraft Rituals, 4–6. 16. Durand, Archives épistolaires de Mari I/1, 527–29; with commentary on several aspects of the river ordeal, including these accusations, 512–16. For Durand’s evaluation of Bottéro’s earlier edition of the text with a different reading of the relevant section, see 528 n.f; Bottéro, “L’ordalie en Mesopotamie ancienne,” 1041–45. 17. I intend for the word “whore” to communicate the full semantic range of the term ‫זונה‬, which can refer to a profession, habitual behavior, or a perceived character trait. In some texts it is used as a technical term (“prostitute”), and in some, it is sexual slander (“slut”); the modern English use of the word “whore” communicates this spectrum of possibilities, and includes the inherent ambiguity of which meaning is intended (this ambiguity being part of the force of the insult). See, for instance, the range of meanings in Ezek 16:31–34, where the personified woman is repeatedly called a whore, but contrasted—to take Ezekiel’s tone—with “whores” who do it for money, while she’s a “whore” who doesn’t even take money, i.e., a “slut.”

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We see this type of paired accusation, for instance, in Isaiah 47:1–15. The personification of Babylon begins with the shaming of the symbolic woman: “Get down and sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Babylon” (‫לארץ‬-‫בבל שבי‬-‫עפר בתולת בת‬-‫רדי ושבי על‬, Isa 47:1). The humiliation of sitting in the dust, as seen elsewhere in Isaiah, is applied here to the so-called virgin, already in mocking irony. The theme continues in verses 2–9, as the prophet derides the woman Babylon, who is told to strip: “your nakedness will be uncovered, your shame will be seen” (‫תגל ערותך גם תראה חרפתך‬, v. 3). This is depicted graphically: the imagined woman will have to lift her skirt and bare her legs. These things, Isaiah says, will come upon you “in spite of your many sorceries, in spite of the great power of your spells (‫ברב כשפיך בעצמת חבריך מאד‬, Isa 47:9). He continues, “Your wisdom and your knowledge have led you astray” (Isa 47:10). Lest we should be at all unclear about what skewed sort of wisdom and knowledge Babylon is meant to have, the prophet continues, “Harm is coming upon you which you will not know how to bewitch away” (‫ובא עליך רעה לא תדעי שחרה‬, Isa 47:11). The woman Babylon does not commit “idolatry,” but performs sorcery; she is mocked not for the false power of her idols, but for that of her spells. We find a similar personification of promiscuity—both sexual and religious—in Nahum 3:4. Here Nineveh is personified as a whore (‫ )זונה‬and a sorceress (‫)בעלת כשפים‬, with a repeated parallel between these respective activities (‫זנוניה‬, ‫)כשפיה‬. “Because of all of the whoring of the seductive whore, the sorceress, who sells nations with her whoring, and families with her sorceries,” God will go up against Nineveh, telling her that he will lift her skirt over her face, showing her naked place (‫ )מערך‬to the nations and her shame to kingdoms (v. 5). The tandem accusation of women’s sorcery and sexual deviance is not restricted to prophetic oracles or applied only to images and personifications. It also appears in narrative, used as a personal insult. In 2 Kings 9, Jezebel’s son runs into Jehu and asks, “Is all well, Jehu?” Jehu replies, “How can all be well, what with the promiscuities and many sorceries of your mother Jezebel?” (‫זנוני איזבל אמך וכשפיה הרבים‬-‫מה השלום עד‬, 2 Kgs 9:22). Now Jehu is not known for being the kindest character, but even for him, 18. Biddle compares this to the personification in Isa 57: “Lady Zion’s Alter Egos: Isaiah 47:1–15 and 57:6–13 as Structural Counterparts,” 124–39. 19. On possible further magical language in the passage, see Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 40–55, 274–84.

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“How can all be well when your mother’s such a witch and a whore?” is not nice. The contemptuous line is an insult in much the same way as it would be in modern parlance: there is no evidence that Jezebel did anything to merit such slander. There is no description of her engaging in sorcery, or in fact in sexual activity of any kind, let alone “whoring.” She has been a violent queen, killing the prophets (1 Kgs 18–19), having a local landowner executed on trumped-up charges so that her husband could take his vineyard (1 Kgs 21), and trying to kill the prophets some more. First Kings 21: 25 explicitly blames Jezebel for Ahab’s wickedness (in spite of the fact that 16:31 tells of Ahab marrying her because he was already wicked), but even there, she is blamed only for having generally incited him. Jezebel is violent and nasty—note her threat to Elijah in 19:2, when she finds out that he survived her first mass slaughter of prophets—and she is described as abusing her power in horrific ways, ways we would today label as tyrannical or dictatorial. She is not, however, a sorcerer. “Your mother’s a witch and a whore” is purely an insult. It is clear, then, that the “witch and a whore” trope known from literature to the east and west of Israel was present in Israelite literature as well. Of particular interest here are the implications of Proverbs and Isaiah drawing on the motif of women’s sorcery and sexual deviance in the service of another agenda.

Women’s Divination and Sexual Deviance Seen in the light of the “witch and a whore” texts (Isa 47:1–15; Nah 3:4; and 1 Kgs 9:22), the images of spiritually and sexually dangerous women in Proverbs 1–9 and Isaiah 57:3–13 begin to look less as if they include critiques of divination specific to Yahwistic tradition and more like another expression of a familiar trope. Note in addition that the tandem accusation is regularly linked to suspicions about foreignness: this has a place in all five of the above texts, further indicating the generic relationship among them. At times it is clear which suspicion is primary and serves as a hook for the others, and at times not: the rhetoric is intertwined. The adoption of this trope encompasses two disturbing developments: the implied association between some types of women’s divination and sorcery, and the overt association between them and sexual deviance. The use of this rhetoric is limited, however: first to soothsaying, necromancy, and the attendant manipulation of the pathways to Sheol, and second to

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imagined women or personifications, rather than narratives about actual female diviners. The historical tendency to associate women’s religious activity with sorcery is well known. While women’s divination is not yet conflated with sorcery in the Hebrew Bible, we see the tinges of a later view in the characterizations of Proverbs 1–9 and Isaiah 57. We know that certain forms of divination were regarded with suspicion in some traditions, as exemplified by Deuteronomy 18:10–11, but equally that they were not seen the same way in other traditions. The depiction of these particular types of divination using the same rhetoric as the familiar trope suits well those who share the Deuteronomist’s perspective, as it assumes and signals to the reader an association with sorcery. The association with sexual deviance serves a similar purpose. Knust’s work on ancient sexual slander (mostly early Christian) addresses the social function of this type of rhetoric, most centrally that it is, of course, about power. Sexual accusation serves to delimit group boundaries by defining insider and outsider behavior and delegitimizing opposing or competing positions. Sexual slander in a religious context has the further function of broadly characterizing a group as immoral, deviant, and thus justifiably disparaged. As Knust observes, “however widespread and stereotypical, charges of sexual misbehavior were hardly ‘merely rhetoric.’ Intended to malign and defame, these accusations were deployed in fierce struggles for identity, prestige, and power.” Both facets of the trope—the assumed and implied association with sorcery, and the explicit sexual deviance—thus serve to delegitimize the religious activities depicted in the personifications in Proverbs 1–9 and Isaiah 57. These images of spiritually and sexually dangerous women are not specific to the Yahwistic authors, then, but adaptations of a cultural idiom. In neither case is the main purpose of the text to condemn the divinatory activity imagined (unlike in Ezek 13); but these particular traditions saw necromancy and soothsaying as akin to sorcery (or a kind of sorcery), and 20. On the Mesopotamian witch’s origins before becoming associated with evil, see Abusch, “Some Reflections on Mesopotamian Witchcraft,” 21–33, esp. 22–23; and on the juxtaposition of the “evil” sorceress and the āšipu as her “legitimate” male counterpart, see Abusch, “The Demonic Image of the Witch in Standard Babylonian Literature: The Reworking of Popular Conceptions by Learned Exorcists,” 27–58, esp. 31–39. 21. Knust, Abandoned to Lust: Sexual Slander and Ancient Christianity, 6.

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seeing these divinatory activities as illicit, the authors found a natural expression for their views in the existing trope.

Women’s Divination in Later Interpretation While the imagined women in Proverbs 1–9 and Isaiah 57 are not called sorcerers, they are cast in a similar light. We are only in the hazy beginnings of an interpretive trajectory here; as time goes on, a trend develops. The strong association between women’s divination and sorcery is seen already in the New Testament, where Jezebel—accused of sorcery in 1 Kings—is suddenly accused of calling herself a prophet. The tandem accusation of false prophecy and sexual deviance is so pronounced that Jezebel has come to embody the combination of sexual and religious danger. In the reinterpretation of Jezebel in Revelation 2:20–23, the symbolic character claims to be a prophet (προφῆτις), persuades the otherwise innocent to fornicate (πορνεῦσαι), and is unwilling to repent of her own fornication (πορνείας). In a horrifying turn, God delivers sexual punishment for sexual deviance: “See, I will throw her into bed, and those who commit adultery with her into great oppression [lit. related to pressing]” (ἰδοὺ βάλλω αὐτὴν εἰς κλίνην καὶ τοὺς μοιχεύοντας μετ’ αὐτῆς εἰς θλῖψιν μεγάλην, 2:22). Finally, God vows to kill Jezebel’s children (with Death, no less), thus proving himself: “all the assemblies will know that I am he who examines kidneys and hearts” (καὶ τὰ τέκνα αὐτῆς ἀποκτενῶ ἐν θανάτῳ. καὶ γνώσονται πᾶσαι αἱ ἐκκλησίαι ὅτι ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ἐραυνῶν νεφροὺς καὶ καρδίας, 2:23). In other words, God alone is the true diviner, essentially claiming, “Only I examine kidneys! I divine—not you.” The subsuming of women’s divination into the category of sorcery now has a long and robust history. As the accused sorceress and whore Jezebel becomes a false prophet, the necromancer of En-dor becomes a “witch.” 22. The association between “false” prophecy and sexual deviance is not restricted to women. Within early Christian writing, for instance, Justin and Irenaeus associate these traits for both men and women (ibid., 143–47). As seen in the Mesopotamian, Greek, and Israelite examples, however, the association is more extreme with women; this trend continues. 23. Allusions to God examining kidneys as a way of gaining knowledge about people are found in Ps 7:10 (Eng. 7:9), 26:2; Jer 11:20, 17:10, and 20:12. The meaning of the idiom is clear—God looks into hearts and minds—but the root of the metaphor should not be overlooked.

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We have already seen the preponderance of interpretations that read sexual activity into that story as well. The job of the thoughtful reader, then, is to recognize the tinges of the association between certain types of women’s divination and sorcery (along with the requisite illicit sex) that we see already in certain biblical traditions, while neither extrapolating from those texts nor retrojecting from later trends into the diverse pictures of female diviners throughout the Bible.

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These biblical texts depict a wide variety of types of divinatory activity, as well as a range of authorial perspectives. The traditions reflecting ideas about women’s divination are no more uniform than those regarding men’s divination. The various authors have different interests, concerns, and literary aims, and demonstrate a variety of attitudes toward the activities they present and toward the practitioners. Significantly, this is not a matter of general preference for certain types of divination (such as prophecy) over others (such as necromancy). Rather, different texts offer different takes on the same form of divination. Among the prophets, for instance, we have on the one hand Miriam, who is remembered in a deeply conflicted fashion. The two main Miriam traditions both remember her as a prophet, one through her title and the other through the story of her prophetic conflict with Moses, but in neither case do we see her prophetic activity: rather, in the latter case, we see her arguing precisely against an implied disavowal of her prophetic authority, and in this tradition, Yahweh both agrees with her basic premise (that he does indeed speak through prophets too) and punishes her for claiming that such prophetic authority is equal to that of Moses. The prophet Deborah, on the other hand, is remembered with no sense of conflict, and embodies the very model of leadership in her time: she is in her prophetic role more like Moses than like Miriam. The tradition of the prophet Huldah is resolutely positive, to the point that her incorrect prophecy in Kings is explained away in Chronicles. 1. As the reader has seen, I am skeptical about how much we can read into the passing phrases regarding Miriam in Mic 6:4, or Noadiah in Neh 6:14.

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Meanwhile, in 1 Samuel 28 an individual necromancer is shown in a remarkably positive light: it is only through her divination that Saul finally receives the knowledge he has been seeking, when prophecy, dreams, and urim have failed; and when the ghost of Samuel speaks, he condemns Saul but has nothing to say regarding the necromancer or her act of necromancy (aside from the fact that he wishes he had not been disturbed). The Chronicler sees this quite differently, and inserts into his brief encapsulation of Saul’s story an indictment for having consulted a necromancer. In sharp contrast to the En-dor story in 1 Samuel, Ezekiel excoriates the women who practice necromancy. These texts reveal a spectrum of attitudes toward the divinatory activities they portray. Even in this, the issue is not so straightforward: the authors also display a variety of literary aims, from storytelling about the days of yore to political polemic, with much in between and all sorts of overlaps. An author imagining the distant past paints a portrait of Rebekah engaging in oracular inquiry about her pregnancy and interpreting a birth omen, perhaps still exhibiting the ways of the old country. Ezekiel, for example, is at the opposite end of the spectrum, presumably addressing practices in his own environment to which he objects. This collection of traditions shows a breadth of divinatory activity, and the goals and perspectives of the various texts run the gamut. The literary traditions of the Bible reveal that in the Israelite cultural imagination, women engaged in a range of arts of knowledge, but simplistic views of each type and each text should be studiously avoided. Such a statement may seem so obvious as to be unnecessary, but the tendency to essentialize women’s roles and ancient views of those roles remains strong. As noted in the first chapter of this book, various intermediary activities are not easily defined by title and cannot always be neatly distinguished from one another. This has been recognized in the general study of divination, and it is now evident within women’s divination in particular. For instance, the prophetic activities of Deborah are radically different from those of the prophet who performs a symbolic action with Isaiah. The necromancer of En-dor, who divines for King Saul when he is in crisis, is more like the prophet Huldah, who divines for King Josiah in his crisis, than she is like the necromancers of Ezekiel 13. Ezekiel’s necromancers, in turn, are condemned in parallel with male false prophets, rather than with necromancers in general (as in Isa 8:19).

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There are benefits to bringing all of these traditions together that extend beyond the new picture of the scope of women’s divinatory activity and the resulting fuller picture of Israelite divination. For example, individual texts that were read previously as one-off tales can now be understood in a new light as parts of a broader phenomenon. The stories of the necromancer who divines for Saul and the prophet who divines for Josiah have each been read as one-of-a-kind texts—and to be sure, they are quite different in many important ways—but they also both represent traditions of women’s divination for kings, and they reveal intriguing correspondences. Reading these two stories together not only reveals a generic relationship between them; it also illuminates the perspectives of multiple traditions. In both Samuel and Kings, significant aspects of the portrayal of divination are contrary to what one would anticipate. In the Samuel text, the necromancer’s divination is successful, and she is not condemned; in Kings, the prophet’s oracle is wrong, and there is no further commentary to mitigate this. All of this is exactly turned on its head in Chronicles. In Chronicles, all of a sudden, one of Saul’s two major transgressions is visiting the necromancer, and, in order to explain away Huldah’s incorrect prophecy, a battlefield conversation between Josiah and Neco is added. In Samuel and Kings, it is not an issue that the necromancer is successful or that the prophet is not. The Chronicler makes the prophet look better than she does in the Deuteronomistic History, and makes the necromancer look worse, demonstrating a concern with judging these types of divination that the Samuel and Kings texts do not. So we learn not only about some features of women’s divinatory activity from examining these texts side by side, but even gain additional insight into the concerns of several different narrators. Another benefit of bringing together the many traditions of women’s divination is that certain patterns may rise to the surface. I have written at length elsewhere about one surprising pattern: very few of the titled female diviners are said to have children. This stands in stark contrast to divining men, who are described as having a range of family circumstances, as well as to the majority of other female characters in the Bible, including women whose offspring are not particularly relevant to their stories. I am not 2. Hamori, “The Prophet and the Necromancer: Women’s Divination for Kings,” 827–43. 3. Hamori, “Childless Female Diviners in the Bible and Beyond,” 169–91.

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claiming that actual female diviners could not be mothers, but that there is a strong literary pattern of not portraying titled female diviners as also having children. In each individual case, this could be explained away: what is significant is the pattern of the absence of children through the literary portrayals of virtually all of the titled female diviners in biblical texts. (The exception is the prophet who bears a sign-child as a prophetic symbolic action.) The literary construction of female diviners in the Hebrew Bible seems to reflect a discomfort with the intersection of traditional female roles and prophetic and other divinatory roles. Most women with special access to divine knowledge are depicted as living outside of other social norms as well. Historical and anthropological evidence suggests that the association in biblical literature between unusual access to the spirit world and non-normative social position conforms to observable social reality. This is expressed in a variety of ways in different cultural contexts, from the social location of shamans in many environments to the celibate male priesthood of Catholicism. As seen in women in particular, the relationship between special knowledge and fringe status is often expressed through the lack of children. There are manifold examples of this in the ancient, medieval, and modern worlds, as seen in literary creations, historical records, and anthropological studies. Given the vast complexities of cross-cultural comparison, let alone comparison including ancient and medieval literature and modern anthropological evidence, I will not attempt to summarize the evidence here. The cautious conclusion I draw from the amassed evidence is that the pattern evident in the Hebrew Bible is unlikely to be coincidental. Whether this literary depiction was a conscious choice on the part of any of the writers is impossible to judge. Whether such portrayals reflected the realities of life on the ground—that is, whether titled female diviners actually tended to be childless—is also beyond our ability to conclude based 4. On the methodological validity of cross-cultural comparison of gender roles in religious groups, see Sered, who notes that as an anthropologist she would not expect to find universals in most areas of religious belief and practice, but that we do find gendered patterns in religion, because “there are cross-culturally relevant social patterns in women’s lives.” Moreover, the primary pattern that Sered identifies as a cross-cultural social reality for women, and thus not a coincidental influence on women’s religious experience, is the centrality of concerns surrounding motherhood (Priestess, Mother, Sacred Sister: Religions Dominated by Women, 71–72). See also Keller, The Hammer and the Flute: Women, Power, and Spirit Possession.

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on the evidence available. Perhaps such portrayals grew out of historical realities in ancient Israel, perhaps they were consciously drawn, or perhaps both. However, even if neither of these is the case—if actual female diviners did not tend to be childless, and if the biblical writers did not consciously portray them as women without children—perhaps these depictions are themselves a result of the same factors that create the cross-cultural social trend. It is conceivable that the literary construct itself is Israel’s expression of the widespread instinct to separate female divinatory and traditional maternal roles. The biblical writers overwhelmingly depict titled female diviners in a way that coincides with the pattern evident in ancient, medieval, and modern societies, and it seems improbable that this is all coincidence. Another possible pattern, ripe for further exploration, is that some traditions imagined a connection between the matriarchs brought in from the old country and certain types of divinatory activity. This could spark questions as to whether there are any related observable patterns—within other aspects of the writers’ images of the Aramean matriarchs, for instance, or within portrayals of divination along real or imagined cultural lines, among both men and women. Next, looking at each example of women’s divinatory activity in depth, it may become possible to view particular roles or activities more soundly within the context of other such divination in the broader region. Just as the roles of the wise women, for instance, are elucidated by comparison (but not equation) to the titled Hittite wise women and to the use of “wise woman” as an epithet connected to divinatory ability in Mesopotamia, perhaps other such comparative possibilities will surface. In many ways, women’s divination does not look particularly different from men’s divination—nor should we expect it to, given relevant evidence from elsewhere in the ancient Near East. There are clear exceptions, for example in the lack of written prophetic collections attributed to women— here we might recall that Near Eastern scribal divination was overwhelmingly a male profession—but by and large, the range of activities is similar. Work on women’s divinatory activity elsewhere in the Near East, including prophecy, necromancy, dream interpretation, and more, would provide a useful framework for further study—and be of significant value in itself. The general comparison does highlight one curious absence in the biblical material, as seen against the broader Near Eastern background. No female character in the Bible is ever reported to have a dream or interpret a dream. Elsewhere in the region, there is a significant tradition of female

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dreamers and dream interpreters. Among literary works, I have already discussed the roles of Ninsun, Nanše, and Geštinanna as dream interpreters; Etana’s wife dreams at the beginning and end of the Late Version of the story; in the Hittite story of Kessi, the unsuccessful hunter asks his mother to interpret his dreams; and in postbiblical interpretation, Miriam becomes a dreamer. Among texts relating to historical divination, many women from Mari report their dreams, and as discussed earlier in relation to Rebekah’s independent divination, in one Mari letter, one woman named Zunana both reports her dream and interprets it, instructing Zimri-Lim in how to proceed accordingly (ARM 26 232). Within the Bible, however, women are never said to receive or interpret dreams. This is surprising, since dreaming is a form of divination that does not require political power in Israel, a role as a titled religious authority, or a place among the scribal elite. Dreaming is thus a way of receiving messages from Yahweh that is particularly accessible to foreigners, for example: God is said to give messages to Abimelech (Gen 20:3), the Pharaoh (Gen 41:25), and Nebuchadnezzar (Dan 2:45) in their dreams. One might therefore expect this also to be a form of divination particularly accessible to women, and yet no women are said to have dreams. Plural references to dreamers may include women as well as men, but the absence of any clear reference to a woman having a dream is surprising. As I noted at the outset, the question of who has access to divine knowledge and who does not permeates biblical traditions, from texts reflecting on the divine choice of David over Saul, to those contrasting Aaron’s works, which stem from direct divine instruction, with the Egyptians’ inferior “magic.” This issue relates both to individuals in biblical texts and to groups. One might expect, then, that such a perspective would filter through the texts relating to women’s divination. However, to whatever extent some biblical texts reflect a concern with formulating Israelite identity in relation to the Other, and sometimes specifically Israelite male identity with women implicitly as Other, this is not an attitude that characterizes the texts that portray women’s divination. There are some differences, naturally—such as the presence of pregnancy- and birth-related divination, 5. The Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar require Joseph and Daniel to interpret for them, so by my reading (as delineated in ch. 1), these rulers are not engaging in divination themselves. However, in both cases, the interpreter says that God is the one who has communicated to the ruler in his dream.

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the absence of dreaming, the absence of children mentioned for virtually all of the titled female diviners, and the first hints of an association between women’s divination and sexual deviance—but the overall picture is not shaped by a gender-based distinction between men’s and women’s access to divine knowledge. The breadth of women’s divinatory activities and the range of attitudes toward them are not unlike those for men. The recognition of the sibling relationship of all forms of divination, and the application of this framework to the study of women’s divinatory activity in biblical traditions, brings into focus a picture of both men and women striving to access divine knowledge in a multitude of ways. Examining traditions of divination, without privileging one type over another, should enable us to establish connections and commonalities where they had not been seen, and to shed false distinctions and divisions where they had been. My hope is that this work demonstrates the spectrum of ideas regarding women’s many divinatory activities, and fleshes out our picture of the breadth of Israelite divination. 6. Perhaps the next scholar will treat another group that is in many ways framed as Other, and consider for example the presentations of the divinatory activities of foreigners. This could include a complex intersection of categories: foreign nations, foreign characters, individuals considered “foreign” to a specific tradition (even such as an Israelite to a Judahite), and so on. On the one hand, when certain types of divination are considered illicit, they are often associated with foreign groups; on the other hand, when it comes to specific foreign characters, there is more variation in the portrayals. How might such work color our views of biblical traditions’ attitudes toward different groups? Will they often be found to run the gamut, as attitudes toward women’s divination do?

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Bibliography

Abusch, Tzvi. “The Demonic Image of the Witch in Standard Babylonian Literature: The Reworking of Popular Conceptions by Learned Exorcists.” In Religion, Science, and Magic in Concert and in Conflict, edited by Jacob Neusner, Ernest S. Frerichs, and Paul Virgil McCracken Flesher, 27–58. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. ———. “Some Reflections on Mesopotamian Witchcraft.” In Religion and Politics in the Ancient Near East, edited by Adele Berlin, 21–33. Studies and Texts in Jewish History and Culture. Bethesda: University Press of Maryland, 1996. Abusch, Tzvi, and Daniel Schwemer. Corpus of Mesopotamian AntiWitchcraft Rituals, vol. 1. Ancient Magic and Divination 8/1. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011. ———. “Das Abwehrzauber-Ritual Maqlû (‘Verbrennung’).” In Omina, Orakel, Rituale und Beschwörungen, Texte aus der Umwelt des Alten Testaments, Neue Folge, vol. 4, edited by Bernd Janowski and Gernot Wilhelm, 128–86. Gütersloh, Germany: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2008. Ackerman, Susan. “Digging Up Deborah: Recent Hebrew Bible Scholarship on Gender and the Contribution of Archaeology.” Near Eastern Archaeology 66 (2003): 172–84. ———. “Isaiah.” In Women’s Bible Commentary. Exp. ed., edited by Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe, 169–77. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998. ———. Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen: Women in Judges and Biblical Israel. New York: Doubleday, 1998. ———. “Why Is Miriam Also among the Prophets? (And Is Zipporah among the Priests?).” Journal of Biblical Literature 121 (2002): 47–80. Allen, Leslie C. Ezekiel 1–19. Word Biblical Commentary 28. Dallas, TX: Word, 1994. Alster, Bendt. Dumuzi’s Dream: Aspects of Oral Poetry in a Sumerian Myth. Mesopotamia 1. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, D.B.K., 1972.

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Index of Subjects

Aaron: access to divine knowledge, 3; conflict with Moses (in Numbers 12), 74–78; cult, as symbol of, 61n1; Egyptian “magicians” of Pharaoh and, 3, 24, 25, 131–32, 222; “magic” versus “religion” and, 23, 24, 25 Abel, wise woman of (in 2 Samuel 20), 84, 85, 131, 141–47 Abiathar, 27, 32, 50n11 Abigail, 94n2, 145 Abimelech, 5, 52, 222 Abraham, 43–44, 45, 46, 49, 53n17, 58, 59, 98 Absalom, 96, 138, 140–41 access to divine knowledge, as biblical concern, 3–18, 222 Achbor, 157n20 adultery, 206n5, 208, 215 Agag, 121 Ahab, 140, 146, 155n15, 213 Ahaz, 163 Akedah, 98 Amnon, 138, 140 amulets, 205 ancestor spirits, 107n6, 108, 118 ancestor worship, 108, 112n19, 118, 123, 190, 199n15. See also teraphim angelic communications, 6, 176n23 anger and bitterness of Hannah, 96–97, 100–101, 103 animal names, in Huldah story, 157n20 apotropaic magic, 204–5

Aram, Syria (“old country”), matriarchs associated with, 43–45, 52, 58, 218, 221 Ark: access to, 4; as divining instrument, 27, 28, 47 arrow ritual, 32 artificial dichotomies, 19–40; “foreign,” divination viewed as, 4, 31–33; male and female, as absolute categories, 35–40; official cult versus “popular religion,” 31–33; prophecy polemically distinguished from divination, 4–5, 19, 26–31; public men versus private women, 34–35; “religion” and “magic,” 4, 20–26; “true” and “false” prophets, 33–34, 80 Asherah, 108, 151n7 Assyria, 156, 163, 170n4, 176 avian spirits, 170, 171, 172–76, 177, 181, 205–6 Baal, prophets of, 79, 80, 182, 183 Babylon, divination by king of, 189, 202 Babylon, female personification of, 212 Barak, 72, 82–84, 90–92, 142 Bible. See women’s divination in biblical literature birds, spirits of the dead as, 170, 171, 172–76, 177, 181, 205–6 birth divination: prophet who conceives and gives birth to son in Isaiah, 94n2, 160–66, 220;

247

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Index of Subjects

birth divination (continued ) Rebekah’s twins, interpretation of birth and appearance of, 54–56; sign-children, 161–66, 220; signchildren in Isaiah, 161–66; Tamar, birth of twins of, 57–58n28; by wise women, 136–37; young woman giving birth to Immanu El in Isaiah, 163–64. See also fertility, pregnancy, and childbirth bitterness and anger of Hannah, 96–97, 100–101, 103 breadcrumbs offered to spirits, 181n32 Canaanites and “Canaanite” religion, 25, 32–33, 111–13, 130, 174–75 Cassandra (in Aes. Ag.), 7 chiastic structure of Hannah’s prayer, 102–3 child sacrifice, 180 childbirth. See birth divination; fertility, pregnancy, and childbirth chirping, of birds and spirits, 118, 166, 175–76, 206, 209n11 Christian tradition: on birth of sign-child in Isaiah, 163–64; false prophets and sexual deviancy in, 215n22; Hannah as prophet in, 95, 104; women’s sorcery and sexual deviance associated in, 215–16 Chronicler: En-dor necromancer and, 129, 218, 219; Genesis author compared, 196; on Huldah, 156–58 Circe, 211 Clarian Oracle, 70–71 Codex Vaticanus, 92 concubine of Levite, story of, 200 conflict, prophetic, 33, 74–81, 87, 90, 170n4, 182–83, 186–88, 217 consulting/inquiring, as concept, 3, 4, 27–29, 31n23, 46–52, 107, 118, 166, 182 court prophets, 152, 179

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crushing of twins in Rebekah’s womb, 52–54, 56–57 Cushite, Moses’s marriage to, 74–75 Dagan, 51, 123n54 dangerous woman (in Proverbs 1–9), 177–78, 203–8, 210, 213, 215 Daniel, 7n3, 27, 132 Danil, 46, 137 “the daughters of your people who prophesy” (in Ezekiel), 167–83; birds, spirits of the dead as, 170, 171, 172–76, 177, 181, 206; childbirth rituals and, 168, 170n5; as false necromancers, 178–83; hunting (of spirits) involved in, 167, 171–76, 206; identified as diviners, 167–70, 176; “magic” versus “religion” and, 168, 169–70; necromancy practiced by, 167, 170, 171, 176–83, 204, 218; no prophecy per se involved in, 167; prophesying “from their own minds,” 178–79; recognized as prophets, 179–81; shawls and wrist-fetters of, 167, 171–72, 178; Sheol and, 173n12, 177–78; as witches, 167 David: Absalom and, 96, 138, 140–41; access to divine knowledge, 3, 50, 116–17, 222; En-dor necromancer story, Saul’s decline and David’s rise as main focus of, 114–17, 130; ephod used to divine by, 27, 32; fasting in preparation for divination, 124n55; Michal’s use of teraphim and, 201; Saul’s anger at, 97; Tekoa, wise woman of (in 2 Samuel 14), 138–41, 146; teraphim in palace of, 195; as trickster, 37; victory song after slaying of giant by, 67 the dead: feeding, 123; images of, 108; pathways between the living and

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Index of Subjects (pathways to Sheol), 177, 204, 206–7, 209, 213; reviving, 25, 119. See also spirits of the dead Death, 178, 204, 215. See also Sheol Deborah, 82–93; discourse with Yahweh, 150; gender-consciousness in story of, 90–93; Hannah compared, 99; Huldah compared, 92, 150; as judge and prophet, 86–93; in list of female prophets, Megillah 14a, 94n2; Miriam compared, 82, 83–84, 90, 93, 217; Moses compared, 86–90, 93, 150, 217; as “mother in Israel,” 84–86, 143; prophetic status of, 82, 84, 86, 89, 217; Song of Deborah and Barak, 63–65, 68n18, 82–84; wise women compared, 143, 146 Delilah, 199–200 Delphic Oracle, 71 Deuteronomistic source: Huldah and, 152, 155–56, 219; on inquiring of God, 47; “magic” and “religion” as viewed by, 25 divination: access to divine knowledge, as biblical concern, 3–4; defined, 4–8; direct and indirect, 6, 8, 29–30, 48–51, 222; intent, as aspect of, 5–6; interpretation, as aspect of, 5–7; scribal, 10–11, 13, 118, 221; special identity as diviner, as aspect of divination, 5–6; technical, 4, 5, 7, 10–11, 29–30; types, 18, 26–31. See also women’s divination in biblical literature divinatory objects, tools, and instruments, 27–29, 47, 108, 109, 115, 171, 178, 180, 205. See also ephod; teraphim Doré, Gustave, 111 dream divination, 5, 6–7, 12–13, 26–27, 29, 165–66, 184, 185, 221–22 dream incubation, 5, 26–27, 29, 50, 51

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dreams versus visions, 50–51n12 drums and drumming, 64–65, 67, 68, 82 drunkenness, Hannah accused by Eli of, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101 ecstatic, mantic prophecy, 7, 30, 63n3, 69, 71n25, 113, 123n53, 168 Egyptian baker, dream of, 6–7, 165–66 Egyptian “magicians” of Pharaoh, 3, 24, 25, 131–32, 222 Ehud, 91 Eldad, 76, 87 Eli, 27n19, 97–101, 103, 104 Elijah, 25, 72, 79–80, 85, 135, 182, 183, 213 Elisha, 23, 25, 28, 29, 30, 32, 72, 85, 135 Elkanah, 97–98 En-dor necromancer, 105–30; access to divine knowledge, Saul’s loss of, 115–17, 126, 128–29; authority and agency of, 124–29; as “false” prophet, 39n39, 114n29; food provided to Saul by, ritual status of, 122–24; ghost-diviner/necromancer, terminology used for, 106–10; historical analysis of biblical texts and, 17; as idolatrous and foreign, 111–12; Josiah’s approach to Huldah compared, 154n12, 218, 219; lack of condemnation of, in 1 Samuel, 127–28, 129; location of En-dor, 112; “magic,” understood as use by Saul of, 116n35; as medium, 110, 119–20; negative interpretations of, 110–14, 129, 218; positive reading of, 110–11, 129, 218; process of consulting the dead used by, 119; recognition of Samuel by Saul, 122; recognition of Saul and Samuel by, 120–22; removal of mediums and spiritists from land by Saul and, 105–6, 108, 110, 116–17, 119; in 1 Samuel versus 1 Chronicles, 129, 218, 219; Saul’s decline and David’s

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Index of Subjects

En-dor necromancer (continued ) rise as main focus of, 114–17, 130; sexual elements read into activity of, 113–14, 216; who can see versus who can hear the spirit, 119–20; witch, misidentification as, 105–6, 111, 215; women and necromancy, association between, 117–18, 166, 191; Yahwism, compatibility of activities with, 183 Endora in Bewitched (TV show), 111n17 Enkidu, 15–16, 173–74 ephod, as divining object, 27, 28, 32, 50n11, 116, 195, 197–99, 201 Esarhaddon, 152n10 Esau: birth and appearance of twins, interpretation of, 54–56; naming of, 54, 56–58; oracle on destiny of twins received by Rebekah, 52–54; orchestration of Isaac’s blessing of Jacob, by Rebekah, 45, 59–60, 194, 195; Rebekah as mother to, 37 Esther, in list of female prophets in Megillah 14a, 94n2 Etana, wife of, 222 extispicy, 6, 10, 13, 28, 215 Ezekiel: characteristic prophecy of, 179; divination by, 28; on false (male) prophets, 168–69. See also “daughters of your people who prophesy” “false” prophets. See “true” and “false” prophets fasting in preparation for divination, 124 fathers, prophets referred to as, 85–86 female and male. See gender and gendered assumptions; women’s divination in biblical literature feminist scholarship, 19, 36–37 fertility, pregnancy, and childbirth: childlessness of most female diviners, 219–21; “the daughters of your people who prophesy” and,

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168, 170n5; Gomer, children born to, 165; impotence, 135n8, 137n18; infertility, 45, 52, 96, 97; “postbarren” women, 100–101; prophet who conceives and gives birth to son in Isaiah, 160–66; sign-children, 161–66; Tamar, birth of twins of, 57–58n28; wise women associated with childbirth, 136–37; young woman giving birth to Immanu El in Isaiah, 163–64. See also birth divination; Hannah; Rebekah the Aramean First Isaiah: spirits of the dead as birds in, 175–76; wise men in, 133n3 food provided to Saul by En-dor necromancer, 122–24 foolish woman (in Proverbs 9), 203–4n1, 206 foreignness: combined spiritual and sexual danger linked to, 213; divination viewed as foreign, 4, 31–33, 111–12; as Other, 223n6; Proverbs 7, foreign woman in, 203–4n1; soothsayer and whore in Isaiah 57 worse than foreigner, 209 Gedaliah, 157n20 gender and gendered assumptions: antiphony, gender-based, 65–66; combination of spiritual and sexual danger, 210–16; cross-cultural comparisons of gender roles, 220; Deborah, gender-consciousness in story of, 90–93; Israelite male identity, biblical concern with, 8–9, 222; “magic,” women’s divination associated with, 213–14; male and female, as absolute categories, 35–40; men’s and women’s divination not significantly different, 217, 221, 222–23; Miriam, paradigmatic view of, 61–62; necromancy associated with women, 117–18, 166, 191;

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Index of Subjects parental language for prophets, 85–86; public men versus private women, 34–35; in scholarship, 19; sexual deviance, women associated with, 213–15; song, women, and prophecy, nexus between, 73; teraphim, gender associations of, 201–2; victory songs associated with women, 64–65, 83 Geštinanna, vi, 13–15, 50, 136–37, 222 ghost-divining. See En-dor necromancer; necromancy ghosts. See spirits of the dead Gideon, 7n3, 50, 88 Gilgamesh, 13, 14–16, 136, 173–74 Gomer, 162, 165 Greek concepts of divinatory activity: art, craft, or skill (τέχνη), divination as type of, 7; Artemidorus, Interpretation of Dreams, 30; birds as spirits of the dead in funerary art, 174; oracles, 70–71; poetry and prophecy, relationship between, 68n18, 69, 70–71, 72, 73; sexuality and sorcery, combination of, 211, 215n22 Gudea, 12–13, 15 Gula, 13n16, 136–37 Haman, 138n23 Hananiah, 33, 79–80, 183 Hannah, 94–104; anger and bitterness of, 96–97, 100–101; drunkenness, accused by Eli of, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101; infertility of, 96, 97; prayer of, 94–95, 95–96, 98–103, 178; prophetic status of, 94–96, 99, 101–2, 103–4; story of, 96–98 Haštayar, 135, 138n23 ˘ Hattušili I, 135 ˘ Hazael, 85 hendiadys, 109n13, 142, 198n11 Hilkiah (high priest), 153 hitpael, 179

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Hittite wise women, 134–36, 221 horn imagery in Hannah’s prayer, 94–95, 101–3 Hosea and Gomer, marriage of, 162, 165 Huldah, 148–59; in Chronicles versus Kings, 156–59, 218, 219; Deborah compared, 92, 150; as first person to authorize canonical text, 153; historical analysis of biblical texts and, 16n21; husband, identification through, 149; identificatory presentation of, 148–50; immateriality of sex of, 118, 153–54, 159; inquired of as diviner, 49; in list of female prophets, Megillah 14a, 94n2; Miriam compared, 35, 61–62; mistake regarding Josiah’s death, 154–58, 217, 219; as “official” prophet, 151–52; praise of Josiah by, 151–52; public/private spheres, artificial dichotomy of, 35; Saul’s use of En-dor necromancer compared, 154n12, 218, 219; scroll and prophetic authority of, 152–54; as “true” prophet, 39n39, 150, 155; uniqueness in Bible as deliverer of classical prophetic oracle, 148 hunting of spirits, 167, 171–76, 205–6, 207 Ibn Ezra, 164n9, 191 idols and idolatry: combination of sorcery and sexual deviance, 212; dangerous woman of Proverbs 1–9 and, 206–8; “daughters of your people who prophesy” and, 183; En-dor necromancer and, 105, 108, 111–12, 123n53; Huldah on, 154; inquiring and consulting through idols, 28, 29, 47; Isaiah on, 28, 47, 132; soothsayer and whore (in Isaiah 57), 209–10; teraphim and, 200 Immanu El, 163–64 impotence, 135n8, 137n18

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incantation, 23, 32 infertility: of Hannah, 96, 97; of Rebekah, 45, 52. See also fertility, pregnancy, and childbirth inquiring/consulting, as concept, 3, 4, 27–29, 31n23, 46–52, 107, 118, 166, 182 intent, as aspect of divination, 5–6 interpretation, as aspect of divination, 5–7 Irenaeus of Lyon, 215n22 Isaac: Akedah, 98; naming of twins, 56n25; orchestration of blessing of Jacob, by Rebekah, 45, 59–60, 194, 195; supplications of, regarding Rebekah’s pregnancy, 45–46, 48n8, 51–52. See also Rebekah the Aramean Isaiah: Jerusalem personified as woman in, 209n11; necromancy rejected by, 166; prophet who conceives and gives birth to son in, 94n2, 160–66, 220; sign-children in, 161–66; on soothsayer and whore, 208–10; young woman giving birth to Immanu El in, 163–64. See also First Isaiah; Second Isaiah Ishtar, 170n4, 174, 207n6 Israelite, as term, 8n5 Jacob: birth and appearance of twins, interpretation of, 54–56; dream at Bethel, 27n19; naming of, 54, 56–58; oracle on destiny of twins received by Rebekah, 52–54; orchestration of Isaac’s blessing of, by Rebekah, 45, 59–60, 194, 195; Rebekah as mother to, 37; sent back to Laban by Rebekah, 44, 45; theft as theme in Jacob-Laban and Jacob-Esau stories, 193–97; as trickster, 36n30 Jael, 90n16, 91, 92n22 Jehoshaphat, 124n55

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Jehu, 212–13 Jeremiah, 33, 49, 53, 79–80, 149, 154n13, 183 Jeroboam, 181, 200 Jerusalem personified as woman (in Isaiah 29), 209n11 Jethro, 86, 89 Jezebel, 196, 212–13, 215 Jezreel (son of Gomer), 165 Joab, 131, 138–43, 146 Joash, 32 Job, 53, 85n9 Jocasta (in Soph. Oed. tyr.), 7 Joel’s vision of universal prophecy, 184–85 Jonah, 6, 53 Joseph: as dreamer/dream-diviner, 5, 26, 106, 166, 193; as interpreter of dreams of others, 7, 26, 49, 131; Rachel and, 192–93, 201; silver goblet of, 27, 193; special identity as diviner, 5; as wise man, 131 Joshua, 23, 67, 76, 87, 88, 89 Josiah: cultic items burned by, 108; death of, 154–58; reforms of, 153, 154, 156–58. See also Huldah Jozabad ben Jeshua, 187 judges and prophets, 86–93 Judith, 145n40 Justin Martyr, 215n22 kidneys, reading, 28, 215 Kimhi, David, 155n14, 191 Kothar-wa-Hasis, 136 ktrt, 136–37 kuhhān, 71 Laban: non-divinatory dream received by, 5; Rachel’s theft of family teraphim and, 191, 192, 193–97, 201, 202; Rebekah sending Jacob to, 44, 45 Lakwena, Alice, 34 Leah, 162, 191–92, 194, 196

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Index of Subjects Lemuel, mother of, 39n38 leprosy, 74n33, 75n35 Levites, 80n48, 81, 85–86, 187, 197, 199, 200, 202 Lo-ammi, 165 Lo-ruhamah, 165 lots, casting or drawing, 27, 106n1 “magic”: apotropaic, 204–5; biblical view of, 23–26, 30–31; combination of spiritual and sexual danger, 210–16; “the daughters of your people who prophesy” and, 168, 169–70; divination understood as, 26, 28–29; Egyptian “magicians” of Pharaoh, 3, 24, 25, 131–32, 222; En-dor necromancer understood as use by Saul of, 116n35; infrequency of divinatory insight combined with, 135–36; Other, viewed as, 4, 21, 22, 24; “religion” artificially distinguished from, 20–26, 169–70; women’s divination associated with, 213–14. See also entries at witch Maher Shalal Hash Baz, 160, 161–62, 163, 164 making die and making live, 176–78 male and female. See gender and gendered assumptions; women’s divination in biblical literature Mami, 136, 137 Manasseh, 108 mantic, ecstatic prophecy, 7, 30, 63n3, 69, 71n25, 113, 123n53, 168 Mary, psalm of, 95 marzeah., 123n54 matzevah, 195, 197 Medad, 76, 87 Mesopotamia and Mesopotamian divination: breadcrumbs offered to ghosts in, 181n32; evidence of women as diviners, 12, 15, 16; “false” prophecy and sexual devi-

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ance, association between, 215n22; feathered underworld creatures, 174; inquiring of the dead in, 31n23; kings “double-checking” cultic instructions, 152n10; kispu (funerary feast), 123n54; as literate phenomenon, 10–11; “magic” and religion in, 22; necromancy, 112, 118, 119n40; sexualized sorceresses in, 211; sign versus omen, use of, 59n30; wise women in, 136, 137, 221; witches and witchcraft, 214n20; wrist-binding in, 172 messenger formula, 149–50 metaphorical uses of women’s divination. See pejorative metaphorical references to women’s divination Micah the Ephraimite: judge and prophet, combined roles of, 88; Levite priest of, 85–86, 197, 199, 202; military chiefs, oracular responsibilities of, 88; private sanctuary of, 85–86, 197–201, 202; teraphim and mother of, 86, 189, 197–201, 202 Micaiah, 179 Michal, 201 military chiefs, oracular responsibilities of, 87–88 Miriam, 61–81; conflict with Moses (in Numbers 12), 74–81, 187, 217; Deborah compared, 82, 83–84, 90, 93, 217; as dreamer, 222; Hannah compared, 99; historical analysis of biblical texts and, 16n21; infant Moses and, 62–63, 80n47, 81; in list of female prophets, Megillah 14a, 94n2; paradigmatic view of, 61–62; prophetic status of, 61, 68, 74–81; public/private spheres, artificial dichotomy of, 35; skin disease of, 74n33, 75–76, 80–81; tensions in depiction of, 62–63, 74, 78, 80–81,

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Miriam (continued ) 217; Torah, women’s prophetic authority relating to, 50n4; wise woman of Abel compared, 143. See also Song of Miriam Moab, child sacrifice by king of, 180 monarchy in Israel, 3, 95–96, 101 Mordechai, 138n23 Moses: access to divine knowledge by, 3; conflict with Miriam and Aaron (in Numbers 12), 74–81, 187, 217; Deborah compared, 86–90, 93, 150, 217; Huldah compared, 150; as infant, 62–63, 80n47, 81; Joel’s vision of universal prophecy and, 185; as judge and prophet, 86–90, 93; “magic” versus “religion” and, 23–24; Miriam as female counterpart of, 61–62; paradigmatic view of, 61n1, 62; Song of, 65–66, 178; “true” and “false” prophets in succession of, 38, 150; wise men assisting, 131 “mother in Israel”: Deborah as, 84–86, 143; wise woman of Abel and use of phrase, 142–43 mothers: of Micah the Ephraimite, 86, 189, 197–201, 202; Ninsun (mother of Gilgamesh), 13–14, 15, 16, 136, 222; separation of maternal and divinatory roles, 221; of Sisera, 138n23. See also fertility, pregnancy, and childbirth; Hannah; Isaiah; Rebekah the Aramaean Muhammad, 71, 72n27 music: drums and drumming, 64–65, 67, 68, 82; gender-based antiphony, 65–66; prophecy and, 29, 63–64, 68, 72, 99; victory songs, 64–65, 67–68, 82–83. See also entries at Song Nabonidus, 152n10 nābû, 170n6 Nahmanides, 191

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names and naming, 54, 56–58 Nanše, 12–13, 14, 136–37, 222 Nathan, 139–40, 146 nation of prophets/nation of priests, 185n4 Nebuchadnezzar, 7n3, 27, 94, 132, 222 Neco, 154, 156, 158, 219 necromancy: ancestor worship and, 112n19, 118, 190; birds, spirits of the dead as, 170, 171, 172–76, 177, 181, 205–6; compatibility with Yahwism, 183; dangerous woman in Proverbs 1–9 and, 204–8; of “the daughters of your people who prophesy,” 167, 170, 171, 176–83, 204; falseness and, 178–83; hunting of spirits, 167, 171–76, 205–6, 207; Isaiah’s rejection of, 166; to make die and to make live, 176–78; night as appropriate time for, 113; Saul, mediums and spiritists removed from land by, 105–6, 108, 110, 116–17, 119; strength of presence in Israel, 182–83; teraphim and, 190–91, 199n15; women, association with, 117–18, 166, 191; Yahwism and, 112, 114, 119, 125, 178, 180–83. See also En-dor necromancer Nehemiah, Noadiah as counterpart to, 150n4 Nikkal-Ib, 137 Nineveh, personified as whore, 212 Ninsun (mother of Gilgamesh), 13–14, 15, 16, 136, 222 Noadiah (prophet), 186–88; difficulty analyzing reference to, 188, 217n1; list of female prophets in Megillah 14a, omission from, 94n2; seen as enemy (but not false prophet) by Nehemiah, 186–87; sex of, 187–88; viewed as prophetic counterpart to Nehemiah, 150n4, 187n1

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Index of Subjects Noadiah son of Binnui, 187 Nob, priests of, slaughtered by Saul, 116, 130 official cult and “popular religion,” 31–33 “old country” (Aram, Syria), matriarchs associated with, 43–45, 52, 58, 218, 221 omens, 10, 17, 30, 43, 54–59, 137n21, 165, 218 Onomacritus (in Arist. Pol.), 7 oracles: access to divine knowledge and, 4; Clarian Oracle, 70–71; of Deborah, 85, 87, 88n11; Delphic Oracle, 71; of Ezekiel, 35, 168, 169, 171, 176, 177, 179–82; of Hannah, 94, 95, 101; of Huldah, 61–62, 148, 150–58, 219; in Isaiah, 144, 161, 163, 164, 209, 210; of Joel, 184–85; KIN oracle, 134n8; in poetry and prose, 69–73; Pythia, 71; Rebekah and, 47n7, 48n8, 52, 54, 58; sorcery and sexual deviance, association between, 212 Other: foreigners as, 223n6; “magic” viewed as, 4, 21, 22, 24; male Israelite identity formation in opposition to, 9, 222 Palm of Deborah, 87, 88 parental language for prophets, 84–86 Passover, 32, 157 pathways between the living and the dead (pathways to Sheol), 177, 204, 206–7, 209, 213 patriarchal divine-human conversations, 6, 49 pejorative metaphorical references to women’s divination, 203–16; in Christian tradition, 215–16; combination of spiritual and sexual danger, 210–16; dangerous woman (in Proverbs 1–9), 177–78, 203–8,

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210, 213, 215; Jerusalem personified as woman (in Isaiah 29), 209n11; Jezebel, 212–13, 215; “magic” and sorcery, women’s divination associated with, 213–14; sexual deviance, women associated with, 213–15; soothsayer and whore (in Isaiah 57), 208–10, 213, 215 Peninnah, 96–97, 100, 101, 103 poetry and prophecy, connection between, 68–73 polemical distinction between prophecy and divination, 4–5 “popular religion” versus official cult, 31–33 “post-barren” women, 100–101 pregnancy. See birth divination; fertility, pregnancy, and childbirth Priestly source, 25 priests: Abiathar, 27, 32, 50n11; Clarian Oracle and, 48n9; Hilkiah (high priest), 152–53, 154; Levites, 80n48, 81, 85–86, 187, 197, 199, 200, 202; as mediators of divine revelation, 48n9, 71n25; Micah the Ephraimite, Levite priest of, 85–86, 197, 199, 202; nation of, 185; of Nob, slaughtered by Saul, 116, 130; public men versus private women and, 34, 35; skin conditions and, 75n36, 76n37; urim, use of, 27 private women versus public men, 34–35 prophets and prophecy: conflict, prophetic, 33, 74–81, 87, 90, 170n4, 182–83, 186–88, 217; court prophets, 152, 179; Deborah, prophetic status of, 82, 84, 86, 89, 217; discourses of female prophets with Yahweh, 149–50; divination polemically distinguished from, 4–5, 19, 26–31; female prophets, studies of, 37–39; Hannah, prophetic status of, 94–96, 99, 101–2, 103–4; Huldah,

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prophets and prophecy (continued ) as “official” prophet, 151–52; Isaiah, prophet who conceives and gives birth to son in, 94n2, 160–66, 220; Joel’s vision of universal prophecy, 184–85; judges and prophets, 86–93; list of female prophets, Megillah 14a, 94n2; mantic, ecstatic prophecy, 7, 30, 63n3, 69, 71n25, 113, 123n53, 168; Miriam, prophetic status of, 61, 68, 74–81; music and, 29, 63–64, 68, 72, 99; nation of prophets, 185n4; parental language for prophets, 84–86; poetry, connection to, 68–73; robes as prophetic garments, 122; Song of Deborah not constituting, 83–84; Song of Miriam not constituting, 68–74, 84; wise men, some prophets as, 132–33. See also “daughters of your people who prophesy”; “true” and “false” prophets; specific prophets, e.g. Miriam prostitutes and prostitution. See whores and whoring proverbial speech attributed to wise women, 144–45 Proverbs 1–9, dangerous woman in, 177–78, 203–8, 210, 213, 215 public men versus private women, 34–35 Pythia, 71 Rachel: divination, teraphim taken for purposes of, 191–93, 196; family teraphim taken by, 52n14, 191–97, 201–2; Joseph and, 192–93, 201; Leah, competition with, 192; mandrakes and, 162; positive biblical portrayal of, 196; theft as theme in story of, 193–97 Rashbam, 191 Rashi, 96n7, 155n14, 164n9 Rebekah the Aramean, 43–37; association with “old country,” 43–45, 52,

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58, 218; birth and appearance of twins, interpretation of, 54–56; as both diviner and divined, 58–60; direct versus indirect inquiry of, 48–51; divined by Abraham’s servant at her mother’s house, 43–44, 58–59; former time, Rebekah story written as occurring in, 43; Hannah compared, 103; independent and decisive character of, 44–45; infertility of, 45, 52; inquiry of God, divination by, 47–48; Isaac’s supplications and divination of, 45–46, 48n8, 51–52; later insertion, pregnancy divination regarded as, 46–47n7; as mother, 37; naming of twins, 54, 56–58; oracle on destiny of twins received by, 52–54; orchestration of Isaac’s blessing of Jacob by, 45, 59–60, 194, 195; rhetorical question of, 53; terminological issues related to, 43n1 “religion” and “magic,” 20–26, 169–70 Remaliah, son of, 163 ritual meal, food provided to Saul by En-dor necromancer as, 122–24 rp’um, 174, 175 sacrifice: child sacrifice, 180; En-dor necromancer, food provided to Saul by, 122–24 Samson, 87, 88, 200 Samuel: birth of, 96–98; cultic activity at local shrine, participation in, 32; as judge and prophet, 87, 88–89; name, explanation of, 57; vision of Yahweh while sleeping in temple, 27n19. See also En-dor necromancer; Hannah Sanballat, 186–87 sanctuary, women serving in, 35 Sarah, 49, 94n2 Saul: access to divine knowledge, loss of, 3, 50, 115–17, 126, 128–29, 201,

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Index of Subjects 222; cultic activity at local shrine, participation in, 32; David, anger at, 97; death of, 128, 129, 156; fear of, 115, 121; mediums and spiritists removed from land by, 105–6, 108, 110, 116–17, 119; priests of Nob slaughtered by, 116, 130; as prophet and diviner, 28; summoned by Samuel, 88. See also En-dor necromancer scapegoat rituals, 135n8 scribal divination, 10–11, 13, 118, 221 scribal elite, 16, 222 scribes: Geštinanna as, 13–14; Shaphan, 152–53, 157n20 scroll brought to Huldah, 152–54 Second Isaiah: “all flesh is grass,” nature of phraseology of, 132; Habakkuk compared, 199; prophet who conceives and gives birth to son in Isa 8:3 and, 163n7; on wise men, 132 Sennacherib, 94 seventy elders, 86–87 sexuality: adultery, 206n5, 208, 215; combination of spiritual and sexual danger, 210–16; concubine of Levite, story of, 200; dangerous woman in Proverbs 1–9 and, 204, 206–8, 210, 213, 215; En-dor necromancer and, 113–14, 216; false prophets and sexual deviancy, 215n22; Isaiah, prophet who conceived and gave birth to son in, 161n4, 162n6; women associated with sexual deviance, 213–15. See also whores and whoring Shallum ben Tikvah ben Harhas the wardrobe keeper, 149 shamans, 33–34 Shaphan (scribe), 152–53, 157n20 shawls of “the daughters of your people who prophesy,” 167, 171–72, 178 She’ar Yashuv, 163 Sheba ben Bichri, 141, 143

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Sheol: dangerous woman of Proverbs 1–9 and, 203n1, 204–7, 210, 213; “the daughters of your people who prophesy” and, 173n12, 177–78; in Hannah’s prayer, 104, 178; soothsayer and whore in Isaiah 57 and, 209–10, 213 Šibtu, 11, 29, 50–51n12 sign: omen versus, 59n30; Rebekah as, 59–60 sign-acts, 161, 162, 166 sign-children, 161–66, 220 Sisera, 83, 91 Sisera, mother of, 138n23 skin disease: as “in” or “on” someone, 109n8; Miriam afflicted with, 74n33, 75–76, 80–81 Solomon, 27, 50 Song of Deborah, 63–65, 68n18 “Song” of Hannah, 94–95, 95–96, 98–103 Song of Miriam (Song of the Sea), 63–74; association with Miriam, 65–68; prophecy, not constituting, 68–74, 84; Song of Deborah and, 63–65, 68n18, 82–84, 83–84; as victory song, 64–65 Song of Moses, 65–66, 178 soothsayers and soothsaying, 168, 208–10, 213, 214 sorcery. See “magic”; entries at witch special identity as diviner, as aspect of divination, 5–6 spells, spell casters, and spell casting, 23n10, 105, 212 spirit-divining. See En-dor necromancer; necromancy spiritists, 28, 106, 109, 115, 116, 117 spirits of the dead: ancestor spirits, 107n6, 108, 118; as birds, 170, 171, 172–76, 177, 181, 205–6; consulting/ inquiring of, 28–29, 31n23, 47, 49, 107, 119, 166, 182; control of, 78n26, 178n25, 181; multiple spirits, 119n39; raising, 3, 17, 105, 110, 112, 119–22,

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spirits of the dead (continued ) 124, 125, 130, 177, 178; vocabulary of, 107–10, 182. See also dead; En-dor necromancer; necromancy structuralism, 25–26 symbolic acts, 135n8, 161–66, 218, 222 Tabeal, son of, 163 Tacitus, 71 tallit, 172n7 Tamar: birth of twins of, 57–58n28; rape by Amnon, 138, 140 technical divination, 4, 5, 7, 10–11, 29–30 tefillin, 172n7 Tekoa, wise woman of (in 2 Samuel 14), 131, 138–41, 143–47 tent of meeting, women serving at, 18n22, 38, 162n7 teraphim, 189–202; acceptability in Israelite ritual life, 195; defining, 190; inheritance of property and possession of, 190, 191–92; Micah, mother of, 86, 189, 197–201, 202; Michal’s use of, 201; necromancy and, 190–91, 199n15; plural form of, 190, 192n8; Rachel, family teraphim taken by, 52n14, 191–97, 201–2; use in divination, 189–93, 196, 199, 201; women, association with, 201–2 theft: of Micah, 197–98; as theme in Jacob-Rachel-Laban and JacobEsau stories, 193–97 titles of women diviners, removal of, 146n42 to make die and to make live, 176–78 Tobiah, 186 Torah, women’s prophetic authority relating to, 38n36, 61n1, 150 trickster motif, 36–37 “true” and “false” prophets, 33–34; “the daughters of your people who prophesy,” “false” necromancy of, 178–83; efficacy of false prophecy,

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180, 182, 183; En-dor necromancer as “false” prophet, 39n39, 114n29; Ezekiel on false (male) prophets, 168–69; Huldah as “true” prophet, 39n39, 150, 155; Jezebel as false prophet in Revelation, 215; Miriam as “true” prophet even in opposition to Moses, 80; Moses, “true” and “false” prophets in succession of, 38, 150; Noadiah, 187–88; sexual deviancy and false prophets, 215n22; Yahwistic yet “false” prophets, 33, 79, 180–83 twins, 52–58 universal prophecy, Joel’s vision of, 185 urim, 27, 115, 117, 128, 183, 218 Uzzah, 4 Codex Vaticanus, 92 ventriloquism, divination by, 109n8 victory songs, 64–65, 67–68, 82–83 visions versus dreams, 50–51n12 whores and whoring: En-dor necromancer story and, 113–14; Hosea, whoring metaphor in, 165; idols/ deities, prostituting oneself after, 108; Isaiah, 57; soothsayer and whore in, 208–10; as term, 211n17. See also sexuality Wisdom, female personification of, 203n1, 206 wise women, 131–47; of Abel (in 2 Samuel 20), 84, 85, 131, 141–47; childbirth, association with, 136–37; Hittite wise women, 134–36, 221; “magic” combined with divinatory insight in, 135–36; in Near Eastern literature generally, 136–38; proverbial speech attributed to, 144–45; Sisera’s mother and, 138n23; of Tekoa (in 2 Samuel 14), 131, 138–41, 143–47; as titular, divinatory, and

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Index of Subjects authoritative role, 145–47, 221; wise men in Bible and, 131–34, 135–36, 136–37, 138n23, 140 witch and whore motif, 210–13 Witch of En-dor. See En-dor necromancer witchcraft, 30, 105, 207, 210n13 witches, “the daughters of your people who prophesy” as, 168 women’s divination in biblical literature, 3–18, 217–23; artificial dichotomies in, 19–40 (see also artificial dichotomies); bringing together traditions of, 219–22; childlessness of most women diviners, 219–21; “the daughters of your people who prophesy” (in Ezekiel), 167–83 (see also “daughters of your people who prophesy”); dreamers/dream diviners in, women not acting as, 7, 221–22; evidence for, 10–16; gendered assumptions regarding, 19 (see also gender and gendered assumptions); historical analysis of biblical texts and, 16–17; Isaiah, prophet who conceives and gives birth to son in, 94n2, 160–66, 220; Joel’s vision of universal prophecy, 184–85; “magic” and sorcery, association with, 213–14; men’s and women’s divination not significantly different, 217, 221, 222–23;

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“old country,” matriarchs associated with, 43–45, 52, 58, 218, 221; pejorative metaphorical references to, 203–16 (see also pejorative metaphorical references to women’s divination); range of attitudes toward, 217–18; reasons for focus on, 8–11; teraphim, 189–202 (see also teraphim); titles, removal of, 146n42; variation in activities regarded as, 218; wise women, 131–47 (see also wise women). See also necromancy; prophets and prophecy; specific women, e.g. Miriam wrist-fetters of “the daughters of your people who prophesy,” 167, 171–72, 178 Yahwism: arrow ritual and, 32; elder prophecy and, 87; “false” yet Yahwistic prophets, 33, 79, 180–83; Micah’s private sanctuary and, 200; necromancy and, 112, 114, 119, 125, 178, 180–83; spiritual and sexual danger tropes not specific to, 212, 213, 214; teraphim and, 195 Yarikh, 137 Yarkab-Addu, wife of, 211 Zedekiah, 49 Zimri-lim, 51, 222 Zunana, 51, 222

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Index of Ancient Texts

Hebrew Bible Genesis 4:1 16:11 18 18:13, 15 18:21 20:3 20:17 21:6 24 24:4 24:5–8 24:10–14 24:21 24:28 24:46 24:50–51 24:57 24:60 24:67 25 25:19–26 25:21 25:22 25:22–23 25:23 25:24 25:25–26 25:25a 27 27:8, 13, 43 27:15–16

57 57 49 57 126n57 5, 222 46 57 43, 44, 59 44 44 58 58 44 59 59 44 45n3 44n2 57–58, 59 43, 45 46, 47n7 46, 52, 57 46–47n7 54 47n7, 54 54 57 44, 45 45 45

27:36 27:43, 46 27:46 28:1–2 28:16–17 29:21–30 29:30 29:31–30:24 30 30:26–30 30:31–43 31 31:7–9 31:14–16 31:16 31:17 31:17–35 31:19 31:20 31:24 31:39 33:1–2 37:3 37:5–10 37:5–11 37:8, 10 37:19 38:29 38:30 39:6 40–41 40:8 41:8

194 45n4 53n16 45n4 27n19 192 192 192 162, 193 193 195 193–94 194 192 194 192 191 193 193 5 193 195 192 193 26 49 27, 106 58n28 58n28 192 26, 193 7 131

260

Y6621.indb 260

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Index of Ancient Texts 41:25 44:5 44:15 Exodus 2 2:3 2:4 6:28–14:31 7:1 7:10–11 7:11 14–15 15

222 27, 166, 193 193

81 62 63 3 78n44 24 132 68n17 65, 67, 68, 72, 83, 90 15:1 65, 83, 99 15:1, 2, 12 64 15:1–21 64 15:20 64, 68 15:20–21 65 15:21 66, 73, 83 15:22–25 23 17:1–6 24 17:9–13 23 18 87 18:15–16 86 19:6 185n4 22:17 [Eng. 22:18] 105, 211n14 28:3 131 32:9 106 32:18 67 34:15–16 210 35:25 138 36:1 138 38:8 35 Leviticus 11:5 157n20 11:29 157n20 13:2–17 75n36 17:7 210 18:6 162n6 20:5–6 210 20:6 108 20:27 107, 108, 109n8

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Numbers 11 11–12 11:11–15 11:16–17 11:17, 25 11:29 12 12:1 12:3 12:4 12:8 12:12 20:1–13 20:8 21:9 21:17 26:59 27:21 Deuteronomy 1:15 4:29 6:7–8 11:18–20 13:1–3 13:2–4 13:2–4 [Eng. 13:1–3] 15:12–13 18 18:9–13 18:9–14 18:10 18:10–11 18:11 18:20–22 18:22 22:14 24:9 25:9 25:17 31:7 31:16

261

76n38, 185n4 76n42 86–87 87 78 185 74–81, 90, 188 75n34, 78, 79, 83n2 79 79 77n41 75 24 24 23 67n16 62, 81 27 131 47 205m3 205m3 33 178 180 173n11 39n39, 114n29 112 31, 38, 128n58 180 28, 47, 214 107 178 33 162n6 80 76n37 81 88 210

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262

Index of Ancient Texts

Deuteronomy (continued) 31:30 99 32:39 178 32:44 99 34:9–12 89 Joshua 7:10–20 27 10:12–14 23 15:45 142 Judges 2:17 210 3 91 3:10 87 4 84, 85, 150n4 4–5 68n17 4:4 86, 91, 92 4:5 85, 87 4:6–7 150 4:9 150 4:14 150 5 64, 65, 83, 84–85, 86, 90, 143, 146 5:1 83, 99, 99n13 5:7 84, 143 5:12 83 5:29 138n23 6–8 88 6:8 91 6:34 87 6:36–40 50 8:27, 33 210 9:53 52 11:26 142 11:29 87 13 88 13:25 87 14:6, 19 87 15:14 87 16:5 200 17 197 17–18 88, 199n15 17:2–6 197 17:10 85, 199

Y6621.indb 262

17:13 18:5 18:14, 17 18:18 18:19 18:20 18:24 19:4, 7, 9 20:27 1 Samuel 1 1:4 1:6 1:7 1:10 1:10–11 1:15 1:16 1:20 1:22 1:23 1:24 2:1 2:1–10 2:4–8 2:5 2:6 2:9 2:10 2:12 2:19 2:22 2:23 2:27–36 3:3 5–6 5:12 6:6–7 9–10 9–12 9:9 14:37–43 15 15:2–3

200 85, 199 199 199 85 199 199 200 27 101 96 96 96 96 100 97 97 99n12 97 98, 99n10 98 95, 99 98–103 101 100 104, 178 101 95 97n9 98, 122n52 35 101 146n42 27n19 4 142 4 32 116 28, 49 27 116n34 88

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Index of Ancient Texts 15:23 15:27 15:33–35 16 16:14 18:6–7 18:12 19 19:11–17 21:12 [Eng. 21:11] 22:17–18 23:2, 4 23:2–4 23:2–4, 9–12 23:9 23:9–12 24:16–21 25:3 26:21–25 27 28

28:1–2 28:3

28:4 28:5 28:6 28:6, 15–16 28:7 28:8 28:8–23 28:9 28:10 28:11 28:11–12 28:12 28:13 28:13–14

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189 122 116 128 3, 128 67, 68 3, 128 128, 195 201 67 116 50 116 3 27, 116, 199 32 114 145 114 115n30 105, 108n7, 110, 116n34, 129, 130, 151, 154n12, 177, 178, 182, 218 114, 115n30 108, 110, 115n30, 119, 125 115 121 28, 115, 127 3 28, 106, 108, 115n33 108, 119, 127 124 108, 127 127 120, 121 121 120, 121 121, 122 121, 122

28:15 28:15–16 28:18 28:20 28:20–22 28:21–22 28:22 28:24–25 29:5 30:7 30:7–8 30:8 2 Samuel 1:1–16 1:26 2:1 5:23 12:7 12:9 12:13 12:15–24 13:21–23 14

263

3, 115n31, 127 128 127 123, 124 127 125, 127 124 124 67 27, 50n11, 116, 199 3, 116, 128 50

128 115n31 3, 50, 116 50 140 140 140 124n55 140 131, 138–141, 143–147 14:1–20 138 14:7 138 14:14 144 14:16 142n30 14:20 140 17:18 96 19:2–8 [Eng. 1–7] 141 20 84–85, 131, 141–47 20:1–2 141 20:16 141 20:16–19 85 20:17 141 20:18 141, 144 20:19 141, 142n30 20:21–22 143 22 94n1 22:1 99 23:1–7 94n1

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264

Index of Ancient Texts

1 Kings 3:3–15 3:4–15 9:22 13:1–10 16:31 17:8–24 18 18–19 18:40 19:2 20:35–43 21 21:25 22 22:5–8 22:8, 10, 18 2 Kings 1:2 2:12 2:19–22 3:11 3:15 3:27 4:18–37 6:5–7 6:21 6:28–29 8:8 8:9 9 9:22 13:14 13:17–19 21:6–7 22:13 22:13, 18 22:13–14 22:14 22:15–20 22:18 22:20a 22:20b 23:24

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50 27 213 146n42 212n18 25 182 212n18 80 212n18 140 212n18 212n18 152 28 179 28 85 23 28 28, 29, 30 180 25 23 85 37 28 85 212–13 212 85 32 108 28 49 151 149 151 28 154 155 108, 110

23:29 25:22 Isaiah 1:21 3:2 3:2–3 7–8 7:3 7:4, 5, 9 7:6 7:11 7:14 7:15–16 8 8:1 8:3 8:4 8:16–18 8:18 8:19

8:19–20 175n21 8:19a 8:19b 10:14 13:21 13:22 19:3 19:3a 19:3b 19:11 20 20:3 27:2 29:4 29:10–14 35:1–10 38:14 40:6 40:20

156 157n20 210n12 114n29 133n3 163 163 163 163 163 137n20, 163 164 162n7, 165 161 94n2, 160, 161, 162, 165 163, 164 166n11 161, 164, 166 28, 47, 108, 118, 166n11, 175–76, 218 119n40, 28 28, 47 175n21, 176 67 67 108, 132 28, 47 28 132 161 161 67n16 108, 176, 209n11 132 95 176 144 131

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Index of Ancient Texts 44:25 47:1 47:1–15 47:2–9 47:3 47:9 47:10 47:11 50:6 54:1 56:1–7 56:10–11 57 57:3 57:3–13 57:6 57:6–13 57:8 57:9 59:11 Jeremiah 2 2–3 8:2 9:16 [Eng. 9:17] 11:20 17:10 20:12 20:18 21:2 25:30 28 28:16–17 37:7 51:14 Ezekiel 8:11 12:21–28 12:24 13

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132 212 212, 213 212 212 212 212 212 76n37 95 209 208 214, 215 208 208–10, 213 209 212n18 209 209 175n21 209n10 210n12 28 138 215n23 215n23 215n23 53 28 67 33, 80 80 28, 49 67 46 168 168 11, 168–69, 170, 175, 177, 178, 181, 200, 204, 206, 214, 218

265

13:2 13:3 13:4 13:6 13:6–9 13:7 13:8–9 13:16 13:17 13:17–23 13:18 13:19 13:20 13:21 13:23

169 169 169 169 180 169 169 169 169, 178, 179 167, 168, 171 171, 172 180 173, 177, 206 173 169, 176, 180, 181 14:3 28 14:7 28 16:31–34 211n17 18:6 162n6 20:3 28 20:31 28 21 189 21:1 28 21:26 [Eng. 21:21] 189, 202 23:3, 8, 21 56 26:20 173n12 37:10 179 38:12 171 Hosea 1–4 210n12 1:2 165 1:3, 6, 8 165 2:3–6 [Eng. 2:1–4] 165 3:4 195 3:5 195 5:11 52 12:14 [Eng. 12:13] 89 Joel 1:15–2:11 184 2:12–27 184 3:1–2 [Eng. 2:28–29] 184–85

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Index of Ancient Texts

Joel (continued) 3:3–4 [Eng. 2:30–31] Amos 4:1 Micah 6:4 Nahum 3:4 3:5 Habakkuk 2:18–19 Zephaniah 3:10 Zechariah 10:2 Psalms 7:10 [Eng. 7:9] 20:8–9 [Eng. 20:7–8] 26:2 49:15 74:14 75:6 [Eng. 75:5] 75:11 [Eng. 75:10] 88:1 113:9 119:172 124:7 145:14 147:7 Proverbs 1–9

1:12 2:12–13 2:16–19 2:18–19 5–7 5:5 6:5 6:20–22 6:21–22 6:23–24, 26 6:24–26 6:26 7

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184 52 61n1, 79n46, 217n1 212, 213 212 199 46 189, 199 215n23 102 215n23 204 52 102 102 67n16 100 67n16 173n10 122n50 67n16 177, 203–08, 210, 213, 214, 215 206 206 177 204 203n1 177, 204 173n10 205 205 205 205 177, 204, 208n7 203–4n1, 206n4, 207

7:10–13 7:11 7:22–23 7:26–27 7:27 9 9:4 9:13 9:13–18 9:16 9:18 31:1 Job 29:16 Ecclesiastes 12:6 Esther 1:13 6:13 Daniel 1:17 2 2:2 2:12–19 2:45 4:6 4:30 5:1–16 Ezra 3:10–11 8:33 Nehemiah 2:10, 19 4:1–7 6:5–7 6:7 6:14 1 Chronicles 5:29 [Eng. 6:3] 10:13 10:13–14 13:3 25:1–6 2 Chronicles 2:6 [Eng. 2:7] 17:3 17:3–4

207 203n1 205, 207 206 177, 203n1 203–4n1 206 203n1 206 206 178, 203n1, 206 39n38 85n9 52 138n23 138n23 132 27, 71 132 132 222 27 175n18 27 67 187 186 186 186 186 186, 217n1 81 108 28, 129 28, 47 39n38 131 28 28

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Index of Ancient Texts 20:3–4 25:20 33:6–7 34:3 34:28 34:33 35:21 35:22 35:24

124n55 28 108 157 157n20 157 156 156, 158 156

New Testament Luke 1:46–55 Revelation 2:20–23

95 215

Qur’an 20:81 21:5 36:69 37:36–37 52:30 69:40–43

71–72 56–57n26 71n26 71n26 71n26 71n26 71n26

Rabbinic sources Midrash Exod. R. 1:13 80n47 Lev. R. 26:7 119n39, 120n46 Talmud Berakhot 31a 97n8 Megillah 14a 94, 102 Megillah 14b 94n2 Sot.ah 12b 80n47 Targum Jonathan on Hannah 94 Judg 5 84n4 Prophets (Tg. Neb.) 94n1 Pseudo-Jonathan on birth of Tamar’s twins 58n26 on Rebekah’s pregnancy 53n15 Mesopotamian sources Alandimmû II 87 55

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267

Atrahasis I 193, 250; III iii 33 136 “The Building of Ningirsu’s Temple,” li. 23–32, 43–50, and 93–100 12 Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets in British Museum CT 16 31:123f 208n7 CT 17 36 K.9272:9 208n7 The Descent of Ishtar, li. 4–10 174 “Dumuzi’s Dream” 13–15 li. 19–25 13 li. 24–25 136n12 li. 29 15 li. 42, 48–49, 67–69, 240–48 15–16 li. 205–15 15n18 Emar, texts from 170, 190 “Enmerkar and Ensuhgirana” 24n11 ˘ “Four Hymns to Gula” 136 Gilgamesh epic dreams and divination in 13–16 Penn Tablet (P) 15 and 37 13, 136 SBV Gilg VII 182–90 173–74 “A Hymn to Nanše [Nanše A],” li. 225 136 KAR 139 181n32 Maqlû I 68 207 I 110–11 207 I 181 207 II 15 207 II 172 207 III, 1–2 207, 211 Mari letters ARM 26 207 11, 29, 211 ARM 26 214 50

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Index of Ancient Texts

Mesopotamian sources—Mari letters (continued) ARM 26 227 50 ARM 26 229 50 ARM 26 232 51, 222 ARM 26 236 50 ARM 26 249 211 dreaming in 26n17, 222 nābû in 170n6 prophets’ speech in 72 Neo-Assyrian oracles female prophets in 11, 153 prose nature of most texts 72–73 SAA 9 1.6 72, 73n31 Nergal and Ereshkigal (Sultantepe version I) iii 1–5, 7 174 Nuzi, texts from 190 OB Lu-azlag A 356 106n3 B–C, Seg. 6, 3 106n3 Šumma izbu I1 56 I 5–8 54 I 63 55 I 83 55 I 83–131 55 II 7 54 II 19 55 IV 31–34 55 Ugaritic sources Aqhat Danil’s sacrifices in “The Duties of an Ideal Son” (CTA 17.1.26–34) ktrt KTU 1.17 I 36–37 KTU 1.17 II 24–40

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46n6

123n54 136n16, 137 137n18 137

KTU 1.17 II 41–42 “The Betrothal of Yarikh and Nikkal– Ib,” KTU 1.24 “A Birth,” KTU 1.11 Dagan stelae, KTU 6.13, 6.14 Kirta, KTU 1.16 V 25–28 rp’um texts

137n18

137 137n19 123n54 133n3 175

West Semitic inscriptions Deir ‘Alla texts 73 Ketef Hinnom I, li. 9–10 205 Ketef Hinnom II, li. 4–5 205 Panamuwa inscription, KAI 214 172n9 Zakkur stela 73 Hittite sources Bilingual Edict of Hattušili I ˘ Kessi, Late Version of KIN oracle KUB 1.16 + iii 65–69 Paskuwatti’s Ritual Against Sexual Impotence (CTH 406) Greek sources Aeschylus, Agamemnon, li. 1134 and 1209 Aristotle, Politics 1274a.28 Artemidorus, Interpretation of Dreams 2.69 Homer, Odyssey 11:207 11:222

135, 138n23 222 134–35n8 135n11

135n8

7 7

30 174 174

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Index of Ancient Texts 22:349 24:6–9 Josephus, Antiquities 6.14.4 Septuagint (LXX)

Y6621.indb 269

68n18 174 110–11 107n4, 122n50, 171, 187, 208n8

Sophocles, Oed. tyr. 709 Latin sources Augustine, City of God (Civ.) 17.4

269

7

95n4

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‫‪Index of Key Ancient Terms‬‬

‫‪Most words and phrases are listed in the forms in which they appear most‬‬ ‫‪frequently in the text and notes.‬‬ ‫‪24, 132‬‬ ‫‪24, 31, 105, 132‬‬ ‫‪104, 176, 178‬‬ ‫‪208–9‬‬ ‫‪31, 166, 193‬‬ ‫‪176‬‬ ‫‪31, 49, 108‬‬ ‫‪87, 169–71, 179‬‬ ‫‪27, 38, 61, 81, 82–83,‬‬ ‫‪86, 89–92, 99,‬‬ ‫‪148–49, 152,‬‬ ‫‪159–66, 169–70,‬‬ ‫‪186‬‬ ‫‪108, 167, 170–73,‬‬ ‫‪175–83, 204–7, 210‬‬ ‫‪67–68‬‬ ‫‪31, 208–10‬‬ ‫‪56–57‬‬ ‫‪46‬‬ ‫‪75, 81‬‬ ‫‪31, 106, 108, 110,‬‬ ‫‪114, 121, 132–33,‬‬ ‫‪168–69, 189‬‬ ‫‪177, 204, 206‬‬ ‫‪31, 50, 98, 108,‬‬ ‫‪115–16, 141, 189‬‬ ‫‪45, 125‬‬ ‫‪86–89‬‬ ‫‪172, 176, 204, 208‬‬

‫להטים‬ ‫מכשפה‪ ,‬מכשף‬ ‫ממית ומחיה‬ ‫מנאף‬ ‫מנחש‬ ‫מצפצף‬ ‫מתים‬ ‫מתנבאות‪ ,‬יתנבא‬ ‫נביאה‪ ,‬נביא‬

‫נפש‬ ‫ענה‬ ‫עננה‪ ,‬מעונן‬ ‫עשו ‪ִ and‬עשָּׂה‬ ‫עתר‬ ‫צרעת‪ ,‬מצרעת‬ ‫קסם‬ ‫רפאים‬ ‫שאל‬ ‫שמע בקלי‬ ‫שפט‪ ,‬משפט‬ ‫תצוד‪ ,‬לצודד‬

‫‪Hebrew‬‬ ‫‪31, 105–10, 112, 119,‬‬ ‫‪120, 132, 176, 190‬‬ ‫‪112, 119, 122, 177‬‬ ‫‪84–86, 142–43, 146‬‬ ‫‪86, 138, 145‬‬ ‫‪132‬‬ ‫‪105–7, 110, 117,‬‬ ‫‪130, 146, 154‬‬ ‫‪27, 106‬‬ ‫‪105–10, 117, 130,‬‬ ‫‪146, 154‬‬ ‫‪105, 212‬‬ ‫‪47, 108‬‬ ‫‪28, 31, 46–49, 53,‬‬ ‫‪86, 108, 115, 118,‬‬ ‫‪157, 166, 176‬‬ ‫‪176‬‬ ‫‪108, 165, 205, 208,‬‬ ‫‪211–12‬‬ ‫‪31, 105, 212‬‬ ‫‪31, 169, 189‬‬ ‫‪24, 131, 132–34, 141‬‬ ‫‪24, 131–32‬‬ ‫‪133‬‬ ‫‪31, 106–10, 132, 176‬‬ ‫‪171–72‬‬ ‫‪96–97, 101‬‬ ‫‪105, 212‬‬

‫אוב‬

‫‪, Samuel as‬אלהים‬ ‫אם בישראל‬ ‫אשה חכמה‬ ‫אשפים‬ ‫אשת בעלת‪-‬אוב‬ ‫בעל חלמות‬ ‫בעלת‪-‬אוב‬ ‫בעלת כשפים‬ ‫בקש‬ ‫דרש‬ ‫הגה‬ ‫זנה‬ ‫חבר‬ ‫חזה‬ ‫חכמים‬ ‫חרטמים‬ ‫חרשים‬ ‫ידעני‬ ‫כסתות‬ ‫כעס‬ ‫כשפים‬

‫‪270‬‬

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‫‪Y6621.indb 270‬‬

Index of Key Ancient Terms Aramaic

‫רב חרטמיא‬

27

Arabic ’āba ‘atara g´ašiya kuhhān

107 46 56 71

Ugaritic ktrt rp’um Akkadian āšipu barû, bārītu ēpiši, ēpišti eršu ilu kasû, kasītu, kīsu kaššāpi, kaššāpti kuzbu

Y6621.indb 271

136–37 174–75

214 10, 136 207 133, 136 119 171–72 207, 211 207

munabbiātu nābû s. âdu ša et.emmi ša’iltu šibtu šuttum

170–71 170–71 208 106, 110; 172 15 134 50–51

Sumerian LÚ GIDIM.MA umma

106, 110 134, 136

Hittite api hašawaš ˘MUNUS ŠU.GI

107 137 134–35, 137

Greek μαντικός πορνείας προφη˜ τις τέχνη

7 208, 215 215 7

271

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