Historical Settings, Intertextuality, and Biblical Theology: Essays in Honor of Marvin A. Sweeney 3161617908, 9783161617904, 9783161619809

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Forschungen zum Alten Testament Herausgegeben von

Konrad Schmid (Zürich) ∙ Mark S. Smith (Princeton) Andrew Teeter (Harvard)

160

Historical Settings, Intertextuality, and Biblical Theology Essays in Honor of Marvin A. Sweeney Edited by

Hyun Chul Paul Kim, Tyler D. Mayfield, and Hye Kyung Park

Mohr Siebeck

Hyun Chul Paul Kim, born 1965; 1998 PhD; since 1999 Harold B. Williams Professor of Hebrew Bible at Methodist Theological School in Ohio. Tyler D. Mayfield, born 1980; 2009 PhD; since 2012 A.B. Rhodes Professor of Old Testament at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Hye Kyung Park, born 1968; 2011 PhD; since 2013 Associate Professor for the Old Testament, Chang Jung Christian University, Taiwan.

ISBN 978-3-16-161790-4 / eISBN 978-3-16-161980-9 DOI 10.1628/978-3-16-161980-9 ISSN 0940-4155 / eISSN 2568-8359 (Forschungen zum Alten Testament) The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data are available at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2022 Mohr Siebeck Tübingen, Germany. www.mohrsiebeck.com This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that permitted by copyright law) without the publisher’s written permission. This applies particularly to reproductions, translations and storage and processing in electronic systems. The book was printed on non-aging paper by Gulde Druck in Tübingen, and bound by Buchbinderei Spinner in Ottersweier. Printed in Germany.

Preface The present volume was inspired by the successful healing and recovery of Marvin A. Sweeney over the course of the last decade. It was during the Claremont reception at the SBL annual meeting, sometime around midnight on the Monday evening, that several of us sat around and shared the idea of putting together a volume connecting the legacy of Hermann Gunkel to Marvin Sweeney. We duly set about gathering together a band of willing contributors in the field, and the project was launched. This volume, like many others, came to fruition thanks to countless people involved. Among the many, we express our heartfelt appreciation to President Kah-Jin Jeffrey Kuan at Claremont School of Theology for providing both generous funding and gracious encouragement for the volume. Superbly efficient guidance from Mohr Siebeck has been instrumental at every stage, and we offer our thanks to Katharina Gutekunst, Markus Kirchner, Elena Müller, Jana Trispel, and Henning Ziebritzki. We thank Duncan Burns for undertaking the copy-editing and typesetting of the manuscript. Our family members, colleagues, and institutions – Chang Jung Christian University in Taiwan (for Hye Kyung), Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary (for Tyler), and Methodist Theological School in Ohio (for Paul) – have provided indescribable support amid the hardships of the global pandemic that gripped us over recent years. This volume is essentially intended to put together unique voices and insights from various experts. At the same time, from historical-critical dissections to intertextual explications to theological (re-)readings, the essays presented here showcase how they can enrich one another and together contribute to moving current biblical scholarship forward. We hereby excitedly share the complete product, which we hope will testify to the comparable depth and breadth of Professor Sweeney’s own scholarly works, in celebration of his seventieth birthday and anticipation of continuous works in many more years to come. Hye Kyung, Tyler, and Paul

Table of Contents Preface .......................................................................................................... V Abbreviations ................................................................................................ X Introduction ................................................................................................... 1

Part 1. Historical Setting Christoph Levin The Many and the One: Integrative Monotheism in Ancient Israel .....................................................13 David L. Petersen The Priestly Portrayal of Jacob in Genesis ....................................................35 Jeffrey Stackert On the Relation Between Textual Criticism and Source Criticism in the Pentateuch ..........................................................................................43 W. A. M. Beuken The Rhetoric of Hosea 1–2: An Agrarian Worldview Engaged in the Transmission of Prophetic Heritage....................................................................................61 Brent A. Strawn Vocatio Interrupta: Jonah’s Call, Jonah’s Silence, and Form Criticism .......................................77 Bob Becking “Jerusalem Will Become a Heap of Ruins”: On the Ancient Near Eastern Background of an Image for Devastation in Micah 3:12 ......................................................................95 Peter Machinist The Dialogue of Pessimism Revisited ........................................................ 105

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Contents

Part 2. Intertextuality Stephen L. Cook Merciful and Wrathful? Innerbiblical Interpretation of Exodus 34:6–7 ............................................ 131 Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer In Search of Jonathan: The Curious Case of the Missing Prince in Modern Filmic Retellings of the David Narrative ................................................................................ 149 Margaret S. Odell The Abominable Image: Gillȗlȋm and the Theopolitical Roots of Idolatry in Ezekiel ........................ 165 Koog P. Hong Seeing Manasseh in the Servant’s Marred Face: A Radical Intertextual Reading of Isaiah 53 ............................................... 181 Dalit Rom-Shiloni Two Prophecies in Ezekiel (14:1–11; 24:6–8) and One Source Text (Leviticus 17): Notes on Intertextuality and Creative Interactions ...................................... 195 James D. Nogalski Haggai 2:17, 19: Variations on a Theme................................................................................ 213 Steven S. Tuell Exploded Riddles and Inverted Metaphors: Subverting Tradition in Ezekiel and Zechariah ........................................... 227

Part 3. Biblical Theology Tamar Frankiel Shall the Judge of All the Earth Not Do Justice? ........................................ 241 Mark E. Biddle “Shall the Judge of All the Earth Not Do What Is Just?” (Gen 18:25): Theodicy and the Book of Jeremiah............................................................ 255

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Emmanuel Ukaegbu-Onuoha Hagar’s Life Matters: Reading Hagar’s Story (Gen. 16:1-16; 21:9-21) with the Lenses of Shawn Copeland’s Theological Anthropology Model and Its Implications for Black Bodies ......................................................... 271 Louis Stulman Writing to Survive: The Voice Returns in Jeremiah’s Subversive Sefer ..................................... 285 Konrad Schmid Orientalism and the Hebrew Bible: How the History of Science Dealt with the Historical Origins of the Idea of Laws of Nature ..................................................................... 303 Corrine Carvalho “Unless You Have Utterly Rejected Us”: Trauma, Poetry, and Theology in Lamentations ......................................... 315 Mariko Yakiyama Pauline Understanding of “the Day of the Lord” in Relation to “the Day of YHWH” in the Book of Zephaniah.................... 331 List of Contributors .................................................................................... 345 Bibliography............................................................................................... 347 Index of References .................................................................................... 381 Index of Modern Authors ........................................................................... 405

Abbreviations AAWG.PK AB ABIG ABRL AEL AfO AHw AIL ANET AOAT ASOR ASV ATANT ATD AYB BA BBB BBR BBRSup BETL BHQ BHS Bib BibB BibInt BibInt BibOr BJS BJSUCSD BM BSac BSNA BT BTAT BTCB BWANT BZ BZAW

Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen. Phil.Hist. Anchor Bible Arbeiten zur Bibel und ihrer Geschichte Anchor Bible Reference Library Ancient Egyptian Literature Archiv für Orientforschung Akkadisches Handwörterbuch. Wolfram von Soden. 3 vols. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1965–81 Ancient Israel and Its Literature Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament. Edited by James B. Pritchard. 3rd ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969 Alter Orient und Altes Testament American Schools of Oriental Research American Standard Version Abhandlungen zur Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments Das Alte Testament Deutsch Anchor Yale Bible Biblical Archaeologist Bonner biblische Beiträge Bulletin for Biblical Research Bulletin for Biblical Research Supplemental Series Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium Biblia Hebraica Quinta Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. Edited by Karl Elliger and Wilhelm Rudolph. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1983 Biblica Biblische Beiträge Biblical Interpretation Biblical Interpretation Series Biblica et Orientalia Brown Judaic Studies Biblical and Judaic Studies from the University of California, San Diego British Museum Bibliotheca Sacra Biblical Scholarship in North America The Bible Translator Beiträge zur Theologie des Alten Testaments Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible Beiträge zur Wissenschaft vom Alten und Neuen Testament Biblische Zeitschrift Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

Abbreviations CAD

CahRB CBOT CBQ CC CEB ConBOT COS CT CTN CurBR DCH DDD

DHI DMOA DtrH EI EKKNT ETL EvT ExpTim FAT FCB FOTL FRLANT GAG3 GPBS GKC HAE HALOT

HAR HBM HBT HCOT HeBAI HKAT HSM

XI

The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. 26 vols. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1956–2006 Cahiers de la Revue biblique Coniectanea Biblica Old Testament Series Catholic Biblical Quarterly Continental Commentary Common English Bible Coniectanea Biblica: Old Testament Series The Context of Scripture. Edited by William W. Hallo. 3 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1997–2002 Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum Cuneiform Texts from Nimrud Currents in Biblical Research Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. Edited by David J. A. Clines. 9 vols. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 1993–2014 Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible. Edited by Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. van der Horst. Leiden: Brill, 1995. 2nd rev. ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999 The Dictionary of the History of Ideas Documenta et Monumenta Orientis Antiqui Deuteronomistic History Erets Israel Evangelisch-katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses Evangelische Theologie Expository Times Forschungen zum Alten Testament Feminist Companion to the Bible Forms of the Old Testament Literature Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments Grundriss der akkadischen Grammatik. Wolfram von Soden. 3rd ed. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1995 Global Perspectives on Biblical Scholarship Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar. Edited by Emil Kautzsch. Translated by Arthur E. Cowley. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon, 1910 Handbuch der althebräischen Epigraphik The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Ludwig Koehler, Walter Baumgartner, and Johann J. Stamm. Translated and edited under the supervision of Mervyn E. J. Richardson. 4 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1994–99 Hebrew Annual Review Hebrew Bible Monographs Horizons in Biblical Theology Historical Commentary on the Old Testament Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel Handkommentar zum Alten Testament Harvard Semitic Monographs

XII HSS HThKAT HUCA HUCASup IBC IBHS IBT ICC IDB Int IRT ISV IVBS JAJ JANES JANESCU JAOS JBL JBQ JCS JHebs JJS JNES JRitSt JSOT JSOTSup JSJ JSJSup JSS JTS JTSA KAI KAR KAT KEH KHC KJV KTA LAI LCBI LCL LHBOTS LXX

Abbreviations Harvard Semitic Studies Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Alten Testament Hebrew Union College Annual Hebrew Union College Annual Supplemental Series Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax. Bruce K. Waltke and Michael O’Connor. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990 Interpreting Biblical Texts International Critical Commentary The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Edited by George A. Buttrick. 4 vols. New York: Abingdon, 1962 Interpretation Issues in Religion and Theology International Standard Version International Voices in Biblical Studies Journal of Ancient Judaism Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society of Columbia University Journal of the American Oriental Society Journal of Biblical Literature Jewish Biblical Quarterly Journal of Cuneiform Studies Journal of Hebrew Scriptures Journal of Jewish Studies Journal of Near Eastern Studies Journal of Ritual Studies Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplemental Series Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman Periods Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman Periods Supplemental Series Journal of Semitic Studies Journal of Theological Studies Journal of Theology for Southern Africa Kanaanäische und aramäische Inschriften. Herbert Donner and Wolfgang Röllig. 2nd ed. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1966–69 Keilschrifttexte aus Assur religiösen Inhalts. Edited by Erich Ebeling. Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1919–23 Kommentar zum Alten Testament Kurzgefasstes exegetisches Handbuch zum Alten Testament Kurzer Hand-Commentar zum Alten Testament King James Version Kröners Taschenausgabe Library of Ancient Israel Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation Loeb Classical Library The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies The Septuagint

Abbreviations MDP MT MVVEG MVAG NABR NASB NCBC NET NIBC NICOT NIGTC NIV NIVAC NJB NJPS NLT NRSV OAN OBO OIS OrAnt OTE OTL OTM OTR OTS OtSt PAPS PMRGEABS POT PRSt PTMS RBS REB RevExp RPT RRCMS RSV RTOT SAA SAN SANE SANT SB SBLDS SBLMS

XIII

Mémoires de la Délégation en Perse The Masoretic Text Mededelingen en Verhandelingen van het Vooraziatisch-Egyptisch Genootschap “Ex Oriente Lux” Mitteilungen der Vorderasiatisch-ägyptischen Gesellschaft New American Bible, Revised Edition New American Standard Bible New Century Bible Commentary New English Translation New International Biblical Commentary New International Commentary on the Old Testament New International Greek Testament Commentary New International Version NIV Application Commentary New Jerusalem Bible Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures: The New JPS Translation according to the Traditional Hebrew Text New Living Translation New Revised Standard Version Oracles Against/About the Nations Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis Oriental Institute Seminars Oriens Antiquus Old Testament Essays Old Testament Library Oxford Theological Monographs Old Testament Readings Old Testament Studies Oudtestamentische Studiën Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society Proceedings of the Metaphor Research Group of the European Association of Biblical Studies in Lincoln De Prediking van het Oude Testament Perspectives in Religious Studies Princeton Theological Monograph Series Resources for Biblical Study Revised English Bible Review and Expositor Religion in Philosophy and Theology Routledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies Revised Standard Version Reading the Old Testament State Archives of Assyria Studia Aarhusiana Neotestamentica Sources from the Ancient Near East Studien zum Alten und Neuen Testaments Sources bibliques Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series

XIV SBLSymS SBS SBTS SCS SEL SemeiaSt SHBC Siphrut SJLA SMRSHLL SOTI SOTSMS SP SS SSN StBibLit STDJ STJ STS STW SubBi SVMCS SVSK.HF SWBAS TAD TC TCBAI TDNT

TDOT

ThWAT TJT TNK TSAJ TVZ VT VTSup WBBC WBC WMANT WW YNER YOS YSJMRC ZAW

Abbreviations Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series Suttgarter Bibelstudien Sources for Biblical and Theological Studies Septuagint and Cognate Studies Studi epigrafici e linguistici sul Vicino Oriente antico Semeia Studies Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary Siphrut: Literature and Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity Scripta Minora Regiae Societatis Humaniorum Litterarum Lundensis Studies in Old Testament Interpretation Society for Old Testament Studies Monograph Series Samaritan Pentateuch Studia Samaritana Studia Semitica Neerlandica Studies in Biblical Literature (Lang) Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah Studia Judaica Science and Technology Studies Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft Subsidia Biblica Studies in Violence, Mimesis, and Culture Series Skrifter Videnskapseelskapet.Historisk-Filosofisk Klasse Social World of Biblical Antiquity Series Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism Transactions of the Casco Bay Assyriological Institute Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Edited by Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich. Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley. 10 vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964–1976 Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. Edited by G. Johannes Botterweck and Helmer Ringgren. Translated by John T. Willis et al. 8 vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974–2006 Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Alten Testament. Edited by G. Johannes Botterweck and Helmer Ringgren. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1970– Toronto Journal of Theology (see NJPS) Texte und Studien zum antiken Judentum Theologischer Verlag Zurich Vetus Testamentum Supplements to Vetus Testamentum Wiley-Blackwell Bible Commentaries Word Biblical Commentary Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament Word and World Yale Near Eastern Researches Yale Oriental Series, Babylonian Texts Yuval: Studies of the Jewish Music Research Centre Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

Abbreviations ZDMG ZDPV ZNW ZTK

Zeitschriften der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft Zeitschrift des deutschen Palästina-Vereins Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche

XV

Introduction The legacy of Hermann Gunkel cannot be underestimated in biblical scholarship, even after more than a century. Under his influence, Gerhard von Rad’s form-critical acumen, Sigmund Mowinckel’s psalmic liturgical setting, and Claus Westermann’s biblical theological hermeneutics have paved significant terrains. The marquee successors of von Rad’s, such as Rolf Rendtorff, Erhard Gerstenberger, Klaus Koch, Hans Walter Wolf, Wolfhart Pannenberg, and many more, have embraced and metamorphosed form-critical scholarship into various methods. Rolf P. Knierim, as one of von Rad’s pupils, has made invaluable contributions not only in sharpening form-critical approaches but also bridging academic interchanges between the European continent and North America, as his transition from Heidelberg to Claremont illustrated. Marvin A. Sweeney has championed carrying such vital and generative legacies from Gunkel to von Rad to Knierim. Sweeney’s impact, however, goes beyond form criticism. As a devout Jew who took courses at one of the historic Protestant institutions, Princeton Theological Seminary, Sweeney opted to undertake a doctoral program at another Protestant one, Claremont, under a Doktorvater of German descent! Sweeney’s interreligious passion, including Jewish–Christian collaborations, has thus been testified by his own life, more than bountiful writings. Like his own Christian teachers, including David Petersen for his first undergrad biblical course at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Sweeney has taught, mentored, and inspired numerous Christian, alongside Jewish, students. Thus, it is no surprise that Sweeney is respected as a preeminent scholar and a gracious colleague and caring teacher by many scholars, Jewish and Christian alike. Sweeney’s exceptional mentorship and genuine friendship have further encompassed the differences of gender and race, as can be acknowledged by the diversity of the present volume’s editors and authors. This volume both takes up the legacy of Hermann Gunkel and honors Marvin Sweeney by addressing three central themes in biblical scholarship: historical settings, intertextuality, and biblical theology.

1. Historical Settings This section traces and reassesses the multifaceted aspects relevant to the historical settings of the ancient texts, writers, and worlds. As the FOTL

2

Introduction

(Forms of the Old Testament Literature) commentary series, including Sweeney’s Isaiah 1–39 and Isaiah 40–66 volumes, 1 illustrates, historical settings entail diverse dimensions: not only the form-critical elements of genres, structures, settings (whether Sitz im Leben or Sitz im Buch), and concept but also the intertwined reconstructing methods, including textual criticism, source criticism, form criticism, redaction criticism, tradition history, archaeology, ancient Near Eastern texts, history of religion,2 rhetorical criticism, and sociological criticism. Marvin Sweeney’s scholarship has been foregrounded in this subfield, even as he innovatively advanced it into deeper and broader branches, such as Isaiah 1–4 and the Post-Exilic Understanding of the Isaianic Tradition, King Josiah of Judah: The Lost Messiah of Israel, as well as The Twelve Prophets, Zephaniah, 1 & 2 Kings, and Ezekiel commentaries, plus countless articles on these approaches.3 The first contribution to Part 1, Christoph Levin’s piece, “The Many and the One: Integrative Monotheism in Ancient Israel,” seeks to demonstrate integrative monotheism in ancient Israel. It is not easy to discern between polytheism and monotheism in religions. Polytheism is deeply related to form a unity, while monotheism cannot avoid the many facets of the one God. Levin emphasizes the exclusive monotheism of the Israelites in the later time of the Second Temple period rather than earlier times. His interest lies in determining the religious diversity of the names of the divine and integrative monotheism in ancient Israel and Judah. He specifically insists on integrative monotheism in the Yahwist’s history. He argues for multiple forms of the divine in the Yahwist’s narratives, such as the three visitors to Abraham (Gen 18:1–6), Jacob’s struggle at the brook Jabbok (Gen 32:23–33), the story of Balak and Balaam (Num 22–24), angel’s ascending and descending at Bethel (Gen 28:11–19), the burning bush story of Moses (Exod 3:1–5) and more. Levin also points out the integrative tendency of the divine characters of

1 Marvin A. Sweeney, Isaiah 1–39, with an Introduction to Prophetic Literature, FOTL 16 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996); idem, Isaiah 40–66, FOTL 19 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016). 2 Hermann Gunkel, Creation and Chaos in the Primeval Era and the Eschaton: A Religio-Historical Study of Genesis 1 and Revelation 12, trans. K. William Whitney (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006 [1895]). See also Chris L. de Wet, “On Comparability: Critical Evaluation of Comparative ‘Background’ Studies between Biblical and Contemporary Southern African Contexts,” Religion & Theology 22 (2015): 53. 3 Marvin A. Sweeney, Isaiah 1–4 and the Post-Exilic Understanding of the Isaianic Tradition, BZAW 171 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1988); The Twelve Prophets, 2 vols., Berit Olam (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000); King Josiah of Judah: The Lost Messiah of Israel (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001); Zephaniah, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003); 1 & 2 Kings: A Commentary, OTL (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2007); Reading Ezekiel: A Literary and Theological Commentary, RTOT (Macon: Smyth & Helwys, 2013).

Introduction

3

the myth in Egypt and Mesopotamia. His paper opens up the horizon of religious dialogue regarding the integrative and multiple forms of the divine, for example, the Trimurti of supreme divinity in Hinduism. David L. Petersen, in “The Priestly Portrayal of Jacob in Genesis,” dissects and expounds the priestly redaction (P) in the Jacob narrative (Gen 25:19– 37:1). This study first notes five common features between Gen 28 and Gen 35, as both of these texts together envelope the two divine encounter episodes (Gen 28:10–22; 32:22–32) and Jacob’s sojourn with Laban (Gen 29–31). Then, analyzing the complex ways these two framing texts allude to Gen 17, Petersen delineates unique priestly overtones, such as the genealogy, royal descendants of Jacob, and the like. In reapplication of the pre-priestly texts, P adumbrates the thematic continuity between Abraham and Jacob, while underscoring polemic against Bethel. Likewise, the priestly editorship in Gen 27:46–28:9, inserted prior to the pre-priestly version resuming in Gen 28:10, presents its more significant emphasis on Jacob as an obedient son instead of a trickster (cf. Hos 12), as well as his endogamous marriage. Jeffrey Stackert’s essay, “On the Relation Between Textual Criticism and Source Criticism in the Pentateuch,” demonstrates the need for the study of non-Masoretic witnesses of the Pentateuch in the source-critical work of the Documentary Hypothesis. He examines several case studies in Exodus to argue that source-critical evidence “mutually informs” text critical analyses. In these cases, the non-Masoretic witnesses provide critical information at the seams between source materials such as J and E. Stackert also proposes that some of these textual variants occur as scribes clarify and harmonize texts at the places where originally independent sources have been interconnected. W. A. M. Beuken, in the essay, “The Rhetoric of Hosea 1–2: An Agrarian Worldview Engaged in the Transmission of Prophetic Heritage,” juxtaposes the communicative patterns of the marriage metaphor with the conceptualities of agrarian reading. The initial literary analysis observes how four constitutive passages (Hos 1:2–9; 2:1–3; 2:4–17; 2:18–25) construct an integral composition and message even given their divergent literary genres. An agrarian analysis then adds an essential lens in that these texts are connected by the territorial term ‫ארץ‬, “land/earth,” in Hos 1–2. Thus, the fates of Israel and Judah inherently link to the “land,” as the children’s names are associated with both territory and people. The “land” in Hos 1:1 alludes to war and desolation of the people, while in Hos 2:2 it signifies the people’s recovery and reunion, together underscoring YHWH as the source of their life in the “land.” Similarly, the marriage metaphor intertwines with Israel’s wilderness wandering and entry into the “land.” Accordingly, the agrarian concept of eventual restoration in the “land” merges with the theme of salvation history, highlighting the people’s life in the “land” under God’s protection.

4

Introduction

Brent Strawn’s essay, “Vocatio Interrupta: Jonah’s Call, Jonah’s Silence, and Form Criticism,” argues that Jonah 1 and 3 use and ironically break the literary conventions of a prophetic call form for literary and theological purposes. Using Habel’s delineation of the prophetic call, Strawn notes that the first two verses of Jonah 1 follow the typical pattern; then, the pattern is broken after the divine commission so that no verbal objection, divine reassurance, or sign is given. In Jonah 3, the pattern is interrupted again at the same point. Ultimately, the essay argues that this interruption affects the presentation of the prophet since Jonah attempts to escape the divine call. Further, what seems to be obedience by Jonah in 3:3 may not be so. Bob Becking’s study, “‘Jerusalem Will Become a Heap of Ruins’: On the Ancient Near Eastern Background of an Image for Devastation in Micah 3:12,” explores a single verse in a Mican prophecy of doom, focusing on the motif of turning a city into a ruin. Becking highlights the presence of this theme in Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions and argues that the heap of ruins language represents divine, catastrophic punishment for disobedience. The author(s) of Micah adopts this concept – God punishing God’s rebellious people – and threatens Jerusalem’s elite with this fate. In his “The Dialogue of Pessimism Revisited,” Peter Machinist introduces a thoroughgoing and updated study on the structure and meaning of the Akkadian wisdom composition generally known as “The Dialogue of/on Pessimism.” A fresh translation of the text (of the fuller Assyrian version instead of the Babylonian version) is followed by detailed notes and expositions. Machinist then expounds on the complex yet intricate structure. Underneath the ten stanzas of the dialogues between the master and his servant, there are five groups in pairs, each pair containing thematic opposition: for example, “going out to the palace” (stanza I) vs. “staying home to dine (stanza II), “committing a crime: breaking up human relations” (stanza V) vs. “loving a woman: binding human relations” (stanza VI), and so on. While the logical progression concerning the organization is debated, Machinist further elucidates the movement from the public to the domicile affairs, toward the climactic group 5 (stanzas IX and X) – which not only extends from individuals and families to the entire country but ultimately withdraws to ambiguity in the servant’s undermining the master’s command. This abrupt breakdown of the progression is deliberate and coherent – as humor leaning toward satire – and reveals the servant as the real master.

2. Intertextuality Part 2 of the volume describes comparative analysis of biblical literature that people can interpret with inner-biblical or non-biblical texts. Intertextual characters in various texts appear if readers consider that the texts already

Introduction

5

contain multiple perspectives. The scholarly method of intertextuality impacts the study of biblical theology and scholars seeking semantic enhancement to improve textual meanings. It also encourages the readers of the biblical texts to deepen the relationship between biblical texts and their contexts by relying on a synchronic approach. Sweeney’s work in biblical intertextuality is highlighted primarily in two monographs published in 2010 and 2014, respectively.4 He emphasizes the intertextual debates in the Pentateuch, Deuteronomistic History, prophetic literature, apocalyptic literature, Qumran texts, and Midrashic literature. Sweeney is concerned principally with the intertextual relationships between prophetic literature and biblical or non-biblical texts for Jews and Christians. The first contribution in this section, Stephen L. Cook’s “Merciful and Wrathful? Innerbiblical Interpretation of Exodus 34:6–7,” explores the compact, theological formulation of these two verses in Exodus. He argues for a new rhetorical structure of the passage, divided into four two- and threepart lines, and the interpretive effects of this structure. Cook also explores the placement of these verses after Israel’s bull apostasy as the covenant relationship is at risk. Finally, the essay concludes with a treatment of how these verses are taken up in later biblical texts. Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer’s essay, “In Search of Jonathan: The Curious Case of the Missing Prince in Modern Filmic Retellings of the David Narrative,” investigates the essential yet disregarded character “Jonathan” through reception history in films and TV series. Over against the usual spotlights highlighting David’s heroics or Saul’s rivalry, Tiemeyer’s study focuses more fully on Jonathan with respect to gender, loyalty, friendship, love, and more. Between David and Jonathan, the inconsistent depictions of Jonathan regarding camaraderie or enmity in film dramatizations relegate Jonathan as a foil to portray David as the rightful throne successor. Between Bathsheba and Jonathan, unlike the explicit descriptions of Bathsheba’s sexuality, Jonathan’s gender role frequently becomes ambiguous and incoherent, which Tiemeyer takes as evidence for Jonathan’s love, more than loyalty or friendship. The study by Margaret S. Odell, “The Abominable Image: ‫ גלולים‬and the Theopolitical Roots of Idolatry in Ezekiel,” draws the intertextual relationship between biblical texts and Near Eastern context regarding the Hebrew term, ‫גלולים‬, which is possibly translated idols in English. She focuses on the meanings of this term in the book of Ezekiel. ‫ גלולים‬could be understood not only in cultic but also in political and social vassalage relationship between Judah and Mesopotamia. Odell demonstrates how the term ‫ גלולים‬shifted 4

Marvin A. Sweeney, Form and Intertextuality in Prophetic and Apocalyptic Literature, FAT 45 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005; repr. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2010); Reading Prophetic Books: Form, Intertextuality, and Reception in Prophetic and Post-biblical Literature, FAT 89 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014).

6

Introduction

from the royal image (ṣalmu), a feature of Mesopotamian royal iconography for absolute allegiance. She also points out the theopolitical nature of Josiah’s reforms from the social-historic perspectives. Ezekiel also has the iconographic function within theopolitical context regarding the association of the ‫ גלולים‬with punishments for Judah’s breaking of a covenant with Babylon. In addition, Odell demonstrates that the term ‫ גלולים‬etymologically originated from stone for engraving without the cultic understanding, but it can indicate royal agency around the Ezekiel period of ancient Mesopotamia. She emphasizes royal images of ṣalmu in imperial landscapes throughout Assyrian palaces. The image was to extend the king’s presence and legitimize his rule to be found everywhere. Odell also presents the ‫ גלולים‬term as a symbol of Israel’s inner shame in Ezekiel for political security, and she suggests a contemporary application of the term for broken politics today. Koog P. Hong presents a radical reader-oriented intertextual reading between Manasseh of DtrH and the Suffering Servant of Isa 53 through René Girard’s “scapegoat mechanism” in the essay, “Seeing Manasseh in the Servant’s Marred Face: A Radical Intertextual Reading of Isaiah 53.” Hong notes the prevalent “us” vs. “them” dynamics even extant in the Hebrew Bible, linked to the rituals of Lev 16, victimizing the “other” as the unclean, unchosen, or chaotic. In the community’s tendency to create a scapegoat amid calamity, Dtr opted to victimize Manasseh. By the same token, the servant’s deformity and victimization can be attributed to the same dynamics of social exclusion and scapegoating. As deification of the victim and divinization of the servant merge together between lynching mob and scapegoated victim, far more than the (individual or collective) identity of the servant, Hong opines that the singer of Isa 53 is singing a requiem for all victims who suffered for many. Amid the rampant hate culture, this analysis warns “us” against indiscriminately villainizing “others”; even within the Hebrew Bible, the Chronicler sought to restore the personhood of Manasseh, whose face Dtr abjectly erased. Dalit Rom-Shiloni’s study, “Two Prophecies in Ezekiel (14:1–11; 24:6–8) and One Source Text (Leviticus 17): Notes on Intertextuality and Creative Interactions,” argues that Ezek 14 and 24 uses the text of Lev 17 but in differing ways. In Ezek 14, the structural framework and legal style of Lev 17 are used, but the content is different. In Ezek 24, the prophet manipulates the theme of Lev 17. These uses of Pentateuchal materials demonstrate Ezekiel’s willingness to utilize the same priestly text within different passages for different purposes. James D. Nogalski’s contribution, “Haggai 2:17, 19: Variations on a Theme,” examines two allusions to other prophetic texts within Hag 2. Haggai 2:17, which is probably a later insertion, adapts Amos 4:9, while Hag 2:19, which is syntactically awkward, draws upon Joel 1–2. Why refer to these earlier prophetic passages? These two allusions describe the change in

Introduction

7

the fertility of the land, a theme within the Book of the Twelve, and demonstrate a contrast between the positive response of the people in Haggai and the negative responses of Israel earlier in Amos and Joel. Steven Tuell’s essay, “Exploded Riddles and Inverted Metaphors: Subverting Tradition in Ezekiel and Zechariah,” examines the use of Ezekiel in the later book of Zechariah. Tuell argues that the editors of Zechariah use metaphors and images from Ezekiel but twist them to create new meanings. He considers the cooking pot metaphor in Ezek 11 and 24, which is subverted in Zech 12, and the image of the smelting furnace in Ezek 22, which is inverted in Zech 13.

3. Biblical Theology The final section of this volume highlights theological approaches to the Hebrew Bible, addressing the themes of Jewish theology, justice, theophany, loss, and trauma. These diverse contributions confront significant ethical and theological challenges within the biblical text. Marvin Sweeney’s interest in this subfield is found, for example, in his publications regarding Jewish Biblical Theology, including Reading the Hebrew Bible after the Shoah and Tanakh: A Theological and Critical Introduction to the Jewish Bible. Both of these books take up the task of reading the Hebrew Bible as a Jewish biblical theologian in a post-Shoah world. In addition, they view the Hebrew Bible as addressing critical questions of theodicy, i.e., God’s involvement in and relationship with evil, suffering, loss, and pain. The first contribution to Part 3, “Shall the Judge of All the Earth Not Do Justice?” by Tamar Frankiel deals with theodicy in biblical narratives and Jewish traditions. Frankiel begins with the issue of divine justice in the narratives related to righteousness and justice in Genesis. She focuses on the paradigms and paradoxes in the narratives of Abraham’s family and Moses. Frankiel emphasizes God’s partnerships with humans and dimensions of justice. Her paper invites us to consider that theodicy is basically related to theism, which describes the meaning of God. God’s character and divine purposes can exceed the definition of ethics from a human perspective. Mark Biddle’s study, “‘Shall the Judge of All the Earth Not Do What Is Just?’ (Gen 18:25): Theodicy and the Book of Jeremiah,” examines innerbiblical dialogue in the book of Jeremiah related to the theodicy discourse that Marvin A. Sweeney often discusses in his studies and teaching and particularly in his monograph, Reading the Hebrew Bible after the Shoah. Biddle demonstrates the multiplicity of Jeremiah’s voices regarding YHWH’s theodicy relative to the guilty or innocent. Likewise, Abraham pleads with YHWH for Sodom to save the righteous in Gen 18. The theological understanding of theodicy widens the oracle of Jeremiah. Judah was punished

8

Introduction

because of all the guilt of Jeremiah’s audience in Jer 2–10. One notably recognizes a Jeremian theodicy in the voice of the oracles against Babylon (Jer 50–51). Biddle points out that even though YHWH continued to send warnings to Judea, their obstinate inability to recognize the alert caused the punishment. His study raises the question of how all can be the common targets of YHWH’s judgment. Meanwhile, the standard question of the innocent remains to be discussed in the theodicy discourse. Emmanuel Ukaegbu-Onuoha in his piece, “Hagar’s Life Matters: Reading Hagar’s Story (Gen 16:1–16; 21:9–21) with the Lenses of Shawn Copeland’s Theological Anthropology Model and Its Implications for Black Bodies,” interprets Hagar’s stories (16:1–16; 21:9–21) from M. Shawn Copeland’s anthropological approach to Black theology for today’s issue of Black Lives Matter. Previous philosophers – Hume, Kant, or Hegel – viewed the bodies of Black people as “ugly, inferior, unintelligent, worthless except as property, instruments of production, breeding/reproduction, and sexual violence” that objectified the human body. Ukaegbu-Onuoha agrees with Copeland who insists on the body as subject. Hagar’s role is to build up the matriarch of the “Hagarites” since her subject position could be found in a tenacious survival status. She becomes a historical subject. Her narratives metaphorically induce such issues as liberation, freedom, human rights, or justice. Ukaegbu-Onuoha draws the parallels of human rights advocacy between Hagar’s narratives in the Bible and Black Lives Matter in recent years towards the discourse of a life as subjectivity. He insists that Hagar is a symbol of resistance because she refused to be treated as property in slavery laws and became a champion of rights. Likewise, African American female bodies crave for freedom and liberation for themselves and their future generations. Louis Stulman highlights biblical voices that “testify to a God who resides on the margins with the wounded and the defeated,” in his paper titled, “Writing to Survive: The Voice Returns in Jeremiah’s Subversive Sefer.” He points to the book of Jeremiah as a testimony of loss throughout his lament oracle in the history of trauma, not that of triumph. Stulman also describes the book as the meaning-making literature of the disasters of the Israelites instead of an artifact of memory. He insists that, unlike other prophets, Jeremiah used writing as a survival stratagem during serious moments of the prophet’s life and the difficult history of Judah. According to Stulman, “Although Jeremiah’s prophetic mission fails and his oracle speech is largely rejected, the written world, the sefer, persists as a resilient witness of God’s faithfulness to the ill-treated prophet and his war-torn community.” Stulman exemplifies Jeremiah’s strategic usage of sefer in six places: Jer 25:1–14; 29:1–32, 30–31; 36:1–32; 45:1–5; and 51:59–64. For example, sefer confirms hope from the divine words to Jeremiah (30:1). Sefer functions as creation, recitation, rejection, and recreation of scrolls or the word of God (36:2). Stulman moreover points out that sefer texts in both the MT and the Greek of

Introduction

9

Jeremiah, and its Hebrew Vorlagen, suggest “a sustained interest in the conversion of spoken prophecy to written prophecy, and perhaps a shift from prophetic to scribal authority.” Konrad Schmid in his “Orientalism and the Hebrew Bible: How the History of Science Dealt with the Historical Origins of the Idea of Laws of Nature” aims to unravel how the history of science dealt with the historical origins of the idea of laws of nature in the ancient Near East and Israel. The laws of nature were previously and commonly treated as the discourse of Greek philosophy; however, Schmid argues that the idea of a legal organization of natural laws in ancient time was a product of the Babylonian and ancient Israelites. He begins with Edgar Zilsel’s research on the concept of natural laws in the pre-Greek history. Zilsel demonstrates that God determines natural laws in Job 28:25–26; 26:10; 38:10, 11; Ps 104:9; Prov 8:29; and Jer 5:22. According to Schmid, Zilsel lacks the history of science. He points out legal language to cosmic phenomena in Jer 31:35–36; 33:25–26; 38:12, 33; Ps 148:3–6. He also insists on natural and cosmic laws in Mesopotamia texts. He points out the ordering of celestial, Marduk’s supremacy over the divine word, and regularity of the celestial movements as Marduk’s legislative design. Schmid suggests the concept of the natural laws in Mesopotamia and ancient Israel was not normative, but descriptive. Corrine Carvalho, in her “‘Unless You Have Utterly Rejected Us’: Trauma, Poetry, and Theology in Lamentations,” reconceives the ritual functions of Lamentations in light of the ancient Near East and its relevance in today’s world. After reviewing pertinent Sumerian liturgical laments, which had their esoteric origins by and for the male elites, Carvalho posits that they may have had public performative aspects as well. Comparatively, the poems of Lamentations ought not to be inspected merely as ancient artifacts, but instead can evoke communal memoirs of trauma and reenactments of outrage. Such voices that expose evil and subvert hegemony can be heard from those oppressed and assaulted even in today’s United States. Mariko Yakiyama’s essay, “Pauline Understanding of ‘the Day of the Lord’ in Relation to ‘the Day of YHWH’ in the Book of Zephaniah,” compares and contrasts 1 and 2 Thessalonians and presents a thesis that rather than the imminence of parousia during the lifetime of the apostle Paul, “the day of the Lord” essentially emphasizes the importance of how to live faithfully in the present world. In this analysis, Yakiyama argues that the intertextual and thematic relationships between 1 Thessalonians (with its focus on salvation) and 2 Thessalonians (on judgment) mirror those between Isaiah and the Twelve Prophets, as the latter relations have been elucidated by Marvin Sweeney. Likewise, the day of the Lord in the LXX, especially Zephaniah, urges repentance and calls to worship with renewed faith in God’s sovereignty, which subsequently influenced Paul’s theology.

Part 1. Historical Settings

The Many and the One Integrative Monotheism in Ancient Israel* Christoph Levin Polytheism and monotheism are no strict alternatives. The conflicting experiences of existence which religion sets out to solve do not call in question the unity of the world, while conversely, the unity of the world cannot do away with the contradictions in our existence. A polytheistically shaped religion will not be able to avoid seeing the multiplicity of the divine as being nevertheless in some form a unity, and a monotheistically molded religion will not be able to avoid recognizing the many facets of experience of the world as reflecting in some way the ambiguity of the experience of the one God, thus to a certain degree calling his unity in question.1 Religion does not necessarily follow the rules of a binary logic while trying to understand the foundations of being. In its relation to the situation it is rather aspectual and existential. This is true not only for the pre-modern world, but also today. If polytheism and monotheism do not in this way constitute absolute alternatives, we should be hesitant about offering explanations of their relationship in the sense of a historical development, and about judgments along the lines of a lower or higher stage of religion. This is not to deny that in the history of religion a path did run from polytheism to monotheism. And on this path it has undoubtedly been shown that the monotheistic idea of God offers the greater challenge to thought, and that it also has the greater power soteriologically, as well as in regard to ethics.

* This essay is a revised English translation from the original German essay titled “Integrativer Monotheismus im Alten Testament,” ZTK 109 (2012): 153–75. 1 For a survey on the debate about the religion of Egypt, Greek, Assyria, and Israel/Judah, see Barbara N. Porter, ed., One God or Many? Concepts of Divinity in the Ancient World, TCBAI 1 (Casco Bay, ME: Assyriological Institute, 2000), and Manfred Krebernik and Jürgen van Oorschot, eds., Polytheismus und Monotheismus in den Religionen des Vorderen Orients, AOAT 298 (Münster: Ugarit Verlag, 2002).

14

Christoph Levin

1. Exclusive Monotheism as a Feature of Second Temple Judaism Where Israel’s religion is concerned, an explanation along the lines of a historical development seems at first sight to be inescapable, and this all the more since the study of the literary history has proved the unhistorical character of the biblical picture, according to which the demand for the exclusive worship of YHWH stood at the beginning of Israel’s religious history – that the history linking Israel with its god began with the revelation on Sinai, when the god YHWH chose the Israelites to be his people, and committed them to worship him and him alone; but this picture has no foundation in historical reality. We know today that from the aspect of the history of religion this revelationtheology explanation, so to speak, is an anachronism, with which the Judaism of the Second Temple ex post created for itself a story about its origins. Underlying this biblical picture, the scholarship of the last two centuries unearthed the actual history of the religion of Israel and Judah as it probably proceeded until the destruction of the First Temple. The reconstruction was initially made with the methods of source criticism, by way of a re-dating of the Pentateuch sources, later through a comparison with written witnesses from neighbouring civilizations, as these increasingly became known; and during recent decades more and more based on archaeology, epigraphy, and iconography. We know today that, religiously speaking, ancient Israel did not differ essentially from its ancient Near Eastern environment. As far as our present subject is concerned: as long as the First Temple was in existence, no explicit demarcation line was drawn against polytheism. What is also of great importance is that in the period of the Second Temple, the religious norm was not monotheistic in the narrower sense. The commandment to worship the god YHWH exclusively – “I am YHWH your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; you shall have no other gods besides me” (Exod 20:2–3 par. Deut 5:6–7) – is expressly occasioned by the existence of other gods. The “other gods” are not considered to be imaginary, as if idolatry would be related to entities existing only in the imagination of their erring worshippers. Instead the prohibition is directed against the worship of gods who really exist. The sin is concrete; whether it has to do with the worship of the Baalim, or whether the Israelites are reproached with having worshipped either the gods of the previous inhabitants of their country, or the gods of the neighboring peoples. In so far the Bible does not maintain a monotheism, but for the Judaism of the Second Temple propagates an exclusive monolatry. The polemical zeal with which the exclusive worship of YHWH is demanded is not directed to the outside world but serves the unity and cohesion of the people’s own group.

The Many and the One

15

It is only on the margin of the Hebrew Bible that the actual existence of other gods is disputed as well. The relevant assertions are confined to a few passages in the second part of the book of Isaiah (Isa 44:6; 45:5, 6, 14, 18, 21, 22; 46:9),2 and – dependent on them – a few sentences in the late framework of the book of Deuteronomy (Deut 4:35, 39; 32:39).3 Even in these cases, it is a matter of dispute whether the pronouncement “I am YHWH, and there is no god besides me” should be interpreted in an absolute sense, as meaning “there is no god at all except me” or whether it has to do with the relation of God’s people to their God, i.e.: “For Israel there is no god except me.”

2. Religious Diversity in Ancient Israel and Judah The program of exclusive monolatry which determined the period of the Second Temple and forms the focus of the biblical writings stands in remarkable contrast to the religious diversity which we can observe for the period of the Israelite and Judean monarchy. An indication of this are the names. They show that in Israel the cult of the god YHWH was a relatively late phenomenon. The name Israel, which we first come across on the victory stele of the Pharaoh Merneptah which dates from about 1209 BCE, is related to the god El.4 There are no toponyms at all with YHWH as theophoric element. Instead we find place-names with El, such as Bethel and Jezreel, with Anat, such as Beth-anath (Josh 19:38; Judg 1:33) and Anatoth (1 Kgs 2:26; Jer 32:7), with the sun god, such as Bet-shemesh, and above all with the Baal, such as Baalah (Josh 15:9; 2 Sam 6:2), Baalath (Josh 15:29; 1 Kgs 9:18)5 and many others. Among personal names, too, numerous references to the Baal can be found in the earlier period. Even two of King Saul’s sons had Baal names, Ishbaal (2 Sam 2:8; 1 Chr 8:33; 9:39) and Merib-baal (2 Sam 21:8), as well as one of his grandsons, Merib-baal Jonathan’s son (2 Sam 4:4; 1 Chr 8:34; 9:40). Names 2 Reinhard G. Kratz, Kyros im Deuterojesaja-Buch: Redaktionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zu Entstehung und Theologie von Jes 40–55, FAT 1 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1991), destroyed the basis for the usual dating of Deutero-Isaiah in the time of the Babylonian exile by proving that the Persian great king was not yet mentioned in the oldest literary stratum of the book. The book has hardly been written before the middle of the fifth century, and, to be more precise, probably in Jerusalem, because it is closely familiar with the liturgy of the temple. 3 See Matthias Albani, Der eine Gott und die himmlischen Heerscharen: Zur Begründung des Monotheismus bei Deuterojesaja im Horizont der Astralisierung des Gottesverständnisses im Alten Orient, ABIG 1 (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2000). 4 Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature (AEL) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 2:73–78; COS 2.6:40–41 (James K. Hoffmeier). 5 See Nadav Naʾaman, “Baal Toponyms,” in DDD: 140–41.

16

Christoph Levin

of this kind can also be frequently found epigraphically. In the ninth century even a reigning king of Israel, Baasha, bore a Baal name (1 Kgs 15:33). Over against this, we have Abijam, the son of Rehoboam, a king of Judah, who had a name related to Yam, the sea god (1 Kgs 15:1).6 This finding permits the deduction that the Canaanite pantheon (which we know best from the texts from Ugarit, which date from the fourteenth century BCE) were familiar in Israel and Judah too and played a part in cultic worship. In fact nothing else is to be expected. For under Palestinian climatic presuppositions, a monotheistic idea of God would have contradicted experience more emphatically than would have been the case elsewhere. The abrupt change from the winter rains to the summer drought taught people that the divine forces which determine life were not continuously in power. The Ugaritic myths tell of the annual conflict between the weather god Baal and the sea god Yam, who embodies the chaos which is hostile to life.7 When Baal wins this struggle at the beginning of autumn, the vegetation period begins with thunderstorms. In this struggle he is supported by his sister and wife Anat.8 Toward the end of the vegetation period Baal is defeated by the god of death Mot,9 and is forced to descend to the underworld until in autumn he appears on the stage once more, as a contending god. Because the unity of being remains constant in spite of the seasonal alternation of the god’s death and resurrection, the Ugaritic pantheon also includes the father of the gods, El, and his wife Athiratu. El represents what has been aptly called the “the sacred world in the background.”10 It is not by chance that the name El is the Semitic term for god per se.11 El presides over the assembly of the gods, which is also depicted in the image of a royal family. He endorses the monarchy of the younger gods in their various victories, but does not intervene himself in the struggles between the rivals, so his sovereignty on earth is not efficacious in the direct sense. A change begins in the middle of the ninth century with the Omri dynasty. The Canaanite pantheon shrinks in favor of the weather god. It is from that time only that the personal names formed with the name of YHWH begin among the kings of Israel and Judah, becoming the rule until the end of the

6

See Fritz Stolz, “Sea,” in DDD: 737–42. See COS 1:241–74 (Dennis Pardee); ANET, 129–42 (Harold L. Ginsberg). 8 See Peggy L. Day, “Anat,” in DDD: 36–43. 9 See John F. Healey, “Mot,” in DDD: 598–603. 10 Victor Maag, “Syrien – Palästina,” in Kulturgeschichte des Alten Orient, ed. Hartmut Schmökel, KTA 298 (Stuttgart: Kröner, 1961), 574, following Gerardus van der Leeuw, Religion in Essence and Manifestation: A Study in Phenomenology, trans. John E. Turner, 2 vols., 2nd ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), 164–66 (§ 18, 3). 11 See Wolfgang Herrmann, “El,” in DDD: 274–80. 7

The Many and the One

17

Israelite and Judean monarchies. 12 In seventh-century Judah, the YHWH names are far and away the most prevalent, epigraphically too.13 The concentration on the warlike weather god YHWH can best be explained by the growing strength of the Iron Age monarchy which in Israel begins with the Omride dynasty. With the powerful position of the warlike monarchs, the world of the gods changes too from an aristocracy to a monarchy. The weather god as the life-determining principle is given the key position. We can see this development also among Israel’s neighbors, with the Ammonite god Milcom, the Moabite god Chemosh, and the Edomite god Qôs.14 However, the existence of what was virtually a monolatry at the king’s court and in the royal cult does not mean that the rest of the pantheon disappeared. The myths about the periodic struggle of the gods – the conflict between the weather god and the chaos embodied by the sea – remained vital. The earliest psalms show with clarity that the resurrection and accession of the weather god continued to be celebrated in cultic drama at the autumn New Year festival until the end of Judah.15 Myths of this kind even underwent a vigorous revival in the late eschatology.16 There are also signs that the weather god continues to keep his sister-wife, even though no traces of this have been preserved in the Bible. As late as at the end of the fifth century, in the Jewish military colony in Egyptian Elephantine a goddess Anat-Yahu or Anat-Bethel was still worshipped as well as the god YHWH.17

12 The change which is expressed therein has already been seen by Julius Wellhausen, Israelitische und jüdische Geschichte, 7th ed. (Berlin: Reimer, 1914), 100–101 with n. 3. 13 Compare the list presented by Johannes Renz, Die althebräischen Inschriften, Teil 2: Zusammenfassende Erörterungen, Paläographie und Glossar, HAE II/1 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1995), 53–87; also Frederick W. Dobbs-Allsopp et. al., eds., Hebrew Inscriptions: Texts from the Biblical Period of the Monarchy with Concordance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 583–622; and Jeffrey H. Tigay, You Shall Have No Other Gods: Israelite Religion in the Light of Hebrew Inscriptions, HSS 31 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986), 47–63. 14 See Emile Puech, “Milcom,” in DDD: 575–76; Hans-Peter Müller, “Chemosh,” in DDD: 186–89; Ernst-Axel Knauf, “Qôs,” in DDD: 674–77. 15 See Reinhard Müller, Jahwe als Wettergott: Studien zur althebräischen Kultlyrik anhand ausgewählter Psalmen, BZAW 387 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008); Friedhelm Hartenstein, “Wettergott – Schöpfergott – Einziger: Kosmologie und Monotheismus in den Psalmen,” in JHWH und die Götter der Völker: Symposium zum 80. Geburtstag von Klaus Koch, ed. Friedhelm Hartenstein and Martin Rösel (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2009), 84–91. 16 See the famous presentation by Sigmund Mowinckel, Psalmenstudien II: Das Thronbesteigungsfest Jahwäs und der Ursprung der Eschatologie, SVSK.HF 1921/6 (Kristiania: Dybwad, 1922); also Gunther Wanke, Die Zionstheologie der Korachiten, BZAW 97 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1966), esp. 106–9. 17 Anat-Yahu: Arthur Cowley, Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century B.C. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1923), No. 44:3 = Bezalel Porten and Ada Yardeni, Textbook of Aramaic Documents

18

Christoph Levin

In the early period even the god YHWH himself was not a single entity. This ָ ִ‫ ְשׁמַ ע י‬: “Hear, O Israel, YHWH is our is actually shown by the renowned ‫שׂראֵ ל‬ God, YHWH is a single one” (Deut 6:4). This programmatic assertion is neither a monotheistic acknowledgment in the sense of “Only YHWH is God,” nor is it a demand for the sole worship of the god YHWH, in the sense of “Only YHWH is our God.” The Hebrew text, rather, has the numeral ‫אֶ חָ ד‬, “one.” The antithetical relation to this is not “another god” but “several YHWHs.”18 We know today from inscriptions that YHWH was worshipped under various forms in various places. Just as there was the Baal of Tyre and the Baal of Ekron (2 Kgs 1:2), and many other Baalim, too,19 there was also the “YHWH of Samaria” and the “YHWH of Teman.”20 At the same time, an incompatibility within the very personality of the god YHWH could arise. For the god YHWH could be worshipped simultaneously in two neighboring kingdoms which were from time to time locked in warlike conflict. From a religious viewpoint this meant that the god YHWH was divided, and thus YHWH, the god of Israel, went to war against YHWH, the god of Judah.21 This constellation is the background to the message which the book of Hosea directed against Israel – probably from a Judean perspective. In the introductory sign-act of the prophet’s marriage, YHWH proclaims: “You are not my people, and I am not your God” (Hos 1:9 txt. em.). This utterance probably still goes back to the eighth century, that is to say, when Israel and Judah existed side by side.

from Ancient Egypt (TAD) (Jerusalem: The Hebrew University, 1986–1999), B7.3:3; AnatBethel: Cowley No. 22:125 = TAD C3.15:128. 18 See Erik Aurelius, “Der Ursprung des Ersten Gebots,” ZTK 100 (2003): 7. Already Manfred Weippert, “Synkretismus und Monotheismus: Religionsinterne Konfliktbewältigung im alten Israel,” in Jahwe und die anderen Götter: Studien zur Religionsgeschichte des antiken Israel in ihrem syrisch-palästinischen Kontext, FAT 18 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997), 1, assumes, that “the Šəmaʽ Yiśrāʼēl […] originally should rather fend off notions of different local forms of the god of Israel.” 19 See Wolfgang Herrmann, “Baal,” in DDD: 132–39; cf. Ludwig Köhler and Walter Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, vol. 1, trans. M. E. J. Richardson (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2001), 143–44. 20 Documented in the inscriptions found in 1975/76 on pithos 1 and 2 from Kuntillet ʽAǧrūd which date from the ninth century BCE. See Graham I. Davies, ed., Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions: Corpus and Concordance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 78–82; Dobbs-Allsopp et al., Hebrew Inscriptions, 277–98, esp. 277–97; and Erhard Blum, “Die Wandinschriften 4.2 und 4.6 sowie die Pithos-Inschrift 3.9 aus Kuntillet ʽAǧrūd,” ZDPV 129 (2013): 21–54. 21 See Herbert Donner, “Hier sind deine Götter, Israel!” (1973), in Aufsätze zum Alten Testament aus vier Jahrzehnten, BZAW 224 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1994), 72: “Since ancient times the cult for YHWH was fragmented locally in the country.”

The Many and the One

19

3. Integrative Monotheism in Ancient Israel and Judah There are, basically speaking, two possible ways of replacing the religious diversity by the program of the exclusive worship of YHWH. The one is the polemical rejection of all deviating forms of divine worship; we find this formulated in the First Commandment: “You shall have no other gods besides me” (Exod 20:3 par. Deut 5:7). On the surface, this is the dominant way in the Bible. But the other possibility is for the god YHWH to take over the functions of other gods in addition to his own. The two methods are not mutually exclusive. The integrative monotheism which comes into being through the adoption of further divine functions is even in a certain way the presupposition of exclusive monolatry, if that is not to become sterile and lose its relation to life. In fact the integration process preceded historically the exclusive monolatry which determined the religion of the Second Temple, and it belongs at least as much to the particular character of the Hebrew Bible as the latter. The obvious example is the ‫ ְשׁמַ ע יִ ְשׂ ָראֵ ל‬which has been already mentioned. This maintains nothing less than that the different forms of the god YHWH which existed in Israel and Judah and their individual regions are all forms of a single god, because YHWH is a single god, ‫אֶ חָ ד יהוה‬.22 This programmatic mono-yahwism set a standard. It is not without good reason that the formula was later also understood in the sense of an acknowledgment of the uniqueness of God per se. At the beginning it did not mean this. Most scholars today date this programmatic creed as belonging to the seventh century, and associate it with the policy of the Judean king Josiah (639–609 BCE), who after the collapse of the Assyrian empire probably set out to incorporate parts of the former province of Samerina into his own territory and, for this, caused a kind of Judean “allIsrael ideology” to be developed which eventually became the presupposition for the idea that the Judeans were God’s people, “Israel.” A second example is what recent research discusses under the term the “solarization of YHWH.”23 Several Psalms connect with YHWH statements and metaphors which otherwise used to be attributed to the sun god.24 Another example is the relation between YHWH and El. It is one of the special features of ancient Near Eastern religion that the contours of a deity are not sharply 22

See Aurelius, “Der Ursprung des Ersten Gebots,” 11. See Hans-Peter Stähli, Solare Elemente im Jahweglauben des Alten Testaments, OBO 66 (Freiburg, Schweiz: Universitäts-Verlag; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1985); Bernd Janowski, “JHWH und der Sonnengott: Aspekte der Solarisierung JHWHs in vorexilischer Zeit,” in Die rettende Gerechtigkeit: Beiträge zur Theologie des Alten Testaments 2 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1999), 192–219. 24 See Deut 33:2; Pss 19; 72; 84:12; Isa 60:1–3; Hos 6:3, 5; Zeph 3:5; Mal 3:20. 23

20

Christoph Levin

drawn. This is also true of the concept of YHWH in Israel and Judah. In the Bible, the names YHWH and El/Elohim are used indiscriminately for one and the same god, although his individuality is emphatically maintained. We meet this in the texts with certainty from the seventh century onwards, and the variety of divine names persisted even in the era of the Second Temple, when the worship of several gods was subject to a strict prohibition. In our ears the identification of YHWH and Elohim may not be surprising because Elohim is also the Hebrew term for god per se, and in the framework of monotheism the god YHWH has per se become the god whose individual name was increasingly avoided or paraphrased. Yet the role of the Canaanite god El was also retained, so that one can say that “the sacred background” and the weather god who dies and rises again coincide, just as in the Christian concept the annual cultic drama about the birth, death, and resurrection of the Son of God does not exclude the personal unity of the Son with God the Father. It ִ ‫א‬, the Hebrew term is speculative, but not perhaps without meaning, that ‫ֱֹלהים‬ for god, is a plural, which nevertheless as a rule is seen grammatically as a singular, and has mutated from being a term for god into being the title or name of what is from now on the only God25 – besides the name ‫יהוה‬, which is none ִ ‫א‬, the concept of the single the less still retained. Named by the plural ‫ֱֹלהים‬ god is integrative per se, so to speak. In view of this multiple nomenclature, the weight given to the name of God is remarkable. The name is an expression of individuality. Perhaps God’s individuality is so much stressed because it was not in fact sharply delineated. In the Second Temple period, God was still talked about alternately as YHWH and Elohim; indeed even in late times a number of other names were added which, although they were rooted in earlier tradition, only now became more widespread in religious literature – for example, the name ‫ שַׁ ַדּי‬in the book of Job, or the title ‫ עֶ ְליוֹן אֵ ל‬in the story about Abraham’s war with the kings (Gen 14:18, 19, 20, 22), which is one of the latest texts in the Torah in general.

4. The Yahwist’s History A special representative of integrative monotheism is the Yahwist’s History, the basic document of the narrative in the Pentateuch. From its text it is possible 25 See Erhard Blum, “Der vermeintliche Gottesname ‘Elohim,ʼ” in Gott Nennen: Gottes Namen und Gott als Name, ed. Ingolf U. Dalferth and Philipp Stoellger, RPT 35 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 97–119, against Albert de Pury, “Wie und wann wurde ‘der Gottʼ zu ‘Gottʼ?” (ibid., 121–42), as well as against Konrad Schmid, “Differenzierungen und Konzeptualisierungen der Einheit Gottes in der Religions- und Literaturgeschichte Israels,” in Der eine Gott und die Götter: Polytheismus und Monotheismus im antiken Israel, ed. Konrad Schmid and Manfred Oeming, ATANT 82 (Zürich: TVZ, 2003), 11–39.

The Many and the One

21

to deduce exegetically in a number of instances how the god YHWH assumes in himself other forms of the divine. This goes in line with the distinction between pre-editorial written sources and the editorial additions and comments of the Yahwist’s redaction. According to what we know today, this took place as a reaction to the experience of the Jews in the diaspora,26 but before the exclusive worship of YHWH became a doctrine, and it took place astonishingly as a matter of course, in no way mentioning the act of religious integration as such. I shall begin with the visit of the three men to Abraham (Gen 18:1–16). To this story the Christian doctrine of the Trinity has been traditionally closely related. Andrei Rublev painted c. 1441 the icon of the Trinity on the basis of Gen 18.27 The Moscow Synod of 1551 officially declared it the model for the orthodox Trinity icon. It shows the three angels sitting at a table under a tree. Abraham and Sarah are missing but the biblical origin is still recognizable. Of course the story about Abraham’s hospitality, if it is read in the context of its own premises, has nothing whatsoever to do with the Christian doctrine. And yet this kind of reception is not without foundation in the text itself.28 1 And YHWH appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre,29 as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. 2 He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them, and bowed himself to the earth, 3 and said, , if I have found favor in your (sg.) sight, do not pass by your (sg.) servant. 4 Let a little water be brought, and wash your (pl.) feet, and rest yourselves under the tree, 5 while I fetch a morsel of bread, that you (pl.) may refresh yourselves, and after that you (pl.) may pass on – since you (pl.) have come to your (pl.) servant. So they said, Do as you have said. 6 And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal […], knead it, and make cakes. […] 8 Then he took curds and milk […], and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree while they ate. 9 They said to him, Where is Sarah your wife? And he said, She is in the tent. 10 He said, I will surely return to you in the spring, and Sarah your wife shall have a son.

Abraham offers food and drink to three beings who, as the story goes on, show themselves to be more than human. They are in a position to prophesy that as a reward for his hospitality a son will be born to him, and this also comes about, contrary to anything that is humanly possible. They also save his nephew Lot

26

See Christoph Levin, “The Yahwist: The Earliest Editor in the Pentateuch,” JBL 126 (2007): 209–30; repr. in Re-Reading the Scriptures: Essays on the Literary History of the Old Testament, FAT 87 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 1–23. 27 Now in the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia, Cat. No. 13012. 28 See Frank-Lothar Hossfeld, “Einheit und Einzigkeit Gottes im frühen Jahwismus,” in Im Gespräch mit dem dreieinen Gott: Elemente einer trinitarischen Theologie: Festschrift zum 65. Geburtstag von Wilhelm Breuning, ed. Michael Böhnke and Hanspeter Heinz (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1985), 63–66. 29 The part of the text that was added by the Yahwist (or: editor J) is marked by italics.

22

Christoph Levin

by supernatural means from the wicked inhabitants of the city of Sodom, whom they punish in the form of a rain of fire from heaven (Gen 19).30 Abraham meanwhile addresses the guest as if he sees only one of them. After the meal, the three men begin to speak to him, but it is then only a single person who promises Abraham that in a year he will have a son. This single person is the god YHWH. The whole scene falls under the heading of an epiphany of YHWH. The contradiction remains unresolved. One can show that it goes back to a reinterpretation by a redactor – or, to be more exact, by the author of the Pentateuch source which we call the “Yahwist,” – of an already existing, written tradition about the visit of three divine beings to Abraham and Lot, which now becomes an epiphany of the god YHWH.31 In his reinterpretation, the redactor has kept the earlier tradition and inserted into it his own concept of God. The juxtaposition of, let us say, “polytheistic” tradition and Yahwistic interpretation shows that, for the editor, the three divine beings counted as compatible with the one YHWH. The parallelism did not present any logical problems to him. It was the Samaritan Pentateuch which for the first time felt the disruption to be one, and tried to correct the numerical shift.32 But this attempt could not succeed.33 The three men are the one YHWH, and the one YHWH is the three men. And this without the identification in the text being named at all. This integration of the divine is not a single case in the framework of the Yahwist’s Pentateuchal source; it is almost the rule. A second example is Jacob’s struggle at the brook Jabbok (Gen 32:23–33). While Jacob is attempting to ford the brook, he is attacked by a being whom the Hebrew text only calls ‫ ִאישׁ‬, “any one, someone.”34

30

In Gen 19 the problem of the number occurs again. In v. 1 it is solved by adding

‫ ְשׁ נֵי הַ מַּ ְלאָ ִכ ים‬, “the two angels,” in order to make a distinction between YHWH and two other figures who accompany him, see also v. 15aβ. Elsewhere in the story ‫“ הָ ֲאנ ִָשׁים‬the men”

(vv. 5, 8, 10, 12, 16) are on stage. 31 For the redaction history of Gen 18, see Rudolf Kilian, Die vorpriesterlichen Abrahamsüberlieferungen literarkritisch und traditionsgeschichtlich untersucht, BBB 24 (Bonn: Hanstein, 1966), 96–111; and Christoph Levin, Der Jahwist, FRLANT 157 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993), 153–58. 32 See BHS and the commentaries sub loco. The Greek translation goes in line with the Masoretic text. 33 Between vv. 9 and 10 the break still remains. This time the Greek translation tried to harmonize it by changing it into the singular already in v. 9. However, the Samaritan Pentateuch goes in line with the Masoretic text. 34 Wilhelm Gesenius, Hebrew Grammar: As Edited and Enlarged by the Late E. Kautzsch, rev. in accordance with the 28th German edition (1909) by Arthur E. Cowley, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1960), § 139d; cf. Paul Joüon and Takamitsu Muraoka, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, SubBi 14/2, 3rd ed. (Rome: Gregorian and Biblical Press, 2011), § 147b.

The Many and the One

23

23 The same night he arose […] and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. […] 24 […] He took across the stream everything that he had. […] 25 […] And someone wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. 26 When the man saw that he did not prevail against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh […] 27 and said ,Let me go, for the day is breaking. But he said, I will not let you go, unless you bless me. 28 And he said to him, What is your name? And he said, Jacob. 29 Then he said, Your name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed. 30 Then Jacob asked him, Tell me, I pray, your name. But he said, Why is it that you ask my name? And there he blessed him.35

Jacob is strong enough to defeat this “someone” and to hold him fast. The “someone” only possesses power during the darkness. With the coming of dawn, he sees himself as threatened. Jacob uses the situation and compels the “someone” to bless him. The “someone” then blesses him, that is to say he shares his strength with him, strength which is evidently more than human. The scene is reminiscent of a fairy tale in which the hero is victorious over a demon. In this case it would be the demon of the brook Jabbok who denies the wanderer a passage over the ford. In the form in which we have it today, the scene has been expanded by a dialogue. The “someone” asks Jacob his name. When Jacob tells him, his interlocutor answers: “Your name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel.” The patriarch is given the name of God’s people. He becomes their representative. In the context it becomes indubitably clear that only the god YHWH could have made such a change in the name. That means that the blessing which Jacob extorts from the demon becomes the god YHWH’s blessing. YHWH absorbs this demon’s function, the demon being obviously superhuman, even if not in the full sense divine. Understandably enough, later theologians had difficulty with this interpretation. That touches especially on the statement that Jacob has defeated the demon, which is now to say: the god YHWH himself. Consequently the text was expanded so that, although Jacob is the victor, he leaves the arena with a wound, and is astonished that he is still alive, although he “has seen God face to face” (vv. 26b, 31). A third example of this kind, also in the Yahwist source, is the story of how Balak, the king of Moab, hires the seer Balaam to curse the Israelites, but YHWH turns his words upside down: Balaam has to bless Israel (Num 22–24). Balaam’s original oracle reads as such:

35 For the redaction history of Gen 32:23–33, see Levin, Der Jahwist, 250–54. The part of the text that was added by the Yahwist (or: editor J) is marked by italics.

24

Christoph Levin

The oracle of Balaam son of Beor, the oracle of the man whose eye is opened, […] who sees the vision of ‫שַׁ ַדּי‬, falling down, but having his eyes uncovered: how fair are your tents, O Jacob, your encampments, O Israel! Like valleys that stretch afar, like gardens beside a river. (Num 24:3b, 4b–6a)36

For this blessing the seer Balaam refers to a vision of Shaddai. This reference coincides strikingly with the Aramaic Balaam inscription found in 1967 at Tell Deir ʽAlla in the Jordan Valley, which goes back to the seventh century BCE.37 In this inscription Balaam describes how in a vision he witnesses the celestial council of the Shaddai gods – they are in the plural – with the sun goddess.38 Listening to their debate, he learns of the nefarious plans of the sun goddess. In the original biblical version too, the seer Balaam refers to the Shaddai gods, as he does in the non-biblical version. But in today’s text his oracle has been expanded, and it now refers to YHWH: like that YHWH has ,39 like cedar trees beside the waters. […] Blessed be everyone who blesses you, and cursed be everyone who curses you. (Num 24:6b, 9)

Again we can see that YHWH has absorbed into himself another religious appearance, in this case even a whole group of lower gods. The integration of Elohim is less spectacular but none the less remarkable. In the well-known vision, which is linked in the tradition with the establishment of the sanctuary at Bethel, the dreaming Jacob sees a ziggurat, at which ִ ‫ )מַ ְלאֲכֵ י א‬ascend to heaven and descend to earth the angels of God (Hebr. ‫ֱֹלהים‬ (Gen 28:11–19). From this he recognizes the holiness of the place.40

36

For the redaction history of Num 22–24, see Levin, Der Jahwist, 383–87. First published by Jacob Hoftijzer and Gerrit van der Kooij, Aramaic texts from Deir ʿAlla, DMOA 19 (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 1976). English translation COS 2:27 (Baruch A. Levine). 38 For the reading, see Manfred Weippert, “Der ‘Bileam’-Text von Tell Dēr ʿAllā und das Alte Testament,” in Jahwe und die anderen Götter (see n. 18), 163–88; Erhard Blum, “Die Kombination I der Wandinschrift vom Tell Deir ʽAlla. Vorschläge zur Rekonstruktion mit historisch-kritischen Anmerkungen,” in Berührungspunkte: Studien zur Sozial- und Religionsgeschichte Israels und seiner Umwelt: Festschrift für Rainer Albertz zu seinem 65. Geburtstag, ed. Ingo Kottsieper et al., AOAT 350 (Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2008), 573–601. 39 The reading follows the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Greek translation. 40 For the redaction history of Gen 28:11–22, see Levin, Der Jahwist, 216–20. The part of the text that was added by the Yahwist (or: editor J) is marked by italics. 37

The Many and the One

25

11 And he came to a certain place, and stayed there that night, because the sun had set. […] 12 And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 And behold, YHWH stood above it and said, I am YHWH, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. […] 15 Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. […] 16 Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, Surely YHWH is in this place; and I did not know it. 17 And he was afraid, and said, How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. […] 19 And he called the name of that place Bet-El (“House of God”).

The Yahwistic editor has expanded this tradition through a divine speech which the god standing at the top of the ziggurat proclaims. He begins with the formal self-introductory formula “I am YHWH, the god of your father Abraham and the god of Isaac.” With these words Elohim is explicitly identified with the god YHWH. Earlier exegesis put the change in the divine name down to the sources, not the edition, i.e., traced it back to the differing linguistic usage of the different sources of the Pentateuch. But in doing so it missed the point, from the aspect of religious history: the two names for God do not stand parallel to each other; they are integrated. The same thing is true in the revelation to Moses at the burning bush (Exod 3:1–5). It is also non-homogeneous, from a literary point of view.41 1 Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian; and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness, and came […] into the desert. 2 And the angel of YHWH appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and lo, a bush was burning, yet the bush was not consumed. 3 And Moses said, I will turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burning. 4 When YHWH saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, Moses, Moses! And he said, Here am I. 5 Then he said ,Do not come near; put off your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. […] 7 Then YHWH said, I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry […] 8 and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land.

When Moses approaches, Elohim speaks to him out of the burning bush, and points him to the holiness of the place: “He looked, and lo, a bush was burning, yet the bush was not consumed. […] And God called to him out of the bush, Moses, Moses!” Today the scene is introduced as an appearance of the angel of YHWH, and Elohim’s speech is interpreted as YHWH’s: “When YHWH saw that he turned aside to see, Elohim called to him out of the bush.” A similar encounter between Moses and God is told as the revelation on the ִ ‫ )הַ ר הָ א‬in the desert of Sinai (Exod 19:2–34:28*).42 mountain of God (‫ֱֹלהים‬ 41

For the redaction history of Exod 3, see Levin, Der Jahwist, 326–33. The part of the text that was added by the Yahwist (or: editor J) is marked by italics. 42 For the redaction history of Exod 19–34, see Levin, Der Jahwist, 362–69. The part of the text that was added by the Yahwist (or: editor J) is marked by italics.

26

Christoph Levin

19:2 And when (the Israelites) set out from Rephidim and came into the wilderness of Sinai, they encamped in the wilderness; and there Israel encamped before the mountain. 3 And Moses went up to God. […] 24:18 […] And Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights. […] 34:5 And YHWH descended in the cloud and stood with him there. And he proclaimed the name of YHWH, […] 9 and he said, If now I have found favor in your sight, my lord, I pray you, may go my lord in the midst of us. […] 28 And he was there with YHWH forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water.

Traditionally, the mountain is the dwelling place of Elohim. However, when Moses climbs up, the God on his part descends from heaven, and it is not Elohim, but rather YHWH, who is going to meet Moses and to assure him of his assistance. ִ ‫ יהוה א‬in the second It is with this presupposition that the double term ‫ֱֹלהים‬ creation account (Gen 2:5–3:24) may be explained.43 5 When no plant of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up – for YHWH God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the ground – […] 7 then YHWH God formed man […] from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. […] 8 And YHWH God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. …

The term YHWH-Elohim is unquestionably not original, but it can hardly go back to the redaction which put together the two Pentateuchal sources, as used generally to be thought. Instead I assume that the original account had Elohim as subject, and the Yahwistic editor equated Elohim with YHWH. Again this took place without any particular pointer, as being a matter of course, religiously speaking. The story about the wooing of a wife for Isaac (Gen 24) gives a clue to the further framework of this redaction, in the context of the history of religion. When the aged Abraham charges his servant to woo a wife for his son Isaac among the relatives living in northern Syria, he makes him swear an oath “by YHWH, the god of heaven and of the earth” (Gen 24:3, 7). This title is otherwise found only in texts dating from the Persian period,44 and outside the Hebrew Bible in the Elephantine papyri.45 Using this title, it seems obvious that 43

For the redaction history of Gen 2–3, see Levin, Der Jahwist, 82–92, and idem, “Genesis 2–3: A Case of Innerbiblical Interpretation,” in Genesis and Christian Theology, ed. Nathan MacDonald et al. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 85–100; repr. in Re-Reading the Scriptures: Essays on the Literary History of the Old Testament, FAT 87 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 51–64. The part of the text that was added by the Yahwist (or: editor J) is marked by italics. 44 Hebrew: Jonah 1:9; Ps 136:26; Ezra 1:2 (par. 2 Chr 36:23); Neh 1:4, 5; 2:4, 20; see also Deut 3:24; Josh 2:11; Mic 6:6; Ps 92:9; Lam 3:41; Dan 4:34; 5:23; Aramaic: Ezra 5:11, 12; 6:9, 10; 7:12, 21, 23; Dan 2:18, 19, 37, 44; Greek: Jdt 5:8; 6:19; 11:17; Tob 7:13; 8:5. 45 Cowley No. 30:2, 27–28; 31:2 (txt. em.); 32:3–4; 38:2 (txt. em.), 3, 5; 40:1; cf. 30:15; = TAD A4.7:2, 27–28; A4.8:2 (txt. em.); A4.9:3–4; A4.3:2 (txt. em.), 3, 5; A3.6:1; cf. A4.7:15.

The Many and the One

27

YHWH is about to imitate the role of the supreme Persian god Ahura Mazda, even if it is true that we have no word for word examples that this god was called the “god of heaven.” A similar phenomenon, still more obvious, is the Babylonian god Marduk, as we shall see soon. His cult survived the Persian conquest of Babylon. In the last decades of the Neo-Babylonian empire it was neglected by King Nabonidus, but the Persian king Cyrus re-established it and strengthened it. The editor of the Yahwist’s History lets YHWH, the god of the kings of Israel and Judah, assume the role of the One God of the world. Moreover the religious tradition he incorporates into his history-work is completely and without further ado associated with the god YHWH: creation, which according to most ancient Near Eastern myths proceeds from a struggle between gods; the Flood, which is usually initiated through a council of the gods; the encounters with god of the patriarchs; and the exodus under Moses. Other gods are as if non-existent, so there is no need to warn people against them. YHWH has absorbed them all into himself.

5. Monotheistic Tendencies in Egypt and Mesopotamia In its ancient Near Eastern environment, the integrative monotheism of the Yahwist’s History was by no means unique. In Egypt as well as in Mesopotamia we come across comparable religious phenomena. This is not surprising if we take into account the reciprocity of polytheism and monotheism I mentioned initially. At the same time, around the end of the sixth and the beginning of the fifth centuries, when the literary basis of the Hebrew Bible eventually came into being, the pre-socratic philosopher Xenophanes of Colophon (c. 570 – c. 475 BCE) claimed that the divine is a single one: εἷς θεός, ἔν τε θεοῖσι καὶ ἀνθρώποισι μέγιστος, οὔτε δέμας θνητοῖσιν ὁμοίιος οὔτε νόημα,

“One god is greatest among gods and men, not at all like mortals in body or in thought.”46 Concerning Egypt, Erik Hornung in particular has pointed to the fact that the multiplicity of the Egyptian world of the gods nevertheless relates to the idea of the unity of the divine.47 This idea begins to emerge with the end of the Ancient Empire. In earlier time the traditional multiplicity of gods was predominant, which arose from the manifold local origins and was related to the different living conditions. This multiplicity could easily be tolerated because 46 Transmitted by Clement of Alexandria, Stromata v 109. Edition: James H. Lesher, Xenophanes of Colophon: Fragments (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992), 30–31 (fragment 23). 47 See Erik Hornung, Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996).

28

Christoph Levin

it was the king who occupied the powerful central position in the kingdom. While the gods were acting rather in the background, the king assured the unity of the world. However, when the monarchy broke down at the end of the Ancient Empire, religion became more important. During the first Intermediate Period, the unity and order of the world had to be sought for in the world of the gods. As a consequence, the multiplicity of the gods became unsubstantial. People turned to the One, who in the end is responsible for everything, “from whose eyes humankind were formed, from whose sweat the gods were formed.”48 The following Middle Kingdom paid tribute to the increasing importance of the gods. The multiplicity of the divine persisted and was vitalized, though bundled by the idea of a king of gods. The god Amun of Thebes took over the role of the main god of the Egyptian empire. By incorporating the sun god Re he became Amun-Re. Together with the god Ptah of Memphis, Amun and Re formed a trinity which represented the unity of the empire. Religious integration, however, remained incomplete. The prestige of Osiris, Sobek, Hathor, and other gods of the other important sanctuaries stayed undisputed. With the Pharaohs of the New Kingdom, the trend of religious integration continued, always for reasons of power politics as well. At the time of Amenophis II (1427–1401 BCE), a hymn is praising the god Amun:49 You are the Sole One, who made [all] that exists, One, alone, who made that which is, From whose two eyes mankind came forth, On whose mouth the gods came into being.

This means that the god Amun-Re has produced all beings including the other gods by an act of procreation with himself. This religious concept allowed to perceive the mutual relationship of the gods as emanating from one God. On that basis, Amenophis IV (1353–1335 BCE) in an unprecedented act of power politics was able to deny the existence of all gods except the sun disc Aten and present himself as the only voice of this sole god. This kind of monotheism could only have been an episode, but was not without consequences. After Akhenaton’s death, the center of the empire moved to Memphis where the god Ptah in his person became the embodiment of the re-established divine triad of Amun, Re, and Ptah.

48

Coffin Text 1330, see ANET, 8 (John A. Wilson); AEL 1:132. P. Cairo 58038 (P. Bulak 17), see COS 1:37–40, esp. 39 (Robert K. Ritner); ANET, 365–67, esp. 366 (John A. Wilson). 49

The Many and the One

29

In Mesopotamia too, one can observe the attempt to conceive the multiplicity of the divine as a unity.50 Friedrich Delitzsch and Alfred Jeremias51 were the first to emphasize this; more recently in particular Simo Parpola, 52 and lastly Stefan Maul. At first glance, it is evident that polytheism determines the Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian culture. There is an immense number of deities in the Sumerian-Akkadian pantheon; but one should better say: of names of gods, because one has to find out from case to case […] whether a name corresponds to a particular individual deity or whether it is an epithet, possibly also a local appearance of a deity who is worshipped elsewhere under another name.53

One of the reasons is that the empires in Mesopotamia were established by conquering and integrating many political entities, which originally had been independent, beginning with the Sumerian city states. Although the many local deities have been similar in form and function, every one of these previous entities had their own religious identity. In the wider empires, this religious identity was not effaced but grew into the larger entity. Already in early times there have been comparing lists of the gods which on the one hand record the existing multiplicity and diversity, and on the other hand try to integrate the world of the gods. The political purpose of integrating the former diversity and the genuine religious interest to get the plurality of the divine into order go together. That is to say, the greater the multiplicity of the divine, the greater the need to get someone who unites the diversity. The clearest example of this integrative tendency may be perceived in the Babylonian god Marduk who was the high god of the Old Babylonian empire in the first third of the second millennium and also of the Neo-Babylonian empire in the seventh and sixth centuries. The Babylonian theologians could easily transfer the attributes and functions of other gods to Marduk or even

50

See Manfred Krebernik, “Vielzahl und Einheit im altmesopotamischen Pantheon,” in Krebernik and van Oorschot, eds., Polytheismus und Monotheismus, 42. 51 See Alfred Jeremias, Monotheistische Strömungen innerhalb der babylonischen Religion (Leipzig: Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung, 1904). The debate was initiated by Friedrich Delitzsch, Babel und Bibel: Ein Vortrag (Leipzig: Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung, 1902), 49. 52 Simo Parpola, “Monotheism in Ancient Assyria,” in Porter, ed., One God or Many?, 165–209. However, note, in the same volume, the contradiction by Barbara N. Porter, “The Anxiety of Multiplicity: Concepts of Divinity as One and Many in Ancient Assyria,” 211– 71. Also Benedikt Hartmann, “Monotheismus in Mesopotamien?,” in Monotheismus im Alten Israel und seiner Umwelt, ed. Othmar Keel, BiBe 14 (Freiburg, Schweiz: Schweizerisches Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1980), 70, comments skeptically: “The Mesopotamian religion has been polytheistic ever since, and remained as such.” 53 Dietz Otto Edzard, Geschichte Mesopotamiens: Von den Sumerern bis zu Alexander dem Großen (Munich: C. H. Beck, 2004), 135–36.

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define the other gods themselves as functions of Marduk. A god-list54 from Neo-Babylonian times55 is as follows:56 Uraš (is) Marduk of planting. Lugalidda [an epithet of Enki/Ea] (is) Marduk of the apsû. Ninurta (is) Marduk of the pickaxe. Nergal (is) Marduk of battle. Zababa (is) Marduk of warfare. Enlil (is) Marduk of lordship and consultations. Nabû (is) Marduk of accounting. Sîn (is) Marduk who lights up the night. Šamaš (is) Marduk of justice. Adad (is) Marduk of rain. Tišpak (is) Marduk of troops.

One may call this integration “monarchic polytheism,” and indeed the integration of diversity into the unity of a single God should have a political, not to say an “imperial,” reason. Wilfred Lambert even came to the conclusion: “it must be stated that this (text) has indeed every claim to present Marduk as a monotheistic god.”57 This is especially true since this integrative concept is in line with the view of practical, individual religion as well. Namely, it is a natural view that the causes of help and harm are identical. The god who heals is the same as the god who sends disease; for it is he who has the power over disease. In this way, even the conflicting experiences of existence can lead to the idea of the unity of the divine. We know such statements from the Bible: YHWH kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up. YHWH makes poor and makes rich; he brings low, he also exalts. (1 Sam 2:6–7)

54

God-list CT 24, 50, BM 47406, first published in 1896 by Th. G. Pinches and quoted since then again and again. For a critical edition of the list, see Simo Parpola, “The Assyrian Cabinet,” in Vom Alten Orient zum Alten Testament: Festschrift für Wolfram Freiherr von Soden zum 85. Geburtstag, ed. Manfried Dietrich and Oswald Loretz, AOAT 240 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1995), 398–401 (Appendix). 55 Possibly the list goes back to early Babylonian eras. Simo Parpola presented some reasons for the early dating. 56 Translation by Wilfred G. Lambert, “The Historical Development of the Mesopotamian Pantheon: A Study in Sophisticated Polytheism,” in Unity and Diversity: Essays in the History, Literature, and Religion of the Ancient Near East, ed. Hans Goedicke and Jimmy J. M. Roberts (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), 197–98. 57 Lambert, “The Historical Development,” 198.

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See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand. (Deut 32:39)

It should not surprise us that quite similar statements about Marduk have been passed down: Marduk: who struck me and had pity on me, brought me to ruin and bandaged me, shattered me and brought me out, who made me weak and fit me together, who stretched me out and gathered me together, who made me fall and helped me up. From the throat of death he tore me out, from the underworld he made me rise.58

We may recognize in the cosmogonic myth that the unity of the divine, which is expressed in such statements, was subject even to theological reflection. As Stefan Maul has recently highlighted, the Babylonian creation epic Enuma Elish, in which various mythological traditions are linked in a rather contradictory way, demonstrates the view that all deities despite their multiple forms stem from a single god.59 In the assembly the gods proclaim: [Marduk] shall appoint the black-headed folk to serve him. Let the subject peoples be mindful that their gods should be invoked. […] Let the black-headed folk be divided as to gods, but by whatever name we call him, let him be our god. Let us then proclaim his fifty names.60

Interpreted in such a way, the exuberant Babylonian polytheism is based on nothing other than a latent monotheism. In a special constellation, Marduk even enters into a son relationship with the three major gods of the Sumerian pantheon equally, namely the sky god Anu, the earth god Enlil, and the water god Ea. Through his elevation, he takes on in one and the same single person – the role of the highest divine triad.

58 The translation follows Thomas R. Kämmerer, šima milka: Induktion und Reception der mittelbabylonischen Dichtung von Ugarit, Emār und Tell el-ʽAmārna, AOAT 251 (Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1998), 163. A similar ambivalence is also subscribed to the gods Ishtar, Ea, Gula, and others. 59 See Stefan Maul, “Die Religion Babyloniens,” in Babylon – Mythos und Wahrheit, vol. 2, ed. Joachim Marzahn and Günther Schauerte (Munich: Hirmer, 2008), 172–73. 60 VI 113–14, 119–21. COS 1:111 (Benjamin R. Foster); compare ANET, 69 (Ephraim A. Speiser).

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6. The Priestly Writing It is not surprising that the Yahwist’s History, which in my opinion was composed in Neo-Babylonian times among the exiles in Babylon, advocates a similar integrative monotheism for the god YHWH. It has certainly, as we have seen, not yet progressed to the level of theological reflection. This had to change later. In particular, the contradiction to the claim of exclusive monolatry must be solved in some way. In the so-called Deuteronomistic theology which developed toward the end of the sixth century in Jerusalem, the other gods were not included in the concept of the divine but rather strongly repelled and their veneration was subject to penalty (Exod 20:3 par. Deut 5:7; Deut 13:2–16; 17:2–5). Now the Priestly Writing, the more recent historical outline within the Pentateuch which we date somewhere in the middle of the fifth century, responded to it. The theology of this history work is based on the book of Ezekiel,61 which in turn presupposed the covenant theology of the book of Jeremiah and the book of Deuteronomy. On this basis, the authors now seek to connect exclusive monolatry with integrative monotheism. The concrete cause lies in the claim of the Jerusalem temple to be the central sanctuary for the Jewish diaspora scattered worldwide. This claim has made the diversity of deities as a form of revelation of the one God unthinkable. The connection of inclusion and exclusion succeeds with the help of the history of a threefold revelation, which unfolds itself between the creation of the world and the establishment of the sanctuary at Mt. Sinai. The tent of meeting is nothing other than the Jerusalem temple, which in a surprising fiction was transferred from Jerusalem to the middle of the Jewish diaspora staying outside the land. As has often been observed, the creation of the world and the foundation of the cult are in correspondence with each other. The temple embodies the order of the world, which is based on creation, and the performance of the cult serves to protect it. In the span between creation (Gen 1) on the one hand and temple building (Exod 25–29) on the other, the one God reveals himself under changing names. One may understand this revelation history as a series of concentric circles.62 These circles interlock; they do not succeed one another in a juxtaposition. With a powerful gesture this theology gradually integrates all deities into the single God. In the outer circle, which is filled by the primeval history, God acts under the name Elohim (Gen 1:1–9:17). His actions under this name apply to 61 See esp. Thomas Pola, Die ursprüngliche Priesterschrift: Beobachtungen zur Literarkritik und Traditionsgeschichte von Pg, WMANT 70 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1995), 264–98. 62 See Gerhard von Rad, Die Priesterschrift im Hexateuch: Literarisch untersucht und theologisch gewertet, BWANT 65 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1934), 167 and 186.

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humanity as a whole. In the next inner circle the history of election begins. YHWH reveals himself to the patriarchs, who represent God’s people, as El Shaddai. YHWH explicitly identifies himself with this deity: “YHWH appeared to Abram and said to him: I am ‫( ”אֵ ל שַׁ ַדּי‬Gen 17:1). In the innermost circle, YHWH finally makes himself known to Moses with his name YHWH, which he henceforth wants to be called (Exod 6:2–3, 5–7), and combines this with the desire that a sanctuary be built for him so that he may dwell among his people (Exod 25:1–2a, 8; 29:43, 45–46). The Priestly Writing thus takes up exactly the three names of God used by the Yahwist63 and brings them together in a relationship. Integrative monotheism, as it is represented by the Priestly Writing, reflects the concentration on the single cult place, which in this way is awarded worldwide significance. Now the multiple possibilities to worship a single god are thus no longer applied, as the Marduk theology still allowed. The god YHWH unites all deities in himself. The origin of the world is traced back without much ado and without reservation to a single cause. There is no battle of the gods anymore, as it has been in Enuma Elish. The one God moved completely into transcendence. The creator is simply divorced from the creature. He reveals himself only in the way that he hides himself in his terrifying glory, the ‫כָּ בוֹד‬. Only the legitimate cult, which is performed and intellectually conceived by the theological elite, is capable of mediating revelation. The step toward monotheism is thereby complete. Instead of the multiplicity of gods, only humanity exists next to the one God. Humankind becomes a being in the likeness of the one God and exercises as God’s vassal dominion over the world (Gen 1:26–28). The universal human dignity should be understood as a direct reflex to monotheism.

63 For Elohim in the pre-editorial sources of J, see Gen 2:7, 8, 19, 21, 22; 3:21; 4:25; 21:6; 27:28; 28:12, 17; 32:2, 3; Exod 3:4; 19:3; Num 22:12, 22. Shaddai occurs in Num 24:4. The divine name YHWH is used by the editor throughout. In the pre-editorial sources it occurs in Exod 14:14, 21, 24, 25, 27; 15:21, see Christoph Levin, “Source Criticism: The Miracle at the Sea,” in Method Matters: Essays on the Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Honor of David L. Petersen, ed. Joel M. LeMon and Kent Harold Richards, RBS 56 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009), 57.

The Priestly Portrayal of Jacob in Genesis David L. Petersen Discussion about the composition of the family literature in Genesis (Gen 12– 36) continues unabated.1 One of the most important issues in that conversation involves the relationship of the priestly material (“P” hereafter) to both the pre-priestly and post-priestly components. In this essay, I offer an analysis of this topic by focusing on the literature associated with Jacob, roughly Gen 25:19–37:1. I am particularly interested in understanding the ways in which the portrayal of Jacob in P (a) moves beyond – and is in response to – the pre-priestly portrayal of Jacob and (b) is related to other priestly texts in Gen 12–36. There is a general consensus about what comprises P in these chapters, though some verses in ch. 35 are open to debate: 25:19–20, 26b, 26:34–35; 27:46–28:9; 31:17–18; 33:18a; 35:6, 9–15, 22b–26, 27–29; 36:1–43. (With the apparent demise of the hypothesis that there is an Elohistic source, the nature of 35:1–5, 7–8, 14 will require fresh analysis, though not in this essay.) These verses comprise a variety of genres: Genealogy: 25:19–20, 26b; 26:34–35; 28:5b; 35:22b–26, 28–29; 36:1–40 Itinerary: 28:5a; 31:17–18; 33:18a; 35:6, 27 Report: 27:46–28:4; 35:9–15 Etiology: 35:7, 18 Direct Discourse: 27:46; 28:1–4, 6; 35:1, 2–3, 10–12

1

  Michael Fishbane, “Composition and Structure in the Jacob Cycle,” JJS 26 (1975): 15–38; Joseph Blenkinsopp, “The Structure of P,” CBQ 38 (1976): 275–92; Claus Westermann, Genesis 12–36: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1985); John Emerton, “The Priestly Writer in Genesis,” JTS 39 (1988): 381–400; Albert de Pury, “Situer le cycle de Jacob. Quelques réflexions, vingt-cinq ans plus tard,” in Studies in the Book of Genesis: Literature, Redaction, and History, ed. André Wénin, BTEL 155 (Leuven: Peeters, 2001), 213–41; idem, “The Jacob Story and the Beginning of the Formation of the Pentateuch,” in A Farewell to the Yahwist? The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Investigation, ed. Thomas B. Dozeman and Konrad Schmid, SBLSymS 34 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. 2006), 51–72; Thomas King, The Realignment of the Priestly Literature: The Priestly Narrative and Its Relation to Priestly Legislation and the Holiness School, PTMS 102 (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2009).

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Absent are poetry and narrative. The priestly hand is most telling in the reports and speeches.

1. The lengthiest features of the Priestly portrayal of Jacob occur in chs. 28 and 35. These chapters offer two blessings, one by Isaac (28:3–4) and another by the deity (35:9–12). Both, or one can say together, they offer a reprise of priestly language in Gen 17. However, unlike ch. 17, there is no reference to a covenant between Abraham and God. The importance of the absence of language about covenant cannot be overstated. In the priestly tradent’s eyes, Jacob receives the blessings that ensue from the covenant made between God and Abraham, but Jacob is not an overt covenant partner of the deity. To this extent, the priestly author follows the lead of the pre-priestly material in affirming that the deity blessed Jacob (32:29), but the priestly author is unwilling to accord Jacob the status of a covenant partner with the deity. Genesis 28 and 35 share five important features. First, both Gen 28:1 and 35:9 refer to the deity blessing Jacob. In the first text, the blessing occurs as an indirect imperative spoken by Isaac, “May El Shaddai bless you,” whereas in the second the narrator presents this information, “he blessed him.” Second, both Gen 28:3 and 35:11 refer to deity as El Shaddai. Third, that appellation is followed in both cases by diction of being fruitful and numerous. These elements of the divine name and of being fruitful also appear in Gen 17, though the name El Shaddai (v. 1) and the reference to being fruitful (v. 6) are not conjoined. Fourth, both Gen 28:3 and 35:11 refer to Jacob’s progeny in political terms: multiple political entities and monarchic rule. Genesis 28:3 refers to them as a “company of peoples” (‫)קהל עמים‬, whereas Gen 35:11 uses the language of a “company of nations” (‫)קהל גוים‬. Moreover, both texts refer to “kings.” This realm of diction is rooted in Gen 17. Genesis 17:4–5 refers to a “multitude of nations” (‫ )המון גוים‬and to “kings” (v. 6). Fifth, Gen 28:4 and 35:12 affirm that God will grant “the land” to both Jacob and his offspring.” This claim is rooted in the language of Gen 17:8, which uses the same vocabulary of “land,” “you,” and “offspring” (in 28:4, “your offspring with you”; in Gen 35:12, “your offspring after you,” which is identical with 17:8). Four of these five features are shared with Gen 17. One is not. Though both Gen 28 and 35 refer to the deity’s blessing of Abraham, Gen 17 does not report that God blesses Abraham. In Gen 17, the priestly author reports that the deity will bless Sarah (v. 16) and Ishmael (v. 20), but there is no reference to the deity blessing Abraham (though cf. 28:4, in which a priestly tradent alludes to God’s blessing of Abraham, a claim probably rooted in the prepriestly text of Gen 12:2). Instead, in Gen 17 the covenant represents the key

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37

way in which the priestly author articulates the relationship between Abraham and God. Moreover, it bears saying that the priestly author also maintains that there will be a covenant between God and Isaac (v. 21), which makes the absence of reference to a covenant between God and Jacob all the more striking. The blessings of Jacob in chs. 28 and 35 provide an envelope around both the two scenes of divine encounter (28:10–22; 32:22–32) and Jacob’s sojourn with Laban (chs. 29–31). This envelope depends upon and synthesizes priestly language in Gen 17, though with new formulations, such as, “company of nations.” The literature devoted to Jacob prior to the initial element of this envelop (25:19–27:45) focuses on Jacob within the household of Isaac. Priestly material is scanty, offering primarily genealogical notes. And the same may be said for priestly texts after ch. 35. The priestly author returns to the household of Isaac by reporting the birth of Benjamin, the death of his wife Rachel and her burial, the death of Isaac, and genealogical information. These two major priestly sections in chs. 28 and 35 are, therefore, of special significance for that author. They frame Jacob’s two direct encounters with the deity and his life with Laban outside the land and strike a theme of God’s blessing of Jacob. The priestly writer works with the theme of Jacob’s blessing in at least two ways. First, Gen 35:11 echoes and intensifies the promissory note that kings will stem from Abraham. Genesis 17:11 states that “kings will come out of you,” whereas 35:11 claims that “kings will come out of your loins.” One must pause and interrogate these two statements. What were the kings that might proceed from Abraham? In theory, they could be associated with the lineages of his son Ishmael and his grandsons Esau and Jacob. All three were eponymous ancestors: for, respectively, the Ishmaelites, the Edomites, and the Israelites. Interestingly, the Ishmaelite genealogy in Gen 25:12–18 refers to princes (v. 16) but not to kings. The case is different with the Edomite genealogy provided by P. Genesis 35 refers to kings who reigned in Edom even before kings reigned over the Israelites (v. 31). So, based just on the priestly material in Genesis, the kings who came from Abraham would be those who reigned over Edom and Israel. However, what about Jacob? None of Jacob’s sons were understood to stand outside the polity, or perhaps better, polities of Israel. The answer lies, of course, in Gen 49 and the political realities that lie behind it. Jacob’s death-bed poetic utterances about his sons highlight two of them: Judah and Joseph. Though the term king does not appear in the chapter, the oracle regarding Judah uses explicit symbols of monarchic rule: a scepter and staff (v. 10). Moreover, the verses devoted to Joseph also appear to include references to royal prerogative. Verse 26b construes the blessings of Jacob as akin to a crown on Joseph’s head. And the noun ‫ נזיר‬probably refers to someone like a prince who has been elevated above his brothers. Moreover, the motif

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of blessing that the priestly author associated with Jacob is one that also appears prominently in Gen 49:25–26. The kings of Israel and of Judah are the kings who will come from Jacob’s own body. This emphasis on Jacob’s royal lineage as a blessing is consistent with the transition that is taking place at the end of the book of Genesis. The theme struck about a people and king is developed in both chs. 28 and 35. And soon thereafter, the literature devoted to family becomes one in which the focus is on the emergence of “a great people” (Gen 50:20). The sons of Jacob/Israel are becoming the Israelites.

2. The foregoing analysis has not addressed the relationship of 35:10, 13–15 to pre-priestly and other priestly texts and it is to that issue I now turn. The priestly writer reports the change of Jacob’s name to Israel (v. 10) and the erection of a commemorative stele and a ritual of libation (vv. 14–15). The priestly writer’s agenda in these verses is complex. First, he is interested in reporting that some of what happened between Abraham and God transpired also between Jacob and God. In both cases, their names were changed. In Gen 17:5b, Abraham’s new name is understood to mean “the ancestor of a multitude of nations.” However, the priestly author offers no such popular etymology for the meaning of Jacob’s new name. It is left without interpretation, probably because P could rely on the reader to know the popular etymology provided by the pre-priestly author in Gen 32:28, “you have contended with God.” Nonetheless, the priestly writer wants to emphasize some similarity between God’s interaction with both Abraham and Jacob by stating in his own voice that Jacob’s name had been changed. Second, the case is vastly different with vv. 13–15. Here the priestly writer recalls the pre-priestly text in ch. 28. These three verses are encased in an inclusio, “the place where God had spoken with him,” indicating that this report stands on its own and with its own point. In ch. 28, Jacob took his stone pillow, erected it as a stele, and poured oil on it. So too in ch. 35; he even adds a “drink offering.” One might be tempted to read the priestly version as a simple doublet. This, however, would miss the point, as E. Blum has demonstrated.2 Whereas Gen 28 emphasizes that Bethel is “the house of God,” the place where God dwells, Gen 35 is (only) the place where God spoke to Jacob. This priestly version anathematizes Bethel. The priestly writer reused the vocabulary of “place” (28:16, 17) to construe it as 2   Erhard Blum, “The Jacob Tradition,” in The Book of Genesis: Composition, Reception, and Interpretation, ed. Craig A. Evans, Joel N. Lohr, and David L. Petersen, VTSup 152 (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2012), 191–92.

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39

something other than a holy place. In Gen 35:13–15, the priestly writer recasts Jacob’s second visit to Bethel as a theological polemic against Bethel. It has less to do with Jacob and far more to do with the priestly writer’s negative judgments about Bethel. One should ask why the priestly writer would be concerned about Bethel. A likely explanation emerges from appeal to Zech 7:1–7. According to this text, in the early Persian period, a delegation of people from Bethel came to Jerusalem to seek advice about appropriate ritual practice. Zechariah responded to them by not only answering their question but also impugning their motives. According to this prophet of priestly heritage, those from Bethel had been engaging in heterodox religious practice. In addition, the reference to “seventy years” of ritual practice in Bethel (v. 5) allows one to infer that Bethel had been a center for worship for those Yahwists who had remained in the land after the defeat of Jerusalem in 587. A priestly writer during this period would, therefore, have been interested in downplaying the credentials of this traditional site.

3. The first major priestly element in the presentation of Jacob occurs in Gen 27:46–28:9. It occurs just after the pre-priestly material has offered the rationale for his departure, a narrative in which Esau and Rebekah are the primary characters. Esau hates Jacob for having stolen the blessing that had been intended for him and intends to kill him once his father has died. When Rebekah hears about this plan, she orders him to “flee at once to my brother Laban in Haran” (28:43). What follows in 27:46–28:9 constitutes the priestly creation of an alternate and enhanced version of these events. The pre-priestly version resumes in 28:10. The priestly text commences with direct discourse: (a) Rebekah complaining to Isaac about the implications of a possible marriage between Jacob and a Hittite woman, and (b) Isaac ordering Jacob to go to the home country of the Terah lineage, Paddan-Aram (a toponym used only by the priestly writer), and to marry a woman from that family. These newly created speeches transform the character of Jacob and the purpose of his journey. Instead of someone fleeing in fear from his brother and involved in a plot with his mother, he becomes a dutiful son obeying the wishes of his father. According to the priestly writer, Jacob does more than simply obey his father. By going to Paddan-Aram, he rejects the option of marrying a wife outside of the Terah patrilineage as his brother had apparently done. In this regard, Gen 28:8–9 is intriguing as it reports the marital choices of Esau. On the one hand, the priestly author makes clear that Esau is still attempting to curry favor with his father by not marrying a Canaanite woman (v. 8). As a

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result, he marries Mahalath (v. 9), who, as a daughter of Ishmael, belongs to the patrilineage. However, since Ishmael had “married out” of the patrilineage – his mother had secured a wife from the land of Egypt for him (21:21) – even this attempt to remain within the family was flawed. On the other hand, the priestly writer had earlier noted that Esau had married two Hittite women: Judith and Basemath (26:34; cf. the wives listed in Gen 36:2). In 28:9, the priestly author reaffirms the existence of those marriages prior to the one with Mahalath. This listing of Esau’s wives shows what would have been possible if Jacob had remained in Beer-Sheba. He might have married either Hittite or Canaanite women, and he might have married a woman who, though related to the lineage of Terah, was no longer an eligible marriage partner for a son of Isaac. Neither sort of marital partner would have been acceptable. So, instead of simply going to Rebekah’s brother for protection, he goes to secure an acceptable spouse. This concern for a proper or legitimate marriage no doubt reflects concerns of the general period during which the priestly writer was active. One does not have to search far to find another book that expresses concerns about marriage to “Canaanites and Hittites” (Ezra 9:1–2). During the Persian period in Yehud, there was a clear animus against marrying those who stood outside the emergent Jewish community. However, there was, in addition, a bias against those who venerated YHWH, but who were not part of “the returned exiles” (Ezra 10:16), individuals who were likely also viewed as “the peoples of the land” (Ezra 9:2). When the priestly writer identified the wives of Esau as both Canaanite/Hittite and those who partially belonged to potentially legitimate members of Israel, he was probably thinking about the two groups of potentially illegitimate wives for the male Yahwists who had returned from exile. Anyone who engaged in such behavior could be construed as similar to Esau, who was, of course, the eponymous ancestor of the Edomites. Those in the Persian period would associate the Edomites with the catastrophe of Jerusalem’s destruction (Ps 137:7; Lam 4:21, 22; Ezek 25:12; Obad 10–14). In sum, in Gen 27:46–28:2, 5–9, the priestly writer has recast the story about Jacob’s trip to Haran/Paddan-Aram to create a more favorable image of Jacob. He is less of a frightened brother and more of an obedient son. In addition, the priestly writer has described both what a legitimate spouse will be for Jacob and what would have constituted as unacceptable marital choices, issues prominent in the Persian period, a time when the P was active.

4. The priestly writer’s depiction of Jacob is complex. The priestly writer faced a challenging task, namely, reclaiming the figure of Jacob as depicted in prior traditions. Though contemporary readers have come to know Jacob using the

The Priestly Portrayal of Jacob in Genesis

41

anthropological category of a trickster, the view of Jacob in the book of Hosea is more judgmental. Hosea 12:2–3 indicts Jacob for his errant “deeds” and “ways.” Those might refer to the errant behavior of the northern kingdom, for example, 12:7–8. However, Hosea also includes indictments based on a tradition about Jacob, “In the womb he tried to supplant his brother, and in his manhood he strove with God” (Hos 12:4 [Eng. 12:3]). (Whether what is said in Hos 12:2–4 reflects a tradition about Jacob that is different from what is found in Genesis is the subject of considerable debate.) This part of Jacob’s biography is deemed appropriate for indictment by the prophet. The priestly writer, no doubt familiar with this negative judgment about the character present in the pre-priestly literature, refined the character of Jacob by portraying him as an obedient son who leaves the land as his father commands and goes in order to marry within the patrilineage of Terah.3 In addition, the priestly tradent creates two blessings for Jacob, one in the mouth of Isaac, the other spoken by the deity. These blessings derive from the blessing accorded to Abraham, though there is a specific focus on the way in which the blessing on Jacob will manifest itself in his two royal offspring: Judah and Joseph qua Israel. However, the priestly author demurs from identifying Jacob as a covenant partner, as had been the priestly writer’s hero, Abraham. Blessing obtains for Jacob, not covenant. 4 Having reclaimed the figure of Jacob, the priestly writer could use him to address other issues: the importance of marrying an appropriate spouse – an issue of critical importance during the Persian period – and the downplaying of Bethel as a ritual site. In sum, the priestly author burnishes Jacob and makes use of him for his own purposes. A final comment. Though the purpose of this essay was to examine the way in which the priestly writer portrays Jacob, the analysis has shown that there is no unique material about Jacob in the priestly texts, apart, of course, from the chronological and genealogical data. There is nothing comparable to Gen 17, the covenant between Abraham and God, or to Gen 23, which recounts the death and burial of Sarah. The absence of such material may be construed as evidence that the priestly tradition in the literature associated with Jacob is a recasting of earlier traditions or a series of supplements, but not a body of distinct traditions.

3

  See David M. Carr, Reading the Fractures of Genesis: Historical and Literary Approaches (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996), 88, who refers to “a P-sanitized picture of Esau.” 4   Cf. Peter Weimar, “Aufbau und Struktur der priesterschriftlichen Jakobsgeschichte,” ZAW 86 (1974): 202, who characterizes Abraham as a man of covenant and Jacob as a man of blessing.

On the Relation Between Textual Criticism and Source Criticism in the Pentateuch* Jeffrey Stackert Across his research, Marvin Sweeney has given sustained attention to the methodological aspects of biblical interpretation. This has been the case especially with form-critical issues, but Professor Sweeney’s engagement has extended to the full range of methods that biblical criticism comprises. Recently, he has also made a substantial foray into pentateuchal studies, including source-critical analysis of pentateuchal texts. In view of these various aspects of his work, it is especially fitting to dedicate the present study to Professor Sweeney. I do so here in celebration of his lengthy and influential career and with gratitude for his generous collegiality. Source criticism and textual criticism have long worked in tandem in the analysis of pentateuchal texts. Thus scholars who have investigated the compositional history of these texts have regularly engaged their textual history, and their reconstructions of the earlier works combined in the Pentateuch have been informed by and drawn upon the readings of the ancient witnesses. In some cases, scholars have even employed source-critical observations as primary data for their evaluation of textual variants. 1 Scholars have also * I am grateful to my colleagues, Simeon Chavel, Joel Baden, Baruch Schwartz, and Jeremy Schipper for discussing with me various details in this paper and for their comments and suggestions on an earlier draft. Any shortcomings that remain are, of course, solely mine. 1 See, e.g., Alexander Rofé, “Textual Criticism in the Light of Historical-Literary Criticism: Deuteronomy 31:14–15,” EI 16 (1982): 171–76 (in Hebrew); Bénédicte Lemmelijn, “Influence of a So-Called P-Redaction in the ‘Major Expansions’ of Exod 7–11? Finding Oneself at the Crossroads of Textual and Literary Criticism,” in Textual Criticism and Dead Sea Scrolls Studies in Honour of Julio Trebolle Barrera: Florilegium Complutense, ed. Andres Piquer Otero and Pablo A. Torijano Morales, JSJSup 158 (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2012), 203–22; David M. Carr, “Scribal Processes of Coordination/Harmonization and the Formation of the First Hexateuch(s),” in The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research, ed. Thomas B. Dozeman, Konrad Schmid, and Baruch J. Schwartz, FAT 78 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 63–83; idem, The Formation of the Hebrew Bible: A New Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 102–10, and passim; idem, “Data to Inform Ongoing Debates about the Formation of the Pentateuch: From Documented Cases of Transmission History to a Survey of Rabbinic Exegesis,” in The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Academic Cultures of Europe, Israel, and

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reflected directly on the mutually informing nature of source criticism and textual criticism. Already in his Der Text der Bücher Samuelis, Julius Wellhausen theorized the development of biblical historical texts (including the Pentateuch) in such a way that source- and text-critical observations should be understood in relation to each other: Auf alle Fälle sind Modificierungen des ursprünglichen Kernes und Umarbeitung kleiner Stellen, Aenderungen einzelner Wörter, geringfügige Einsätze (Gen. 3, 20) mit der Entstehungsweise der geschichtlichen Bücher unzertrennich verbunden, und es ist schwierig die Grenze zu finden, wo die Literarkritik aufhört und die Textkritik beginnt.2

A number of scholars have subsequently addressed similar issues and, in so doing, endorsed and developed further observations like those of Wellhausen.3 North America, ed. Jan C. Gertz et al., FAT 111 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 87–106. Outside of the Pentateuch, texts such as Josh 20, 1 Sam 16–18, and Jeremiah have been the special focus of such discussions. See, e.g., the essays in Jeffrey H. Tigay, ed., Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,1985); Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 3rd ed., rev. and exp. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012), 283–326; Simeon Chavel and Jessie DeGrado, “Text- and Source-Criticism of 1 Samuel 17–18: A Complete Account,” VT 70 (2020): 553–80; Guy Darshan, “The Priestly Account of the End of Jacob’s Life: The Significance of Text-Critical Evidence,” in The History of the Jacob Cycle (Genesis 25–35): Recent Research on the Compilation, the Redaction, and the Reception of the Biblical Narrative and Its Historical and Cultural Contexts, ed. Benedikt Hensel, Archaeology and Bible 4 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2021), 183–99. 2 “In any case, modifications of an original core and reworking of small passages, changes of individual words, minor insertions (Gen. 3, 20) are inseparably connected to the way in which the historical books were created, and it is difficult to find the line where literary criticism ends and textual criticism begins” (Julius Wellhausen, Der Text der Bücher Samuelis [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1871], xi). 3 For example, Julio Trebolle Barrera (The Jewish Bible and the Christian Bible: An Introduction to the History of the Bible, trans. Wilfred G. E. Watson [Leiden/Boston: Brill], 370) has stated, Textual criticism studies the process of transmission of the text from the moment it is put into writing or its first edition. Its aim is to determine the oldest biblical text witnessed by the manuscript tradition. Literary criticism (in the sense of the German term Literarkritik) studies instead the process before the formation of the biblical writings in order to determine their author and date. Even though in theory the domains and methods of these two disciplines are quite separate, in practice they often overlap. The meeting point causing friction between them is in the editorial process where the previous process of collecting material and of composition and of editing the text ends and the next process, textual transmission, begins. Bénédicte Lemmelijn has cited this same passage from Trebolle Barrera and has discussed at length the relationship between source-critical and text-critical analysis, particularly in the Exodus plague narratives (A Plague of Texts? A Text-Critical Study of the

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45

In a recent series of articles, however, Emanuel Tov has questioned this connection, specifically for the Pentateuch. He has suggested that source criticism of the Pentateuch – in particular, the Documentary Hypothesis – is built exclusively (or nearly exclusively) on the MT. 4 For example, he has stated, When examining the textual sources on which the Documentary Hypothesis is based, only one is used: the MT. In historical-critical analysis, non-Masoretic sources are taken into consideration all the time, whereas the theory of the Documentary Hypothesis is based exclusively on MT, with one possible exception, the LXX version of Exodus 35–40.5

In a somewhat different formulation, he has observed, When the DH [Documentary Hypothesis] was first launched the only source for a theory like this was MT, although the non-Masoretic sources were used in the analysis of small details from the days of Cappellus (1650) onwards. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, non-Masoretic sources were used to a great extent in the analysis of the divine names in Genesis, among other things. Textual critics stress that all available sources, and not only MT, need to be utilized, but in this case these additional sources do not add to our knowledge.6

Yet Tov has also suggested that this reliance upon MT in the Documentary Hypothesis is understandable and even justified given that (1) the compilation of the pentateuchal sources is attested to the same extent in all of the ancient witnesses and thus had to occur prior to their textual pluriformity, and (2) the MT is generally superior to other textual witnesses in the Pentateuch.7

So-Called ‘Plagues Narrative’ in Exodus 7:14–11:10, OtSt 56 [Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2009], 3–7 and passim; eadem, “Influence of a So-Called P-Redaction”). Lemmelijn here also builds substantially upon the arguments of Hermann-Josef Stipp, “Das Verhältnis von Textkritik und Literarkritik in neueren alttestamentlichen Veröffentlichungen,” BZ 34 (1990): 16–37; idem, “Textkritik–Literarkritik–Textentwicklung: Überlegungen zur exegetischen Aspectsystematik,” ETL 66 (1990): 143–59. 4 Emanuel Tov, “Some Aspects of the Textual History of the Torah,” in Reading a Tendentious Bible: Essays in Honor of Robert B. Coote, ed. Marvin L. Chaney et al. (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2014), 183–94; idem, “The Source of Source Criticism: The Relevance of Non-Masoretic Textual Witnesses,” in Text – Textgeschichte – Textwirkung: Festschrift zum 65. Geburtstag von Siegfried Kreuzer, ed. Thomas Wagner, Jonathan M. Robker, and Frank Ueberschaer, AOAT 419 (Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2015), 283–301; idem, “The Development of the Text of the Torah in Two Major Text Blocks,” Text 26 (2016): 1–27. Notably, Tov employs the concept of the Documentary Hypothesis for all compositional analysis of the Pentateuch. His observations are thus meant to be applicable to any model of pentateuchal formation. 5 Tov, “Some Aspects,” 187. 6 Tov, “The Source of Source Criticism,” 300. 7 Tov, “The Source of Source Criticism,” 300–301.

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Though some of Tov’s observations are helpful, others, as noted already, fly in the face of the actual history of source-critical analysis of the Pentateuch and the methodological arguments of individual scholars. This inconsistency is partly due to the procedure that Tov has followed in his analysis. In his most sustained treatment of the issue – an article titled “The Source of Source Criticism” – Tov describes this procedure: In this study I intend to locate non-Masoretic data possibly relevant to the DH [Documentary Hypothesis] in all its forms. I try to identify blocks of data, not individual readings, that may be relevant for the DH in a particular verse.8

Each of these sentences describes an important constraint and, with it, a potential limitation of Tov’s approach. The first constraint allows Tov to discount an article such as Alexander Rofé’s “Textual Criticism in the Light of Historical-Literary Criticism: Deuteronomy 31:14–15,” for while Rofé employs source-critical evidence in his study to inform his consideration of textual data, he identifies harmonistic additions in both MT and the nonMasoretic witnesses. Thus, no ancient witness preserves the reading that Rofé posits once existed in Deut 31:14–15; moreover, the additions identified by Rofé postdate the compilation of the Pentateuch from its sources. 9 Tov’s second constraint – preferring large blocks of data to individual readings – categorically excludes any smaller-scale data that might be relevant for source-critical analysis. In this study, I will draw upon such small-scale variants in Exodus to show that the non-Masoretic witnesses of the Pentateuch do play a significant role in the Documentary Hypothesis and, importantly, how they do so. I will likewise show how source-critical observations can aid in the evaluation of textual evidence. In each of the examples that I will discuss, the ancient witnesses attest variation,10 and none of them admits of an obviously preferable 8 Tov, “The Source of Source Criticism,” 284. Tov admits, “Not all the details concerning evidence relevant to the DH may be known to me” (300). He also suggests that “the search for vestiges of ancient evidence in the Torah would not be out of place in modern textual-literary research since similar material has been found in the post-Pentateuchal books, especially in the LXX translations of the books” (285). 9 See Tov’s comments in “The Source of Source Criticism,” 299. 10 It should be recalled that such cases may actually be a minority. There are numerous other instances in which none of the versions provides an alternate reading, and yet the presence of a scribal error – one that was evidently preserved in all of the witnesses – is clear (and many have been acknowledged by critics). An example is the dittography of ‫ ותהי הכנם באדם ובבהמה‬in Exod 8:14b (for discussion of variants among the witnesses, see Lemmelijn, A Plague of Texts, 46–47). The basis for identifying this dittography is primarily source-critical, i.e., only by separating out P can one determine clearly that P’s marvels are momentary, and thus the imposition of lice in v. 13 must have ended prior to the magicians’ attempt in v. 14a. See Jeffrey Stackert, “Why Does the Plague of Darkness Last for Three Days? Source Ascription and Literary Motif in Exodus 10:21–23, 27,” VT

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47

reading on the basis of conventional text-critical evaluation. For example, it is not the briefer or more difficult text that is clearly superior in any instance; nor do the immediate contexts of the different readings permit the identification of a typical copyist’s error. Yet in each case, the text’s sourcecritical delineation does recommend a preferred reading, and, in each instance, the non-Masoretic evidence plays a decisive role. These examples thus add to our knowledge of pentateuchal textual history while also shedding light on the relationship between source-critical and text-critical investigation.

1. Case Studies Before launching into the following cases, it should be noted that they treat only a small number of instances that might be identified – and have been identified. Moreover, the explanations of the examples offered here build upon and contribute to a revised articulation of the Documentary Hypothesis that has been termed Neodocumentarian. 11 Yet the evidence adduced, both text-critical and source-critical, is relevant for any model of pentateuchal composition; indeed, similar considerations of textual history have even been a special emphasis of some non-documentary compositional analyses.12 1.1. Exodus 8:3b A first example for consideration is the varied attestation of the nota accusativi in Exod 8:3b. The MT of this verse, which is supported by the LXX, reads as follows (with the relevant clause marked):

61 (2011): 662. By contrast, as Leeor Gottlieb has observed (“Repetition Due to Homoeoteleuton,” Text 21 [2002]: 33–35; cf. also Lemmelijn, A Plague of Texts, 165–66), the beginning of v. 13 differs in MT and LXX, and the LXX reading is preferable. However, the case of v. 13a has no source-critical implication and is clearly a scribal error in MT. 11 For discussion of the Neodocumentarian approach and example analyses, see, e.g., Baruch J. Schwartz, “The Torah: Its Five Books and Four Documents,” in The Literature of the Hebrew Bible: Introductions and Studies, ed. Zipora Talshir, 2 vols. (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi Press, 2011), 1:161–225 (in Hebrew); idem, “How the Compiler of the Pentateuch Worked: The Composition of Genesis 37,” in The Book of Genesis: Composition, Reception, and Interpretation, ed. Craig A. Evans, Joel N. Lohr, and David L. Petersen (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2012), 263–78; Simcha (Simeon) Chavel, “The Legal Literature of the Hebrew Bible,” in Talshir, ed., The Literature of the Hebrew Bible, 1:227–72 (in Hebrew); idem, “A Kingdom of Priests and its Earthen Altars in Exod 19–24,” VT 65 (2015): 169– 222; Joel S. Baden, The Composition of the Pentateuch: Renewing the Documentary Hypothesis, AYBRL (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012); Jeffrey Stackert, A Prophet Like Moses: Prophecy, Law, and Israelite Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014). 12 See esp. the studies of Carr cited above in n. 1.

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Jeffrey Stackert ‫ויעשו כן החרטמים בלטיהם ויעלו את הצפרדעים על ארץ מצרים‬

The magicians did the same with their charms, and they brought up the frogs over the land of Egypt.

The SP of this line is almost identical to the MT. However, it does not include the nota accusativi:13 ‫ויעשו כן חרטמי מצרים בלהטיהם ויעלו הצפרדעים על ארץ מצרים‬

The inclusion or non-inclusion of the nota accusativi in this verse is potentially significant grammatically and thus also semantically. The morphology of ‫ ויעלו‬allows for two grammatical analyses and, with them, two different sentence meanings. In its context, this verb could be analyzed as qal, in which case it would be intransitive: “they (the frogs) rose up.” Alternatively, it could be analyzed as hiphil and thus as causative (and transitive): “they (the magicians) brought up the frogs.” With the attendant nota accusativi, as in MT, the reading is unambiguous: ‫ ויעלו‬must be analyzed as a hiphil verb, with the magicians of v. 3a serving as its subject and the frogs in v. 3b its object. The same reading is possible for SP; however, because there is no nota accusativi there, it is also possible to understand ‫ ויעלו‬in SP as a qal verb with the frogs as its subject. The question is thus twofold: what is the meaning of v. 3b, and which text is to be preferred?14 A variety of data informs the analysis of SP’s ambiguity and, with it, the text-critical question in Exod 8:3b. A first detail to consider is the similar formulation found elsewhere in the frog plague unit. In both Exod 7:28 and 29, MT, SP, and Qumran fragments consistently reflect the verb ‫ על׳׳י‬in the qal stem with the frogs (‫ )צפרדעים‬as its subject. The same formulation, with qal verb and the frogs as its subject, appears in 8:2 (though in this case, with the singular collective noun, ‫)צפרדע‬. In 8:1, however, the verb ‫ על׳׳י‬appears in the hiphil, and the frogs (‫ )צפרדעים‬are its object.15

13 Kenn 152 and 389 A also omit the nota accusativi in Exod 8:3b. On the relatively greater importance of LXX, SP, and Qumran mss in comparison with other textual witnesses and translations, see Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 18–19. The small differences observable among the witnesses in v. 3a are not significant for the present discussion (for discussion, see esp. Lemmelijn, A Plague of Texts, 156–57). 14 For previous observations of the issue and tentative suggestions, see, e.g., William H. G. Propp, Exodus 1–18: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 2 (New York: Doubleday, 1998), 295, 311, 319. Both Lemmelijn’s and Propp’s text-critical notes are extensive and helpfully evaluative; I will thus make recourse to them regularly in my discussion here. 15 Note that there is no issue with subject/verb agreement in any of these instances. The variants in LXX 8:2 are likely harmonizations. See Propp, Exodus 1–18, 295; Lemmelijn, A Plague of Texts, 154–56.

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49

Taken together (and synchronically), this data offers little insight into the analysis of 8:3b. The command in 8:1, which is an order to the human agent Aaron to enact the frog wonder, is followed by a fulfillment notice in 8:2, where the agents of the action are the frogs themselves. A similar scenario could obtain in 8:3: the magicians performed their wonder, and the frogs arose over the land. Alternatively, the magicians performed their wonder and thus brought up the frogs over the land. The evidence of the ancient witnesses provides additional data for consideration. In weighing its presence or absence generally, the nota accusativi tends to appear more regularly in SP than in MT (and sometimes other ancient witnesses). A survey of the plague narratives in MT and SP (Exod 7–12) reveals 140 examples of the nota accusativi in MT and 176 attestations in SP. Among the additional instances in SP, the majority appear in extended plusses that narrate the fulfillment of commissioned speech.16 Nine instances are found in verses that are substantially identical to MT (7:14, 19 [bis]; 8:16; 9:5; 10:3, 12, 21; 12:28) and represent attempts to standardize the use of the nota accusativi across the text.17 With two exceptions, SP attests every instance of the nota accusativi found in MTL in Exod 7–12. The exceptions are 8:3b (our case) and 9:29 (MTL: ‫אפרש את כפי‬, “I will stretch out my hands”).18 Yet the 9:29 example also fits the pattern observed elsewhere in SP. Neither MT nor SP attests the nota accusativi in the fulfillment clause that corresponds with 9:29, ‫ויפרש כפיו‬, “He stretched out his hands” (9:33). The consistency between 9:29 and 9:33 in SP thus suggests that its minus in 9:29 is a harmonizing omission.19 This examination of the character of SP and MT underscores the peculiarity of the nota accusativi’s absence in SP Exod 8:3b. Yet this peculiarity does not by itself recommend a judgment concerning which reading of this line is

16 As Childs observed, “It is characteristic of the Samar. text throughout the plagues stories to expand the text in order to recount the actual delivery of a divine speech to Pharaoh which was only commanded in the MT” (Brevard S. Childs, The Book of Exodus: A Critical, Theological Commentary, OTL [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1974], 128). See also Emanuel Tov, “Textual Harmonization in the Five Books of the Torah: A Summary,” in The Bible, Qumran, and the Samaritans, ed. Magnar Kartveit and Gerald Knoppers, STJ 104 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2018), 46 n. 38; idem, “Source of Source Criticism,” 291–93. Tov distinguishes between “large, editorial pluses” and “small harmonizing alterations” in SP. 17 Most of these examples occur with the verbs ‫ של׳׳ח‬and ‫נט׳׳י‬, verbs that in MT occasionally appear without the nota accusativi. SP standardizes each such instance. 18 As in SP 9:29, the nota accusativi does not appear in this clause (or is added secondarily) in Kenn 1, 4, 6, 69, 82, 84, 107, 108, 109, 111, 129, 132, 136, 155, 181, 199, 248, 615. 19 For another example of such harmonization in SP, see the discussion of Exod 9:25 below.

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to be preferred. While it suggests that SP’s minus is likely not an intentional omission, it does not exclude an accidental one. The source-critical evidence permits a solution to this text-critical impasse. As I have argued elsewhere, the frog plague can be divided between J and P as follows: J: Exod 7:26–29 and 8:3b–11a;20 P: 8:1–3a, ויחזק לב פרעה‬ (restored), 11b.21 Most scholars have left 8:3 undivided, attributing it to P in its entirety.22 In that analysis, the emergence of the frogs in v. 3b (regardless of the appearance of the nota accusativi there) is the result of the magicians’ actions in v. 3a. I am suggesting, however, that v. 3b is compositionally unrelated to v. 3a. The appearance of the frogs in v. 3b instead follows directly upon Moses’s prediction in 7:26–29. As such, it is the first appearance of frogs in J and not their second appearance in P. The division of v. 3 between P and J is supported by several converging lines of evidence. The first is the P episode that can be reconstructed from this unit. As preserved in all of the witnesses, Exod 8:11 combines a story element from J with a story element from P. Its clause depicting Pharaoh’s stubbornness, ‫והכבד את לבו‬, “he (Pharaoh) made himself belligerent,” relates a basic claim of the J account: Pharaoh is agentive and, of his own volition, refuses to submit to the Israelite god, YHWH. The following line, however, is typical of P’s story: ‫ולא שמע אלהם כאשר דבר יהוה‬, “and he did not listen to them, just as YHWH had foretold.” In P, YHWH predicted from the

20 It is likely that ‫ ולא שלח את העם‬should be restored at the end of the J frogs account (cf. Exod 8:28; 9:7). It was probably omitted because P’s clause, ‫ולא שמע אליהם‬, provided a functional equivalent in the compiled account. Note that P employs a similar clause (‫ )ולא שלח את בני ישראל‬in 9:35, 10:20, and 11:10. It is likely that J’s hail account, which concludes in 9:34, originally included the ‫ ולא שלח את העם‬clause. 21 Jeffrey Stackert, “Pentateuchal Coherence and the Science of Reading,” in The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Academic Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America, ed. Jan C. Gertz et al., FAT 111 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 263–67. The analysis here builds upon my earlier treatment. 22 See, e.g., Wellhausen, Die Composition des Hexateuchs (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1899), 64–65; August Dillmann, Die Bücher Exodus und Leviticus, HKAT, 3rd ed. (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1897), 85–86; H. Holzinger, Exodus (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1900), 23; S. R. Driver, The Book of Exodus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1918), 63; Moshe Greenberg, “The Redaction of the Plague Narrative in Exodus,” in Near Eastern Studies in Honor of William Foxwell Albright, ed. Hans Goedicke (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971), 243–52 (at 249, 251); Erhard Blum, Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch, BZAW 189 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990), 245, 247. Propp expresses ambivalence concerning the source assignment of 8:3b, even suggesting that it may belong to more than one source (Exodus 1–18, 311). Some scholars have pointed to ‫ ארץ מצרים‬in 8:3b as a marker of P (e.g., Holzinger). Yet even as this locution is more common in P than in J in the plagues narrative, it does not appear solely in P texts (see, e.g., Exod 11:5–6 MT; note that 11:6 SP lacks ‫)ארץ‬. Moreover, this is a locution that is subject to transmission variation. See further below.

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51

start that Pharaoh would not accede to Moses’s and Aaron’s demands or be swayed by the wonders that they would perform. In fact, YHWH promised to ensure Pharaoh’s noncompliance by emboldening the Egyptian king, forcing him into obduracy (Exod 7:1–5; cf. 11:9–10). It is to this plan that ‫כאשר דבר‬ ‫ יהוה‬in 8:11b refers. Yet the preserved P text does not transition smoothly from 8:3a to v. 11b. Verse 11b includes no stated subject, and v. 3a does not provide the required subject (Pharaoh) for the line: ‫ ולא שמע אלהם כאשר דבר יהוה‬11b ‫ ויעשו כן החרטמים בלטיהם‬... 3a 3a The magicians did the same with their charms … 11b and he did not listen to them, just as YHWH had foretold.

As scholars have long observed,23 this problem resulted from an omission that likely occurred when the compiler combined the J and P texts. It is probable that the clause ‫ויחזק לב פרעה‬, “Pharaoh’s heart stiffened,” originally appeared in P between the text of v. 3a and v. 11b but was removed because of its substantial similarity to the J clause ‫והכבד את לבו‬. The omitted P clause provides the necessary subject for the verb in v. 11b; it also creates a conclusion to the P frogs episode that closely parallels P’s conclusion to the foregoing blood episode: Exod 7:22 ‫ויעשו כן חרטמי מצרים בלטיהם ויחזק לב פרעה ולא שמע אלהם כאשר דבר יהוה‬

The Egyptian magicians did the same with their charms, but Pharaoh’s heart stiffened, and he did not listen to them, just as YHWH had foretold. Exod 8:3a+11b (reconstructed) ‫ויעשו כן החרטמים בלטיהם >ויחזק לב פרעה< ולא שמע אלהם כאשר דבר יהוה‬

The magicians did the same with their charms, and he did not listen to them, just as YHWH had foretold.

The symmetry of these formulations casts doubt upon the assignment of 8:3b to the P account.24 The division of Exod 8:3 also creates a cohesive J episode. According to Exod 7:26–29, Moses is to tell Pharaoh that if he refuses to release the Israelites, frogs will emerge (‫על׳׳י‬, qal) from the Nile and overrun the Egyptians. 23

See already Dillmann, Exodus und Leviticus, 88; Martin Noth, Exodus: A Commentary, OTL, trans. J. S. Bowden (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962), 75; Propp, Exodus 1–18, 311, 318–19. 24 In view of the omission in 8:11, it is striking that a similar omission is not found in 9:34–35, where the J and P stubbornness clauses stand immediately adjacent to each other. The determinative difference between 9:34–35 and 8:11 seems to be the reference to Pharaoh’s servants in 9:34. Their inclusion, prompted by the prominent role that they play in the J hail episode more generally, apparently made the two stubbornness clauses sufficiently distinct in the judgment of the compiler, who chose to retain them both.

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As is oftentimes the case, J includes no report of Moses’s actual delivery of his speech or Pharaoh’s rejection of his demand. Telescoping these story elements, J moves instead directly to the frogs’ emergence in 8:3b.25 There is, however, some dissonance between J’s prediction (7:28–29) and fulfillment (8:3b) in MT. This is precisely because, accompanied by the nota accusativi, the verb ‫ ויעלו‬in 8:3b must be analyzed as hiphil (“they brought up”). This verb requires Moses and Aaron as its subjects, but up to this point, Aaron has not appeared in the J episode. Rather, YHWH directs only Moses in 7:26–29. While both the larger J account (4:15–16) and its frogs episode (8:4) make clear that Aaron accompanies Moses before Pharaoh, one might expect mention of Aaron in the unit prior to his appearance as the implied subject of ‫ ויעלו‬in 8:3b. Second, YHWH gives no instruction to Moses in 7:26–29 to perform any action to initiate the wonder. Moses is instead only to announce YHWH’s words, promising that the deity himself will enact the plague (‫)הנה אנכי נגף את כל גבולך בצפרדעים‬. In this way, the J frogs episode differs from the J blood episode (Exod 7:17, 20; but cf. 7:25) but is consistent with the rest of the J plagues, which YHWH initiates himself. While it is possible under these circumstances that 8:3b could ascribe agency to Moses and Aaron in the plague’s enactment, such a description is unexpected. This incongruity may even raise questions concerning the ascription of 8:3b to J. It is at this point that the source-critical and text-critical evidence in 8:3b converge. The text of SP, with no nota accusativi and the possibility of a qal analysis of the verb ‫ויעלו‬, relieves the tension between 7:26–29 and 8:3b. In this text’s reading, as predicted in 7:28–29, the frogs themselves emerge (‫ויעלו‬, qal intransitive verb) in 8:3b. It is likely, then, that SP 8:3b preserves both the wording of J and, as such, the earlier reading of this line. The source analysis of 8:3 also suggests an explanation for the introduction of the nota accusativi in the other witnesses. Once v. 3a and v. 3b were juxtaposed, the underdetermined morphology of ‫ ויעלו‬and the description of the wonder in P (8:1–2) made it easy to read v. 3b as the specification of v. 3a: what did the magicians do with their charms? They brought up the frogs. By inserting the nota accusativi, this reading was confirmed. What remains unclear is whether the introduction of the nota accusativi in v. 3b represents an intentional or unintentional change. It is possible that the copyist responsible for it was simply disambiguating the reading (i.e., hiphil verb, with ‫ הצפרדעים‬as direct object) that he already assumed for v. 3b. It is even possible that he did not recognize that he deviated from his Vorlage, 25

On the regular occurrence of partial reports of commissioned speech and action in biblical narrative, see Ann M. Vater, “Narrative Patterns for the Story of Commissioned Communication in the Old Testament,” JBL 99 (1980): 365–82 (for the example of Exod 7:26–29, see pp. 373–74).

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simply copying the text as he formulated it mentally (whether working from a physical copy of the text or not).26 Finally, it is possible (and perhaps even likely) that the change was introduced independently in multiple manuscripts. 1.2. Exodus 19:18 A second example in which source-critical and text-critical analyses are mutually informing is found in Exod 19:18. MTL of this verse is as follows:27 ‫והר סיני עשן כלו מפני אשר ירד עליו יהוה באש ויעל עשנו כעשן הכבשן ויחרד כל ההר מאד‬

Now Mt. Sinai was all smoky because YHWH had descended upon it in fire. Its smoke arose like a furnace’s smoke, and the whole mountain quaked violently.

Notable textually is the variant at the end of this verse attested in LXX and elsewhere.28 LXX reads (with the variant underscored): τὸ δὲ ὄρος τὸ Σινὰ ἐκαπνίζετο ὅλον διὰ τὸ καταβεβηκέναι τὸν θεὸν ἐπ̓ αὐτὸ ἐν πυρί, καὶ ἀνέβαινεν ὁ καπνὸς ὡς καπνὸς καμίνου, καὶ ἐξέστη πᾶς ὁ λαὸς σφόδρα

Now Mt. Sinai was all smoky because the deity had descended upon it in fire, and the smoke arose like a furnace’s smoke, and all the people were thoroughly astonished.

Scholars who have observed this variant have regularly pointed to the similar formulation in v. 16b: ‫ויחרד כל העם אשר במחנה‬, “All the people who were in the camp trembled with fear.” Yet they have drawn different conclusions from the comparison of vv. 16 and 18. For example, Dillmann argued that the mountain is not a suitable subject for the verb ‫ חר׳׳ד‬because this verb does not describe the action of inanimate objects.29 Others, however, have challenged Dillmann’s assessment, pointing to examples such as Isa 10:29, 41:5, and Ezek 26:18, where the subjects of the verb ‫ חר׳׳ד‬are “Ramah” (‫)הרמה‬,“the ends of the earth” (‫)קצות הארץ‬, and “the coastlands” (‫)האין‬,

26 Commenting on the LXX translation process, John Screnock has helpfully argued for the translator’s creation of an intermediate, “mental text” that was similar to, but not identical with, the parent text and that stood as the most proximate basis for the translation created. A substantially similar process characterizes the copying of a text in a single language. See John Screnock, Traductor Scriptor: The Old Greek Translation of Exodus 1– 14 as Scribal Activity, VTSup 176 (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2017), 76–92. On the role of memory in the copying process, see Jonathan Vroom, “The Role of Memory in Vorlagebased Transmission: Evidence from Erasures and Corrections,” Text 27 (2018): 258–73. 27 For the same reading, see SP, Tgs, Syr. 28 Propp has collected the additional evidence for this reading: Kenn 173, 191, 248, 426, 476 (?), 528, 551 (?), 642, Rossi 405, 585, and the Paris ms of Fragmentary Targum P (Exodus 19–40, 110). 29 Dillmann, Exodus und Leviticus, 217. So also Arnold B. Ehrlich, Randglossen zur Hebräischen Bibel: Textcritisches, Sprachliches und Sachliches, 7 vols. (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1908–14), 1: 338.

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respectively. 30 In light of such evidence, Propp has argued that, as the diverse reading, “the whole mountain” should be preferred in v. 18.31 Similarly, Tov has labeled λαὸς in LXX 19:18 a harmonization on the basis of v. 16.32 These arguments give scant attention to the different stories that have been combined in Exod 19 (and following). This is not entirely surprising, for the source analysis of Exod 19 is notoriously difficult, and vv. 16–18 may be the most difficult lines in the chapter. Yet attending to the compositional issues here generates a solution to the text-critical problem in v. 18. Specifically, it suggests that the reading of LXX et al., “all the people” (πᾶς ὁ λαὸς = ‫)כל העם‬, is preferable. The majority of Exod 19 can be divided between J and E (vv. 1–2a belong to P). Relevant to the present discussion is the E story, which I would suggest comprises vv. 2b–9a, 16a (beginning at ‫–)ויהי קלת‬17, 18bβ (beginning at ‫–)ויחרד‬19. 33 According to this identification of E, immediately following Jethro’s departure (18:27), and with Israel encamped at the mountain, Moses ascends toward the mountain and hears from the deity, who describes to Moses his plan for Israel. If the Israelites will obey him, YHWH will make a special commitment to them. Upon hearing this plan, Israel assents. Then YHWH alerts Moses to the next part of his plan: he will allow the Israelites to experience firsthand Moses’s direct communication with the deity in order to validate Moses’s prophetic credentials (Exod 19:9a; 20:18–20). This will set the stage for the specific commands that YHWH will transmit to the Israelites

30

J. Philip Hyatt, Exodus, NCB, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 202; Joel S. Baden, “The Deuteronomic Evidence for the Documentary Theory,” in The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research, ed. Thomas B. Dozeman, Konrad Schmid, and Baruch J. Schwartz, FAT 78 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 342 n. 35. 31 Propp, Exodus 19–40, 110. 32 Emanuel Tov, “Textual Harmonization in Exodus 1–24,” TC 22 (2017): 9. John William Wevers suggested that the Vorlage of LXX may have read ‫ העם‬but viewed it as a harmonization introduced in light of v. 16 (Notes on the Greek Text of Exodus, SCS 30 [Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990], 304). Other scholars have offered additional arguments in favor of the ‫ ההר‬reading. For example, Cornelis Houtman noted that in biblical texts, mountains tremble more often than do people (Exodus, trans. Johan Rebel and Sierd Woudstra, HCOT, 4 vols. [Leuven: Peeters, 1993–2002], 2:456). 33 For discussion of the composition of E in Exod 19–24, see esp. Simeon Chavel, “A Kingdom of Priests and its Earthen Altars in Exodus 19–24,” VT 65 (2015): 169–222 (esp. 190–97), and the extensive bibliography cited there. For the continuation in E from Exod 18 to 19, see Baruch J. Schwartz, “The Visit to Jethro: A Case of Chronological Displacement? The Source-Critical Solution,” in Mishneh Todah: Studies in Deuteronomy and Its Cultural Environment in Honor of Jeffrey H. Tigay, ed. Nili Sachar Fox, David A. GlattGilad, and Michael J. Williams (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2009), 29–48 (esp. 35–36, 45– 46). For general discussion of E, see Baden, Composition, 103–28.

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via Moses’s mediation, viz., the laws of the Covenant Code (Exod 20:23– 23:19).34 It is in the progression of movement described in this story that the solution to the text-critical problem emerges. The E material in vv. 16–18 (with the reading ‫ העם‬in v. 18bβ) is as follows: ‫ויהי קלת וברקים וענן כבד על ההר וקל שפר חזק מאד ויחרד כל העם אשר במחנה ויוצא‬ ‫משה את העם לקראת האלהים מן המחנה ויתיצבו בתחתית ההר ויחרד כל העם מאד‬

There was thunder and lightning and a heavy cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet sound, and all the people – who were in the camp – trembled in fear. Then Moses led the people out from the camp to meet the deity. He stationed them at the mountain’s base, and the whole people trembled all the more.

The wondrous display provoked fear in the people while they were still at a significant remove from the mountain, viz., while they were still in the camp. Coming close to that display – when Moses stationed them at the mountain’s base – only increased their dread.35 This repeated specification of the people’s locations and the correlation of these locales with the peoples’ experiences signal the importance of these details, which build progressively toward the climax of the E story – the deity’s audible revelation. As for the reading of ‫ ההר‬in v. 18, its introduction in the place of ‫העם‬ is readily explained as a response to the combination of J and E material in this verse. In this combination, J’s description of the mountain predominates (‫ ויעל עשנו כעשן הכבשן‬... ‫)והר סיני עשן כלו‬. The verse’s last clause could be understood as further elaboration of the description that precedes it. In fact, in its combined form, and in view of the image of quaking mountains found elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Isa 5:25; 54:10; Jer 4:24; Nah 1:5; Pss 18:8; 46:3–4; 72:16), it is easy to contemplate such an image here.36 This explanation, combined with the improbability of the same, relatively rare verb (‫ )חר׳׳ד‬appearing twice in close succession in the compiled text while originating from different sources and carrying different connotations, recommends against the originality of ‫ ההר‬and, with it, the assignment of v. 18bβ to J.37 For discussion of the E Horeb account’s basic story, see Moshe Greenberg, “‫ נסה‬in Exodus 20:20 and the Purpose of the Sinaitic Theophany,” JBL 79 (1960): 273–76; Stackert, A Prophet Like Moses, 75–82; Chavel, “A Kingdom of Priests,” 185–90. 35 See Houtman, Exodus, 2:454–55; Baden, “Deuteronomic Evidence,” 342 n. 35. On the use of ‫ מאד‬to connote intensification in relation to an explicitly depicted prior condition, see, e.g., Gen 1:31; 7:18–19; 26:13. See also Benjamin Kedar-Kopfstein, “‫מאד‬,” TDOT 8: 40. 36 Notably, Ps 104:32 explicitly associates smoking and quaking with divine intervention on earth. Cf. Propp, Exodus 19–40, 164. 37 For this assignment, see, e.g., Joseph Estlin Carpenter and George Harford-Battersby, The Hexateuch according to the Revised Version, 2 vols. (New York: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1900), 2: 110. 34

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If this explanation is correct, while the LXX reading of λαὸς in 19:18 is not a harmonization, the ‫ ההר‬reading in the other witnesses is. It is also a harmonization of a different kind than has been identified in the LXX reading. Rather than maintaining the thread of the people’s fear from v. 16 or even attempting to match the subject-verb pairing there, the ‫ ההר‬reading seeks to coordinate the end of v. 18 with what immediately precedes it. As such, it is a very localized harmonization that creates some measure of dissonance with its larger literary context. Yet this dissonance in the majority of the witnesses – people and mountain are both said to tremble – is readily experienced as (clever) wordplay.38 1.3. Exodus 9:24b, 25a A final pair of examples appear in Exod 9:24–25. The MT of these verses, which are part of the hail plague, reads: ‫ ויהי ברד ואש מתלקחת בתוך הברד כבד מאד אשר לא היה כמהו בכל ארץ מצרים מאז‬24 ‫ ויך הברד בכל ארץ מצרים את כל אשר בשדה מאדם ועד בהמה ואת כל עשב‬25 ‫היתה לגוי‬ ‫השדה הכה הברד ואת כל עץ השדה שבר‬

24 And there was hail. Now fire was flashing in the midst of the hail. It was very heavy; nothing like it had occurred in all the land of Egypt since it had become a nation. 25 The hail struck in all the land of Egypt all that was in the field, from person to beast. The hail also struck all the plants of the field, and shattered every tree of the field.

There are two notable minuses in the LXX rendering of these lines: neither MT’s ‫“( כל ארץ‬all the land of”) in v. 24b nor ‫“( את כל אשר בשדה‬all that was in the field”) in v. 25a is reflected in the Greek text. Notably, two medieval Hebrew mss as well as the SP attest the same minus in v. 24b.39 As in the foregoing cases, the source division of the plague episode proves significant. The plague of hail can be divided between J and P as follows: J: 9:13–21, 23 (beginning with ‫)ויהוה נתן‬, 24 (except the first two words), 26– 30, 33–34; P: 9:22, the first words of v. 23 (‫)ויט משה את מטהו על השמים‬, the first words of v. 24 (‫)ויהי ברד‬, 25, 31–32, 35. 40 In evaluating ‫ כל ארץ‬in v. 24b, it is important to note that it is part of the fulfillment of the prediction made in 9:18:

38

For attempts to coordinate the trembling in vv. 16 and 18, see, e.g., Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Exodus, trans. Israel Abrahams (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1967), 232; Childs, The Book of Exodus, 369. 39 The medieval Hebrew mss are Kenn 107 and Rossi 5 (Propp, Exodus 1–18, 302). 40 See Jeffrey Stackert, “Why Does the Plague of Darkness Last for Three Days? Source Ascription and Literary Motif in Exodus 10:21–23, 27,” VT 61 (2011): 660.

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‫הנני ממטיר כעת מחר ברד כבד מאד אשר לא היה כמהו במצרים למן היום הוסדה ועד עתה‬

At this time tomorrow, I will rain down very heavy hail, the likes of which has never been in Egypt from the time of its founding to the present.

Notably, 9:18 does not refer to “all the land of Egypt,” delimiting instead only “Egypt” (‫)במצרים‬. Of additional significance is the closely proximate notice in 9:25a, which describes the hail’s impact “in all the land of Egypt” (‫ויך הברד בכל ארץ‬ ‫)מצרים‬. This description, which belongs to P, is consistent with P’s characterization of the extent of the hail. In the P story, the hail does indeed strike the entire land of Egypt. The hail’s pervasiveness is part of the announcement of the wonder in 9:22, and the continuation of v. 25 elaborates it.41 It is also referenced again in P in 9:31–32 and 10:15b. The extent of the hail is different, however, in J. There the hail does not affect the Goshen region of Egypt (9:26). In light of the discrepancy between the prediction and fulfillment in 9:18 and 24b and the relevance of “all the land of Egypt” for P but not for J, it is likely that the shorter text should be preferred in 9:24b. The inclusion of ‫ כל ארץ‬in MT is likely another instance of harmonization, probably under the influence of 9:25a (P). As with the introductions of the nota accusativi in Exod 8:3b and ‫ ההר‬in Exod 19:18, the harmonization in 9:24b seeks coordination with more proximate material while neglecting the more distant parallel wording (in this case, the corresponding prediction in 9:18). It is important to note that I am not advocating the shorter reading in 9:24b on the basis of the principle of lectio brevior potior. The potentially misleading character of this principle is exemplified well in the first clause of 9:25, just cited. SP exhibits a minus in this instance, reading ‫ויך הברד בארץ‬ ‫מצרים‬, “The hail struck in the land of Egypt,” not “in all the land of Egypt” (MT). Some scholars have adopted this SP reading, even explicitly on the basis of the lectio brevior principle.42 Yet in light of the source-critical evidence just reviewed, it is more likely that the SP reading of 9:25a reflects a harmonizing omission, probably in relation to its text in v. 22b (‫)בארץ מצרים‬ but perhaps even to v. 24b (‫)במצרים‬. Regardless of the target of its harmonization, this instance appears to be similar to the case of 9:29 discussed above. Finally, source-critical analysis can also inform the text-critical evaluation of the words ‫ את כל אשר בשדה‬in MT Exod 9:25a, which are not reflected in LXX. Exodus 9:25 is P’s fulfillment of the action commissioned in v. 22, but 41

It appears that the traditions shared by J and P are particularly close in parts of the hail episode. Thus vv. 19–21 (J) and vv. 22, 25 (P) each describe the effect of the hail upon humans (‫ )אדם‬and animals (‫ )בהמה‬and upon that which is in the field (‫)בשדה‬. Notably, however, J is concerned only with humans and livestock; P is also concerned with crops. 42 See, e.g., Propp, Exodus 1–18, 302. For discussion of the ancient variants for ‫ארץ‬ ‫ מצרים‬generally in the Exodus plague narrative, see Lemmelijn, A Plague of Texts, 153–54.

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while v. 22 refers to humans (‫)אדם‬, animals (‫)בהמה‬, and plants (‫)עשב‬, as does v. 25, it makes no reference to “all that was in the field” (‫את כל אשר‬ ‫)בשדה‬. The latter phrase thus disrupts the symmetry between vv. 22 and 25. By itself, this discrepancy is suggestive, but it is not sufficient to warrant preferring the LXX reading. Yet in view of the compilation of J and P materials in this episode, it is likely that ‫ את כל אשר בשדה‬is an interpolation that serves as a harmonization across originally disparate source material. This harmonization may even serve as a hypercorrection, seeking to clarify that J’s details do, in fact, apply in the P story. As a harmonization, ‫ את כל אשר בשדה‬in v. 25a creates a connection with the very similarly worded J phrase ‫ את כל אשר לך בשדה‬in v. 19, a phrase that immediately precedes there the specification of ‫ אדם‬and ‫ – בהמה‬the same sequence now attested in MT v. 25. 43 Yet ‫ את כל אשר בשדה‬also appears to be influenced by vv. 19–21 more globally. This phrase clarifies that the humans and animals affected by the hail were, in fact, outdoors. Such a hypercorrection only arises from the combination of J and P. With similar intent, this interpolation may also prepare for v. 25b’s reference to the trees, which are explicitly located “in the field” (‫ )בשדה‬but went unmentioned in the prediction in v. 22.

2. Conclusion The examples considered in this study make clear that source-critical and text-critical analyses of the Pentateuch are mutually informing. They likewise demonstrate the specific role that small-scale textual variants can play in source-critical determinations and the sometime superiority of the nonMasoretic witnesses for these determinations. This study also suggests a reason that the textual variants evaluated here (and presumably others like them) arose: the combination of originally independent works in the Pentateuch, particularly in instances of interweaving, created the circumstances to which scribes responded with their clarifying and/or harmonistic interventions. Such interweaving occurs in the Pentateuch only in cases of significant similarity between source materials; at the same time, the source materials interwoven contain notable differences – differences that were mostly allowed to stand in the compiled text. It is no surprise, then, that the text-critical variants in each of the cases I have examined work across the seams between disparate source materials. To be sure, ancient copyists and translators intervened in the Pentateuch for a variety of reasons, some of them unrelated to its compositional history. Yet it can be argued that literary problems such as those that motivated the scribal interventions described in this study stand at the heart of all ancient pentateuchal harmonization, for 43

See also Lemmelijn, A Plague of Texts, 176.

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59

compositional incongruities almost certainly inspired additional interventions during the Pentateuch’s textual transmission. The compositional history of the Pentateuch should thus be identified as a significant contributor to its pluriform textual development.

The Rhetoric of Hosea 1–2 An Agrarian Worldview Engaged in the Transmission of Prophetic Heritage* Willem A. M. Beuken 1. The Literary Composition of Hosea 1–2: Communication Pattern The construct of Hos 1–2 can be interpreted as a construct of its own, even though it forms a composite unit with Hos 3 on the level of the book redaction under the heading in 1:1 (as in most commentaries). It contains two “didactic, prophetic readings that imagine Israel’s trajectory from divine judgment to the ideal end-situation through metaphors of family relationships.”1 The first reading contains a prophetic sign act with an announcement of its reversal (1:2–2:3 [Eng. 2:1]), the second a divine monologue (2:4–25 [Eng. 2:2–23]). They are riveted by the parallelism of the imperatives, which both refer to Israel: “Say to your brothers … and sisters” (2:3) and “Contend with your mother” (v. 4). Each of the readings consists of two subunits that differ in literary form and speech direction. The subunits of the first reading, 1:2–9 and 2:1–3 (Eng. 1:10–2:1), are so tightly connected that the latter does not function independently from the former. 2 The subunits of the second reading, 2:4–17 and 2:18–25, relate as main text and double corollary (vv. 18–22 and vv. 23–25: “It will be on that day”). The redactional pattern of the construct Hos 1–2 is prepared by the dynastic chronology in the book heading (1:1). * I appreciate that I have been invited to contribute to the volume in honor of Marvin A. Sweeney. His vast knowledge of the Hebrew Bible and its history enhances his creative work in variegated fields of exegesis. His research bears witness to his welcoming attitude toward new approaches based on social- and literary-historical insights. The guild of biblical scholars worldwide owes him profound gratitude for kindling the fire of fascination for the Scriptures. 1 A penetrating description of the varied speech directions in Hos 1–2 is found with Ehud Ben Zvi, Hosea, FOTL 21A/1 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005). 2 Hos 2:1 (Eng. 1:10) opens with weqatal of indirect speech (‫ )והיה‬after yiqtol of direct speech (‫ )לא־אהיה‬in 1:9. The conjunction we can have an adversative aspect within a connective meaning.

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1.1. The Book Heading (Hosea 1:1) The opening verse synthesizes the various “prophecies” of the book, first as “the word of YHWH,” next as spoken by Hosea in a specific era, marked by the reign of a series of Judean kings (773–700 BCE) and one Israelite king (785–745 BCE). So the meaning of God’s word as proclaimed by this prophet bears on both kingdoms. It is worth noting that the later period precedes the earlier, although the period of the Judean rulers overlaps that of the one Israelite ruler. The heading is silent about the successors of the Israelite king under whose rule the northern kingdom gradually collapsed (722 BCE). Moreover, the successor of the last Judean king, Hezekiah, is not reported, although the end of his rule coincided with Assyria’s disastrous invasion of Judah (701 BCE). Thus the heading addresses readers who are familiar with the ruin of the northern people and are likely concerned about what was becoming of the poorly surviving southern people. The point of view is from the period in history between judgment and the chance of salvation. Judah is understood as the heir of Hosea’s oracles which are presented in this book to people who have interest in the vicissitudes of both reigns. The message of the historical prophet has gained long-lasting value. It challenges first Hosea’s direct audience, next those who have heard and transmitted it, and finally those who read it stored in this book. The communication frame of the book is being opened. While the heading announces that the book will report YHWH’s speaking through Hosea, it does not specify that from the viewpoint of the implied readers of the book. What should they do with the knowledge of God’s word? The effect must be in keeping with Hosea’s preaching as a matter of morals concerning the near future. The historical context is the era from the reign of Jeroboam II through the end of that of Hezekiah; from seemingly unthreatened security to anxious concern about survival. Therefore, the book of Hosea aims at conveying an attitude toward YHWH’s dealing with his people. In the final colophon, readers are instructed: “Whoever is wise, let him understand these things; whoever is discerning, let him know them; for the ways of YHWH are right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them” (14:10). “The ways of YHWH” include God’s teaching to Israel and his guidance of the people through history.3 So the core of Hosea’s message concerns not only the generations living during the era described in 1:1, but all the people who come across “these things” at any time. The larger 3

The language of the colophon is, on the one hand, characteristic of the Wisdom discourse; on the other hand, it reflects the “deuteronomistic” paradigm of salvation history which is generally effective in the redaction of the prophetic literature: “…es begründet für das Deut(eronomium) die Einheit von Gesetz und Geschichte, läßt die Gesetze als funktionale Notwendigkeit im Verlauf der Geschichte Israels erscheinen” (ThWAT, II 307–10, esp. 310 [K. Koch]).

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readership of the book is challenged at its end to appropriate its message, transcending its specific historical origin.4 The heading’s focus on developing the audience is strengthened by the absence of other information, e.g., about the prophet’s identity, let alone about the place and manner of God’s speaking to him. It is the incipit of a literary work that invites readers to apply the meaning of God’s word through Hosea for its original audience to themselves. This is the Judean pre-exilic community after Hezekiah. The text copes with anxiety about the nation’s future, which is determined by its past as denounced by Hosea. The post-exilic guild of scribes from whom the book of Hosea issues seems to recline on that spiritual ambiance. 1.2. Hosea’s Sign Act and Its Eventual Perspective (Hosea 1:2–2:3) (1) The Story. The narrator reports YHWH’s judgment, implemented by a command to Hosea (1:2–9), and predicts its eventual salvific outcome (2:1–3). The story and the prophecy form an indivisible unity, in spite of the fact that two different literary genres are at stake. The point of view, created by v. 1, is monovalent: “The distance in time and space…makes of the narrative and prophecy a parable, an image of oneself as other, perceived timelessly and objectively.”5 The sign act contains a series of commands: to marry a wife engaged in harlotry (v. 2) and to give particular names to her three children (vv. 3–5, 6–7, 8–9). Each name is followed by an explanation. They mirror God’s motivation and purpose: “for the land commits great harlotry by forsaking YHWH” (v. 2); “for yet a little while, and I will punish the house of Jehu” (v. 4); “for I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel” (v. 6), “for you are not my people, and I will not be for you” (v. 9). The prophet executes YHWH’s charge and gives proof of his obeisance. The adjunct of time, “When YHWH first spoke” (v. 2a), presents the story during the reigns mentioned in the heading. However, the spatial axis in the accusation, “The land commits great harlotry by forsaking YHWH” (v. 2b), does not follow the heading, for the territory at stake there is called “Judah” and “Israel” (v. 1). Thus readers, familiar with the dissimilar history of these kingdoms, are invited in v. 2 to focus upon one space generally known as “the land.” Will they recognize that land as consisting of the reigns just mentioned? If they do, they learn that these kingdoms are involved in infidelity 4

See Mark W. Hamilton, “History among the Junipers: Hosea 14:2–10 as Metahistoriography,” BZ 63 (2019): 105–15, esp. 105: “The endings of Hosea offer a good example of metahistoriography, a text that uses non-historiographic techniques to speak of the movements of history.” 5 Francis Landy, Hosea, Readings: A New Biblical Commentary (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2011), 14.

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toward YHWH. In this way, the accusation opposes another frame, namely “the land” which is associated with YHWH, to that of the two principalities. These territories have meaning in Israel’s history, but not necessarily in contrast to one another. This raises the question of whether and how this relation is elaborated in Hos 1–2. The identity of “the land” gets concrete features in the children’s names, for they symbolize the coming actions of YHWH with regard to the land and its people.6 The first name, “Jezreel” (“God sows”), applies to the land, and signifies the reverse: “I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel // I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel” (vv. 4–5). The second and third names apply to the people, first of the north, next the whole populace: “Lo-Ruchamah, for I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel” (v. 6) and “Lo-Ammi, Not my people, for I will not be for you” (v. 9). The last name, moreover, refutes the meaning of God’s own name for Israel. The explanations of the names follow the heading of v. 1 the other way round. The first name’s explanation, “the house of Jehu…the kingdom of the house of Israel…the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel” (vv. 4–5), corresponds with “king Jeroboam” in v. 1. The second name’s explanation refers to the north in general, “the house of Israel,” but not without a side view of “the house of Judah” (vv. 6–7). God’s intervention involves a different treatment of Israel and Judah: “to no longer have mercy/to not forgive” refers to Israel (v. 6), and “to have mercy/to save” refers to Judah (v. 7). The latter action is specified by a litotes: “not by bow, nor by sword, nor by war, nor by horses, nor by horsemen.” What this positively means is not expressed but it provokes the curiosity of the people in view, i.e., “the house of Judah,” envisaged in the heading of the book (1:1). The third name, Lo-Ammi (v. 9: “Not my people”), cannot but refer to the two “houses” mentioned so far in the heading and the sign act, Israel and Judah. The name receives emphasis by a new speech direction: “For you (‫ )אתם‬are not my people, and I will not be for you (‫)לכם‬.” YHWH addresses his people within his command to the prophet. The verse shows a climax: YHWH puts an end not only to their connection with him but even to his relationship with them. This plot is the point of departure for the subsequent reading of the book. So far we have encountered two contrasting worldviews. There is a political attitude toward territory as the property of dynasties involved in power and war (v. 4: “the house of Jehu”; v. 5: “the blood of Jezreel”; vv. 6–7: “the 6 Gert Kwakkel, “The Land in the Book of Hosea,” in The Land of Israel in Bible, History and Theology: Studies in Honour of Ed Noort, ed. Jacques van Ruiten and J. Cornelis de Vos, VTSup 124 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 167–81; idem, “The Wilderness in Hosea,” in Conceptual Metaphors in Poetic Texts, ed. Antje Labahn, PMRGEABS 18 (Lincoln; Gorgias, 2013), 132–53.

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house of Israel” vs. “the house of Judah”; v. 7: “bow, sword, horses, horsemen”). There is a natural view of territory as the residence of inhabitants connected by personal attitudes (v. 2: “wife”/“offspring”; vv. 6–7: “to not have or to have mercy,” “to save and how to save”; v. 9: “to be or to not be for you”). The sign act leaves an open question: What does God’s “not being for you” at the end mean for “the land,” territory, and people (v. 9)? (2) The Outcome. The salvation oracle (2:1–3 [Eng. 1:10–2:1]) is textsyntactically connected to the story 1:2–9 (‫והיה‬, “It will be”),7 signaling the relationship between their subject matters. However, the latter section’s pattern of actors involving YHWH, the prophet, and his wife is not continued. YHWH’s speaking in 1:9, “You are not my people,” is only referred to in 2:1, “Where it is said to them: ‘You are not my people.’” The speaking person here must be the author of the heading (1:1). On his own responsibility (there is no mention of a divine command) he comments on the story which he has reported in 1:2–9. In accepting the negative result of the sign act, the author depicts, in terms of that passage, the future that will succeed it. The temporal axis is all future (weqatal opens and dominates the passage in 2:1–2 [Eng. 1:10–11], qetol closes it in 2:3 [Eng. 2:1]). Just before the concluding imperative, “Say to your brothers,” that future is defined as “the great day of Jezreel” (v. 2). The place name of this temporal marker situates the events announced as a reaction to God’s action predicted in the sign act: “…I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel… I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel” (1:4–5). In this way, the salvation oracle of 2:1–3 appears as a reversal of the verdict contained in the name of Hosea’s first child.8 The temporal marker confirms, moreover, the reversal of the third child’s name (1:9: “You are not my people”) by means of a new relationship with God (2:1: “children of the living God”). This also ends the antinomy between Israel and Judah (2:2: “They will be gathered under one head and go up from the land”). The final imperative to call each other “Ammi” and “Ruchamah,” names which YHWH himself has used before, invites the audience to anticipate or effectuate the salvation just announced (2:3). Thus, while the narrative time of 1:2–9 consists of present imperatives (“take a wife… call the name…”), these events appear as narrated time in 2:1–3 (v. 1: “it is said to them”). Moreover, the narrative time here is the future (v. 1:

7

A. A. MacIntosh, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Hosea, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997), 30: “‫ והיה‬is a common prophetic expression for events in the future; its use here implies transition from the preceding prophecy of judgment to a prophecy of recapitulation.” 8 The time continuation is confirmed by the yiqtol of the subordinate clause “where it is said (‫ )יאמר‬to them: ‘You are not my people’” (2:1).

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“shall be like the sand of the sea // it shall be said”; v. 2: “shall be gathered… shall appoint… shall go up… great shall be”). Like the temporal axis, the spatial axis, too, contrasts the salvation to come with the preceding judgment: “In the place where it is said to them: ‘You are not my people,’ it shall be said to them: ‘Children of the living God’” (2:1). Which place is intended is debated. If ‫ במקום אשר‬cannot mean “instead of” but must refer to a real place,9 the verse refers, along with 1:9, to the accusation in 1:2: “The land commits great harlotry.” This place is subsequently at stake: “They shall go up from the land” (2:2). The meaning of “to go up” in this context is unclear, but its surrounding text provides two clues. First, the subject is “the children (‫ )בני‬of Judah and the children (‫ )בני‬of Israel” as opposed to “offspring (‫ )ילדי‬of harlotry” in 1:2. Second, the phrase is followed by an explanation: “For great will be the day of Jezreel,” which means “God will sow,” in contrast to “the blood of Jezreel” and “the valley of Jezreel” in 1:4–5. The statement can be paraphrased as follows: “Israel shall come up flourishing from the land, for great will be the day of God’s sowing.”10 So the paradigm of “the land” frames Hos 1:2–2:3. Finally, for life in that land a new command is appropriate: “Say to your brothers: ‘Ammi,’ and to your sisters: ‘Ruchamah’” (v. 3). It is in the imperative plural (“Say”) and concerns a plural audience (“brothers/sisters”), in accordance with the plural subject of v. 2 (“the children of Judah and the children of Israel”). It represents a reversal of the naming of Hosea’s last two children: “Call her name Lo-Ruchamah” (v. 6) and “Call his name Lo-Ammi” (v. 9). In short, the reversal marks the reciprocal appreciation of all who live in the land. The status of 2:1–3 as a commentary on the prophetic sign act in 1:2–9 is confirmed by the semantic connections between the passages. Together they materialize God’s verdict and its turnabout regarding his people as they live in the land and are metaphorized by the land. The construct is paramount to an act of confidence which acknowledges that the catastrophe is caused by YHWH, yet surprisingly reversible. The speaker of the book’s heading (1:1) passes down God’s sentence as a clarification of desolate circumstances (1:2– 9), while wrapping them in confidence about YHWH’s life-promoting power (2:1–3).

9

Most commentators since Wilhelm Rudolph, Hosea, KAT XIII, 1 (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1966), 55; Douglas Stuart, Hosea – Jonah, WBC 31 (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1987), 35. Opposite Mayer I. Gruber, Hosea. A Textual Commentary, LHBOTS 653 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017), 653: “in place of its being said to them.” 10 J. Andrew Dearman, The Book of Hosea, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 95–96, 106.

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(3) The Plea. The prophet’s cause (2:4–17 [Eng. 2:2–15]) deals with the same issue as 1:2–2:3, his “marriage,” but it does not build on the salvation perspective of 2:1–3; it has a different communicative pattern. In the first part, vv. 4–7, the husband combines a call to the children for action against their mother (vv. 4–6: “Contend [imperative]…or I will strip her”) with an accusation (v. 4: “…that she is not my wife”;11 v. 7: “She has played the harlot…she said: ‘I will go after my lovers’”). The speaker is a husband on the threshold of divorce. In the aftermath of ch. 1, one may presume that it is YHWH but this is stated only in v. 15 (“says YHWH”). His objective is that she end her adulterous behavior (v. 4: “…that she put away her harlotry”). Otherwise he will publicly shame her (v. 5: “…or I will strip her naked and expose her”). The alternative consists of acts described by metaphors that exceed common procedures: “to make her like a wilderness, to kill her with thirst” (v. 5), even “to have no mercy for her children” (v. 6) which contradicts the husband’s earlier action of calling on them to defend him, their father (v. 4). In the second part, vv. 8–17, the husband’s call to action flows into a plan of action: not divorce but repair of the marital bond is his objective. His procedure is structured by a threefold “Therefore” (‫ ;לכן‬twice strengthened by “Behold,” ‫)הנה‬. It comprises several steps: “Behold, I will hedge up her way” (v. 8); “I will take back my grain” (v. 11); “Behold, I am going to allure her” (v. 16). He speaks both as a narrator of the past (the adulterous woman’s behavior) and as a designer of the future (his initiatives to regain his wife with a sketch of the restored situation). In the first step (vv. 8–10), the husband links up with the woman’s purpose (v. 7: “I will go after my lovers”) and announces a counteraction, “I will hedge up her way,” with the effect: “She shall pursue her lovers but not overtake them…she shall say: ‘I will go, and return to my first husband’” (vv. 8–9). The lack of appropriate reasoning behind her behavior turns into an accusation: “She did not know that it was I…” (v. 10). In the second step (vv. 11–15), the husband intends to replace her lack of knowledge with a chain of appropriate actions: “I will take back my grain… I will take away my wool… I will uncover her shame… I will put an end to her mirth… I will lay waste her vines… I will make them a forest… I will punish her…” The correction moves from the necessities of life to personal dignity, luxury, and land property and ends in idolatry, which is paramount to “forgetting me” (v. 15). The concluding quotation formula, “says YHWH,” confirms what the audience addressed should have come to presume. In the third step (vv. 16–17), the husband reveals the true goal of the previous chastisement in a series of actions by which he will restore his bond 11 Stephen C. Russell, “The Syntax of the Legal Metaphor in Hosea 2:4,” JSS 61 (2016): 389–402.

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with his wife: “Behold, I am going to allure her … I will bring her into the wilderness … I will speak intimately to her … give her her vineyards and (make) the Valley of Achor as a doorway of hope.” Here the husband metaphor seems to go beyond the limits of marital relationship. But this is not an introduction into a fanciful world; the ancient Near Eastern ideology of “the bride of youth” provides the husband’s initiative with credibility.12 The last line mentions the woman’s reaction as hoped for by the husband: “She shall respond (‫ )ענה‬as in the days of her youth” (v. 17b). While the woman’s worship of the lovers fails to end in personal contact (v. 15), the husband sees his initiatives crowned by the woman’s return to their relationship in its original freshness. (4) The Two Concluding Corollaries. These oracles (2:18–22, 23–25 [Eng. 2:16–20, 21–23]) are each marked by the prophetic formula, “It will be (‫)והיה‬ on that day,” which announces future events in connection with those predicted just before (on the same redactional level, just as 2:1 follows 1:2–9; cf. 1:5). The oracles sketch the situation that will result from the initiatives of the husband as described in vv. 7–17. The literary parameters differ among themselves and from those of the preceding plea, yet in both of them the husband YHWH continues to speak, as in vv. 4–17. In the first oracle, vv. 18–22, YHWH the husband addresses his wife directly. He foretells how she (vv. 18–19) and he himself (vv. 20–22) will associate with each other after her return. She will recognize him as “my husband” which no longer compels him to divorce (v. 18; cf. v. 4: “She is not my wife, and I am not her husband”). He will keep her from invoking the ba‘als whom she venerated as guarantors of a living in the land (v. 19; cf. vv. 10, 15). As the real owner of the “field/ground/land,” he will enforce “a covenant for them,” i.e., for all the creatures there (in contrast to v. 14), and ban all warfare “from the land” so as to allow “them to lie down in safety” (v. 20). The third person plural “them” continues the singular feminine “you” in v. 18 which refers to the converted woman (cf. v. 19: “her”). The syntactical incongruity relies on Hosea’s intricate metaphorization of the land in which both the mother and the children stand for Israel in the theological meaning of the personal name. In this way, the husband resumes his double focus on the mother and their children as in v. 4. Thereupon, he pronounces his marriage vow: “I will betroth you to me” (vv. 21–22). The phrasing is both juridical (three times) and exuberant in vague allusion to the wife’s former disloyalty (“in righteousness and justice, in steadfast love and mercy in faithfulness”).

12 Ehud Ben Zvi, “Observations on the Marital Metaphor of YHWH and Israel in Its Ancient Israelite Context: General Considerations and Particular Images in Hosea,” JSOT 28 (2004): 363–84.

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Thus, “she will know YHWH” in a reversal of her previous lack of knowledge and forgetfulness (vv. 10, 15). In the second oracle, vv. 23–25, YHWH the husband does not speak to his wife in particular; he rather addresses the readership whom he has just mentioned as profiting from the restored bond with his wife (v. 20). Linking up with the climax of his preceding plea: “She shall respond as in the days of her youth” (v. 17), God now situates his wife’s new adherence to him in the context of his own global governance (vv. 23–24). “To respond” (‫ )ענה‬functions as a term for the creative process that goes out from himself. It binds the various atmospheres of the cosmos together in successive benevolence: heavens, earth, nature, and even Jezreel, the valley that homophonically stands for Israel, the territory which has been struck by God’s judgment (1:5– 6). This is elaborated in the concluding v. 25. Responding to Jezreel cannot but mean restoring what its name says: “I will sow her for myself in the land” (v. 25). The verse recapitulates Hos 1–2 in a dazzling mixture of metaphor applications. This reflects first YHWH’s new bond with his wife and second, the acceptance of the two last children, Lo-Ruchamah and Lo-Ammi, in the bond of their parents (“You are my people – You are my God”). Thus the ominous names of the children are explicitly turned around when the land is restored as YHWH’s wife in fidelity. 1.3. Summary The previous analysis of Hos 1–2 shows that its four constitutive passages, 1:2–9 and 2:1–3, 2:4–17 and 2:18–25, diverge in literary genre and yet through dissimilar interdependency form an autonomous reading construct. It portrays YHWH’s dealings with Israel through history, from judgment to revival, and explains the significance of this trajectory through the paradigm of marital relationship. Readers do not gain insight into “the affair HoseaGomer,” for that simply does not belong to the purpose of the literary work.13 Rather, its variety challenges us to investigate how the different levels of communication mingle, i.e., how the distinct speakers from the prophetic side make use of language and imagery that favors the acceptance of their argument by different audiences. Contemporary research shows that the agrarian worldview can play an essential role in these sorts of prophetic processes. The next section will verify this for Hos 1–2.

13 Sharon Moughtin-Mumby, Sexual and Marital Metaphors in Hosea, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel, OTM (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 206–68 (for Hos 1, pp. 218– 30, for Hos 2, pp. 245–68).

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2. The Agrarian Metaphor “Land/Earth” as Rhetorical Binding in Hosea 1–2 The perplexing story of the prophet’s relation with Gomer in Hos 1–2 has been explained in various ways. Diachronic exegesis investigates how the text has been transmitted by successive milieus, and synchronic exegesis focuses on the composite meaning of its final form. The latter research is interested in how characters within a text interact rhetorically with language that expresses their worldview. It is presumed that the literary units of prophetic constructs with divergent communicative patterns are spanned by semantic isotopes which function in relation to specific characters in various ways. In the following analysis, this supposition will be checked with regard to the topic ‫ארץ‬, “land/earth,” in Hos 1–2. 2.1. “Land” in the Heading (Hosea 1:1) The absence of any agrarian terminology in the heading, along with exclusive mention of reigns and kings, sharply contrasts with the surprising contextual function of “land” in the subsequent construct. 2.2. “Land” in the Sign Act (Hosea 1:2–9) With regard to the concept of “land” (‫ )ארץ‬in 1:2, common opinion understands it to stand for “the people” as this identification is slowly effected in the following verses (vv. 4, 6: “house of Israel”; v. 7: “house of Judah”; v. 9: “you are not my people”). However, what specific purpose does “land” serve in metaphorical use that the term “people” would not suffice? Moreover, the territorial meaning of “land” dominates the following passage (2:2, 5, 20, 23, 25). This is finally confirmed by the presence of expressions for the concrete shape of “the land” therein (1:5: “valley”; 2:17; “vineyards”; 2:5, 16: “wilderness”; 2:14: “forest”; 2:20: “field/ground”; 2:8: “way/paths”), its borders (2:1: “the sand of the sea”; 2:17: “the land Egypt”; 2:23: “the heavens”), and its products (2:10–11, 14, 23). Therefore, the term “land” must play a significant role in the different speech patterns of Hos 1–2. Moving from the heading, with the mention of various reigns and the toponyms Judah and Israel (1:1), to “the land” in the sign act (1:2), one is struck by the shift in focus. The heading functions as information about the whole book and opens the story of God’s first assignment to Hosea, which includes an accusation of the people. This is nothing but normal, yet its combination with a bewildering sign act produces a rhetorical impasse: do the author of the book and the narrator of the story speak in the same discourse, and do they envisage the same reality? The sequel of the story, especially the proper names of vv. 4–7, suggests that the people of the two countries mentioned in

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the heading are signified by “the land” in v. 2. The double meaning of the Hebrew term ‫ארץ‬, “earth” and “land,” adds to the literary intricacy of these lines. The heading speaks of territories in terms of reigns, the story in terms of ground inhabited by people. This plot serves as the point of departure for a continuous reading. The political view on territory is elaborated as a matter of dynasties involved in power and war (v. 4: “the house of Jehu”; v. 5: “the blood of Jezreel”; vv. 6–7: “the house of Israel vs. the house of Judah”; v. 7: “bow, sword, horses, horsemen”). The social view on territory as inhabited “land” (v. 2: “wife/offspring”) is elaborated by the failing of relational attitudes (vv. 6–7: “to have no mercy,” “to not forgive”; v. 9: “to not be for you”). The literal and metaphorical meanings of the concept run into each other in the literary construct. So the sign act leaves the audience with an open question: What does the severance of God’s bond with his people mean for the countryside where they live? 2.3. “Land” in the Salvation Oracle (Hosea 2:1–3) This scheme (see 1.b.[2] above), although different with regard to form, is semantically related to the preceding story: “the children (‫ )בני‬of Israel” (2:1) in contrast with “the offspring (‫ )ילדי‬of harlotry” (1:2). Several other elements of 1:2–9, too, are turned around in 2:1–3. The reversal of “not my people” (1:9) in “children of the living God” (2:1) is introduced by a promise of population expansion: “The number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea which can neither be measured nor numbered” (2:1). Although the previous passage lacks an explicit mention of population decrease, it is presumed by the context of suppression and war (1:4–5). Fully new is the spatial metaphor: “the sand of the sea which can be neither measured nor numbered” (2:1). Elsewhere, this element marks descriptions of population growth, also in view of salvation (Gen 22:16–17; 32:13; Josh 11:4; 1 Sam 13:5; 2 Sam 17:11; 1 Kgs 4:20; Jer 15:8; 33:22). In the context of Hos 2:1–3, it gets linked to the isotope of “the land” (‫ )הארץ‬which confronts this prophecy (2:2: “They shall go up from the land”) with the preceding sign act (1:2: “The land commits great harlotry”). There, “land” functions in the context of war and the ruin of people, here in that of peoples’ recovery and reunion. An association with the binome “land (earth) – sea,” frequent in creation contexts, easily arises (Gen 1:26, 28; 9:2; Exod 20:11; Isa 11:9; 42:10; Ezek 27:33; 38:20; Hos 4:3; Amos 5:8; Hab 2:14; Zech 9:10; Pss 65:6; 69:35; 72:8; 96:11; 135:6; 146:6; Job 11:9; 12:8; Prov 8:29). This means that the agrarian paradigm of cosmos and nature relieves the social one of disorder and enmity. The concomitant characteristic of “the sand of the sea,” i.e., that “it can be neither measured nor numbered,” implies God’s activity (cf. Isa 40:12; Jer 31:37; 33:22; Ps 40:6; Job 28:25; 38:5, 33; Sir 1:1–3).

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The enigmatic expression “the place where it is said to them” (2:1) contextually refers to “the land” in 1:2 (see 1.b above). What is the literary impact of this veiling paraphrase, since it only postpones the “logical” mention of “the land” in v. 2? First of all, it maintains a focus on the surprising introduction of “the children of Israel” and their comparison with a new spatial entity, “the sand of the sea,” at the beginning of the passage (v. 1). Secondly, by concealing the concept of “the land,” which carries an association with “harlotry” in ch. 1, the speaker makes room for the surprising divine title “the living God.” The extraordinary increase of the children of Israel is due to the life quality of God himself. Thirdly, by mentioning “the land” no earlier than when its new function is at stake, namely when it stands for the scenery of the people’s recovery thanks to God’s own vitality (v. 2: “to be gathered…under one head”), the speaker invalidates, from now on, any association of “land” with “harlotry” on the basis of ch. 1. In this way, the climax of the prophecy is effected: “They shall go up from the land, for great shall be the day of Jezreel (‘God sows’)” (v. 2). Thus, the intricate imagery of Hos 2:1–3 conveys a sense of certainty that God will restore his bond with his people. This conviction is expressed by the paradigm that he is the one source of human life in “the land.” YHWH is not allied to inhabitants who go after gods in unfaithfulness (“harlotry”) so as to generate discord and war (Hos 1:2–9). He is intent on manifesting his lifecreating quality (2:1: “They will be called ‘children of the living God’”) in the basic task of providing of “earth/land,” i.e., to supply a fruitful existence in solidarity (2:2: “to go up from the land”). The true-to-nature worldview of Hos 2:1–3 engages the concept “land” in the expectation that YHWH will again keep company with Israel. 2.4. “Land” in the Plea (Hosea 2:4–17 [Eng. 2:2–15]) The call to legal action (vv. 4–7) refers to the sign act (1:2–9) by taking over its characters (wife/mother, husband, and children) while it situates them in a different constellation. Here the children are not newborns but adults, incited to give evidence against their mother. Here, the husband does not accept his wife’s infidelity. Slowly, he turns out to be YHWH himself (v. 15: “says YHWH”). New is the character of the lovers (vv. 7, 9, 12, 14, 15). However, they exist in the perception of the disloyal woman only as the owners of the land and the donors of its products: “I will go after my lovers. They give me my bread and my water…” (v. 7). In his argument, the husband reports what he will do to regain his wife (vv. 8–17). He will subvert the wife’s image of the lovers as landowners. So the rivalry between them and himself is all about “the land” and its products, for it is he who really disposes of the wife’s life conditions (vv. 8–9) and of what the land may yield her (vv. 11–17). On the basis of the speaker’s identity as the genuine landowner, the plea (2:4–17)

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answers questions that stem from the unrelenting allegory in the sign act: “The land commits great harlotry” (1:2). A close look at the isotope “land/earth” (‫ )הארץ‬in the plea of 2:4–17 is warranted, for the concept of “land” has momentous weight in connecting the sign act (1:2: “The land commits great harlotry”) with the announcement of salvation (2:2: “the children of the living God…they shall go up from the land”). In the plea, the term occurs only once: “I will make her like a wilderness, and turn her into a parched land, and kill her with thirst” (v. 5). The husband uses the term “land” with a negative connotation in his chastisement of the “mother/wife” (v. 1). The image of infertile territory keeps dominating the rest of the plea, to begin with as seen in v. 7b: “She said: ‘I will go after my lovers; they give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’” The metaphor ‫הארץ‬, “land/earth,” joins here with two other isotopes: that of going one’s own way and that of enjoying the products of the earth for sustenance. They play a role on the level of narration. The woman’s intention to move around reveals her improper pretension of personal autonomy. Her announcement: “I will go after (‫ )אחרי‬my lovers” confirms God’s accusation in the sign act: “by forsaking YHWH” (1:2: ‫מאחרי‬, “away from after”). Moreover, her argument, “They give me…” is a gross lie: it is not her lovers who have provided the necessities of life but her husband who has done so (v. 10). Therefore, he will obstruct the woman’s plan and enervate her false excuse. He will enclose her so as to make sure that she cannot roam about in order to find her lovers (vv. 8–9). He will hold back the seasonal gifts of the earth (vv. 11, 14–15). His aim is that she may decide, “I will go, and return to my first husband,” based on no other argument than the irrefutable knowledge: “For it was better with me then than now” (v. 9). The exposure of the lovers is complete, due to an almost illogical accumulation of facts. They are neither traceable nor able to seduce with products of the land; instead they take advantage of the silver and gold provided by the husband to his wife (vv. 9–10). Socially, they are powerless, for they must witness the humiliation of the unfaithful woman (vv. 11–12). This buildup of bad conditions illustrates that they are not rivals of the husband, but rather just ba‘als who owe their status to the incense offered by the woman (v. 15). The simple conclusion, “‘She forgot me,’ says YHWH,” tells more than an elaborate accusation would (v. 15). Through the deposition of the ba‘als, the husband YHWH presents himself as the true God. This appears in the phrasing of his démarche, for he attributes uncommon control of the land to himself: he will enclose his disloyal wife (v. 8: “thorns/wall”), he has enriched her (v. 10: “silver and gold”; v. 13: “festivals”), he is able to dispose of the landscape for his purpose (vv. 14–17a), he will “bring her into the wilderness and speak intimately to her” (v. 16; cf. v. 5), only so that “she shall respond…” (v. 17b). Here at the end of the plea,

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vv. 16–17, the Hosean marriage metaphor (“to allure/to speak intimately [to the heart]”) merges with the paradigm of Israel’s wandering through the desert and entry into the land. The husband’s intentions are formulated in reference to events in the people’s history by which YHWH has disposed of “land/earth” in a sovereign way. Verse 16 refers to the exodus: “I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness.” Verse 17a invokes the land promise: “I will give her her vineyards” (Deut 6:11; 24:21; Josh 24:13). Verse 17b, “I will make the valley of Achor14 (‫ )עמק עכור‬a doorway of hope,” contains a pun which recalls the punishing of Achan (‫ )עכן‬for his disobedience to the Lord’s commands after Israel’s entrance into Canaan (Josh 7:24–26). Now, in the recapitulation of the entrance into the land, the name of the entry site is positively reversed by the husband. To summarize, these seemingly chance references to YHWH’s founding of Israel, namely his initiative to lead the people into the land, cause the agrarian worldview to merge with the paradigm of salvation history. The former rejects a strictly professional attitude toward “land/earth,” the latter proclaims it contrary to YHWH’s association with Israel. Both outlooks base the idea of life on “land/earth” on a personal understanding of God: he is creator and savior in distress. The metaphor of the husband/landowner for YHWH is supported by the incontrovertible fact that the land where the man’s wife is looking for sustenance is not the land of her origin: “She has come up (‫ )עלה‬from the land of Egypt” (v. 17; cf. 2:2). Against the background of that provenance, the woman’s actual situation becomes evident: her stay in the land began as a “response” (root ‫ )ענה‬to its owner. Thus “to respond” is the concluding core concept of the plea. It is elaborated in the following oracles. 2.5. “Land” in the Concluding Oracles (Hosea 2:18–22, 23–25 [Eng. 2:16– 20, 21–23]) The oracles link up with the previous plea by adjuncts of time, “on that day” (vv. 18, 23), connects with “the days of her youth/the day she came out of the land of Egypt” (v. 17). Both refer to a date in the future: “You (the woman) will call me” (v. 18), “I (YHWH) will respond” (v. 23). The focus on time hides a remarkable want at the end of the plea in v. 17: what did the woman, after leaving Egypt, respond to YHWH, and where did she do that? Verse 17 could have been a choice place to mention Israel’s former response to YHWH’s speaking in the desert between Egypt and the land (cf. Deut 1:5; 29:1: “in the land of Moab”); however, Israel’s tradition was not positive in

14 For this reference, see Francis I. Andersen and David Noel Freedman, Hosea, AB 24 (Garden City: Doubleday, 1980), 275–76.

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that regard: “You forgot me” (v. 16; cf. Ezek 20). The right answer is yet to be given. Thus, the local axis in v. 18 moves directly from Egypt to the territory where the husband YHWH and the woman will meet again and settle in good relationship. First, she will acknowledge him as what he really is, “my husband (‫)אישׁי‬,” not as what she has made him to be, “my ba‘al” (v. 18; one out of many ba‘als according to v. 15). Second, YHWH himself will put an end to her adherence to ba‘als (v. 19, in reference to vv. 4–17). Moreover, he will take measures that effectuate the new connection in faithfulness. They cover the rest of the two oracles (vv. 20–22, 23–25). This process is dominated by the concept of “land” in the background. The woman’s performative designation “my husband (‫ ”)אישׁי‬instead of “my ba‘al (‫ ”)בעלי‬reacts to the double meaning of the latter term: the appellative “consort, owner,” and the indistinctly personal name of a deity (vv. 18–19). 15 Although it could bear on the husband’s dealing with the land as described in the preceding plea (2:4–17), YHWH detests any association with the ba‘als. Instead he applies the concept of “covenant,” not mentioned before, to the woman’s faithful, integrated stay in the land, together with other living beings: “the animals of the field, the birds in the air, the creeping things of the ground” (v. 20a). This creational perspective on territory is supplied by a salvation-historical one: “I will abolish the bow, the sword and war from the land / I will make them lie down in safety” (v. 20b). The passage as a whole refers to the paradigm of living in the land under God’s protection (Lev 25:18–19; Deut 12:10; 33:12, 28). This also comes to light in the remarkable, plural wording which frames v. 20: “I will make for them a covenant” and “I will make them lie down in safety.”16 Once YHWH husband has launched the woman’s abjuration of the ba‘als as lords of the land (v. 19) and concluded a covenant with all living beings (v. 20), he solemnly proclaims his oath of marriage (vv. 21–22). The phrasing is abundant in terms suggesting fidelity: “righteousness, justice, steadfast love, mercy, you shall know.” Only a few words recall the period of estrangement connected with the conflict about the land (for “mercy,” cf. 1:6; 2:3, 6, 25; for “you shall know YHWH,” cf. 2:9, 15). YHWH the husband’s oath is somehow the pragmatic conclusion of Hos 1–2. As an epilogue, the second oracle of vv. 23–25 explains the whole event as an initiative of YHWH to “respond” (‫ ;ענה‬technically, it links up with the 15

See Caitlin Hubler, “No Longer Will You Call Me ‘My Ba‘al’: Hosea’s Polemic and the Semantics of ‘Ba‘al’ in the Eighth Century B.C.E. Israel,” JSOT 44 (2020): 610–23. 16 With regard to the double plural “them” in v. 20, see Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, 279–80: “The beneficiaries of the covenant are not identified. We are no longer in the context of marriage, for the discussion has moved from ‘her’ to ‘them.’ In the larger context of 2:4–25, the reference can only be to the children, who represent Israel.”

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woman’s response in v. 17). The covenant regarding the living beings of “field, air, and ground” (v. 20) is extended to a cosmos-wide movement: “I (YHWH) – heavens – earth – harvests – Jezreel.” This dynamic will end in what the last name means: “I will sow her for myself in the land.”17 In this way, v. 25 announces a complete reversal of the situation indicted at the beginning of Hos 1–2: “the land” is now the habitat of YHWH’s loyal wife, mother of a prosperous progeny, and God himself receives their children in mercy. Together they confess the mutual bond: “You are my people” and “You are my God.”

3. Conclusion The present reading of Hos 1–2 clarifies that the political, dynastic worldview of the heading (1:1) is contested, rather invalidated, by the paradigm of “the land” which overarches the first literary part of the prophetic book. Since the term contextually designates both the territory and the people of YHWH’s chosen partner, it is able to synthesize the literary units of the construct (the prophetic sign act with the announcement of salvation and the plea with the promise of restored relationship) into one redactional perspective. The main actors – YHWH, the adulterous woman, the prophet alias husband, the children, and the ba‘als – are not depicted as figures on neutral territory, but as essentially connected to the ground, called “the land.” Their actions and reactions not only have impact on the geographical entity but also interchange with it. Thus the comprehensive archetype “land” represents the people, God’s chosen partner, indissolubly associated with its habitat, as colliding with the political, dynastic view of the same territory in the book’s heading. The dominating mindset of the construct Hos 1–2 is agrarian: it has a corrective, healing function. God and humans interact in a process which includes the soil and its products, and is essential to the perpetually moving cosmos. The limits of this study neither allow elaborating the hermeneutical background of this worldview nor demonstrating that it complies with recent insights about the redactional origin of the book of Hosea. Other colleagueauthors have led the way to those fields of research.18

17

See MacIntosh, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Hosea, 89–90, for the elaborate interpretation of this clause as meaning “an agricultural metaphor of the repopulation of the land by Israel.” 18 For the former, see the survey of Daniel J. Stulac, History and Hope: The Agrarian Wisdom of Isaiah 28–35, Siphrut: Literature and Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures, 2 (University Park: Eisenbrauns, 2018), 7–52, and esp. 236. For the latter, see Wolfgang Schütte, “Die Entstehung der juda-exilischen Hoseaschrift,” Bib 95 (2014): 198–223.

Vocatio Interrupta Jonah’s Call, Jonah’s Silence, and Form Criticism* Brent A. Strawn “Jonah’s escape is a message in itself.”1

Speaking of the interpretive crux surrounding Jonah’s displeasure at the end of the book, R. W. L. Moberly has written that the “inability to pinpoint Jonah’s problem should be seen as a strength rather than a weakness.”2 In the case of Jonah 4, the failure in question is certainly not for lack of trying, as all manner of interpretations of Jonah have been offered through the centuries.3 The failure is, instead, the result of the book’s many gaps – despite its tightly structured and highly sophisticated literary design 4 – which have helped to produce a truly robust history of interpretation, including, of late, readings that are quite happy to dwell resolutely within the many uncertainties and ironies of the text.5 This kind of hermeneutical generativity is what * In addition to the editors, my thanks go to the following for their comments on an earlier draft of this study: Stephen B. Chapman, Walter Moberly, Jack M. Sasson, and Yazmin Spearman. It is a distinct honor to offer this essay to Marvin A. Sweeney, a giant in the field and on a whole host of subjects, form criticism and prophecy just two among many. 1 Yehoshua Gitay, “Jonah: The Prophecy of Antirhetoric,” in Fortunate the Eyes That See: Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman in Celebration of His Seventieth Birthday, ed. Astrid B. Beck et al. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 196–206 (200). 2 R. W. L. Moberly, Old Testament Theology: Reading the Hebrew Bible as Christian Scripture (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013), 205. 3 See, inter alia, Yvonne Sherwood, A Biblical Text and its Afterlives: The Survival of Jonah in Western Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). 4 See esp. Phyllis Trible, “Studies in the Book of Jonah” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1963); eadem, Rhetorical Criticism: Context, Method, and the Book of Jonah (GBS; Minneapolis: Fortress 1994); eadem, “The Book of Jonah: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections,” in NIB, vol. 7 (1996): 461–529; and Jonathan Magonet, Form and Meaning: Studies in Literary Technique in the Book of Jonah, 2nd ed. (Sheffield: Almond, 1983). 5 See esp. Sherwood, Biblical Text; Carolyn J. Sharp, Irony and Meaning in the Hebrew Bible (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009), 176–86; David Marcus, From Balaam to Jonah: Anti-prophetic Satire in the Hebrew Bible, BJS 301 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995), 104–19; and, earlier, Elias Bickerman, Four Strange Books of the Bible:

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Moberly is gesturing toward by speaking of the “strength” of an interpretive conundrum. I concur with Moberly that hermeneutical “hard spots” are not problems so much as rich potentialities – especially since many seem downright unresolvable. The present study does not, therefore, pretend to “solve” any particular crux in Jonah. Even so, every interpretation must work with the evidence at hand and come to some conclusions, even if one should quickly add that any conclusions reached are, at best, temporary for the reasons expressed above and others not yet mentioned. Yehoshua Gitay has claimed, “[t]he clue to the enigma of the book of Jonah lies in its introduction.”6 If he is right, the initial verses of Jonah are crucial for interpreting the whole – for coming to some (temporary) conclusions about the book as such. In what follows, I reexamine the opening verses of the book from a form-critical perspective. Insofar as the symmetry of the “external design” of Jonah sets ch. 1 in parallel with ch. 3,7 the form-critical observations made of the first chapter must also be pursued in the third. I hope to show that, when viewed form-critically, these two chapters first employ and then ironically break the convention of the prophetic call form in order to make several profound literary and theological points about Jonah and his vocation.8

1. The Prophetic Call Form The starting point for the study of the prophetic call form remains Norman Habel’s seminal study, originally published in 1965.9 Now over fifty years Jonah, Daniel, Koheleth, Esther (New York: Schocken, 1967), 1–49; and Terence E. Fretheim, The Message of Jonah: A Theological Commentary (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1977), 51–55. Most recently, see the extensive treatment in Amy Erickson, Jonah: Introduction and Commentary, Illuminations (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2021). 6 Gitay, “Jonah,” 197. 7 See Trible, Rhetorical Criticism, 107–22, esp. 110–11, for this language (also n. 4 above); cf. also Brent A. Strawn, “Jonah’s Sailors and Their Lot Casting: A RhetoricalCritical Observation,” Bib 91 (2010): 66–76. Trible rightly draws attention to asymmetry amidst symmetry (Rhetorical Criticism, 117–20). See further below. 8 For Sweeney’s commentary on Jonah, see Marvin A. Sweeney, “Jonah,” in The Twelve Prophets. Vol. 1, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Berit Olam (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000), 303–33. 9 Norman C. Habel, “The Form and Significance of the Call Narratives,” ZAW 77 (1965): 297–323. Despite the title of Habel’s essay, several instances of the form are not “narratives” at all but poetry, and far too short to be deemed “narrative poetry.” Rather than “narrative,” Michael H. Floyd, among others, offers “prophetic vocation account” (Prophetisches Berufungsbericht) in his Minor Prophets, Part 2, FOTL 22 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 645. See similarly Marvin A. Sweeney, Isaiah 1–39 with an Introduction to Prophetic Literature, FOTL 16 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 542–43.

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old, Habel’s essay retains its utility as a cogent articulation of a literary Gattung that is variously employed in different texts – especially for the commissioning of prophetic figures. Habel notes the presence of the form in the call of Gideon (Judg 6:11b–17) and traces its possible origins to the sending of messengers (Gen 24:34–48). The form is obviously much broader, therefore, than prophecy alone: it includes other types of individuals as well, even if only in the form’s prehistory. 10 Still further, a few scholars have queried Habel’s analysis, deeming it not quite right for some prophets either – specifically Ezekiel or Second Isaiah;11 if accurate, these texts shouldn’t be lumped in with the others Habel adduces (viz., those of Moses, Isaiah, and Jeremiah) because certain elements of the form seem to be missing and/or must be supplied “by implication” (in a best case scenario) or by wishful thinking (in the worst).12 In my judgment, none of these observations invalidate the value of Habel’s study, if only because many simply reflect the variation and nuance one expects in form-critical analysis – an endeavor that must, of necessity, deal not only with what is common and shared across exemplars (i.e., the form proper), but also with manipulations of the form within each attested example (i.e., the particular instance of the form).13 It is this manipulation of form that 10

See Habel, “Form and Significance,” esp. 320–23. See, e.g., Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, Chapters 1–24, trans. Ronald E. Clements, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979 [German orig: 1969]), 97–100, esp. 98: “No room is left here [in Ezek 2–3] for an opportunity of refusal. With Ezekiel 1 there are no connections [to the call form of Moses, Jeremiah et al.] at all.” He deems Ezek 1 more akin to the throne visions in Isa 6 and 1 Kgs 22, mostly due to tradition-historical considerations. But see Habel, “Form and Significance,” 309–14, for the argument that Isa 6 must be considered a call form like that of Moses and Jeremiah, and that the same holds true for Ezek 1:1–3:15. Note, similarly, Daniel I. Block, The Book of Ezekiel: Chapters 1–24, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 78, on “the way the two types of call form identified by Zimmerli merge” in Ezekiel’s account (cf. Sweeney, Isaiah 1–39, 542). Block believes there is room for, and evidence of, Ezekiel’s objection to his calling. 12 For scholars who have critiqued Habel, or studied the call narratives from varying perspectives, see Fred Guyette, “The Genre of the Call Narrative: Beyond Habel’s Model,” JBQ 43 (2015): 54–59; Sara J. Milstein, “‘Who Would Not Write?’ The Prophet as Yhwh’s Prey in Amos 3:3–8,” CBQ 75 (2013): 429–45; Hava Shalom-Guy, “The Call Narratives of Gideon and Moses: Literary Convention or More?” JHebS 11 (2011) article 11 (online at http://www.jhsonline.org; last accessed 1 September 2022); and Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 97– 100. Some divergences seem insubstantial. E.g., Danny Mathews’s observation that “the tasks to which Moses and Jeremiah are called are substantially different” (Royal Motifs in the Pentateuchal Portrayal of Moses, LHBOTS 571 [London/New York: T&T Clark, 2012], 103; his emphasis), is hardly deleterious to Habel’s form-critical comparison. See also the previous note. 13 James Muilenburg’s classic essay, “Form Criticism and Beyond,” JBL 88 (1969): 1–18 (reprinted in Paul R. House, ed., Beyond Form Criticism: Essays in Old Testament 11

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makes each attestation a literary artifice: a work of art from the hand(s) of an artist who was, on the one hand, shaped by and dependent upon preexisting tradition(s) – literary or otherwise – but who also, on the other hand, felt free, at least to some degree and within certain conventional bounds, to bend the rules, break the form(s), add to and/or subtract from, and so on and so forth, in order to produce something quite similar and yet uniquely different.14 In Robert Alter’s words, “Convention gives writers of both verse and prose a solid framework in which to construct their own discourse, but good writers always exert a subtle pressure on convention, in certain ways remaking it as they build within it.”15 Habel accounts for these manipulations, though not, perhaps, with the same kind of dexterity that marks more recent literary analyses, partly because Habel’s study remains a form-critical one, its date of publication locating it prior to the full advent of literary approaches in biblical studies.16 Whatever the case, there is a particularly striking manipulation of the form that Habel’s study leaves altogether unaddressed; perhaps for this reason this instance has also gone (to my knowledge) entirely unnoticed in the secondary literature.17 I refer here, of course, to the call of Jonah, where the call form is Literary Criticism, SBTS 2 [Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1993], 49–69), was concerned with too much emphasis on similarity in form criticism, thereby paying insufficient attention to “what is unique and unrepeatable, upon the particularity of the formulation…. Exclusive attention to the Gattung may actually obscure the thought and intention of the writer or speaker” (5 [= 54]). Habel’s earlier essay anticipates Muilenburg’s points insofar as Habel states that his goal includes tracing the “development” of the call form’s features “as closely as possible” (“Form and Significance,” 297), adding that “it must be recognized that this literary sequence or genre in no way excludes the incorporation of smaller secondary literary forms at appropriate places” (298). So it is that Habel mentions variation, modification, and development within the specific elements and in the form as a whole (see, e.g., 299, 300 n. 10, 305, 309, 312, 314, 316). For a state-of-the-art survey of form-critical approaches, see Marvin A. Sweeney and Ehud Ben Zvi, eds., The Changing Face of Form Criticism for the Twenty-First Century (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003). Sweeney and Ben Zvi comment on how “the communicative and persuasive functions of texts depend on the unique as well as the typical” (ibid., 9). See n. 7 above on the importance of both symmetry and asymmetry in Jonah according to Trible. 14 For one example, see, e.g., Habel, “Form and Significance,” 309. For another example of manipulation of a standard form outside the Prophets, see Ellen F. Davis, “Exploding the Limits: Form and Function in Psalm 22,” JSOT 17 (1992): 93–105. See further below. 15 Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Poetry (rev. ed.; New York: Basic, 2011), 141. 16 The publication of the first edition of Robert Alter’s The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic, 1981) was a watershed. Muilenburg’s 1969 essay (see n. 13 above) was also important. See Trible, Rhetorical Criticism, 25–52, 75–80, for an overview. 17 As an indication, note that none of the following cites Habel’s study: Uriel Simon, Jonah, JPS Bible Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1999); Jack M. Sasson, Jonah: A New Translation with Introduction, Commentary, and Interpretation,

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begun but immediately (and ironically) broken with the rest of the form – and its significance (per the title of Habel’s study) – derailed. Before turning to Jonah, a brief summary of Habel’s analysis of the prophetic call form is in order. Habel outlined six constitutive elements and found them in no fewer than six texts: Exod 3:1–12 (Moses);18 Judg 6:11b– 17 (Gideon); Isa 6:1–13 (Isaiah); Isa 40:1–11 (Second Isaiah); Jer 1:4–10 (Jeremiah);19 and Ezek 1:1–3:15 (Ezekiel).20 These six elements are as follows, with their attestation in the six different texts indicated thereafter (if extant): The Divine Confrontation The Introductory Word The Commission The Objection The Reassurance The Sign

Exod 3:1–4a; Judg 6:11b–12a; Isa 6:1–2; Jer 1:4; Ezek 1:1–28; Exod 3:4b–9; Judg 6:12b–13; Isa 6:3–7; 40:1–2; Jer 1:5a; Ezek 2:1–2; Exod 3:10; Judg 6:14; Isa 6:8–10; 40:3–6a; Jer 1:5b; Ezek 2:3–5; Exod 3:11; Judg 6:15; Isa 6:11a; 40:6–7; Jer 1:6; Exod 3:12a; Judg 6:16; Isa 6:11b–13; 40:8–11; Jer 1:7–8; Ezek 2:6–7; Exod 3:12b; Judg 6:17; Jer 1:9–10; Ezek 2:8–3:11.

Each instance of the form differs in some way, despite the large-scale similarities that are the result of the general shape of this particular literary convention. So, for example, the objection element in Jer 1:6 is developed beyond other exemplars by expansion so as to bend it toward a plea or

AB 24B (New York: Doubleday, 1990); Trible, Rhetorical Criticism; eadem, “Book of Jonah”; Leslie C. Allen, The Books of Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976); Hans Walter Wolff, Obadiah and Jonah: A Commentary, trans. Margaret Kohl, CC (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1986 [German orig.: 1977]); James Limburg, Jonah: A Commentary, OTL (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993); Fretheim, Message of Jonah; Erickson, Jonah. The list could be extended indefinitely, especially by adding important monographs that also do not cite Habel. An exception is Raymond F. Person, Jr., In Conversation with Jonah: Conversation Analysis, Literary Criticism, and the Book of Jonah, JSOTSup 220 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1996), who does mention Habel’s work, but only once (73 n. 46). Kenneth M. Craig, Jr., A Poetics of Jonah: Art in the Service of Ideology, 2nd ed. (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1999), 85, does not cite Habel’s essay but does compare other prophetic call forms. So also Marcus, Balaam to Jonah, 133–34. 18 While the form is complete in Exod 3:12, it has been expanded in what follows (see Habel, “Form and Significance,” 303 n. 18). 19 Here, again, the form is technically complete in Jer 1:10, but has been expanded in the following verses (see Habel, “Form and Significance,” 309 n. 28). 20 As noted above, Habel finds a “plausible precedent from the life and heritage of Israel for the specific Gattung” in Abraham’s commissioning of his servant in Gen 24 (“Form and Significance,” 320; see also 305).

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petition for help (Bitte); the reassurance in Jer 1:7–8 is also more developed as it is bent toward the oracle of salvation (Heilsorakel).21 It is time to see how the prophetic call form plays out – or doesn’t, as the case may be (and, in truth, actually is) – in the book of Jonah.

2. Jonah’s First Call (1:1–3a) The book of Jonah opens as follows: 1

Yhwh’s word came to Jonah, Amittai’s son: 2“Get up! Go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it because its evil has come to my attention. 3Then Jonah got up – to flee to Tarshish, away from Yhwh’s presence! (1:1–3a)22

The first two verses perfectly follow the form delineated by Habel:23 The Divine Confrontation: “Yhwh’s word came to Jonah, Amittai’s son” (1:1). The Introductory Word: “Get up!” (1:2aα).24 The Commission: “Go to Nineveh…and cry out against it…” (1:2aβ–c).

The third verse, however, is curious and in more than one way. According to the structure of the prophetic call form, one expects here a shift: to a thirdperson comment about the called individual, for example, one that usually also records a first-person speech on the part of the one called. That speech constitutes, form-critically, the objection to the divine commission: Then Moses said to God, “Who am I…?” (Exod 3:11). Then I said: “How long, my Lord?” (Isa 6:11). Then I said: “Oh no, my Lord Yhwh…!” (Jer 1:6).25

21 See Brent A. Strawn, “Jeremiah’s In/Effective Plea: Another Look at ‫ נער‬in Jeremiah i 6,” VT 55 (2005): 366–77. For the form-critical categories, see, e.g., Erhard S. Gerstenberger, Psalms, Part 1 with an Introduction to Cultic Poetry, FOTL 14 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 253–54. 22 Translations are my own and lean, intentionally, toward the dynamic. Versification follows the English text. 23 Given this pattern, the beginning of Jonah is thus entirely conventional. Contrast W. Dennis Tucker, Jonah: A Handbook on the Hebrew Text, rev. ed. (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2018), 15; cf. Trible, Rhetorical Criticism, 125. See further Tucker, Jonah, 15–16; and Sasson, Jonah, 67, on the construction ‫ אל‬+ ‫ויהי דבר־יהוה‬. 24 To be sure, ‫ קום‬is part of an asyndetic construction at this point: ‫קום לך‬, with “the principle idea…introduced in the second verb, with the first having a functional, rather than semantic value” (Tucker, Jonah, 17). Even so, some have deemed this first imperative to be an exclamation or interjection on God’s part (see ibid.). In what follows, I understand the introductory word and commission elements to be closely conjoined in Jonah’s call(s). 25 Note Trible, “Jonah,” 481: “Motives vary for resisting a call.”

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Jonah 1:3 does contain the expected third-person comment about the prophet but, instead of the expected use of √‫( אמר‬+ objection), it uses √‫קום‬. Insofar as √‫ קום‬is used in the introductory word + divine commission elements (‫קום לך‬, v. 2aα–β), the opening of v. 3 might lead one to wonder if the standard prophetic call form is broken here but in a positive way. Could this, at last, be an instance of the called individual immediately doing what God has asked without objection unlike the other call forms? 26 Alas, no. The wondering lasts only for the briefest of moments – indeed, only for the duration of two words, ‫ – ויקם יונה‬because what comes next clarifies matters: ‫לברח‬, to flee!27 At this point the form is thus doubly broken: not only is the expected √‫ אמר‬+ objection missing, but so is the specific verbal content of the objection.28 Now one may disagree at this point by countering that there is an objection of sorts here; it is simply not with words. Instead, as the old adage goes, Jonah votes with his feet: they are pointing west, away from Nineveh. 29 Jonah does get up (√‫)קום‬, in what at first appears to be in full compliance with Yhwh’s call, but only momentarily and only to do something precisely opposite: to flee to Tarshish, which is explicitly identified as “away from Yhwh’s presence” (‫)מלפני יהוה‬. The prophetic call form is derailed at this point; the vocational call has been interrupted. What is missing is Jonah’s verbal objection to the divine commission which is, let it be recalled and emphasized, an expected and regular part of the call form. This form-critical difference is not a minor one, an artistic nuancing of the form as, for example, in the use of ‫ נער‬in Jer 1:6. Once broken, the prophetic call form in Jonah 1 is entirely abandoned as the narrative shifts to follow Jonah’s trip down (√‫ )ירד‬to Joppa and then down (√‫ )ירד‬into a boat that is going to Tarshish, (once again) “away from Yhwh’s presence” (Jonah 1:3b).

26 See Trible, “Jonah,” 494: “at first the text misleads the reader by suggesting that he does obey.” 27 It is only the clarification found in ‫ לברח‬that permits one to re-analyze the waw on the wayyiqtol form ‫ ויקם‬as disjunctive: “but Jonah arose” (see Trible, Rhetorical Criticism, 128; Sherwood, Biblical Text, 244 n. 143). 28 Person, from a different methodological basis (conversation analysis), has also discussed the upsetting of expectations found in Jonah 1:3 which defies “the paradigm of adjacency pairs” (In Conversation, 134; see also 36–37 and passim). 29 See Trible, “Jonah,” 501: “Jonah’s protest against the imperative word comes through his feet, not his tongue”; and Sherwood, Biblical Text, 244: “Jonah…comically literalises the prophetic protest as he scuttles off, in the opposite direction, without saying a word” (her emphasis). In my perspective, however, the subsequent development shows that Jonah’s “dissension from the task” is less “comic” (so Sherwood, ibid.; cf. 259) than tragic. Cf. T. A. Perry, The Honeymoon Is Over: Jonah’s Argument with God (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2006), 202–3, and see further below.

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Before exploring what this interruption of the prophetic call form might mean, the objection element deserves further discussion. Habel’s analysis is again helpful. “Formally,” he writes, “the objection is regularly introduced with an appropriate ejaculatory expression which captures the mood of the speaker.”30 This is, of course, entirely absent from Jonah 1. We are granted no access to Jonah’s mood or “an appropriate ejaculatory expression” until 4:1, when we read that something – perhaps the Ninevites’ repentance and/or Yhwh’s forbearance in 3:10? – “displeased” (√‫ )רעע‬and “angered” or “distressed” (‫ ל־‬+ √‫ )חרה‬him;31 and 4:2, where Jonah prays (√‫)פלל‬, evidently in some desperation as signaled by the particle ‫אנה‬.32 For many interpreters, 4:2 definitively explains Jonah’s flight in ch. 1. If so, that would suggest that the interruption of the call form in the first chapter is temporary, resolved only later and subsequently (somehow) in ch. 4. Such an interpretation is not a necessary one, however, and I will return to discuss it further below. For now it is crucial to observe how, according to the call form, the objection element is followed directly by divine reassurance. In Habel’s words, “[t]he immediate response of Yahweh is related directly to the needs of the objector and is tantamount to an oath of assurance.”33 The divine reassurance is then followed by a sign: “the accompanying sign is designed to give additional assurance and confirmation that Yahweh is ‫עמי‬, ‘with me’.” 34 All this is decidedly absent in the book of Jonah. Sans objection, Jonah’s call must, by definition, also go without divine reassurance and the confirmatory sign. And so, again, his vocation is interrupted. But why would the call form be initiated at this point only to be derailed? Put differently, why would Jonah – both the character and the book (which is to say the narrator) – interrupt the call form? Perhaps because, if other instances of the prophetic call form are any indication, if you respond to the Deity who calls – even by strenuously objecting – you still end up getting talked into the job! As Habel puts it: “the demand of God [is] made inescapable” by the reassurance, and “Yahweh’s efficacious presence renders all objections invalid.” 35 Perhaps Jonah (or its narrator, implied author, or implied readers) knows of the other prophetic calls and, because of that, knows that it would be best to send God’s call directly to 30

Habel, “Form and Significance,” 300. See Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis, JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 33 for the difference between ‫ אף‬+ √‫ חרה‬and ‫ ל־‬+ ‫חרה‬. He deems the former to signal anger, the latter (as here in Jonah) to communicate distress. 32 Found also in Jonah 1:14. See Sasson, Jonah, 132; DCH (rev. ed.) 1:482–83; HALOT 1:69–70. 33 Habel, “Form and Significance,” 300. 34 Habel, “Form and Significance,” 300. 35 Habel, “Form and Significance,” 301, 304, respectively. Cf. Sweeney, “Jonah,” 308: “it is impossible to escape or hide from the Deity.’” 31

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voice mail.36 Don’t even talk (√‫ )!אמר‬to Yhwh or you’ll end up appointed to the task. The great irony, of course, is that even though Jonah refuses to object, thereby evading the dialogue with Yhwh and its correlate divine “persuasion,” he still finds himself on the road to Nineveh. According to the call form, however, Jonah should have conversed with Yhwh early on, right from the very start, and this exchange should have included his objections to his calling. Instead, all of that – indeed the entire call – is interrupted and derailed, delayed if not actually repressed. It returns, with a vengeance (as repressed things so often do), in the second half of the book. But there is more to say. Without the objection that leads to other elements of the call form, Jonah ends up missing out on the divine reassurance and sign that strengthen and credential the called for their tasks.37 Other instances of the form showcase a range of options at this point: Moses’s call, for example, is expanded with no fewer than three additional objections (Exod 3:13; 4:1, 10). In the final form of Exod 3–4, Moses is thus depicted as something of a repeat objector, but he is also repeatedly reassured and also, by the end, fully equipped with the staff-of-God (4:2–5, 17) and a brother-in arms (4:14–16). Ezekiel’s objection is muted or perhaps better implied, but he, too, is reassured and provided with a forehead of flint (Ezek 3:9), even if he returns to his fellow exiles “bitter, angry in my spirit” and “stunned,” with Yhwh’s hand heavy on him (3:14–15). As for Jeremiah, his series of “confessions” shows that he seems to come to peace with his vocation only slowly…if ever.38 Whatever the niceties, all of these figures go off and do their work, as the Lord mandated. One may presume, given the elements of the call form, that their subsequent obedience was facilitated, at least in part, by the assurances and signs God provided in the course of the call form. Jonah, however, by derailing the form, skips the objection entirely – perhaps hoping thereby to evade the call altogether.39 But of course he cannot and does not; and yet, 36

Note Marcus, Balaam to Jonah, 133: “It is assumed that the reader [of Jonah] is acquainted with the formulae and styles of prophetic literature.” See Person, In Conversation, 108–31 and 132–63, respectively, for extensive discussion of the implied reader and actual readers of the Jonah narrative. 37 See Habel, “Form and Significance,” 319, 323. 38 See Strawn, “Jeremiah’s In/Effective Plea,” 376–77. 39 At this point the intertextual relationships between Jonah and Jeremiah are intriguing. Many scholars would deem Jonah the secondary, dependent text. Jeremiah’s call seems to trade on knowledge of preceding calls in order to do them one better by his use of ‫נער‬, though to no avail (Strawn, “Jeremiah’s In/Effective Plea”). Jonah’s (still later) version might be seen as the next step in this evolution: Do not respond to Yhwh at all if or when called! Consider William McKane, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Jeremiah. Vol. 1, Introduction and Commentary on Jeremiah I–XXV, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999), 12: “a prophet does not create it [the call narrative] ex nihilo, but makes

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in interrupting the form by not objecting, he also ends up having to execute his prophetic vocation without the typical divine benefits. 40 The objection element is thus not only an expected part of the call form, it is an essential piece, serving as the gateway to facilitate deeper communion between the one called and the One who calls. In brief, objecting to the divine call leads to an even more profound relationship between God and prophet.41 But all of that is circumvented when Jonah breaks the form. It comes as no surprise, then, to find God and the reluctant prophet in a showdown, tête-à-tête argument in ch. 4 – one that stands unresolved as the book concludes. To sum up: the call comes but Jonah doesn’t object, as is expected, even required by the call form. And so, as a result, instead of reassurance and sign, he gets a huge storm and a very large fish.

3. Jonah’s Second Call (3:1–3a) After the tempest and an underwater misadventure, Jonah finds himself vomited up (2:10), back on the road to Nineveh, despite and in spite of his initial, rather unsuccessful attempt at fleeing. God’s call comes to him again in ch. 3: 1

Yhwh’s word came to Jonah a second time: 2“Get up! Go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out to it the proclamation that I will speak to you.” 3Then Jonah got up – and went to Nineveh, according to Yhwh’s command. (3:1–3a)

Once again – and not surprisingly, given the diptychal structure of Jonah – the first two verses follow the call form: The Divine Confrontation: “Yhwh’s word came to Jonah a second time” (3:1). The Introductory Word: “Get up!” (3:2aα). The Commission: “Go to Nineveh…and call out to it…” (3:2aβ–c).

use of a scaffolding and regular scheme of construction given to him by earlier call narratives.” 40 Habel, “Form and Significance,” 319: “The reassurance incorporates a direct divine response which forcefully answers the specific objection of the person commissioned by reaffirming the previous command and by assuring the individual that Yahweh is both serious and dynamically present in the very word He has uttered….Of special relevance is the formula, ‘I am indeed with you’ which is repeated in the calls of Gideon, Moses and Jeremiah…. The concluding sign is a further confirmation of the ‘I am with you’ character of the assurance…. It strengthens the commission, gives additional impetus to the word and further enables the individual to act as God’s agent.” 41 See Strawn, “Jeremiah’s In/Effective Plea,” 377; cf. Habel, “Form and Significance,” 319: “To object to a divine commission or decision may not be merely a sign of the prophet’s innate humility or sense of inadequacy, but rather a part of his office as servant, mediator and agent of Yahweh” (see also 299, 318).

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To be sure, there are several noteworthy differences between ch. 1 and ch. 3 – further proof of how each instance of a form is unique even within the same book. So, for example, Jonah’s patronymic is absent in 3:1, replaced, simply, by ‫שׁנית‬, the precise meaning of which is debated. Does it imply nothing more than “a repetition of the word that came the first time”?42 This seems unlikely since the commission that comes in 3:2 is also different, and in more than one way. Instead of ‫ על‬+ ‫קרא‬, as in 1:2, we have ‫ אל‬+ ‫קרא‬ in 3:2.43 Most interpreters agree that the former construction carries adversative sense, “cry out against X,”44 while the latter construction simply identifies the recipient of the speech: “call out to X.” 45 The balance of the commission also differs from ch. 1. There is no causal “because its evil has come to my attention” as in 1:2; instead, 3:2 offers a direct object that modifies ‫ אל‬+ ‫קרא‬: “the proclamation that I will speak to you.” It seems best, then, with Sweeney, to think that “Jonah gets a second chance to carry out YHWH’s commission” at this point in ch. 3, which “likely indicates the perspective of YHWH’s renewed commission to the prophet, i.e., YHWH commissions him once again in the present.”46 It is important, regardless, to underscore how the fact that Yhwh’s call must come a second time offers no small proof that Jonah and Yhwh are not yet done with the call form. It was interrupted in the first chapter and lay incomplete. And so it is taken up again, restarted from scratch in ch. 3, albeit it with some small but important differences. Those differences noted, we immediately get more of the same: the form is once again interrupted and at precisely the same point and in exactly the same way in 3:3 – just as it was in 1:3. Once again, here, as there, we lack a third-person comment about Jonah that would include some record of his 42 Limburg, Jonah, 75. LXX seems to suggest as much: κατὰ τὸ κήρυγμα τὸ ἔμποσθεν ὃ ἐγὼ ἐλάλησα πρὸς σέ, “according to the earlier preaching that I spoke to you.” Anthony

Gelston argues that LXX’s “shift to the past tense [MT has a Qal active participle from √‫ דבר‬in 3:2b; see n. 46 below] reflects its interpretation of the last four words of 1:2 as the content of the message entrusted to Jonah rather than the reason for his mission” (The Twelve Minor Prophets, BHQ 13 [Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2010], 94*) 43 ְ , correctly The pointing in Codex Leningradensis at 3:2, ‫וִּ ְק ָר א‬, is an error for ‫וּק ָר א‬ pointed in 1:2 (see Gelston, Twelve Minor Prophets, 63; K. Elliger in BHS). 44 Cf. Tucker, Jonah, 17. See the extensive discussion in Sasson, Jonah, 72–75, who translates: “and declare doom upon it” (66). 45 An exception is Norman H. Snaith, Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Book of Jonah (London: Epworth, 1945), 31, who thinks the two syntagmas are synonymous. But see Tucker, Jonah, 65, who states that ‫ אל‬+ ‫“ קרא‬occurs fifty-two times…with the proposition functioning as an adjunct to the verb, marking out the recipient of the speech.” 46 Sweeney, “Jonah,” 324. While Sweeney lays emphasis on the present action of the active participle (“I am speaking to you”; cf. n. 42 above), Tucker argues that when ‫ אל‬+ ‫“ דבר‬appears as a statement from God or a divine being (Exod 6:29; Dan 10:11), it refers to information that will be communicated” (Jonah, 65, emphasis added).

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verbal objection to the divine call. Once again, here, as there, we do get a third-person comment about Jonah that employs √‫קום‬. Once again, here, as there, given the use of √‫ קום‬in the introductory word + divine commission (‫קום לך‬, 3:2), the reader wonders if what follows “Then Jonah got up” (‫ )ויקם יונה‬will break the form – but in what way is unclear. In ch. 1, the break was potentially positive, though that possibility was extremely shortlived since Jonah got up only to flee (‫)לברח‬. Will ch. 3 offer more of the same or will Jonah prove obedient this second time? Here in ch. 3, as in ch. 1, readerly uncertainty lasts, at best, only the briefest of moments – again only two words – since the very next verb (‫ )וילך‬clarifies matters, as does the rest of the sentence: Jonah “went to Nineveh, according to Yhwh’s command” (3:3). So here, in ch. 3, Jonah does go, at the Lord’s word (‫)כדבר יהוה‬, in what is “the first major departure from the outline of events in chapter 1.”47 But there is more to say. While Jonah is obedient at this point in ch. 3 (or so it seems), the call form is nevertheless still broken and, once again, doubly so: (1) the expected √‫אמר‬-element is missing, as is (2) the specific report of any verbal objection. This second, altogether similar and repeated interruption of the call form thus casts Jonah’s newfound “obedience” into some question. God’s call – in the appropriate literary form – has come a second time (‫ )שׁנית‬to Jonah in ch. 3 but once again Jonah does not play his expected role by uttering his expected lines. In other words, Jonah is obedient only to a degree. He still does not voice the objection that is part of the dialogue with Yhwh that comprises the prophetic call form, on which the balance of that form depends. In fact, in light of the structural similarities between Jonah 1 and Jonah 3, it may not be going too far to say that in 3:3 – no less than in 1:3 – Jonah once again refuses his calling, just not with words.48 If so, Jonah would once again be voting with his feet.49 Only this time his feet head toward Nineveh. Doesn’t that orientation mean that all is well after all, that Jonah is obedient even without saying his piece of the call form? He shirked his call in silence in ch. 1 and then by flight; in ch. 3, he 47

Tucker, Jonah, 66. Contra Jack R. Lundbom, The Hebrew Prophets: An Introduction (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2010), 123: “Yahweh gets his man!”; and Allen, Books of Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah, 220 (citing Jacques Ellul), who thinks that Jonah is here “‘a new man, a new creature like the one who has passed through baptism’…. He has learned his lesson.” Better, in my judgment, is Trible, “Jonah,” 481: Jonah’s response “is at best ‘giving in,’ resignation to the inevitable. At worst it is another way of resisting: to oppose through external obedience, to say yes but mean no…. More than the other [prophets], he rails against the inevitability of obedience. In capitulation he continues to resist” (see, similarly, 515). 49 Contra Sherwood, Biblical Text, 260, who thinks Jonah takes “a more passive attitude to the word of God this time, in the replay.” 48

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remains silent but at least heads in the right direction. Doesn’t that mean that the call has finally been accepted, end of story? Clearly not, as the rest of ch. 3 and ch. 4 detail. What these materials show, in brief, is that what appears to be obedience in 3:3 is, at best, momentary and partial, or, put differently, ultimately unwilling if not also bitter – through clenched teeth, as it were. It seems to be part of the book’s many ironies, therefore, that Jonah’s obedience in 3:3 is, in truth, a kind of disobedience. This is demonstrated by the breakage of the call form and also by how the form plays out – or doesn’t – in what follows. What follows appears to cast Jonah in minimalist mode: the city is a threeday journey across (3:3), but he only goes one day in (3:4), not even making it to the city center.50 Jonah then utters a five-word, highly ambiguous sermon that doesn’t mention God, doesn’t mention repentance, and doesn’t tell the Ninevites what (if anything) they could or should do (3:4).51 After that, Jonah heads out of the city to see what will happen (4:5). 52 When things don’t transpire as he wants, he is greatly displeased (4:1), which leads to an extended dialogue and object lesson involving a plant, a worm, the sun, and a hot wind that ends in a stalemate between Yhwh and his reluctant and apparently recalcitrant-to-the-end prophet. The closing dialogue in ch. 4 is, of course, of great significance for the overall interpretation of the book, and to the matter under discussion. Here, at last – or so it would seem – is the dialogue that was expected, according to the conventions of the call form, all the way back in 1:1–3a and again in 3:1– 3a. Here, at last – or so it would seem – Jonah finally “comes clean” with why he fled to Tarshish in the first place (4:2). As noted above, many interpreters find Jonah’s words in 4:2 as the interpretive clue to Jonah’s silence in ch. 1.53 But such a perspective doesn’t explain his silence in ch. 3, which is, 50

For an alternative understanding, see David Marcus, “Nineveh’s ‘Three Days Walk’ (Jonah 3:3): Another Interpretation,” in On the Way to Nineveh: Studies in Honor of George M. Landes, ed. Stephen L. Cook and S. C. Winter, ASOR Books 4 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999), 42–53. 51 Yet another factor that might be discussed at this point is Jonah’s mention of “forty days” before the “overturning” in the Hebrew text, which is preserved as “three days” in the Septuagint (LXX) rendering. For an illuminating discussion of this matter, which sees the Hebrew text as presenting a Jonah who does not want Nineveh to repent, see R. W. L. Moberly, “Preaching for a Response? Jonah’s Message to the Ninevites Reconsidered,” VT 53 (2003): 156–68. 52 I do not here commit to a position on the timing of 4:5 relative to 4:1 – a point that has garnered much attention in scholarly literature. See Sasson, Jonah, 287–90, for discussion. 53 See, e.g., Fretheim, Message of Jonah, 77; Chesung Justin Ryu, “Divine Rhetoric and Prophetic Silence in the Book of Jonah,” in The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Narrative, ed. Danna Nolan Fewell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 226–35; and Person, In Conversation, passim, but esp. 73, 134–39, 162; see also ibid., 171–84, for an

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as shown above, structurally identical and equally a breakage of the call form. Still further, by the time we get to ch. 4, it is far from clear that we should trust Jonah’s own account of this (or any) matter. According to the narrative, after all, Jonah did not, in fact, say anything of the sort in ch. 1 because he said nothing whatsoever in ch. 1.54 Perhaps that fact is nothing more than a gap that is subsequently filled by the author here, at the end of the story, but this leaves the similar “gap” (if that is what it is) in ch. 3 unexplained. Still further, given other aspects of Jonah’s character in the book, 55 readers are more than entitled to doubt that 4:2 is a simple case of gap-filling on the part of a sincere (and reformed?) Jonah. Instead, it seems just as likely that Jonah is only now finally getting around to a refusal of his calling that he should have uttered much earlier but repressed; it comes out now, finally, but is decidedly after the fact and, as a result, ill-timed, if not also misstated (even overstated?). Rather than objecting on time and as expected within the call form, Jonah has missed out – not once, but twice – on hearing and receiving divine reassurance and confirmatory sign: the benefits that accompany Yhwh’s difficult call to prophesy. To be sure, Jonah gets the “gift” of divine accompaniment whether he wants it or not, but that comes in something of an adversarial mode as God first hurls a storm (1:4), then appoints a fish, then a plant, then a worm, then a hot wind (1:17; 4:6, 7, 8). In sum: Jonah evidently fails to receive the comforting aspects of God’s presence because he failed to object on time as required and as expected in the call form. For the same reason, Jonah must do his work without a sign that affirms his vocation and supports his task, whether beforehand or after the fact (cf. Exod 3:12, 14, 18; 4:3–5, 6–9, 12, 14–17). No wonder Jonah wonders what will happen to the city (Jonah 4:5) and is displeased when what happens is apparently otherwise than that he preferred (4:1–2). And no extensive listing of readers who believe much the same (a much smaller list of exceptions is found in ibid., 184–86). My own interpretation differs and is more akin to Craig’s perspective, especially regarding what he calls “the hindsight fallacy” (Poetics, 80–87): “Upon completion [of Jonah], it is difficult to imagine why a reader would suspend knowledge of past events with the actual knowledge derived by the trial and error experiences encouraged by the contours of the tale…. When reading is understood as a time-art, one begins to understand that meaning is equated not only with what happens in the final chapter or verse in the Jonah story but, instead, with all that happens in the mind of the reader as impressions are drawn and redrawn throughout each of the chapters” (83, his emphasis). While Craig does imply that 4:2 closes the gap opened in 1:2, in my judgment it does not – at least not definitively. I think Marcus is more accurate when he notes that in 4:2 Jonah only “purports to answer one of the major questions of the story: what was [the] reason for his initial refusal to prophesy to Nineveh?” (Balaam to Jonah, 99, emphasis added). 54 Here I part company with Person, In Conversation, who thinks that the narrative implies a great deal of dialogue that is simply not recorded at various places in the book. 55 See esp. Marcus, Balaam to Jonah, 93–159.

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wonder he doesn’t recognize the Qiqayon plant for what it is.56 And no wonder he seems completely incapable of understanding one of Israel’s most treasured statements about its God, even though he knows it and can recite it in prayer to Yhwh (4:2b).57 Jonah’s failure to object, his interruption of the call form, has arrested – stunted and retarded – his vocation. And so, no wonder that interpreters continue to debate what kind of prophet Jonah is, if he even is one!

4. Conclusion Though she starts from a different place than the argument offered here, Sherwood has also found in Jonah “a story in which familiar genre mechanisms malfunction,” and has observed that “resistance plays an above-average role” in the narrative.58 Sherwood thinks that the opening of the book already indicates “that the narrative will develop outside the secure parameters of tradition and outside the realms of generic security control. Anomaly breeds anomaly and the adjusted climate of the beginning turns this book into a curious, mutant biblical species.”59 What I have argued above mostly concurs with Sherwood’s sentiments, though I have focused on one particular instance of resistance – Jonah’s failure to object within the prophetic call form – an instance that is not seen or traced in quite the same way by Sherwood, but which also suggests that Jonah’s resistance is “a complication with significance and rationale.” 60 As I’ve indicated, some interpreters believe the rationale for this complication to be offered, finally and truly, by Jonah himself in 4:2, and yet one may be forgiven if one somehow mistrusts Jonah as a reliable character by this point in the story. The ultimate rationale for interrupting the prophetic call form may lie, therefore, not with Jonah’s words in 4:2 but with the narrator and the narrator’s interests.61

56 For more on the plant and its connections to ch. 2, see Brent A. Strawn “On Vomiting: Leviticus, Jonah, Ea(a)rth,” CBQ 74 (2012): 445–64. 57 See Moberly, Old Testament Theology, 181 (citing the novel Gilead) on how someone “can know a thing to death and be for all purposes completely ignorant of it,” which Moberly applies to Jonah’s knowledge of the Israelite “credo” (209). 58 Sherwood, Biblical Text, 240. 59 Sherwood, Biblical Text, 240. 60 Sherwood, Biblical Text, 243. 61 Of course, if the form had been present in full and complete fashion, the narrative of Jonah would have been different. But that is exactly the point: the broken form contributes directly to – shapes, even – the narrative.

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To argue all that out would fully require another essay, so let me conclude by offering some thoughts on the significance of this particular complication, this specific instance of resistance in Jonah (the character and the book). First, the deployment of the prophetic call form in Jonah shows its continued liveliness in many places within the Old Testament. 62 Still further, the manipulation of the prophetic call form in Jonah – its breakage, in fact – is additional testimony to its liveliness as a convention that could be manipulated and (re)deployed for varying purposes. At least part of the purpose(s) for this (re)use and manipulation in Jonah appears to be related to the presentation of the prophet: his attempt – ultimately unsuccessful – to escape the divine call, but also, in the process, his correlate failure to benefit from dialoging with Yhwh which would, per the form, eventuate in much needed reassurance and confirmation, presence and equipping. Jonah’s breakage of the form – his interruption of the vocational call – is shown to be doubly ineffective: it does not release Jonah from his duty and it only complicates his subsequent duties in Nineveh and his interactions with Yhwh. Form-critical analysis has shown, furthermore, that what appears to be obedience, finally (!), in 3:3a may be nothing of the sort. What appears to be obedience, even perfect obedience, may be quite otherwise, and, as a result, may not end in deeper communion with the Lord God of Israel. The deepest communion, it would appear, is only through candor and lament, honesty and objection. Jonah does not know this lesson. At least not yet. The book of Jonah, however, ends in a very open-ended way with God’s question to one hot and bothered prophet. Readers of the book do not know how Jonah may have responded to Yhwh’s final words, how he would have scored on the final exam.63 What is clear, regardless, is that, accurate or not, return of the repressed or something else altogether, Jonah finally owns up to his feelings in ch. 4: he is displeased, upset, and ready to die. If nothing else, Jonah’s words in 4:2–4 function as a kind of belated objection – one that, again, may not truly reflect the reason(s) for his silence in chs. 1 and 3. But no matter. Those times are now past and the missing objection(s) is (are) now finally here. And so it is that, in the space after 4:11, after God’s final words, perhaps we may imagine Jonah receiving 62

And also, in my judgment, in the New Testament where the annunciation to Mary in Luke 1 follows the same pattern. I hope to develop this point further in another place. For now, see Brent A. Strawn, “Luke 1:26–38,” in The Lectionary Commentary: Theological Exegesis for Sunday’s Texts, The Third Readings: The Gospels, ed. Roger E. Van Harn (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 286–90; and Bea Wyler, “Mary’s Call,” in A Feminist Companion to the Hebrew Bible in the New Testament, ed. Athalya Brenner, FCB 10 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1996), 136–48. 63 See Person, In Conversation, 187–90, for a collection of readings of “Jonah’s Omitted Answer to the Lord’s Last Question (4.10–11).”

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at long last the divine benefits of prophetic calling that have been delayed up to this point. “God is after Jonah,” after all.64 Jonah is God’s beloved Dove;65 this is “his Jonah.”66

64

Ellen F. Davis, Biblical Prophecy: Perspectives for Christian Theology, Discipleship, and Ministry, Interpretation Resources (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2014), 53. 65 See Perry, Honeymoon, xxix, 80–81. 66 Wolff, Obadiah and Jonah, 173.

“Jerusalem Will Become a Heap of Ruins” On the Ancient Near Eastern Background of an Image for Devastation in Micah 3:12 Bob Becking 1. Introduction The third chapter of the book of Micah ends with a fierce prophecy of doom addressed to the ruling elite in Jerusalem and Judah (3:9–12). This unit contains three elements: (1) Addressee, (2) Accusation, and (3) Announcement.1 The section continues and combines the two previous units (3:1–4 and 3:5–8). In it, both the ruling elite and the religious specialists – the addressee – are reproached for their illicit conduct – the accusation. In v. 10, the author apparently quotes an ancient hymn. In doing so, he applies this otherwise lost anthem to the situation of his time. This proposal also implies that 3:10 should not be construed as a later addition connecting Mic 3 to Hab 2 – where almost the same text is present. The section is followed by the famous poem on peace (Mic 4:1–5).2 I will not enter here into a discussion of the character of the connection between Mic 3 and 4. Micah 3:9–12 culminates in a prophecy of doom for Zion and Jerusalem who will be destroyed to the ground by an unknown enemy – the announcement – (3:12). It is this verse that in a way saved the life of the prophet Jeremiah. When he was accused of being too negative a prophet, some of the elders proclaimed that Micah had been a prophet of doom too and was not killed by Hezekiah, the king of Judah (Jer 26:18–19). In their quotation of Mic 3:12, the friends of Jeremiah place the prophecy of doom in the reign of Hezekiah. This has led to a discussion on the exact date and circumstances in which Micah would have given this prophecy. Taking the campaign of

1 See also Marvin A. Sweeney, The Twelve Prophets. Vol. 2, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Berit Olam (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000), 373–76. 2 See Sweeney, The Twelve Prophets, 376–81; Bob Becking, “Das Gleichnis vom Frieden: Der Ort und die Funktion von Micha 4 in der Komposition des Buches Micha,” in Fortgeschriebenes Gotteswort: Studien zu Geschichte, Theologie und Auslegung des Alten Testaments Festschrift für Christoph Levin zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Reinhard Müller, Urmas Nõmmik, and Juha Pakkala (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020).

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Sennacherib against Hezekiah in 701 BCE is certainly a possibility. 3 That campaign, however, was not the only moment of threat to the independence of Jerusalem. In this contribution to my friend of many years, who studied many of the Minor Prophets,4 I will not analyze this historical question, but delve into detail by asking: “What is the ancient Near Eastern background of the imagery language in 3:12?”

2. Micah 3:12: Text and Translation The announcement in 3:12 reads as follows: Therefore, on your account, Zion will be plowed into a field. Jerusalem will become a heap of ruins. The mountain of the house will become high-places with forest.

A few remarks on the translation: The adverb ‫לָ כֵ ן‬, “therefore,” has its traditional function of introducing a judgment-announcement.5 The word ‫ ִבּגְ לַ ְלככֶ ם‬, “on your account,” is a compound preposition with a second masculine plural suffix. As elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, the word pinpoints the reason for a forthcoming action. In Gen 39:5, for instance, the house of Potiphar is blessed by God “on account of Joseph,” the acts of the Hebrew refugee being the reason for the divine blessing. In Mic 3:12, the conduct of the leading elite in and around Jerusalem will be the ground for God’s judgment.6

3

See Francis I. Andersen and David Noel Freedman, Micah: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 24E (New York: Doubleday 2000), 386–87. 4 On Micah, see, e.g., Sweeney, The Twelve Prophets, 337–416; idem, “Micah’s Debate with Isaiah,” JSOT 93 (2001): 111–24; idem, “The Portrayal of YHWH’s Deliverance in Micah 2:12–13 Reconsidered,” in God’s Word for Our World: Biblical Studies in Honor of Simon John De Vries, ed. J. Harold Ellens et al., JSOTSup 388 (London/New York: T&T Clark, 2004), 315–26; idem, “Synchronic and Diachronic Concerns in Reading the Book of the Twelve Prophets,” in Perspectives on the Formation of the Book of the Twelve: Methodological Foundations-Redactional Processes-Historical Insights, ed. Rainer Albertz, James D. Nogalski, and Jakob Wöhrle, BZAW 433 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012), 21–33; idem, “Swords into Plowshares or Plowshares into Swords? Isaiah and the Twelve in Intertextual Perspective on Zion,” TJT 34 (2018): 97–110. 5 Sweeney, The Twelve Prophets, 375. 6 Sweeney, The Twelve Prophets, 375.

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The Niphal of the verb ‫ חָ ַרשׁ‬indicates the act of being plowed. In most occasions in the Hebrew Bible, plowing is a preparation before sowing, aiming at a harvest that could feed the population. 7 As a result of the forthcoming judgment, the area on which Zion was built will receive a change in allocation: the city area will turn into its more original use, that of agricultural land.8 With Van der Woude,9 I construe ‫שָׂ ֶדה‬, “field,” to be the second object of the verb ‫ חָ ַרשׁ‬indicating the result of the forthcoming act of plowing.10 The noun ‫עִ י‬, “ruin,” is written in an exceptional plural: ‫עִ יִּ ין‬. The standard Hebrew plural – ‫ – ִעיִּ ים‬is attested in the quotation in Mic 3:12 in Jer 26:18 as well as in Ps 79:1. A plural ending in –n is known from Moabite and Aramaic. Around 700 BCE there was not much Aramaic influence on the Hebrew language. An Aramaism, hence, is not very plausible.11 Influence from Moabite cannot be excluded nor the remainder of an archaic or local form.12 Van der Woude’s proposal to construe ‫ עִ יִּ ין‬as a pluralis intensivus is compelling.13 The plural might have been chosen to rhyme with the noun “Zion.” In the Hebrew Bible, Zion as well as the temple of YHWH are seen as being built on a hilltop or mountain (see e.g., 2 Kgs 19:31; Isa 4:5; 8:18; 10:12, 32; 16:1; 18:7; 24:23; 29:8; 31:9; 37:32; Joel 3:17; Obad 17, 21; Mic 4:7; Pss 2:6; 48:2, 11; 74:2; 78:68; 125:1; 133:3). From a religio-historical perspective, hilltops and mountains are charismatic spaces that form an interface between the realms of God and humankind.

7 David C. Hopkins, The Highlands of Canaan: Agricultural Life in the Early Iron Age, SWBAS 3 (Sheffield: Almond, 1985), 213–32. 8 Hopkins, The Highlands of Canaan, 118. 9 Adam S. van der Woude, Micha, Prediking van het Oude Testament (Nijkerk: Callenbach, 1976), 121–22. 10 Bruce K. Waltke and Michael P. O’Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990), §10.2.3. 11 With Jan A. Wagenaar, Judgment and Salvation: The Composition and Redaction of Micah 2–5, VTSup 85 (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2001), 124; contra William McKane, The Book of Micah: Introduction and Commentary, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998), 113– 14; Jörg Jeremias, Die Propheten Joel, Obadja, Jona, Micha, ATD 24/3 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007), 157. 12 Max Wagner, Die lexikalischen und grammatikalischen Aramaismen im alttestamentlichen Hebräisch, BZAW 96 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1966), 134–35; Delbert R. Hillers, Micah: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Micah, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 47; Charles S. Shaw, The Speeches of Micah: A Rhetorical-Historical Analysis, JSOTSup 145 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1993), 99. 13 Van der Woude, Micha, Prediking van het Oude Testament (Nijkerk: Callenbach, 1976), 122.

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It is, therefore, more than understandable that on Mount Zion a ‫בַ יִ ת‬, “house; temple,” had been erected. This temple was the most important interface for communication with God in pre-exilic Yahwism. Both the hill and the temple were seen as “holy,” a space completely different from other spaces with an extra-dimensional link to the space of the holy God. This holy space will be changed as a result of the ‫ ָרעָ ה‬, “evil,” that will come over Jerusalem. The verb ‫ הָ יָה‬expresses change in this context. Jerusalem will be bereft from its sacred interface implying that communication with the divine realm will become complicated. The plural noun ‫בָּ מוֹת‬, “high-places,” is used here in the plural. The Hebrew word ‫ בָּ מָ ה‬can be used to denote an elevated spot in the landscape, a hill, or a mountain, as well as to connote an illegitimate sanctuary.14 The ambiguity seems to be intended at 3:12. Treating the house of YHWH as a ‫בָּ מָ ה‬-sanctuary would lead to a reversal into only a hilltop.15 The construct chain expresses the genitivus qualitatis: the hilltops will be covered with “forest.” The noun ‫יַעַ ר‬, “forest; wood; thicket,” occasionally refers to a desolate forest (Isa 21:13; Hos 2:14; Mic 3:12 = Jer 26:18). 16 What once was an abode for the cult, will be turned into a space to avoid.17 In sum: the judgment will lead to a catastrophe for Jerusalem. The beautiful city and its temple mount will be ruined and turned into an undesirable wilderness.18 The question can be put: What role does the phrase “Jerusalem will become a heap of ruins” play in this context? In his commentary on the Minor Prophets, Marvin Sweeney states that “the imagery is graphic.” 19 One can only agree with that statement, but the question remains whether the phrase communicates something else at a deeper level. A survey of other texts – biblical as well as extra-biblical – might help.

14

Patrick H. Vaughan, The Meaning of ‘bāmâ’ in the Old Testament: A Study of Etymological, Textual and Archaeological Evidence, SOTSMS 3 (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1974). 15 Sweeney, The Twelve Prophets, 375. 16 Philip J. King, Amos, Hosea, Micah: An Archaeological Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster John Knox, 1988), 120–21. 17 Delbert R. Hillers, Treaty-Curses and the Old Testament Prophets, BibOr 16 (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1984), 44–54; Sweeney, The Twelve Prophets, 375–76. 18 Ulrike Bail, “Die verzogene Sehnsucht hinkt an ihren Ort”: Literarische Überlebensstrategien nach der Zerstörung Jerusalems im Alten Testament (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2004), 32–38. 19 Sweeney, The Twelve Prophets, 375.

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3. Micah 1:6 A comparable expression can be found at Mic 1:6: I will set Samaria to a heap of stones in the field to a place for a vineyard. I will hurl down her stones to the valley and I will expose her foundations.

It should be noted that farmers in Iron Age Israel used to heap stones that they collected when preparing their lands for agriculture.20 This would imply a radical shift in the utilization of the area: the acres on which the city of Samaria was built will be given back to their former agricultural function.21 There is, however, more at hand. The context of Mic 1:6 makes clear that this change is the result of the divine reaction to the transgressions of Jacob and Israel (Mic 1:5). They did not keep the stipulations of the moral code in the binding agreement between YHWH and the people. In Mic 1 the illicit cults at the ‫בָּ מוֹת‬, “high-places,” trigger the anger and wrath of God, while in Mic 2–5 the accusations against Judah are focused on the atrocities in the area of social loyalty. The same idea is present in Ps 79:1, which opens with the complaining observation that the nations have laid “Jerusalem in ruins.” As for Mic 1:6, Sweeney states that Micah – living in the Shephelah region – most probably did not witness the destruction of Samaria himself, but applied a common motif from reports of the destruction of an inimical city.22 Following this suggestion, I will now turn to a set of ancient Near Eastern texts that actually contain this motif.

4. Ancient Near Eastern Texts Turning a city into a ruin resting in a desolate field is a standard topos in NeoAssyrian royal inscriptions describing the fate of a city that had rebelled and was conquered by the king (for instance, in the inscriptions of Shalmanassar III; Tiglathpileser I; Sennacherib; Esarhaddon; Ashurbanipal). I will give a few examples of texts that describe in glorious language the details of the conquest of an inimical city. After his conquest of Karkemish, Sargon II wrote:

20

J. C. de Moor, Micah, HCOT (Leuven: Peeters, 2020), 68–69. Sweeney, The Twelve Prophets, 351–52; de Moor, Micah, 69. 22 Sweeney, The Twelve Prophets, 351–52. 21

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20′ [. . . I caused] the water of the irrigation ditches (and) the murmur of the current [to stop,] (saying) “let him (= Pisiri) not irrigate its (= Karkemish) arable land.” 21′ [. . . The luxuriant meadows] of the irrigation [district] were let go fallow like pastureland, they became a desert.23

In a report of Sargon II’s campaign against Marduk-apla-iddina, the king of Babylon known in the Hebrew Bible as Merodach-Baladan, it is written, … fifteen strongholds [in the area of Dur-Yakin], with the towns in their neighborhood I turned into mounds (of ruin), the people, small and great, who dwelt in (these) districts, and the gods in whom they trusted I jointly carried off and left not one to escape.24

This topos has ancient roots. In an Old Babylonian omen-text the following can be found: It will turn into tells and ruins and will be devastated.25

After conquering the cities of the Ullubaeans, Tiglath-Pileser III erected a stele with his royal image and his military deeds on it. Anyone who erases the image or smashes the monument awaits fierce punishments, among which: … turn his land into mounds of ruins.26

Two things are of importance to notice. Firstly, in both inscriptions the word for “turn” is a precative expressing a modal wish (lu-tir-ru)27 with “the great gods” as subject of the action. Secondly, this wish is uttered for the specific case in which someone destroys – in whatever way – the memorial monument. In other words, these inscriptions see the topos of ruination as a divine punishment for the act of a damnatio memoriae.28

23 Gianni Marchesi, “A New Historical Inscription of Sargon II from Karkemish,” JNES 78 (2019): 4–5 (1–24). 24 Sargon II Nimrud Prism VI:58–62; C. J. Gadd, “Inscribed Prisms of Sargon II from Nimrud,” Iraq 16 (1954): 173–201. 25 YOS 10 17:12; see A. Goetze, Old Babylonian Omen Texts, YOS 10 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1947): Plates xv–xix. 26 Tiglath-Pileser III Mila Mergi Rock Inscription: 51; see Hayim Tadmor, The Inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser III, King of Assyria: Critical Edition, with Introductions, Translations, and Commentary (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1994), 116; with a parallel in TP III Stele from Iran III: 5′; COS 2.117B; see Tadmor, The Inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser III, 110. 27 See D. Testen, “The East Semitic Precative Paradigm,” JSS 38 (1993): 1–13; John Huehnergaard, A Grammar of Akkadian, 3rd ed. (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2011), 144– 46. 28 Joan G. Westenholz, “Damnatio Memoriae: The Old Akkadian Evidence for Destruction of Name and Destruction of Person,” in Iconoclasm and Text Destruction in the Ancient Near East and Beyond, ed. N. N. May, OIS 8 (Chicago: The Oriental Institute, 2012), 89–122.

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An Aramaic treaty-curse contains a parallel wording. Breaking the binding agreement between Bar-Ga’yah and Matiel could have a disastrous result: May his meadows be destroyed unto wasteland And may Arpad become a heap of ruins.29

A parallel curse is present in the treaty between Ashurnerari V of Assyria and Matiel of Arpad: may his land [be reduced] to wasteland, may only an area of the size of a brick (be left) for [him to stand upon]30.

See also the curse in the loyalty-oaths to Esarhaddon: May Šamaš with an iron plough [overtu]rn yo[ur] city and your district.31

These texts indicate that the “turning into a heap of ruins” should be interpreted as a divine punishment for disobedience executed on divine behalf by the earthly ruler. The discourse in which the expression functions is that of the binding agreement between two parties. When such a declaration of loyalty was broken, the gods of the party that was hurt and harmed were allowed to take vengeance at the trespassing partner. In other words, the topos was part of the Neo-Assyrian royal and military ideology as part of the Neo-Assyrian pursuit for world dominance, or at least for their strife to control the streams of trade and commerce.

5. Back to Micah It is a well-known fact that this Neo-Assyrian ideology has influenced Israelite concepts of the relationship with YHWH. This view was first formulated by Frankena and later developed by many other scholars.32 The relationship with the divine was reformulated in the ‫ ְבּ ִרית‬-concept, a Hebrew word that is not easy to translate. The concept implies that YHWH is seen as ruler and liberator who gave his people a land to live in. The requirement was that the Israelites and the Judaeans should live according to the moral and religious code of the community that was construed as a gift from YHWH. When trespassing this code, they could await divine anger and wrath. When living according to this 29

KAI 222 A:32–33; see Hillers, Treaty-Curses, 48. SAA 2.2 i 4–6. 31 SAA 2.6: 545–46 [§ 68]; Shaw, The Speeches of Micah, 113; Hans Ulrich Steymans, Deuteronomium 28 und die adê zur Thronfolgeregelung Asarhaddons: Segen und Fluch im Alten Orient und in Israel, OBO 145 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995), 86–92; Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, Micah: A Commentary, OTL (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2015), 125. 32 Rintje Frankena, “The Vassal-Treaties of Esarhaddon and the Dating of Deuteronomy,” OtSt 14 (1965): 122–54. 30

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code, they would encounter divine grace. The book of Micah – in all its chapters and all its layers – is permeated with this idea. It forms the gaze through which the author(s) look(s) at the reality in the last decades of the eighth century BCE, and beyond. Echoes of this topos are present in the curses for breaking the covenantrelationship, for instance, in Lev 26:31: I will lay (verb ‫ )נָתַ ן‬your cities in ruin.

The topos is curiously absent in the comparable set of curses in Deut 28.33 This silence, however, is not to be seen as evidence for the absence of this topos in pre-exilic Israelite thought. In the book of Micah the language of the curses from the Assyrian loyaltyoath and comparable texts is present: Micah 1:9: her wounds are incurable See the Gula curse in the loyalty-oaths regulating the succession of the Assyrian king Esarhaddon: May Gula, the great physician, put sickness and [weariness in your hearts] and an unhealing wound in your body.34

Micah 3:3: because they ate the flesh of my people In the loyalty-oaths of Esarhaddon, a severe famine leading to cannibalism will be the curse for disloyalty: Just as this ewe is cut open and the flesh of its young is placed in its mouth, so may they make you eat in your hunger the flesh of your brothers, your sons, and your daughters.35

Micah 4:6: and I will gather the banished which I treated badly. Hillers pointed at a curse in the treaty between Ashurnerari V of Assyria and Matiel of Arpad.36 Breaking the binding agreement would have severe consequences for the Aramaic king: This spring lamb has not been brought out of its fold for sacrifice, nor for a banquet, nor for a purchase, nor for (divination concerning) a sick man, nor to be slaughtered for [...]: it has been brought to conclude the treaty of Aššur-nerari, king of Assyria with Mati’-ilu. If Mati’-ilu [sins] against th[is] sworn treaty, then, just as this spring lamb has been brought from its fold and will not return to its fold and [not behold] its fold again, (in like manner) 33

See Steymans, Deuteronomium 28. SAA II 6 § 52; COS 4:36; see also Codex Hammurabi Rev. XXVIII:50–65 = COS 2:131; Esarhaddon Zendjirli-stele; Bilingual Inscription from Tell Fekherye = COS 2:34; Deut 28:27, 35; Jer 8:22; Nah 3:19. 35 SAA 2 vi 547–550; COS 4:38. 36 Hillers, Micah, 55. 34

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may, alas, Mati’-ilu, together with his sons, [magnates] and the people of his land [be ousted] from his country, not return to his country, and not [behold] his country again.37

This distant parallel shows that the act of “treating badly” should be read as indicating a divine intervention after Judah’s trespassing of the moral code. Micah 6:14: You will eat, but you will not be satisfied Micah 6:14–15 contains a series of futility-clauses. 38 A futility-clause is a form of speech that indicates that human actions will not yield the expected result. 39 This form of speech is present several times in the ancient Near Eastern vassal-treaties and loyalty-oaths. These parallels show that the language of curse and punishment after breaking the loyalty was known to the author(s) of the book of Micah. Apparently, this imagery language was known throughout the ancient Near East. Opinions about the redactional composition of the book of Micah and the dating of its various parts differ among scholars. I will not try to summarize them here. In my opinion, the greatest part of the book of Micah is pre-exilic, with chs. 1–5 going back to the final decades of the eighth century BCE and chs. 6–7 to the era leading up to the reformation under Josiah. Since the language of the treaty curses has a long history before culminating in the loyalty-oaths to Esarhaddon, there is no need to date biblical texts that contain references to this language to an era after the coronation of Esarhaddon. In other words, the author(s) of the book of Micah adopted an ancient Near Eastern concept to give words to the idea that God will not leave his disobedient people unpunished. Appropriating the language of the outside enemy, the author threatens the elite of Jerusalem with a reversal of fate. This brings me to the following conclusion. The phrase “Jerusalem will become a heap of ruins” has a double function in Mic 3:12. On the one hand, it stresses the catastrophic character of the impending judgment. The beautiful city and its temple mount will be ruined and turned into an undesirable wilderness.40 On the other hand, there is a whiff of irony, as the author uses words for this shift that echo the language to be found in Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions in describing the fate of the capital city of a disloyal vassal.

37

SAA 2.2 i 10–20; the spring lamb was offered at the ceremony concluding the treaty See Hillers, Treaty-Curses, 28–29; Hillers Micah, 80–82; Julia M. O’Brien, Micah, Wisdom Commentary 37 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2015), 95–97. 39 Laura Quick, Deuteronomy 28 and the Aramaic Curse Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). 40 Bail, “Die verzogene Sehnsucht hinkt an ihren Ort,” 32–38. 38

The Dialogue of Pessimism Revisited Peter Machinist 1. Introduction The Dialogue of Pessimism is generally viewed in modern scholarship as one of the three major works of Mesopotamian, more specifically, Akkadian wisdom literature, along with the Poem of the Righteous Sufferer (Ludlul bēl nēmeqi) and the Babylonian Theodicy. It has seen multiple editions, translations, commentaries, and notes over more than a century, as chronicled in the bibliographies of W. G. Lambert1 and B. R. Foster.2 Over this long period, discussion has ranged not only over individual words, phrases, and lines, but over the overall structure and genre of the text, its meaning, and its relationship to other texts both Mesopotamian and beyond, especially Egyptian and biblical. Much of this can be epitomized in the modern label for our text, the Dialogue of Pessimism, first proposed, it appears, by Stephen Langdon.3 That the text is a dialogue is incontestable, but whether it conveys a meaning and tone of pessimism has provoked much debate, along with the issue of whether its meaning is formulated as serious inquiry or as (light-hearted) humor, particularly satire or parody. Foundational to such issues is the question of the text’s structure, and that will be the focus of this paper. In doing so, we will center our discussion on one of the two versions of the Dialogue: the Assyrian. Over against the Babylonian version, which exists in one tablet, missing substantial sections in its first and final parts, the Assyrian, in four tablets, has nearly all the text and can be considered in and of itself.

1 Wilfred G. Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960), 142. 2 Benjamin R. Foster, Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature, 3rd ed. (Bethesda: CDL Press, 2005), 926. 3 Stephen Langdon, Babylonian Wisdom Containing the Poem of the Righteous Sufferer, the Dialogue of Pessimism, the Books of Proverbs and the Supposed Rules of Monthly Diet (London: Luzac & Co.; Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1923), 2.

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The Tablets Here is a conspectus of all five tablets, both Assyrian and Babylonian, following Lambert:4 ASSYRIAN: From Assur

a = VAT 9933

Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin

b = A...1 and A...2

Museum of the Ancient Orient, Istanbul

C = K 10523

British Museum, London

D = K 13830

British Museum, London

e = VAT 657

Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin (formerly 357)

From Nineveh/ Kuyunjik

BABYLONIAN: From Babylon

The four Assyrian tablets are all apparently Neo-Assyrian in date, C and D from the library of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh in roughly the mid-seventh century BCE, while a and b, from Assur, are maybe a little earlier: their editor, Erich Ebeling, places them in the late eighth century BCE, from the time of Sargon II, although he offers no supporting evidence for this specific date.5 In any case, the four tablets display only minor variants, and so may be considered representations of a single version of the Dialogue. Here is that version in transliteration and translation, based mainly on tablet a, followed by selected notes on the lines and then a discussion of its structure: Stanza I 1 [arad mi-tan-gur-an-ni] an-nu-u be-lí [Servant, stand ready for me.] Here I an-[nu-u] am, my master, ready to do your bidding re[ady]. 2 [ši-šìr -ma de-kan-ni-ma narkab]ta [Go get me a chari]ot and hitch it up ṣi-in-dam ana ekalli lu-un-š[ur] so that I can drive to the palace. 3 [mu-šur be-lí mu-šur x x x]x-mar[Drive, my master, drive x x ka-ma i-ba-áš-šú-ka x]x .....will be for you.

4

Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, 143. Erich Ebeling, Quellen zur Kenntnis der babylonischen Religion, vol. 2, MVAG 23/2 (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1918), 50. 5

The Dialogue of Pessimism Revisited

4 [x x x x x x x ru-bu-ú x x x] ub-ba-la pa-ni-ka 5 [e arad a-na-ku ana ek]allim-ma ul a-mash-shar 6 [la ta-maš-šar be]-lí la ta-maš-šar

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[x x x x x x x the prince x x x] will pardon you. [No, servant! I] will not drive [to] the palace. [Do not drive, my] master, do not drive. 7 [x x x x x x x x r]u-bu-ú i-šap-par-ka [x x x x x x x x th]e prince will send you. 8 [x x x ša l]a ti-du-ú ú-šá-áṣ-bat-ka He will force you to undertake [a path/campaign th]at you do not know. 9 [ur-ra u m]u-ši mar-ṣa-ta ú-kal-lam- He will expose you to hardship day ka and night. Stanza II 10 ar[ad mi-tan-gu]r-an-ni an-nu-u be- Ser[vant, stand re]ady for me. Here I lí an-nu-u am, my master, ready to do your bidding, ready. 11 ši-[šìr-ma de-kan]-ni-ma mȇ ana Go get me water for my hands and qātē-ia bi-nam-ma lu-up-tu-un give it to me that I may dine. 12 p[u-tu-u]n be-lí pu-tu-un sa-ḫi-ru Dine, my master, dine. Repeated pa-ta-nu pi-te-e lìb-bi dining a relaxing of the mind/heart. ? ? [ ? ? ] 13 še-[e -b]i ] pat-ni ili-šú : x it -ti As for the one who satisfies himself qātē mi-sa-a-ti il-lak dŠamaš with a meal with his god: Shamash will accompany his hand-washing(s). 14 e [ara]d a-na-ku pa-ta-nu-um-ma ul No, servant! I will not dine at all. a-pa-tan Don’t dine, my master, don’t dine. 15 la [ta]-pa-tan be-lí la ta-pa-tan 16 bur-ru-ú a-ka-lu ṣu-um-mu-u ša-tu- Hunger, eating, thirst, drinking – it ú eli amēli il-lak (all) comes on a man. Stanza III 17 arad mi-tan-gur-an-ni an-nu-u be-lí Servant, stand ready for me. Here I an-nu-u am, my master, ready to do your bidding, ready. 18 ši-šìr-ma de-kan-ni-ma narkabta Go get me a chariot and hitch it up so ṣi-in-dam-ma ana ṣēri lu-un-šur that I can drive to the steppe. 19 mu-šur be-lí mu-šur ša amēli mut- Drive, my master, drive. For the man tap-raš-ši-di ma-li kar-as-su who roams his belly is full. 20 kalbu da-a-a-lu eṣemta i-hi-ip-pi A prowling dog breaks the bone (of a victim).

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21[ḫa-ḫu-r]u mut-tap-raš-ši-di i-qa-annun qin-n[a] 22 ak-kan-nu mur-tap-pi-du i-šeb-b[i ṣēr]a 23 e arad a-na-ku a-na ṣērim-ma ul a[maš-šar] 24 la ta-maš-šar be-lí l[a ta-maš-]šar

[The falco]n of the roaming man will settle on its nest. The roving wild ass can satisfy his appeti[te on the step]pe. No, servant! I will not d[rive] to the steppe. Do not drive, my master, do n[ot dri]ve. 25 ša amēli mu-tap-raš-ši-di ṭè-en-šú Of the man who roams he will have [iš]-ta-ni-šú lost his mind (lit. his mind has been lost). 26 ša kalbi da-a-a-lu i-šab-bi-r[i šin]- Of the prowling dog, he will break his ni-šú teeth. 27 ša ḫa-ḫu-ru mut-tap-raš-ši-di i-n[a Of the falcon of the roaming man his ḫur-ri] dūri bis-su home/house is i[n a hole] in the wall. 28 ù ša ak-kan-nu mur-tap-p[i-d]u na- And of the roving wild ass the open mu-[ú] [na]r-ba-su country is his lair. Stanza IV 29 arad mi-tan-g[ur-an-ni an-nu-u be- Servant, stand ready for me. Here I lí a]n-[nu]-[2] am, my master, ready to do your bidding, ready. 30 lu-ub-ni [bīta lu-ur-ši ma-r]u I will build [a house; I will acquire so]n(s). 31 ri-ši [be-lí] ri-[ši ba-]nu [bīti] [x Acquire, my master, acqu[ire. The one (x)][x x] u who bui]lds a house [x (x)] [x x]x. 32 [x x x x KA]L (erasure) dal-tu pe- [x x x x] [x] an open door is its name. t[i-t]um šùm-šú 33 [x x x x] qa-a-a-lu ši-ni-pat lil-li [x x x x] attentive, (but) two-thirds a fool. 34 [x x] lu-uq-mu-ma lu-ku-uš-ma lu- [x x] I will burn (it) down, go and set qud-ma (it) on fire. 35 [a-]na pa-an be-el da-ba-bi-ia lud- I will wait [f]or my adversary. gul 36 k[i]-mi du-gul be-lí du-gul So wait, my master, wait. 37 ke-e ke-ke lu-pu-uš bīta bīta e teHow should I make a house? Don’t do pu-uš it (lit. don’t make the house)? 38 a-lik i-nanna bīt abi-šú iḫ-te-pi The one who goes ahead (with this) will have broken up his father’s house.

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Stanza V 39 arad mi-tan-gur-an-ni an-nu-u be-lí Servant, stand ready for me. Here I an-n[u-u] am, my master, ready to do your bidding, ready. 40 um-ma sa-ar-tu li-pu-uš ki-mi e-pu- Thus, I will commit a crime. So uš be-lí e-p[u-uš] commit, my master, com[mit]. 41 ša sa-ar-tu la te-tep-šú mi-nu-u ḫi- If you do not commit a crime what it-l[u-up-ka] clo[thes] will [you] have? 42 man-nu i-nam-dak-ka-ma tu-malWho will give you (sustenance) to fill la-a kar-a[š-ka] [your] be[lly]? 43 e arad a-na-ku sa-ar-tu ul e-pu-uš No, servant! I will not commit a crime. 44 a-me-lu šá sar-tam ip-pu-uš šumThe man who commits a crime will be ma di-i-ku šum-ma [ki]-ṣi either killed, or flayed, 45 šum-ma nu-up-pu-lu šum-ma ṣa-bit Or blinded, or arrested, or thrown into šum-ma ina bīt kil-lu na-di prison. Stanza VI 46 arad [mi-ta]n-g[ur]-an-ni an-nu-ú Servant, stand ready for me. Here I be-lí an-nu-[ú] am, my master, ready to do your bidding, ready. 47 sin-niš-[ta] [lu]-ra-am [(x)] ra-a-ma I will love a woman. Love, my master, be-l íi ra-[a]-[ma] love. 48 amēlu šá sinništa i-ram-ma [qu-]lu The man who loves a woman forgets u nissata i-me-šu despair and depression. 49 e arad a-na-ku sinništam-ma la aNo, servant! I will not lo[ve] a r[a-mu] woman. 50 [la ta-]ra-ma be-lí la ta-r[a-ma] Don’t love, my master, don’t love. 51 sinništu bur-tú bur-tú šu-ut-ta-tu ḫi- A woman is a cistern – a cistern, a ri-tum trap, a ditch. 52 sinništu paṭ-ri parzilli še-e-lu šá ik- A woman is a sharp iron dagger that ki-su ki-šad eṭ-l[i] (can) cut the neck of an able-bodied man. Stanza VII 53 arad mi-tan-gur-an-ni an-nu-u be-íl Servant, stand ready for me. Here I an-nu-ú am, my master, ready to do your bidding, ready. 54 ši-šìr de-kan-ni-ma mȇ ana qātē-ia Go get me water for my hands and bi-nam-ma give it to me,

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55 niqâ ana ili-ia lu-pu-uš e-pu-uš belí e-pu-uš 56 amēlu šá niqâ ana ili-šú ip-pu-uš libba-šú ṭāb-šú 57 qip-tu eli qip-tu ip-pu-uš 58 e arad a-na-ku UDUniqâ ana ili-ia-ama ul ep-pu-uš 59 la te-pu-uš be-li í la te-pu-uš 60 ila tu-lam-mad-su-ma ki-i kalbi arki-ka it-ta-na-lak

So that I may make a sacrifice. Do (it), my master, do (it). The man who makes a sacrifice to his god gets a good bargain. He makes a loan on a loan. No, servant! I will not make a sacrifice to my god! Don’t do (it), my master, don’t do (it). The god you will teach so that he will continually walk behind you like a dog d 61 šum4-ma par-ṣi šum4-ma La-ta-rak Making requests of you, whether of šum4-ma mim-ma šá-nam-ma ir-riš-ka rites, or a (votive) Latarak (figurine), or anything else. Stanza VIII 62 arad mi-tan-gur-an-ni an-nu-u be-lí Servant, stand ready for me. Here I an-nu-u am, my master, ready to do your bidding, ready. 63 um-ma-na lud-din ki-mi i-din b[e-lí I intend to serve as a creditor. So i-din] serve, my m[aster, serve]. 64 a-me-lu šá um-ma-na [i-]nam-di-nu The man who serves as a creditor – his uṭṭas-su uṭṭas-su-ma ḫu-bul-lu-šú at-[ri] grain remains his grain, while his interest becomes immense. 65 e arad a-na-ku u[m-m]a-nam-ma No, servant! I will not serve as a [ ] ul a-nam-d[in] creditor. [ ] 66 la ta-nam-din b[e-l]í la ta-nam-din Don’t serve, my master, don’t serve. 67 na-da-nu ki-ma ra-a-m[e sin-nišTo serve is like lovin[g a woma]n, but t]i : to (try) to get back (the loan) is like [ ] ù tur-ru ki-ma a-la-di ma-ru [x] x begetting children [x ] [x]. 68 uṭṭat-k[a] ik-k[a-lu u a-n]a ka-a-šá They will eat your grain, all the while it-ta-nam-za-[ru-ka] throwing curses/insults to you. [ ] 69 ù ḫ[u]- bu-li uṭṭati-ka ú-ḫal-la-qu- And the interest on your grain they nik-[ka] will wipe out [from you]. Stanza IX 70 arad mi-tan-gur-an-ni an-nu-u be-lí Servant, stand ready for me. Here I an-nu-[u] am, my master, ready to do your bidding, ready. 71 um-ma ú-sa-tam ana māti-ia lu-pu- Thus, I will do a good deed for my uš ki-mi epuš be-lí epuš country. So do (it), my master, do (it).

The Dialogue of Pessimism Revisited

72 amēlu šá ú-sa-tam ana māti-šú ippu-uš 73 šak-na ú-sa-tu-šú ina kippat (but read with Babylonian e: qap-pat) šá d Marduk 74 e arad a-na-ku ú--tam-ma ana māti-ia ul ep-pu-uš 75 la te-pu-uš be-lí la te-pu-uš 76 i-li-ma ina eli tillāni labirūti i-tallak 77 a-mur gul-gul-le-e šá arkûti u panu-ti

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The man who does a good deed for his country – His good deeds will be deposited in the basket of Marduk.

No, servant! I will not undertake a good deed for my country. Don’t do (it), my master, don’t do (it). Go up on the ancient ruin mounds and walk around. Observe the skulls of the recent and the earlier (or: the second and the first rank (dead): 78 a-a-u be-el li-mut-tim-ma a-a-u be- Which one is the malefactor and el ú-sa-ti which, the benefactor? Stanza X 79 arad mi-tan-gur-an-ni an-nu-u be-lí Servant, stand ready for me. Here I an-nu-u am, my master, ready to do your bidding, ready. 80 e-nin-na mi-nu-ú ṭa-a-ba Now, what is good? 81 ti-ik-ki ti-ik-ka-ka še-bé-ru To break my neck and your neck, 82 a-na nāri na-šá-ku (erasure) ṭa-a-ba (And) to throw you into the river – (that) is good. 83 a-a-ú ar-ku šá a-na šamȇ e-lu-ú Who is (so) tall as to go up to the heavens? 84 a-a-ú rap-šú šá erṣetim ú-gam-me- Who is (so) broad as to encompass the ru underworld? 85 e arad a-dak-ka-ma pa-na-tú-u-a ú- No, servant! I will kill you and (so) šal-lak-ka make you go before me. 86 ù be-lí lu 3 u4-mi ki-i arki-ia i-bal- But (then), my master would certainly lu-ṭu not survive even three days after me. Colophon (from tablet a) [kīm]a labīri-šú šaṭir-ma bari Written and checked [accordin]g to its original.

2. Selected Notes on the Assyrian Version 1. mitanguranni. This Gtn imperative of magāru, with the 1st singular suffix, may be translated here “stand ready to respond to me” – the -tan- infix con-

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veying the sense of continual or constant availability on the part of the servant. In turn, the response of the servant, annu, is not simply “here,” but “here, I am ready to respond and do your bidding.” Its sense is best captured by hinneh in Biblical Hebrew, of which perhaps the parade example is the threefold occurrence of the word, in the form hinnǝnî (“here I am”), in the story of Abraham’s near sacrifice of Isaac (Gen 22:1, 7, 11). 3–4. Given the legible words and the context depicting the master going to the palace, lines 3–4 should indicate the king/ruler granting something favorable to the master. Speiser’s restoration of line 3, however, has a singular subject with a plural verb: ṣa]-mar-ka i-ba-áš-šú-ka, “[Thine every w]ish will come to pass for thee,”6 while von Soden’s restoration makes very awkward sense: ú-ša]g-mar-ka-ma i-ba-áš-šú, “[ich bringe dich zum Ziel, und sie (PM: what is the antecedent?) werden an dir zuschanden.”7 I am not sure exactly what to restore. 4. [ru-bu-u x x x] ub-ba-la pa-ni-ka. Restore ru-bu-u in accord with the same in line 7. 7–8. The contrast with lines 3–4 should indicate that the king will do something unfavorable to the master. Restore: in line 7, therefore with many interpreters (e.g., von Soden; Foster),8 [x x x r]u-bu-u i-šap-par-ka; and in line 8, a word for “route” or “(military) campaign,” thus as [urḫa/padāanu/ ḫarrāana/gerra šá l]a ti-du-ú ú-šá-aṣ-bat-ka (e.g., Speiser; Lambert). 9 The restoration of 8 is now partially confirmed by the occurrence of this line in a tablet from Neo-Assyrian Nimrud that contains what the editors label as proverb selections: ar-ni [šá la] ti-du-ú ú-šá-aṣ-bat-[ka] “the sins that you did/do not know I will make you seize (?).”10 In the Nimrud text, however, the line occurs without the surrounding context of our Dialogue, and the ar-ni, “sin/punishment,” seems less suitable to our Dialogue context, unless it be some kind of writing for harrāni, as Foster wonders.11 In the end, line 8 could

6 E. A. Speiser, “The Case of the Obliging Servant,” in Oriental and Biblical Studies, ed. E. A. Speiser (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1967), 351. 7 Wolfram von Soden, “5. Ein pessimistischer Dialog: Herr und Sklave sprechen über Sinn oder Sinnlosigkeit geplanten Tuns,” in Texte aus der Umwelt des Alten Testaments, vol. III/1: Weisheitstexte, Mythen und Epen. Weisheitstexte I (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1990), 159. 8 Von Soden, “5. Ein pessimistischer Dialog,” 159; Foster, Before the Muses, 923. 9 Speiser, “The Case of the Obliging Servant,” 351; Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, 323 ad 8. 10 Donald J. Wiseman and Jeremy A. Black, Literary Texts from the Temple of Nabû, CTN IV (London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 1996), 30, Plate 123: No. 203 ii 6′; cf. Wilfred G. Lambert, “Literary Texts from Nimrud – A Review Article on D. J. Wiseman and J. A. Black, Literary Texts from the Temple of Nabû,” AfO 46/47 (1999– 2000): 155b. 11 Foster, Before the Muses, 926.

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just reflect a certain amount of conventional language on which our Dialogue and the Nimrud text, independently, have drawn. 13. The general sense of this line is clear: that the sun-god Shamash watches over proper handwashing, almost ritualistically, before dining. But the beginning is uncertain, though it is probably missing part of just one word. The best restoration, I think, is von Soden’s še-[e?-bi?], a G participle “the one who satisfies his appetite” (cf. the restoration in line 22), which could go with pat-ni ili-šú, “meal of/with his god,” the latter in a rare accusative construction.12 pat-ni here may be an unusual genitive with ili-šú, and in any case the word is not recorded elsewhere, but should be related, as virtually all interpreters understand, to patānu, otherwise used in this stanza. Unlike von Soden, however, I would read the phrase, še-e-bi pat-ni ili-šú (von Soden reads the last il-šú), as a casus pendens or anacoluth with the rest of the line. As for mi-sa-a-ti, it is not attested elsewhere, but the consensus of interpreters takes it, quite probably, as a form of mīsu, doubtless a plural (tantum?). 14. For the use here of the infinitive with a finite verb of the same root to mark emphasis, see von Soden.13 The same construction is found in Biblical Hebrew with the infinitive absolute. 17–28. This stanza is intricately arranged. There is a play on the variant terms muttapraššidu and murtappidu (19, 21, 22, 25, 27, 28), the first of which describes the roaming man – perhaps a “nomad”14 – with his hunting falcon (ḫaḫḫuru), and the second the wild ass (akkannu); together they signify creatures which roam in the wild outside of urban places. Compare here also the kalbu, “dog,” which is described (20, 26) by a similar adjective, dayyālu, “prowling/roaming.” Notable as well is a string of anticipatory genitives in the last four lines (25–28), which emphasize the intent to overturn the positive meaning of the preceding four lines (19–22), where the servant had indicated his support of his master’s wish to enter the wild. 22. The restoration at the end follows CAD (A/1: 274a1, s.v. akkannu). 27. The break after i-[na xxx] should indicate, as all interpreters agree, something pertaining to the “wall.” One alternative is i-[na ḫur-ri], “in a hole”;15 the other is i-[na sa-mit], “in a (lower) part, revetment.”16 Perhaps the former is slightly preferable, because, as Speiser notes, it would then offer a word play with the falcon mentioned, ḫaḫḫuru. In either case, the location must not be a desirable one for the bird. 12

Von Soden, “5. Ein pessimistischer Dialog,” 160. Von Soden, GAG3 1995: §150a. 14 Nili Samet, “The Babylonian Dialogue between a Master and His Slave – A New Literary Analysis” (Hebrew), Shnaton 18 (2008): 102, n. 16. 15 E.g., Speiser, “The Case of the Obliging Servant,” 354. 16 Von Soden, “5. Ein pessimistischer Dialog,” 160. 13

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28. This line, like the preceding 25–27, should indicate something negative for the akkannu, “wild ass” – a reversal of its fortune. And yet the namû, “open country,” in which the akkannu is set to live is here a synonym of the preceding ṣēru (18, 22, 23), and the latter is the akkannu’s normal arena, as indicated in 22 and other texts (CAD A/1: 274b, 1a); thus, it is not something negative. Some interpreters are sensitive to the problem – for example, Foster translates toward a negative: “the wandering wild ass has to [my emphasis – PM] live in the open,”17 but that still does not quite resolve the need here for a reversal. 29–38. Both the broken lines and several whose content is difficult to connect with the rest of the stanza combine to make the stanza a real challenge to understand. Most interpreters eliminate several of the difficult lines, and/or reorganize the order of the lines;18 Labat does not translate this stanza at all!19 The particular challenge is lines 34–36. We appear to have here the following: the master first decides he wants to build a house and acquire children (30; on māru see below), and the servant responds, as usual, positively, saying something about the door that presumably belongs to the house (31–32). Then, there is a very unclear remark about someone, again perhaps connected to the house, who has a mixed personality: (one-third) attentive, but two-thirds a fool (33). The master now speaks, asserting that he will burn down, stop/tarry, and then set on fire something, probably the house (34; cf. 36). Next comes a legal action in which the master says that he will wait for his adversary (35), to which the servant replies, “Just wait, my master, wait!” (36). The master now seems to reconsider making/building a house (37). Again, the servant responds and affirms the master’s reconsideration: “Don’t do (this)/make (the house)” (37), adding, as a concluding line: “The one who goes ahead (with this) will have broken up his father’s house” (38). In summarizing this stanza, I have assumed that there is some kind of coherence to it: some way to fit all of the statements in it together.20 But while some interpreters have followed this line,21 most have not, removing particularly lines 35–36, and in some cases 33 and 34 as well, and arguing that they represent another episode, concerning legal action, that had somehow gotten mixed, in the scribal process, with the rest of the text about building a house

17

Foster, Before the Muses, 800. E.g., Foster, Before the Muses, 924, 926 ad 31. 19 René Labat, “Le maître et son serviteur,” in Les religions du Proche Orient asiatique, ed. René Labat, André Caquot, and Maurice Sznycer (Paris: Fayard, 1970), 344. 20 I thank the students in my graduate seminar on Akkadian wisdom literature, held at Harvard University in the spring of 2020, for encouraging and proposing possibilities for this, indeed for the Dialogue as a whole. 21 Claudio Saporetti, “Nota sulla sezione IV del Dialogo Arad Mitanguranni,” Egitto e Vicino Oriente 6 (1983): 103; perhaps von Soden, “5. Ein pessimistischer Dialog,” 160–61. 18

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and having children.22 The broken state of many of these lines does not allow a final answer here, but in regard to the second option, it seems rather strange that two different episodes could get mixed up like this. So, if we pursue the first interpretive option, of a single, coherent text, then it would appear to concern the master’s desire, first, to build a house – “house” here, as Lambert saw, designating both the physical structure and a family of descendants.23 Then, it may be suggested, the master changes his mind and turns toward the thought of burning down what he might have built, but this, he realizes, would entail some kind of legal action against him – an action that the servant encourages him to wait out. All of this, in turn, leaves the master perplexed about what he should do about building or destroying a house. Here the servant answers decisively: don’t think about doing anything to the house altogether, because if you do, the danger is that you might destroy the house – i.e., both the building and the family – that your father/forebears have left as their legacy. The reasoning here, I propose, assumes that the master is talking about a new house, in the sense of the building, different from the house (= building) of his father(s). Such a new house, the servant argues, would risk alienating the other members of the house, meaning the family, and so destroy the patrimonial house as building and family. 30–31. The last word in 30 has been restored as [ma-]ru, “sons/children,”24 [du-]ru, “wall,”25 or [maš-]ru, “wealth.”26 In 31 at the end, [du-]ru has been proposed, 27 or [maš-ru]-u, 28 while several scholars leave this break unrestored.29 Of these possibilities māru seems the best choice for the end of line 30, to coordinate with building a house in the same line, because they both would then resonate with destroying the “father’s house” at the end of the stanza (38) – house here in the sense of family as well as building. But what to restore at the end of 31 is much less clear; the two choices just listed, dūru 22

E.g., Speiser, “The Case of the Obliging Servant,” 354–55; Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, 325 ad 29–38; Foster, Before the Muses, 924, 926 ad 31; Franco D’Agostino, Testi umoristici babilonesi e assiri, Testi del Vicino Oriente antico 2/4 (Brescia: Paideia Editrice, 2000), 98–101. 23 Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, 325 ad 29–38. 24 E.g., Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, 144–45; von Soden, “5. Ein pessimistischer Dialog,” 160; and Samet, “The Babylonian Dialogue,” 103. 25 E.g., Saporetti, “Nota sulla sezione,” 103; D’Agostino, Testi umoristici babilonesi e assiri, 98. 26 So, e.g., Simonetta Ponchia, La palma e il tamarisco e altri dialoghi mesopotamici, Collana di classici del Vicino Oriente antico (Venice: Marsilio Editori, 1996), 84, 110. 27 Saporetti, “Nota sulla sezione,” 103. 28 E.g., von Soden, “5. Ein pessimistischer Dialog,” 160; D’Agostino, Testi umoristici babilonesi e assiri, 99; Ponchia, La palma, 84, 110. 29 E.g., Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, 144–45; Alasdair Livingston, “2. Dialogue: Dialogue of Pessimism or the Obliging Slave (1.155),” in COS, 1:496; Foster, Before the Muses, 924, 926 ad 31.

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and mašrû, have their problems in content and/or in fitting into the available space of the break.30 So it may be better to follow Lambert, Livingston, and Foster, and leave the break unrestored. 32. The word after dal-tu is debated. It could be read pi-til-tum, with Lambert and perhaps in his copy of tablet a (Plate 37), but his meaning “snare” appears to be otherwise unattested. 31 Rather, pitiltum means “(palm) fiber/cord” (see AHw and CAD P, s.v.), and its connection here with daltu, “door,” is difficult to see. Alternatively, petītum, “open,” championed by von Soden,32 makes a little more sense, and may be glimpsed in the copy of tablet a in Ebeling (KAR 96). Overall, it must be admitted, the line is very broken and uncertain. 34. Although Lambert copied lu-lu-uš-ma, this makes no sense (even to Lambert, it appears),33 and thus the earlier copy of Ebeling (KAR 96), showing lu-ku-uš-ma, is to be preferred. Derived from kâšu,34 this means “to stop, tarry,” and intervenes here between two verbs for “to burn.” If the object of these verbs is the same house, then perhaps the sense is that the master would start to burn the house, wait, and then finish the job. 39–45. The key word in this stanza is sartu. Lambert translates it as “revolution,” 35 followed by Labat (“révolte” 36 ) and Ponchia (“rivolta” 37 ). Yet elsewhere sartu seems never to mean “revolution/revolt” (cf. AHw: 1031 and CAD S: 186–89), but rather a “crime,” and most interpreters translate that or an equivalent here. 38 The crime involves something fraudulent/dishonest/treacherous (compare other forms of the underlying root srr), and can be a light crime, or, as treachery, something quite serious and so presumably 30

If ma-ru is restored at the end of line 30, du-ru would not appear to fit at the end of line 31, because it would not pick up the combination of building and family already established. More suitable would be maš-ru-u. The second half of 31, then, would be translated something like: “the one who builds a house has/will have wealth,” in which “house” would indeed serve for the building and the family. This is what D’Agostino advocates (Testi umoristici babilonesi e assiri, 99 and n. 53), but there may not be quite enough room for all of the restoration, particularly for the “has,” if it represents the verb rašû, already used in this line (cf. in another text, ma-áš-ra-a irašši, cited by CAD M/1: 386 1c, s.v. mašrû). D’Agostino apparently understood the problem, because his translation has “has” in parentheses: “[chi si costru]isce una casa (ha) [l’abbon]danza!” (loc. cit., 99) 31 Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, 144–45. 32 Von Soden, “5. Ein pessimistischer Dialog,” 160. 33 Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, 144–45, 325 ad 34. 34 Samet, “The Babylonian Dialogue,” 104 n. 22. 35 Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, 146–47. 36 Labat, “Le maître et son serviteur,” 344. 37 Ponchia, La palma, 84. 38 E.g., Speiser, “The Case of the Obliging Servant,” 347; von Soden, “5. Ein pessimistischer Dialog,” 161.

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worthy of the kind of extreme response listed in the first group of punishments in lines 44–45, namely, killing, flaying, and blinding. One may notice, further, 39 that the order of punishment here proceeds largely in reverse of the expected order: from death to imprisonment instead of imprisonment to death, though the last two elements are, as expected, arrest and then imprisonment. 51–52. This negative description of women, focusing on their ability to be a destructive snare to men, has echoes elsewhere in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean world, as many scholars have noted. These include the Egyptian Instruction of Any40 and a number of passages in the Hebrew Bible, such as, Qoh 7:26–28; Prov 2:16–19; 5:3–6:20; 6:20–35; 7:5–27; 9:13–18; 22:14; 23:26–28, and in early Jewish literature like Ben Sira 9:1–9; 25:21, 24; 26:6–12; 42:13–14. The motif is also frequent in classical Greek literature.41 In Mesopotamia, however, negative remarks about women seem, in the extant sources, to be less frequent. To be sure, we do find invidious statements about women’s inferiority as compared to men (CAD S: 289, 2a1’, s.v., sinništu). So, for example, a remark in Enuma Elish, in regard to the female Urgöttin, Tiamat, that a woman’s strength cannot match a man’s.42 Similarly, women’s weakness in battle becomes a curse or insult against male fighters, as in the Esarhaddon vassal treaties, “May you be made like a woman before your enemy!”43 for which one may compare the biblical Nah 3:13, directed against Assyrian Nineveh (“See now, your people [will be] women in your midst to your enemies”). But the bald statement of a woman’s dangers to men here in the Dialogue, while it may reflect a sentiment in the reality of Mesopotamian society, is not easy to parallel in other Mesopotamian texts. Again, however, compare the Hebrew Bible, in Qoh 7:26 (“More bitter than death is the woman who is snares, and her heart nets, [and] her hands fetters”). 56–57. The language for sacrifice here, specifically the phrase libbašu ṭâb, “he was satisfied” (56), and qiptu, “loan,” is clearly drawn from commercial dealings. For the former, see Muffs.44 39

I thank Eli Tadmor of Yale University for alerting me to this observation and discussing it with me. 40 Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, Volume II: The New Kingdom (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 137. 41 Antoon Schoors, Ecclesiastes, HCOT (Leuven: Peeters, 2013), 578–79; Ludger Schwienhorst-Schönberger, Kohelet, HThKAT (Freiburg im Breisgau/Rome: Herder,2004), 408. 42 Foster, Before the Muses, 449–51, lines 92, 116, 144. 43 Jacob Lauinger, “Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty,” in COS, 4: Supplements, 165 §91. 44 Yochanan Muffs, Studies in the Aramaic Legal Papyri from Elephantine, with Prolegomenon by Baruch A. Levine, Handbook of Oriental Studies, Section One: 66 (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2003).

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60–61. Unlike 56–57, with their commercial language for sacrifice, 60–61 are a satirical and therefore negative take on the divine–human relationship as it is otherwise expressed in Mesopotamia in ritual, prayer, and hymn. The point is that sacrifice to a god with the expectation that it will result in a favorable response – a reward, one may say – to the human making the sacrifice is like a loan that a human offers to another with the expectation that the loan will be repaid with interest. A comparable satire, as Speiser observes,45 may be found in the Flood narrative as it occurs in the Atrahasis Myth III v 34–36 (see Foster) 46 and the Gilgamesh Epic XI 161–163 (see George)47. Here the human Flood hero, Atrahasis/Utanapištim, sacrifices to the gods on disembarking from the ark that had saved him and its other occupants from the Flood. With this, the narrative observes, the starving gods, who had gone without the sacrificial food during the devastation, now “gathered around the sacrifices/sacrificer like flies” because they were so hungry. 60. Dogs are often appealed to in Mesopotamian texts as metaphors for the behavior of humans. As such, they are usually as here inferiors or otherwise represented negatively. CAD contains many references to servants of human rulers who are called dogs (K: 701c; 72 1j, s.v. kalbu), and also the depiction of a human as the dog of a god: kī mūrāni dTutu alassum urkika, “Like a puppy, O Tutu, I run after you” (CAD M/2: 101, s.v. mīrānu 1). Minunno adds Gilgamesh XI:116,48 in which the gods cower before the Flood, “curled up (kunnunu) like dogs.” 49 I have not found another occurrence, however, of gods as dogs, i.e., servants, of humans, and this underscores the satire here. 61. This appears to describe what the god of line 60 says to the master. That is, the god in line 60 constantly trails behind the master, driving the latter to distraction in line 61 with the constant pestering of requests or questions: concerning the proper rites to follow, or ?, or something else. The ? is the principal problem here. Speiser, 50 Lambert, 51 and others transliterate the phrase as ila lā ta-šal and translate “Do not consult your god.” Von Soden,52 however, whose reading was followed, among others, by Foster,53 45

Speiser, “The Case of the Obliging Servant,” 359. Foster, Before the Muses, 251. 47 Andrew R. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic. Vol. 1, Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 713. 48 Giuseppe Minunno, “Sull’Arad Mitanguranni come documento storico-religioso,” SEL 27 (2010): 10 and n. 12. 49 George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, 711. 50 Speiser, “The Case of the Obliging Servant,” 348, 358–59. 51 Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, 148–49. 52 Von Soden, “5. Ein pessimistischer Dialog,” 162. 53 Foster, Before the Muses, 925. 46

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and Ponchia,54 reads dLa-ta-rak.55 If we read with Lambert, we should probably translate the phrase as “should you not ask a god (for help)?” – the god of line 60 perhaps referring to himself here in line 61. If we read with von Soden et al., the god of line 60 is mentioning Latarak, a minor deity or demon, figurines of which can function apotropaically.56 On this reading, then, the god of line 60 is requesting the master in 61 to pay attention to the proper treatment of a Latarak figurine to ensure its apotropaic function. 63–67. ummâna nadānu. The combination of this noun as object of this verb in the G appears to be unusual, if not unique in the extant Akkadian texts (CAD N/1: 111; AHw: 1415b). I understand ummâna as an adverbial accusative with nadānu, so in ummâna luddin (63), “I will/intend to serve/act as a creditor”: thus, “I will make a loan.” Note that tablet a renders the forms of nadānu here in some kind of Assyrian dialect: thus, lud-din > lut-ti, and i-din > it-ti; Lambert calls these “vulgarisms.”57 67. The meaning of this line is not immediately clear. In the first half, making a loan (nadānu) is like giving love to a woman, perhaps in the sense that the actions involved in both, of loaning and loving, bring satisfaction to the agent. In the second half, which is elaborated in the following 68–69, trying to recover the loan (turru) is like begetting a child (or is “son” more specifically intended here?). Here the focus is not on the difficulty of the birth, but on the child(ren) who is begotten, and the fact that the child can be recalcitrant and destructive to the parents, just as the debtor can make trouble when the time comes to repay the loan to the creditor. Thus, this second half of the line is in the passive, with the agent, both creditor and parent, being acted upon, whereas the first half is in the active, with the agent, both creditor and male lover, carrying out the act of loaning and loving. 71-73, 78. usātu. While this word generally refers to the abstract “help, beneficence” and the concrete “good deed, benefit,” it can mean “loan” in a wide chronological range of documents (CAD U/W: 276–77). Lambert notes properly that in line 73, it is feminine plural;58 but, against him, it is singular in 71 and 72, and in other occurrences (CAD U/W: 276-277). While the meaning “beneficence” or “good deed(s)” in these lines is appropriate, it may be that there is a word play on the other meaning “loan.” This would then

54

Ponchia, La palma, 111. Von Soden (“5. Ein pessimistischer Dialog,” 162, n. 61a) actually reads dLa-ta-ra-ak, but the copies by Lambert (Babylonian Wisdom Literature, Plate 37) and Ebeling (KAR 96 rev) show clearly SAL/rak, not ra-ak. 56 Wilfred G. Lambert, “Lulul/Lātarāk,” in Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie 7, ed. Dietz-Otto Edzard et al. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1987–90), 163–64; von Soden, “5. Ein pessimistischer Dialog,” 162 n. 61a. 57 Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, 143. 58 Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, 326 ad 71. 55

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connect 70–78, of Stanza IX, with the preceding Stanzas VII and VIII, which directly deal with loans. 73. kippat/qappat. Some interpreters, like Lambert,59 Speiser,60 and Labat61 read here kippat, singular construct of kippatu, meaning the “circle/ring” of Marduk. Others, like von Soden,62 Foster,63 and CAD (Q: 92a), read with the Babylonian version in text e, qappat, singular construct of qappatu, the “basket” of Marduk. If the former, Speiser suggests that the reference is to the ring and rod of sovereignty that can belong to gods or human rulers, yielding the sense that “the god weighs the subject’s merits and returns to him his just deserts.”64 But this meaning and interpretation do not easily fit the line, where the word appears to describe the container in which the master’s usātu, “good deeds,” are deposited. For this reason, qappatu, “basket,” seems to be the better fit, but the occurrence of a basket, collecting good – and probably also, bad – deeds, presumably for Marduk to evaluate, does not appear to be attested otherwise. An analogy could be the heavenly tablets, in Mesopotamian and other texts, that record good and bad deeds of humans and are held by the gods for judgment.65 76–78. As recognized by many interpreters (e.g., Lambert),66 line 76 is an echo of the Standard Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, I 18 and XI 323 (cf. George), 67 which constitute the summons, first by the Gilgamesh poet to his audience and then by Gilgamesh himself to his boatman, to go up and inspect the wall of Uruk, Gilgamesh’s city. The wall, as still standing, is offered as proof of the endurance, if not the immortality, of Uruk and the memory of its mighty king. Indeed, it may be that our line 76, and 77–78 which elaborate on it, are not simply an echo of the Gilgamesh Epic, but a direct reaction to it, because here the walk up and about is not positive, to admire and celebrate a wall and its king Gilgamesh, but negative, to ruminate on dead, ruined mounds, the dead they are meant to contain, and the reality that the remains of the dead are all equal, indiscriminately mixing those who were benefactors and those who were malefactors in life. In 77, arkûti and pānūti designate the dead, but in what way has been disputed. Lambert reads these as social class labels, “high (arkûti) and low (pānūti),”68 but as social 59

Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, 148–49, 326 ad 73. Speiser, “The Case of the Obliging Servant,” 360. 61 Labat, “Le maître et son serviteur,” 345. 62 Von Soden, “5. Ein pessimistischer Dialog,” 162. 63 Foster, Before the Muses, 925. 64 Speiser, “The Case of the Obliging Servant,” 360. 65 Shalom M. Paul, “Heavenly Tablets and the Book of Life, with Postscript by W.W. Hallo,” JANESCU 5 (1973): 345–53. 66 Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, 326 ad 76. 67 George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, 538–39, 724–25. 68 Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, 327 ad 77. 60

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labels, the meanings should be reversed: arkûti = “second-rank” and pānūti = “first-rank” (cf. CAD A/2 and P, AHw, s.v.).69 Von Soden, on the other hand, with, for example, Langdon,70 Pfeiffer,71 and Samet,72 understands the terms as chronological: “those recent (arkûti) and those earlier (pānūti) (dead).”73 It is difficult to decide between these translations. The fact that arkû recurs in line 82 of the following and final stanza does not help, because its meaning there, of someone who is “tall” or “high” enough to reach heaven, would not work as “tall” or “high” in line 77, pace Lambert, et al. But the Dialogue seems to enjoy word plays, both of different words that look and sound alike and of the same word in different meanings, and arkû(ti) in 77 as “recent” and 83 as “high” could be one example.74 79-86. This tenth and final stanza of the Dialogue offers yet another and major challenge of interpretation. Here, interpreters have noted that there is a change in structure and language from the preceding stanzas, but the change introduces several ambiguities.75 The first two lines, 79–80, are close enough to the initial lines of the preceding stanzas to be interpreted like them: 79 begins with the master calling to the servant to respond to the master’s command, and with the servant agreeing to do so. 80 should then be the master’s command, but here, in the first departure from the preceding stanzas, the command is not formulated as a declarative statement, but as a question. Or is it a declarative? That is where interpreters differ: the key word in 80, mīn(û), is open to both possibilities, though most understand it and its line as an interrogative (AHw and CAD M/2, s.v.).76 From this point on, things get more uncertain. The following lines 81–82 offer a new problem: who is speaking here? Lambert77 and others (e.g., von Soden)78 appear to think they belong to 69 E.g., Speiser, “The Case of the Obliging Servant,” 349; Labat, “Le maître et son serviteur,” 345; Robert D. Biggs, “The Dialogue of Pessimism,” in ANET, 601; Foster, Before the Muses, 925. 70 Langdon, Babylonian Wisdom, 79. 71 Robert H. Pfeiffer, “A Pessimistic Dialogue between Master and Servant,” in ANET, 438b. 72 Samet, “The Babylonian Dialogue,” 107. 73 Von Soden, “5. Ein pessimistischer Dialog,” 162. 74 For possible examples, see lines 27, 71–73, 77, 78, 80, and 83, discussed above. In addition, there may be a play of ṭâbu, “(to be) good,” in 82 (“[And] to throw you into the river – [that] is good”) with the verb ṭebû, “to sink,” proposed by J. V. Kinnier-Wilson (The Legend of Etana: A New Edition [Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1985], 114–15, 137 ad 21), and then considered by Foster (Before the Muses, 926: n. 1). 75 E.g., Speiser, “The Case of the Obliging Servant,” 360, 364–65. 76 As question, e.g., Speiser, “The Case of the Obliging Servant,” 350; Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, 148–49; von Soden, “5. Ein pessimistischer Dialog,” 163; as declarative, D’Agostino, Testi umoristici babilonesi e assiri, 107. 77 Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, 148–49. 78 Von Soden, “5. Ein pessimistischer Dialog,” 163.

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the servant, as his answer to the master’s question in 80. Labat,79 on the other hand, assigns the lines to the master, as an extension of his question in 80, and makes them also questions. As for 83–84, most interpreters give these as declaratives to the servant, in response to the master.80 The remaining two lines are clear as declaratives and in terms of their speakers: 85 of the master and the final line, 86, of the servant. How shall we make sense of this interpretive debate? While any solution will be tentative, here is my own. I start from line 85, in which the master contradicts what the servant has said in the preceding lines, asserting that he will kill the servant and send him ahead of/before him. That contradiction fits best as a response to lines 81–82, for as spoken by the servant, these lines would have the servant advocating that both his neck and that of his master should be broken and their bodies thrown into the river. The master in 85, accordingly, would be qualifying the servant in 81–82, saying that, No, if we are both to die, you, servant, will die before me. Moreover, if 81–82 are the response of the servant to the master in 80, then line 80 is best understood as a question asked by the master, not as a declarative statement. As for lines 83–84, these, I suggest, are a declarative continuation of the servant’s response of 81–82, somehow intended to explain why the deaths of master and servant are “good.” What kind of explanation, then, is the servant offering? For some interpreters, like Labat, 81 and Bottéro, 82 the explanation is a serious and proper one: that the solution of killing oneself looks like no answer, or an answer of utter despair, to the question of what is good in life, since the previous stanzas have yielded no stable and consistent guidance about how to decide and live one’s life. Therefore, lines 83–84 are meant, by the servant, to suggest that if there is an answer about the good and the bad, it is something that is beyond humans – something that can only be provided by those who can reach heaven and encompass the underworld, namely, the gods. The master’s response to this explanation in line 85, then, means: by killing you, servant, I will make you go before me to heaven, so as to find out from the gods what the answer is.

79

Labat, “Le maître et son serviteur,” 345. E.g., Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, 148–49; Labat, “Le maître et son serviteur,” 345. 81 Labat, “Le maître et son serviteur,” 343. 82 Jean Bottéro, “The Dialogue of Pessimism and Transcendence,” in Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning, and the Gods, ed. J. Bottéro, trans. Zainab Bahrani and Marc Van De Mieroop (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 251–67, esp. 260–67. 80

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The above explanation of lines 83–84 + 85 cannot be dismissed as a possibility. Lines 83–84 do seem, implicitly, to refer to the world of the gods, as the occurrence of these lines in variant forms in other texts, both Mesopotamian and beyond, indicates.83 But, in meaning, the lines do not easily and clearly fit with the lines before and after it that raise the question about killing the master and servant. Additionally, the place to which the master in line 85 intends to “make” the servant “go” by killing him is not specified: does it have to be heaven, or can it be the underworld? Finally, the last line, 86, appears to end on a very humorous, even satirical note, for here the servant up-ends the master’s “solution” of killing the servant by saying that this will not solve the problem at all: the master himself can’t survive without the servant. All of these difficulties suggest, therefore, that lines 83–84 are not intended as the kind of serious explanation proposed, for example, by Labat and Bottéro. Rather, like 86, they are also meant as satire, equally serious of course: the satire of deliberately calling on a well-known proverb about reaching for the heavens and encompassing the earth, in order to signal that it really does not fit with or solve the problem of what is good.84 The final line 86, then, is the culminating blow of this satire. Here, as first recognized by Ungnad, is an elliptical curse formula, wherein ki-i takes the subjunctive.85 The full sentence would thus be reconstructed as: “But (then) if (ki-i) my master were to survive after me for three days, (may I be cursed).”

3. Structure of the Assyrian Version How this version is organized, at first sight, looks easy to answer: it is in ten stanzas, each divided from the next by a horizontal line on the tablets, and each representing a dialogue between a master and his servant. The dialogues all begin with the same first line, in which the master asks – better, commands – a response from the servant, and the servant says he is ready to respond. Then, each of the dialogues, with the exception of the last, involves the master proposing a course of action for himself, for which the servant provides a justification, and then withdrawing his proposal, with, again, the servant offering a reason justifying the withdrawal. The servant’s justifications are often formulated as proverbs (e.g., 19–22, 25–28). But is this all there is to the structure of the text? Can we go any deeper; can we discern any 83

Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, 327 ad 83, 84; Frederick E. Greenspahn, “A Mesopotamian Proverb and Its Biblical Reverberations,” JAOS 114 (1994): 33-38; Nili Samet, “‘The Tallest Man Cannot Reach Heaven; the Broadest Man Cannot Cover Earth’: Reconsidering the Proverb and Its Biblical Parallels,” JHebs 10 (2010). 84 Note Speiser, “The Case of the Obliging Servant,” 364–65. 85 Arthur Ungnad, “Zur babylonischen Lebensphilosophie,” AfO 15 (1945–51): 75.

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coherence to the content, any forward or dramatic movement toward a conclusion? On a broader plane, Giorgio Buccellati,86 continued by his student, Sara Denning-Bolle,87 proposes something more, with a structure that puts the stanzas into three successive groups, plus a final fourth. Using the English version of Denning-Bolle, his structure is as follows: Group 1: Activities performed out of pleasure Stanza I (driving to the palace); Stanza II (dining); Stanza III (hunting). Group 2: Activities involving greater commitment Stanza IV (obtaining sons); Stanza V (obtaining property); Stanza VI (loving a woman). Group 3: Activities involving giving Stanza VII (giving to gods); Stanza VIII (giving to private individuals); Stanza IX (giving to the public). Group 4: Death Stanza X.

The analysis of Buccellati and Denning-Bolle helpfully emphasizes that the Dialogue has an intricate structure, and points to the use of oppositional themes in it. But its three-fold categorization, with Stanza X as the fourth and final group, obscures what appears to be a much more elaborate attention in the text to opposition and dramatic movement. Let me suggest, therefore, another structure that might deal more fully with these features: Group 1: Stanza I (going out to the palace). Stanza II (staying home to dine). Group 2: Stanza III (going out to the steppe to hunt). Stanza IV (raising a home and family). Group 3: Stanza V (committing a crime: breaking up human relations). Stanza VI (loving a woman: binding human relations). Group 4: Stanza VII (loans, i.e., sacrifices, to one’s god). Stanza VIII (loans to one’s fellow humans). Group 5: Stanza IX (doing a public benefit/good deeds). Stanza X (death: doing a private benefit or injury?).

From the schema just presented, it appears that the oppositional orientation of the Dialogue moves along two planes: within each Stanza and between pairs of Stanzas. Within each Stanza, there is a double opposition: the master first asserts a proposal with an accompanying justification for it by the servant, and then this proposal is withdrawn by the master and the withdrawal justified by the servant. Each pair of Stanzas, in turn, deals with contrasting topics on which the proposals and withdrawals are based. And for at least some of the pairs, the withdrawal of the proposal in the first Stanza leads to

86

Giorgio Buccellati, “Tre saggi sulla sapienza mesopotamica – II. Il Dialogo del Pessimismo: La scienza degli oppositi come ideale sapienzale,” OrAnt 11 (1972): 91. 87 Sara Denning-Bolle, Wisdom in Akkadian Literature: Expression, Instruction, Dialogue, MVVEG 28 (Leiden: Ex Oriente Lux, 1992), 166–67.

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the affirmation of a new proposal in the Second stanza. For example, in Group 1, the withdrawal of the proposal in Stanza I, to go to the palace, flows into the affirmation of the proposal in Stanza II, to be at home to dine; and in Group 3, the withdrawal in Stanza V of the proposal to commit a crime allows the master in Stanza VI to turn to love a woman. The relationships at work are enhanced by a variety of particular details. Thus, in Stanza I–III and VII, the initial proposals by the master all begin with demands for objects, formulated in the verbal sequence of šīširma + dekannima. The sequence of punishments for a crime in Stanza V, each one prefixed by šumma, is echoed by the sequence of wishes or demands made of the master by his personal god, each again prefixed by šumma, in Stanza VII. The nominal adjective arkû in Stanza IX is matched by arkûti in Stanza X, even if they express different meanings, either “recent” or “second-rank” in IX and “tall” in X. And pānūti in IX (“earlier” or “first-rank”) is echoed by pānātūa (“in front of me”) in X. Does this organization by content intersect with an organization by the physical arrangement of the Stanzas on a tablet? The only useful tablet is a, the most nearly completely preserved, and it is arranged with 5 Stanzas each on the obverse (I–V) and reverse (VI–X). The line count in each Stanza, however, is not uniform nor with a single overall pattern: thus, I/9; II/7; III/12; IV/9; V/7; VI/7; VII/8; VIII/8; IX/9; X/8.88 Within this count, we can recognize some smaller patterns on the basis of tablet a. So Stanzas V–VI, which form a content pair, each have 7 lines: V at the end of the obverse and VI at the beginning of the reverse. Stanzas VII and VIII, again a content pair, also have the same line count, 8; and suggesting that this is a deliberate arrangement is the fact that VII yields 8 only because what in Lambert’s transliteration, reproduced above, are lines 54–56 actually presented in two lines, 54–55, so that the last line of the Stanza is not 61, with Lambert, but 60.89 I keep, however, Lambert’s arrangement in this paper, because it is so widely reproduced in modern scholarship. Finally, the obverse, with Stanzas I–V, could be understood to show a pattern of line counts: 9–7–12–9–7, though this does not reflect the content pattern. Turning now to the subjects covered by the opposition pairs: they are clearly wide-ranging over human and divine affairs. But the question is whether the sequencing of the pairs conveys a certain forward movement or dramatic trajectory. Let us try to trace it. Groups 1 (I–II) and 2 (III–IV) describe movement to the outside of the master’s domicile and then inside, and again outside and then inside, with the second inside focused on personal relations, in terms of house and family building. This leads in Group 3 (V–VI) to a more particular focus on persons, on their potential to be criminals and 88 Note among the other tablets, C, which, although a fragment, appears to have a different arrangement of its lines from that of a. 89 Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, 144–49.

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lovers, and the consequences of being so. Group 4 (VII–VIII) formalizes these personal relationships commercially, as a matter of loans, both between humans and gods and between humans and humans. Clearest in this progression of Groups is the last, Group 5 (IX–X). It is the climax of the entire text. Within it, Stanza IX extends human actions and relationships beyond individual persons and families to good deeds for the entire country. But then Stanza X, the final section, intensifies the situation, dramatically, to the collapse of all actions and relationships in the question of suicide. Distinguishing both Stanzas, as we have seen, are the references to, even quotations of, well-known proverbs – the clearest instances of such references/quotations in the Dialogue. But, as noted also, the references or quotations are both strikingly reconfigured from their appearances in other texts in order to underscore the negative message and tone in each Stanza: in IX, the ruin heaps of good and bad dead are to support withdrawing the decision to do public good deeds; in X, the questions about reaching the heavens and the underworld are ambiguously related at best to the preceding proposition about suicide (lines 81–82) and the succeeding decision of the master to kill the servant (line 85). Indeed, the whole form of the last Stanza X is different from that of the preceding nine Stanzas. While its first line matches those of the other Stanzas, what follows is not a formally arranged presentation and then withdrawal of a course of action by the master, with respective justifications by the servant. Here, rather, the interchange between master and servant is a mass of ambiguity, even confusion, in which, as we have seen, it is not always clear who is speaking (lines 81–84), or whether their lines are supposed to be declarative statements or questions (lines 81– 82). Moreover, though the servant gets the last line 86, as he does in each of the preceding Stanzas, this time it is not to support the master’s withdrawal of his course of action, but to oppose, or better to undermine, the master’s decision in the preceding line 85 to kill the servant. The point is that the breakdown of the form of the last Stanza X is deliberate – a parallel reflection of the breakdown in what the master and servant say in dialogue. Concomitantly, the form that has been broken down, of proposal and withdrawal, looks now also as an exercise in futility parallel to the actual content. Form and content, thus, work together to communicate the message. And what, then, is that message? It is crystallized in the master’s question in Stanza X (line 80): “Now, what is good?” The word “good” here (ṭâba) should stand for all the proposals and withdrawals and all the justifications for these in the preceding nine Stanzas, as well as the fact, expressed by the master – see especially eninna – that they have not led to any clear guide to decisions about courses of action and so to any ultimate knowledge of “good” and “purpose” in human life. But the question about “good” also governs the rest of Stanza X and the answers there given: of collective suicide, of the proverbial questions proffered, of the master’s conviction that he should kill

The Dialogue of Pessimism Revisited

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the servant, and of the servant’s response that the master would not survive without him. None of these answers is conclusive, either.90 But they do reveal, finally, the power of the servant over the master – the servant who gets the last word, even if it is one of ironic negation; to paraphrase: “Your solution, O master, to kill me is no solution for you at all, for your very life depends on me.” The servant stands revealed, in short, as the real master, and it is this final revelation – a revelation that has been building through the give and take of the master’s demands to the servant as they grow larger and more intense – that seals the Dialogue as a coherent, dramatic composition.

4. Conclusion As the structure of our Dialogue has been the foundation of the issues it poses, so perhaps the overriding question of our Dialogue, the one that enfolds all the others, is how to characterize it: humorous, serious, or something else. As suggested above, I consider it both humorous and serious, with humor leaning toward satire: the matter coming to a head in the final Stanza X, which forces the reader (or listener) to review through it the progress of the preceding stanzas. This is a position shared by a number of other scholars: the humor/satire first advocated independently by Böhl 91 and Speiser, 92 and then continued by more recent interpreters like Foster; 93 Bottéro; 94 and Samet. 95 Most of these suggest humor with seriousness. For seriousness alone, the preeminent representative is Lambert. 96 But the scholarly discussion here requires that we try to understand what “humor” and “seriousness” mean. Many definitions have been offered (on the Mesopotamian and biblical sides, e.g., Foster; 97 Frahm; 98 Greenstein 99 ); a particularly illuminating one is that 90

Related to the issue of “good” in the Dialogue is the so-called vanity theme, as it plays out in Mesopotamian literature and other literatures of the ancient Near East and later. See, e.g., Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, especially 36–42, and Yoram Cohen, “Les neiges d’antan: ‘Early Rulers’ and the Vanity Theme in Mesopotamian Wisdom Literature and Beyond,” Antiguo Oriente 15 (2017): 33–56. 91 F. M. Th. de Liagre Böhl, “Die Religion der Babylonier und Assyrer,” in Christus und die Religionen der Erde: Handbuch der Religionsgeschichte, vol. 1, ed. F. Koenig (Vienna: Herder, 1951), 493–94. 92 Speiser, “The Case of the Obliging Servant.” 93 Benjamin R. Foster, “Humor and Cuneiform Literature,” JANES 6 (1974): 82. 94 Bottéro, “The Dialogue of Pessimism and Transcendence.” 95 Samet, “The Babylonian Dialogue.” 96 Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature, 139–41. 97 Foster, “Humor and Cuneiform Literature.” 98 Eckart Frahm, “Humor in assyrischen Königsinschriften,” in Intellectual Life of the Ancient Near East: Papers Presented at the 43rd Rencontre assyriologique internationale, Prage, July 1–5, 1996, ed. Jiri Prosecký (Prague: Oriental Institute, 1998), 147–62.

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“humor” is to laugh at the incongruous: something that contradicts or otherwise does not fit conventional or expected norms. 100 “Seriousness” is not necessarily something that should be taken in a somber way. This is to confuse an attitude or behavior with a cognitive or intellectual proposition. We can laugh at something that is incongruous without trivializing it or, better, seek to trivialize or to contain and perhaps diminish its incongruity by laughing at it, but this very effort requires, first, the appreciation of it as worthy of attention – of taking it seriously. So here in the Dialogue, we have a servant who is a perfect yes-man until he finally becomes a no-man to his master, and this is framed at the end as a response to “what is good?” – all of it a serious matter that cannot be resolved, unless that lack of resolution be put in terms of laughter: laughter at the sudden, witty, deliberately incongruous way in which the matter is presented. It is, in other words, a laughter that recognizes the irresolution as a serious matter for which laughter is the only resolution, thus merging incongruity with congruity.101

99 Edward L. Greenstein, “Sages with a Sense of Humor: The Babylonian Dialogue between the Master and His Servant and the Book of Qoheleth,” in Wisdom Literature in Mesopotamia and Israel, ed. Richard J. Clifford, SBLSymS 36 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007), 59–60. 100 Consider Freud as cited in Greenstein, “Sages with a Sense of Humor,” 60. 101 My thoughts on humor here were stimulated and shaped by the (Zoom) lecture of Professor Christine Hayes of Yale University on “Divine Contingency, Law, Humor, Performance, and Play,” given at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, 11 February 2021. Her focus, however, was on a different topic, the divine Torah in biblical and classical Jewish traditions.

Part 2. Intertextuality

Merciful and Wrathful? Innerbiblical Interpretation of Exodus 34:6–7 Stephen L. Cook God’s intricate, confessional self-revelation in Exod 34:6–7 poetically and profoundly reveals the divine character. The statement is theologically concentrated, beckoning elucidation. That many diverse biblical texts overtly echo the passage confirms its theological centrality. 1 Even when not cited directly, the passage lies below the surface of numerous scriptures. Indeed, its careful balancing of the divine qualities of love, mercy, and goodness fits God’s recurring behavior toward God’s creation and God’s people. Exodus 34:6–7 is so significant to Scripture’s present shape that it is quoted or referenced over twenty times in the Hebrew Bible.2 Its formulation is aesthetically lovely; 3 its presentation of the divine character compelling. Modern readers are drawn in by the first half of the passage, especially since the brief mention of divine anger seems only to put God’s wrath at a bit of distance from God’s general disposition. The passage’s second half, however, raises the specter of certain divine judgment, and its final line even speaks about divine vengeance against grandchildren. Modern readers may wonder whether, in the end, the passage is about God’s tender mercies or God’s vengefulness. The origin and dating of our text is contested. Exodus 34:6–7 may be its earliest biblical occurrence, but its deployment in that context is redactional. Its theology differs from that of J in the surrounding context, exhibiting 1

Heschel makes Exod 34:6–7 a hermeneutical key to the entire Bible. See Abraham J. Heschel, The Prophets (Peabody: Prince, 1999), 71. 2 Exodus 34:6–7 is mirrored in at least the following texts: Exod 20:5–6; Num 14:18; Neh 9:17; Pss 86:15; 103:8–9; 111:4; 112:4; 116:5; 145:8–9; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2; Mic 7:18; Nah 1:3; 2 Chron 30:9. Discussion below examines the most significant of these echoes. 3 Although BHS does not lay our text out as poetry, the rhetorical analysis in the following section supports placing the passage toward the poetic side of the prose–poetry continuum of Scripture. Exodus 34:6–7 yields well to stichometric analysis. Vocabulary such as ‫“( נצר‬preserve”) is specifically poetic diction. Some cola, such as ‫“( אל רחום וחנון‬a God merciful and gracious”), have internal rhyme. English translations presenting the passage as poetry include: NRSV, CEB, NLT, the Schocken Bible (Fox translation), ISV.

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instead affinities with material such as Deut 32:3–4; 1 Kgs 19:11–13; and Deut 4:28–31, a later, exilic layer of Deuteronomy.4 The passage’s critical biblical role is reinforced by its canonical placement, embedded within J material that now follows the bull apostasy at Mount Sinai. Whatever the J material’s original function, it now recounts Moses making new covenant tablets and meeting with God to restart an aborted relationship. Here, immediately after Israel’s paradigmatic apostasy of bull worship, lies this powerful expression of God’s character. In the history of the Sinai account’s composition, Exod 34:6–7 joined the narrative specifically here, where divine wrath against unthinkable apostasy collided with God’s ḥesed-loyalty to Israel. As deep impulses of corrective justice and faithful love are put at loggerheads at precisely this juncture, a decisive antithesis unfolds before readers’ eyes begging for definitive resolution. Israel’s rebellion will be recurring. Moses will soon need to quote the self-revelation again as soon as Num 14, Israel’s decisive mutiny in Numbers. Given sin’s embeddedness, is there any assurance the covenant can work? Can God and Israel move forward? Exodus 34:6–7 is God’s decisive and paradigmatic answer. The intricate rhetorical structure of Exod 34:6–7 is rich theologically, and its careful analysis is of great current relevance. Religious believers and opponents of religion alike are now often intensely critical of ideas of divine judgment and of biblical texts of violence. Questions of theodicy continue to generate perplexity and resentment amid the tragedies of human life. The intricate rhetoric of Exod 34:6–7 speaks deftly in this context.

1. The Rhetorical Structure of Exodus 34:6–7 My structural analysis of Exod 34:6–7 departs from the versification in the MT. It builds instead on an isolation of ten compact cola, whose identification is supported by the Masoretic accentual system. These ten cola aggregate so as to form four larger two- and three-part lines: A, B, C, and D. These lines then pair with each other. Line A pairs with B and line C pairs with D. Each pair (or short strophe), A–B and C–D, consists of a two-cola line followed by a three-cola line. The passage may be laid out as follows: 4 Spieckermann argued Exod 34:6–7 was postexilic (Hermann Spieckermann, “‘Barmherzig und gnädig ist der Herr…,’” ZAW 102 [1990]: 1–18). Its roots are earlier, however, since its marked and wide influence needed time to develop. As discussed later, Jer 31:29–30 and Ezek 18 specifically engage the ending of Exod 34:7. Over time, the selfrevelation poem began to be used for wildly different, even opposite, purposes (see below). Some traditions suppressed its themes of judgment and stressed instead its poetry of compassion (Ps 103:8–9). Eventually, other traditions extended its witness to God’s mercy beyond covenantal bounds (Jonah 4:2; Ps 145:8–9).

Merciful and Wrathful?

AI) The LORD, the LORD AII) a God merciful and gracious, BI) slow to anger, BII) and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, BIII) keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, CI) forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, CII) yet by no means clearing the guilty, DI) visiting the iniquity of the parents DII) upon the children and the children’s children, DIII) to the third and the fourth generation

133 ‫יְ הוָ ֣ה ׀ יְ ה ָו֔ה‬ ‫ֵא֥ל ַרח֖ וּם וְ חַ נּ֑וּן‬ ‫אַפּ֖יִ ם‬ ַ ‫ֶא ֶ֥רְך‬ ‫ֱמת׃‬ ֽ ֶ ‫ב־ח֥סֶ ד ֶוא‬ ֶ ‫וְ ַר‬ ‫נ ֵֹצ֥ר חֶ ֙סֶ ד ֙ לָ אֲלָ ִ֔פים‬ ‫ֹשׂ֥א עָ ֹו֛ן ו ֶָפ֖שַׁ ע וְ חַ טָּ אָ֑ה‬ ֵ ‫נ‬ ‫ל ֹא יְ נ ֶַ֔קּה‬ ֣ ֙ ‫וְ נַקֵּ ה‬ ‫אָבוֹת‬ ֗ ‫ע ֹו֣ן‬ ֲ ‫פּ ֵֹק֣ד ׀‬ ‫ל־בּנֵ ֣י בָ ִנ֔ים‬ ְ ַ‫עַ ל־בָּ נִ ים ֙ וְ ע‬ ‫ל־רבֵּ ִעֽים׃‬ ִ ַ‫ל־שׁלֵּ ִשׁ֖ים וְ ע‬ ִ ַ‫ע‬

For the purposes of the present investigation, which emphasizes intertextual dialog, I have mined our passage’s cross-references for evidence helping to group the text’s ten cola into units (into the A, B, C, and D lines). This has been possible since the cross-references offer up various aggregates of cola within Exod 34:6–7, that is, subunits of the poem. These “clumps” hint at what biblical tradition and reuse has taken to be the logical pairings of cola that now structure the self-revelation. Whether or not these clumps are “original,” they represent the actual poetic units that have impacted later scripture. Starting with our text’s initial two cola, AI and AII, we find evidence of their affinity in Exod 33:19. The same elements – the divine name (AI) and the divine attributes of mercy and compassion (AII) – represent a recognized pairing, an accepted unit. So too, Ps 111:4 supports interpreting AI-plus-AII as a cohesive clumping, a valid pairing of cola. Verse 4 quotes AI and AII but does not mention any B vocabulary (also see Ps 116:5).5 Numbers 14:18, another key cross-reference of our passage, attests to a logical cohesion of the B material, separable from A. In 14:18, the material of

5 Although certain late psalms, 86:5, 15; 103:8; and 145:8, condense A and B material into two or three cola (containing the gist of AII, BI, and BII), this contributes little to an analysis of the rhetorical structure of Exod 34:6–7. These psalms are accommodating our passage’s fulsome expression to their own tight poetic structure (see Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, Psalms II, Hermeneia [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2011], 369; idem, Psalms III, Hermeneia [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2011], 32). Nehemiah 9:17 falls into the same category. It draws directly on the condensation of A and B material in Ps 86:5, 15.

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BI and BII appears independently of AI–AII.6 Numbers 14:18 does not contain the end of our B section (the BIII colon), but this fits its pattern of truncating endings (e.g., BHS text notes “a” and “b”).7 Nahum 1:3 quotes our passage, Exod 34:6–7, beginning with BI and BII. As in Num 14:18, BIII is absent, though it is not an “orphan” attested only in Exod 34:7. Exodus 20:6 also associates BIII with the self-revelation. Further, several biblical texts, such as Pss 25:10, 40:11 (MT: v. 12), and Prov 20:28 attest to the affinity of BII’s and BIII’s content. Nahum’s use of the self-revelation passage is fascinating due to the way it adjusts it rhetorically to fit the pressing context (see below). Be that as it may, the poetic stichometry of Nah 1:3 interprets the B and C material as separate cola. This supports our interpretation of Exod 34:6–7’s overall structure, specifically the disjunction of B and C. Our cola labeled D appear self-contained in Exod 20:5 (cf. Deut 5:9), buttressing our finding of a three-part D in Exod 34:7. Interestingly, Exod 20:6 (cf. Deut 5:10) also presents the material of BIII but differently ordered.8 The reordering notwithstanding, 20:6 certainly takes BIII as an antithetical parallel to DIII. God visits iniquity on the “third and fourth generation” (DIII) but shows ḥesed-loyalty to the “thousandth” one (BIII). In both 20:6 and 34:7 BIII and DIII appear to balance each other in antithetic complementarity. This will have interpretive and theological implications.

2. Interpretive Implications of the Rhetorical Structure in Context The divine self-revelation begins in colon AI with a twice-repeated proclamation of the name “YHWH.” The doubled name recalls the famous EHYEH ASHER EHYEH of Exod 3:14, God’s revelation of the name at the burning bush. The reader has had Exod 3 in mind as of 33:19, which repeated the unique idem per idem syntax of 3:14. Like Exod 3:14 and 33:19, Exod 34:6–7 6

The tetragrammaton is present as the first word of Num 14:8, and some translations understand this as an echo of AI (NJPS; Schocken Bible [Fox]; NJB, REB). 7 Some Hebrew manuscripts, the LXX, and the Samaritan Pentateuch add these “minuses” to fill out the text of Num 14:18. This is ill-advised, however, since several other crossreferences to our text (noted above, Pss 86:5, 15; 103:8; 145:8; Neh 9:17) likewise contain only AII, BI, and BII, with BIII not present. 8 On the significance of the reversal in the order of attributes, see R. W. L. Moberly, At the Mountain of God: Story and Theology in Exodus 32–34, JSOTSup 22 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1983); W. Ross Blackburn, The God Who Makes Himself Known: The Missionary Heart of the Book of Exodus (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2012), 160; Michael Widmer, Standing in the Breach: An Old Testament Theology and Spirituality of Intercessory Prayer, Siphrut (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2015), 92.

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plunges us before an untethered, unrestricted God. 9 Verse 5 of Exod 34, which introduces God’s self-revelation in vv. 6–7, also recalls Exod 3. The diction of Exod 34:5 includes the verb ‫“( קרא‬call”) with the preposition ‫“( ב‬on”). The formula recalls vv. 14–15 of Exod 3, verses that identify the name YHWH as a ‫זכר‬, an invocation name. 10 A primary sense of ‫ קרא בשׁם יהוה‬entails invoking (“calling on”) YHWH, that is, appealing to God for God’s presence.11 This is the diction’s expected sense in the Pentateuch. In Ps 116:4, the ‫ קרא בשׁם‬formula with this sense comes right before an echo of Exod 34:5–6. Alternatively, however, praise psalms, including Ps 116 itself, use the very diction to mean proclaiming God and God’s character publicly (Ps 116:13, 17). The artistic ambiguity of Exod 34:5 nicely conveys both senses. God descends upon Sinai in Exod 34:5 to proclaim God’s personal name and announce God’s character to Moses. This sense comes across in the NRSV and most English translations of 34:5 (see the MT cantillation; Ibn Ezra; Rashbam). By the end of 34:6 God has fulfilled the promise of 33:19 and proclaimed the name YHWH and its meaning. For his part, Moses invokes God in 34:5, utilizing the name that he learned in Exod 3. This sense is found in the NASB; AYB (Propp);12 Tg. Ps.-Jonathan; and the Vulgate. Colon AI begins a five-cola unit, AI–AII–BI–BII–BIII, a pair of lines (a bicolon and a tricolon) that together constitute the first half of the selfrevelation. The unit’s final colon, colon BIII, forms an inclusio with colon AI in that colon BIII begins with an active participle that can be interpreted as a verbal name (see Job 7:20; Prov 13:3; 16:17; 24:12). The participle addresses YHWH as Protector of the covenant. It appears self-evident that Exod 34:6–7 is about covenant since it wrestles hard with balancing God’s covenantal loyalty to Israel with Israel’s covenantal apostasy. A covenantal context was earlier indicated when our text was anticipated in Exod 33:19, where the term “goodness,” as Sarna notes, “bears a technical, legal meaning of covenantal friendship” (see Gen 32:9 [MT: v. 10], 12 [MT: v. 13]; Deut 23:6 [MT: v. 7]).13 9

Donald E. Gowan, Theology in Exodus: Biblical Theology in the Form of a Commentary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 234, 242. 10 Stephen L. Cook, Deuteronomy: A Literary and Theological Commentary, RTOT (Macon: Smyth & Helwys, 2015), 113–14. 11 According to F. L. Hossfeld and E.-M. Kindl, it is an “idiom of choice to express the establishment of a relationship with Yahweh” (‫קרא‬, TDOT 13:113). 12 William H. C. Propp, Exodus 19–40, AYB 2A (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), 584. 13 See Nahum M. Sarna, Exodus, JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1991), 214. Note that a misguided assumption that covenant theology arose late in Israelite religion may lie behind a tendency in German scholarship to date Exod 34:6–7 late (postexilic). Here, see Lothar Perlitt, Bundestheologie im Alten Testament,

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Verbal names for God are elements of hymns and, as noted above, it is in hymns and praise poetry that our formula ‫ קרא בשׁם‬refers to a vocal pronouncement of God’s personal name and character (see Ps 116:13, 17).14 Like Ps 116, our self-revelation passage is hymnic both in genre and in its use of ‫קרא בשׁם יהוה‬. Deuteronomy 32:3–4 is a striking parallel. Both the language of YHWH (AI) and the language of Protector (BIII) name God using verbal roots connected to God’s ḥesed-loyalty. The roots convey a sense of God’s commitment to “be there” with Israel and to “preserve” Israel. In context, Exod 3:12 provides one moving interpretation of EHYEH/YHWH: “I [YHWH] will be with you [‫]אהיה עמך‬.”15 The root “preserve” (‫ )נצר‬fits within a rich scriptural dialog about God’s intense and sensitive emotions in electing and caring for Israel (Deut 32:10; Isa 42:6; 49:8). The contents within the AI–BIII envelope elaborate the theme of the frame. The meaning of YHWH manifests itself as mercy, generosity, patience, and faithfulness. Within the outer, bracketing cola, an inner bracket AII–BII presents us with a pair of lovely sounding cola straddling a middle colon, BI. The two straddling cola balance each other with a similar rhythm. The rhyme and rhythm of ‫ אל רחום וחנון‬is especially striking and beloved as attested by the occurrence of the paired adjectives nine other times in the Hebrew Bible (2 Chr 30:9; Neh 9:17, 31; Pss 86:15; 103:8; 111:4; 145:8; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2; cf. Ps 112:4). Readers of the scriptures gain the distinct impression that the formula is a widely known foundation stone of YHWH worship. The Hebrew word ‫“( רחום‬compassion”) shares a root with the word womb, thus evoking the thought of a mother’s love for her unborn child (Pss 25:6; 103:8, 11, 13). Despite all subsequent qualifications that God must also care about justice, the primary point being made is about God’s love – God’s patient, faithful, fierce, and intimate bond with God’s people. This is a bodily and poignant bond. When subsequently we find that justice is indeed a corollary to God’s fierce love, we are barred from any thought of a rigid system of impersonal retribution. Divine justice will have to be a flexible effort to promote good and restrain evil among those God cherishes.16

WMANT 36 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1969), 203–32; Erik Aurelius, Der Fürbitter Israels: Eine Studie zum Mosebild im Alten Testament, CBOT 27 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1988), 33–55; H. Simian-Yofre, “‫רחום‬,” TDOT 13:449. 14 F. L. Hossfeld and E.-M. Kindl, “‫קרא‬,” TDOT 13:114. 15 Fox notes the view of Buber and Rosenzweig that God’s name evokes God’s immediate presence. See Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, The Schocken Bible, vol. 1 (New York: Schocken, 1995), xxix, 145 (Gen 31:3), 270, 273 (Exod 3:12, 14). 16 See David Noel Freedman, “God Compassionate and Gracious,” Western Watch 6 (1955): 14.

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In its literary context, our text in Exod 34:6–7 is specifically anticipated in 33:19.17 Looking ahead to our text, God briefs Moses in 33:19 on what will happen and be proclaimed. This earlier anticipatory announcement emphasizes entirely the two traits that our text names in AI. The suggestion is that these traits – grace and compassion – are the point of Exod 34:6–7. They are not all that needs saying, but they are the main thrust.18 Look briefly at Exod 33:19, God’s confession that “I will be gracious…I will show mercy.” It would be ludicrous to entertain appending some such additional line as “I will withhold grace and compassion from whom I withhold grace and compassion.”19 That would warp the point! God’s nature is primarily about gratuitous love. Israel especially needed the point definitively proclaimed after the Golden Bull apostasy. It is after the bull debacle that Exod 34:6–7 altered Exod 20:5–6 to give ḥesed-loyalty pride of place. The comforting thrust of God’s revealed character is why Moses, the psalmists, Ezra, and Daniel persistently quote AII in calling on God to maintain covenant (e.g., Neh 9:31). At the center of the first strophe’s five cola, in the midst of its outer (AI–BIII) and inner (AII–BII) brackets, lies the colon “slow to anger” (BI). Seven more times the Hebrew Scriptures will list this trait among God’s key attributes (Num 14:18; Neh 9:17; Pss 86:15; 103:8; 145:8; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2). The idiom is colorful and anthropomorphic, evoking the idea of a patient person’s face able to go a long while before turning red in anger. Propp says that readers should think of “a snorting, flaring, rubicund nose.”20 Despite the colon’s comforting connotations, it also sounds the first cautionary note of Exod 34:6–7. If God is slow to anger, God can eventually become angry. The themes of justice and judgment rise to greater prominence in the poem’s second strophe. We saw above that colon BIII forms an inclusio with colon AI and rounds off our passage’s first strophe. Just as BIII brings the first strophe to a conclusion with a numbering of generations, so colon DIII will bring the second strophe to an end in the same way. These strophe-ending cola are parallel, and their mutual reference to generations is significant. Note that the numbers of generations in the cola differ markedly. Exodus 34:6–7 lacks the term ‫דור‬, “generations.” Most English versions supply it (as obvious) in colon DIII, but NIV, NET, NJB, REB, and NASB translate BIII to speak only of God continuing steadfast love for thousands of 17

Gowan, Theology in Exodus, 233. Gowan, Theology in Exodus, 233; Widmer, Standing in the Breach, 93. 19 Phillip Cary, Jonah, Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2008), 132. 20 Propp, Exodus 19–40, 610. The king of Nineveh speaks of “a burning of the nostrils” of God in Jonah 3:9 (Cary, Jonah, 129); in Ps 18:8 the divine nostrils smoke. 18

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people, not for thousands of generations. I prefer the former, more powerful translation, since it reflects the reception of the tradition in Deut 7:9; Ps 105:8; 1 Chr 16:15, which all employ the phrase ‫לאלף דור‬.21 Further, the verb ‫נצר‬ (“keeping”) in BIII suggests God is practicing fidelity across time. Thus, God keeps loyal to God’s people for thousands of generations, essentially forever. Colon BIII makes the point that God’s steadfast love extends perpetually, to the thousandth generation. Colon DIII glances back to this point as it ends a strophe that speaks of judgment. With BIII in mind, DIII asserts that God’s judgment is constrained. It affects three or four generations at most, whereas God’s mercy is perpetual (BIII). God will indeed impose justice but in a manner that tempers divine judgment’s aftershocks. Colon CI starts the second strophe positively. Returning to hymnic praise, it begins with a verbal name for God. This echoes the participle starting the preceding strophe’s end colon in BIII (note the sound play between ‫ נצר‬and ‫)נשׂא‬. The participial style is soon picked up within strophe 2 by DI. Each of the strophe’s two lines, C and D, begins in the same style. Within the strophe, colon CI and colon DI are tightly parallel. Both CI and DI begin with a Qal masc. sg. participle naming God followed by the noun ‫“( עון‬iniquity”). The two cola CI and DI straddle colon CII, which pronounces that “clearing the guilty” is not God’s way. Whether forgiving iniquity or punishing iniquity, one thing is clear: God cares about it deeply. Out of forgiveness or out of justice, God, “letting nothing go unchecked” (NJB), will deal decisively with iniquity. Employing the root ‫( נקה‬Piel: “leave unpunished”) twice, colon CII is tight in rhythm, alliterative, and emphatic. It emphatically qualifies God’s mercy (CI), but the caveat is underdefined. What is the caveat in colon CII guarding against? Some translations stress that God may forgive but cannot “ignore sin” (MESSAGE), “declaring the guilty guiltless” (NABR). Others understand that while sometimes constructive, divine forgiveness is inappropriate in other cases (NJPS: “He does not remit all punishment”). Still others emphasize that God must check sin’s spread (NJB: “letting nothing go unchecked”). The problem of interpreting CII relates directly to the antithesis between colon CI and colon DI, which form an envelope around it. There are two truths in tension around how God treats ‫“( עון‬iniquity”). First and foremost, it is God’s nature to forgive ‫עון‬, as colon CI declares. It is also in God’s nature, however, to hold people responsible for ‫( עון‬DI). Again, we ask, how do we come to terms with the tensive paradox? Answering this question is central to our poem’s overall shape. Each of the poem’s two strophes contains a key truth nested between straddling cola. In strophe 1 it is BI, asserting that God is patient, “slow to anger.” In strophe 2 it 21

On the syntax of the phrase, see GKC sec. 134g, p. 433; IBHS sec. 11.2.10c, p. 206.

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is CII, insisting that God’s patience must not mean “clearing the guilty.” The poem’s macro-structure here asserts that God, in mysterious freedom, allows BI and CII to check each other. Iniquity will rear its ugliness in diverse ways, sometimes (at God’s discretion, see Jonah 3:9) prompting BI (God waits while Nineveh is “overturned,” ‫הפך‬, through repentance) and sometimes CII (God likewise “overturns,” ‫הפך‬, Sodom and Gomorrah, through brimstone and fire).22 Just because no burning sulfur materializes in Jonah does not mean God has “cleared the guilty.” Rather, as Cary writes, “We can almost hear the gracious and merciful God chuckling and saying to himself, ‘Okay, Jonah, have it your way…I will make sure Nineveh is overturned for you! I will surely turn them upside down, convert them…turn them into something altogether new.’” 23 According to Cary, this is God “defeating evil in the abundance of his mercy – doing more, not less than justice.”24 An excellent case study in how this works appears in the prophet Micah’s challenge to the land-grabbing oppressors destroying his villagers. Here, God forges a middle way between BI and CII by staying patient while Micah goes forth to confront the guilty. God insists through Micah that God will not clear guilt indiscriminately, letting it grow unchecked. Micah blasts his opponents for using God’s patience as a “cover” granting them immunity from judgment (Mic 2:7). Feeling free to oppress with impunity, their iniquity multiplies. The contagion could well spread catastrophically (Mic 7:2 NJPS). The oppressors’ retort to Micah, “Is the LORD’s patience short?” (Mic 2:7) is rhetorical. Incredibly, they insist on an absolute divine forbearance that precludes divine anger from ever building to judgment. In effect, “The LORD’s patience can’t be exhausted” (NET) is their conviction. But notions of unqualified divine patience are absurd (see Nah 1:3). For God to “excuse the guilty” (Exod 34:7 NLT) would be an outrage. It is no kindness to relieve people of responsibility for evil, nor is it loving of those they abuse. Thus, as noted above, colon BI does not deny divine wrath but asserts its slowness to rise. The tricolon of line D is perhaps the most troubling and controversial part of the self-revelation. If the self-revelation has thus far struck a fine poetic balance between divine mercy and justice, line D raises suspicions of unjust,

22 On the way ‫ הפך‬links Sodom and Gomorrah and Nineveh, see Jonah 3:4 and Gen 19:21, 25, 29. A metaphor of ascending evil is a parallel link (Jonah 1:2 and Gen 18:20– 21). See Yehezkel Kaufmann, History of the Religion of Israel, vol. 2 (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1967), 279–87; Baruch Halpern and Richard E. Friedman, “Composition and Paronomasia in the Book of Jonah,” HAR 4 (1980): 87; Cary, Jonah, 108–10, 127–28, 133. 23 Cary, Jonah, 109. 24 Cary, Jonah, 134.

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imbalanced divine judgment. How can grandchildren and great grandchildren deserve to suffer for their ancestors’ sins? The problem is not merely a modern one, for innerbiblical echoes in Jer 31 and Ezek 18 raise the question. Discussion of these echoes resumes below. In the immediate rhetorical context, the numbering of generations in DIII hearkens back to BIII, which also numbered generations as it closed its own strophe. While the earlier colon associated God’s loyalty with a vast expanse of time, DIII puts narrow time constraints on vengeance.25 These constraints contrast with the perpetuity of God’s ḥesed-loyalty. Is it God or humans who tend to project culpability across generations? In Gen 4:23–24, violence replicates itself in the descendants of a human murderer. Vengeance runs in Cain’s family, intensifying and culminating in Lamech’s boast. God, however, has limited patience for vendettas, even against a fugitive from justice like Cain (see Gen 4:15). Innerbiblical reuse of Exod 34:6–7 shows God pushing back against increasingly violent human cycles of retaliation. I return to this below. Against the common negative value judgment on Exod 34:7, the text may be understood to mean that God halts cyclical violence; God stops a tree’s apples from falling so near its trunk by the fourth generation. The idea of guilt (‫ )עון‬extending across generations is not new in Exod 34:7. What may be new is God’s clear restriction on its trajectory. In biblical idiom, guilt (‫ )עון‬is objective. It may subsist unrecognized (1 Kgs 17:18; Ezek 21:24; Hos 8:13; 9:9), return to punish the guilty (1 Sam 15:2; Ps 40:12 [MT: v. 13]; Prov 5:22), and be lifted from the back of a new, innocent generation (Num 14:34). In short, guilt (‫ )עון‬has a life of its own apart from the transgressors who set it in motion. Though variable in its workings, it may afflict progeny (Lam 5:7), guilty or not, and even infect them with sin (Ezra 9:7). When infectious, guilt may spread rapidly as a debilitating viral contagion. Because God generally insists on working within historical and realistic constraints, judgment on guilt often entails collateral damage (e.g., Amos 7:17; Jer 20:6). It is unlikely that Exod 34:7 means to say that God directly punishes innocent children for the crimes of their parents. In some cases, ‫עון‬ is tangible enough to wreak collateral effects that impact people and things that are not specifically implicated in a given offense.26 The altars themselves are not really incriminated in Amos 3:14, but the consequences of guilt impact them. When God’s punishment of guilt wreaks effects beyond culpable

25

The diction in Exod 34:6–7, as Propp notes, smacks of “blood feud” (Exodus 19–40,

173). 26 For this reason, I am uncomfortable with such translations as “I lay the sins of the parents upon their children and grandchildren” (Exod 34:7 NLT); “He holds sons… responsible for a father’s sins to the third and even fourth generation” (MESSAGE).

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141

parties, this can include human descendants.27 Children may be exiled along with parents, for example, and then birth their own children in exile. These parties may or may not be iniquitous.28 In both Exod 20:5 and 34:7 the iniquity in question is specifically that of the parents (the construct phrase is ‫)עון אבות‬. For God to punish it with a blunt (imprecise) strike is not necessarily to indict descendants. Rather, it is to deliver a reverberant blow – momentous enough that it “visits” (‫)פקד‬ descendants as a collateral effect. One modern paraphrase of Exod 34:7 thus speaks of God “extending the consequences of a father’s sin to his children, his grandchildren, and even to the third and fourth generations” (VOICE). Even better might be to say that God visits sinners with a blow serious enough that its consequences extend over a certain limited number of generations of descendants. Of course, children often are implicated in parents’ sins. They passively benefit from their evils and often live pretty much as their wicked parents do (e.g., 2 Kgs 14:3b–4; Ezek 16:44–45).29 This may continue until a flooding cascade of guilt ruins the land (e.g., Gen 4:23–24; 15:16; Mic 7:2). In such cases, Exod 34:7 brings hope that God will “respond” (NET) to the pandemic of guilt by “dealing with children and children’s children,”30 that is, checking the domino effect of ‫ עון‬through the course of two or three generations and halting the cascade altogether after no more than four generations.

27 Against NABR, Deut 5:9 does not likely contradict the spirit of Deut 24:16, “Only for their own crimes may persons be put to death” (cf. 2 Kgs 14:6). See the thoughtful comments of Peter Enns, Exodus, NIVAC (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 415–17. Discussion of the problem of transgenerational guilt and liability resumes below. 28 If not iniquitous, Exod 34:7 might bring hope in that it limits collateral effects to four generations. The descendants of the guilty may return home (see Lam 4:22; Isa 40:1–2). 29 In my own denomination, the Episcopal Church, an official contemporary prayer states: “We repent of the evil that enslaves us, the evil we have done, and the evil done on our behalf. Forgive, restore, and strengthen us…” (Enriching Our Worship: Morning and Evening Prayer, the Great Litany, the Holy Eucharist, Supplemental Liturgical Materials, vol. 1 [New York: Church Publishing, 1998], 56). 30 The NET study note to Exod 34:7 (by R. E. Averbeck et al.) reads: “Iniquity and its punishment will continue in the family if left unchecked.” Proverbs and idioms reflecting genealogical replication include: “a chip off the old block,” “like father like son,” “he comes by it honestly,” “I take after my mom,” “the apple never falls very far from the tree,” “it runs in the family,” “I’m following in my dad’s footsteps,” “it’s in my blood.”

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3. The Canonical Placement of Exodus 34:6–7 in the Context of the Bull Apostasy The canonical placement of Exod 34:6–7 right after the narrative of Israel’s bull apostasy is no coincidence. It is at this juncture in the covenant relationship that Israel definitively tests the limits of God’s patience (BI). Precisely here, God and Israel must explore what happens to the covenant when Israel stretches to the breaking point the mercy and graciousness of God (the emphases of strophe 1 of our poem). If a way through this crisis emerges, Israel and God can then hope to tackle almost any obstacle to the relationship. Since Exod 34:6–7 receives its key significance in the present context, this context provides an initial test of the above rhetorical analysis, which argues that the divine traits of strophe 1 are central but that strophe 2 is key to God’s character as well. God’s nature is not about an indiscriminate mercy, which indulges evil and perpetuates the status quo, but about defeating evil and transforming history in an abundance of mercy. Our poem’s context is about an exclusive, impassioned two-party commitment (Exod 20:5), visibly unique among the nations (Exod 32:11). Its international witness is paramount (Exod 33:16). Lest earth’s nations scoff, Israel must not dump God, meld with earth’s idolatry, and then receive only longsuffering mercy from God (strophe 1) in return. Key among the commandments of Sinai is the prohibition of idols in Exod 20:4–6. It separates Israel as globally unique and is the only commandment to stress God’s passion. “I the LORD your God am a jealous God” (20:5 NRSV), “an impassioned God” (NJPS). Exodus 34:6–7 mirrors the passion of 20:5 with language of fierce womb-love. So too, the judgment at issue in 20:5 is specifically reflected in our poem’s strophe 2. With its bull worship, Israel defies 20:4–6 and thereby elicits 34:6–7. Abusing God’s patience, Israel violates God’s veritable prime directive. God is hard pressed! To clear Israel of offense would broadcast a lack of divine passion, an indifference to idolatry. To destroy the covenant people would be equally humiliating – a global scandal (32:12). Clearly, the narrative context necessitates the definitive formulation of God’s identity in Exod 34:6–7, a formulation capable of navigating the paradigmatic apostasy of Scripture. God’s dilemma in context mirrors the dialectical tension between our poem’s two strophes. As in strophe 1, God loves Israel and God’s nature is mercy toward God’s people. Failure to extend mercy would create a false impression in the eyes of the nations (32:12) and defeat God’s global purposes with humanity (32:11). As in strophe 2, God’s character is also about justice and fierce passion. God and Israel cannot move forward with the people bent on ending the relationship (32:10, 11, 12) and enmeshed in an

Merciful and Wrathful?

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idolatry intolerably opposed to the divine nature. Blackburn summarizes the situation: Idolatry is serious. By trusting in gods that cannot save or satisfy, Israel spurns the Lord who created her for himself. Therefore, the Lord must punish Israel, lest his glory be diminished, and his purposes undermined.31

Honoring both dialectical poles in 34:6–7, God, in context, both extends mercy to Israel (32:14) and renews the covenant (34:1, 10), but not without punishing the people (32:27, 35) and warning that living in interrelationship with a numinous, holy God requires transformation (33:3, 5). In punishing and reclaiming Israel, the Lord maintains both sides of 34:6–7, sustaining God’s honor among the nations and God’s purposes in history. Facing a parallel crisis in Num 14:13–25, God similarly upholds both antipodes. Through chastisement in the context of mercy, the people experience their idolatry overturned and their reverence restored (Exod 33:4–6, 8, 10). Strophe 2 of the self-revelation stands honored. So too, God grants gratuitous forgiveness (33:14, 19), plainly exhibiting the traits of strophe 1. Despite their appalling defection from God, God determines to maintain direct presence with the people as they move forward to Canaan. Exodus 34:6–7 thus surely plays a satisfying role in its canonical context, as Childs affirms: The community which treasured these traditions was not the generation who could confidently say: “all that YHWH has spoken we will do” (24:7), but the people who stood beyond the great divide caused by the golden calf. The faith which Israel learned to prize was not a proud tradition that once in the past God had singled out a people, but rather that God had continued to sustain his original purpose with a sinful nation both in mercy and judgment.32

4. The Canonical Unfolding of the Meaning of Exodus 34:6–7 As our hermeneutical sophistication has grown, scholars have better appreciated the deeper meanings that a full canonical context can illumine in scriptural texts. As in many other cases, Exod 34:6–7 grows in richness and significance as networks of innerbiblical citation and dialog take shape around it. I conclude this study by sampling several instances of significant dialog between sets of texts and the self-revelation poem. Each dialog to be treated here deepens what readers are now able to make of Exod 34:6–7. Various scriptural voices across the canon maintain that when God’s wrath rises against God’s people, mercy reins it in. A frequent pattern is for mercy to surround and constrain judgment. Habakkuk 3:2 implores God, “In wrath 31 32

Blackburn, The God Who Makes Himself Known, 189–90. Brevard S. Childs, Exodus, OTL (Louisville: Westminster, 1974), 612.

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remember mercy.” The plea reflects the rhetoric of our poem, in which the one direct mention of divine wrath (BI) is presented within a literary sandwich of mercy (AII–BII). A related pattern is for divine mercy to overtake judgment and end it. Thus, in Isa 12:1, God’s wrath abates and then God comforts God’s people. Isaiah 40:1–2 proclaims Jerusalem’s penalty paid – doubly paid. The way mercy orients judgment in Jer 30:11 (= 46:28) illuminates Exod 34:6–7. The verse’s diction of instruction, restraint, and rescue bespeaks a constructive discipline. Jeremiah 30:11’s final colon mirrors our poem’s CII colon, but the words in context in Jeremiah relate specifically to altering the status quo. Jeremiah 30:11 nuances Exod 34:7’s combination of Piel infinitive absolute and imperfect of ‫נקה‬. The idea here is that God will not let Israel “go entirely unpunished” (NET), “go quite unpunished” (NJB), “wholly unpunished” (REB). Divine chastisement is effective, not a slap on the wrist. Analysis above noted how the self-revelation’s final tricolon, line D, often raises questions and objections. The rhetorical examination of the poem offered initial insights into what D might mean. Innerbiblical dialog reflects some of these suggestions. Scholars agree that Jer 31:29–30 and Ezek 18 specifically engage the beliefs about intergenerational experiences of judgment espoused in Exod 34:6– 7. Typically, scholars place such beliefs anterior to Jer 31:29–30 and Ezek 18:2, judging the latter texts to supersede them religiously and theologically.33 The view is overly simple and rather misleading. Jeremiah and Ezekiel both affirm some actual truth to Exod 34:7. God’s chastisements sometimes do operate at a collective or communal level, involving collateral injury. Ezekiel 16:44–45 and 20:4, 30 affirm that sins may run in a family or even in an entire community. In Jer 29:32, God punishes (‫ )פקד על‬an exile named Shemaiah and his descendants (‫)זרע‬, affirming Exod 34:7. Shemaiah’s family line will end in exile. Jeremiah and Ezekiel certainly affirmed that the continuing guilt of earlier generations led up to Judah’s present Babylonian destruction and exilic suffering. Exodus 34:7 is on target. This is not unfair of God, they proclaimed, since their contemporaries were just as guilty as their forebears (Jer 16:11–12; Ezek 20:30–31; cf. Jer 9:14; 11:10). What Jeremiah and Ezekiel attacked was not the theological notion of intergenerational punishment but, rather, their audiences’ false notions of fatalism. The exiles must abandon fatalism as a “cover,” they announced. The 33 E.g., see Josef Scharbert, “Das Verbum PQD in der Theologie des Alten Testaments,” BZ 4 (1960): 219; Baruch Halpern, “Jerusalem and the Lineages in the Seventh Century BCE: Kinship and the Rise of Individual Moral Liability,” in Law and Ideology in Monarchic Israel, ed. Baruch Halpern and Deborah W. Hobson, JSOTSup 124 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1991), 11–107; Propp, Exodus 19–40, 172–73.

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people must take responsibility for their present circumstances and their future. They are not an innocent generation. Their present fate is not inexorably determined by their ancestors’ guilt. Ezekiel stresses individual accountability in 18:4, but God already upholds this standard in Ezekiel’s source texts (see Num 16:22–24 HS [= Holiness Source]).34 His source (a Holiness School text) assumes that a God who owns “all lives” (Ezek 18:4), that is, “the spirits of all flesh” (Num 16:22 HS), will surely allow innocent individuals to separate themselves from the guilt of the community (Num 16:24 HS). Individual accountability is distinct from communal accountability. Jeremiah and Ezekiel claim that their contemporaries repeat in their own lives the faults of their ancestors. This fits, in my mind, the NJB’s translation of Exod 20:5, “I [God] punish a parent’s fault in the children.” I take this to mean the “parents’ fault” is not the parents’ alone but often reappears in their children. When it does, God punishes it. Jeremiah and Ezekiel agree, and this is also Ibn Ezra’s view of Exod 20:5. Ibn Ezra argued that God waits for repentance for several generations until terminating a hateful lineage.35 Exodus 20:5–6 and Deut 5:9 expand Exod 34:7 to indicate that it is specifically hateful lineages that God punishes. As Ibn Ezra says, in Exod 20:5 God calls to account lineages consisting collectively of God’s opponents. The text is speaking of generations of God-haters, as is clear from the unusual Hebrew syntax, which must use ‫ ְל‬in lieu of a construct phrase. “Generations,” ‫דור‬, is the assumed head noun, the nomen regens, but it is elided (see above). If those punished were to be simply “descendants of” God’s haters (NABR), we would expect ‫בני־שׂנאי‬. Thus, we have hateful fathers siring additional God-haters. Here I side with Tg. Onqelos; Mek. baḥōdeš 6; b. Ber. 7a. Other texts affirm that descendants repeat parents’ faults: Lev 26:40; Jer 16:12; Neh 9:2; Dan 9:16. The sequence Jonah–Micah–Nahum in the Book of the Twelve is extraordinarily relevant to the discussion at hand. Each of these prophetic works invokes Exod 34:7 (Propp speaks of “variants or citations” of Exod 34:6–7 in Jonah 4:2; Mic 7:18–20; and Nah 1:3). 36 There is a clear direction in the thrust of the usages, traversing the three books in a sequence moving from the mercy pole to the justice pole of the Exodus dialectic. In Jonah, the emphasis is strongly on God’s tendency to forgive sin. Sin reemerges as a serious 34 Stephen L. Cook, Ezekiel 38–48: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AYB 22B (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018), 230. 35 Propp (Exodus 19–40, 172–73) considers Ibn Ezra’s view to make sense, but he insists that Exod 20:5 may still suggest God also punishes innocent descendants. I disagree. 36 Propp, Exodus 19–40, 610. See also Gowan, Theology in Exodus, 242; Daniel C. Timmer, “God and Nineveh, Jonah and Nahum: Odd Pairs and Coherence in the Twelve,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, November 22, 2010, in Atlanta, GA.

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problem in Micah and Nahum, however, and the latter book sees Exod 34:6–7 as primarily a witness to God’s just wrath against sin. The canonical progression from forgiveness to reckoning is meaningful.37 It fits God’s identity as one who waits for repentance but exercises judgment if a hateful lineage persists in sin. Displeased at God’s forgiveness of Nineveh’s guilt, Jonah claims, probably falsely,38 that the tradition of mercy known from Exod 34:6–7 was what repelled him from confronting the city in the first place. In 4:2 Jonah not only recalls God’s “steadfast love,” but also describes God as “ready to relent from punishing” (‫)ונחם על הרעה‬, the form of the self-revelation poem occurring in Joel 2:13. In using ‫“( ונחם‬relent”) as a punning replacement for ‫“( ונקה‬declare innocent”), Jonah puts all the stress on God’s mercy toward Nineveh while simultaneously obscuring God’s concern with justice. Micah follows Jonah in the canonical order, seconding, in its final, emphatic ending (7:18–20), the theme of God’s character as fundamentally gracious and merciful. To this is added, however, the recognition of God’s wrath at sin that Nah 1:3 will soon stress. Micah 7:18 maintains a balance between forgiving people their iniquity (‫עון‬, CI) and holding them responsible for it (‫עון‬, DI). As Micah concludes, divine chastisement has fallen, leaving only a remnant, but a remnant whom God delights to show clemency. In canonical context, Assyria (see Mic 5:5) is the likely enemy of Judah that has accomplished God’s purging of the people leaving only a remnant (Mic 7:18). The literary figure of Jonah, canonically antecedent to Micah (2 Kgs 14:25), is here partially vindicated. 39 Was not Jonah right to reject clemency for Assyria, since we can certainly assume that prophetic foresight showed him that Assyria would prove an unsafe candidate for God’s rod of anger and chastisement against the Israel of Micah’s day? One of several traditional Jewish interpretations holds that Jonah foresaw what the Assyrians would eventually do to Israel. He fled God’s commission because he could not bear to save the cruelest of Israel’s future enemies.40

37

See Gary Anderson, “Review of Ellen F. Davis, Opening Israel’s Scriptures (Oxford University Press, 2019),” panel discussion at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, November 25, 2019, in San Diego, CA. 38 See Cary, Jonah, 129–31. 39 Jonah proved right in thinking the outcome of his mission would be hurtful to Israel in the long run, allowing Assyria to rise later as a cruelly evil empire. See Cary, Jonah, 128, 133. A Midrashic tradition holds that Nineveh reverted to its wicked ways long before Nahum’s time, only forty days after Jonah’s prophecy had terrified them into repentance. 40 See Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, Volume VI (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1928), 349 n. 27; Baruch A. Levine, “The Place of Jonah in the History of Biblical Ideas,” in On the Way to Nineveh: Studies in Honor of George M. Landes, ed. Stephen L. Cook and S. C. Winter (Atlanta: ASOR, 1999), 202–3. To be clear, affirming

Merciful and Wrathful?

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Reversing the rhetorical trend in Jonah 4:2, Nah 1:3 adds an assertion of God’s might to the self-revelation poem (“slow to anger but great in power,” emphasis mine) and insists on including colon CII of Exod 34:7, “the LORD will by no means clear the guilty.” Although Nah 1:3 emphasizes divine patience and reason in the exercise of wrath, the emphasis is still on wrath. Nahum has furthered the canonical pattern of increasingly emphasizing the limits of God’s patience, which ensure the ultimate triumph of justice. In its canonical context, Nahum’s prophecy against Assyria is not about vengeance and spite, but about God’s determination to squelch evil, especially evil that surfaces perniciously over generations. As all students of the Bible know, Assyria grows as the paradigmatic evil empire as we move from Jonah to Micah to Nahum. Part of God’s mercy is to check the propensity of such evil to resurface repeatedly in a given family, people, or system. In my judgment, Ibn Ezra correctly articulated the canonical meaning of God’s selfrevelation in Exod 34:6–7. God will call to account a hateful lineage. As Cary writes, this is good news: “The arrival of justice is heartening for the afflicted. The LORD does indeed ‘take vengeance on his enemies’ (Nah 1:2) because he is the enemy of all the destroyers of the earth, and he destroys them (Jer 51:25).”41

that this works as a canonical interpretation says nothing about an historical Jonah’s existence or consciousness. 41 Cary, Jonah, 134.

Missing Jonathan The Curious Case of the Neglected Crown Prince in Modern Dramatizations of the David Narrative* Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer 1. Introduction This essay explores the depiction of Jonathan in film dramatizations. Jonathan is one of the key figures in 1 Samuel, appearing throughout 1 Sam 13–14 and 18–20, making a shorter appearance in 1 Sam 23, before his premature death in 1 Sam 31 and in David’s lament in 2 Sam 1:17–27. He is Saul’s son, Israel’s heir apparent, a war hero, and David’s main love interest. Despite this, but also because of this, Jonathan has been persistently and consistently sidelined in films: he has been ignored, replaced, reduced, and made more boring than watching paint dry on a wall. The present study falls into three parts. I shall begin with a brief introduction of the issues pertaining to dramatizing the Bible. I shall then survey a series of representations of the David saga in feature films and TV series. I shall finally analyze the filmmakers’ exegetical decisions and seek to identify the reasons behind their interpretative choices. First, however, a few words of caution. This essay operates in the field of reception history, as it explores the appropriation of Jonathan in recent dramatizations. As such, it is by and large uninterested in the historical realities behind the text of 1 Samuel and in the intent of its authors and redactors. Nonetheless, a homoerotic 1 understanding of Jonathan’s relationship with David should in my view not be ruled out from either a historical 2 or a

1 Whereas the modern term “homosexuality” serves as an umbrella term which includes both sexual orientation, behaviour, and attraction, the term “homoeroticism” focuses on the latter. See Martti Nissinen, Homoeroticism in the Biblical World: A Historical Perspective, trans. Kirsi Stjerna (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1998), 16–17. 2 See Joanna Töyräänvuori, “Homosexuality, the Holiness Code, and Ritual Pollution: A Case of Mistaken Identity,” JSOT 45 (2020): 1–32, who translates Lev 18:22 and 20:13 as “you will not lay the beds of a woman with a man.” Thus, what is forbidden is a ménage à trois, rather than a same-sex relationship.

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literary perspective. 3 This study is furthermore limited in scope. Because most modern filmic depictions of Jonathan are embedded within dramatizations of the David saga, the characterization of Jonathan is thus mostly restricted to his relationship with David. Although Jonathan had a narrative life prior to David’s appearance, his acts in 1 Sam 13–14 are rarely captured on screen. As a result, films rarely convey the full range of Jonathan’s character. Conversely, there is also no “Jonathan narrative” in 1 Samuel; instead, Jonathan often serves as a foil to David, to highlight the latter’s preordained kingship over Israel. As Jobling highlights, “It is hopeless to try to explain Jonathan through standard categories of narrative character…. He represents the extreme case of character being emptied into plot.”4 Consequently, there are striking disparities in the characterization of the biblical Jonathan that preclude the creation of a coherent character.

2. The Bible in Film Films represent interpretations of the Bible and, like all interpretations, they form two-way movements. In one direction, filmmakers allow their own assumptions about the narrative to influence their retelling.5 Seeking to make the story comprehensible for the intended audience, they fill its extant narrative gaps and respond to its theological challenges. The biblical narratives are seldom explicit about a character’s feelings, for example, and films duly fill these blanks to satisfy their viewers’ needs to know what the dramatis personae felt in a given situation. In this process, biblical characters are often “naturalized,” that is, they are aligned with the audience’s expectations and become subject to their (moral) evaluation. They are also often “simplified” – in other words, they lose the complexity which they have in the biblical

3 The debate about the quality and character of Jonathan’s relationship with David is heated and shows no signs of abating. I acknowledge the connotation of “loyalty” of the Hebrew verb “to love,” but maintain that it also has emotional connotations. Cf. Saul Olyan, “‘Surpassing the Love of Women’: Another Look at 2 Samuel 1:26 and the Relationship of David and Jonathan,” in Authorizing Marriage? Canon, Tradition and Critique in the Blessing of Same-Sex Unions, ed. Mark D. Jordan, Meghan T. Sweeney, and David M. Mellott (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), 7–16. Moreover, 1 Sam 18:1–4; 19:1; 20:41–42; and 2 Sam 1:26 together give, in my view, the undeniable impression that this relationship was more important to Jonathan, and probably also to David, than any of the other relationship that they had with other people. 4 David Jobling, 1 Samuel, Berit Olam (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1998), 98. 5 J. Cheryl Exum, Plotted, Shot, and Painted: Cultural Representations of Biblical Women, JSOTSup 215 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1996), 63–64.

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narrative. 6 This “naturalization” is at its strongest when it comes to love. Characters are made to conform to our contemporary expectations and common perceptions about personal relationships. Our presuppositions about what the biblical text is about, or rather what it should be about, are consciously or subconsciously read into the narrative. In films, these presuppositions are amplified in being visualized.7 In the other direction, films affect the way in which we read the biblical text. When we pick up the Bible the next time, the images from the film linger in our minds and influence our appreciation of the biblical story. In short, films not only reflect the views of popular culture but also cement those same views in its memory.8 2.1. King David in Film The David saga appears superficially to have all the required ingredients for an excellent film. It has both a wealth of intriguing and multifaceted characters and an action-packed storyline. Yet, these same features are obstacles when seeking to create a satisfactory dramatization that is also faithful to its biblical sources. The biblical David reflects an “ambiguous sense of sexual morality” and he fails to behave “heroically,”9 often resulting in the omission in films of 1 Sam 27, 29–30 where David fights alongside the Philistines. This dissonance between the actual biblical character and the audience’s expectations of biblical heroes is heightened in Christian dramatizations. McGeough helpfully distinguishes between actual fidelity to the text and the popular notion of a film being “biblically correct,” as expressed by, among other, Timothy Chey, the writer and director of David and Goliath (2015). As we shall see below, Chey’s claim has little to do with accurate presentations of the narratives in 1 Samuel; rather, fidelity to the text is defined in terms of adherence to the (Christian) values of the intended audience.10 As Tollerton highlights, many would argue that the very point of any screen adaptation of the Bible is to offer “lessons in morality” in order to reinforce a “Christian message.”11 “Biblically correct” retellings / “faithful” adaptations are sometimes also expected to offer “typological readings,” whereby events in the

6

Exum, Plotted, 63. Cf. Jonathan Magonet, A Rabbi’s Bible (London: SCM Press, 1991), 84–85; Exum, Plotted, 62. 8 Exum, Plotted, 62–63. 9 Kevin M. McGeough, “The Problem with David: Masculinity and Morality in Biblical Cinema,” Journal of Religion and Film 22 (2018), Article 33, 1. 10 McGeough, “Problem with David,” 5. 11 David Tollerton, “When the Resurrected Biblical Epic Transferred to the Small Screen…and Promptly Died Again: A Critical Autopsy of the 2016 ABC Series Of Prophet and Kings,” in The Bible on Television, ed. Helen K. Bond and Edward Adams, Scriptural Traces 23; LNTS 622 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2020), 252–53. 7

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text should resonate with the target audience and reflect their own contemporary experiences and concerns.12

3. Jonathan in Recent Filmizations Jonathan is my favourite person in the David saga. He is upright, honest, kind, and brave. I am also a romantic at heart and parts of me delight in interpreting Jonathan and David as star-crossed lovers who fall in love against the wishes of their families. Jonathan’s premature death on Mt Gilboa is the icing on the cake, as it symbolizes his ultimate sacrifice: only through his death was he able to pave the way for David to take the throne. Alas, none of the films and TV series devoted to the David saga that I have watched live up to their potential.13 One of the most loquacious men in the Hebrew Bible is systematically muted and the devoted crown prince is pushed into obscurity. As we shall see, this exegetical move is done by means of depriving him of a personality, denying him a (speaking) role, and regularly replacing him with Michal. 3.1. Lack of Personality One of the prevalent ways in which Jonathan has been side-lined by film makers is evidenced by the limited presentation of his character, both in terms of personality and narrative space. The Italian film David and Goliath (1960, orig. Italian title David e Golia), directed by Ferdinando Baldi and Richard Pottier, exemplifies how a main biblical character can be reduced to ten minutes of uninteresting footage. Jonathan and David are seen together practising spear-throwing and fighting Philistines. In contrast to the biblical account, they exchange words on only two occasions, when David does most of the talking, and their discussions are restricted to strategic military matters. There is no talk of love, no making of covenants, and no references to David’s future reign. It is not even clear that the two men are friends. David does not seem to need Jonathan at all, and Jonathan appears oblivious to the fact that David is ordained to succeed his father and the threat that he poses to his own prospects. Overall, this filmization fails to present Jonathan as a coherent character. He is a valiant man lacking depth, rudimentary intelligence, and political astuteness. 12

McGeough, “Problem with David,” 6–7, 10–11. Such a film could not have been produced between 1934 and 1968, i.e., when the Motion Picture Production Code (also known as the Hays Code) was in place. Depictions of homosexual activity fell under the proscription of sexual perversion. See further Chon Noriega, “‘Something’s Missing Here!’: Homosexuality and Film Reviews during the Production Code Era, 1934–1962,” Cinema Journal 30 (1990): 20–41 (22). 13

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The film The Bible – David (1997), directed by Robert Markowitz, follows suit. Although Jonathan is given a fair amount of screen time, he hardly has a speaking role. This fact does not stand out, however, as all the characters in this dramatization are nondescript cardboard figures. I agree with Stiebert’s assessment that the “persistent piety and lack of undertones, nuances and tensions make the film supremely uninteresting to watch.”14 This Jonathan is devoid of character and emotions, evident in all his relationships, including that with David. Instead, his chief characteristic is his loyalty to his father.15 1 Samuel 23:15–18 is omitted from this retelling. Thus, Jonathan never gives up his crown for David, leaving that task to Saul alone (1 Sam 24:21), yet there is also no evidence to suggest that he fights for it. He just trots along after his father in an unquestioning manner, leaving us with the impression of a pious, unexciting, and obedient son. The Story of David (1976), a two-part American television adaptation directed by David Lowell Rich and Alex Segal, gives Jonathan more screen time and more speaking lines. After David’s victory over Goliath, Jonathan and David becomes brothers-in-arms, who are plotting daring schemes together and sharing military success. This Jonathan shows little depth and his friendship with David lacks any emotional overtones. The unique aspect of this film is Jonathan’s acute understanding of Realpolitik: he knows in which direction the wind blows and opts to throw in his lot with David. The film does not venture to speculate why Jonathan chooses not to act more forcefully on this insight beyond seeking to ensure his children’s survival, instead remaining close to the silence of the biblical narrative. 3.2. Lack of a Role Other filmic depictions are more extreme in their disregard of Jonathan by omitting him completely from the storyline. The unmemorable single episode filmization David and Goliath (1978), directed by James L. Conway, serves as a pertinent example, as do the recent films David and Goliath (2015), directed by Timothy Chey, and David and Goliath / David vs. Goliath: Battle of Faith (2016), directed by Wallace Brothers, two filmic travesties that would better be forgotten. Jonathan’s absence is remarkable, not least because the film-makers concurrently opted to expand the role of other characters, among them David’s brothers, who in the biblical narrative play only marginal roles.

14 Johanna Stiebert, “Man and the New Man: David’s Masculinity in Film,” Journal of the Bible and Its Reception 2 (2015): 197–218 (215). 15 Cf. Stiebert, “Man and the New Man,” 213.

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3.3. The Replacing of Jonathan (by Michal) Unfortunately, we need to mention the regrettable David and Goliath and David and Goliath / David vs. Goliath again because they, together with the TV series Of Kings and Prophets (2016), also represent the exegetical decision to replace Jonathan with Michal. The striking parallels are difficult to explain as a case of direct influence due to the close production dates; they instead testify to a broader trend of erasing Jonathan’s role. In the two films, Jonathan is taken out of the plot where he belongs, and Michal is inserted into the plot where she does not belong. The film David and Goliath ends after David’s battle against Goliath with Michal expressing her willingness to be David’s wife, thus effectively erasing Jonathan’s narrative role in 1 Sam 18:1–5. Whereas the biblical Jonathan makes a covenant with David and symbolically hands him the kingdom by giving him his clothes and armour,16 here Michal calls David “king” and provides a way for him to obtain the throne through marriage to her. The 2016 film with the same name likewise features Michal, as the only female character in the entire film, walking around the army camp and talking to David. The TV series Of Kings and Prophets (Episode 3) makes a similar decision. After fighting Goliath, David comments on his new clothes (cf. 1 Sam 18:4), albeit without identifying the giver. Instead, Michal appears, and the two embrace each other passionately. This exegetical move is striking on two levels. From a textual perspective Michal does not appear in 1 Sam 17:1–18:5; from a historical perspective a woman does not belong on a battlefield in the year 1000 BCE. Conversely, Michal is replacing Jonathan who does appear in the biblical text and who, as a warrior (cf. 1 Sam 13–14), does belong on the battlefield. What we are witnessing in these very recent films is a systematic attempt to write Jonathan out of the script. The fact that this trend is not limited to Christian films but found also in Kings and Of Kings and Prophets is remarkable (see further below). Twenty years ago, I would have understood these attempts as part of “a conspiracy of silence”;17 the same appears to be true nowadays. The choice of Michal as Jonathan’s replacement is both understandable and, in a roundabout way, also inspired by the biblical text. 18 There is a

16 Cf. Ora Horn Prouser, “Suited to the Throne: The Symbolic Use of Clothing in the David and Saul Narratives,” JSOT 71 (1996): 27–37 (29–30, 34); Francesca Aran Murphy, 1 Samuel, BTCB (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2010), 186. 17 Cf. Noriega, “Something’s Missing,” 22–25, of the erasure/alterations of homosexual characters from dramatization of plays and novels. 18 From a redaction-critical perspective, Ina Willi-Plein, “ISam 18–19 und die Davidshausgeschichte,” in David und Saul im Widerstreit: Diachronie und Synchronie im Wettstreit: Beitrage zur Auslegung des ersten Samuelbuches, ed. Walter Dietrich, OBO

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strong affinity between Jonathan’s and Michal’s role in 1 Sam 18–19: both siblings love David, both are instrumental in saving him, and both become traitors to their father’s house through their allegiance to him. Yet, in contrast to these films, in the Bible it is Jonathan who supplants Michal.19 After 1 Sam 19, Michal fades into the background, while Jonathan deepens his relationship with David in scene after scene until his death. 3.4. An Ambivalent Relationship Only two films, the Italian David and Saul (1964), directed by Marcello Baldi, and the American King David (1985), directed by Bruce Beresford, portray a Jonathan that comes relatively close to the man found in 1 Sam 18 and 20, whose soul is knit to David’s soul, who loves him like himself (1 Sam 18:1, 3), and whose love David treasured more than the love of women (2 Sam 1:26). In these films, David appears rather feminine with Jonathan looking longingly at him and/or placing his arm around him on a regular basis. These two films are “queer-coded” insofar as they betray homoerotic undercurrents. Those viewers familiar with the reception history of Jonathan and David note the hints, whereas the larger audience may miss them.20 The Italian film, David and Saul, as the title suggests, pays close attention to Saul and David’s relationship. As films go, this one is not bad. It stays close to the biblical narrative with few omissions and additions. Notably, it retells 1 Sam 20:1–24, including a Jonathan riding frantically to find David and the two men embracing. At the same time, the dynamic between Jonathan and David has been altered, insofar as the filmic David has all the agency and authority while Jonathan defers to him. David bosses Jonathan around, telling him to “come” and “leave the horse,” leaving Jonathan to ask David what to do. The film proceeds by offering a toned-down version of the banquet scene of 1 Sam 20:25–34. Saul’s curses are milder than their biblical counterparts, as is Jonathan’s defence of David. Yet, Saul’s use of the word “friend,” uttered with a certain emphasis, implies that, from Saul’s perspective, 206 (Fribourg: Academic; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004), 138–71 (159–65), argues for the primacy of the Michal material. 19 Scholars have discussed the parallels between the two characters from multiple perspectives. See, e.g., Susan Ackerman, When Heroes Love: The Ambiguity of Eros in the Stories of Gilgamesh and David (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 177– 81; Exum, Fragmented Women, 45–56; Jobling, 1 Samuel, 162; Ken Stone, “Queer Reading between Bible and Film: Paris is Burning and the ‘Legendary Houses’ of David and Saul,” in Bible Trouble: Queer Reading at the Boundaries of Biblical Scholarship, ed. Teresa J. Hornsby and Ken Stone, SemeiaSt 67 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011), 75–98 (84–85). 20 For the two-way movement between reception history and biblical exegesis, see James E. Harding, “David and Jonathan between Athens and Jerusalem,” Relegere: Studies in Religion and Reception 1 (2011): 37–92 (47).

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Jonathan’s devotion to David goes beyond friendship. In contrast, the film lacks an equivalence to 1 Sam 20:35–43, meaning that we do not see the two men crying and kissing together. Turning to King David (1985), Jonathan is presented, in a nuanced manner, as torn between his concern with his father’s growing madness and his emotional attachment to David. It is one of the few dramatizations that contains a retelling of 1 Sam 18:1–5, albeit in a rather covert fashion. After David’s decapitation of Goliath, Jonathan wraps a blanket around the shoulders of the stunned young David, a rather free interpretation of 1 Sam 18:4 that nonetheless strongly indicates his care for him. In line with the biblical evidence, Jonathan appears far more attached to David than the other way around.21 The scene when they drive into Gibeah on a chariot is significant as it betrays their divergent feelings for one another. Whereas Jonathan is looking at David, David is looking at Michal. This distinction is deepened in the following wedding scene. David, when asked by Michal about his relationship with her brother, declares firmly that they love each other like brothers. In contrast, Jonathan looks serious and sad during the wedding ceremony, only later to flip the other way and tell stories of his and David’s military adventures to a captivated audience. His father, however, sees through Jonathan’s forced joie de vivre, throws his spear at him, and declares that neither father nor son are safe as long as David lives. David has robbed Saul of everything: his God, his people, and now his children. What is left is his crown. Jonathan retorts that David is an innocent man who has done nothing wrong (1 Sam 20:30–32). The film then conflates all of 1 Sam 19–20 into a single event. Jonathan, rather than Michal, helps David flee Gibeah. In a poignant scene, they take a heartfelt farewell, at which point David asks Jonathan to come with him on his flight (contra 1 Sam 20:41–43). Jonathan declines: although he is bound by his “covenant of friendship” with David and confesses his willingness to lay down his life for him, his allegiance must remain with his father out of 21 Several scholars highlight the apparent imbalance between Jonathan’s love for David and David’s (lack of) feelings in return. See, e.g., Orly Keren, “David and Jonathan: A Case of Unconditional Love?,” JSOT 37 (2012): 3–33 (8–9); Francis Landy, “Irony and Catharsis in Biblical Poetry: David’s Lament over Saul and Jonathan (2 Sam. 1.19–27),” European Judaism 15 (1981): 3–13 (8–9). Other scholars emphasize David and Jonathan’s mutual affection. See, e.g., Barbara Green, How Are the Mighty Fallen? A Dialogical Study of King Saul in 1 Samuel, JSOTSup 365 (London/New York: Sheffield Academic, 2003), 443; Diana Abernethy, “The Heir of Saul: Jonathan’s Life and Death in Theological Perspective,” in Characters and Characterization in the Book of Samuel, ed. Keith Bodner and Benjamin J. M. Johnson, LHBOTS 669 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2019), 139–56 (152); Walter Dietrich, Historiographie und Erzählkunst in den Samuelbüchern, Studien zu den Geschichtsüberlieferungen des Alten Testaments III; BWANT 221 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2019), 309–10.

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honour. David has God; Saul has nobody (but Jonathan himself). In this depiction, David reciprocates Jonathan’s love / friendship. The scene ends with Jonathan standing alone and forlorn, with tears in his eyes, staring after David into the dusk. Their mutual affection is reaffirmed in the final scene of the film, which features David on his deathbed, remembering Jonathan. 3.5. Jonathan and David as Enemies and Competitors It is not an exaggeration to claim that Jonathan’s behaviour, in siding with David against his father and his house, is counterintuitive. Men do not normally give up their throne for another man and certainly not for an upstart. Keren, for example, doubts that Jonathan, when seeing David taking his own place step-by-step (1 Sam 16–17), would not hate him.22 Jonathan’s seemingly illogical love for David brings us to Kings (2009) and, albeit to a lesser extent, Of Kings and Prophets (2016), two TV series that depict an alternative Jonathan. Beginning with Kings, by far the more intelligent retelling of the two, the audience encounters a modern retelling of 1 Sam 16–26, set in the fictional kingdom of Gilboa and its capital Shiloh. Jack (Jonathan) is the crown prince and son of Gilboa’s King Silas Benjamin (Saul). Its take on Jonathan is psychologically plausible. The portrait of Jonathan alternates between being a faithful interpretation of the biblical persona and its complete opposite. Jack is a multifaceted, often weak, and ultimately deeply tragic figure, torn between his loyalty to his father and his longing to be himself. He is jealous of David and sees him (correctly) as a rival for both his father’s love and his succession to the throne. Jack is also highly emotional, wearing his heart on his sleeve, in contrast to David who keeps his cards close to his chest. This retelling emphasizes and develops the difficult relationship between Jack and Silas, hinted at time and again in the biblical narrative (1 Sam 14:29–30; 20:30–34; 22:8). Jack is playing a double role. His public persona is that of a playboy, a role which he plays with gusto in front of the press. In private, however, he is gay, which has caused a deep rift between him and his father. In Episode 1, setting the stage for the series as a whole, Silas cruelly tells Jack that while he can do what he wants in his private life, in public he had better marry if he wants to succeed him to the throne: “If you were my second son, I wouldn’t care, but for a king it’s not possible…. You cannot be what God made you, not if you mean to take my place.” In parallel, Jack’s relationship with David deepens, from being one characterized by jealousy and lack of trust to one of grudging respect. It culminates in a very powerful scene in the penultimate episode, fittingly called “Javelin” (cf. 1 Sam 20:33). In line with the biblical narrative in 20:27–34, Jack turns 22

Keren, “David and Jonathan,” 9.

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the tables and sides with David against his father’s false accusations of David. Silas lashes out in anger at Jack and in a brilliant recapture of 20:30 screams at him that he is “a faggot and a traitor.”23 He and David are both traitors and should be thrown in jail. David, shocked, finally accepts that Silas has lied to him again and again. In contrast to his biblical counterpart who saw through Saul from the beginning of the chapter, David here turns out to be the more guileless of the two.24 In the final episode, however, David rejects Jack’s gift of friendship and allegiance. The biblical Jonathan swore to stand by David against his father Saul. Here, Jack saves David from being executed by a firing squad and offers him the position of his second-in-command, in an inverted reference to 1 Sam 23:17, only to have David betray him by begging a wounded Silas to return to Shiloh and prevent Jack from seizing the crown. Turning to Of Kings and Prophets, Jonathan and David are not portrayed as friends; rather they are enemies who respect each another. Jonathan acts on David’s behalf because he seeks to do what is objectively right. No emotions for David motivate his actions; like Jack in Kings, Jonathan here saves David because he does not want an innocent man to be wrongfully killed. In parallel, this Jonathan stays loyal to his father Saul throughout the series. His statement that he acted for David, not against Saul, represents his approach well. Turning to Saul, his views of his eldest son are both insightful and confused. Being deeply suspicious of David, Saul assumes that David has some strange hold over Jonathan and regards him as a traitor. On the one hand, this portrayal of Jonathan is fully in line with the biblical narrative. Saul’s decision in Of Kings and Prophets to throw Jonathan in prison is the logical extension of Saul’s accusations against Jonathan in 1 Sam 20:30, and Saul’s command that Jonathan kill David is a natural interpretation of his order in 1 Sam 19:1. Jonathan’s decision in Of Kings and Prophets to prevent the assassination of Saul is likewise both an addition to the biblical narrative and an emphatic recapture of the biblical Jonathan as Saul’s most loyal man. Father and son, in the TV series and in the Bible, do not have an easy relationship, yet for Jonathan to abandon his father is never an option. On the other hand, the depiction of Jonathan in Of Kings and Prophets has kept only the political nuance of “love” which is present in the biblical text. David and Jonathan are not friends, let alone lovers. On occasion, they are comrades-in-arms, but their military collaboration is portrayed as a reluctant partnership. The TV series has removed all references to the biblical Jonathan 23 For a related understanding of 1 Sam 20:30, see Yaron Peleg, “Love at First Sight? David, Jonathan, and the Biblical Politics of Gender,” JSOT 30 (2005): 171–89 (184–85). 24 Murphy, Samuel, 200–201, aptly calls 1 Sam 20 a “sleeper episode” where no action takes place, yet the reader can observe the characters realizing things about themselves. Here, Jonathan ultimately must face the fact that David is more important than his family.

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and David’s multiple covenants, as well as any display of emotion between the two men. Then again, this Jonathan is depicted as a dispassionate man in every respect, exemplified by his considerate but impassive behaviour towards his wife. Furthermore, the viewer soon begins to wonder what drives Jonathan to save David again and again. Although Jonathan is never portrayed as looking longingly at David (contrast King David), Saul’s insistence that David has a strange hold over him causes the viewer to search for it, and to wonder about Jonathan’s motivations. Is he as detached as he appears or is there more to his loyalty to David than the dispassionate goal of saving a good man? Overall, the character of Jonathan leaves the audience confused because we do not understand what makes him tick. Their final scene together, where David calls Jonathan “brother” for the first time, ultimately resolves nothing. Jonathan expresses his disappointment in David and concomitantly his conviction that David is God’s chosen king. They begin to fight but end up battling the oncoming Philistines side-by-side instead, until Jonathan dies. The audience is left wondering what to make of it all.

4. Discussion: Jonathan versus Bathsheba How should we interpret the silencing of Jonathan and his relegation to the side-lines that we have observed in film after film? A comparison with the way that Bathsheba is treated in dramatizations highlights the issue well. 4.1. A Question of Narrative Space Jonathan speaks more than most people in the David narrative, to the point that many readers of 1 Sam 20 may secretly wish for him to shut up. In contrast, Bathsheba is given a mere eight verses of speech (2 Sam 11:6; 1 Kgs 1:17–21; 2:20–21). The wealth of words uttered by Jonathan and meagre amount uttered by Bathsheba makes it, from a purely statistical perspective, wholly unfair to give Bathsheba whole feature films whereas Jonathan sometimes hardly gets to open his mouth.25 Likewise, again speaking statistically, the very fact that David expresses his love for Jonathan (2 Sam 1:26), cries with him (1 Sam 20:41), enters multiple covenants with him (18:3; 20:42; 23:18), and simply spends a lot of time with him throughout the narrative, makes David’s relationship with Bathsheba pale in comparison. If affection is measured solely by narrative space, then the biblical David had a far deeper relationship with Jonathan than with Bathsheba. Nonetheless, Bathsheba plays a leading role in film after film, David and Bathsheba (1951), directed by Henry King, being just the tip of the iceberg. 25

Cf. Stiebert, “Man and New Man,” 216.

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4.2. A Question of Sin The fact that Jonathan is downplayed is also understandable, insofar as filmmakers apparently assumed that David’s adultery (and of course his subsequent murder) was far less of a problem than David’s homoeroticism. Put differently, David can be flawed but only in a straight way. Furthermore, his adultery with Bathsheba can be included because Nathan berates David for his actions, with the result that the intended audience is informed in no uncertain terms of the seriousness of his crime. Yet, to complicate the picture, filmmakers often modify the exact nature of David’s crime to make David more heroic. Whereas the biblical Nathan accuses David of murder and theft (taking Bathsheba, Uriah’s property, 2 Sam 12:9),26 and the biblical David prefers Uriah to assume paternity of the unborn child (2 Sam 11:8–11),27 most dramatizations emphasize David’s adultery (in line with Ps 51:1) and portray David as desiring Bathsheba for a wife from the outset.28 In parallel, many filmic retellings change the story in other ways. Commonly, films introduce an element of complicity into the portrayal of Bathsheba (e.g., David and Bathsheba). This exegetical move, which belies Bathsheba’s passive role in 2 Sam 11:2–4, helps to exonerate David.29 Another frequent strategy to lessen David’s guilt is to portray Uriah negatively: he is a cold, law-obsessed man in David and Bathsheba, a wife-beater in King David, and a dolt who does not understand Bathsheba in The Bible – David.30 David’s relationship with Jonathan, however, must be altered for completely different reasons. The filmmakers presumably felt that the target audience would not appreciate a homoerotic David, as this would not tally with their idea of a male hero.31 Jonathan is thus altered to conform to modern expectations regarding David’s sexuality: Jonathan cannot have had a same-sex relationship with David because it is felt to be incompatible with David’s presumed love for his wives. From a different angle, taking the predominantly Christian target audience of these films into account, the filmmakers must consider recent fundamentalist attempts to re-masculinize

26 See, e.g., Sara M. Koenig, Isn’t This Bathsheba: A Study in Characterization, Princeton Theological Monograph (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2011), 68. 27 See discussion in Koenig, Isn’t This Bathsheba, 52–55, with cited bibliography. 28 McGeough, “Problem with David,” 33; Exum, Plotted, 48–49. 29 McGeough, “Problem with David,” 34–43; Exum, Plotted, 50. See also Sara M. Koenig, Bathsheba Survives (London: SCM Press, 2019), 111–12, for the more nuanced treatment of Bathsheba in The Bible: Miniseries. 30 See, e.g., Stiebert, “Man and New Man,” 206, 211, 214. 31 David J. A. Clines, Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible, JSOTSup 205; Gender, Culture, Theory 1 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1995), 241–43.

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religion, which push for a more militant and assertive masculinity.32 A film which presents a Jonathan who willingly lays down his crown at David’s feet for love, regardless of whether this love is sexual in nature or not, is not in line with the masculine ideals favoured by these groups. The filmmakers’ conundrum constitutes a double bind. David’s relationship with Bathsheba was, on the one hand, something that is clearly condemned by the biblical text and, on the other hand, something to which the audience could relate. After all, many would argue that lusting after a beautiful woman is a normal thing for a (masculine) man to do. In parallel, David is to be admired through his repentance.33 As Clines observes, “David’s success in repentance becomes more important than his failure in sin, so even his failure becomes an arena of his success.” The biblical David thus resonates well with modern (male) readers. David’s combined adultery and repentance become signs of his masculinity and thus traits to be admired.34 The situation of David’s relationship with Jonathan is much more complex. On the one hand, many in the intended modern audience would maintain that a close homoerotic relationship is not an appropriate thing for men to have. On the other hand, no biblical character, except for Saul, seems to be affronted by David and Jonathan’s love for one another. Saul’s outburst against Jonathan in 1 Sam 20:30, however, is not simply a sign of his unambiguous disapproval of homoeroticism, even if that may have played a part as evidenced by his choice of curse;35 rather Saul’s rage stems from his own fear of David and his hurt at Jonathan’s filial and political betrayal. Ackerman has argued that the authors of Samuel feminize Jonathan to render him unsuitable for the throne.36 Other scholars, however, have demonstrated convincingly that both men are depicted as very masculine men. Moreover, the notion of a close relationship between two warriors of equal standing might, in fact, have affirmed David’s masculinity to the original readers. 37 For instance, David’s lament for Jonathan fits the genre of the ancient epic sagas where the (greater) hero laments the death of the (less 32 Susan E. Haddox, “Masculinity Studies of the Hebrew Bible: The First Two Decades,” CBR 14 (2016): 176–206 (177). 33 Susan E. Haddox, “Is There a “Biblical Masculinity”? Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible,” Word & World 36 (2016): 5–14 (13), highlights how masculinity in the Hebrew Bible itself involves submission to God. 34 Clines, Interested Parties, 237–38. 35 There is no scholarly consensus regarding the meaning of Saul’s curse in v. 30. See further Silvia Schroer and Thomas Staubli, “Saul, David and Jonathan – The Story of a Triangle? A Contribution to the Issue of Homosexuality in the First Testament,” in Samuel and Kings, ed. Athalya Brenner, FCB (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998), 26–36 (29– 30); Nissinen, Homoeroticism, 55–56; Jobling, 1 Samuel, 178–79. 36 Ackerman, When Heroes Love, 218–27. 37 Clines, Interested Parties, 224, 241–42.

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heroic) man. In this way, the Deuteronomistic History inscribes David into this “very prestigious matrix of male heroism,” to the point that the theme “love-between-two-heroic men” becomes the Leitmotif in the story of David.38 Further, if indeed one of the two men is supposed to be more feminine than the other, it is actually David.39 Rowe argues that Jonathan’s very masculinity gives him the narrative role of a “proto-David.” He, and nobody else, can legitimately transfer the kingdom to David.40 Given this positive evaluation of David and Jonathan’s relationship in the Bible itself, the filmmaker cannot use any part of the David saga to tell the intended audience that there is anything wrong with David and Jonathan’s relationship. The preferred choice then becomes to tone it down, omit it completely, and in some cases also replace Jonathan with Michal, the suitable woman. An additional consideration is the matter of genre. Intimate male friendships, albeit the staple of some film genres, seldom play a big role in historical drama.41 They also do not translate well from their original, ancient Near East setting to a modern audience. Accepting, for the sake of argument, that the relationship between the biblical Jonathan and David was purely platonic, in line with Mesopotamian and later Classic literary depiction of an ideal and intimate relationship between two young, beautiful warriors of equal societal standing, modern viewers would nonetheless conclude that such a relationship was sexual when depicted on screen, given the associated hugs, kisses, and tender exchanges of love. Thus, every faithful adaptation of the relationship between Jonathan and David would be understood by contemporary viewers in terms of homosexuality for the simple reason that heterosexual men in the West do not behave in such a manner towards one another. 4.3. A Matter of Masculinity It can be argued that a film can have only one leading man and that David must possess that role. It is a classic Catch-22. On the one hand, a brave and masculine Jonathan would lessen David’s masculinity by comparison and association; on the other hand, a loving Jonathan may render David (or Jonathan) more feminine and thus would also lessen David’s masculinity.42 38

Milena Kirova, “When Real Men Cry: The Symbolism of Weeping in the Torah and the Deuteronomistic History,” in Biblical Masculinities Foregrounded, ed. Ovidu Creangǎ and Peter-Ben Smit, HBM 62 (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2014), 35–50 (39–41). 39 Stone, “Queer Reading,” 88–89; Jonathan Rowe, “Is Jonathan Really David’s ‘Wife’? A Response to Yaron Peleg,” JSOT 34 (2009): 183–93 (189–91); contra Peleg, “Love at First Sight,” 181. 40 Rowe, “Is Jonathan Really?,” 191. 41 McGeough, “Problem with David,” 22–23. 42 Cf. Stiebert, “Man and New Man,” 216.

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The easiest three options are therefore, as we have observed, (1) to remove Jonathan completely, (2) to render him so uninteresting that he does not endanger David’s position, or (3) to give elements of his narrative role to a woman, a move which not only enhances David’s own masculinity in the eyes of the modern audience but also reduces any threat to it. The matter of David’s masculinity comes to the fore in the rendering of David’s lament (2 Sam 1:19–27). The two films in which I detected “queer coding,” David and Saul and King David, omit either all or parts of 2 Sam 1:26, presumably to ensure that the audience would not gain the “wrong” impression of Jonathan and David’s relationship. A viewer who is unfamiliar with the biblical text may fail to notice this omission, resulting again in a diminished Jonathan. Only in David and Bathsheba can David cry for Jonathan and the lament be cited in full. Following Stiebert, this faithful retelling can be done safely because David’s own masculinity in this film is beyond doubt. This impression may be due to the actor’s, Gregory Peck, own masculinity; or the much-expanded role of Bathsheba; or even the expectations of the intended audience in the 1950s. Yet, in my view, the threat is removed by the retrospective glance of the film. Jonathan is dead and thus invisible. He has no lines and does not appear, and thus never threatens David’s position as the central hero and hegemonic male of the epic.

5. Conclusion In this essay, we have identified the ways in which modern dramatizations have curtailed the character of Jonathan and explored possible reasons for this exegetical move. Here, in the conclusion, let us return to the claim, made at the beginning of this study, that interpretation is a two-way road. How do these dramatizations alter our appreciation of the biblical text? Jonathan is a pivotal character in David’s ascent to the throne but also its chief victim. He “does not make sense” as a character unless he is made to react to David with either love or jealousy. The need for emotions is inadvertently highlighted by those films that omit them. The viewer of David and Goliath (1960) and The Bible – David (1997), where Jonathan is reduced to a two-dimensional cardboard figure, is encouraged to overlook Israel’s crown prince from the succession – such a non-charismatic character could never rule Israel – and instead to regard David’s rise to power as the natural course of events. For different reasons, the watcher of Of Kings and Prophets (2016) does not warm to the upright but impassive Jonathan, and thus is likely, likewise, to conclude that he is not a suitable heir to the throne. In contrast, the only truly interesting portrayal is that of the alternative Jonathan in Kings. This counterexample, however, also highlights the problem: Jonathan needs to respond emotionally to David to be a cohesive character. In this

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dramatization, Jonathan responds with jealousy, the most natural response. The other option, favoured by the biblical narrative, is a Jonathan who responds with love. Coming full circle, a close analysis of the largely unsatisfactory depictions of Jonathan in film dramatizations, from which all emotional nuances extant in the biblical text have been removed, has made me realize that only a homoerotic reading of the biblical text results in an internally consistent Jonathan who makes psychological and narrative sense.43 It is insufficient to claim that Jonathan’s love is a matter of loyalty. Yes, Jonathan is loyal to David; yet any adequate interpretation needs to be able to explain why that is so.

43 Cf. Jobling, 1 Samuel, 164. Jobling poignantly emphasizes that for this reading, Jonathan “will have to die.” There is no role for him left once David has taken the throne.

The Abominable Image ‫ גלולים‬and the Theo-political Roots of Idolatry in Ezekiel

Margaret S. Odell One of the lasting gifts of form criticism has been its emphasis on interpreting typical literary patterns and forms of speech as products of sociohistorical settings. As biblical criticism has evolved over the past century, this emphasis has remained a constant reminder that even as texts invite new interpretations in ever changing contexts, they also remain tethered to an originating setting in life. Marvin Sweeney’s work over a long and distinguished career is a testimony to both developments in the discipline. This modest offering in celebration of Marvin’s contributions to scholarship reflects my own interest in situating the meaning of biblical texts in their broader Near Eastern context. For nearly a decade now, I have been puzzling over a consensus in Ezekiel studies that for me has become a crux – the proper denotation of ‫גלולים‬. The noun is rare: it occurs in the Hebrew Bible only forty-nine times, thirty-nine times in Ezekiel alone, all in late preexilic and postexilic texts.1 Though it is by no means restricted to cultic contexts, its association with other pejorative terms associated with idolatry has led to the conclusion that it denotes idols. So, for example, in his own discussion of the term’s etymology, Moshe Greenberg observes that its “constant pairing with opprobrious terms for idols (e.g., Deut 29:16; Jer 50:2; Ezek 30:13) defines the term adequately.”2 Whether it was coined by Ezekiel or already in use is a matter of some debate; in any case, the consensus that the term denotes idols is widely attested not only in modern language translations but also in

H. D. Preuss, “‫ גלולים‬gillûlîm,” TDOT 3:1–5; Daniel Bodi, “Les gillûlîm chez Ézéchiel et dans l’ancien Testament, et les différentes pratiques associées à ce terme,” RB 100 (1993): 481–510; John F. Kutsko, Between Heaven and Earth: Divine Presence and Absence in the Book of Ezekiel, BJSUCSD 7 (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2000), 32– 35; Tova Ganzel, “The Concept of Holiness in the Book of Ezekiel” (PhD diss., Bar-Ilan University, 2004 [Hebrew]), 25–26, and Appendix 1. Ganzel’s work was not available to me. 2 Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 22 (New York: Doubleday, 1983), 132. 1

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commentaries positing this meaning, often with little or no critical comment or discussion.3 This consensus would appear to be incontrovertible, at least as far as the book of Ezekiel is concerned. The ‫ גלולים‬appear among illicit cult installations in the oracle against the mountains of Israel (6:4, 5, 6, 9, 13), as objects of the elders’ veneration in the vision of temple abominations (8:10), and in conjunction with Jerusalem’s defiling sacrifice of her children (16:36; 23:39; see also 23:7, 20, 27, 49). They are included in references to cultic and moral aberration (18:6, 12, 15; 33:25), compromise the elders’ devotion to YHWH (14:3, 4, 5, 6, 7; cf. 8:10), and, finally, are identified as the cause of Jerusalem’s downfall (22:3, 4). Indeed, they are the stumbling blocks throughout the long history of Israel’s rebellion against YHWH’s statutes and ordinances (20:7, 8, 16, 18, 24, 31, 39), the central obstacle to YHWH’s claim to be their king (20:32–33). Until people and land are cleansed of them (36:18, 25; 37:23), the Temple safeguarded from their defiling presence (44:10, 12), YHWH cannot return. The only possible denotation of ‫ גלולים‬would appear, then, to be idols. On closer examination of Ezekiel’s usage, however, it becomes evident that the settings in which the ‫ גלולם‬appear are not solely cultic in nature. The allegories of Ezek 16 and 23, which draw heavily on the Mesopotamian vassal treaty tradition, are a case in point. As others have shown, the punishments meted out to the two sisters Samaria and Jerusalem are clearly recognizable as the execution of treaty curses for breach of covenant.4 Within the 3

In addition to the discussion of Greenberg cited above, critical discussions of the term

‫ גלולים‬appear, for example, in the following commentaries: Leslie C. Allen, Ezekiel 1–19,

WBC 28 (Dallas, TX: Word, 1994), 87; Daniel I. Block, The Book of Ezekiel, Chapters 1– 24, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 226; and Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, Chapters 1–24, trans. Ronald E. Clements, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 187. Commentaries adopting the denotation of idols for ‫ גלולים‬without critical discussion include, among others, Walther Eichrodt, Ezekiel: A Commentary, trans. Cosslett Quin, OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1970), 94; Ronald M. Hals, Ezekiel, FOTL 19 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 40; Paul Joyce, Ezekiel, A Commentary, LHBOTS 482 (London/New York: T&T Clark, 2008); Steven Tuell, Ezekiel, NIBC (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2009), 32. My own earlier work reflects this scholarly consensus. Margaret S. Odell, Ezekiel, SHBC (Macon: Smyth & Helwys, 2005), 80. See also Jill Middlemas, “Transformation of the Image,” in Transforming Visions: Transformations of Text, Tradition, and Theology in Ezekiel, ed. William A. Tooman and Michael Lyons (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 2010), 113–36, esp. 118, 120, 126. 4 See, in particular, Peggy L. Day, “Adulterous Jerusalem’s Imagined Demise: Death of a Metaphor in Ezekiel xvi,” VT 50 (2000): 285–309; eadem, “The Bitch Had it Coming to Her: Rhetoric and Interpretation in Ezekiel 16,” BibInt 8 (2000): 231–54. Feminist treatments of these allegories beginning with Julie Galambush’s Jerusalem in the Book of Ezekiel: The City as Yahweh’s Wife, SBLDS 130 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992) have shed

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framework of the allegories, the sisters’ lovers are the treaty partners they have sought out and then rebelled against; in both allegories, ‫ גלולים‬figure prominently in connection with the lovers, occurring once in ch. 16 (v. 36) and five times in ch. 23 (vv. 7, 30, 37, 39, 49). Although critics often treat these terms as references to the nations’ gods, syntax and function would suggest a closer connection between them and the lovers; indeed, in at least one instance, they are virtually interchangeable with the lovers, as if lovers and ‫ גלולים‬are synonymous terms (Ezek 23:30). Despite this unusual congruence of identity, the consensus position that the ‫ גלולים‬are idols leads critics to overlook the possibility that they function as iconographic representations of Judean vassalage. This essay seeks to address that lack. By tracing the meaning of the term to Mesopotamian iconographic practice, I will show how the term ‫ גלולים‬came to displace a more normative term for the royal image (ṣalmu), a widely attested feature of Mesopotamian royal iconography designed to legitimate and assert the suzerain’s claim to absolute allegiance. My intent is not to deny the fact of Israelite apostasy, in which the ‫ גלולים‬are fully implicated, but to clarify their referent, and thereby to understand more clearly what has come to be called idolatry in the book of Ezekiel. I take as a starting point Johan Lust’s 2008 analysis of the Septuagint translation of ‫גלולים‬.5 Noting that the translators employed εἴδωλα for the term only ten of the thirty-nine times in which it appears in Ezekiel and only in contexts in which a cult object was implied, Lust argued that idol, in the sense of divine image, was not the term’s standard equivalent.6 He also underscored a fact long evident in Greek lexica but overlooked in the etymological discussions of Hebrew ‫גלולים‬, that while εἴδωλα did denote images or likenesses, pre-LXX usage did not associate the noun with divine images.7 considerable light on these two difficult chapters. For gender analysis, see especially Cynthia R. Chapman, The Gendered Language of Warfare in the Israelite Assyrian Encounter, HSM 62 (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2004), ch. 4; eadem, “Sculpted Warriors: Sexuality and the Sacred in the Assyrian Palace Reliefs and in Ezekiel 23:14–17,” in The Aesthetics of Violence in the Prophets, ed. Julia M. O’Brien and Chris Franke, LHBOTS 517 (London/New York: T&T Clark, 2010), 1–17; and Christl M. Maier, Daughter Zion, Mother Zion: Gender, Space, and the Sacred in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008), 117–33. For postcolonial theory combined with trauma theory, see Gale A. Yee, Poor Banished Children of Eve: Woman as Evil in the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 111–34; and Corrine L. Patton, “‘Should Our Sister Be Treated like a Whore?’: A Response to Feminist Critiques of Ezekiel 23,” in The Book of Ezekiel: Theological and Anthropological Perspectives, ed. Margaret S. Odell and John T. Strong, SBLSymS 9 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000), 221–38. 5 Johan Lust, “Idols? ‫ גלולם‬and ΕΙΔΩΛΑ in Ezekiel,” in Florilegium Lovaniense: Studies in Septuagint and Textual Criticism in Honour of Florentino García Martínez, ed. H. Ausloos, B. Lemmelijn, and M. Vervenne, BETL 224 (Leuven: Peeters, 2008), 317–33. 6 Lust, “Idols?,” 318–19. 7 Lust, “Idols?,” 318–19.

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Pointing out that the translator resorted to a handful of synonyms for “evil thoughts,” “inventions,” “customs,” and “practices” for the remaining occurrences in Ezekiel,8 Lust concluded that ‫ גלולים‬had a much broader meaning than idol. In my view, Lust has convincingly challenged the consensus that ‫ גלולים‬denotes idols. However, since he stopped short of explaining how the translator could have rendered the same term in two distinct ways – as an object, on one hand, and as a set of practices and vain imaginings, on the other – he has drawn attention to yet another layer of difficulty to the problem. By situating the emergence of the term in the specific socio-historic context of Judean vassalage, I believe this puzzle can be resolved. Walther Zimmerli had asked whether the term’s occurrence in late preexilic and exilic texts hinted at the period of Josiah’s reform as the moment when it was first coined.9 While our all-too-modern tendency to separate religious and political spheres of life from one another leads us to think of Josiah’s reform as primarily a religious one, Zimmerli’s question implicitly reminds us that Josiah’s innovations were theo-political in nature, occurring as they did amid massive political upheavals in the late seventh and early sixth centuries. It is well known that the covenant language of Deuteronomy draws heavily on the Assyrian vassal treaty tradition. Ezekiel’s extensive treatment of Zedekiah’s covenant with Nebuchadnezzar in ch. 17 provides primary evidence that the Judean experience of vassalage did not end with Josiah’s reforms. Moreover, it attests to the deeply theo-political dimensions of that practice.10 By Ezekiel’s account, Zedekiah’s rebellion against Babylon was never merely 8 εἴδωλα: Ezek 6:4, 6, 13 [×2]; 8:10; 18:12; 23:39; 36:25; 37:23; 44:12; ἐνθuμήματα, “evil thoughts, inventions”: Ezek 14:5, 7; 16:36; 18:6, 15; 20:16, 24, 31; 22:3, 4; 23:7, 30, 37, 49; 24:14; 44:10; ἐπιτηδεύματα, “habits”: 6:9; 14:6; 20:7, 8, 18, 39 [×2]; διανοήματα, “sick whims, thoughts”: 14:3, 4; διάνοια mind, “inclination”: 14:4; μεγιστάν, “person of nobility” (30:13); all as cited by Lust (Lust, “Idols?,” 319). In addition, Lust notes that Ezek 6:5 and 36:25 are not attested in the Old Greek translation, and therefore were not yet reflected in the Vorlage (319, 321, 328). Ezekiel 30:13 is a textual crux, and it is not certain whether the underlying Hebrew is ‫( גלולים‬330). For text-critical treatments of Ezek 30:13, see Leslie C. Allen, Ezekiel 20–48, WBC 29 (Dallas: Word, 1990), 113 n. 13a; Daniel I. Block, The Book of Ezekiel, Chapters 25–48, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 163 n. 63; Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 21–37: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 22A (New York: Doubleday, 1997), 620, 624–25; and Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel 2: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, Chapters 25–48, trans. James D. Martin, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), 125 n. 13b. 9 Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 187. 10 For the evidentiary value of Ezek 17 for reconstructing the ancient Near Eastern history of treaty making, see Matitiahu Tsevat, “The Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Vassal Oaths and the Prophet Ezekiel,” JBL 78 (1959): 201; and Hayim Tadmor, “Treaty and Oath in the Ancient Near East: A Historian’s Approach,” in Humanizing America’s Iconic Book: Society of Biblical Literature Centennial Addresses 1980, ed. Gene M. Tucker and Douglas A. Knight, BSNA 6 (Chico: Scholars Press, 1982), 152.

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political, since he had sworn allegiance to Nebuchadnezzar in YHWH’s name (17:13, 16, 18, esp. 19). Given the close association of the ‫ גלולים‬with punishments for Judah’s breach of covenant with Babylon, it seems reasonable to investigate Ezekiel for further clues to the iconographic function of the ‫ גלולים‬within this theo-political context.

1. Stone Prepared for Engraving Although most etymological treatments trace the meaning of ‫ גלולים‬to the basic meaning of stone, its emergence in the late preexilic period indicates a more precise meaning rooted in Judean exposure to Mesopotamian political iconography. As early as 1904, W. W. Graf Baudissin secured the basic meaning of Aramaic gllʾ as stele by means of a second-century CE Palmyrene bilingual inscription, in which the Aramaic equivalent of the Greek στηλη λιθινη was clearly gllʾ.11 Although Baudissin’s explanation of how the term acquired the connotation of idols has not survived critical scrutiny, his treatment of the Palmyrene inscription remains a crucial starting point for understanding how it came into use in the late preexilic period. The Aramaic noun came into Akkadian as galālu and was employed over a long period to denote a type of stone used for objects ranging from window frames and columns to smaller stone vessels and implements.12 Late Persian use indicates that galālu became a somewhat generic designation for a kind of specially prepared stone (cf. Ezra 5:8; 6:4).13 Closer to the time of Ezekiel, however, Neo-Babylonian and early Persian texts employ galālu for a type of stone on which are inscribed reliefs and images. One semantic difference between the Akkadian and Aramaic usages should be noted: whereas in the Palmyrene inscription gllʾ alone is sufficient to denote both the type of monument and its material, in Akkadian it denotes only the type of stone from which the monument is made. Consequently, Akkadian usage attests to a somewhat fixed expression analogous to the Greek στηλη λιθινη, in which the term for the type of monument, στηλη, combined with the term designating the material from which it is made, λιθινη, becomes a fixed phrase. This usage is attested in inscriptions attributed to Nabonidus and Darius respectively (asuminētu ša ga-la-la, CT 34 37:81; 11 W. W. Graf Baudissin, “Die alttestamentliche Beziechnung der Götzen mit gillūlīm,” ZDMG 58 (1904): 394–425. 12 R. A. Bowman, “‫ גלל אבן‬- aban galalu (Ezra 5:8; 6:4),” in Dōrōn, Hebraic Studies: Essays in Honor of Professor Abraham I. Katsh, ed. I. T. Naamani and David Rudavsky (New York: National Association of Professors of Hebrew in American Institutions of Higher Learning, 1965), 64–74. 13 H. G. M. Williamson, “’eben gĕlāl (Ezra 5:8, 6:4) Again,” BASOR 280 (1990): 83–88.

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asuminēti šina ša ga-la-la, YOS 3 4:7; cf. MDP 21 p. 59:1). Though they could be deposited in temples (YOS 3 4:7; CAD 5:11), these stelae do not appear to be thought of as cult objects per se. They do, however, indicate royal agency, since their construction is typically attributed to kings.14 A trace of the Akkadian expression “stele with reliefs on galāla-stone” is perceptible in LXX Ezek 8:10. At the outset, it should be noted that the LXX and MT versions of this verse represent two distinct literary variants, with the LXX representing an earlier stage of the Ezekiel tradition.15 The LXX version is shorter than MT in two respects. First, 8:10 LXX omits a specific reference to the wall (‫)קיר‬, which appears four times in MT 8:8-10 but is absent from LXX. Second, in MT the phrase ‫ תבנית רמש ובהמה‬has been inserted into the phrase ‫והנה כל־שקץ וכל־גלולי בית ישראל‬, apparently as a gloss on the noun ‫( שקץ‬v. 10). This gloss establishes an intertextual allusion to the prohibition against images of any kind in Deut 4:17–18 and thereby interprets the scene as an act of idolatry.16 By contrast, LXX Ezek 8:10 preserves the grammatical parallelism of the Vorlage: καὶ εἶπεν πρός με υἱὲ ἀνθρώπου ὄρυξον καὶ ὤρυξα καὶ ἰδοὺ θύρα μία 9 καὶ εἶπεν πρός με εἴσελθε καὶ ἰδὲ τὰς ἀνομίας ἃς οὗτοι ποιοῦσιν ὧδε 10 καὶ εἰσῆλθον καὶ εἶδον καὶ ἰδοὺ μάταια βδελύγματα καὶ πάντα τὰ εἴδωλα οἴκου Ισραηλ διαγεγραμμένα ἐπ᾽ αὐτοῦ κύκλῳ. (Ezek 8:8-10 LXX) And he said to me, son of man, “dig!” So I dug and discovered a single door. Then he said to me, Go in, and see the lawless things they are doing here. So I went in and looked, and there, every sort of worthless thing and all the εἴδωλα of the house of Israel engraved upon it all around.

The translation presents a curious situation, since its rendering of ‫ גלולים‬as likenesses (εἴδωλα) presupposes engravings (διαγεγραμμένα; ‫ )מחקה‬on another surface, as indicated by the prepositional phrase upon it. However, 14

CAD 5.11, s.v. “galālu.” For a discussion of recent treatments of the differences between the Masoretic and Septuagint versions of Ezekiel, see Ingrid E. Lilly, Two Books of Ezekiel: Papyrus 967 and the Masoretic Text as Variant Literary Traditions, VTSup 150 (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2012). Building on the work of Johan Lust and Ashley Crane, Lilly has demonstrated that the variations between LXX and MT are best understood as literary variants with distinct theological emphases. 16 Contra Tova Ganzel, who treats Ezek 8:10 MT as the work of the prophet Ezekiel himself. “Transformations of Pentateuchal Descriptions of Idolatry,” in Transforming Visions: Transformations of Text, Tradition, and Theology in Ezekiel, ed. William A. Tooman and Michael Lyons (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 2010), 33–49, esp. 36–39. My treatment of Ezek 8 departs significantly from that of Tova Ganzel, whose argument that Ezekiel is literarily dependent on the book of Deuteronomy for much of his distinctive treatment of idolatry, rests on several assumptions I do not share, namely, the prophet Ezekiel’s engagement with the final form of Deuteronomy, and the degree to which shared vocabulary is evidence of his dependence on Deuteronomy. 15

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without an antecedent reference to the wall in the Vorlage, the prepositional phrase is ambiguous. I will turn to the question of how the translator solved that problem momentarily; for the present argument, however, the absence of the wall in the Vorlage draws attention to another possible construal of the meaning of ‫ גלולים‬in keeping with the Akkadian expressions described above. The use of the substantive ‫ מחקה‬in v. 10 suggests this possibility. In 1 Kgs 6:35, the same word is employed as a technical term for incised work. It is used in this same sense in Ezek 23:14, where it serves as the governing absolute in a construct chain where the resulting expression ‫אנשי מחקה‬, “men of incised work,” denotes wall reliefs. The Vorlage of LXX 8:10 does not depict an engraved wall, as in 23:14 or MT 8:10, but ‫גלולי מחקה‬, “carved stelae,” echoing the Akkadian expression described above. Without a clear reference to the wall, the concluding adverbial phrase ‫ סביב סביב‬indicates either that the stelae were sculpted in the round or that the stelae were positioned all around the room. In either case, the account is consistent with Ezek 6, in which the ‫ גלולים‬are freestanding objects (vv. 4, 5, 6, 9, 13), as well as with the claim in 14:3 that the elders have set them up (‫ עלה‬Hiphil) according to their own minds.17 In keeping with a general tendency in Ezekiel to blame the existence of the ‫ גלולים‬on the House of Israel, the chain is now disrupted. Even with this addition, however, the semantic equivalence of this phrase with the Akkadian expression for carved stelae is striking. The translator does not construe the term as referring to stelae, however, but rather as pictorial reliefs carved on yet another surface, as indicated by the prepositional phrase “upon it.” One can assume, as Lust does, that the prepositional phrase alludes to a wall, as in MT, but since the wall is not mentioned in the preceding verse, it is difficult to know how the translator arrived at this construal. The occurrence of the substantive ‫ מחקה‬both here and in Ezek 23:14–15 may shed light on the translator’s solution to this problem. The verses in ch. 23 describe wall reliefs filled with carvings: She added to her harlotries, and she saw men of incised work on the wall (‫אנשׂי מחקה‬ ‫)על־הקיר‬, images of the Chaldeans, engravings in vermilion ( ‫)צלמי כשׂדיים חקקים בשׁשׁר‬ belts around their waists, flowing turbans on their heads, all of them the appearance of officers, the likeness of the sons of Babylon, Chaldeans from the land their birth. (Ezek 23:14–15)

The use of ‫ מחקה‬both here and in 8:10 may have led the translator to use Ezek 23:14–15 as a model for translating the reference to the ‫ גלולים‬in 8:10. By supplying the phrase “upon it” to imply the existence of a wall, the translator introduced the connotation of carved reliefs. This decision may also indicate that the translator perceived an equivalence between the Hebrew

17 Contrast NRSV, which construes 14:2 to mean that the elders have taken the ‫גלולים‬ into their hearts. For the connotation of ‫ עלה‬Hiphil as “set up,” see Num 8:2–3.

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terms ‫ גלולים‬and ‫צלמים‬, which is reflected in the use of the synonymous Greek terms εἴδωλον and ἐικόν respectively to denote likenesses.18

2. ‫צלם‬: The Royal Image The synonymity of ‫ גלולים‬and ‫ צלמים‬is further corroborated by their use in Ezek 16 and 23. In each allegory, the term ‫ צלם‬appears in Jerusalem’s initial moments of attraction to new lovers, while ‫ גלולים‬appears in connection with YHWH’s announcement of judgment (Ezek 16:36; 23:7, 30, 37, 39, 49). In these announcements, the lovers and ‫ גלולים‬are parallel if not interchangeable terms. In Ezek 23:7, for example, Samaria bestows her sexual favors on the Assyrians and thereby defiles herself with their ‫( גלולים‬for Jerusalem, see also Ezek 16:36; 23:30); and in 23:37, the ‫ גלולים‬virtually stand in for the lovers as Jerusalem’s partners in adultery. Thus where the ‫ צלמים‬play a critical role in Jerusalem’s turn toward new alliances, the ‫ גלולים‬seal her fate. That the ‫ גלולים‬and ‫ צלמים‬are one and the same is implied by the structural elements of each allegory. In the allegory of Ezek 23, for example, the reference to the ‫ צלמים‬in vv. 14–15 constitutes a turning point in the narrative, since it is at this point that Jerusalem’s faithlessness is shown to be more corrupt than that of her sister. The narrative dwells at length on the myriad ways in which this initial moment triggers a cascade of infidelities. Turning away from her lovers the Assyrians, Jerusalem sends for the Babylonians – arguably also “adulterers” in the eyes of the Assyrians – but then immediately turns from them in disgust to seek out the Egyptians. Just as the narrative expands on Jerusalem’s infidelities in comparison with that of Samaria, so also does it portray Jerusalem’s punishment as all the more severe, the brutality of her punishment intensified and attributed to her own ways. Echoing the beginning of the narrative, which highlighted the role of the carved images in Jerusalem’s deeper corruption, v. 30 brings the indictment to a close by attributing Jerusalem’s actions to her defilement by the lovers’ ‫( גלולים‬Ezek 23:29b–30). By mentioning images at the beginning and ‫ גלולים‬at the climactic point of the indictment, the narrative forms a type of ring composition, in which the images’ initial stimulation of Jerusalem’s infidelity is disclosed as the defilement leading to her demise. The numerous references to the ‫גלולים‬ in the rest of the chapter underscore that defilement, tragically culminating in the defilement of YHWH’s temple (23:37, 39, 49). Although a similar pattern is perceptible in Ezek 16, the emphasis in this allegory is on Jerusalem’s complicity in constructing the images. Lavishing her favors on all passersby, Jerusalem uses YHWH’s gifts to construct male images (‫ )צלמי זכר‬with which she then prostitutes herself as she clothes them, 18

Note Num 33:52, which renders Hebrew ‫ צלמים‬as εἴδωλα.

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offers them incense and oil, feeds them with choice bread and flour, and even sacrifices her children to them (16:15–22). Although the passersby are subsequently identified as Jerusalem’s political allies in vv. 25–28, critical treatments overlook this point, construing vv. 15–22 as an account of Jerusalem’s prior religious apostasy. Elsewhere, I have argued that efforts to secure this interpretation by demonstrating links between vv. 15–22 and prior Israelite and Judean practice have not been convincing, in part because the identification of these male images as Judean idols fails to account for the distinctiveness of the phrase ‫צלמי זכר‬.19 Like the term ‫גלולים‬, the noun ‫ צלם‬is rare and late, occurring even less frequently than ‫ גלולים‬and appearing in biblical writings at about the same time.20 Although it is employed twice in Deuteronomic writings to denote divine images (Num 33:52; 2 Kgs 11:18//2 Chr 23:17), its usage elsewhere is so variable that, as F. J. Stendebach has noted, it “cannot be viewed as a technical term for a cultic or divine images as such.”21 The cognate ṣalmu is, however, far more widely attested in the Mesopotamian context.22 Writing extensively on the meaning and significance of ṣalmu in Akkadian royal ideology and iconography,23 Irene Winter maintains that the term is far more widely attested for royal images than for divine ones.24 Royal images functioned in a variety of ways to extend the king’s presence and legitimate his rule, as well as to represent iconographically the entire

19 Margaret S. Odell, “Fragments of Traumatic Memory: Ṣalmê zākār and Child Sacrifice in Ezekiel 16:15–22,” in Bible Through the Lens of Trauma, ed. Elizabeth Boase and Christopher G. Frechette, SemeiaSt 86 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2016), 107–9. 20 Gen 1:26, 27; 5:3; 9:6 (all P); Num 33:52; 1 Sam 6:5, 11; 2 Kgs 11:18//2 Chr 23:17; Amos 5:26; Ezek 7:20; 16:17; 23:14; Pss 39:7; 73:20; Dan 2:31 (×2), 32, 34, 35; 3:1, 2, 3 (×2), 5, 7, 10, 12, 14, 15, 18, 19. 21 F. J. Stendebach, “‫ צלם‬ṣelem,” TDOT 12:386–95, esp. 391. 22 For my initial treatment of this issue, see my “Fragments of Traumatic Memory,” 114–17. 23 Irene J. Winter, “Art in Empire: The Royal Image and the Visual Dimensions of Assyrian Ideology,” in Assyria 1995: Proceedings of the 10th Anniversary Symposium of the Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, Helsinki, Sep 7–11, 1995, ed. Simo Parpola and Robert M. Whiting (Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 1997), 359–81; eadem, “The Body of the Able Ruler: Toward an Understanding of the Statues of Gudea,” in DUMU-E2DUB-BA: Studies in Honor of Åke Sjöberg, ed. Hermann Behrens, Darlene Loding, and Martha T. Roth, Occasional Publications of the Samuel Noah Kramer Fund 11 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 1989), 573–83; eadem, “Idols of the King: Royal Images as Recipients of Ritual Action in Ancient Mesopotamia,” JRitSt 6 (1992): 13–42; and eadem, “What/When is a Portrait? Royal Images of the Ancient Near East,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 153 (2009): 254–70. 24 Winter, “Idols of the King,” 15, 36 n. 1.

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theo-political program of Assyrian kingship.25 Royal images were to be found everywhere, in a variety of media, as three-dimensional statues as well as on stelae and reliefs, in the architectural and iconographic programs of Assyrian palaces as well as throughout the Assyrian imperium where “free-standing stone stelae…seem to have been liberally distributed throughout the realm.”26 The royal image was so pervasive in the imperial landscape it was even represented in representations: in one relief, a royal stele is prominently featured outside a city wall.27 In effect, city and royal image go hand in hand in the landscape of the Assyrian imperium, and the positioning of these stelae in relation to cities may be one feature of visual memory reflected in Ezek 16:17. Stele fragments commemorating Assyrian conquests have been found in Samaria and along the borders of the Judean highlands; 28 and Christl Maier posits that royal stelae may well have constituted the basis for Ezekiel’s fantastic account of Jerusalem’s “whoring” in Ezek 16:23–34: The only installation in relation to political power one would expect in a city square or at the gate is a pedestal for a stele that either depicts an image of the foreign overlord or an inscription or both. Assyrian rulers are known for erecting victory stelae in conquered territories with inscriptions that testify to their political power. To pay reverence to such a stele while passing the gate or the square would be “whoring with foreign powers” in the eyes of Ezekiel since the stele symbolizes that Jerusalem is a vassal city.29

Since Ezekiel employs the Hebrew equivalent for Akkadian ṣalmu in 16:17, there is no reason to assume that the ‫ צלמי זכר‬in vv. 15–22 and the objects of Jerusalem’s desires in vv. 23–29 are different entities. In fact, the ritual activities associated with the male images in vv. 17–19 are intelligible as the animation and veneration of royal images. Here again, Winter has drawn attention to the way in which royal images went through rituals of animation analogous to that of divine images – all in order to function within sacred space as the living manifestation of the king. Winter’s evidence is clearest for the Gudea statues (ca. 2100 BCE); however, she notes that the practice of providing royal images with regular offerings of food is also attested for the Neo-Babylonian period.30 25

Winter, “Art in Empire,” 367, 376; eadem, “Idols of the King,” 34. Winter, “Art in Empire,” 363–64; cf. M. Cogan, Imperialism and Religion in Assyria, Judah, and Israel in the 8th and 7th Centuries B.C.E., SBLMS 19 (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1974), 56. 27 Winter, “Art in Empire,” 375, fig. 13. 28 Wayne Horowitz and Takayoshi Oshima with Seth Sanders, Cuneiform in Canaan: Cuneiform Sources from the Land of Israel in Ancient Times (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society; Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2006), 19–22. 29 . Maier, Daughter Zion, Mother Zion, 119. 30 Winter, “Idols of the King”; cf. Paul-Alain Beaulieu, The Reign of Nabonidus, King of Babylon 556–539 BC, YNER 10 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 135–36. 26

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Finally, the emphasis on masculinity both in the use of ‫ זכר‬in Ezek 16:17 and in the elaborate description of the warriors in 23:14–15 is in keeping with the Assyrian iconographic practice of representing royal attributes in exaggeratedly masculine ways. The exposed, hyper-developed muscular right arm on the numerous statues of Gudea of Lagash signified that king’s capacity to rule, while his broad face and even gaze signified other qualifications of the just and able ruler.31 As early as the Stele of Naram-Sin, the king’s full beard and upright bearing signified his power and capacity to establish order as the rightful king; these features persisted well into the Neo-Assyrian period as idealized traits signifying the king’s capacity and right to rule.32 Drawing on Winter’s work and further subjecting the Assyrian iconographic program to gender analysis, Cynthia Chapman points out that these traits of masculinity were characterized in Assyrian display texts by the term zikru, “masculinity,” a pre-eminent attribute signifying the king’s capacity to rule, which is included in royal titularies from Ashurnasirpal to Ashurbanipal.33

3. After-image: Parody and Erasure Taken together, Ezek 16 and 23 suggest that ‫ צלמים‬and ‫ גלולים‬were synonyms for pictorial representations of the suzerains laying claim to Judean fealty, the former being the normative term for the image itself, the latter being a more generic term for the stone on which the royal image was carved. If further evidence of the royal image does not survive in biblical writings, that may be due to its erasure as it is replaced by the more opaque and pejorative expression ‫גלולים‬. Even so, the book of Daniel offers tantalizing evidence that royal images were not only deeply embedded in Jewish memory but also closely associated with the rule of Nebuchadnezzar. In Dan 2 and 3, Aramaic ‫ צלמא‬is employed seventeen times, slightly more than half of extant biblical uses of the root ‫צלם‬.34 In Dan 3, the image (NRSV: statue) is explicitly identified with Nebuchadnezzar himself, in a story that pits his claim to sovereignty against Jewish devotion to the one God of heaven and earth. The term ‫ צלמא‬appears eleven times in two clusters of formulaic expressions. The more frequently repeated formula accentuates Nebuchadnezzar’s agency and power by repeatedly referencing the “statue he has set up” (Dan 3:2, 3 [×2], 5, 12, 14, 18; see v. 15). These exaggerated repetitions evoke the tradition of Mesopotamian royal iconography even as they parody the absurdity of the statue’s size and 31

Winter, “The Body of the Able Ruler,” 586–83, summarized in “Art in Empire,” 370. Winter, “Art in Empire,” 371. 33 Chapman, The Gendered Language of Warfare, 29. 34 See the discussion in n. 20. 32

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public veneration. The second cluster of formulas in vv. 2, 14, and 18 appears to equate the veneration of the statue with serving Nebuchadnezzar’s gods; however, the grammatical parallelism in these verses never quite allows for the identification of the statue as a divine image. Rather, “serving the gods” and “worshiping the image” remain on separate if equivalent tracks, as if to say that venerating Nebuchadnezzar’s statue amounts to worshiping his gods. In any case, the narrative underscores the statue’s function as an emblem of Nebuchadnezzar’s own power and control over the lives of his subjects.35 As Nebuchadnezzar gives the men one last chance to worship the “statue that [he] has made,” he threatens, “But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire, and who is the god that will deliver you out of my hands?” (Dan 3:14, emphasis added). As Carol Newsom has noted, the contest is not between Nebuchadnezzar and the three young men, but between Nebuchadnezzar and their God.36 The radical opposition between divine and human sovereignty is intensified in the narrative of Dan 2. The story revolves around Nebuchadnezzar’s terrifying dream, the details and meaning of which only God can disclose by means of revelation to the wise Daniel. As he recounts the dream to the king in vv. 31–35, he employs ‫ צלמא‬five times, dwelling at length on the size, brilliance, and fearfulness of the statue – all characteristics associated with royal as well as divine images (Dan 3:21–25).37 Carol Newsom has noted that the motif of the statue has been fused with the Persian fourfold schema of history, according to which Nebuchadnezzar, represented by the head of gold, is succeeded by kingdoms of ever-declining value and strength. 38 In this fusion of Mesopotamian iconography and Persian philosophy, the inherent ideology of the royal image becomes fully realized in a representation not merely of a single king but of Gentile sovereignty itself. If, at a much later period in Jewish life and thought, Daniel employs the normative term for royal images, it does so to parody them and expose the absurdity – indeed blasphemy – of royal pretensions to veneration. By contrast, writings closer to the time of Nebuchadnezzar resort to the more generic ‫גלולים‬. While it is difficult to discern the rationale for this usage, a postcolonial lens of interpretation would construe it as a subversion of the relatively neutral term stele. It is quite possible that the root meaning of stele was still part of the living language of empire and therefore retained a degree of

35 Carol Newsom with Brennan W. Breed, Daniel: A Commentary, OTL (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2014), 109–10. 36 Newsom, Daniel, 109–10. 37 Newsom, Daniel, 75–76. 38 Newsom, Daniel, 76.

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currency it eventually lost.39 It is perhaps for this reason that the term appears only at this period in biblical writings, only to reappear again in the biblically allusive denunciations of idolatry in the Qumran writings.40 At the very least, the rendering of the royal image as stele seeks to deprive it of its function of representing royal agency, as if to say that the house of Israel is giving cult to nothing but a block of stone (cf. 20:32). In addition, the vocalization of the term in line with ‫שׁקוצים‬, itself a circumlocution of the older priestly term ‫שׁקץ‬, sets the royal image apart as something to be despised but never to be confused with deity. At this point it is worth noting that the term employed in Ezek 8:10, ‫שׁקץ‬, is employed in Lev 11 for a fairly narrow range of animals such as underwater creatures with no fins or scales or winged insects that walk (Lev 11:10–11, 20–21) – anomalies that are, so to speak, neither fish nor fowl.41 While I am inclined to think that the word pair ‫ גלולים ושׁקוצים‬referred to the entire sweep of anthropomorphic and theriomorphic images, the latter term ‫ שׁקוצים‬is uniquely suited to the task of calling attention to the anomalous situation of a human being demanding veneration of an image consecrated as his ontological presence. It is, perhaps, for this reason that Ezek 8:10 employs the unusual ‫ שׁקץ‬instead of the anticipated ‫שׁקוצים‬. Clearly the ‫ גלולים‬are rivals to YHWH; yet the outrage consists not in the worship of false gods but in the anomaly of giving cult to mere human beings in the form of their royal images. While it would have been possible to indicate the abhorrence of the royal image adjectivally, as Ezek 7:20 LXX does with its “abominable images,” the subsequent expansion of 7:20 MT to include ‫ שׁקוצים‬may indicate that such strategies were not up to the task of eradicating the royal image from Judean consciousness. By contrast, the term ‫ גלולים‬has the advantage of erasing the allure of royal images while also hinting at the outrageousness of their inherent royal presumption.42 For the postexilic connotation of hewn stone, see Bowman, “‫ – אבן גלל‬aban galalu (Ezra 5:8; 6:4),” 64–74. 40 See the brief reference to this usage in Preuss, “‫ גלולים‬gillûlîm,” 5. 41 Lev 11:10–12, 20–23, 41–43. See D. N. Freedman and A. J. Welch, “‫ שׁקץ‬šqṣ,” TDOT 15:465–69, esp. 466–67; and Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 3 (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 656–58, 719–26. 42 For the rhetorical erasure of the image’s beauty and allure in Ezekiel’s treatment of images, see Middlemas, “Transformation of the Image,” 116, and Kutsko, Between Heaven and Earth, 34. Whether the vocalization also intended to evoke a sense of uncleanness through a punning association with ‫ גלל‬II, “dung,” is another question. Greenberg cites the lexicons of Ibn Janaḥ and Kimḥi as the source of this etymological association (Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20, 132). Contending that Baudissin’s suggestion of ‫ גלל‬I, “to roll, roll away,” fails to explain the meaning of ‫גלולים‬, Preuss suggested that the nouns ‫( גל‬Ezek 4:12, 15; Job 20:7) and ‫( גלל‬1 Kgs 14:10; Zeph 1:17) “dung,” which are both derived from ‫ גלל‬II, provides a more compelling explanation for the term’s pejorative meaning (Preuss, “‫ גלולים‬gillûlîm,” 2). That the explanation has caught on is indicated by the broad acceptance of Hans Walter Wolff’s memorable rendering of the term as Scheisgötter 39

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Except for its featured appearance in Daniel, the royal image survives in only a limited way in Ezekiel’s usage in 7:20, 16:17, and 23:14. Outside of Ezekiel, the term ‫ גלולים‬functions to denote the persistent danger of the royal image. The association of ‫ גלולים‬with Babylonian domination is found in Jer 50:2, a gleeful announcement to the nations of Babylon’s fall: Declare among the nations and proclaim, Set up a banner and proclaim, do not conceal it, say: Babylon is taken, Bel is put to shame, Merodach is dismayed. Her images (‫ )עצביה‬are put to shame, Her ‫ גלולים‬are dismayed.

Given the term’s occurrence in conjunction with the gods Marduk and Bel, this is the one instance in which it may refer to divine images, not human ones. On the other hand, the pronominal referents do not immediately refer to Bel or Marduk, but rather to Babylon. Moreover, since the announcement is addressed to the nations, the reference to images may well have been intelligible to ancient audiences as emblems of royal power and domination. Deuteronomic usage also associates the term with foreign domination while not quite allowing for an identification with divine images. It occurs only once in Deuteronomy, in a word pair with ‫שׁקוצים‬, to refer to what the Israelites saw in Egypt (Deut 29:16). While this verse does introduce a warning against going after the gods of the nations (Deut 29:17), the term ‫גלולים‬ is otherwise absent from Deuteronomy’s explicit prohibitions of idolatry.43 In the few Deuteronomistic summaries in 1–2 Kings in which it does occur, the ‫ גלולים‬are attributed to Israelite and Judean royal practices but not explicitly associated with either going after other gods or the construction of divine images (1 Kgs 15:12; 21:26; 2 Kgs 17:12; 21:11, 21). This differentiation is explicit in the notice of Josiah’s removal of the ‫ גלולים ושׁקוצים‬in 2 Kgs 23:24. The verse is separated from the longer report of Josiah’s cultic reforms in 23:4–20 by the account of the observance of Passover in 23:21–23. In contrast with the earlier report, the reference to the ‫ גלולים‬in 23:23 does not attribute their construction to Israelite or Judean kings (cf. vv. 5, 11, 12, 13, 15, 19). Rather, in a construction reminiscent of Deut 29:16, they are (see, e.g., Middlemas, as cited above; Hans Walter Wolff, “Jahwe und die Götter in der alttestamentlichen Prophetie,” EvT 29 [1969]: 397–416, esp. 407). While I would not discount the allusive possibilities inherent in any language, I would argue that Preuss and others have not given due attention to the specific denotation of gllʾ as stele in the late preexilic period. In any case, if the ‫ גלולים‬are not divine images, it is time to flush the ever more popular and critically unexamined shitgod from academic vocabularies. 43 Prohibitions of images in Deuteronomy employ the terms ‫פסל‬, “engraved or carved image” (Deut 4:16, 23, 25; 5:8; 27:16); ‫מסכה‬, “molten image” (Deut 9:12, 16; 27:15); and ‫מצבה‬, “standing-stone” (7:5; 12:3; 16:22).

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identified as objects that are seen in the land (‫ ראה‬Niphal), as if to suggest no Judeans were responsible for their existence. In all these cases, the ‫ גלולים‬are clearly abhorred, perhaps also seen as threats to YHWH’s sovereignty, but they need not be construed as divine images. Deuteronomy’s ambivalent treatment of the term is also reflected in Lev 26:30. Scholars have long noted the parallels between this verse and Ezek 6:5, both of which envision the complete destruction of those who venerate the ‫ גלולים‬along with the ‫ גלולים‬themselves: “I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars; I will heap your carcasses on the carcasses of your ‫( ”גלולים‬Lev 26:30). In keeping with the consensus that the term denotes idolatry, Jacob Milgrom treats this verse as one of the few references to idolatry in Leviticus; to his credit, he also draws attention to its distinct function. Whereas the other two references to idolatry in Lev 19:4 and 26:1 “encapsulate” the first two commandments, as Milgrom puts it, Lev 26:30 addresses the “result, not a cause” of Israel’s destruction,44 as if to say that the veneration of the ‫ גלולים‬is of a qualitatively different order from the violation of the first two commandments. In my view, the logic of Lev 26 indicates that failure to abide by the laws and statutes of YHWH leaves Israel prey to other dominions and powers, the veneration of which can only bring death. I would suggest that Ezekiel’s use of ‫ גלולים‬is far more consistent with Lev 26:30 than with Deuteronomy’s apparent disengagement from the inherent danger of the royal image. For Deuteronomy, the term ‫גלולים‬, with its connotation of disgust and revulsion, functions to distance readers from the presence of these images in the land of Judah. In Ezekiel, by contrast, disgust remains palpable, as if readers were being forced to rub their noses in the shameful presence of the ‫ גלולים‬in the land. John Kutsko has elegantly observed that “this quintessential Ezekielian term plainly avoids any reference to divine associations, representational merit, or even craftsmanship” connoted by other biblical terms for idols.45 While this observation is correct in the sense that Ezekiel’s denial of their representational power deprives them of their function, it is important to underscore just what that function is. As I have shown in this essay, the term ‫ גלולים‬displaces is ‫צלם‬, which for Ezekiel connoted the royal image. If the royal image has all but disappeared from the biblical record, the narratives in Dan 2 and 3 preserve its dazzling allure, as well as its clear associations with idolatry.

44

Jacob Milgrom, “Nature and Extent of Idolatry,” HUCA 69 (1998): 1–13, see esp. p. 3; published also in idem, Leviticus 17–22: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 3A (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 1382–91. 45 Kutsko, Between Heaven and Earth, 34.

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Outside of Daniel, the term ‫ גלולים‬displaces the royal image, not to erase its function so much as to render it abhorrent. I would suggest that this is because Ezekiel has not entirely done away with their danger. Unlike the polemic against idols in Second Isaiah, which declares that idols are nothing, Ezekiel’s ‫ גלולים‬continue to exercise a deadly power, precisely because the House of Israel is held responsible for their existence. The elders hatch plans on their own to set them up (Ezek 14); they lift their eyes to them in veneration (Ezek 18:6, 12, 15); they even complain to them of YHWH’s apparent absence, in YHWH’s own house at that (Ezek 8:8–12). Jerusalem’s complicity, fully exposed in the allegories of Ezek 16 and 23, is summed up in Ezekiel’s epithet for Jerusalem as a ‫גלולים‬-making shedder of blood (Ezek 22:3-4). In short, Ezekiel’s ‫ גלולים‬are not nothing; they are the emblems of Jerusalem’s deadly proclivity to seek refuge in those who quite literally are not god. It is this connotation that contributes to the Septuagint translator’s rendering of ‫ גלולים‬to reflect a wide range of practices. In certain respects, the ‫ גלולים‬function in Ezekiel as the outward emblem of Israel’s inner shame, since Ezekiel’s unique use of the term exposes those habits of mind that have come to be associated with idolatry. For Ezekiel, this tendency was rooted in the desperate search for political security amid seismic power shifts among the imperial powers of the day. If the Septuagint translator’s characterization of the ‫ גלולים‬as habits of mind, vain delusions, and false imaginings does not explicitly speak of political realities, it is not difficult to read these habits and practices as aspects of a deformed political life. Even if it remains the case that the only adequate modern rendering of ‫ גלולים‬is “idols,” this recovery of the political dimensions of Ezekiel’s usage has the potential to enrich contemporary reflection on just what constitutes idolatry in today’s world of fractured politics. That the human claim to political domination should be its seedbed should come as no surprise.

Seeing Manasseh in the Servant’s Marred Face A Radical Intertextual Reading of Isaiah 53 Koog P. Hong Many say we live in a time of hatred, but hate culture is nothing new. Those who are not part of “us” – “them” – have always been construed as barbarous, monstrous, and dangerous. To merely condemn our contemporary hate culture would do little, insofar as none of us can deny that we also are part of this systemic violence. The very identity and existence of “us” – any form of human society – owes much to excluding “them.” Biblical texts are no exception to this, requiring biblical scholars to do a responsible reading to resist the violence embedded in these texts. The Holocaust is a cardinal example of the violence of exclusion, and on this issue, we owe much to Post-Shoah Theology of Jewish theologians, including Marvin Sweeney.1 In this paper, I propose a radical intertextual reading that relates Manasseh of DtrH (the Deuteronomistic History) with the suffering servant of Isa 53 by means of René Girard’s “scapegoat mechanism.”2 Biblical scholars have been heavily invested in the identity of the servant, but that is not the concern of this paper. After centuries of scrutiny and argument, it is clear that the ambiguous text will not yield a unanimous view. Rather, the methodological frame of my reading is rooted in contextual interpretation and intertextuality.3 1 Marvin A. Sweeney, Reading the Hebrew Bible after the Shoah: Engaging Holocaust Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008), esp. 1–22; idem, Tanak: A Theological and Critical Introduction to the Jewish Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012), 5–36. 2 The idea of scapegoat has been central in Girard’s scholarly career. See, e.g., René Girard, Violence and the Sacred (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977); idem, The Scapegoat (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986); idem, Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987); idem, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2001); idem, Les origines de la culture: entretiens avec Pierpaolo Antonello et João Cezar de Castro Rocha, Pluriel (Paris: Hachette littératures, 2006); idem, The One by Whom Scandal Comes, SVMCS (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2014). For a succinct introduction of Girard’s mimetic theory, see Wolfgang Palaver, René Girard’s Mimetic Theory, SVMCS (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2013). 3 Julia Kristeva, Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art, ed. Leon S. Roudiez, trans. Thomas Gora, Alice Jardine, and Leon S. Roudiez (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980); idem, “‘Nous Deux’ or a (Hi)Story of Intertextuality,”

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I call this a radical intertextual reading because I see my context also as a text, which interacts with – and in fact directs – the intertextual reading of the two texts.4 To be precise, this is a reader-oriented intertextual reading in which I, as a reader, am actively involved in choosing texts and putting them into dialogue. The violence inherent in today’s context calls me to interact with the two passages wherein the scapegoat motif is pronounced. Biblical scholars have been reluctant to interpret Isa 53 through the scapegoat motif, but I see connections undeniable. As for Manasseh, I see him as one of the representatives of the “scapegoat of the text,”5 an arbitrary victim of the textual violence. As a sort of a therapeutic reading of today’s violence, I suggest that we can see Manasseh in the suffering servant’s marred face and will demonstrate how this intertextual reading transforms each passage and ultimately uncovers the reader’s unconscious participation in the DtrH’s scapegoating of Manasseh. Raising awareness of our own involvement and complicity in structural violence, in the text and the world, is an important first step in its remedy.

1. Universality of Hate Culture To begin with, one must remember that hate culture is a fundamental part of social entities of any kind. Differentiation is an innate skill essential for

Romanic Review 93 (2002): 7–13. Over the last couple of decades biblical scholars have been actively adopting the notion of intertextuality. See, e.g., Danna Nolan Fewell, Reading Between Texts: Intertextuality and the Hebrew Bible, LCBI (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1992); George Aichele and Gary A. Phillips, eds., Intertextuality and the Bible, SemeiaSt 69/70 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1995); Geoffrey David Miller, “Intertextuality in Old Testament Research,” CBR 9 (2011): 283–309; Marianne Grohmann and Hyun Chul Paul Kim, eds., Second Wave Intertextuality and the Hebrew Bible, RBS 93 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature Press, 2019). 4 Intertextuality entails both diachronic and synchronic dimensions, but my reading is consciously based on the synchronic canonical text of the Hebrew Bible. Sweeney is one of few scholars who navigate freely both the synchronic and diachronic aspects of intertextuality. See Marvin A. Sweeney, The Twelve Prophets, Berit Olam (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000); idem, Form and Intertextuality in Prophetic and Apocalyptic Literature, FAT 45 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005); idem, The Prophetic Literature, IBT (Nashville: Abingdon, 2005); idem, Tanak; idem, “The Literary-Historical Dimensions of Intertextuality in Exodus–Numbers,” in Grohmann and Kim, eds., Second Wave Intertextuality, 41–52. 5 Girard distinguishes a scapegoat of the text and a scapegoat in the text. The former is a victim of the hidden structural principle of the text, whereas the latter is a victim that the text openly depicts as a victim and thus clearly visible. Girard, The Scapegoat, 119.

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survival.6 A fear of the “strange” also is intrinsic to living organisms. One of the primary elements of the social psyche is the opposition of the self against the other. Humans throughout history have identified “us” as “civil” and “them” as “barbaric.”7 The “normal” has always been sustained at the cost of excluding or demonizing the “abnormal.” At the same time, the existence of the “other” is essential to self-identification. The civilized nature of “us,” for example, is defined only by painting all who are “out there” as barbaric, fearsome, and dangerous. Hating “them” is thus a convenient way to safeguard the boundary of “us.” Without “them” there is no “us.” The Hebrew Bible is no exception. Its world comprises many forms of binary opposition: good and evil, order and chaos, chosen and rejected, and pure and impure, to name but a few. In the Priestly text (P), for instance, the creation of the cosmic order is achieved by separation from chaos. Each step of creation entails distinction: of light and darkness, heaven and earth, water and earth, and so forth. If these boundaries are breached, cosmic order breaks down. The election of Israel also requires the rejection of ‫גוים‬. In the toledot system, the lines of the unchosen provide the necessary backdrop that foregrounds the line of the chosen. The election of the chosen is vouchsafed by the covenant, from which the unchosen is excluded from the outset. The scapegoat ritual in Lev 16 lies at the forefront of this world view. To guard against ‫ חטאת‬and ‫ טמאה‬is essential part of protecting the community. However, removing all sins would cost the entire community. Thus, the sins are ritually imputed on a single object, and its ritual separation restores the shalom of the congregation. One must see the service the goat provides the community. And yet, note well that to drive out the scapegoat does not remove actual sins. It is only psychologically deemed effective, sanctioned by the divine stipulation that gives people peace of mind. In this world of oppositions, there is little room to embrace those who fall into the category of the “other” – that is, the sinful, the unclean, and the chaotic. One cannot deny the potential violence in this world view. Differentiation and exclusion may be basic elements of human society, but it need not be used as a warrant for hate culture and victimization of the “other.”

2. René Girard’s Scapegoat Mechanism and Isaiah 53 René Girard was deeply invested in the problem of violence, and the scapegoat mechanism was at the heart of his theorization. Yet Girard’s scapegoat 6

See Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 64–68. 7 See, e.g., John Hutchinson and Anthony D. Smith, eds., Ethnicity, Oxford Readers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 20–24.

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mechanism hardly garnered attention that it deserved from the interpreters of Isa 53. This is partly due to the predominant historical interest of biblical critics. In a field that has long been divided by the individual and collective interpretations of the servant’s historical identity, there was little room for an all-encompassing theory of a non-specialist, especially when it offers no solution to the servant’s identity and his fate.8 It is not that biblical scholars completely ignored the scapegoat motif. Some employed it in interpreting Isa 53 even before Girard set out his theory. Naturally, they understood “scapegoat” in terms of the scapegoat ritual in Lev 16, and their observation centered on some thematic and lexical connections to this and other cultic texts.9 However, such views were not well received, as critics were quick to point out differences in which Isa 53 employed those terms and concepts.10 This is not surprising. Biblical interpreters were mainly interested in searching for a tradition-historical precursor of the idea of the vicarious suffering, and the late P text was not the most natural candidate for that in the first place.11 When Girard posited his theory, the scapegoat motif was thus largely deemed irrelevant by interpreters of Isa 53. For instance, of the two edited volumes on the suffering servant published around the turn of the century, 12 only one author mentions Girard in passing: “This model makes sense in so far as it requires the element of violence to be taken seriously. But some scholars have been irritated by Girard’s vague use of the term ‘scapegoat,’ usually limited to more particular phenomena in the study

8

In North’s exhaustive survey of the scholarship onto the mid-twentieth century, the word “scapegoat” is not mentioned once. Christopher R. North, The Suffering Servant in Deutero-Isaiah: An Historical and Critical Study, 2nd ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 1956). 9 See, e.g., Walther Zimmerli, “Zur Vorgeschichte von Jesaja LIII,” in Congress Volume: Rome 1968, ed. John A. Emerton, VTSup 17 (Leiden: Brill, 1969), 239–40; Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, A Farewell to the Servant Songs: A Critical Examination of an Exegetical Axiom, SMRSHLL 1982 (Lund: Gleerup, 1983), 41; Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 40–55: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 19A (New York: Doubleday, 2002), 351. Also, L. Ruppert, “Schuld und Schuld-lösen nach Jesaja 53,” in Schulderfahrung und Schuldbewältigung: Christen im Umgang mit der Schuld, ed. Gisbert Kaufmann (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1982), 21–22, 27–28, cited in Bernd Janowski, “He Bore Our Sins: Isaiah 53 and the Drama of Taking Another’s Place,” in The Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 in Jewish and Christian Sources, ed. Bernd Janowski and Peter Stuhlmacher (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 68 n. 46. 10 See, e.g., Hermann Spieckermann, “The Conception and Prehistory of the Idea of Vicarious Suffering in the Old Testament,” in Janowski and Stuhlmacher, eds., The Suffering Servant, 1–15. 11 See Janowski and Stuhlmacher, eds., The Suffering Servant, vii. 12 Janowski and Stuhlmacher, The Suffering Servant; William H. Bellinger and William R. Farmer, eds., Jesus and the Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 and Christian Origins (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2009).

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of religions.”13 The situation does not seem to have changed much lately. In three major monographs published in the last decade or so,14 Girard is mentioned only once but in an equally dismissive manner: “Girard has received criticism, not least because he finds this pattern in every, or almost every, subject that he investigates.”15 More serious applications of Girard’s theory on the Bible had been made, but they were done by non-specialists of the Hebrew Bible and did not enjoy wide reception.16 Wide-spread misunderstandings of Girard’s scapegoat mechanism have also played a role in complicating its reception. The problem is that Girard’s scapegoat mechanism is not strictly based on the ritual from Lev 16. Rather, it is well-known that he consciously chose a modern, unconscious, and “spontaneous” sense of the term over against the ancient ritual sense. 17 Biblical scholars may take this as a misunderstanding, but Girard is very much aware of the term’s origin in Lev 16. He still chooses to use it in a spontaneous sense due to the foundational and ubiquitous nature of this social device, which still is at work in today’s society. What Girard signifies with the scapegoat mechanism is therefore not something rooted in a particular text, and rejecting the servant song’s dependence on Lev 16 does not deny the underlying scapegoat mechanism in the song. Instead, one must carefully review Girard’s scapegoat mechanism in its own right and examine what it provides to interpreting Isa 53. The import of Girard’s scapegoat mechanism lies in that it provides a lucid way of making sense of the servant’s vicarious suffering and its redemptive effect, the two most difficult problems of Isa 53 that baffled generations of biblical scholarship. According to Girard, all human behaviors are mimetic in nature. 18 Humans imitate others, including violence. 19 When people imitate 13

Janowski, “He Bore Our Sin,” 72 n. 62 Fredrik Hägglund, Isaiah 53 in the Light of Homecoming after Exile, FAT II/31 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008); Kristin Joachimsen, Identities in Transition: The Pursuit of Isa. 52:13–53:12, VTSup 142 (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2011); Jeremy Schipper, Disability and Isaiah’s Suffering Servant (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). 15 Hägglund, Isaiah 53, 17. 16 See Raymund Schwager, Brauchen wir einen Sündenbock?: Gewalt und Erlösung in den biblischen Schriften (Munich: Kösel, 1978), ET: Must There Be Scapegoats? Violence and Redemption in the Bible (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987); James G. Williams, The Bible, Violence, and the Sacred: Liberation from the Myth of Sanctioned Violence (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2007). For more details, see Andreas Hetzel et al., “The Reception of the Mimetic Theory in the German-Speaking World,” Contagion 20 (2013): 25–76. 17 “Spontaneous” is a term Girard employs to indicate the unconscious nature of the social psychological phenomenon of scapegoat mechanism. Girard, Things Hidden, 130–34; Girard, I See Satan Fall, 160. 18 See René Girard, A Theater of Envy: William Shakespeare (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991). 14

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others’ violence, the mimetic snowballing of the reciprocal violence may put the society in grave danger, a state Girard calls a “mimetic crisis.”20 To overcome the crisis, he observes, people target a scapegoat, a single victim, onto whom their violence is channeled. In the process of communal violence the divided society is once more united by a common cause, and the sense of order is miraculously restored.21 Throughout human history, order has thus been repeatedly kept by the sacrifice of innocent victims.22 Girard provides the miracle of Apollonius of Tyana as an example.23 When the Ephesians were struggling with an epidemic, Apollonius, a wandering miracle worker, provided healing to the city. He identified a blind-looking beggar as the source of the plague as an arbitrary victim and asked the Ephesians to stone him. They hesitated at first, but when the threatened beggar gave them a sudden glance, they saw that “his eyes were full of fire.” Convinced that he was a demon, the Ephesians stoned him. Under the heap of stones, they later found a dog, “pounded to a pulp by their stones and vomiting foam as mad dogs do.” The city was miraculously cured. The miracle worked not because the killing actually removed the source of the plague but because this miracle worker succeeded in making the people believe they had killed the “plague demon.” Apollonius used the beggar as a pharmakos, a ritual victim in the Greek world.24 The beggar was targeted because he was an outsider, a “nobody,” a safe target that would not arouse reprisals.25 Girard stresses the universal nature of this phenomenon. Indeed, history has never failed to produce innocent victims in a time of crisis. Nero’s massacre of Christians, witch-hunts in the early modern era, and the Holocaust all demonstrate how scapegoating works. Society’s anger is channeled against a certain group of people, usually a marginalized and weak group. Typically, not much is required for creating scapegoats. Simply spreading rumors that blame “them” does the trick: “they” poisoned the wells, “they” lit the fire, “they” eat human flesh and drink blood, and so on. These stories quickly creep into the minds of the lynch mob, who are more than ready to see a

19

Girard, Violence and the Sacred. See Girard, The Scapegoat. 21 Girard, I See Satan Fall, 21. 22 Girard, I See Satan Fall, 44. 23 Girard, I See Satan Fall, 49–52. For the text, see Flavius Philostratus, The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, the Epistles of Apollonius and the Treatise of Eusebius, trans. F. C. Conybeare, LCL, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1912), 1: 363–67. Also, Girard offered how Jews were scapegoated in a poem of Guillaume de Machaut, a fourteenth-century French poet. Girard, The Scapegoat, 1–11. 24 Girard, I See Satan Fall, 51. 25 This is also to avoid arousing reprisals. See Chapter 2, “Stereotypes of Persecution,” in Girard, The Scapegoat, 12–23. 20

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demon in a single victim. When public anger is appeased, the social crisis dissolves. Now one can see what the scapegoat mechanism offers to interpreting Isa 53.26 Girard observes that the servant was like a pharmakos, who was victimized by the unanimous persecutors. What the servant went through was no ritual sacrifice but “a spontaneous historical event, which has at once a collective and a legal character, and is sanctioned by the authorities.”27 This does not explain the servant’s identity, but it does explain the nature of the incident. The contagious power of a unanimous lynch mob is so colossal that it is typical that people involved never fully understand it.28 Even the close followers of Jesus, like Peter, could not resist its initial pressure.29 Perhaps this is how the “we” group of Isa 53 participated in the victimization of the servant. Afterwards, the “we” group sees the innocence of the servant and the redemptive effect of his suffering. It is this belated realization that makes them sing a requiem for him. Girard’s theory may also provide an explanation for the contrast between the initial neglect of the servant and his future exaltation, which interpreters have struggled to explain. After the ecstatic wave of violence diminishes, people realize that the crisis has been miraculously alleviated by the unanimous murder. People commonly ascribe the miracle to a god who appeared in the form of the lowly victim. “The same human groups that expel and massacre individuals on whom suspicions fall,” Girard explains, “switch over to adoring them when they find they are calm and reconciled.”30 People deify the victim and conceal the people’s collective violence by the manifestation of a divine figure: “Lynchings restore peace at the expense of the divinized victim.”31 Girard admits that such deification does not occur with all myths,32 and he does not propose Isa 53 as a text that betrays a typical form of 26

I find it interesting that Girard himself did not pay as much attention to Isa 53 as other texts like the Joseph narrative, Psalms, Job as representation of the Hebrew Bible’s antimythic perspective. For Girard’s discussion on Isa 53, see Girard, Things Hidden, 155–58. For applications by other scholars, see Raymund Schwager, Must There Be Scapegoats?: Violence and Redemption in the Bible (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987), 126–35; Williams, The Bible, Violence, and the Sacred, 158–62. 27 Girard, Things Hidden, 156. 28 Girard describes, “I am employing the word ‘mechanism’ to signify the automatic nature of the process and its results, as well as the incomprehension and even the unconscious obedience of the participants” (Girard, I See Satan Fall, 28). 29 Girard interprets Peter’s denial as “the most spectacular example of mimetic contagion.” See Girard, I See Satan Fall, 19–20. See also, Chapter 12, “Peter’s Denial,” in Girard, The Scapegoat. 30 Girard, I See Satan Fall, 66. 31 Girard, I See Satan Fall, 66. 32 E.g., deification is only hinted upon in the account of Apollonius’s miracle, which he thereby calls a “pale form of myth” (Girard, I See Satan Fall, 67).

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deification. 33 Still, I believe his theory shows a cogent explanation on the difficult issue of the servant’s elevated state. If the text did not make it explicit, then readers of later generations fulfilled the process by divinizing the servant. It is furthermore important to remember that scapegoating is a universal phenomenon and repetitive by nature. The significance of the song does not have to be, or cannot be, limited to a single person/group and a single event. Even if the song originated in a specific historical context, the song continually found new significances when it was received by diverse readership in relation to new incidents. 34 One may even argue that the presently anonymized form of the text is the product of continued receptions of the song. To accommodate all new applied significances, the servant was made abstract: a vessel broad enough to contain many victims who underwent the same fate. If so, the song’s effective history (Wirkungsgeschichte) is as much important as tradition and literary history in determining the text’s significance. As far as the present text is concerned, it is possible to surmise that the singer of Isa 53 is singing a dirge for all victims who suffered for many. The question of who the servant was is important, but it is not the only question that can uncover this song’s significance.

3. Manasseh as the Servant If one accepts that the scapegoat mechanism is present in Isa 53, that opens up a gateway that connects the servant to other scapegoats. It is now axiomatic that a text’s significance is not limited to the author’s intention.35 Insofar as this text is part of the wider canonical text, readers may link it with other biblical texts that feature scapegoats. If that connection is received by the community as meaningful, it has a power to rewrite the text. The Christological interpretation of the servant is none other than a radical intertextual reading performed within the Christian canon. What I attempt here is similar but pursued within the boundaries of the Hebrew Bible. One finds many

33 Girard (Things Hidden, 158, 227) saw that Isa 53 is premature in fully embracing the victim’s perspective insofar as Yhwh is still taken as the instigator of the violence. 34 See David J. A. Clines, I, He, We & They: A Literary Approach to Isaiah 53, JSOTSup 1 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1976); Joachimsen, Identities in Transition. 35 The author-, text-, and reader-oriented readings produce meanings in each domain, and even if the location of meaning production is different, the effect it has on the reading community is not fundamentally different. Critical interpretation is what perceives and classifies the location of meaning critically so that different types of readings are not unduly mingled. See Koog P. Hong, “Synchrony and Diachrony in Contemporary Biblical Interpretation,” CBQ 75 (2013): 521–39.

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scapegoats in the Hebrew Bible whose intertextual connections with the suffering servant await our recognition, such as Manasseh.

4. Manasseh the Scapegoat In an earlier essay, I have argued that the Deuteronomist (Dtr) used Manasseh as a scapegoat.36 At the time, my discussion was framed mainly by the problem of evil and theodicy. Girard’s theory helps us see through a mechanism that turned this dead king into an unlikely scapegoat. In the aftermath of the fall of the kingdom and the destruction of the temple, Dtr needed an “answer” to make sense of the catastrophe. The crisis that Dtr addresses is deeply theological in nature. Why has Jerusalem fallen? Where was YHWH when the enemy invaded our land? Without presenting an alternative answer, the lynch mob could have killed their own God.37 To salvage God, or more precisely Dtr’s theological system,38 somebody else needed to take responsibility, but who? Society was swept up in a destructive whirlwind of mutual blame and fingers were pointed in every direction. To overcome this crisis, the community needed a scapegoat who could bear their sins. Dtr’s choice was Manasseh, a dead king, against whom the communal anger was channeled. Without being given any chance to defend himself, Manasseh is sentenced as the sole culprit of the fall of Judahite kingdom. The ludicrous nature of this claim is evident. Did we, critical scholars, really not see the unreasonable nature of Dtr’s postmortem accusation? What makes this neglect more problematic is the hidden connection between mob and victim in this scapegoating drama, which is not very different from that of Isa 53. Palaver summarizes this typical dynamic in the scapegoat mechanism as follows: All violence, all hatred that was previously interspersed throughout the community in the form of individual rivalries is now directed at a single victim. In the eyes of the mob, the victim is responsible for the emergence of the crisis and is thus the incarnation of all evil. The monstrosity of the preceding crisis is now manifested in one single monster; we are dealing with one victim, which has become the scapegoat for the entire community.39

36

Koog-Pyoung Hong, “Ethics of Remembering: Scapegoating Manasseh after the Sewol Ferry Tragedy,” in Landscapes of Korean and Korean American Biblical Interpretation, ed. John J. Ahn, IVBS 10 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2019), 99–117. 37 As Sweeney demonstrated, Dtr’s program is fundamentally of theodicy. Sweeney, Reading the Hebrew Bible. 38 By nature, God does not require a scapegoat. Theodicy is a truly human business that tries to make sense of divinity at work in the world. Dtr’s crisis was brought about by the collapse a certain perception of God and the resulting commotion among the believers. 39 Palaver, René Girard’s Mimetic Theory, 151–52, italics added.

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On the surface, readers participate in the text’s victimization of Manasseh, but deep down, the monstrous face of the king is none other than the manifestation of “our” sins imputed upon “him.” To return to the miracle of Apollonius, we noted above that the initially hesitant Ephesians began to stone him when they saw fire in his eyes. What they did not see, however, was that the “fire” in his eyes was none other than “a mirror of their own anger.” Girard explains: “In the look of the beast tracked down and trapped that the beggar gives the Ephesians, they perceive a kind of defiance. Only at this moment do they believe they recognize their victim as the demon invented by Apollonius.”40 He knew that the threat of the angry mob would turn this nobody into a beast, and that would be more than enough to convince the crowd. The famous miracle worker only had to wait until the mob’s contagious anger transferred to the object. Then, what the Ephesians eliminated was not a stranger but the manifestation of the communal anger. After the stoning ended, what the Ephesians discovered under the heap of stones was a deformed dog. The myth wants to ascribe this as a miracle of Apollonius. However, the people’s perception was guided by Apollonius, who had ordered them to “remove the stones and acquaint themselves with the wild animal which they had slain.” The beggar had gone from being “the enemy of god” to being nothing more than a “wild animal.” Likewise, Manasseh’s monstrous face is none other than the mixture of all “our” sins and anxiety. It is no accident that Manasseh’s real face is completely erased.41 Of a king who boasts the longest reign among the Judean kings, DtrH provides no single personalized episode, instead characterizing him with standard accusations ascribed to wicked kings. Such depersonalization prepares the reader to accept him as evil incarnate. Dtr is in this respect not fundamentally different from Apollonius. His depiction of Manasseh invites his audience to see a demon, and when his audience (then and now) embraces that as factual, Dtr succeeds in turning this unlikely victim into a sacrificial goat for “us.” Dtr’s scapegoating of Manasseh is thus a cleansing ritual for “us.” Victimizing him functions as the removal of “our” sins, which enables the re-incorporation of the rest of “us,” not unlike the way stoning the beggar cured Ephesus of the pandemic. The redemptive nature of this ritual cannot be denied. For the exiled Judahites, Manasseh functioned like a 40

Girard, I See Satan Fall, 60. Francesca Stavrakopoulou, “The Blackballing of Manasseh,” in Good Kings and Bad Kings, ed. Lester L. Grabbe, LHBOTS 393 (London/New York: T&T Clark, 2005), 248–63; Alison L. Joseph, “Manasseh the Boring: Lack of Character in 2 Kings 21,” in Characters and Characterization in the Book of Kings, ed. Keith Bodner and Benjamin J. M. Johnson, LHBOTS 670 (London/New York: T&T Clark, 2020), 234–49. But note that Joseph explains Manasseh’s “boring face” in a completely different way than the ambiguous depiction of Manasseh’s sins was to imply that it was not the fault of Manasseh alone but all of us are responsible for the calamity. 41

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scapegoat onto whom they could pour out their anxiety, anger, and fear. Persecuting a single victim, they could separate themselves from the sins of the past, make sense of the present and redefine their future goals. The only difference is that this scapegoat ritual took place unconsciously, more like a lynch mob’s spontaneous persecution than the conscious ritual act of Lev 16. One may downplay the weight of the discursive violence of the text against Manasseh, but in a time of social media, we are continually asked to rediscover the danger of discursive violence. Today, we witness much physical violence instigated by simple stories – or even just words – of judgment and exclusion. I see Dtr’s verdict as no less than a posthumous execution. In a culture of shame and honor, mocking the dead king is like defiling a tomb, which was widely considered one of the worse punishments one could receive.

5. Manasseh in the Servant’s Marred Face The audience of DtrH thus used Manasseh’s monstrous face as an excuse to believe that he deserved the blame. Unlike the “we” group of Isa 53 – which did realize, though belatedly, their collective violence upon the single victim – readers of DtrH have rarely understood their complicity. This neglect is doubly painful for Manasseh. “We” stripped away his face and imposed “our” sins upon it. Now “we” do not recognize his face and blame him for its monstrosity. Manasseh thus serves as a pharmakos whose role is to remain silent and bear “our” sins. Failing to recognize the surrogate nature of Manasseh’s suffering, we participate in our own cleansing ritual as spectators. In the end, Isa 53 calls for solidarity with scapegoating victims. The very nature of the servant song is to turn “our” unconscious victimization of others into a conscious ritual drama. In a ritual, at least, we are aware of the service the scapegoat provides “us.” The readers of Isa 53 often miss this point precisely because they have already embraced the victim from the outset. Christian readers, for example, identify him with the Christ. The problem is that behind this reading, the servant’s earlier state as a pharmakos has been completely eclipsed by his later exalted state. It is that obscuring of the servant’s animalistic face that makes it difficult for the readers to connect him with other victims of scapegoating, such as Manasseh. One thing that Girard constantly reminds us is that all victims have two faces: monstrous and divine. Some victims may be sanctified, but before that, they all were perceived as beasts. The way the servant was initially perceived was far from divine. Note how the singer describes the servant’s form and how it is entrenched with language of dehumanization:

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Just as there were many who were astonished at him – so marred was his appearance, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of mortals. (Isa 52:14)

This passage is usually taken as an indication of the severity of the servant’s suffering, but one must see that “beyond a man” (‫ )מאישׁ‬and “beyond humanity” (‫ )מבני אדם‬are expressions typically related to social exclusion. Schipper’s recent argument toward identifying the servant’s physical disability makes an important step forward.42 His argument helps us separate who he was from who he became. By exclusively identifying the servant as a messianic figure, one loses sight of the marred face that caused complete neglect and contempt. We might take this a step further. Expressions of the servant’s deformity and bruises need not be limited to physical attributes. They can also be easily understood in social and psychological dimensions. When a person or a group is socially excluded, it is common that they are perceived as non-human – barbarous and chaotic. One conspicuous historical example is the way the ancient Chinese perceived neighboring clans as animals, which is even encoded into their ideographic writing system.43 Notably, the servant is reported to have had no form (‫ )תאר‬and no appearance (‫מראה‬, 53:2). Scholars used to take this as physical attributes, but they may also signify the lack of a social presence.44 There are many who live on the margins, whose very existences go unrecognized. Yes, “they” have forms – names, faces, and personalities – but “we” simply do not recognize “them.” When “we” do not acknowledge their social selves, “they” are rendered practically non-existent. This was how the servant was originally perceived, and this was what made his future exaltation so striking. One must also consider what kind of treatment the servant received. Only those who were at the receiving end of exclusion can truly understand it. One might think of victims of hate crimes. Those who have experienced an eerie sense that they are not seen as human beings in others’ eyes and those who had been yelled at, “go back to your home,” cannot fail to see what See subsequent references to sickness (‫חלי‬, 53:3) and physical bruise (‫מחלל‬, 53:5). Schipper, Disability and Isaiah’s Suffering Servant. Schipper does not mention it, but Girard already alluded to the servant’s disability, comparing with other ancient scapegoats with disability (Les origines de la culture, 85). 43 Magnus Fiskesjö, “The Animal Other: China’s Barbarians and Their Renaming in the Twentieth Century,” Social Text 29 (2011): 57–79. 44 The imagery of a sprout (‫יונק‬/‫שרש‬, 53:2) adds that his form was incomplete, defective, and thus undesirable. One can agree with scholars, including Sweeney (Reading the Hebrew Bible, 216), who think this sprout imagery makes reference to the Davidic line, but the primary meaning in the literary context is the “lack” of form, which is signified by the repeated use of ‫לא‬. In a word, this offspring of David, though his future is bright, was weak and negligible. 42

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expressions like “beyond a man” and “beyond humanity” entail. Only they truly know what kind of a glance the servant used to receive. This leads us to a striking insight. Many readers of Isa 53 are used to deifying the servant, but doing so is to victimize the servant once again, forever erasing his real face as an “other” and the fate he went through as a victim of hate culture. Girard may be correct that Isa 53 is one of the biblical texts that fight against mythology in that it takes the side of the victim. However, the way readers – especially Christians – read Isa 53 falls right back into the mythic disguise of reality. The song does not merely call for commemorating the suffering of “our redeemer.” It also contains a strikingly early recognition that we are saved by the suffering of nameless victims, who are neglected and despised. Seeing Manasseh in the servant reminds us of his forgotten face and helps us rededicate the song to what it was, a requiem for all monstrous “others” whom we victimized and made to suffer for “us.” While Manasseh is dead, the suffering of unrecognized “others” is ongoing. As part of our communal Cognitive Therapy, this reading functions as an effective reminder that warns us not to take for granted suffering of “others,” even the most villainous figures like Manasseh. This is effective insofar as most hate crimes are conditioned by cognitive behavior, a perception that fails to – or refuses to – see a fellow citizen as a human being. When a person gives you a dehumanizing glance, you instinctively sense that you are prey. It practically forces you to be an animal. There is a fundamental connection to a ritual sacrifice here. Much as we make an animal bear our sins, we turn others into animals to justify our hate. In a time of hatred that emanates so many vestiges of ancient rituals, one must listen to the call of the singer of Isa 53. The song asks us to wake up from Apollonius’s hypnosis and see the face of the poor beggar in the completely deformed victim that we pounded to a pulp. Seen in this light, one can read the Chronicler’s depiction of Manasseh as none other than an early response to the servant song’s call for solidarity with victims. Scholars have debated the historicity of Manasseh’s exile and repentance,45 but, in my opinion, the value of the Chronicler’s witness lies in its expression of a divergent voice from Dtr. If Dtr erased Manasseh’s face, the Chronicler’s version returns his personality to him. Manasseh’s sins forced him into an exile, but when he repented he was restored by God.46 Unlike Dtr, 45 Sweeney (Reading the Hebrew Bible, 72–76) paid attention to the Chronicler’s account of Manasseh’s exile, repentance, and restoration in resisting Dtr’s ideological depiction of Manasseh. And yet, his argument remains historical in that he tries to argue for some historical value in the Chronicler’s account of his exile. 46 Sweeney’s explanation on this point (Reading the Hebrew Bible, 76) is that the Chronicler’s theology differed from Dtr in that everyone is blamed for his or her own sin, not for the sins of the previous generation. This may be part of the reason. But if so, I think

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who used his monstrous face to highlight his difference from “us,” the Chronicler uses it to highlight continuity. What the Chronicler shows is perhaps a fundamentally different treatment of the victims. Biblical critics were quick to assign this divergent voice to the Chronicler’s Tendenz, but were we not just as tendentious as the text?

6. Conclusion During the Covid 19 crisis, one thing that we are witnessing is how the pandemic facilitates social upheavals. 47 People are once again searching for arbitrary victims against whom they may discharge their anger. As Girard demonstrates, human societies have constantly produced scapegoats. It is unlikely that this phenomenon will disappear so long as human civilization persists. The servant song in Isa 53 preserves a remarkably early form of a reflection on the scapegoat mechanism, but it did not succeed in stopping scapegoating culture. We have to stay vigilant to complete the work these texts began. This essay has attempted to raise awareness of our unconscious participation in the victimization of the “other.” Manasseh may not be the real, historical suffering servant of Isa 53. And yet, by way of carving Manasseh into the servant’s face, we can maximize the effect of the song in preventing unconscious participation in victimizing our neighbors, whose persecutors watch for opportunities to depict them as monsters and demons. What is “monstrous” is not our neighbors, but our own fear, anger, and desire. It is our own gaze that turns them into beasts. In truth, there are no “monstrous others.” We must turn “them” into “thou,” who has a name, a face, and a story. Yet, to fully open up the definition of “us” will destroy the boundary, and that is why differentiation is a basic element of social existence. Differentiating “us” from “them” may always necessarily lead to violence, but even then we must resist imposing monstrosity on “them.” Ultimately, this intertextual reading reminds us of the “impossibility of escaping responsibility” to others.48 In today’s global world, every life is dependent upon others, and one can never know how much “our” existence depends on hating a “them” that we have never met.

the Chronicler could have simply erased and forgotten Manasseh’s sins, as most of the northern kings were in this historical presentation. Instead, I highlight that the Chronicler presents a new narrative logic that challenges the existing one that deserves our attention. 47 Note Girard’s observation that the epidemic of the city of Ephesus also was social in nature. 48 Emmanuel Lévinas, Otherwise than Being, or, Beyond Essence (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1998), 14.

Two Prophecies in Ezekiel (14:1–11; 24:6–8) and One Source Text (Leviticus 17) Notes on Intertextuality and Creative Interactions Dalit Rom-Shiloni To Marv – Mentor, Colleague, Friend

This paper developed as I consolidated my thoughts on the use of pentateuchal materials in two of the major prophetic compositions of the late seventh / early sixth centuries BCE, the books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. In my work on Jeremiah, the use of Priestly (P) and Holiness Legislation (HL) traditions showed itself to be a literary phenomenon connected with the prophet and his early tradents, not a matter of sporadic interpolations or later editorial maneuvers; I argue that this practice signals a genuine transformation within prophecy of that era.1 The obvious next step was to proceed to the book of Ezekiel for a comparative glance at the characteristics of the use of Priestly materials in this book, as well as the nature of those pentateuchal materials utilized. The present paper discusses, by way of example, two passages in Ezekiel that (I dare to suggest) utilize the same HL text of Lev 17, but work very differently with the HL materials in terms of form and theme. The goals of this paper are to illustrate these passages’ relevance to more general observations on the utilization of pentateuchal materials within prophetic literature, and to discuss issues of “intertextuality” or “creative interaction,” terms that Marvin Sweeney himself, as well as other scholars, have used to describe this aspect of prophetic literature.2

1

See Dalit Rom-Shiloni, “The Forest and the Trees: The Place of Pentateuchal Materials in Prophecy as of the Late Seventh / Early Sixth Centuries BCE,” in Congress Volume: Stellenbosch 2016, ed. Louis C. Jonker, Gideon R. Kotze, and Christl M. Maier, VTSup 177 (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2017), 56–92; eadem, “Prophets in Jeremiah in Struggle over Leadership, Or Rather over Prophetic Authority?” Bib 99 (2018): 351–72; eadem, “From Prophetic Words to Prophetic Literature: Challenging Paradigms That Control Our Academic Thought,” JBL 138 (2019): 565–86. 2 Marvin A. Sweeney, Form and Intertextuality in Prophetic and Apocalyptic Literature, FAT 45 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 1–11, esp. 5–6; idem, Reading Prophetic Books: Form, Intertextuality, and Reception in Prophetic and Post-Biblical Literature, FAT 89 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 19–32. For “creative interaction,” see Michael A. Lyons,

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1. Ezekiel and Priestly Materials: The Directions of Influence The literary connections between Ezekiel and Priestly traditions (P and HL) have been fairly “natural” for scholars to accept. Ezekiel was a priest, commissioned to prophesy in Babylon (Ezek 1:1–3), and his legalistic style and interests were traditionally taken as characteristic of the prophet’s genuine writings (his tradents were presumed to have continued this style). Ezekiel’s period of obligatory silence, when restricted to his house for a number of years (Ezek 3:22–27; 33:21–22), was considered to be the setting in which the prophet became an author (a prophetic writer) and wrote his prose prophecies, making use of mostly Priestly legal materials with which he was intimately familiar.3 Georg H. A. Ewald described Ezekiel as writing in the private house of solitary prophetic meditation and thought…. Hezeqiel really excels all former prophets, particularly Yeremya, as a writer in point of skill, beauty, and perfection of treatment. But the more the author and savant is developed, the more the genuine prophet declines, a truth which finds clear verification especially in the case of Hezeqiel.4

Abraham Kuenen suggested that the book was written by the prophet as “his last will and testament.”5 This line that considered Ezekiel to be a writing prophet was established further by Hermann Gunkel, and was continued by scholars over the twentieth century, such as Walther Zimmerli and especially Ellen F. Davis.6 Yet, according to Ezek 8:1; 14:1; 20:1; 33:30–33, Ezekiel

From Law to Prophecy: Ezekiel’s Use of the Holiness Code, LHBOTS 507 (London/New York: T&T Clark, 2009), 67–75. 3 In addition to Ezekiel’s priestly identity, Sweeney emphasized Ezekiel’s reliance on “a Zion/Davidic tradition,” and the influence of Isaiah traditions and Josiah’s reform upon his prophecy; see “Ezekiel’s Debate with Isaiah,” in Reading Prophetic Books, 185–202. 4 Georg H. A. Ewald, Prophets of the Old Testament, trans. J. F. Smith, vols. 1–4 (Edinburgh: Williams & Norgate, 1878), 4:1–2, 9. Julius Wellhausen denigrated Ezekiel in much fiercer language, see Prolegomena to the History of Israel, trans. John Sutherland Black and Allan Menzies, 5th ed. (Edinburgh: Black, 1985; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994), 392–404, and see esp. 403, 421. 5 Abraham Kuenen, “Ezekiel,” reprinted from The Modern Review October 1884 (London: Speaight & Sons, 1884), 1–26, esp. pp. 7–8; and see Robert H. Kennett, “Ezekiel,” in Old Testament Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928), 42–58, esp. 48–50. 6 Hermann Gunkel, “The Prophets as Writers and Poets,” in Prophecy in Israel: Search for an Identity, ed. David L. Petersen, trans. James L. Schaaf, IRT 10 (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 22–73, first published in Gunkel, Die Propheten (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1923), 34–70. Among the later and influential scholars of Ezekiel, see Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, Chapters 1–24, trans. Ronald E. Clements, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 68–74, esp. pp. 28, 30, 36; and Ellen F. Davis, Swallowing the Scroll: Textuality and the Dynamics of Discourse in Ezekiel’s Prophecy, JSOTSup 78 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1989), 11–24, 29–45.

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197

served as a public figure among the exiles (see Artur Weiser’s critic of this scholarly perception).7 In terms of the priestly connections of the book of Ezekiel, lists of parallel phrases in Priestly sources and in Ezekiel had already been produced by nineteenth-century scholarship, and scholars have since debated directions of influence. 8 Although this has not become the general consensus, several studies as of the mid-twentieth and into the early twenty-first centuries have convincingly demonstrated that in the majority of cases the verbal connections between Ezekiel and Priestly literary and legal materials comprise literary references in which Ezekiel draws upon those pentateuchal traditions, and that only rarely does the influence flow in the other direction. This scholarly line, established by Yehezkel Kuafmann, guided the interpretation of Moshe Greenberg, and was verified linguistically by Avi Hurvitz.9 Based on these earlier efforts, first Risa Levitt Kohn and then Michael A. Lyons have illustrated lexically and exegetically the flow of influence and borrowing and deciphered the intentionality with which the prophet (and possibly his followers) utilized the earlier pentateuchal sources.10 Among European scholars, Walther Zimmerli was one of the first to recognize this direction of influence. 11 But Zimmerli was much more skeptical and emphasized the relatively few verbal connections with HL (apart from Lev 26), as well as what he called “striking differences” between them; taken together, these characteristics do not indicate literary dependencies, but rather show independence of formulation on the side of Ezekiel. Zimmerli preferred to explain 7

Artur Weiser, Introduction to the Old Testament, trans. D. M. Barton, 5th ed. (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1961), 224. 8 See, for instance, Samuel R. Driver, An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament, 5th ed., revised with an appendix (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1894), 145–54. 9 Yehezkel Kaufmann, History of Israelite Religion, vols. 1–4 (Jerusalem: Bialik, 1976), 3:533–38 (Hebrew); Moshe Greenberg (Ezekiel 1–20, AB 22 [Garden City: Doubleday, 1983]) treated this issue very briefly on p. 25, but et passim throughout the commentary. Avi Hurvitz pointed to linguistic features that place Ezekiel later than P; see Hurvitz, A Linguistic Study of the Relationship between the Priestly Source and the Book of Ezekiel, CahRB 20 (Paris: Gabalda, 1982), 143–55, esp. 150–51; idem, “On Several Terms of Holiness and Purity Utilized in the Book of Ezekiel in Miqtal Pattern: Studies on the Relationships between the Priestly Code and the Book of Ezekiel,” in Festschrift A. L. Seeligmann: Studies in the Bible and the Ancient World, ed. Yair Zakovitch and Alexander Rofé (Jerusalem: Rubinsteen, 1983), 247–56 (Hebrew). 10 Risa Levitt Kohn, A New Heart and a New Soul: Ezekiel, the Exile, and the Torah, JSOTSup 358 (New York: Sheffield Academic, 2002), 75–85; see particularly her presentation of “The State of the Question,” 6–29; and Lyons (From Law to Prophecy, 47–75), with an updated discussion of the scholarly opinions, mainly on H and Ezekiel (ibid., 1–14, 15–46). 11 Walther Zimmerli, “Die Eigenart der prophetischen Rede des Ezechiel: Ein Beitrag zum Problem an Hand von Ez. 14:1–11,” ZAW 66 (1954): 1–26, esp. p. 20.

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the relationships between Ezekiel and both HL and P as a result of contacts between circles of later tradents.12 Fairly recently, Christophe Nihan reconstructed a more complex schema of literary relationships, arguing for nonlinear and reciprocal connections between the two compositions and the scribal processes that they each went through over the course of transmission.13 Nihan argued that scribal activity, reflected mostly in MT Ezekiel, was responsible for the “expansion and amplification” of the accordance between the Ezekiel text and HL (which presumably took shape earlier than the prophetic book).14 Be it the prophet, his immediate tradents, or later scribes, the P and HL connections in Ezekiel seem to be only part of a broader picture.

2. Ezekiel and Dtn References: Conflation of Dtn and P/HL in the Prophecy Deuteronomic (Dtn) references have also been identified in Ezekiel. Robert R. Wilson explained those contacts from a sociological perspective: “[R]ather than becoming a total convert to the Deuteronomic position, he seems to have attempted to make his own personal synthesis of the Zadokite and Deuteronomic positions.”15 This “personal synthesis” was further illustrated by Levitt Kohn, who from the point of view of terminology investigated various phrases in Ezekiel and their occurrences in Priestly sources. She also discussed Ezek 20, pointing out examples of the conflation of Dtn and P/HL phrases in one and the same prophetic context, together with several conceptual Deuteronomic influences on Ezekiel.16 The conflation of Dtn and P/HL 12 Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 46–52; and see his comments on Lev 26, pp. 50–52; quotation is from p. 51. 13 Christophe L. Nihan, “Ezekiel and the Holiness Legislation: A Plea for Nonlinear Models,” in The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Academic Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America, ed. Jan C. Gertz, Bernard M. Levinson, Dalit Rom-Shiloni, and Konrad Schmid, FAT 111 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 1015–40, esp. 1019–26; and, in the same volume, see Ariel Kopilovitz, “What Kind of Priestly Writings Did Ezekiel Know?,” 1041–54. 14 Nihan, “Ezekiel and the Holiness Legislation,” 1024, though Nihan did mention that this scribal intention of coordination to HL may also be found in OG, not only in MT, p. 1039. I wonder whether many of Nihan’s examples could not be explained as the ancient translators’ insensitivity to those phraseological similarities in the Hebrew Vorlage. 15 Robert R. Wilson, Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), 284. This line of historical-sociological research on Ezekiel’s personal exposure to Josiah’s reform and to Zadokite perspective was already discussed at length by Kennett, “Ezekiel,” 42–47. 16 Levitt Kohn, A New Heart, 96–104; and on the fusion of Dtn and P conceptions beyond Ezek 20, see ibid., 106–18. Levitt Kohn (102–3) emphasized not only the actual fusion of terminologies, but the details Ezekiel had presumably found in his pentateuchal

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199

(as also Covenant Code, CC) corpora was pointed out by Moshe Greenberg in reference to Ezek 18 and elsewhere. 17 In an earlier paper on Ezekiel and Jeremiah, I adduced eight examples of allusions to Dtn materials in Ezekiel, passages that are also utilized independently by Jeremiah:18 (1) Deut 24:16, invoked by Ezek 3:18, 19 and Jer 31:30; (2) Deut 4:28; 27:15, invoked by Ezek 6:6 and Jer 1:16; 25:6–7; 44:8; (3) Deut 12:2, invoked by Ezek 6:13 and Jer 2:20; (4) Deut 29:3, invoked by Ezek 12:2 and Jer 5:21; (5) Deut 28:26, invoked by Ezek 29:5 and Jer 8:2; 9:21; (6) Deut 28:36, invoked by Ezek 32:9 and Jer 15:14; 17:4; 22:28; (7) Deut 4:27–28 and 28:36, 64, invoked by Ezek 12:15–16 and Jer 9:15; (8) Deut 20:5–7, through its reversal in Deut 28:30–32, invoked by Ezek 28:25–26 and Jer 29:5–6; and in this case, each prophetic passage conflates Dtn references with P/HL materials (Gen 1:27 and Lev 26:1–13, respectively). These studies (among others) have thus succeeded in breaking the nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholarly assignment of Priestly sources to Ezekiel and Deuteronomy to Jeremiah.19 I believe we can now speak of less rigid divisions. It is more helpful to recognize tendencies towards using one or the other type of pentateuchal materials, but neither prophet could/should be confined to only one specific pentateuchal authorial circle.20 The conclusion I would rather draw from the data drawn from these two prophetic books is that both Deuteronomic and Priestly materials were at hand for the two prophetic personae (independently), or within reach of their immediate/early tradents; these materials (in various stages of textuality) were in circulation by the end of the seventh and early sixth centuries BCE and thereafter.21 traditions, but skipped over and without mentioning them. Compare to Lyons (From Law to Prophecy, 95–97), who presented examples of the proximity of passages within P and H, but did not consider examples that cross the borders of Priestly literature. 17 Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20, 342–44, and see pp. 328–34. Cf. Zimmerli (Ezekiel 1, 46), who concluded a short survey by, saying: “Overall the smallness of the contact of Ezekiel with the language and ideas of the well-defined world of Deuteronomy is striking.” 18 Dalit Rom-Shiloni, “Ezekiel and Jeremiah: What Might Stand Behind the Silence?” HeBAI 2 (2012): 203–30, esp. pp. 217–27. 19 For thorough studies of the history of research, see Levitt Kohn, A New Heart, 6–29; and Nihan, “Ezekiel and the Holiness Legislation,” 1015–18. 20 I have addressed those broad questions in three papers, see n. 1 above. 21 For the conflation of pentateuchal materials in Ezekiel, see John S. Bergsma, “The Relevance of Ezekiel and the Samaritans for Pentateuchal Composition: Converging Lines of Evidence,” in Exploring the Composition of the Pentateuch, ed. L. S. Baker et al., BBRSup 27 (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2020), 231–48. Bergsma argues for Ezekiel’s familiarity with D and P/H (p. 246), and even for the existence of “the Pentateuch as a substantially completed document” by the early sixth century (p. 248). While I agree on the relative order between Ezekiel and the pentateuchal materials alluded to in the book, I am not sure the overall evidences for Ezekiel’s intertextual reliance on pentateuchal materials support Bergsma’s claim.

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These two preliminary conclusions set the stage for the main questions addressed below, the How and the Why questions of the form and function of these materials. I will discuss here two passages from Ezekiel (Ezek 14:1–11; 24:6–8), both of which refer in different ways to Lev 17.

3. Ezekiel and P/HL Materials: How Does It Actually Work? – Two Examples To date, the most comprehensive and in-depth study of the literary relationships between Ezekiel and HL has been carried out by Lyons.22 Lyons discussed the relationships between the “source text” and the “borrowing text,” and produced criteria to help determine not only when a relationship of borrowing obtains, but also the plausible direction of this borrowing. Lyons suggested four categories of difference by which the borrowing text refers to its source text: modification, incongruity, conceptual dependence, and interpretive expansion; in addition, two formal criteria elucidate the direction of dependence: (1) conflation and split of the source tradition(s); and (2) recombination of elements. Lyons was very confident about the direction of dependence, as he concluded by saying that he had no evidence “to suggest that H is quoting Ezekiel. However, I have found a number of passages that are best read as evidence that Ezekiel is using H.”23 Furthermore, Lyons established criteria of frequency and distribution, to decipher the intentionality of the borrowing text in its reference to the source text. These criteria indicate the author’s awareness of the context from which the locution is taken and the availability of options.24 Of major significance to prove intentionality is what Lyons called the “creative interaction” of the borrowing text with its source; that is, the ways that the borrowing text may “use it [the source text] as a basis for an argument, disagree with it, or reuse its words to create a new argument.”25 I would like to investigate this notion of “creative interaction,” by looking at two passages from Ezekiel (Ezek 14:1–11; 24:6–8), both of which refer in different ways to the same HL passage, Lev 17.

22

Lyons, From Law to Prophecy, 47–58. Lyons, From Law to Prophecy, 60–67, quotation from p. 67. 24 Lyons, From Law to Prophecy, 67–72. 25 Lyons, From Law to Prophecy, 72–75, quotation from p. 73. Lyons bases his discussion on Richard L. Schultz, The Search for Quotation: Verbal Parallels in the Prophets, JSOTSup 180 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999), 224–26; and on Michael A. Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1988), 281–83. 23

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a. Ezekiel 14:1–11 and HL Leviticus 17 Ezekiel 14:1–11 and HL Lev 17 share two types of resemblance, verbal and structural.26 The verbal resemblances echo the P/HL legal style, and they are addressed below according to the order of verses in the Ezekiel passage. Ezekiel 14:1–11 Introduction [+ elaborated formula]

v. 4a: ‫דבר אותם ואמרת אליהם‬ v. 4b: ‫איש איש מבית ישראל‬ v. 7: ‫כי איש איש מבית ישראל‬ ‫ומהגר אשר יגור בישראל‬

Leviticus 17, HL 17:2: ‫דבר אל … ואמרת אליהם‬ v. 3: ‫איש איש מבית ישראל‬ vv. 8, 10, 13: ‫ואיש איש מבית‬ ‫( ישראל ומן הגר הגר בתוכם‬see also Lev 20:2; 22:18)

Accusation of sin

v. 4: ‫אשר יעלה‬ v. 7: ‫וינזר מאחרי‬

formulated in ‫אשר‬+ yiqtol form: Lev 17:3 (‫)אשר ישחט‬, v. 8 (‫)אשר יעלה‬, v. 10 (‫)אשר יאכל‬, v. 13 (‫)אשר יצוד‬, as also v. 15 (‫)אשר תאכל‬

Judgment

v. 8: ‫ונתתי פני באיש ההוא והכרתיו‬

Lev 17:4, 9: ‫ונכרת האיש ההוא‬

‫מתוך עמי‬ v. 10: ‫ונטיתי את ידי עליו והשמדתיו‬ ‫מתוך עמי ישראל‬

Explanatory statement

v. 5:27 ‫למען תפש את בית ישראל‬

‫מקרב עמו‬

v. 14: ‫כל אכליו יכרת‬ v. 10: ‫והכרתי אתה מקרב עמה‬

‫ונתתי פני בנפש האכלת את הדם‬

Lev 17: 5–7:28 formulated in

v. 11: ‫למען לא יתעו עוד בית ישראל‬

‫ למען אשר‬+ yiqtol form ‫למען‬ ‫אשר יביאו בני ישראל‬

v. 10: ‫ונשאו עונם‬

Lev 17:16: ‫ונשא עונו‬

‫בלבם‬ ‫מאחרי‬

Closing judgment

Ezekiel 14:4a, ‫ואמרת אליהם‬...‫דבר אל‬, is a regular formula that introduces HL chapters (Lev 18:2; 19:2; 22:18; 23:2, 10; 25:2; 27:2; 20:2 is an exception; and note the variation in 21:2: ‫)אמר אל…ואמרת אליהם‬.29 26 Lists of parallels between the two specific texts were suggested by Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20, 252; Daniel I. Block, Ezekiel 1–24, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 423– 24; and earlier by Zimmerli (“Die Eigenart,” 3–19; idem, Ezekiel 1, 302). 27 See Block, Ezekiel 1–24, 423. 28 In addition, Lev 17:11–12, 14 uses other forms of causal clauses to explain the restrictions on blood. 29 The formula ‫ ואמרת אליהם‬... ‫ דבר אל‬occurs also in P (e.g., Lev 1:2; 15:2 [in the plural]; Num 5:12; 6:2; 15:2; etc.); although a more common alternative is ‫דבר אל … לאמר‬ (as in Lev 4:2; 6:18; 7:29; and in HL: 21:17; 23:24, 34; etc.). See Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20, 252; Block, Ezekiel 1–24, 423.

202

Dalit Rom-Shiloni

Concerning v. 4b, ‫ איש איש מבית ישראל‬and v. 7, 30 ‫כי איש איש מבית‬ ‫ישראל ומהגר אשר יגור בישראל‬, Walther Zimmerli noted that the major

evidence for Ezekiel’s reliance on Lev 17 is this repetition of the two introductory formulae (Ezek 14:3, 7; Lev 17:3, 8, 10, 13), including the mention of the alien resident (‫)הגר הגר בתוכם‬. This segment is clearly unsuitable for the context within Ezekiel and the circumstances of exile, and Zimmerli thus argued:31

Ezekiel uses a fixed form of expression which he himself had received and which undoubtedly had already become stereotyped before the beginning of the exile. The mention of the ‫ גר‬makes it probable that the formation of this type of law must be sought in the period of the pre-exilic settlement of Israel in the land…

The stylistic resemblances between Ezek 14:1–11 and Lev 17 go much beyond that strong argument. The predicate in Ezek 14:4a is presented by the relative clause ‫( אשר יעלה‬and without the relative particle ‫ אשר‬in v. 7, ‫וינזר‬ ‫)מאחרי‬. The formula ‫ אשר‬+ yiqtol is one of the structures that commonly follows the agent ‫ איש‬or ‫ איש איש‬in priestly sources, and thus it recurs in Lev 17:3 (‫)אשר ישחט‬, 8 (‫)אשר יעלה‬, 10 (‫)אשר יאכל‬, 13 (‫)אשר יצוד‬, and 15 (‫)אשר תאכל‬.32 Ezekiel 14:8, ‫ונתתי פני באיש ההוא והכרתיו מתוך עמי‬, clusters two priestly phrases. The first, ‫נתן )שים( פניו בנפש ההיא‬, also introduces the second phrase, ‫מ)קרב( עמה‬/‫הנפש מן‬/‫ונכרתה האיש‬, in Lev 17:10; 20:3, 5, 6.33 This resemblance was recognized by Zimmerli, who wrote that “Ezekiel has scarcely minted a new expression for the first time, but drawn upon an extant 30

Zimmerli (“Die Eigenart,” 7) noted aptly the discordance between the legal style of v. 7, ‫איש איש מבית ישראל‬, addressing any person of the community, and v. 9, which focuses on the prophet. 31 Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 303; Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20, 249; Paul M. Joyce, Ezekiel, LHBOTS 482 (London/New York: T&T Clark, 2007), 124; compare to George A. Cooke (Ezekiel, ICC [Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1936], 150), who saw the HL characteristics, but still sought ways to include the resident alien in Ezekiel’s context. This discordance was discussed by Lyons (From Law to Prophecy, 62–64) as an example of “incongruity,” produced when the borrowed text is “only partially integrated into the borrowing text,” and therefore “incongruous with the new context.” 32 See also the syntactic construction of the conditional (hypothetical) clauses (“subject + conditional ‫ כי‬+ yiqtol form”) in ‫( והנביא כי יפתה‬Ezek 14:9), which is a repeated construct in Ezekiel (e.g., Ezek 14:13; 18:5, 18, 21; 33:2, 6, 9), and very frequent in P/HL legal style (as in Lev 1:2; 2:1; 19:20; etc.). See Bruce K. Waltke and M. O’Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 637, §38.2e; and see Joyce, Ezekiel, 124. 33 The phrases ‫ מעדת ישראל‬/ ‫מ)קרב( עמ)י(ה‬/‫ ונכרתה הנפש מן‬occurs in other P/HL verses: Gen 17:14; Exod 12:19; 31:14; Lev 7:20, 21, 25, 27; 19:8; 22:3; 23:29; Num 1:13; 15:30; 19:13, 20; and see ‫ כרת‬Hiphil, in Lev 17:10; 20:3, 5, 6. For “cutting off” a person from within his family/kin (‫ונכרתה הנפש ההיא מעמיה‬, e.g., Lev 7:20), see Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, AB 3 (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 424–25.

Two Prophecies in Ezekiel

203

tradition.” Moreover, note that exceptionally in Ezek 14:8 the social context is God’s people (‫)והכרתיו מתוך עמי‬, rather than the common kin/family context in the P/HL legal phrase expressed by ‫עמיו‬/‫עמיה‬/‫( עמה‬e.g., Exod 31:14; Lev 7:25; 17:9).34 Nonetheless, in presenting the prophet’s judgment in v. 9, ‫ונטיתי את ידי‬ ‫עליו והשמדתיו מתוך עמי ישראל‬, Ezekiel brings typical Dtn phraseology into his prophecy. The verb ‫ שמד‬occurs frequently in Deuteronomy, with Israel as its object (in Niphal, e.g., Deut 4:26; 28:20, 24, 45, 51, 61; and in Hiphil, e.g., Deut 6:15; 7:4; 9:8, 19, 25; 28:63); or in reference to the Canaanite peoples that God will annihilate (in both verbal forms, Deut 7:23, 24; 12:30; 31:3, 4; 33:27). Ezekiel uses ‫ שמד‬Hiphil only in Ezek 14:9 and in 34:16. This is then another example of conflation of P/HL and Dtn phrases in Ezekiel.35 Ezekiel 14:5 and 11 comprise two explanatory statements that illustrate God’s intentions/purposes: ‫ למען תפש את בית ישראל בלבם‬and ‫למען לא‬ ‫יתעו עוד בית ישראל מאחרי‬.36 By their form (not by theme) they are close (not identical) to the more rare formula of purpose,37 ‫ יקטל‬+ ‫ אשר‬+ ‫למען‬, which occurs in Lev 17:5: ‫למען אשר יביאו בני ישראל‬. 38 This syntactical 34 See Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 303–5, quotation p. 305; and already, Zimmerli, “Die Eigenart,” 14–15. For a discussion of this penalty, see Gordon J. Wenham, Leviticus, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), 285–86. 35 This example was not presented in Levitt Kohn’s list, A New Heart, 145–46. Zimmerli (Ezekiel 1, 303–4) simply noted the two as variants (and specified only Deut 4:3, indeed the only Dtn reference of ‫)השמיד מקרב‬. On the option that the addition of ‫שמד‬ designates a different judgment, see Block, Ezekiel 1–24, 431; I would not deem it necessary. 36 See Block, Ezekiel 1–24, 423. 37 Two structures with the conjunction ‫ למען‬to express purpose are common throughout the various pentateuchal sources: (1) (‫ לא יקטל‬/) ‫ יקטל‬+ ‫למען‬, e.g., Exod 16:32, ‫;למען יראו‬ 20:12, ‫ ;למען יארכון ימיך‬Deut 4:1, ‫ ;למען תחיו‬31:12, ‫( ;למען ישמעו ולמען ילמדו‬2) + ‫למען‬ ‫קטול‬, with the infinitive absolute or construct, e.g., Deut 6:23, ‫ ;למען הביא‬Deut 8:2, 16, ‫למען ענתך‬. (3) A third structure, ‫לא יקטל‬/‫ יקטל‬+ ‫ אשר‬+ ‫ למען‬occurs much less frequently; see Gen 18:19; twice in P/HL sources, Lev 17:5; Num 17:5; twice in Dtn (Deut 20:18: ... ‫ ;למען אשר לא ילמדו אתכם לעשות ככל תועבתם‬Deut 27:3, ‫ ;)למען אשר תבא‬as well as Josh 3:4; 2 Sam 13:5; Jer 42:6; and in Ezek 31:14; 36:40; 46:18. See Paul Joüon and Tomoo Muraoka, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew (Rome: Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1996), § 168d. 38 Leviticus 17:11–12, 14 bring causal clauses on blood governed by the particle ‫“ כי‬for, since, etc.” These formulae leave out verses that add motivations or rationales to the preceding restrictions (vv. 5–7, 11–12, 14). Based on those formal features, these verses have been taken as elaborations; as markers, on the one hand, of a change in the addressee, being “an aside to Moses about Israel,” using the customary rhetoric of HL that “tends to add rationales at every turn”; see Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 17–22, AB 3A (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 1458–59, 1463, and see further pp. 1472; based on Baruch J. Schwartz, “The Prohibition concerning the ‘Eating’ of Blood in Leviticus 17,” in Priesthood and Cult in Ancient Israel, ed. Gary A. Anderson and Saul M. Olyan (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic,

204

Dalit Rom-Shiloni

difference suggests that Ezekiel aligns with the common structure, rather than adapting Lev 17:5’s more rare construction. In reference to Ezek 14:10, ‫“( ונשאו עונם‬Thus they shall bear their punishment”), Zimmerli accentuated the precise usage of the “language of sacral law” transformed in prophetic preaching.39 But it is of special interest to find this phrase towards the end of Ezek 14:1–11, mirroring the ‫ ונשא עונו‬of the very last words of Lev 17:16.40 This similarity leads to additional structural considerations. Leviticus 17:15–16 follows four sub-units that open with ‫איש איש מבית‬ [‫( ישראל ]ומן הגר הגר בתוכם‬17:3–4 [elaborated in vv. 5–7], 8–9, 10–11, 13– 14).41 Verses 15–16 seem to be the closing unit of that 4+1 pattern. Thus, as expected, formally, they do not repeat the verbal features of the four preceding units. Content-wise, vv. 15–16 refer to purification steps needed to be taken by the hunter on occasion of eating meat of “what has died or has been torn by beasts” (‫ ;נבלה וטרפה‬and see Lev 11:39–40). This contamination conveyed by animal carcasses is a topic that was not raised earlier in Lev 17. Similarly, vv. 15–16 do not mention this chapter’s major issue, the eating of blood.42 Given these complicated literary-historical aspects of Lev 17, it is

1991), 34–66, esp. 45; and on the other, as secondary interpolations; see, for instance, Erhard S. Gerstenberger, Leviticus, trans. D. W. Stott, OTL (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996), 235–36. 39 Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 305 (and already, idem, “Die Eigenart,” 9–10); Greenberg (Ezekiel 1–20, 104) emphasized its usage in reference to sin and to judgment. For the accurate meaning in priestly sources, see Baruch J. Schwartz, “The Bearing of Sin in the Priestly Literature,” in Pomegranates and Golden Bells; Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom, ed. David P. Wright, David Noel Freedman, and Avi Hurvitz (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1995), 3–21; and Milgrom’s response (Leviticus 17–22, 1488–90), who emphasized that this phrase stands for “a nonexplicable, irremediable divine sentence” that is “unavoidable” (p. 1490). 40 ‫נשא עון‬ as a final verdict occurs in Lev 5:1, 17, 18; and in HL Lev 20:17, 19; and Ezek 44:10, 12. Similar to Ezek 14:11, in two cases, this phrase closes the legal passage (the law), Num 5:31; 30:16; see Zimmerli, “Die Eigenart,” 11. 41 For different perspectives on the structure of Lev 17, and subsequently its themes and literary-history, compare John E. Hartley, Leviticus, WBC 4 (Dallas: Word Books, 1992), 263–69; to the structural form division of Lev 17 into five passages suggested by Schwartz, “The Prohibition,” 36–43. Christoph L. Nihan (From Priestly Torah to Pentateuch: A Study in the Composition of the Book of Leviticus, FAT 2/25 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007], 403) argued for “a complex, but nevertheless unified composition,” that indicates “an elaborate literary creation” (405) of inner-biblical legal exegesis “which presupposes and reinterprets earlier legislation on sacrifices in P, D, and even the CC” (429). 42 Schwartz (“The Prohibition,” 38), however, explained the integral connection of Lev 17:15–16 to its context; compare to Milgrom, Leviticus 17–22, 1484–85; and to Gerstenberger (Leviticus, 239–40), who understood the verses as appended to the earlier unit of four passages.

Two Prophecies in Ezekiel

205

remarkable to note that in its last reference to Lev 17, Ezek 14:10 does repeat the concluding two words of Lev 17:16: ‫ונשא עונו‬. Beyond these many verbal resemblances, there are similarities between Ezek 14:1–11 and Lev 17 in the overall structures of the two units:43 introduction, accusation of sin, judgment, explanatory statements, and closing judgment.44 Both verbal and structural similarities suggest the dependence of Ezek 14:1–11 on Lev 17:1–16.45 Accepting Nihan’s observation on the complexed innerbiblical exegetical nature of Lev 17, Ezek 14:1–11 is familiar with this HL chapter already in its final form.46 Nevertheless, it is important to point out that all these resemblances are strictly formal and verbal (belonging to the legalistic style Zimmerli pointed out), and do not include similarities in content or in theme. In this passage, Ezekiel seems not to take advantage of those topics discussed in Lev 17 at all. The cultic transgressions mentioned in Ezek 14:1–11 have nothing to do with the issues of slaughter, sacrifices, eating meat, prohibitions related to the eating of blood, and the proper manner of disposing of it, or the purification after eating carrion, which are so central to Lev 17.47 Rather, Ezekiel uses this HL structure and formulae, in their precise wordings, to construct his own prophetic message; thus, the allusions to Lev 17 function as the structural framework for a prophecy with very different content from the invoked text. Both the accusation and the subsequent judgment gain extra authority in this prophetic pronouncement from their recognizable priestly and legal style (was it possibly recognized already by the Elders of Israel, the prophecy’s target audience?).48 43 In addition, as scholars noted, there are other typical P/HL phrases in Ezek 14:1–11 that are not confined to Lev 17, such as the covenant formula in Ezek 14:11: ‫והיו לי לעם‬ ‫ואני אהיה להם לאלהים‬, which might recall Lev 26:12. 44 See the table above. These components occur in the sub-sections of Lev 17, see n. 41 above. 45 This wide literary dependency was noted by Zimmerli, “Die Eigenart,” 13–14; idem, Ezekiel 1, 303–6; Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20, 252. Compare to Lyons (From Law to Prophecy, 167), who pointed out verbal connections only between Lev 17:8–10 and Ezek 14:4, 7– 8. The above-mentioned structural similarities seem to utilize much more of Lev 17. Furthermore, the possibility that Ezekiel knew an HL version of this chapter was suggested cautiously by Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20, 252; Lyons (From Law to Prophecy, 44–46, 58–59, and passim) drew a similar conclusion on the basis of his detailed study of the relationships between the two corpora. In view of the present discussion, I would advocate this possibility even more strongly. 46 Nihan, From Priestly Torah to Pentateuch, 429. 47 See Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 48. For those central themes in Lev 17, and especially the prohibition against digesting blood, see Schwartz, “The Prohibition,” 36–43, 60–63; Milgrom, Leviticus 17–22, 1448; and Gerstenberger, Leviticus, 234–44. 48 This legal style became the definitive feature in Zimmerli’s argument for the literary unity of Ezek 14:1–11 as a prophetic passage, including vv. 9–11 (Zimmerli, “Die

206

Dalit Rom-Shiloni

By way of contrast, I now turn to a second prophecy from Ezekiel that works with the same HL passage. In this case, however, the Ezekiel passage shows a clear interpretive transformation of the content of Lev 17, which enfolds in itself some interesting techniques of literary allusion. b. Ezekiel 24:6–8 and HL Leviticus 17 Ezekiel 24:6–849

Leviticus 17:13–14

6 Now then, thus said the Lord GOD: Woe to the bloody city (‫ – )עיר הדמים‬a pot whose filth is in her, whose filth will not be gone from her! Take her cuts out one by one; no lot has fallen on her. 7 For the blood she has shed festers in her (‫כי דמה בתוכה‬ ‫ ;)היה‬she set it on a glaring rock (‫על צחיח‬ ‫ ;)סלע שמתהו‬she did not pour it out on the ground to cover it with earth (‫לא שפכתהו‬ ‫)על הארץ לכסות עליו עפר‬. 8 To kindle fury, to take vengeance I put that blood on a glaring rock, not to be covered (‫נתתי את דמה‬ ‫)על צחיח סלע לבלתי הכסות‬.

13 And if any Israelite or any stranger who resides among them hunts down an animal or a bird that may be eaten, he shall pour out its blood and cover it with earth (‫ושפך‬ ‫)את דמו וכסהו בעפר‬. v. 14 For the life of all flesh – its blood is its life (‫כי נפש כל‬ ‫)בשר דמו בנפשו הוא‬. Therefore I say to the Israelite people: You shall not partake of the blood of any flesh (‫)דם כל בשר לא תאכלו‬, for the life of all flesh is its blood (‫כי נפש‬ ‫)כל בשר דמו הוא‬. Anyone who partakes of it shall be cut off (‫)כל אכליו יכרת‬.

Ezekiel 24:1–14, especially vv. 6–8 within it, constitute the harshest prophetic proclamations against Jerusalem within chs. 1–24; the reference to Lev 17 dramatically drives its horrific message. The prophet is commanded to perform the sign-act (designated as a ‫משל‬, a parable, v. 3) of setting the pot on fire and burning the choicest pieces of meat from the best of the flock (vv. 3–5). This act leads to two proclamations of judgment in vv. 6–8 and 9–14; each opens with ‫( לכן כה אמר אדני יהוה‬vv. 6, 9).50 Zimmerli considered the interpretation of the pot imagery (vv. 3–5) to be

Eigenart,” 8; and idem, Ezekiel 1, 302, 305–6); and so Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20, 252. Block (Ezekiel 1–24, 421–22) noted Zimmerli’s impact on the subsequent interpretation of this unit. Block (p. 424) added: “In Ezekiel’s response…he has intentionally and ironically dipped deeply in the well of Israel’s sacral legal tradition… Yahweh has a capital case against them, and his judgment is sure.” This intentional reliance on HL was recognized already by Cooke (Ezekiel, 150) in 1936: “it seems to invoke the authority of the Law to support the prophet’s appeal.” 49 The English translation of Ezek 24:6–8 is by Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 21–37, AB 22A (New York: Doubleday, 1997), 495. 50 For the structure and themes in the three sections of this passage, Ezek 24:3–5, 6–8, 9–14, see Greenberg, Ezekiel 21–37, 503–6. Joyce (Ezekiel, 165) mentioned the staccato rhythm of the instructions given in vv. 3–5, and the escalation of judgment in vv. 9–14 (p. 166).

Two Prophecies in Ezekiel

207

found in vv. 9b and 10a (with further expansions on vv. 10b–14, and in 6b);51 whereas vv. 6–8 are to be seen as an elaboration that does not interpret that parable of vv. 3–5 at all, but designates a secondary expansion (as so often in Ezekiel). It seems quite convincing that Ezek 24:1–14 contains two parallel/different prophetic segments of judgment that diversely complement the sign-act parable (vv. 3–5). But what are the relationships between these two segments? Zimmerli considered these two passages as comprising two layers (or more) that still reflect the shock of Jerusalem’s destruction;52 thus the first, “original saying” (vv. 9–14) was presumably proclaimed during “the beginning of the siege over Jerusalem,” whereas the “later interpretation [vv. 6– 8]…had in mind the event of the fall and burning of the city…. We cannot therefore be far off the time of the year 587.”53 As a conclusion, Zimmerli argued that “the derivation of the addition from Ezekiel himself cannot altogether be excluded, although the circle of the school, who have preserved the oracles, may also possibly be the authors.”54 I take this as a very cautious conclusion, and indeed do not see any reason to exclude this expansion from Ezekiel (or his immediate tradents). This passage may thus serve as a very good example of the growth of the prophetic proclamations in Ezekiel, but at the same time, this is an important example of the possibility that techniques of allusion might be used by the prophet as well as by his tradents, leaving us with no viable tools to clearly distinguish between them.55 Verses 6–8 contain a literary reference to Lev 17:13–14. On the verbal/literal reference level, ‫ שפך דם‬and ‫ כסה בעפר‬occur together only in Lev 17 (vv. 13–14) and in Ezek 24 (vv. 6–8). Moreover, the thematic references draw the two together into the arena of literary allusion.56 When looking at the function of these references, vv. 6–8 function like vv. 9–14, designating Jerusalem as “bloody city” (or: “city of blood,” v. 6, this same epithet occurs also in v. 9). The two sub-units take human 51

Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 497, and discussion of the expansions on 10b–14 (p. 501). Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 500; Greenberg (Ezekiel 21–37, 503–4) considered the two passages (vv. 6–8, 9–14) as two “clarifications” of the parable, and recognized that they “indicate stages of composition” (503). Nevertheless, Greenberg presented unifying “pervasive thematic and linguistic features” in this oracle (504), which he thus assigned to “a sovereign prophet-author” (i.e., Ezekiel), rather than to “a hypothetical disciple or traditionist” (506). 53 Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 497. 54 Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 498. 55 To phrase it differently, the allusive nature of vv. 6–8 cannot serve as an argument that it is a later addition. 56 See Lyons, From Law to Prophecy, 73–74, 116–17. These verbal connections between Ezek 24:6–8 and Lev 17:13 become even clearer when the Ezekiel passage is compared to Deut 12:16, 24; 15:23. See Milgrom (Leviticus 17–22, 1481–83) for a discussion of the two phrases in Lev 17:13, and for the allusion in Ezek 24:7, see Schwartz, “Prohibitions,” 61–63. 52

208

Dalit Rom-Shiloni

bloodshed in Jerusalem to be its greatest offense (as developed in Ezek 11:1– 13; 22:1–14, etc.). Yet, the literary allusion to Lev 17:13–14 in vv. 6–8 was engendered by the shocking cooking-pot imagery and the shedding of animal blood. This allusion rests upon the specific legal instructions of Lev 17:13–14, which concern human–animal relationships, and transfers them to the human– human arena of social and moral offenses in Jerusalem. This transformation serves the prophet to illustrate the gravity of Jerusalem’s sins, as Jerusalem made no efforts even to hide and cover its iniquities.57 Jerusalem did not shed the blood on the ground, but rather exposed it blatantly on glaring/bare rock (v. 7).58 The allusion to this transgression that concerns cultic and non-cultic contexts of eating meat and restrictions on digesting blood sets Jerusalem’s sins in the pattern of “from the minor to the major” (‫)קל וחומר‬. In proclaiming judgment, in v. 8, the prophet returns to his main accusation against Jerusalem as “the bloody city,” that of causing human bloodshed.59 In retaliation for her sins, and in further accord with the symbolic act (v. 5), God indeed enflames even more the atrocities in Jerusalem ( ‫)להעלות חמה‬, to allow him to act against her with even more fury and vengeance (‫)לנקם נקם‬.60 Thus God proclaims Jerusalem’s judgment to be constructed on the pattern of talion judgment (‫)מידה כנגד מידה‬: just as Jerusalem transgressed those instructions, so indeed God is to cause blood to be shed explicitly on the rock, and not to be covered.61 This short discussion clarifies the relationships between Ezek 24:6–8 and its literary allusion to Lev 17:13–14. The interpretive techniques used are: 57 See Milgrom (Leviticus 17–22, 1482), who aptly described the prophet’s transformation of that “theriodical language…into homicidal accusations against his people.” Greenberg (Ezekiel 21–37, 500) mentioned other references to “customary” practices where there is the wish to cover over and hide the killing of humans or animals (Gen 37:26; Lev 17:13; Isa 26:21; Job 16:18); and see Deut 21:1–9. Thus, Greenberg did not place special emphasis on the explicit literary connection between Ezek 24:7 and Lev 17:13; compare Milgrom, Leviticus 17–22, 1482; Block, Ezekiel 1–24, 778–79; Rimon Kasher, Ezekiel 1–24 (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2004), 478; and Lyons, From Law to Prophecy, 73–74. 58 Glaring/bare rock (‫ ;צחיח סלע‬BDB, 850 “dazzling,” “shining,” “clear,” Lam 4:7) occurs otherwise in reference to Tyre (Ezek 26:4, 14); see Joyce, Ezekiel, 166. For such similar reversals between the hidden transgression that in retaliation turns to be an exposed judgment, see 2 Sam 12:11–12 (and 16:20–23). 59 See Lyons (From Law to Prophecy, 73–74, 116), who discussed the transformation of “the procedure for killing wild animals” gained in Ezek 24; but note that Lyons did not consider v. 8 to represent judgment. 60 In the present sequence, v. 8 serves as an appropriate bridge to enflaming the divine rage so highlighted in vv. 9–14. 61 See Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, 494, 500–501; Greenberg, Ezekiel 21–37, 500–501; Joyce (Ezekiel, 166), who held this verse to be “strangely reminiscent of 20:25–26”; and Block, Ezekiel 1–24, 779. The LXX translates Ezek 24:8 literally; however, the Targum seems to have struggled with the theological difficulty of this extremely harsh divine judgment; See also the NJPS translation here, which is clearly theologically motivated as well.

Two Prophecies in Ezekiel

209

transformation; analogy in the pattern of “from the minor to the major” (‫ ;)קל וחומר‬and the pattern of talion judgment (‫)מידה כנגד מידה‬. The question of authorship of either vv. 6–8 and 9–14 seems to remain open, and does not make a substantial difference as to the literary techniques used. As suggested above, I do not find convincing reasons to exclude the prophet from being responsible for both.

4. Summary and Conclusions: Ezekiel as Prophet Invokes Pentateuchal Materials Ezekiel 14:1–11 and 24:6–8 designate different examples of the kind of “creative interaction” suggested by Schultz and Lyons, or simply of adaptive(/midrashic) interpretation, although the two passages involve varied uses of the pentateuchal materials.62 The first passage adapts the formal characteristics of the legal-sacral style found in Lev 17; the second manipulates one of its themes. But I would argue that in both passages, the prophet is equally creative in his use of the HL materials to formulate his new prophetic message. These prophetic passages illustrate a profound acquaintance with phraseology, formulae, rhetorical structures, conceptions of blood, and its prohibition within sacrificial and non-sacrificial contexts. When brought together, the extent of these references points to the prophet’s acquaintance with the entire HL chapter, or to put it differently, to the possibility that Ezekiel was familiar with a text of Lev 17.63 Yet, the two Ezekielian passages illustrate the very different contexts and functions such allusions may take. In Ezek 14:1–11 the prophet is creatively interacting with the formulaic framework of Lev 17 to create his own prophecy against the Jehoiachin-Babylonian exiles, who allegedly engage in forbidden cultic practices, and yet continue to address YHWH’s prophet (Ezek 14:1; see also 4, 9–10). The prophecy builds its accusations and proclamation of judgment on Lev 17, to create an extreme threat. But while it categorizes the transgressors as doomed (‫ונשאו עונם‬, v. 10), the prophecy 62 Lyons, From Law to Prophecy, 72–75. Lyons bases his discussion on Schultz, The Search for Quotation, 222–39, esp. 226; and on Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 285. 63 Ezekiel’s acquaintance with Lev 17 as a whole (including the expanded rationales, and the closing words of v. 16) invoked by these two passages in Ezekiel challenges the presumed late and gradual compositional history of this HL chapter, as described by Gerstenberger, Leviticus, 235–40, among others. Restricting my observations to this chapter, it seems plausible to argue that the use of Lev 17 in both Ezekiel passages confirm that the compositional history of Lev 17 was completed prior to the early sixth century BCE. Note that Milgrom (Leviticus 17–22, 1477–78) added another allusion to Lev 17:11 in Ezek 45:15, 17.

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still closes with hope for the rest of “the House of Israel,” for the Jehoiachin exiles, with whom the covenant relationship with God is to continue (v. 11).64 In Ezek 24:6–8, on the other hand, the prophet addresses Jerusalem and prophesies its total doom. To enhance the severity of both Jerusalem’s iniquity and the fierce judgment that God is to bring upon it, Ezekiel utilizes the instructions on disposing of blood, accurately alluding to the terminology of Lev 17:13–14. It is clear, therefore, that the prophet feels free to adopt the same HL text/law(s) in various ways, using different aspects of the same invoked text for very different proclamations, one aimed at the Jehoiachin exiles and the other at those who had remained in Jerusalem.65 Furthermore, the structural borrowing in Ezek 14:1–11 presupposes familiarity with a literary source. Yet, this freedom leaves much of the HL materials unaddressed, up to the point the prophet could take the formulaic framework and nothing of its content and themes (as in Ezek 14:1–11). These two examples from Ezekiel tally with the allusive techniques and the utilizations of P/HL materials I have traced in Jeremiah,66 although in no way am I suggesting that we may harmonize the two prophets or their books. The examples brought in this paper give a limited illustration of the much more extended, schematic, even virtuosic, usage Ezekiel makes of the P/HL sources. Nevertheless, I think it is sound to bring the two prophetic books together and compare the ways they each treat pentateuchal references in order to draw a wider picture. Similarities in the ways pentateuchal materials are used in the two prophetic books may help delineate a more general phenomenon that is beyond the idiosyncrasy of this or that prophet.

64 See Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20, 254–55; and Block (Ezekiel 1–24, 435–36) for this redemptive message; Dalit Rom-Shiloni, Exclusive Inclusivity: Identity Conflicts between the Exiles and the People Who Remained (6th–5th Centuries BCE), LHBOTS 543 (London/New York: T&T Clark, 2013), 139–85. Compare to Leslie C. Allen (Ezekiel 1–19, WBC [Dallas: Word Books, 1994], 205), who considered this prophecy among post-587 passages (Ezek 12:21–14:11), addressed to the Judean community in exile, said to contain both groups of deportees. 65 The phenomenon of utilizing the same HL passage in different prophetic passages in Ezekiel may be seen in other places as well; see, for instance, Ezek 4:17; 24:21; 33:10, 28; and 30:6, all of which allude to Lev 26:39; and consult Lyons, From Law to Prophecy, 145, and Appendix 2, 166–86. 66 For example, Jer 11:1–14, especially vv. 1–5 as structured upon Deut 27; see Dalit Rom-Shiloni, “‘On the Day I Freed Them from the Land of Egypt’: A Non-Deuteronomic Phrase within Jeremiah’s Covenant Conception,” VT 65 (2015): 621–47.

Two Prophecies in Ezekiel

211

The two prophetic books share the following characteristics: they each utilize pentateuchal materials of both P/HL and D (as well as Non-P) sources, and they know to conflate diverse traditions together when needed. It seems that both Jeremiah and Ezekiel had access to the same pentateuchal materials.67 Their utilization of pentateuchal materials is in many occurrences intentional, recognizable through the use of accurate terminology, and sound in its conceptions. They each use pentateuchal traditions to construct their prophecies, giving the prophecies the style and rhetoric of these authoritative traditions, employing their terminologies to new contexts by way of transformation and expansion, and adapting different conceptions as needed. Illuminating are those examples where each of the prophets detaches himself from the Priestly (P/HL) terminology or conception. To focus on Jeremiah, the prophet seems to be using those Priestly (P/HL) terms and conceptions “properly,” and yet he (or his tradents) have adapted the earlier materials to the needs of the current prophecy. 68 This phenomenon of intertextuality is, then, not simply a matter of shared jargon or literary milieu confined to Dtn or to P/HL phraseology. Rather, the examples within Jeremiah illustrate time and again the calculated and intentional process of choosing specific terminology, utilizing specific concepts, exhausting diverse intertextual techniques of echo, allusion, and exegesis, and manipulating beautifully the exegetical methods of analogy, transformation, expansion, reversal, etc., for the sake of the prophet’s current message. The two passages of Ezekiel discussed here illustrate similar usages of allusion and exegesis. Each of the prophets (and their tradents) show great creativity in handling their traditions (as far as we can tell from the materials we have at our disposal). Most important, they feel complete freedom to use the pentateuchal traditions (in analogy or in reverse), in order to advance their message, and I would assume the prophets’ followers carried this tradition on. There are significant correlations and similarities between Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the prophets and their books. These similarities are not only due to their priestly backgrounds, 69 nor is the Babylonian exilic arena the context 67 Jeremiah and Ezekiel do address, though rarely, the same pentateuchal passages, see p. 199, above. 68 This major function is thus more an eisegesis than exegesis; or midrashic in its intention and goals. See Dalit Rom-Shiloni, “‘How can you say, “I am not defiled”?’ (Jer 2:20– 25): Allusions to Priestly Legal Traditions in the Poetry of Jeremiah,” JBL 133 (2014): 757–75. 69 The study of pentateuchal references demonstrates that Jeremiah’s use of P/HL materials accords with at least accurate phraseology based on P/HL materials. Hence, it is possible to say that the elite priestly clan of Anathoth did not produce a different corpus of Priestly traditions or legislation. On the distinctions between Jeremiah and Ezekiel as representatives of two antagonistic priestly families, see Josef Scharbert, Die Propheten Israels um 600 v. Chr (Cologne: J. P. Bachem, 1967), 459–78, esp. 466–69; Christopher T.

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that nurtured these interpretive techniques. These latter suggestions have been raised in the study of Ezekiel; but once Jeremiah is put into the picture, such arguments do not seem adequate. 70 Moreover, the differences between the two prophets and their books help us see that the interpretive use of pentateuchal materials was a general aspect of prophetic activity for each of them; it cannot be segregated to much later (priestly or other) scribal circles and/or to later layers of literary transmission. I would rather suggest that this shared interpretive practice comes out of the combination of circumstances in the late seventh and early sixth centuries BCE, when internal developments in the practice of prophecy coincided with the growing circulation of pentateuchal materials.

Begg, “The Non-Mention of Ezekiel in Deuteronomistic History, the Book of Jeremiah, and the Chronistic History,” in Ezekiel and His Book: Textual and Literary Criticism and Their Interrelation, ed. Johan Lust, BETL 74 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1986), 340–43. 70 Pace Levitt Kohn, A New Heart, 105–18; Lyons, From Law to Prophecy, 146–56.

Haggai 2:17, 19 Variations on a Theme* James D. Nogalski In recent decades, scholars have become increasingly cognizant of the manifold ways in which prophetic texts draw upon other biblical texts to enhance their own rhetorical agendas. Allusions can elicit other texts for emphasis, correction, and other heuristic reasons. They can function as integral pieces of oracles, but they can also stand out from their immediate contexts for various reasons. Haggai 2:17 and 2:19 represent case studies of different means by which to assess such allusions. The former alludes to Amos 4:6–11 and functions as a climactic (though many would say not an integral) component of 2:10–16, while Hag 2:19 alludes to Joel 1 in a manner that is syntactically and conceptually at odds with its immediate context. These allusions function within and relate to the growth of Haggai from an independent collection to an important part of the Twelve as a corpus.

1. Haggai 2:17 and Amos 4:6–11 Let us begin by looking at the rhetorical logic of 2:17 in the context of Hag 2:11–17 (NRSV):

* I first met Marvin Sweeney in person at the SBL International meeting in Vienna, Austria in 1990 when we both presented on the book of Nahum. He had already published his first book on Isaiah, while I was making my first presentation at an SBL meeting. Our papers reached different conclusions regarding how Nahum came to be. Rather than simply writing me off as hopelessly off target, Marvin engaged me in conversation regarding the substance of our arguments. From that point forward, I have always found Marvin to be the model of an academic in biblical studies. To this day, he remains intellectually curious and a voracious reader; his long list of publications demonstrates an impressive work ethic; and his writings advocate his positions clearly and thoughtfully. At the same time, he has an engaging personality and networks easily with other scholars who may or may not share his conclusions. He served as the series editor for the first book I translated and we have participated in quite a number of conferences together over the years. I offer this essay in his honor, though I suspect he will have a few ideas of his own about it.

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11

Thus says the LORD of hosts: Ask the priests for a ruling: 12 If one carries consecrated meat in the fold of one’s garment, and with the fold touches bread, or stew, or wine, or oil, or any kind of food, does it become holy? The priests answered, “No.” 13 Then Haggai said, “If one who is unclean by contact with a dead body touches any of these, does it become unclean?” The priests answered, “Yes, it becomes unclean.” 14 Haggai then said, “So is it with this people, and with this nation before me, says the LORD; and so with every work of their hands; and what they offer there is unclean.” 15 But now, consider what will come to pass from this day on. Before a stone was placed upon a stone in the LORD’s temple, 16 how did you fare? When one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were but ten; when one came to the wine vat to draw fifty measures, there were but twenty. 17 I struck you and all the products of your toil with blight and mildew and hail; yet you did not return to me, says the LORD.

David Petersen describes the syntactical and conceptual issues concerning Hag 2:17 in terms of its relationship to Hag 2:16. 1 Verse 16 refers to the products after the harvest (piles of grain and vats of wine), which means, for Petersen, the situation refers to the diminution of the processed goods, not the elements as they grew in the field. Consequently, Petersen asks whether 2:17 should be treated as a causal statement explaining the shortage or as an additional example of the difficulties faced by the community? If the former, then 2:17 explains why the crops and the harvest have failed: because YHWH sent blight, mildew, and hail. If the latter, then the prophet not only describes the lack of harvested materials, but also three additional maladies (blight, mildew, and hail). To answer the question, Petersen essentially proposes a traditionhistorical solution: to consider whether the three maladies in 2:17 ever affect crops already harvested, and how to understand Hag 2:17 in light of Amos 4:9. The three maladies listed in Hag 2:17 – blight, mildew, and hail – create a confusing picture. For modern readers, the combination of blight and mildew creates conceptual difficulties since blight is generally caused by the lack of moisture, while mildew occurs when too much water is present. By contrast, in the Hebrew Bible blight and mildew “comprise something of a formulaic pair” according to Petersen, making it difficult to treat them as distinct from one another.2 In fact, “blight” (‫ )שדפון‬appears only in tandem with “mildew” (‫)ירקון‬, and “mildew” appears only once without “blight.” 3 Moreover, according to Petersen, the formulaic nature of the phrase is further illuminated by the fact that the pair tends to occur in contexts describing an “enacted curse” caused by the deity. The combination provides examples of 1

David L. Petersen, Haggai and Zechariah 1–8: A Commentary, OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984), 91–93. 2 Petersen, Haggai and Zechariah 1–8, 91 3 The two terms appear together in five texts: Amos 4:9; Deut 28:22; 1 Kgs 8:37; 2 Chr 6:28; and Hag 2:17. The noun “mildew” appears alone in Jer 30:6, where it refers metaphorically to the pale color of faces of those who are suffering.

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215

agricultural maladies at YHWH’s disposal.4 Petersen also notes that blight and mildew refer to maladies that affect grain and grapes while they are in the field, and this assumption sets Hag 2:17 apart from 2:16. “Hail” (‫)ברד‬, according to Petersen, functions somewhat differently in that it either appears in theophanic descriptions to convey YHWH’s powerful presence (e.g., Ps 18:13–14; Isa 28:2) or it refers to the plague traditions of the exodus (Exod 9–10 [17 times]; Pss 78:47, 48; 105:32). Petersen argues that in Hag 2:17 “hail” appears in the same sense as the plague traditions, but his explanation is truncated. 5 The term “hail” also appears in contexts describing YHWH’s control of the elements of nature, including as tools for punishing nations (Job 38:22; Ps 148:8; Isa 28:17; 30:30). Hail thus reflects specific manifestations of YHWH using hail to punish nations in general, not just Egypt in the exodus plague tradition. In this sense, hail would also be conceived as a tool available to YHWH for punishing Judah. Nevertheless, Petersen correctly argues that the role of hail as divine punishment makes sense in the context of crops in the field (see especially, Exod 9:25). For these and other reasons, quite a significant number of commentators correctly recognize Hag 2:17 (or portions thereof) as an addition to Hag 2:15–16.6 Nevertheless, whether they treat 2:17 as a later addition or part of the original oracle, the vast majority of scholars recognize that 2:17 draws upon the language of Amos 4:9, even though the question of why often gets overlooked.7 Haggai 2:17 reflects an attempt to provide a cause for the current situation. It is not surprising to find that an ancient reader would credit the deity with the lack of agricultural bounty. One might argue that such an 4

Petersen, Haggai and Zechariah 1–8, 91. Petersen, Haggai and Zechariah 1–8, 91. 6 Henning Graf Reventlow, Die Propheten Haggai, Sacharja und Maleachi (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993), 27; Hans Walter Wolff, Haggai: A Commentary, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1988), 62; A. S. van der Woude, Haggai, Maleachi, POT (Nijkerk, Netherlands: G. F. Callenbach, 1982), 158. Additionally, the BHS apparatus suggests 2:17 might be a later addition. Some scholars see only a portion of 2:17 as a later addition. For example, Ackroyd and Tollington treat only 2:17b as secondary: Peter R. Ackroyd, “Some Interpretative Glosses in the Book of Haggai,” JJS 7 (1956): 163–67; Janet E. Tollington, Tradition and Innovation in Haggai and Zechariah 1–8, JSOTSup 150 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1993), 199–201. 7 For the idea that Hag 2:17 is an intentional allusion to Amos 4:9, see W. A. M. Beuken, Haggai-Sachariah 1–8: Studien zur Überlieferungsgeschichte der fruhnachexilischen Prophetie (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2018), 210–11; David J. Clark, “Problems in Haggai 2.15–19,” BT 34 (1983): 432–39; Mignon R. Jacobs, The Books of Haggai and Malachi, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017), 111–13; Tollington, Tradition and Innovation in Haggai and Zechariah 1–8, 161; van der Woude, Haggai, Maleachi, 63; Wolff, Haggai, 62; Pieter A. Verhoef, The Books of Haggai and Malachi, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 126. The LXX, Vulgate, and Targum also attest to this allusion, as they follow Amos 4:9 in amending the final clause of Hag 2:17. 5

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attribution is implicit in 2:15–16, but 2:17 makes this supposition explicit. Why, then, does it phrase the claim in the way it does? Haggai 2:17 appears to draw specifically upon Amos 4:9, based upon the phrasing of the two verses: Hag 2:17 I struck you with blight and mildew and hail and all the work of your hands; yet you were not with me; an utterance of YHWH. ‫הכיתי אתכם בשדפון ובירקון ובברד‬ ‫את כל־מעשה ידיכם‬ ‫ואין־אתכם אלי נאם־יהוה‬

Amos 4:9 I struck you with blight and mildew; I laid waste your gardens and your vineyards; the locust devoured your fig trees and your olive trees; yet you did not return to me; an utterance of YHWH. ‫הכיתי אתכם בשדפון ובירקון הרבות‬ ‫גנותיכם‬ ‫וכרמיכם ותאניכם וזיתיכם יאכל הגזם‬ ‫ולא־שבתם עדי נאם־יהוה‬

The question of the direction of dependency is not debated.8 The Amos text is older in virtually every reconstruction of the compositional history of Amos, so Amos has chronological priority. Seen in this light, the portion of Hag 2:17 not paralleled in Amos 4:9 is readily understandable as an abbreviated summary of the content of the remainder of Amos 4:9. The phrase “all the work of your hands” shortens the list of agricultural elements in Amos (gardens, vineyards, fig trees, and olive trees). To do so, this summary uses the phrase “all the work of your hands” (‫)כל־מעשׂה ידיכם‬, which already played an important role in the rhetoric of Hag 2:14. Several commentators have taken issue with the claim that Amos 4:9 represents a specific source for this allusion since the citation is not exact. 9 Nevertheless, the stronger arguments lie with those who see 2:17 as a later insertion. The person responsible for adding this text has adapted the Amos text to fit the Haggai context. The prophet (or a redactor) adapted Amos to fit the rhetoric of Hag 2:14 by focusing upon the parallelism of “this nation/you/the work of your hands” created by that verse.

8

Petersen, Haggai and Zechariah 1–8, 92. Most notably Carol L. Meyers and Eric M. Meyers, Haggai, Zechariah 1–8: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 25B (Garden City: Doubleday, 1987), 62; Max Rogland, “Haggai 2,17 – A New Analysis,” Bib 88 (2007): 554; Théophane Chary, Aggée – Zacharie – Malachie, SB (Paris: J. Gabalda, 1969), 25; and William T. Koopmans, Haggai, HCOT (Leuven: Peeters, 2017), 248–49. 9

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Haggai 2:17, 19

Petersen stresses the poetic parallelism as a lens into the prophetic message. For him, “Hag 2:16–17 provides a retrospective judgment that then pivots toward a more hopeful future in vv. 18–19.”10 The prophetic speaker in 2:17 has defined the people in terms of what they do, and in so doing he highlights the differences between the previous responses to punishment from YHWH, which did not cause Israel to change, and those of the current moment, which mark a turning point when the people now side with YHWH.

2. Haggai 2:19 and Joel 1–2 Haggai 2:19 contains a line that is both syntactically and conceptually awkward, suggesting that this part of the verse be classified as a redactional gloss designed to reverse the divine curse in a manner reminiscent of Joel 1–2. In the MT, v. 19 contains four syntactical lines: Hag 2:19 1. Is the seed still in the granary 2. (Or even the vine, and the fig tree, and the pomegranate), 3. And did the olive tree not produce (sg. vb)? 4. From this day I will bless.

Hag. 2:19 MT 1. ‫העוד הזרע במגורה‬ 2. ‫ועד־הגפן והתאנה והרמון‬ 3. ‫ועץ הזית לא נשא‬ 4. ‫מן־היום הזה אברך‬

The first line is clear enough, though debate exists about the expected response from the audience.11 Some scholars suggest that the question presumes a negative response: the seed is not in the granary.12 Others interpret the question as presupposing an affirmative response: the seed is in the granary.13 Furthermore, even some who interpret the question as expecting an affirmative response presume that the fact that the seed is in the granary 10

Petersen, Haggai and Zechariah 1–8, 92. A thorough exploration of the variety of interrelated options can be found in David J. Clark and Howard A. Hatton, A Handbook on Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, UBS Handbook Series (New York: United Bible Societies), 56–59. 12 Ralph L. Smith, Micah – Malachi, WBC 32 (Waco, TX: Word, 1984), 161–62; Clark, “Problems in Haggai 2.15–19,” 436; Verhoef, The Books of Haggai and Malachi, 131–33; Samuel Amsler, André Lacocque, and René Vuilleumier, Aggée; Zacharie 1–8 (Paris: Delachaux & Niestlé, 1981), 31; David R. Hildebrand, “Temple Ritual: A Paradigm for Moral Holiness in Haggai 2:10–19,” VT 39 (1989): 168; van der Woude, Haggai, Maleachi, 66; Reventlow, Die Propheten Haggai, Sacharja und Maleachi, 28; Tollington ,Tradition and Innovation in Haggai and Zechariah 1–8, 182 n. 1. 13 Examples include: Wolff, Haggai, 66; Paul L. Redditt, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, NCBC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 30–31; Jacobs, The Books of Haggai and Malachi, 114–17. 11

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conveys a positive scenario: the seed awaits planting.14 Some smoothly avoid the syntactical problems, but imply the rhetoric of the verse hinges upon the contrast between the current and future agricultural situation. For example, Sweeney states: In verse 19, the people are asked to consider the seed in the barn, the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree. The question is rhetorical in that it asks whether these items produce nothing; it therefore asserts that they will indeed produce great quantities of produce in the future now that the work on the Temple has begun.15

As will be clear in what follows, I side with those who interpret the question as presupposing an affirmative response. Lines 1 and 3 ask a double rhetorical question that begins with ‫ ה‬and anticipates a positive response. Interrogatives beginning with ‫ ה‬must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis since the particle can introduce questions whose response is unknown (GK §150d), questions which expect a negative answer (GK §150d), and questions which imply the answer is obviously yes (GK §150e). The affirmative response makes the best sense of the double rhetorical question here for a number of reasons. First, double questions often essentially repeat a similar idea for the sake of emphasis (GK §150h). Second, double questions can often be expressed with the interrogative ‫ ה‬to mark the first question followed by simple ‫ ו‬to introduce the second question §150h). Third, as will be clear below, the assumption of affirmative responses makes the best sense of lines 1 and 3 together. The complexity comes in trying to explain the syntax of lines 2–3. Two syntactical problems create difficulties for understanding 2:19: a singular verb in line 3 and a preposition beginning line 2 that does not naturally follow the grammatical construction of line 1. To begin, line 3 has a singular verb (to bear [fruit]), but the four distinct plants (the vine, fig tree, pomegranate, and olive tree) in lines 2 and 3 are often interpreted as a list that functions as the subject of the singular verb in line 3. Scholars making this case correctly infer that none of the four plants have, as of yet, produced fruit, but they have to explain away or ignore the disjunction of the singular verb.16 Such explanations are not compelling. Rather, line 3 (without line 2) makes better sense as the second part of the rhetorical question of line 1. It parallels the opening line and is connected with a simple ‫ו‬: “Is the seed still in the granary…and has the olive tree not produced?” The compound question begins with an interrogative ‫ ה‬in line 1 and assumes the need to plant the grain for the next 14

See Meyers and Meyers, Haggai, Zechariah 1–8, 64. Marvin Sweeney, The Twelve Prophets. Vol. 2, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Berit Olam (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000), 553. 16 For example, see Verhoef, Haggai and Malachi, 135, who suggests that all the agricultural elements in 2:19 are generalized, so that there is no reason to consider line 2 as a gloss. 15

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crop, while line 3 refers to the inability of harvesting the fruit of olive tree. Both the grain and the olive tree provide staples (once processed) for the population. Thus lines 1 and 3 provide a conceptual parallelism that enhances the double rhetorical question. Line 3 also has a particle of negation that complicates the thought (an issue that will be addressed below). Line 4 completes the thought of this double rhetorical question by marking the current setting (this day) as the turning point in YHWH’s promise to provide sustenance. As the MT stands, a list of the four plants (vine, fig tree, pomegranate, olive tree) in lines 2 and 3 precedes the singular verb ‫נשא‬. The first plant in this list begins with a compound preposition (‫)ועד‬.17 Already the Old Greek attests to a different reading, because it could not make sense of the Hebrew in lines 2–3.18 The fact that this compound preposition appears at the beginning of a list is rare, as is the combination of ‫ נשא‬with ‫עד‬. This compound form (‫ )ועד‬appears more than 220 times in the MT, but overwhelmingly it appears at the end of a list or functions emphatically.19 The verb ‫ נשא‬appears with the preposition ‫ עד‬in the same syntactical clause only six times (Num 14:19, 33; Josh 3:15; 1 Chr 15:2; Ps 28:9; Jer 51:9). This combination refers to the “bearing” (i.e., carrying) of something to a location (e.g., Josh 3:15; Jer 51:9) or for a period of time (e.g., Num 14:19, 33; 1 Chr 15:2; Ps 28:9). Further, only in two other places does the verb ‫ נשא‬appear with olive tree, vine, fig tree, or pomegranate as a subject, and in both cases the phrase means the bearing of fruit (Ezek 17:8; Joel 2:22). The promise of Joel 2:22 illuminates the syntax of Hag 2:19 particularly well. There, the more complete phrase appears with the direct object, “The tree bears its fruit” (‫)עץ נשא פריו‬. Haggai 2:19 elides the phrase, but still retains the basic meaning, albeit continuing the interrogative: “does the olive tree not Older scholarship often emended the pointing of ‫ ועד‬in the MT to follow the LXX, which offers a translation presuming ‫“( ועוד‬and yet”). See Jacobs, Haggai and Malachi, 106, who argues MT is the lectio difficilior and that the LXX translator here (as elsewhere) harmonizes the syntactical difficulties by modifying the text. 18 The Old Greek alters MT in a number of ways. First, it mistranslates the Hebrew ‫ מגורה‬as αλω (“threshing floor”) in Greek, which normally translates the Hebrew word ‫גרן‬. This decision suggests the translator was uncertain of the meaning of the term. Second, the Old Greek translates the unpointed text differently for the opening word in line 2. It translates the consonants as ‫“( ועוד‬and yet”), just as in line 1, while the MT has ‫“( ועך‬and unto”). Third, the Old Greek changes the verb from singular (MT) to plural (φερονταα in OG) so as to include all the plants. Fourth, the Old Greek adds “fruit” to complete the idiom (meaning it translates the verb “to bear” as “to bear fruit” (φερονταα καρπον). This translation certainly conveys the meaning of the Hebrew verb ‫ נשא‬in this context, but that does not mean that the Hebrew Vorlage had the word “fruit” (‫)פרי‬. 19 See Gen 6:7 as more typical, where the form comes at the end of a list of three sets of created elements: “… from humanity (‫ )מאדם‬to (‫ )עד‬beast, to (‫ )עד‬creeping things, and even to (‫ )ועד‬the fish of the sea.” 17

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bear?” or “does the olive tree not produce?” The second part of the rhetorical question, like the first, assumes an affirmative response, but one also has to account for the use of the negative particle ‫ לא‬so close to the verb. Does the second part of the compound rhetorical question imply that the olive tree has or has not produced its fruit? It makes better sense to assume that the rhetorical question means to affirm the negative state of the harvest (the olive tree has not produced) because it better explains the climax of line 4. Line 4 asks the reader to mark the day as a turning point. It also makes sense in terms of the agricultural cycle (a point to which I will return below). Haggai 2:19 implies things are about to change and that the olive tree will now bear (its fruit) “from this day” as the sign of YHWH’s blessing in response to the start of the construction of the temple. Yet, the syntactical problems created by line 2 are not limited to the singular verb in line 3. The preposition at the beginning of the list also means that “the vine” cannot be the subject of the verb since it is the object of the preposition. Relatedly, the entire string of three plants in line two (the vine, the fig tree, and the pomegranate) also functions as objects of the preposition. So, does one interpret line 2 as a continuation of the opening question? Conceptual difficulties make this suggestion equally problematic in that the list of plants in line 2 simply do not make sense as items that would be stored in a storehouse (‫)מגורה‬. Scholars largely ignore the difficulties presented by reference to a ‫ מגורה‬in this context even though most who comment upon the structure assume it is an underground pit, usually lined with stone or plaster so as to protect perishables from heat and inclement weather.20 An archaeological survey of structures used for storage of grain and food both sheds light upon the hope expressed in the syntax of lines 1 and 3 and further complicates the imagery of line 2. Oded Borowski calls for more consistent use of terminology that could account for the variety of storage structures that one finds in the Levant. 21 First, he helpfully distinguishes seven types of storage structures based upon the construction style and the purpose they serve. He proposes seven English terms to refer to convey the form and function: grainpit, silo, cellar, granary, storehouse, public storeroom, and private storeroom. The first three types refer to subterranean structures and the last four to structures above-ground.22

20 HALOT and Holladay translate the word in Haggai as “grain pit, storage chamber.” This translation means that the ‫ מגורה‬differs from the storehouse (‫)אוצר‬, which often refers to the treasuries of the king or the temple (see 2 Kgs 20:13, 15; 24:13; 1 Chr 9:26; 26:20, 22, 24, 26; 27:25, 27–28). See also Joel 1:17, which presents and even more devastating picture wherein both the grain pits and the store-houses of the temple are empty. 21 See Chapter 7 (“Grain and Food Storage”) in Oded Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1987), 71–83. 22 Ibid., 72.

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Subterranean

Above-ground

grainpit: a small pit lined with stone or plaster used to store grain silo: a large pit lined with stone or plaster to store grain in close proximity to a public building cellar: a room below ground used to store grain or foodstuffs in containers

granary: a structure (sometimes partially subterranean) used to store grain in bulk in or near a public area storehouse: a free-standing building in a public area used to store grain and foodstuffs in containers; ‫מסכנות‬. public storeroom: a room in a public building used to store grain and foodstuffs in containers private storeroom: an interior or exterior room in/beside a private dwelling where grain and foodstuffs are stored in containers; ‫אסמים‬.

The Hebrew Bible uses six terms to refer to storage structures, but Borowski concludes that only two of these can be linked with certainty to specific structural types. These terms appear no more than six times each and two of the terms are hapax legomena, including the term the ‫ מגורה‬in Hag 2:19. The Hebrew terms, listed in terms of frequency, include: ‫( מסכנות‬1 Kgs 9:19; 2 Chr 8:4, 6; 16:4; 17:12; 32:28); ‫( אצרות‬Joel 1:17; Neh 12:44; 1 Chr 27:25, 28; 2 Chr 11:11); ‫( אספים‬Neh 12:25; 1 Chr 26:15, 17); ‫( אסמים‬Deut 28:8; Prov 3:10); ‫( ממגרות‬Joel 1:17); and ‫( מגורה‬Hag 2:19). Borowski concludes that only the Hebrew words for the (public) storehouse (‫ )מסכנות‬and the private storeroom (‫ )אסמים‬can be correlated with a high degree of probability to specific structure types. He deduces: “The other terms may designate public facilities; the evidence does not allow specific definitions.”23 Unfortunately, the ambiguity includes the reference to ‫ מגורה‬in Hag 2:19. Nevertheless, a more important piece of information for understanding lines 1–3 in Hag 2:19 emerges from Borowski’s survey. In describing the types of structure, Borowski documents a clear pattern: those storage facilities that contain both grain and foodstuffs consistently have indications that the materials in these structures held the wares in containers. Conversely, those structures that contain only grain are lined with plaster or stone to protect the grain. In this pattern, it matters not whether the storage structure is subterranean or above-ground. The implications are significant: a ‫ מגורה‬would not have been used to hold the three elements in line 2. Returning to Hag 2:19, the image of the ‫ מגורה‬adds to the conceptual difficulties created by line 2 (“or even the vine, and the fig tree, and the pomegranate”). It makes sense to store the seeds from the previous harvest in 23

Ibid., 83.

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such a storehouse (line 1) until the time they are needed for planting. One would not, however, store vines and fig trees in a ‫מגורה‬. Even if one were to store the fruit of the plants in a ‫ – מגורה‬meaning that one might store olives, pomegranates, and wine in a pit – that requires ignoring the fact that Hag 2:19 specifically refers to the olive tree (‫עץ הזית‬, not the fruit) and to the vine (‫גפן‬, not vats of wine). By contrast, one could conceptualize any of the three plants in line 2 as being the subject of ‫ נשא‬since they all bear fruit. Further, the syntax of lines 1 and 3 form a meaningful and coherent double question, and the aesthetics of the parallelism adds to the impression that line 3 forms the original continuation of line 1. Line 1 begins with the interrogative particle and lines 2 and 3 both begin with a ‫ו‬, so in that sense the double question is present either way, but the parallelism connects line 3 more closely to line 1. The two lines work together to address the fertility of the land by its ability to produce grain (line 1) and olives (line 3), both of which are crucial for sustaining life. The interrogative at the beginning of line 1 assumes a positive response: yes, the seed is still in the barn. The seed in the barn is a sign that something is amiss in the agricultural process. Grammatically, the double question conveys an exclamatory nuance that adds a sense of urgency even though it is often overlooked (Is the seed [really] still in the barn and has the olive tree [really] not yet produced?).24 Moreover, both parts of the rhetorical question assume an affirmative response: Yes, the seed is still in the granary; yes, the olive tree failed to produce. As Wolff, and others, point out, the seed in the barn implies nothing can be planted, and if nothing can be planted, then nothing can grow.25 In particular, if the ground were too hard to plow properly, then placing the seed in the ground would not yield a crop. Relatedly, an inadequate olive crop creates hardships since olives are eaten as food and pressed for oil that is used for cooking and for lamps. Together, lines 1 and 3 thus set the stage for the final statement in line 4 that marks the laying of the foundation as the turning point for the people: Nothing is growing but from this day I will bless you. Line 2, however, draws upon a known trope (cf. Deut 8:8; Joel 1–2), which assumes that the vine, fig, and pomegranate connote signs of a fertile land. Moreover, the lack of these items represents a sign of YHWH’s covenant curse.26 Most likely, this gloss (line 2) intended to respond to line 3, but when it was copied with the

24 See Joüon/Muraoka §161b, which treats Hag 2:19 as a question with an exclamatory nuance, meaning “surely.” Paul Joüon and Takamitsu Muraoka, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, 2nd ed. (Rome: Gregorian and Biblical Press, 2009). 25 Wolff, Haggai, 66; Jacobs, The Books of Haggai and Malachi, 115. 26 James D. Nogalski, “Presumptions of Covenant in Joel,” in Covenant in the Persian Period: From Genesis to Chronicles, ed. Richard J. Bautch and Gary N. Knoppers (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2015), 211–28.

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reproduction of a new scroll, the line was mistakenly copied after line 1 rather than after line 3, the line with which it more naturally coheres. If so, reversing lines 2 and 3 makes better (but not perfect) sense: Is the seed still in the granary And did the olive tree not produce (and also the vine, and the fig tree, and the pomegranate)? From this day I will bless.

Finally, the number and types of crops that eventually come into this text should raise questions on a number of fronts. The original form of Hag 2:19 (as I have described it) connected the planting of the seed and barrenness of the olive tree. This association fits the agricultural timetable. The planting of winter wheat normally occurs in the eighth month (mid-September through October), while the plowing usually occurs in the seventh month.27 Hence, the speech in Haggai suggests the seed is still in the granary waiting to be planted, and the date of this speech (the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month) implies the planting is late, but still possible. The harvesting of olives normally takes place in the seventh or eighth month (October/November). Hence, these events normally follow one another fairly closely and would have been appropriate to the narrative context of the oracle. By contrast, the fruits mentioned in line 2 would have been harvested considerably earlier. The grape vine generally ripens in the fifth month; the fig tree in the fourth or sixth month (depending upon the variety); and the pomegranate ripens in the sixth or seventh month. This variety of plants, then, essentially covers the entire harvest cycle. These fruit trees begin to blossom in April, but their fruit comes in the fourth through sixth months (July through September). The insertion of line 2 extends the imagery of a poor harvest rather dramatically. Rather than a reference to the state of affairs in the ninth month alone, the addition of line 2 suggests a much longer period of shortages. It does not really change the basic sense of lines 1 and 3 so much as intensifies them, not unlike how the insertion of 2:17 functions. Hence, the best explanation for this particular formulation is that lines 1 and 3 represent the original statement and that line 2 represents a marginal gloss that is responding to line 3. Likely, when the scroll was copied the next time, the marginal gloss was included, but in a syntactically awkward position. The phrase intensifies the sense of lines 1 and 3 by adding, “or even the vine, the fig tree, or the pomegranate,” but it makes better sense syntactically after line 3.

27 See H. Neil Richardson, “Agriculture,” IDB 1:156–60. For a graphic illustration of the agricultural cycle, see Patricia MacCarthy, ed., Jesus and His Times, Reader’s Digest Books (Pleasantville: Reader’s Digest Association, 1987), 100–101.

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3. Haggai 2:17, 19 and the Twelve By citing Amos and drawing upon Joel 1–2, Hag 2:17 and 19 invite readers to consider the land’s state across generations. For those reading the Twelve, these verses represent a familiar phenomenon. The fertility of the land represents one of the recurring motifs of the scroll.28 Moreover, the way in which Hag 2:17 and 19 present the fertility of the land proves instructive, since the imagery used to evoke this motif resonates with a distinctive use of this imagery across the Twelve. The grain, wine, oil triad appears as a phrase twenty-two times in the Old Testament, with twelve of those exemplars equally divided between Deuteronomy (7:13; 11:14; 12:17; 14:23; 18:4; 28:51) and the Twelve (Hos 2:10, 24 [Eng. 2:8, 22]); Joel 1:10; 2:19, 24; Hag 1:11). The phrase also appears four times in Nehemiah (Neh 5:11; 10:39; 13:5, 12), a book set in the middle Persian period. Most of these references describe the tithe taken by the Levites for use by temple personnel. Elsewhere, the phrase appears only once in the Former Prophets (2 Kgs 18:13) and once among the other three prophetic scrolls (Jer 31:12, MT only).29 The use of the triad in the Twelve plays a distinctive role in that the phrase is closely related to the people’s decision to repent (‫)שוב‬. In Hos 2, the presence or absence of the grain, wine, and oil (as well as other plants) in Israel (the northern kingdom personified as YHWH’s unfaithful wife) depends upon the willingness to ‫שוב‬. The book of Hosea ends with an open-ended promise that, if Israel repents, YHWH will restore its luster in the form of three promises: that the olive tree will bud (14:7), that YHWH will revive the grain, and restore the vine to heal so that it produces high quality wine (14:8). Similarly, the devastations in Joel 1 affect the joy in the temple because the destruction of grain, wine, oil, and other plants that produce fruit (including the fig tree and pomegranate) will wipe out Judah’s ability to bring offerings to YHWH and rejoice at the temple. These devastations lead the prophet to issue to a dramatic call for Jerusalem to repent at the temple (Joel 2:12–17). As with Hosea (ch. 14), YHWH offers a series of promises in Joel 2 that will take effect should Judah repent. These promises include the fig tree and the vine bearing fruit (2:22) so that vats overflow with olive oil and wine (2:24), as well as a harvest that fills the threshing floor with grain (2:24).

28 James D. Nogalski, “Recurring Themes in the Book of the Twelve: Creating Points of Contact for a Theological Reading,” Int 61 (2007): 128–30. 29 The Old Greek text of Jer 31:12 has “grain, wine, and fruit,” suggesting that the triad was created by changing “fruit” to “oil.” This triad becomes a kind of shorthand term for the land’s fertility.

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Despite the promises of Hos 14 and Joel 2 that follow these calls to repent, nowhere does the reader hear explicitly whether or not the people do actually repent. Hosea 14 ends without a statement of how Israel responded, and Joel 2 also never states explicitly that the people of Jerusalem repented either (though chs. 3–4 continue to add new promises in hopes that they will). Rather, Amos 4:6–11 suggests to the reader of the scroll that (at least) Israel never repented. The passage offers a litany of divine punitive actions that should have, but did not lead Israel to ‫שוב‬. This passage includes v. 9 already elicited in Hag 2:17. It is unclear whether this thread distinguishes the actions of Israel and Judah from one another, since Joel seems to evoke images from Hosea and Amos (addressed to Israel) and applies them to Judah. Joel’s promise (2:24) to restore the threshing floors and wine vats reverses the judgment pronounced in Hos 9:2, and Amos 4:9 states that YHWH sent the locust to devour the fig tree and olive tree (which sounds suspiciously similar to Joel 1), but that it failed to cause the people to ‫שוב‬. It is clear, however, that Haggai contrasts the negative reactions in Amos with the positive response in his own day. At first glance, Haggai does not appear to be involved with the ‫שוב‬ motif.30 The prophet confronts the people about the need to rebuild the temple, but Haggai never uses the verb and does not issue a formal call to return to YHWH like one finds in Hosea, Joel, and Amos. 31 Nevertheless, Haggai’s dating schema is closely linked with that of Zech 1–8. In fact, Zechariah’s opening report (Zech 1:1) falls precisely between the last two dates mentioned in Haggai (cf. Hag 2:1, 10, 18, 20).32 This overlap becomes even more intriguing because Zech 1:1 introduces 1:2–6 only (1:7 dates to the eleventh month), and 1:2–6 specifically offers a prophetic call to repent after recounting the failure of the ancestors. Just as significantly, Zech 1:6 (unlike the calls to repent in Hos 14 and Joel 1) specifically recounts a positive response on the part of the people using the verb ‫שוב‬, and Zech 1:4–6 specifically connects the call to repent with the words of earlier prophets. The overlapping 30 Even the allusion to Amos 4:9 in MT Hag 2:17 surprisingly omits the explicit citation of ‫שוב‬. See the discussion in Meyers and Meyers, Haggai, Zechariah 1–8, 48, 61–62. They recognize that most scholars see a corruption in which ‫ שוב‬was lost, especially since the Old Greek translates these phrases in Hag 2:17 and Amos 4:9 identically. Nevertheless, Meyers and Meyers suggest ‫ שוב‬was not originally present, but that the hiphil form of ‫בוא‬ was intentionally omitted. The argument for intentional omission is neither clear nor compelling. 31 Hosea 14 and Joel 1–2 represent extended, but open-ended calls to repent. Amos 4:6– 12 recounts YHWH’s repeated attempts to force the children of Israel to return to YHWH. 32 All these dates list the second year of Darius. Haggai 2:1 recounts the events of the twenty-first day of the seventh month, while 2:10, 18, 20 list the date as the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month. Zechariah 1:1 places those events somewhere in the eighth month without specifying a specific day.

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dates mean that, when reading Haggai and Zechariah together (as the dates seem to suggest was the intention of the editors), these two prophets portray a scenario in which the people repented before they began laying the temple foundation. In the synchronic reading of Haggai/Zechariah, the people repent in the eighth month, unlike their ancestors (Zech 1:2–6), and a few short weeks later they begin laying the temple foundation, causing YHWH to mark the day with a blessing.

4. Conclusion The additions of Hag 2:17 and line 2 of 2:19 serve a similar purpose: to accentuate of the change from infertility to fertility. By drawing upon the language of Amos and Joel, these additions suggest a deliberate desire to contrast the positive response of the people in the time of Haggai and Zechariah with the negative responses of Israel and Judah earlier in the scroll. This accentuation taps into a paradigmatic a concern in the Twelve for relating the motifs of agricultural fertility and turning (‫ )שוב‬to YHWH, which play a noticeable role in Hosea, Joel, and Amos, as well as Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. The role of Hag 2:17 and 19 has been the focus of this study, and a case has been made that the accentuation of the change has been imported into an existing context which already demonstrated a certain affinity to the basic concept. Haggai already contained texts that marked the 24th day of the ninth month as a turning point from a time of agricultural shortage to an anticipation of divine blessing. The citations of 2:17 and 2:19 explicitly add divine causation of the shortage and accentuate the length (and severity) of the shortage, respectively, in ways that echo similar ideas earlier in the scroll. This message is distinctive for the Twelve. It also provides a subtle means of reinforcing the need for providing offerings to the temple. The additions in Hag 2:17, 19 demonstrate continued reflection on the content of the individual books in light of the larger scroll. They also add to the sense that these books served a didactic purpose for the training of Judean cultic elites who were expected to read these texts. This instructional role also attests to the curated nature of the prophetic corpus, as Nissinen and others have begun to argue.33

33 Martti Nissinen, Ancient Prophecy: Near Eastern, Biblical, and Greek Perspectives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 144–67 (especially, 160–61); David M. Carr, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 167–73, 212–14; Karel van der Toorn, Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 205–32.

Exploded Riddles and Inverted Metaphors Subverting Tradition in Ezekiel and Zechariah Steven Tuell The profoundly literary quality of the book of Ezekiel has long been noted by its interpreters.1 Every biblical book of prophecy is of course a literary endeavor,2 but none is so self-consciously and deliberately literary as Ezekiel.3 Within the book itself, Ezekiel’s prophecies are described as artful: “To them you are like a singer of love songs, one who has a beautiful voice and plays * I am honored to have been invited to contribute to this volume in honor of my friend and long-time conversation partner, Marvin Sweeney. Not only this piece, but everything that I have written on Ezekiel and the Twelve bears witness to my deep indebtedness to his provocative, innovative, yet always deeply and faithfully Jewish scholarship. Thank you, my friend. 1 Rudolph Smend wrote “man könnte kein Stück herausnehmen, ohne die ganze Ensemble zu zerstören” (“one could not remove any part without destroying the whole structure”; Der Prophet Ezechiel, KEH [Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1880], xxi). So too Hermann Gunkel stressed that, in contrast to his fellow prophets, Ezekiel had written a book (“Die israelitische Literatur,” in Die orientalischen Literaturen, ed. Paul Hinnenberg, Die Kultur der Gegenwart 1/7 [Berlin: Teubner, 1906], 82). 2 E.g., Martti Nissinen, Ancient Prophecy: Near Eastern, Biblical, and Greek Perspectives (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 146: “Hence, in the biblical context in particular, prophecy is literature – not written prophecy, that is, prophetic oracles recorded in written form, but distinctly literary prophecy, that is, a corpus of written works that, in their present context, are not immediately connected with any flesh-and-blood prophets whose oral performances may or may not loom in the background.” So too Mark McEntire (A Chorus of Prophetic Voices: Introducing the Prophetic Literature of Ancient Israel [Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2015]) rejects a reading of prophetic books as “historical biography” (20), and regards the prophets as literary characters. I am less skeptical of our ability to recover at least something of the historical prophet’s distinctive voice. 3 Ellen Davis notes that in his call (Ezek 2:8–3:3), revelation “comes to Ezekiel already as a text” (Swallowing the Scroll: Textuality and the Dynamics of Discourse in Ezekiel’s Prophecy, JSOTSup 78 [Sheffield: Almond Press, 1989], 51; emphasis hers). Similarly, Robert Wilson has argued that “Ezekiel was a written composition from the beginning” (“Ezekiel,” in Harper’s Bible Commentary, ed. James L. Mays [San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988], 657). In his introduction to Ezekiel in the Jewish Study Bible (ed. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler [New York: Oxford University, 2004], 1044), Marvin Sweeney observes that “the formulation of the book is well-structured and relatively consistent, and appears to have been written largely by the prophet himself.”

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well on an instrument” (Ezek 33:32). 4 In Ezek 17:2, Yhwh commands the prophet, “O mortal, propound a riddle [Heb. ‫ ]חידה‬and speak an allegory [Heb. ‫ ]משל‬to the house of Israel.” While these terms refer specifically to the allegory in Ezek 17:1–10, they are apt designations for Ezekiel’s metaphorical speech throughout the book. Indeed, in Ezek 21:5 (20:49), the prophet’s audience scornfully describes him as ‫משל משלים‬: an allegorist, a riddler, a propounder of parables – or, as Carol Newsom translates, “a maker of metaphors.”5

1. Ezekiel’s Subversive Metaphors Some of Ezekiel’s metaphors come out of the common stock of Israel’s traditions; others he takes straight from the mouths of his adversaries. But in either case, the prophet rarely lets an image stand unaltered. Instead, he gives the metaphor a twist – by taking it more literally than its users typically do, or by applying it in a way other than its users intend. Through this creative and intentional (mis)use of metaphor, Ezekiel subverts the language of his adversaries. For example, love songs in the Hebrew Bible use the vine as a symbol of conjugal bliss and fertility, and the vineyard as a scene for romance (Ps 128:3; Song 1:6, 14; 2:13; 7:8, 12; Isa 5:1). It is no wonder, then, that Israel is often depicted as a vine or a vineyard (e.g., Isa 5:1–7; Jer 2:21; Hos 10:1; 14:7). Since grapes, and “wine to gladden the human heart” (Ps 104:15), come from the vine, the point of this metaphor is not the vine itself, but its fruit – or, when used negatively, its lack of fruit (e.g., Deut 32:32; Jer 6:9). But in Ezek 15:1–8, nothing is said about grapes, or wine, or romance. Instead, Yhwh asks, “Mortal, how does the wood of the vine surpass all other wood”? (emphasis mine). The answer to the riddle, of course, is that it does not: the wood of the vine is worthless, in fact – too limp for anything to be made from it, even clothes pegs for a wall (Ezek 15:3)! If, then, Judah/Jerusalem is a vine, it too is useless, fit only for burning (Ezek 15:4–5). Yhwh’s riddle blows the metaphor of Judah/Jerusalem as the vine apart, flipping it from a blessing to a curse. Similarly, in the Near East the lion was an ancient metaphor for the king. So, in the Erra epic, the hero says, “In the heavens I am a wild bull; in the land…I am a lion; in the homeland…I am king.”6 Assyrian reliefs place the 4

Unless otherwise noted, English translations will come from the NRSV. Carol A. Newsom, “A Maker of Metaphors: Ezekiel’s Oracles against Tyre,” Int 38 (1984): 151–64. 6 Michael B. Dick, “The Neo-Assyrian Royal Lion Hunt and Yahweh’s Answer to Job,” JBL 125 (2006): 244. From the reign of Shalmaneser III (859–824 BCE) to the last days of 5

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king hunting the lion alongside depictions of his military victories, since in the lion hunt, the king’s courage and strength are identified with that of his dangerous prey.7 In the Hebrew Bible, the lion is particularly associated with the royal tribe of Judah. In his deathbed blessing on his son Judah (Gen 49:9), Jacob declares: Judah is a lion’s whelp; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He crouches down, he stretches out like a lion, like a lioness – who dares rouse him up?

Solomon’s throne was flanked by two ivory lions overlaid with gold; twelve other lions were arranged along the steps leading up to the throne (1 Kgs 10:18–20//2 Chr 9:17–19). But in Ezek 19:1–9, the metaphor of the king as a lion is given an unexpected twist. The prophet asks what is actually done in the civilized world with these dangerous predators. Lions, of course, are hunted down, captured with hooks, trapped in pits or locked in cages, and taken away (19:4, 8–9).8 So, the image of the king as a lion becomes, not a metaphor for regal strength and courage, but a sign of the exile.

2. Subverting Ezekiel in Zechariah The book of Zechariah plainly reveals the influence of Ezekiel, in both of its distinctive parts (Zech 1–8 and 9–14). The first part contains the visions and oracles of the prophet Zechariah in the second through fourth year of Darius’s reign (520–518 BCE), which have been edited together with the prophecies of his contemporary Haggai, likely by Zechariah himself and his disciples. 9 Haggai–Zechariah 1–8 was then edited into the growing collection of the Book of the Twelve. Finally, the apocalyptically tinged Zech 9–14 was added to the book. A clue to the dating of those latter chapters may be found in 9:13: Ashur-etel-ilani (627–612 BCE), the royal seal of Assyria featured the king battling with a rampant lion (Dick, “The Neo-Assyrian Royal Lion Hunt,” 246). Hence, in Nah 2:12–13 (11–12), the Assyrian king is described as a lion, and Nineveh as his den: so, e.g., Steven Tuell, Reading Nahum–Malachi, RTOT (Macon: Smith & Helwys, 2016), 38; J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah, OTL (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1991), 67. 7 Dick, “The Neo-Assyrian Royal Lion Hunt,” 244, 260. 8 Which is why the Asiatic lion is now extinct, and wild lions are only found today in scattered African habitats. 9 So August Klostermann, Geschichte des Volkes Israel bis zur Restauration unter Esra und Nehemia (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1896), 213; Carol L. Meyers and Eric M. Meyers, Haggai, Zechariah 1–8, AB 25B (Garden City: Doubleday, 1987), 268; Tuell, Reading Nahum–Malachi, 147.

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“I will arouse your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece [Heb. ‫יון‬, or Iona].” The mention of Greece here, together with evidence of conflict and unrest in these chapters, suggests that this material dates to the wars between Persia and Greece in the fifth century BCE, when the Persians experienced defeat at Marathon (490 BCE) and Salamis (480 BCE).10 Both Ezekiel and Zechariah are characterized by precise dating. Haggai– Zechariah 1–8 is woven together by a series of nine dates precise to the day (Hag 1:1, 15; 2:1, 10, 18, 20; Zech 1:1, 7; 7:1). Ezekiel is the only other biblical text that features dating precise to the day (cf. 1:1; 8:1; 20:1; 24:1; 29:1, 17; 30:20; 31:1; 32:1; 33:21; 40:1; in 1:2; 26:1; and 32:17 only the year and day are given). In Ezekiel, only the dates in the Egypt oracles (chs. 29–32) are out of sequence. In Zechariah, the exception is Zech 1:1, which predates Hag 2:10, 18, 20.11 Both Ezekiel and Zechariah are consistently written in the first person.12 Margaret Odell proposes that the first person in Ezekiel reflects the transformation of the building inscription, an autobiographical genre from ancient Assyria.13 But it seems more likely that, in Ezekiel as in Zechariah, the first-person style is taken over from the vision report: a dominant form in both books, which is characteristically couched in the first person. Both Ezekiel and Zechariah were visionaries: Zechariah’s prophecy is characterized by visions (1:7–17; 2:1–4 [Eng. 1:18–21]; 2:5–9 [1–5]; 3:1–10; 4:1–5, 10b–14; 5:1–4; 5:5–11; and 6:1–8) interpreted by an angel (Zech 1:9; 2:2 [1:19]; 2:7–9 [3–5]; 4:10–14; 5:3, 6–8, 10–11; 6:5–6); the book of Ezekiel is punctuated by visions (Ezek 1–3; 8–11; 40–48; cf. also 37:1–14), and in his last great vision he too is guided by an angel (Ezek 40:3–4). But while the relationship between Ezekiel and Zechariah is clear, the two are also quite distinct.14 Ezekiel’s three signature visions are all given the title ‫מראות אלהים‬, “visions of God” (1:1; 8:3; 40:2). Each is dated precise to the 10

With Meyers and Meyers, Zechariah 9–14, AB 25C (Garden City: Doubleday, 1993). Seth Sykes proposes that these overlapping dates “reinforce a thematic connection between the two prophetic texts” and so join Haggai to Zech 1–8 as a “unified, whole utterance” (Time and Space in Haggai–Zechariah 1–8: A Bakhtinian Analysis of a Prophetic Chronicle, StBibLit 24 [New York: Lang, 2002], 27). The other two dates in Zechariah use, for the first time in Jewish tradition, the Babylonian names Shebat for the eleventh month (1:7), Chislev for the ninth (7:1), as would later become standard in the Jewish calendar (cf. Jerusalem Talmud, Rosh Hashannah 1.56d). 12 Steven S. Tuell, “Haggai–Zechariah: Prophecy after the Manner of Ezekiel,” in Thematic Threads in the Book of the Twelve, ed. Aaron Schart and Paul L. Redditt, BZAW 325 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2003), 287. 13 Margaret S. Odell, “Genre and Persona in Ezekiel 24:15–24,” in The Book of Ezekiel: Theological and Anthropological Perspectives, ed. Margaret Odell and John Strong, SBLSymS 9 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 2000), 195–219, esp. 210–17, and idem, Ezekiel, SHBC (Macon: Smyth & Helwys, 2005), 4–5. 14 On both the nature of the relationship and the clear differences between these works, see Tuell, “Prophecy after the Manner of Ezekiel,” 273–91. 11

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day (1:1; 8:1; 40:1), and features the expression “the hand of the Lord (‫ )יד יהוה‬was upon me/him” (1:3; 3:14, 22; 8:1–4; 40:1; cf. also 37:1) for entering the vision state. Zechariah’s visions are neither titled nor dated, and the expression ‫ יד יהוה‬does not appear in them. Indeed, the content of Zechariah’s visions is, generally speaking, entirely distinctive. The exception that proves this rule is Zech 2:5–9 (Eng. 2:1–5). Here, Zechariah sees “a man with a measuring line (‫ )חבל מדה‬in his hand” (2:5 [1]). This is clearly an allusion to Ezek 40:3, where the prophet first encounters his own angelic guide: “a man…whose appearance shone like bronze, with a linen cord (‫ )פתיל־פשתים‬and a measuring reed in his hand.” Since the linen cord is not mentioned again in Ezekiel, Zechariah’s vision provides an explanation for it (although different terms are used for the cord). In Ezekiel’s vision, the man measures the visionary temple complex (chs. 40–42) and the fabulous river that flows out of it (47:1–12). In Zechariah’s vision, the man with the measuring line intends “to measure Jerusalem, to see what is its width and what its length” (2:6 [2]; cf. Ezek 48:30–35, though the dimensions of the city are not reported by Ezekiel’s guide). Little wonder that some see a virtual correspondence between these two visions.15 Ezekiel’s guide, however, measures the temple, not the city. This is no small distinction. The “very high mountain” (Ezek 40:2) to which the hand of Yhwh carries Ezekiel at the beginning of his final vision report (chs. 40–48), atop which his visionary temple is located, is of course Zion, although Ezekiel never uses that term.16 But Jerusalem is not on the mountain, so the temple is not in the city (Ezek 40:2; 45:6; 48:15). The focus on the city of Jerusalem in Zechariah is therefore at odds with Ezekiel’s vision. Further, detailed and careful measurement is the point of Ezek 40–42: the perfect dimensions of the sanctuary demonstrate its holiness. But as David Petersen observes, in Zechariah’s vision “[a]n angelic interpreter interrupts these proceedings and proclaims that the new Jerusalem will exist without boundaries.”17 In Zech 2:5–9 (1–5), the man with the measuring line never actually measures anything. Zechariah clearly alludes to Ezekiel here, but his own vision is less an homage to Ezekiel’s than a parody of it.

15

E.g., Meyers and Meyers, Haggai, Zechariah 1–8, 151. Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, The Dethronement of Sabaoth: Studies in the Shem and Kabod Theologies, trans. F. H. Cryer, ConBOT 18 (Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1982), 11, 109–13. As Soo J. Kim recognizes, the name of the city in Ezek 48:35, ‫“( יהוה שמה‬Yhwh is over there”), emphasizes theological distance: “For Ezekiel, then, the name of the City cannot become the real presence of YHWH; instead, it always works as a sign to point somewhere beyond” (Soo J. Kim, “YHWH Shammah: The City as Gateway to the Presence of YHWH,” JSOT 39 [2014]: 206). 17 David L. Petersen, Haggai and Zechariah 1–8, OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984), 678. 16

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That Zechariah parodies Ezekiel here foreshadows the way that the book of Zechariah deals with many of Ezekiel’s metaphors, treating its exemplar’s language in much the same way that Ezekiel had treated the language of his interlocutors. Zechariah’s editors will take an image from Ezekiel’s prophecy and twist it, resulting in a different meaning and a new application. The remainder of this study will consider how this is done with two Ezekielian metaphors: the cooking pot and the smelting furnace. 2.1. The Cooking Pot in Ezekiel In Ezek 11:3, the prophet records a bizarre claim made by Jerusalem’s leaders: “This city is the pot, and we are the meat.” While this claim sounds anything but positive, both its broader context (cf. the scornful dismissal of the exiles by the people of Jerusalem in Ezek 11:14–15) and Yhwh’s explicit statement that this claim comes from “men who devise iniquity and who give wicked counsel in this city” (11:2) make plain that it is intended as an arrogant boast. Its point, evidently, is that the exile was a winnowing-out of undesirables: the exiles are the bones, fat and gristle cast away with the garbage, making those still in the city the choice morsels in the stew pot. Ezekiel sees this boast as grimly appropriate, and happily grants them the metaphor: Jerusalem is indeed a pot set on the fire! However, the “meat” in the pot is the corpses of the slain scattered through Jerusalem’s streets: the innocent victims of Jerusalem’s elite, who by their religious corruption and social injustice have brought on the city’s destruction (Ezek 11:6–7; cf. Jer 7:5–7). Here, Ezekiel draws on Mic 3:1–3, where Jerusalem’s unjust rulers are depicted as cannibals, cruelly flaying and chopping up their victims “like meat in a kettle, like flesh in a cauldron.” In Ezek 24:1–14, the prophet returns to this metaphor. This oracle is dated to “the ninth year, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month” (Ezek 24:1), a date forcefully impressed on the prophet’s attention: “Mortal, write down the name of this day, this very day. The king of Babylon has laid siege to Jerusalem this very day” (Ezek 24:2). The date formula is unusual: elsewhere, the date opens the verse, but here, the divine word formula (“the word of the LORD came to me”) precedes the date. Further, the date itself is phrased in a way that differs from other dates in this book, but that exactly parallels 2 Kgs 25:1.18 Most interpreters, therefore, argue that the date was inserted from 2 Kgs 25:1 by Ezekiel’s editors (cf. Jer 52:4, where Jeremiah’s editors 18

So Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, trans. Ronald E. Clements, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 498; see the comparison in Daniel Block, The Book of Ezekiel: Chapters 1–24, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997) 772. 2 Kings dates by the regnal years of Zedekiah, while Ezekiel dates by the years of Jehoiachin’s (and his own) exile. But since Zedekiah’s reign began when Jehoiachin was taken into exile, the two dating schemes are the same.

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also quote this passage). But whether the date is original or not, the text claims that Ezekiel delivered this message to the exiles in Babylon on the very day that the siege of Jerusalem began. To describe the effect of the siege upon the city’s inhabitants, Ezekiel returns to the metaphor coined by the citizens of Jerusalem themselves: “This city is the pot, and we are the meat” (11:3). This time, Ezekiel reflects probable knowledge of Jer 1:13–16, where Jeremiah sees “a boiling pot, tilted away from the north” (Jer 1:13), representing the coming siege, brought by Babylon the enemy from the north:19 I am calling all the tribes of the kingdoms of the north, says the Lord; and they shall come and all of them shall set their thrones at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, against all its surrounding walls and against all the cities of Judah. (Jer 1:15)

Just so, on the day that the siege begins, Ezekiel tells about a boiling pot ‫משל‬, to relate the devastation that is about to befall Jerusalem.20 In Ezek 11, recall, the point of the metaphor was the supposed superiority of the inhabitants of Jerusalem to the exiles: we are the choice cuts, you are the gristle and garbage. So now, Ezekiel asks his audience to picture a pot, filled with all the good pieces, the thigh and the shoulder; fill it with choice bones. Take the choicest one of the flock, pile the logs under it; boil its pieces, seethe also its bones in it. (Ezek 24:4–5)

Then, he asks them to imagine the pot boiling dry, so that the meat is all ruined. Just so, Yhwh says, “Woe to the bloody city, the pot whose rust is in it, whose rust has not gone out of it!” (Ezek 24:6). The Hebrew word rendered “rust” in the NRSV is ‫חלאתה‬, which occurs in the Hebrew Bible only in Ezek 24:6, 11–12. The NRSV has followed the LXX here, which translates this word as ιος, “rust.” Targum Nebi’im renders the word as ‫“( זיהומה‬filth”), relating it to the Hebrew ‫חלא‬, “be sick”; a reading followed by the NIV, “encrusted”; and the NJPS and KJV, “scum.” Since the whole point of the parable is the pot boiling dry, ruining the meat and the pot as well, that reading is to be preferred.

19 Although Babylon was to the east of Judah, to reach Jerusalem its armies marched from Mesopotamia north around the desert wastes, then south along the coastal plain, approaching Palestine from the north (as had also been the case for Assyria). Babylon is called “the enemy from the north” 18 times in Jeremiah (e.g., Jer 1:13–16; 3:12, 18; 6:1, 22–25); cf. also Ezek 9:2; 23:24; Zech 2:6–7; 6:8. Indeed, the “enemy from the north” becomes a trope for all threats against Israel (Joel 2:20; Ezek 38–39; Dan 11:40–45). 20 The same word used, recall, in Ezek 17:2; cf. also 12:22–23; 16:44; and 18:2–3.

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Yhwh has heaped up the wood, made the fire hot, and boiled the kettle dry (24:9–10) – but even after the ruined meat is taken out, the pot itself is left on the fire “so that it may become hot, its copper glow, its filth [Heb. ‫ ]טמאה‬melt in it, its rust [Heb. ‫ ]חלאתה‬be consumed” (Ezek 24:11). The LXX ιος likely derives from this verse, which suggests an impurity in the metal itself that could presumably be smelted away. However, keeping in mind that this is a parable, and staying with pots and cooking fires rather than ore and smelting furnaces, it is more likely that this verse is ironically rather than realistically intended. After all, Ezekiel’s ‫ משל‬is neither a lecture on metallurgy, nor a household tip on how to remove baked-on grime! It is, instead, a picture of a hopelessly corrupted Jerusalem. As anyone who has accidentally left a pot on the stove knows, leaving the pot on the fire will not burn away the encrusted food! Rather, it will ruin the pot. Just so, Ezekiel declares, unclean Jerusalem will burn. 2.2. The Cooking Pot in Zechariah Zechariah 9–14 is divided into two parts, chs. 9–11 and 12–14, each called a ‫“( משא‬oracle”). Michael Floyd proposes that, when used for a prophetic speech, ‫ משא‬designates a literary genre involving “prophetic reinterpretation of a previous revelation.”21 Nahum, Habakkuk, Malachi (which all begin with this designation), and Zech 9–14, then, are all exemplars of this prophetic genre. This proposal seems needlessly complex, however, since in most places where ‫ משא‬refers to a prophetic pronouncement, it plainly designates a judgment oracle.22 Such is the case in Zechariah. The second ‫ משא‬opens with a divine judgment speech against “all the surrounding peoples” (Zech 12:1–6), leading into a declaration of the victory of Judah and Jerusalem over all enemies (Zech 12:7–9). The divine speech concludes with an astonishing metaphor: “On that day I will make the clans of Judah like a blazing pot on a pile of wood, like a flaming torch among sheaves” (Zech 12:6). This certainly derives from the ‫ משל‬of the cooking pot in Ezek 24:1–14. But while in Ezekiel the red-hot pot left too long on the fire is an image of Jerusalem’s ineradicable corruption and inevitable doom, in Zechariah the blazing pot of Judah becomes a torch, setting a fire of destruction among its enemies all around. Much as in the vision report in Zech 2:5–9 (1–5), the text of Zechariah subverts an image used by Ezekiel, and turns it to a different, indeed an opposite, end (a literary feat at which Ezekiel, recall, was himself adept!). Thanks to the firebrand of Judah, in the

Michael Floyd, “The ‫( משא‬massa’) as a Type of Prophetic Book,” JBL 121 (2002): 409–10. 22 Cf. Elizabeth Achtemeier, Nahum–Malachi, IBC (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1986), 7, who renders ‫ משא‬in Nah 1:1 as “threatening word” (emphasis hers). 21

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city all is well: “Jerusalem shall again be inhabited in its place, in Jerusalem” (12:6).23 2.3. The Smelting Furnace in Ezekiel Ezekiel 22:17–22 is a clear unit, opening with the divine word formula and closing, as is common in Ezekiel, with the predominant motif in this book, the Erkenntnisformel or recognition formula.24 The prophet here sets forth a striking metaphor of divine judgment: the image of a smelting furnace. In the Hebrew Bible, ‫“( כור‬smelting furnace”) is elsewhere a metaphor for a situation of severe trial (see Prov 17:3; 27:21; Isa 48:10). Often Israel’s bondage in Egypt is described as a ‫( כור‬Deut 4:20; 1 Kgs 8:51; Jer 11:4). A smelting furnace melts raw ore, so that the pure metal can be poured off from the slag. Just so, in this metaphor, fiery trials purify and strengthen those who endure them faithfully. But as will by now be no surprise to the reader, that is not Ezekiel’s point! Just as he played with the vine as a symbol of Israel in 15:1–8, and the lion as a symbol of royalty in 19:1–9, so here the prophet creatively toys with the metaphor of the smelter. For Ezekiel, Israel is not the silver, being purged and purified by its present trials. Instead Israel – all Israel – is the slag, the waste left behind when the silver has been extracted. No matter how hot the fire (Ezek 22:18–19), the slag will never yield silver! The point of the metaphor, then, much like the metaphor of the red-hot cooking pot in Ezek 24:11–12, is not purification, but destruction. Yhwh declares to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, I will gather you in my anger and in my wrath, and I will put you in and melt you. I will gather you and blow upon you with the fire of my wrath, and you shall be melted within it. As silver is melted in a smelter, so you shall be melted in it; and you shall know that I the LORD have poured out my wrath upon you. (Ezek 22:20–22)

2.4. The Smelting Furnace in Zechariah The poem in Zech 13:7–9 deals with a future king – a fairly common theme in Zech 9–14. Royal images implicit throughout Haggai–Zech 1–8 (Hag 2:20–23; Zech 3:8; 4:6–10a; 6:9–15) now become explicit. So, Zech 9:1–10 23

The LXX has only one mention of “Jerusalem” here. However, it seems likely that this repetition is original, and not a scribal error – driving home the solidity and stability of the city as, once more, thriving and fully occupied. 24 A total of 72 times in Ezekiel, God acts, whether in judgment or salvation, so “that they might know that I am the LORD.” See Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, Chapters 1–24, trans. Ronald E. Clements, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 38; idem, “The Word of Divine Self-Manifestation (ProofSaying): A Prophetic Genre,” in I Am Yahweh, ed. Walter Brueggemann, trans. Douglas W. Scott (Atlanta: John Knox, 1982), 99–110.

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speaks not metaphorically of a signet ring (Hag 2:23) or a branch (Zech 3:8; 6:12–13), but quite explicitly of a coming king (Zech 9:9–10). A prevalent image in these chapters is the shepherd, an image commonly used in the ancient Near East for the king (Zech 10:3–5; 11:4–17; 13:7–9). Further, Zech 12:7, 8, 10, 12 and 13:1 all explicitly name the “house of David.”25 That said, it is also plain that in the final form of Zech 9–14, this messianic expectation is qualified and reassessed. As Paul Redditt observes, the authors apparently had struggled to understand why the glorious future the prophets had predicted had not come to fruition and had concluded that the fault lay with Jerusalem’s corrupt leadership.26 As a result, while the perspective of Zech 9–14 in its final form is “not incompatible” with messianic hopes, “it does, however, manifest a level of disenchantment.”27 That disenchantment is brutally evident in Zech 13:7–9, which declares that the king, and his city, must once more fall. The poem opens with a summons to the sword – alluding to Ezekiel’s song of the sword (Ezek 21:13–22 [Eng. 21:8–17]), where the sword personified represents warfare and devastation coming against Jerusalem: “‘Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who is my associate,’ says the LORD of hosts” (Zech 13:7). “My shepherd” must be the Davidic king (so Targum Nebi’im). Earlier in Zech 9–14, the shepherd metaphor was used for unworthy, worldly rulers (cf. Zech 10:3–5; 11:4–17), but here Yhwh calls the king not only “my shepherd,” but also ‫עמיתי‬, “my associate,” in the NRSV. Elsewhere, ‫ עמית‬occurs only in Leviticus, for a fellow Israelite (e.g., Lev 5:21; 10:17), hence the LXX πολιτης “citizen.” Indeed, the NRSV often renders ‫ עמית‬as “neighbor,” calling Mr. Rogers to this Pittsburgher’s mind! In short, the coming destruction is not described as a judgment on the shepherd, but as a test of the community. The difficult times to come are described using the “sheep without a shepherd” metaphor (Zech 10:2; cf. Ezek 34:8; 1 Kgs 22:17//2 Chr 18:16). But this time, the sheep are not bereft (as in Ezekiel) because their shepherd is irresponsible or cruel, but because Yhwh has ordered him removed, despite the king being G-d’s own choice, even G-d’s friend: “Strike the shepherd, that the sheep may be scattered; I will turn my hand against the little ones” (Zech 13:7).28

25 Paul Redditt, “The King in Haggai–Zechariah 1–8 and the Book of the Twelve,” in Tradition in Transition: Haggai and Zechariah 1–8 in the Trajectory of Hebrew Theology, ed. Mark J. Boda and Michael H. Floyd (New York: T&T Clark, 2008), 78. 26 Redditt, “The King in Haggai–Zechariah 1–8,” 79. 27 Redditt, “The King in Haggai–Zechariah 1–8,” 80. 28 In Matt 26:31//Mark 14:27, Jesus quotes this passage to predict the disciples’ flight: “You will all become deserters; for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered’” (Mark 14:27).

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Why, then, does Yhwh remove the shepherd, throwing the people into disarray and even striking out against the weakest of them, cutting off two thirds of the population (13:8)? It is done, Yhwh declares, to refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. (13:9)

As a result of this trial, the people will call upon Yhwh, and G-d will answer: I will say, “They are my people”; and they will say, “The LORD is our God.” (Zech 13:9; cf. 8:8)

Again, the community of Zechariah is taking a metaphor from Ezekiel (here, Ezek 22:17–22) and inverting it. But Ezekiel had twisted the metaphor of the smelting furnace to declare Jerusalem slag, not silver, which could not be refined. Inverting the image, then, restores this metaphor to its customary meaning.

3. Conclusions What can we deduce about the use of Ezekiel in Zechariah? First, it is evident that Zechariah cannot be aptly described as Ezekiel’s disciple – otherwise, why would his book invert his master’s metaphors? In any case, the parallels between Zechariah and Ezekiel are matters less of content than of form. So why, then, does Zechariah pattern itself formally on that most literary of prophets? Haggai–Zechariah 1–8, Ezek 40–48 in its final form,29 and quite possibly the beginnings of both Chronicles30 and the Pentateuch31 all date to the early Persian period. The likely stimulus for this spate of literary creativity is a decree of Darius I (ca. 520 BCE), described in a papyrus manuscript sometimes called the Demotic Chronicle:

29 See Steven Tuell, The Law of the Temple in Ezekiel 40 – 48, HSM 49 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1992), 20–22; Michael Konkel, Architektonik des Heiligen: Studien zur zweiten Tempelvision Ezechiels [Ez 40–48], BBB 129 (Bodenheim: Philo, 2001), 24. 30 David Noel Freedman, “The Chronicler’s Purpose,” CBQ 23 (1961): 439–40; William W. Schniedewind, The Word of God in Transition: From Prophet to Exegete in the Second Temple Period, JSOTSup 197 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1995), 249; Scott W. Hahn, The Kingdom of God as Liturgical Empire: A Theological Commentary on 1–2 Chronicles (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012), 1. 31 Joseph Blenkinsopp, “The Mission of Udjahorresnet and Those of Ezra and Nehemiah,” JBL 106 (1987): 413–14; Tuell, The Law of the Temple in Ezekiel 40–48, 145–46.

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As for Darius, it heeded him…the land (of Egypt) in its entirety because of the excellence of his character. He issued a decree concerning Egypt to his satrap in (his) third regnal year, as follows: “Let be brought unto me the learned men…from among the (military) officers, the priests, (and) the scribes of Egypt so that, being assembled together, they may in concert write the law of Egypt which had been (observed) formerly through the fortyfourth regnal year of Pharaoh Amasis, (that is) the fifth pharaonic law, (concerning) the temples (and) the people.32

While the decree mentioned in the Demotic Chronicle concerns only Egyptian civil and religious law, it likely reflects broader policy during Darius’s reign. Still, even if such an order was not given directly to the religious and political leadership of Judah, the Persian call for such a law would surely have motivated Jewish communities to write down their own authoritative collections. Eric Meyers suggests that this “Persian encouragement to codify laws in the provinces could well have been the impetus to combine Zech 1–8 with Haggai into a single composite piece that was probably intended for presentation at the rededication ceremony of the Second Temple.”33 But while Haggai–Zech 1–8 really cannot be described as a “law…(concerning) the temples (and) the people,” Ezek 40–48 can. Indeed, in a striking parallel to the language of the Demotic Chronicle, Ezek 43:12 twice declares, “This is the law of the temple,” suggesting that the Law of the Temple in Ezek 40–48 was written in response to Darius’ command. The collection of Haggai–Zech 1–8 into a book responds at best indirectly to this Persian edict; it relates directly, though, to Ezekiel. In its final form, Ezekiel’s work has the consistency of style and theme we expect to find, not in a loose assembly of oral speeches secondarily collected in writing, but (as Gunkel long ago observed) in a book. With Haggai–Zech 1–8, then, Zechariah too has written a book, inspired by and modeled stylistically after the book of Ezekiel, but taking care to distinguish himself from Ezekiel – as his editors, in Zech 9–14, continued to do.

32 Wilhelm Spiegelberg, Die sogenannte demotische Chronik des Pap. 215 der Bibliotheque Nationale zu Paris, nebst den auf der Ruckseite des Papyrus stehenden Texten, Demotische Studien 7 (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1914), 30–31; translated here from the Demotic by S. Dean McBride, Jr. 33 Eric M. Meyers, “The Persian Period and the Judean Restoration: From Zerubbabel to Nehemiah,” in Ancient Israelite Religion, ed. Patrick Miller, Paul Hanson, and S. Dean McBride, Jr. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 513.

Part 3. Biblical Theology

Shall the Judge of All the Earth Not Do Justice? Tamar Frankiel Given the immense contributions of our beloved colleague Marvin Sweeney to biblical scholarship, teaching, and guidance of our institutions, we cannot help but be astonished that he found the time and courage to pen two new, more expansive works: Reading the Bible after the Shoah, and Jewish Mysticism from Ancient Times through Today.1 A master of the Hebrew Bible has moved into some of the most fascinating dimensions of modern religious thought: the problem of theodicy in the face of enormous evil in modern times; and the relevance of the Jewish mystical tradition in pondering such problems. I would not presume to review these works, but I am honored to have the opportunity to reflect on some of the issues they raise, as a way of congratulating and thanking Professor Sweeney. The two books intersect in that they each address how Jews have presumed to know God, or at least to understand the divine will – the essential mystery of Western traditions. One of the most provocative issues in that inquiry is how God relates to suffering and injustice in the world. In considering this question, I found I had to reflect once more on covenant, leadership, and the ways the Bible portrays God’s “personality” (pardon the expression). Besides the inspiration of Sweeney’s work, I found it helpful to draw on a few modern Jewish commentators who approach Tanakh intertextually to address modern theological, social, and political issues. With these resources, I hope to look at some old issues with fresh eyes. We will begin with the question of divine justice.

1. Righteousness and Justice Jewish commentators often start with the first occurrences of a word in the Torah, and so will I. The common word for justice – ‫ – משפט‬first occurs in the story of God’s judgment against Sodom. God speaks of his intent that Abraham should “keep the way of YHWH to do righteousness and justice” (Gen 18:19). A few verses later, Abraham questions whether God will “slay 1 Marvin A. Sweeney, Reading the Hebrew Bible After the Shoah: Engaging Holocaust Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008); idem, Jewish Mysticism: From Ancient Times through Today (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2020).

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the righteous with the wicked, as though the righteous are like the wicked… Shall the Judge of all the earth not do justice?” (Gen 18:25). Here and elsewhere, ‫ משפט‬is often paired with ‫צדקה‬, “righteousness.”2 In Genesis, the term “righteous” has appeared earlier, twice in describing Noah: he was “righteous among his generation” and, in God’s words, “I have found him righteous before me” (Gen 6:9; 7:1). Righteousness is explicitly the opposite of wickedness, as illustrated in the biblical text by the generation of Noah, which was habituated to robbery, murder, and exploitation – murder itself having a long lineage since the time of Cain. Besides those references, a figure named “King of Righteousness,” Melchizedek, appears after the war of four and five kings, and is described as a “priest of ‫( ”אל עליון‬Gen 14:18–20). According to rabbinic tradition, this figure was identical with Shem, son of Noah, and appointed Abraham to carry on the honored lineage of service to the Most High.3 Indeed, Melchizedek’s honoring of the patriarch follows on the war in which Abraham had shown himself unwilling to exploit an advantage, refusing to take booty from that war in which he participated. He also had divided the land more than fairly with his nephew Lot.4 “Righteousness” is exemplified in fidelity to the highest principles of behavior, and a primary characteristic of honorable leadership. “Justice” in the abstract is not defined by the biblical text, and the same word ‫ משפת‬can often refer to a specific judgment, issuing from the mouth of a judge. It exists more in particulars than in generalities. But we know that across the spectrum of ancient Near Eastern societies, justice – the practice of judging fairly – is extolled. Heroes and kings were expected to be guardians of justice. A recent summary of textual scholarship cites an example: the early written code of Ur-Nammu in Mesopotamia (ca. 2000 BCE, before Hammurabi’s more famous code) proclaims, I did not deliver the orphan to the rich. I did not deliver the widow to the mighty. I did not deliver the man with but one shekel to the man with one mina [i.e., 60 shekels]. I did not deliver the man with but one sheep to the man with one ox…[I] eliminated enmity, violence, and cries for justice. I established justice in the land.5

2 ‫צדקה‬ is commonly rendered as “charity” today and in many classic sources. Here, a more general definition is required: the potential “righteous ones” in the city of Sodom are not necessarily defined by their giving charity. As a beginning, we can gloss the English word “righteousness” as “right with the law” but also often going beyond what the law requires. 3 See Targum Jonathan and Ibn Ezra, among others, on Gen 14:18. 4 See Sweeney’s discussion of these episodes in Bible After Shoah, 36–37. 5 Brian R. Doak, “The Origins of Social Justice in the Ancient Mesopotamian Religious Traditions” (2006), available online at https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ccs/185 (last accessed 14 September 2022).

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Even if this was an instance of political self-promotion, it clearly states the expected ideal, and the tropes of orphan and widow are familiar to readers of the Bible. Clearly, too, ancient Near Eastern societies held that the gods share the ideal of justice, and that people can call on the gods to intervene on behalf of the poor and oppressed. Justice means the rule of law, with special attention to those who are unprotected by ordinary systems of social obligation. Thus Abraham’s question makes sense: if God is not discerning between the righteous and the wicked, there is a problem. But the question occurs in the midst of an ongoing conversation, so we must also understand the larger framework. God had initiated this relationship with a human partner through a sequence of promises that eventually assured Abraham of God’s righteousness – indeed of God’s willingness to go beyond expectations. Abram, as he was previously named, had asked for an heir, yet God promised him descendants as many as the stars (Gen 15:5), certainly an example of magnanimous intent. The covenant was finally sealed two chapters later with an equally expansive promise: “You will be father of a multitude of nations…exceedingly fruitful…and I will give to you and your seed…all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession” (Gen 17:5-8). God clearly intends to manifest righteousness beyond the minimum required by justice, toward his covenant partner. Shortly after, the problem of Sodom, already alluded to several chapters earlier when Lot chose to settle there,6 comes to the fore. One could say that it raises the question of how far magnanimity can extend. God opens with a question to himself: “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing?” God decides he will not hide, and gives the reason: “For I have known him, to the end that he may command his children and his household after him, that they may keep the way of YHWH, to do righteousness and justice” (Gen 18:19). On hearing God’s intentions for Sodom, Abraham raises his famous protest. God’s response is that he would indeed save the entire city if there were even ten righteous people. There weren’t; but this

6 In Reading the Bible after the Shoah, Marvin Sweeney uses this case to support his argument that Abraham’s behavior is exemplary, but YHWH’s is not always so. He observes that YHWH already knew Sodom was evil and would be destroyed, but allows Lot to proceed: “Lot’s choice places a branch of Abram’s family in danger, but YHWH remains silent” (p. 36). This raises a theoretical question of how much guidance can be expected from God, as distinct from requiring humans to exercise basic good judgment. Certainly the practice of warning achieved institutionalization in the prophetic tradition, and rabbinic law requires that a person observed committing an unlawful act must be warned against repeating it, before he can be accused and brought to court. But it is also possible that everyone knew Sodom was wicked, and the narrative intends to contrast Abraham’s magnanimity with Lot’s greed, rather than implicitly criticizing YHWH here.

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does set up the expectation that God will exercise prudence and precision in punishment. Among Jews, a popular interpretation of this passage is that it proves that humans can argue with God; Abraham is in a sense testing God. I suggest we read the dialogue in a slightly different way. God’s question “Shall I hide…?” can be understood as expressing an absurdity: “Would I actually hide from Abraham what I am doing? Of course not – not this man, for whom I have great plans. I will put the situation to Abraham and see what he says.” Sweeney, also points out that God could be testing Abraham to see what his response would be to the “atrocity” of destroying a city. Yet, because Sodom is known for its rapacious population, terrorizing even innocent guests in violation of fundamental norms of hospitality – this is not a fair example of a divine atrocity. Indeed, God may not be so much puzzling about Sodom as trying to explore the scope of this partnership. Abraham has already shown his generosity and courage; now, God wants to observe how his new partner would exercise his authority as a judge. Abraham’s response, on this reading, is not so much trying to bargain with God as to explore openly but tentatively (“perhaps there are fifty…,” “I am but dust and ashes…”): what is the proper calculus for such evil as destroying an entire city? Justice requires that one discriminate between the innocent and the guilty. God approves of Abraham’s logic, agreeing that even if the number of innocent is small, the city can be saved. Sadly, there are not even ten; and the dialogue breaks off. This scenario presents God as mentoring Abraham, his chosen leader for the next stage of human development. From the perspective of the biblical narrative, humans should have had a fundamental understanding of justice since Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil; the serpent even predicted they would mirror God in that respect. Clearly, their descendants did not fulfill that expectation, although Noah was a righteous exception. Abraham likewise started with a clear inner sense of righteousness, and God took him on, as an apprentice so to speak, and promised him what he most wanted: descendants to carry on after him. How did this arrangement work out?

2. Paradigms and Paradoxes The stories of Abraham’s family in the book of Genesis, expanded with the help of rabbinic commentary, show decidedly mixed results. Each generation bore children that did not seem ready to follow in Abraham’s compassionate and magnanimous footsteps; they were afflicted with jealousy and rivalry. According to the rabbis, the misfortunes of these generations often exemplified a “justice” that Jewish tradition calls ‫( מידה כנגד מידה‬Shakespeare’s

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“measure for measure”). For example, Jacob deceived his brother Esau, so he was deceived by Leah and Rachel. This is not the rational, calculated justice of Abraham thinking through the problem of Sodom, nor a specific decision by God; it is more like what Hindu tradition calls karma. One’s actions necessarily bear fruits, and in “measure for measure” they are uncannily similar. We also see other manipulative behavior among Abraham’s descendants: Ishmael mocking, Jacob teasing Esau when he was hungry, and the underhanded dealings of Laban with Jacob, who outfoxes him. In none of these cases do the parties bring their case to a judge. Some of the characters, particularly Jacob, do grow wiser with age; but the sons of Jacob nurture a terrible rivalry. Ultimately the Genesis saga ends with a wise hero: Joseph, the favorite son of Jacob who becomes the most trusted minister of the Pharaoh of Egypt and also reconciles his own family. In the story, he also manipulates the plot, but it turns out he is using his power to bring his brothers to a recognition of their past evil deeds. He concocts a fraudulent “justice” by imprisoning one brother and blaming another for a faked theft, all to bring out the truth. In the end, Joseph emphatically declares that everything has been planned by God. “God sent me before you to preserve life, …to establish you as a remnant on earth, to keep you alive for a great deliverance. It was not you that sent me here, but God” (Gen 45:5–8). Acting beyond the law to bring about not merely justice but repentance and reconciliation, Joseph has become known in Jewish tradition as ‫יוסף הצדיק‬, “Joseph the Righteous.” The path to fulfilling God’s covenant, which aimed to produce blessings on “all the families of the earth,” takes an unexpected turn several generations later, when there arises a Pharaoh who “did not know Joseph.” The Egyptian “family” had been blessed by the wise and prescient leadership of Joseph. Given the Aramean/Egyptian contrasts in much of biblical narrative, it would seem that he was the intended reformer and educator of Egypt, bringing forth the virtues of ‫ צדקה‬and ‫משפת‬. But the new Pharaoh of Egypt had brought this plan to a halt, returning to the evil ways of pre-Abrahamic generations, relying on slavery and oppression. If justice and righteousness were to prevail, this had to change. We sometimes imagine and even pray that God will simply intervene, take direct action, as with Sodom. Why didn’t God just destroy Egypt and free the slaves? Why didn’t God just kill the leaders of the Third Reich? However, the covenant means God does not act without the human partner: “Shall I hide from Abraham?” and “God has sent me before you.” Who, in the Exodus generation, would be that partner? Eventually, Moses will be chosen. But there is another piece of the process we have not yet addressed: the cry. Biblical narratives tell us, at key points, that humans cry out to God about the suffering caused by injustice and oppression. Indeed, the first such cry is that of a murdered man: “The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to me,”

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God said to Cain (Gen 4:10). The incident of Sodom started with a cry: “And YHWH said: ‘the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and their sin is very grievous. I will go down now and see if what they have done is like the cry that has come to me; and if not, I will know” (Gen 18:20–21). The cry that rose up from the Israelites under the heavy oppression of slavery in Egypt is the most famous: “And it came to pass in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died; and the children of Israel sighed from the servitude, and they cried, and their cry came up to God from the servitude. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob; and God saw the children of Israel, and he knew” (Exod 2:23–25). “And YHWH said [to Moses]: ‘I have surely seen the affliction of My people that are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their pains’” (Exod 3:7). We will want to ask later, what happened to this call-and-response between the people and God? Moses, with his own peculiar history which we need not detail here, had already become conscious of the injustice perpetrated on the Hebrew slaves and had left the house of Pharaoh. He will become the new Abraham. The fiery torch reappears as a burning bush, and God announces to Moses that divine judgment will come on Egypt and Pharaoh. The story of the deluge and the story of Sodom are about to be repeated in an Egyptian version, and we may well ask whether it exemplifies justice. Will we see the thoughtfulness of Abraham in pleading for the innocent? Will someone find, or contrive, a process that could lead to repentance, as with Joseph and the brothers? Could there be another way than the long, intensifying agony of the Hebrew slaves, paralleled by suffering and increasing terror among the Egyptians? Could there not have been another way? Rabbi David Fohrman has suggested that another story was possible, what he calls “the Exodus that might have been.” He explains by elaborating on parallels between the conclusion of Jacob’s story, when Joseph and his other sons buried him in the land of Canaan, and the account of the Exodus from Egypt.7 Here is the earlier story, beginning with Joseph discreetly sending a message to Pharaoh via one of his household servants: Speak in the ears of Pharaoh: “My father made me swear, saying: ‘See, I am dying; in my grave that I dug for myself in the land of Canaan, there you will bury me.’ Now please let me go up and bury my father, and I will come back.” And Pharaoh replied: “Go up, and bury your father, as he made you swear.” Joseph went up to bury his father, and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his court, and all the elders of the land of Egypt, and all the house of Joseph, and his brothers, and his father’s household; only their little ones, and their flocks, and

7 David Fohrman, The Exodus You Almost Passed Over (Baltimore: Aleph Beta Press, 2016), 216–29. The discussion that follows is a condensation of his main points.

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their herds, they left in the land of Goshen. And going up with him were chariots and horsemen as well; the camp was exceedingly honorable. They came to Goren Ha-Atad, on the other side of the Jordan, and there they wailed with a very great and heavy wailing; he made a mourning ceremony of seven days for his father. And the Canaanite inhabitants of the land saw the mourning in Goren Ha-Atad, and they said, “What an honor-filled mourning this is for Egypt!” (Gen 50:6–11)

Centuries later, another journey out of Egypt is requested. God tells Moses to speak to Pharaoh: “Go to the king of Egypt, you and the elders of Israel, and say unto him: ‘YHWH, the God of the Hebrews, met with us. Please let us go three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to YHWH our God’” (Exod 3.18). As in the time of Jacob’s burial, the Pharaoh was asked to allow his “guests” to journey outside of Egypt for a brief time. This is the first parallel with the burial story. Moses then took a detour to make another filial request: “Moses went and returned to Jethro his father-in-law, and said: ‘Please let me go to return to my brothers in Egypt, and see whether they are still alive’” (Exod 4:18). This seems extraneous to the story, but note the language. It poignantly recalls Joseph saying to his brothers, “Is my father still alive?” This second parallel highlights the familial relations in both cases. Jethro graciously accedes. Then Moses, accompanied by his brother, presents God’s request to Pharaoh, again mentioning the “three days’ journey,” but Pharaoh responds definitively, “I don’t know YHWH, and moreover I will not let Israel go” (Exod 5:1–3). Moses recounts to God both Pharaoh’s response and the people’s despair. God then announces the full plan of redemption, including deliverance from servitude and judgments, ‫שפתים‬, on Egypt (Exod 6:7–8). With Pharaoh’s resistance apparent, God has also shifted into higher gear. Unlike the first plan, a temporary respite of three days for the people to renew their ancestral relationship with God – perhaps a “Sinai” after which a different relationship with Egypt might have been formed? – this would be a permanent change. God has definitively set his will, as stated in his first encounter with Moses: it was time for the Egyptian yoke to be broken and Israel to reclaim its ancestral heritage including the land, as in the covenantal promises. The tension that has kept the reader in suspense since God’s first outreach to Abraham seems about to be resolved, as the text repeatedly invokes the promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The story tells of dramatic moments of apparent repentance: Pharaoh declares, after the seventh plague of hail and fire, that “I have sinned this time; the LORD is righteous, and I and my people are wicked” (Exod 9:27). He rescinds his confession, not once but yet again after the eighth plague: “I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you. Forgive my sin, I pray…” (Exod 10:16–17). Even more bitter words toward Moses follow. There is no meeting of hearts as when Judah finally spoke to Joseph of the

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family’s suffering and grief. Pharaoh fears death, but cannot feel pain or hear others’ cries. In contrast, the narrative tells us that Moses, at the very climax of departure, when the people were rushing to leave Egypt, Moses remembered a heartfelt plea: “And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him; for he had firmly sworn the children of Israel, saying: ‘God will surely keep you in mind, and you will take my bones up with you from here’” (Exod 13:39). Just as Joseph had fulfilled his promise to bury his father Jacob in the land, Moses too connected the promise of return to the unification of the family. Pharaoh, meanwhile, had found energy for a last burst of resistance: And the Egyptians pursued after them, all the horses and chariots of Pharaoh, and his horsemen, and his army, and overtook them camping by the sea, beside Pi-Hahirot, in front of Baal-Zephon…. And YHWH said, “Why are you crying to me? Speak to the children of Israel, to go forward…. And I, behold, I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, and they shall go in after them; and I will be honored through Pharaoh, and through all his host, through his chariots, through his horsemen. And the Egyptians shall know that I am YHWH, when I have been honored through Pharaoh, through his chariots, and through his horsemen.” (Exod 14:15–18)

Repeated to make sure we don’t miss it, the headline “chariots and horsemen” takes us back to Jacob’s burial procession, when a similar honor guard of Pharaoh’s military had impressed the Canaanites. Now, however, the renowned riders must honor God with their death: “The waters returned, and covered the chariots, and the horsemen, all the host of Pharaoh that went in after them into the sea; there remained not so much as one of them” (Exod 14:28). Moreover, the victorious Song of the Sea proclaims, “The nations heard…all the inhabitants of Canaan shrank away. Terror and dread fell upon them; by the greatness of Your arm they are still as a stone; till Your people pass over, Lord, till the people pass over that You have [re-]acquired” (Exod 15:14–16). The astonishing grand procession of Jacob’s burial has turned into an even more stunning, and terrifying, march out of Egypt toward Canaan of the entire Israelite camp, leaving the ancient world’s most powerful army drowned in the sea. This comparison between the burial procession as the culmination of the Joseph saga and the Exodus as the culmination of the Israelite story highlights some points about divine justice. The “Exodus that might have been” would have come about if the new Pharaoh had, like the Pharaoh of Joseph’s time, graciously recognized Moses’s claim for the loyalty of the Hebrew slaves to their ancestral God. Letting them go would have been an example of ‫צדקה ומשפת‬, righteousness beyond the law. Another course might have been Pharaoh declaring an end to resistance after his people had suffered punishments – a picture closer to a traditional view that God acts justly by sending warnings, gradually increasing the pain. But when it became

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clear that Pharaoh was reinforcing himself against any threat to his power, God responded by hardening Pharaoh’s heart even more, to bring about a dramatic and irrefutable end to the struggle. The death of the firstborn was a double-edged sword: it hurt every family, and it also symbolically undercut the premise of dynastic rule.8 And, like a demand for unconditional surrender, it was the proclamation of a new era. This comparison provides an eschatological snapshot of righteousness, justice, and redemption. Righteousness takes the high road, seeking a good and gracious outcome for all concerned, as in the story of the Pharaoh and Joseph in the time of Jacob’s death. Justice delivers the best possible calculation of damages, reparations, and punishments, which might have been a possibility if the Pharaoh of Moses’ time had been able to hear a cry. Redemption can occur nonetheless when the prison of falsehood and evil is shattered, releasing its victims. But that shattering is often very costly, and it leaves its scars. Freedom does not guarantee the establishment of righteousness and justice.

3. My Thoughts Are Not Your Thoughts We have learned a few things about divine justice from this story. One is that God partners with humans who are righteous, and in this paradigm, one person serves as human administrator, messenger, and mediator. Further, justice has other dimensions besides rational calculation such as Abraham attempted with Sodom. The community can be more important than the individual: even if a few are very righteous, justice cannot be established if a large majority of the people are corrupt. That seems to be the premise behind the sweeping away of the innocent with the guilty: not enough people stand up against the evil. In Pharaoh’s court, for example, some of his ministers began pleading with him; but it was too few, too late.

8 The stories of the patriarchs, unlike the ancient genealogies or the later priesthood, are notable for not passing leadership on to the first-born son. Ishmael, Esau, and Reuben’s being bypassed are sufficient to make the point. Moses’s leadership is also not inherited at all. Rabbi Micah Goodman has observed that Israelite theology and practice often go against the grain of common expectations of the ancient Near Eastern cultures. In his view, the book of Deuteronomy offered a revolutionary view of religious belief and political power; its essence is in many ways summarized in Jer 7. However, the people (and/or their rulers) were unable to sustain such a radical approach. The main points of his 2014 book, ‫( הנאום האחרוו של משה‬Moses’ Final Oration [Shoham, Israel: Kinneret Zmora-Bitan Dvir, 2014]), are presented for English listeners in a video series “The Last Speech of Moses”; see especially #5: “Politics and Power.” Accessible at tikvahfund.org

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Further, it is not always clear how God is involved in matters of righteousness and justice among humans. Even if God is claimed to be the ultimate arbiter of a situation or the hidden author of a text, he is not always actively involved or, in the vernacular, does not “personally intervene.” In Egypt and at Sodom, God was unquestionably present. In the Joseph saga, the situation is more like later wisdom stories (Esther, Ruth): God’s role is known to, or believed in, by some of the humans involved, but he isn’t a primary actor. Indeed, God will drop out as an actor for hundreds of years. The biblical narratives gloss over that reality by continuing to invoke the deity, and the prophets insist on God’s real presence; but the Jewish people essentially unelected God. The fatal move came in the time of Samuel, when the people asked for a king (as the book of Deuteronomy had expected). God explains to Samuel: “…They haven’t rejected you – they’ve rejected me, that I should not be king over them. Like all the deeds they have done since the day I brought them out of Egypt till today, they have forsaken Me and served other gods, so they are doing to you” (1 Sam 8:7-8). Following God’s instructions, Samuel warns the Israelites at length about the rapaciousness of kings. He concludes: “You will cry out in that day because of the king you chose for yourselves, and YHWH will not answer you in that day.” But the people would not listen to Samuel’s voice, and said, “No! There will be a king over us, so that we can be like the nations, and our king will judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles.” (1 Sam 8:21–22, emphasis added)

This narrative tells of a counter-revolution against the tradition of justice embodied in the covenant. God interacting with a human partner had meant the people’s leader would be a righteous person, one who could “judge” like Abraham, who could preserve faith like Joseph, who had insight like Moses, who could understand and implement the law like Jethro. The people collectively were rejecting this model of leadership, because they wanted someone to lead them in battle. This was a vote for war and booty, not a society of ‫צדקה ומשפת‬. Samuel’s warning that “you will cry out and YHWH will not answer you” suggests that a considerable amount of time might pass before God would show up again. Prophets became the ones who “cried out,” calling on people to wake up, and begging God for mercy. According to their accounts, God had not ceased to care – Abraham Joshua Heschel expands at length on the “divine pathos” evidenced in the prophetic writings9 – but with the exception of a few kings, God did not partner with humans in righteousness and justice.

9 Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets (New York: Harper, 1962), see especially Part II, 285–344.

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After centuries, Jeremiah’s passionate narratives reveal, God lost patience. God’s non-intervention allowed foreigners, who had already dismantled the northern kingdom of Israel, to take the last bastion of the covenanted people, Jerusalem and its Temple.10 (Not that the conqueror escapes justice: Isa 47, inter alia, asserts that Babylon herself cannot be confident in her security; she will also fall.) But what about the crying out? We do read further in biblical literature of many cryings-out to God – collectively in Lamentations, both individually and collectively in Psalms, and individually in the book of Job. Job, in his courageous and poignant challenge to God, reveals the problem of applying the collective paradigm to the individual. As Jon Levenson has shown, in Israelite literature the path to redemption – including resurrection from the dead – is eminently collective, involving the whole people of Israel.11 Job’s argument ends in a deadlock because he is asking to be judged alone. The responses of his “friends” are also off the mark, because he has met all the standards of a righteous person. But the epiphany of God, replying to Job, insists that he look to creation, to the great cosmic processes, of which Job’s situation is only a small part. From the point of view of the covenant, the fate of individuals may not enter into the divine calculation. This was not satisfying to the philosophical consciousness of the Hellenistic period, including wisdom literature; but for Jews, while the question of individual righteousness and reward is acknowledged, it does not replace the covenant as the path to God’s plan for the world.

4. Guidance in Darkness Meanwhile, in the collective realm of Jewish history, the pleas became more desperate as the Second Commonwealth faced greater internal and external conflict. Yet the rise of messianic movements, from Qumran (possibly) to the Bar Kochba war, points to the people’s inability to internalize the lesson of Samuel. Instead of turning to God, they still begged for a king – a more perfect king, the messiah. The many claimants to that role all failed to overthrow the Roman empire and re-establish the ideal kingdom. The sect that eventually became Christianity offered a non-kingly version, but they were disdained by their fellow Jews for not fighting like brothers to defend the Temple they claimed to love. Rabbinic Judaism, slowly emerging as the definitive force in Jewish leadership, forbade attempts to challenge the ruling 10

Goodman’s commentary in “The Failed Revolution of Deuteronomy,” Last Speech of Moses #6. 11 Jon D. Levenson, Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), passim.

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authorities after Bar Kochba. The Jewish community would be guided not by a single man, but by the Torah as understood among the community of scholars who devoted themselves to it. However, Judaism still nurtured the ideal of a righteous person who could bring God’s blessings on the community, as Abraham and Moses had done and kings were supposed to do. The mystics of Judaism developed this tradition, using Moses and the visionary prophets as their models. With the disappearance of the external factors of temple and kingship that had framed the Jewish people’s relationship to God, visionary experiences and symbolic interpretations charted new pathways for the deepest thinkers. As Sweeney shows in his book on the subject, the work of the mystics builds on the legacy of biblical prophets and apocalyptic writers, forming a complex chain of relationships down to the Hasidism of today. After the failure of apocalyptic sects (or, in Christianity’s case, transformation into an imperial religion), the mystics developed the ideal of the sage who “understands of his own knowledge” 12 While that knowledge began with Torah and prayer, it also meant gaining an understanding of God’s intentions for the created world, finding answers to disturbing questions about good and evil, and being able to stand in the presence of God with humility and dignity. This ideal agreed with the mainstream rabbinic tradition, which emphasized communal justice and personal purity, but also insisted that it was possible to have a direct path to God. Such a path was constructed through language, especially the creative dimensions of language – liturgy, poetry, metaphor, parable; the mystics studied the names of God and enjoyed the fellowship of angels. Over the many difficult centuries of Jewish life, they found new ways of understanding Torah, reassuring the people that God had not abandoned them, and teaching how, through prayer and attention to the inner meanings of ordinary rituals, God’s will could still be done on earth. God’s salvation was not yet evident in the earthly realms, but by studying deeper levels of Torah, the mystics were uniting heaven and earth in a deep and secret loving union. “In all cases, Jewish visionary and mystical experience,” Sweeney writes, “prompted the rethinking of Jewish concepts and life.”13 In each era, teachers gathered students around them, wrote and interpreted texts that would guide their own and succeeding generations. We can see this even today in the Hasidic movement, which reinvigorated the ideal of the Tzaddik (“righteous one”) as the vessel through whom others can connect to God, and emphasized the quality of lovingkindness as the foundation of righteousness. Like Joseph of old, the Hasidic masters of recent times have been focused on reconciling brothers and sisters to one another – that is, to reuniting the 12 13

Sweeney, Mysticism, 216 (inter alia). Sweeney, Mysticism, 404.

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Jewish people around their mission of ‫צדקה ומדפת‬, and thus bringing blessing to all the families of the earth. “Shall the Judge of all the earth not do justice?” still resounds as a question, often shaping the crying-out of humanity toward God. Yet we can also see that, as with Abraham, it was the beginning of a dialogue about how to relate to the world in all its complicated manifestations of good and evil. Thousands of years after Sodom, we still ask how to protect the weak from exploitation from the strong, how to discern among multiple claims, and how to deal with those intent on perpetrating violence. Beyond that, we also hear the prophet Samuel’s challenge: You want a king like the other nations? What does that mean? Are you following the desire for conquest and booty? If so, God has nothing to say to you. In other words, the questions arise, the battles continue within our own hearts and minds. That is the realm of transformation, the domain of the mystics. Yes, do justice; yes, love kindness; and also: “walk humbly with your God” (Mic 6:8).

“Shall the Judge of All the Earth Not Do What Is Just?” (Genesis 18:25) Theodicy and the Book of Jeremiah Mark E. Biddle In several publications Marvin Sweeney has added his voice to those who identify a problem for post-Shoah interpreters of prophetic literature. 1 The Prophets, both former and latter, regularly attributed crises in the history of Israel and Judah, not to some divine limitation, but to the people’s failure to fulfill their covenant obligations.2 The problem centers around the absolute character of the typical prophetic condemnation: because all the people have broken covenant with their YHWH, YHWH will/has brought judgment upon all of them. Common sense and the testimony of the lament/complaint tradition in the Hebrew Bible suggest the inaccuracy of the apodosis. At least minor children must have been innocent of the accusation and the significant likelihood is that many adults injured or killed in the Assyrian and 1 See, especially, Marvin A. Sweeney, Reading the Hebrew Bible after the Shoah: Engaging Holocaust Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008), which includes a concise review of the state of the discussion; see also his “Reconceiving the Paradigms of Old Testament Theology in the Post-Shoah Period,” BibInt 6 (1998): 142–61, and “Jewish Biblical Theology: An Ongoing Dialogue,” Int 70 (2016): 322–23. In addition to those surveyed in Sweeney’s Reading the Hebrew Bible after the Shoah, others who have addressed aspects of the problem include: Robert P. Carroll, “Theodicy and Community: The Text and Subtext of Jeremiah V 1–6,” in Prophets, Worship and Theodicy: Studies in Prophetism, Biblical Theodicy and Structural and Rhetorical Analysis and on the Place of Music in Worship, ed. A. S. van der Woude, OtSt 23 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 1989), 28–31; R. J. R. Plant, Good Figs, Bad Figs: Judicial Differentiation in the Book of Jeremiah, LHBOTS 483 (London/New York: T&T Clark, 2008); John Barton, “Prophecy and Theodicy,” in Thus Says the Lord: Essays on the Former and Latter Prophets in Honor of Robert R. Wilson, ed. John J. Ahn and Stephen L. Cook (London/New York: T&T Clark, 2009), 73–86; Mark E. Biddle, “Sinners Only? Amos 9:8–10 and the Problem of Targeted Justice in Amos,” PRSt 43 (2016): 161–75. 2 Plant categorizes the perspectives of the classical prophets as “selective salvation and judgment,” “unselective salvation and judgment,” and “national salvation and judgment” (Good Figs, Bad Figs, 3–18) and argues that the latter dominates (19–24). In his view, a selective viewpoint first appeared in the sixth century in the prophecy of Habakkuk (24–26).

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Babylonian crises were innocent, as well. The circumstance that, from the perspective of a secular history, both the Assyrian and the Babylonian conflicts stemmed from the political decisions of the national leadership only complicates the challenge to theodicy. The populace suffered from unwise royal foreign policy, not because of their religious infidelity. The prophets, Israel’s champions of “ethical monotheism,” apparently depicted YHWH as punishing innocent and guilty alike. The conundrum takes on particular poignancy when one remembers that the prophets regularly complained of the mistreatment of the poor and needy, who then suffered the common fate at the hands of invaders.3 It would seem, then, that the prophets engaged in the kind victim-blaming that characterizes abusers and presents a monumental challenge to a biblically based theodicy. In fact, however, as Sweeney has shown, a variety of voices in the Hebrew Bible engage one another in a kind of dialogue similar to that ongoing in contemporary theology. 4 This study will survey the book of Jeremiah, known for its multitude of voices in dialogue,5 as an example of this inner-biblical dialogue. This endeavor will extend the insights of predecessors. Thomas Raitt, for example, found Jeremiah (and Ezekiel) to be among the earliest texts in Scripture to deal with theodicy, albeit in an

3

See Biddle, “Sinners Only?” The ethical problem is, in fact, greater if one assumes that the prophets began with moral analysis, which John Barton argues English-speaking scholarship generally does. On the other hand, the assumption, along with much Germanspeaking scholarship according to Barton, that the prophets began with a certainty of pending disaster and tried to find a suitable justification for it still does not resolve the inequity between misdeed and its supposed penalty (Barton, “Prophecy and Theodicy,” 73–86). Commenting on the complaint tradition in the Hebrew Bible, F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp (“Tragedy, Tradition, and Theology in the Book of Lamentations,” JSOT 74 [1997]: 45), for example, observes that this tradition concedes to the accusation of guilt, but struggles with the recognition “that Yahweh’s [sic] punishment far exceeds the community’s guilt.” 4 “Although many biblical theologians presume that traditional notions of divine power and righteousness and human guilt and sin before G-d constitute the fundamental viewpoint of the Hebrew Bible, sustained examination of the Hebrew Bible in relation to questions posed by the Shoah demonstrates that this viewpoint is only one among a number of viewpoints raised among the books of the Hebrew Bible…” (Sweeney, Reading the Hebrew Bible after the Shoah, 1–2). 5 A polyphony attested by the insights into the book offered by source- and redactioncritical studies which extrapolate from the multiplicity of voices conclusions regarding the history of Jeremiah’s composition and the social locations of the individual contributions to the book. While these are valid concerns, they are not the concerns of this paper, especially given space constraints. For an interpretive framework that attempts to balance historical questions with the need to “hear” the many voices in Jeremiah synchronically, as a dialogue instead of as discretely or in atomistic fashion, see Mark E. Biddle, Polyphony and Symphony in Prophetic Literature: A Literary Analysis of Jeremiah 7–20, SOTI 2 (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1996).

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unsystematic fashion. 6 Similarly, Victor Eldridge cited Jeremiah’s complaints, laments such as the one about the balm in Gilead (8:22) or 8:19, and YHWH’s frustration that the people leave no choice (i.e., 9:7–9; Diogenes 5:1) and found the clash between the covenant and promise traditions as the source for Jeremiah’s need to address theodicy issues. 7 Sweeney’s own examination of the canonical Jeremiah in relation to this theodicy question “places Jeremiah’s oracles of judgment in conversation with his oracles of restoration; …his prophetic identity in conversation with his identity as a Levitical priest; …Jeremiah’s laments in conversation with his oracles of judgment.”8 This study will categorize the various voices in Jeremiah with respect to their depictions of YHWH’s exercise of nuance and discrimination relative to the guilt or innocence of parties subjected to YHWH’s punishment for sin. It will devote particular attention to the voice of the oracles against Babylon (Jer 50–51), proposing that the role they play in a Jeremian theodicy advances the understanding of the function of the Oracles Against the Nations (OAN) in the major prophets.

1. All Guilty – All Punished The impression that the theodicy of the book of Jeremiah largely holds the view that YHWH punished all of Judah because all of Judah deserved punishment, a view that reflects the Deuteronomic/Deuteronomistic blessing– curse dichotomy, derives largely from the first major section of the book (Jer 2–10).9 Addressed principally to Jerusalem and (the cities of) Judah,10 this concentration of judgment oracles focuses on demonstrating the guilt of Jeremiah’s audience ex post facto to the readership of the book of Jeremiah (cf. 2:9, “and with your children’s children I will contend”).11 Admixed with long-term historical retrospective (e.g. 2:4–8; 3:6–11) and material that takes the form of contemporaneous accounts of the Babylonian invasion (4:5–8, 19–26, 29–31; 6:1–5), the “argument” of Jer 2–10 propounds the case that, 6

A Theology of Exile (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977), 83–105; cited in Victor P. Eldridge, “Jeremiah, Prophet of Judgment,” RevExp 78 (1981): 320. 7 Eldridge, “Jeremiah, Prophet of Judgment,” 320–29. 8 Sweeney, Reading the Hebrew Bible after the Shoah, 106. 9 Plant (Good Figs, Bad Figs, 51–2) classifies the attitude of the material in Jer 1–20 as “national,” not “undifferentiated.” The issue at stake is collective guilt, not the accumulated guilt of individuals. 10 References in this section of Jeremiah to (the house of) Jacob and (the house of) Israel (2:4; 5:11, 15, 20, for example) appear in retrospectives on greater Israel’s long history of apostasy. 11 See Mark E. Biddle, A Redaction History of Jeremiah 2:1–4:2, ATANT 77 (Zurich: TVZ, 1990), 131–34.

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despite historical precedents, especially the fate of the Northern Kingdom, Judean behavior left YHWH with practically no choice other than punishment. Throughout, the presentation resounds with hyperbole. Contrary to archeological and literary12 evidence, it asserts that the land lies or will lie “a waste,” its cities “without inhabitant” (2:15; 4:7; 9:11; cf. 26:9; 34:22; 44:22 and three occurrences in reference to other nations in the OAN). As though inspired by Abraham’s question concerning YHWH’s justice and Diogenes’s quest for an honest man, both against Deuteronomic assurances that blessing and cursing correspond inflexibly to behavior, Jer 5:1–10 provides a “reverse-engineered” rationale for these claims of total destruction. YHWH expresses a willingness to spare Jerusalem, not for the sake of ten (Gen 18:32), but for the sake of one only (Jer 5:1). Yet, Jeremiah’s search both among the “senseless” poor, ignorant of the Torah (5:4), and also among the “great” (5:5) proves futile. Jeremiah’s failure prompts YHWH to conclude that there is no alternative to punishment for the entire nation (5:9). In fact, YHWH’s rhetorical questions, “How can I pardon you?” (5:7) and “Shall I not punish them for these things?” (5:9), become thematic for Jer 5–9 (cf. 5:29; 9:9), alongside the somewhat divergent imagery of gleaning (6:9) and refining (6:29; 9:7). A strand of divine lament material underscores the impression that YHWH does not bring about the Babylonian crisis eagerly, in fact that doing so is painful (8:18–9:2[3]; 9:9–12[10–11]; 9:21[22]; 12:7– 13; 13:15–17; 14:17–18; and 15:5–9).13 Material in Jer 2–10 explains the roots of this all-encompassing Judean guilt with an un-systematic variety. Some passages point to the people’s inexplicable, obstinate inability to take warning (5:23; 6:10, 19; 9:6–7). The “false prophecy” theme, which extends throughout the book, features significantly at points and attributes the people’s guilt to the deceitful message of the prophets of peace (2:8; 4:9; 5:13, 31; 6:13 = 8:10; 13:13; 14:10, 13–16; 23:9–40; 27–29; 32:32; and 37:19). The people have believed the wrong parties. Beginning with the so-called Temple Sermon, a strand of prose material describes the opposite of believing the (inauthentic) prophetic word, offering another layer of protection for YHWH’s reputation as judge. According to it, their failure to respond to Jeremiah’s preaching continues a 12 See, for example, Lam 5 that reflects the distress of inhabitants of Judah, perhaps even of Jerusalem, still in the land after the Babylonian destruction of the temple. 13 See Biddle, Polyphony, 28–40. Christopher G. Frechette (“The Old Testament as Controlled Substance: How Insights from Trauma Studies Reveal Healing Capacities in Potentially Harmful Texts,” Int 69 [2015]: 30, citing Kathleen O’Connor, Jeremiah: Pain and Promise [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2011], 69–91) argues that the book characterizes the prophet Jeremiah such that he “represents the experience both of the people and of YHWH in relationship to one another; it dramatizes their alienation from each other and the consequent suffering of both, and it also portrays their intimate union as having the ability to withstand that suffering.”

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long tradition of disregard for the messages of genuine prophets. In fact, because YHWH knows already that the people will not listen to Jeremiah any more than they had to his predecessors, YHWH prohibits Jeremiah from offering intercessory prayer and from other activities associated with a repentant nation (7:27–28; 11:14, 20; 14:10–12; 16:1–9).14 It is simply too late for Judah. According to this logic, YHWH cannot be charged with exercising precipitous, unjust punishment. YHWH continues to send warning through Jeremiah although YHWH already knows that they will refuse to hear, thereby compounding their guilt.

2. No Balm in Gilead? While Jeremiah nowhere denies Judean guilt, generally, a few Jeremiah texts do not accept as a sufficient theodicy the hyperbolic assertion that all who suffered under the Babylonians deserved it, specifically. They do not simply accept the premise of universal guilt. Instead, via a variety of arguments, they grapple with, but do not ultimately resolve, the apparent contradiction between YHWH’s reputation for justice and mercy, on the one hand, and the actual experience of Babylonian violence, on the other. One text expresses an election sentiment unique in Jeremiah but not in the Hebrew Bible. Jeremiah 10:23–25 combines quotations of Prov 16:9, an acknowledgment of the inscrutability of the human will, and Ps 79:6–7, an excerpt from a communal lament that likely dates to the period immediately following the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem. The psalm citation evokes the entire psalm and others like it (cf. Ps 74; Lam 5). These complaints, with their typical “How long?” question, call YHWH’s attention to the damage and destruction wreaked by the invaders, extending even to the Temple (e.g. Pss 74:3–7; 79:1; Lam 5:18) and to the lost lives of YHWH’s “servants (‫…)עבדיך‬and faithful (‫( ”)חסידיך‬Ps 79:2). They call attention to the arrogance of the invaders and the incongruity between existing conditions and the people’s historically grounded expectations of divine deliverance. Pointedly, however, they do not offer a rationale justifying YHWH’s use of Babylonian force; to the contrary, they accuse YHWH of inaction and lack of restraint: I know, O LORD, that the way of human beings is not in their control, that mortals as they walk cannot direct their steps. Correct me, O LORD, but in just measure; not in your anger, or you will bring me to nothing. Pour out your wrath on the nations that do not know you, and on the peoples that do not call on your name; for they have devoured Jacob; they have devoured him and consumed him, and have laid waste his habitation. (Jer 10:23–25 NRSV)

14

See Biddle, Polyphony, 64–82.

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Some of these texts confront the problem posed by Abraham in Gen 18, namely, the existence of individuals – even if only a few – who have not abandoned YHWH for empty idols. Despite the absolutist claim asserted by the strand of texts exemplified by Jer 5:1–5, the greater book of Jeremiah acknowledges the hyperbolic nature of this claim, at least with respect to a few individuals. Jeremiah 10:23 already suggests that absolutist views of human nature and behavior lack sophistication. The narrative portions in the second half of the book, for example, report that a number among Jerusalem’s leadership, especially members of Shaphan’s family, recognized the authority of Jeremiah’s preaching and even advocated for his health and safety on occasion (cf. 26:24; 29:3; 36:10–16; 40:5, 9). Although the book does not record any word from Jeremiah acknowledging the “innocence” of this group, the Babylonians prominently spared one of them, Gedaliah, along with Jeremiah. In fact, they appointed Gedaliah military governor over all the population left in the land after the destruction of Jerusalem (Jer 39). Because he had trusted YHWH, YHWH promised Ebed-melech, Jeremiah’s erstwhile Ethiopian champion (Jer 38), that he would not be delivered to those whom he dreaded, but, instead, that he would be saved, gaining his life as a “prize of war” (Jer 39:16). Later, YHWH also granted Baruch his life “as a prize of war,” promising to protect him wherever he may go (45:5)15 in language vaguely and strangely reminiscent of YHWH’s words to Cain (Gen 4:14–15). Similarly, when the Rechabites demonstrate their faithfulness to their lifestyle, YHWH promises them enduring stability (Jer 35:19). In still others, the community repentantly confesses its guilt and its dismay that, contrary to expectations of his character (Exod 20:6, etc.), YHWH has not responded to this confession in mercy.16 Scattered throughout Jer 1– 20, one finds a series of almost textbook confessions of guilt and petitions for forgiveness. Coupled with or included in these prayers, the people expresses dismay that repentance has not provoked YHWH to pardon in contrast to YHWH’s characteristic mercy as recorded in Israel’s historical and liturgical traditions. As early as Jer 3:23–25, which caps the book’s opening demonstration of Israel’s historical guilt and discussion of the possibilities and dynamics of repentance/restoration (‫)שוב‬, the book records a confession of generational guilt that seems to embrace full responsibility for the “shame” in which the people finds itself:

15

Cf. Geoffrey H. Parke-Taylor, The Formation of the Book of Jeremiah: Doublets and Recurring Phrases, SBLMS 51 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 2000), 202. 16 See Biddle, Polyphony, 26–28, and idem, “Contingency, God, and the Babylonians: Jeremiah on the Complexity of Repentance,” RevExp 101 (2004): 253–55.

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Truly the hills are a delusion, the orgies on the mountains. Truly in the LORD our YHWH is the salvation of Israel. “But from our youth the shameful thing has devoured all for which our fathers labored, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters. Let us lie down in our shame, and let our dishonor cover us; for we have sinned against the LORD our YHWH, we and our fathers, from our youth even to this day; and we have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our YHWH.” (RSV)

A pair of texts later in the book (Jer 14:7–9, 19–22) could easily take their place in the Psalter among the communal laments/complaints dated to the period immediately following the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem (cf. Pss 74; 79). Like these complaints, the Jeremiah texts acknowledge guilt (Jer 14:7), even multi-generational transgression (14:20), and employ a number of standard “rhetorical” devices in the effort to persuade YHWH to deliver. In an endeavor to argue that YHWH should forgive and restore for the sake of fidelity to his character, they suggest YHWH’s need to maintain a reputation for steadfast commitment to the people who bear YHWH’s name (14:7, 9, 21), they invoke the covenant (14:21), and they presume the election of Zion as YHWH’s chosen dwelling place (14:19). Based on confidence in YHWH’s might as evidenced in creation (14:22), they express dismay that YHWH has not yet acted. 17 Surely this inaction cannot reflect incapacity (8:19, 22; 14:8–9), they reason. Similarly, they ask, based on confidence in the permanence of YHWH’s commitment, whether it can possibly reflect “utter rejection.” The “orthodoxy” of these plaintiff confessions, which must have origins in the cult of the exilic community still in the land, raises the question of the guaranteed effectiveness of such prayers. The contexts in which they appear counter with characterizations of these specimens of confessional language as insincere (cf. Jer 4:1–4, “If you ‫…שוב‬in truth, justice, and uprightness”). Indeed, in a fashion resembling the Jer 3 composition that debates the parameters of repentance, Jer 14:1–15:8 represents a compendium of position statements exploring the question of the authenticity and efficacy of the confessions quoted within it. Set in the context of a draught (14:1), the first unit (14:2–6) describes the draught conditions and the people’s reaction to it: mourning. The first brief confession/lament (vv. 7–9) evokes YHWH’s rejoinder contrasting the people’s words with their behavior (v. 10) and YHWH’s instruction to Jeremiah prohibiting him from offering intercession (vv. 11–12). Jeremiah then offers as a defense the activity of prophets who assure the people of peace (v. 13). YHWH responds with the accusation that these prophets are lying and a dual verdict against the prophets and the people who listen to them (vv. 14–18). The people’s second lament (vv. 19– 22) introduces a second divine rejection of the people’s confession/lament (15:1–8) with new justifications and rationales: the situation has reached 17

Consider the “How long?” question characteristic of the psalms of complaint.

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such severity that YHWH would not listen even to the most effective of Israel’s intercessors, Moses and Samuel (v. 1); through Manasseh’s sins Judah’s guilt reached critical mass, reaching such magnitude that they constituted a tipping point, a point of no return (v. 4; cf. 2 Kgs 21:11–15); Judah’s continual rejection has made YHWH wary that sparing it can possibly result in an improvement in its behavior (v. 6). In sum, it is too late.18

3. Demographic Distinctions Whereas the theme of undiscriminating punishment, including efforts to justify or mitigate it (the latter, if only slightly), dominates Jer 1–20, the narratives of Jer 20–45 (MT order) interweave a number of attitudes toward the merit and fate of distinct segments of the Judean population. Specifically, one strand of the text identifies those willing to submit to Babylonian overlordship, both during the Babylonian incursion and thereafter, in contrast to those, especially among the leadership, who insist on continuing to resist;19 another, often characterized as a pro-Golah redactional layer, 20 holds the antithetical view notoriously describing the exiled leadership as “good figs” over against all other elements of Judean society, both those who remained in the land and those who fled to Egypt, as “bad figs.” In contrast to Pohlmann, who regarded texts such as 40:11 and 42:10 as conflicting with the pro-Golah redaction and therefore belonging to the material that pre-existed the redaction, Sharp argues that “promotion of Babylon’s hegemony is a key part of the political rhetoric” of the redaction: “Before the fall of Jerusalem, that entails surrending [sic] to Nebuchadnezzar; after the fall of the city, it entails remaining in the land and accepting Babylonian overlordship; finally, after the flight of some rebels to Egypt in defiance of Babylon, it entails the complete obliteration of the Egyptian diaspora community.”21 An alternative thesis concerning the theme of survival in the land argues that Jer 39–41 and 42–43 have been linked secondarily and that the former serves to endorse, not the Golah, but “a non-Davidide governor holding 18 See Carolyn J. Sharp, Prophecy and Ideology in Jeremiah: Struggles for Authority in the Deutero-Jeremianic Prose, OTS (London/New York: T&T Clark, 2003), 47. 19 See Christopher R. Seitz, Theology in Conflict: Reactions to the Exile in the Book of Jeremiah, BZAW 176 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1989), 205–91, who attributes this “submit and live” material to the refocused preaching of the prophet post-597 BCE and identifies evidence of a Scribal Chronicle source found primarily in Jer 37–43. 20 Following Karl-Friedrich Pohlmann, Studien zum Jeremiabuch: Ein Beitrag zur Frage nach der Entsteung des Jeremiabuches, RFLANT 118 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978). 21 Sharp, Prophecy and Ideology in Jeremiah, 11.

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office at the behest of an imperial power.” 22 Notably, Jer 24 states no grounds for the sparing of the “good figs.” Does it envision a circumstance in which salvation/preservation awaits this group on the other side of judgment, regarding exile itself as a form of refinement, or does it understand exile as shelter? Ironically, this designation clashes with the “submit and live” theme precisely over the role played by the leadership in evoking Babylon’s wrath through insurrection. The collection of oracles addressed specifically to Davidides (Jer 22:1–23:8; especially 23:1–8) obliquely acknowledges the problem inherent in judging the nation for its behavior as a nation, namely that the rulers set policy, not the people: “In other words, framing the issue in terms of shepherds and sheep inevitably places the moral burden on the shepherds.”23 Jeremiah 21 offers the prophet’s24 politically astute and extremely practical admonition to Zedekiah, on the one hand (vv. 4–8), and to the population of Jerusalem, on the other (vv. 8–10). In response to Zedekiah’s request that Jeremiah “inquire of YHWH for us,” Jeremiah’s unrelenting divine message to Zedekiah, to Jerusalem, and to its inhabitants seems consistent with the earlier theme of universal guilt: after the period of destruction initiated by the Babylonian seizure of Jerusalem, YHWH announces, I will give Zedekiah, king of Judah, and his servants, and the people in this city who survive pestilence, sword, and famine into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their lives. He will smite them with the edge of the sword; he will not have pity on them, he will neither spare nor show mercy. (v. 7)

In stark contrast, Jeremiah delivers an oracle to “this people” (v. 8), whom the context further identifies as the population of “this city” (Jerusalem), offering them in Deuteronomistic phraseology25 the choice between death – if they remain in the city, joining Zedekiah and the leadership in resisting Babylonian vassalage – and life – if they leave the city and surrender to the invaders, implicitly accepting Babylonian overlordship (v. 9). Significantly, YHWH’s declaration of destruction here pertains to the city, Jerusalem, and not to the Judean countryside (v. 10).26

22 Mark E. Biddle, “The Redaction of Jeremiah 39–41 [46–48 LXX]: A Prophetic Endorsement of Nehemiah,” ZAW 126 (2014): 229. 23 Plant, Good Figs, Bad Figs, 76. 24 This and any reference to “Jeremiah” in this paper should not be construed as a claim regarding the authenticity of a particular voice in the book. Source- and redaction-critical questions lie outside the scope of this paper. 25 “I set before you the way of life and the way of death”; cf. Deut 30:15, 19; Jer 18, etc. 26 See Plant, Good Figs, Bad Figs, 67: “…YHWH’s wrath is fundamentally against Jerusalem, rather than any particular group or individual. Accordingly, the fate of the people turns on their relationship to the city….”

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In fact, for this layer of tradition, the determining factor in the fate of the city is whether the king would continue the effort to repel the Babylonian attack, which was tantamount to rebellion against Babylon’s imperial claims. The Jeremiah heard in these texts sounds less like the prophet decrying the apostasy of the Judean populace and more like a perceptive interpreter of the foreign policy issuing from Jerusalem. This Jeremiah expounds a pragmatic diplomatic solution to the Babylonian threat, not a religious revival. 27 In another oracle, Jeremiah, newly delivered from imprisonment in a cistern for encouraging surrender to the Babylonians as the only path to survival (38:2),28 extended the same option to the king, himself.29 Should he surrender to the Babylonians, thereby rescinding his assertion of independence, he would preserve his own life and the threat even to Jerusalem would be averted (38:17). Betraying affinity to the “prophet to the nations” strand of material (Jer 1:9–10; 25:15–32), Jeremiah’s message accompanying the symbolic act involving a yoke on his neck extends the option to submit and survive beyond Judah to all nations (27:6–8, 11).30 Contrary to the impression given in the “pro-Golah” layer of material, Jer 39–41, which parallels Jer 52||2 Kgs 25,31 applies Jeremiah’s Realpolitik to conditions for Judeans under Babylonian military government. Ironically, after releasing Jeremiah from among the captives bound for exile in Babylon, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, presented Jeremiah with the choice between going to Babylon or remaining in the land and joining Gedaliah in Mizpah (40:2–6). Gedaliah, in turn, echoed Jeremiah’s message, almost verbatim, “…serve the king of Babylon, and it will go well for you” (40:9), adding encouragement to continue with normal life “in your cities that you have taken” (40:10).32 27

See Biddle, “Contingency,” 256–57. Note the relationship between Jer 38 and Jer 20–21, which seem to be a doublet. 29 The significance of the contrast between 38:17 and 21:7 for the redaction/ composition history of Jeremiah is not clear and, in any case, lies outside the scope of this paper. Suffice it to endorse Plant’s comment that “this diversity of opinion regarding the fate of Zedekiah may, at one level, reflect competing traditions; within the final form of the book, however, the postponement of the offer of surrender until the final interview is unlikely to be coincidental” (Plant, Good Figs, Bad Figs, 144; see also nn. 53, 54). 30 Notably, LXX does not contain 27:11. In fact, a series of phrases and themes associated with MT’s “submit and survive” emphasis do not appear in LXX, including: the phrase “until the time for his land [Nebuchadnezzar] comes” (27:7, 21 = 34:7, 21); “submit and survive” language (27:13, 17 = 34:13, 17); the designation of those left in the land as “rotten figs” (29:16–20 = 36:16–20); Jeremiah’s association with Gedaliah (39:4–13); and the promise to Ebedmelech that his life will be as a prize of war. 31 Biddle, “The Redaction of Jeremiah 39–41,” 229–31. 32 Pohlman (Studien zum Jeremiabuch, 185) includes Jer 39–41 in his pro-Golah redaction, arguing that Jer 24 and 39–44 envision the land as “empty” following the Gedaliah episode. This position, however, overlooks YHWH’s express wish for the Judean remnant 28

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The behavior of the group of Judeans who opted for Egypt over continued existence in the land stretches the motif to ridiculous dimensions. Jeremiah’s word to those who, fearing Babylonian reprisal for the assassination of Gedaliah proposed to flee to Egypt, combines the familiar “build up/tear down” language of Jeremiah’s call with the promise of divine protection from the Babylonians on the condition that the group remains in the land (42:10–12).

4. Babylon’s Overreach The oracle to the Egypt-bound Judeans includes a unique, startling divine admission: YHWH’s willingness to “build up,” “plant,” “save,” “deliver,” and “grant mercy” (42:10–12) results from YHWH’s regret for bringing calamity on the people (‫כי נחמתי אל־הרעה אשׁר עשיתי לכם‬, 42:10).33 This admission suggests an approach to resolving one of the most egregious (theo)logical inconsistencies in the book of Jeremiah, namely the disjuncture between the attitude expressed toward Babylon and King Nebuchadnezzar in the core of the book and that found in the OAN and their likely erstwhile introduction, Jer 25. The contradiction between the two views of Babylon – as servant or enemy of YHWH – plays a significant role in this research, without, however, advancing an explanation of the function of the OAN in Jeremiah. Recently, the question of the structure of the oracles has also attracted some interest, also, however, without generating a scholarly consensus.34 Simply put, how can YHWH fairly commission “Nebuchadnezzar, my servant” to execute judgment on Judah for infidelity (27:6) only to punish Babylon a few generations later for fulfilling the commission? In ancillary fashion, the answer to this question may also contribute to an understanding of the function of the OAN in the book of Jeremiah, and perhaps also in Isaiah and Ezekiel.35 to continue their existence in the land (Jer 42:10–18; see H.-J. Stipp, “The Concept of the Empty Land in Jeremiah 37–43,” in The Concept of Exile in Ancient Israel and its Historical Contexts, ed. E. Ben Zvi and C. Levin, BZAW 404 [New York: de Gruyter, 2010], 115–16), voiced as a word of God even by Nebuzaradan, and Jeremiah’s decision to adhere to Gedaliah rather than go with the exiles to Babylon (Biddle, “The Redaction of Jeremiah 39–41,” 234). Thus, Jer 39–41 offers a voice distinct from the “good figs” perspective. 33 Biddle, “Contingency,” 258–62. 34 See Karin Finsterbusch and Norbert Jacoby, “Völkergericht und Fremdvölkersprüche: Kommunikationsebenen in (der hebr. Vorlage von) LXX–Jer 25–32, MT–Jer 46–51 und MT–Jer 25,” JAJ 6 (2015): 36–57. 35 Much of modern critical scholarship on the Jeremian OAN has focused on source (are the OAN “authentic”?), form, and historical questions. For the history of research on the

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The enigmatic character of Jer 42:10 finds a counterpart in YHWH’s pronouncement in Jer 50:24: “I set a snare for you and you were taken, O Babylon, and you did not know it; you were found and caught, because you strove against the LORD” (RSV). In the context of the book of Jeremiah, this claim that YHWH “ensnared” Babylon suggests a sophisticated conception of YHWH’s involvement in Babylon’s actions against Judah. On one level, it was YHWH’s instrument; on another, however, it somehow “strove against” YHWH. Although by no means systematic, the oracles against Babylon hint at the outlines of this conception. Utilizing language that problematizes elements of Israel’s election tradition found elsewhere in Jeremiah (2:3; 30:16), the oracles attribute a sense of impunity to Babylon (and to others of Judah’s enemies) with ‫אשם‬, a term typically used in relation to “transgressions against sancta” (50:7; 51:5).36 According to this scheme, Babylon falsely reasoned that Judah’s sin against “YHWH, their ‫( ”נוה־צדק‬50:7) 37 had placed them outside the boundaries of the holiness that pertains to objects or persons set apart to YHWH. To the contrary, the oracles assert that “Israel and Judah have not been forsaken by their YHWH,” so that Babylon is “full of ‫ אשם‬against the Holy One of Israel” (51:5). This transgression against sancta pertained beyond the people of YHWH especially to the Jerusalem temple and its precincts. The vengeance that YHWH exercises against Babel is vengeance for YHWH’s temple (51:11). The Babylonians will not be dismayed over their coming destruction if they consider what they have done in Jerusalem (51:50; cf. 51:24), where they trespassed, entering and thereby profaning “the holy places of the house of YHWH (‫( ”)מקדשי בית יהוה‬51:51). The description of the retribution awaiting Babel appearing in 51:33–40, in fact, draws parallels to the suffering of Lady Zion/Jerusalem. Punishment for Bath-Babel, who is the Jeremian OAN, see Martin Kessler, Battle of the Gods: The God of Israel Versus Marduk of Babylon – A Literary/Theological Interpretation of Jeremiah 50–51, SSN 42 (Assen: Van Gorcum, 2003), 13–36. A recent series of studies, led by O’Connor’s Jeremiah, applies the insights of trauma theory to the dynamics expressed in the book of Jeremiah, including the OAN. Juliana M. Claassens for example, suggests that the OAN function analogously to revenge fantasies, understood by contemporary trauma theory as important coping and healing mechanisms (“Beyond Revenge: Responsible Bible Reading Practices in a Traumatized Land,” HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies 73 [2017]: a4540). For trauma theory and the prophets more generally, see David G. Barger, Jr., “Trauma Theory and Biblical Studies,” CurBR 14 (2015): 24–44. 36 See Norman H. Snaith, “The Sin-Offering and the Guilt-Offering,” VT 15 (1965): 73; Jacob Milgrom, Cult and Conscience: The Asham and the Priestly Doctrine of Repentance, SJLA 18 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 1976), 7; and Mark E. Biddle, “The ‘Endangered Ancestress’ and Blessing for the Nations,” JBL 109 (1990): 605–7. 37 “Pasture of righteousness” (cf. LXX); “true pasture” (NRSV, NIV, TNK); “true habitation” (RSV); “habitation of righteousness” (ASV, NASB); “habitation of justice” (KJV).

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addressee/subject of the unit (see v. 33), will mirror her crimes. In fact, the speaker of the complaint in vv. 34–35, as the Qere readings in v. 34 recognize,38 is probably the Lady Zion of v. 35. She calls for Babel’s punishment to replicate Babel’s crime. In response to a single, feminine figure (note the pronouns used in v. 36), YHWH declares in a verbatim citation of Jer 9:11, where the language “a heap of ruins, the haunt of jackals” refers to Jerusalem, that Babel will receive the same treatment that she has given Jerusalem (cf. 50:15). For the OAN in Jeremiah, the root of Babylon’s crime, its striving against YHWH (50:24), consisted in its arrogance (‫זדון‬/‫זיד‬, 50:29–32). Babylon failed to acknowledge its role as YHWH’s instrument, attributing its victories instead to Bel (51:44) or to its own might (cf. 51:53). Even though Babylon had acted on YHWH’s commission, it had exceeded its portfolio.39 Discussion of this aspect of Babylon’s guilt finds significant parallels in Isaiah, both in the oracles referring to the Assyrian period and in a counterpart to the “Zion Songs” in Deutero-Isaiah. Jeremiah 50:18 likens the Babylonian situation with that of Assyria centuries before (50:18; note also the parallels between Jer 51:53 and Isa 14:13–14). Assyria, “the rod of [YHWH’s] anger” (Isa 10:5–6), had boasted that it had accomplished “by the strength of my hand” prompting YHWH’s rhetorical “Shall the ax vaunt itself over the one who wields it?” (Isa 10:15, RSV).40 Indeed, Isa 47:6–7 incorporates the disjointed elements of Jer 50–51 into a cohesive statement of Babylon’s misdeeds: “I was angry with my people; I profaned my heritage; I gave them into your hand, you showed them no mercy; on the aged you made your yoke exceedingly heavy. You said, ‘I shall be mistress forever,’ so that you did not lay these things to heart or consider their consequences.”41 Babylon exceeded its mandate.42 38

The Kethiv of v. 34 has at several points “us” for the Qere’s suggested “me.” The LXX and many English translations (KJV[!], ASV, NAS, RSV, NRSV, and TNK) rightly follow the Qere. 39 See Terence Fretheim, Jeremiah, SHBC (Macon: Smith & Helwys, 2002), 551–52. 40 See Derek Suderman, “Assyria the Ax, YHWH the Lumberjack: Jeremiah 19, the Logic of the Prophets, and the Quest for a Nonviolent YHWH,” The Conrad Grebel Review 32 (2014): 47–48. 41 My translation. For a similar sentiment, compare also Zech 1:15, “And I am extremely angry with the nations that are at ease; for while I was only a little angry, they made the disaster worse” (RSV). 42 The apocryphal 4 Ezra develops the idea, implicit in Jer 50–51 and Isa 14 and 47, that Judah’s sin and Babylon’s violence were disproportionate. “Are the deeds of those who inhabit Babylon any better? Is that why it has gained dominion over Zion?” (4 Ezra 3:28 RSV; cf. vv. 29–36). From this observation, the author goes on to question the justice of YHWH’s conduct of history generally with an argument hinged on humanity’s (YHWHgiven) ability, if not propensity, to sin: “And yet you did not take away from them the evil heart, that your Torah might bring forth fruit in them” (3:20). See Michael E. Stone,

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5. Prophet to the Nations The layer of materials that includes Jeremiah’s enigmatic call to be a “prophet to the nations,”43 the vision of the figs, and the announcement of the cup of wrath44 produced the very nearly final form of the book45 that offers a somewhat systematic theodicy. Yet, it, too, accounts only incompletely for the tension between Babylon’s role as divine agent and its ultimate punishment for having performed the function. In addition to its long-noted favorable attitude toward the Golah, it envisions the total emptying of the land in contrast to those who remained in the land or who fled to Egypt (24:8–10; 25:9–11). In this view, in the Golah, YHWH has, as it were, preserved the righteous few among the Judeans by removing them from the land before destroying it (cf. Lot and his family). YHWH has met Abraham’s standard (Gen 18). Babylon is, in turn, the nation under the leadership of Nebuchadnezzar the servant of YHWH (25:9), commissioned to execute YHWH’s wrath, and then the nation subject to that wrath 70 years later (25:12). This material answers the question of YHWH’s motivation for punishing Judah instead of other nations “who do not know” YHWH (Jer 10:25) by explaining Babylon’s aggression as a component of a world-wide phenomenon. Although it does not level any specific charges against the nations of the world, it asserts that they cannot expect to escape untouched when YHWH enacts judgment against “the city which is called by [YHWH’s] name” “Reactions to Destructions of the Second Temple: Theology, Perception and Conversion,” JSJ 12 (1981): 200–201. 43 Sharp (Prophecy and Ideology, 83–85) has noted the failure of scholarship adequately to account for the role of this theme in the book of Jeremiah. She observes that the proposal that the theme reflects the awareness of the (late) redactors of Jeremiah that the book includes the OAN does not “go far enough” (other books with OAN do not exhibit the theme, for example). The problem of the function and purpose of the OAN, per se, compounds the issue. Whereas, until recently, scholarship has expressed little interest other than historical and geographical in the OAN, considering them nationalistic, particularistic, and vindictive, recent research has begun to ask theological and literary questions. The present study agrees with Sharp’s own proposal that the theme functions in relation to the OAN, especially the oracle against Babylon (see p. 98), but “goes farther” to highlight how this interrelation contributes to the construction of a theodicy. 44 Linguistic features suggest the relationship between Jer 1 and 24–25: “What do you see?” (1:11, 13; 24:3); “build up…tear down…plant…uproot” (1:10; 24:5); “prophet to the nations” (1:5, 10; 25:12). 45 In the LXX order Jer 25 seems designed, in part, to accommodate the OAN, since without the OAN the “book” containing Jeremiah’s prophecies against the nations mentioned in 25:13, would, indeed, record no such activity of Jeremiah with regard to the nations. The apparently altered arrangement of MT suggests, however, that the redactional effort that introduced the “prophet to the nations” theme into the book of Jeremiah was a penultimate stage in the development of the book toward its final forms (MT and LXX).

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(25:29). Indeed, “YHWH has an indictment against the nations; he is entering into judgment with all flesh, and the wicked he shall put to the sword” (25:31, RSV). While this assertion does not mitigate the ethical concerns given rise by the blanket nature of the judgment on all Judeans who were not among the Golah, it does depict YHWH’s concern for justice as a universal matter. The nations do not escape YHWH’s attention by virtue of YHWH’s concentration on Israel/Judah.

6. Conclusion The most obvious conclusion to be drawn from this survey of Jeremian material pertinent to theodicy acknowledges the multiplicity of voices in the book. They cannot be harmonized. This circumstance raises a number of hermeneutical questions familiar to interpreters who struggle with “canonical” to biblical theology: Does one privilege a particular voice over others? If so, how does one identify that privileged voice? Should one hear the many voices as a dialogue and seek to interpret the discussion as the canonical “voice” bearing testimony to the complexity of truth? With respect to theodicy itself, the last voice treated above represents intriguing possibilities. Sweeney phrases the challenge to a biblical theology in terms of three fundamental questions: (1) Is God omnipotent and righteous? (2) Are victims necessarily either sinners or vicarious sufferers? (3) Do humans have a responsibility to protect themselves and work for justice apart from YHWH’s aid?46 The depiction of Babylon in the prophet to the nations/OAN materials in Jeremiah involves a concept of God as limited by the freedom of the human agents deployed to do God’s will. Babylon could only exceed its mandate if God either permitted it or were unwilling to impose the divine will. In the end, of course, these options constitute a distinction without practical difference. If the concept of “sin” is to have meaning, it must involve the acknowledgment that human beings can and regularly do behave contrary to God’s intentions. Hans Jonas concludes from the implications of Auschwitz that a contemporary conception of YHWH must envision a suffering YHWH, a becoming YHWH, and a caring YHWH who is not omnipotent.47 In the end, the war club is a blunt instrument, even in God’s hand. 46

Sweeney, Reading the Hebrew Bible after the Shoah, 16–17. Hans Jonas, “The Concept of YHWH after Auschwitz: A Jewish Voice,” in Jewish Theology and Process Thought, ed. Sandra B. Lubarsky and David Ray Griffin, SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought (Albany: SUNY Press, 1996), 148–50. Jonas proposes a specifically Jewish theodicy, but it resonates with Christian biblical theology as well. 47

Hagar’s Life Matters Reading Hagar’s Story (Genesis 16:1–16; 21:9–21) with the Lenses of Shawn Copeland’s Theological Anthropology Model and Its Implications for Black Bodies Emmanuel Ukaegbu-Onuoha 1. Introduction The health crisis, protest for racial justice, and other socio-political tensions we experienced as a nation of the United States of America, especially in the year 2020, derailed my original choice of topic 1 for the homenaje of my doktorvater, Marvin Sweeney. Against this backdrop, this research paper, “Hagar’s Life Matters,” intends to explore the stories of the biblical Hagar and its intersection with black bodies to find out why all oppressed bodies, especially in the African American Community, claim the story of Hagar in their struggle for the dividends of freedom: equity, racial justice, and fairness. This is significant because it will help us, outsiders and insiders, to understand how Hagar’s story has shaped and continues to shape and inspire the life of African Americans, especially the female bodies. In order to explore this topic well, we adopt a combination of methods, especially the rhetorical-intertextual and narrative-anthropological methods of doing theology. The reason is because these methods are appropriate to the nature, the context, and goal of this study. Relying heavily, but not exclusively, on M. Shawn Copeland’s anthropological approach to Black Theology, this essay will first explain and clarify the methods of the study.2 Second, it will present a narrative analysis of the stories of Hagar (Gen 16:1–16; 21:9– 21). Third, using the anthropological model as developed by M. Shawn Copeland, it will reflect on how Hagar’s narrated life parallels many of the stories of black bodies of our time, making the case that the disdain for objectification and the inner quest for beautification is the reason why all 1

I had planned to write a piece with the working title “Vision and Mission in the Theophany Narratives in the Book of Exodus (Exodus 3:1-6 [1-15]; 19:16-28; 34:5-7).” 2 M. Shawn Copeland, Enfleshing Freedom: Body, Race, and Being (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2010).

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oppressed bodies, especially African American [female] bodies, have found a kindred spirit in Hagar, and, like Hagar, all bodies who find themselves in situations of bondage, brutality, and oppression want a “return to the clearing,”3 a return to becoming historical subjects.

2. Understanding the Idea of the Body in M. Shawn Copeland Through the centuries, the Western Church, theologians, and scholars have appealed to different methods in understanding and interpreting Scripture and tradition, the two main ecclesiastical sources of revelation. The allegorical method was the popular method in the patristic times. Later, other methods and approaches were developed to attain a deeper meaning and understanding of textual interpretations. These include, the source-critical and textual, the historical critical and literary, the form critical and redaction, the archeological and comparative analysis, the linguistic and rhetorical, intertextuality and the dialogical,4 the canonical and theological methods, and so on. These methods have been used at different and/or the same period at the service of revelation and texts interpretation. The postmodern period has also witnessed different forms of interpretative approaches by way of hermeneutics: the feminist and womanist approaches, both of which find the body as a hermeneutical resource, have been making waves since the second half of the last century. Without any prejudice to Scripture and tradition as basis of revelation and theology, in Black Theology, the body itself is a source of theology, and more importantly, the female body. And so here, rather than look unto other methods and approaches for interpretation, we choose the anthropological approach as the method of doing theology. We choose it because it amplifies the rhetoric of intertextuality as a prolongation of the new form criticism. 5

3

Copeland, Enfleshing Freedom, 51–53. The importance of intertextuality and its dialogic nature as Sweeney observes has been taken further by Phyllis Trible and Patricia Tull. In embracing rhetorical critical approach that is open to factors beyond the text and authorial intention, Phyllis Trible doubles down on the openness and interconnected character of intertextuality (Rhetorical Criticism: Context, Method, and the Book of Jonah [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994], 83). 5 In his Form and Intertextuality in Prophetic and Apocalyptic Literature, FAT 45 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 6, Sweeney draws attention to the important dimension of form criticism in addition to the gains made by text linguistic scholars like W. Richter and R. Knierim. He uses his work on Isa 1–39, to demonstrate the defining role that redaction plays in shaping the portrayal of personages, characters, theology, and other aspects of texts’ life. While the redacted materials could be intra-textual, inter-textual, or even extratextual, the fact remains that the reading interpretation or reinterpretation of text traditions 4

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We choose it because it is more effective in helping us to explore the story of Hagar and/or any “Body” that has experienced violation. Therefore, it is important to understand the idea of “the Body” in the anthropological hermeneutics, and Shawn Copeland will be our guide in doing so. 2.1. The Idea of the Body in Shawn Copeland In Black Theology, the body is sacrosanct, holistic, and beautifully made in the Eden of the wood (paradise). According to Shawn Copeland, paradise is “the Clearing.”6 It is also a place of double jeopardy because it is …a garden lush with trees bearing food, life, and knowledge. The garden is for the human creatures, who are endowed with intelligence and free will, understanding and feeling. They are ordered to God and, in God, to one another and all creation. Their decision and choice wounded their ordination to divine love, tore the web of relationships in which they had been created, and despoiled the garden.7

On the one hand, there is the dimension of communion, participation, freedom, and liberty of being a subject, and on the other hand, there is the dimension of disobedience and fall, but just like in the Christian tradition, there is always the horizon of hope and rising which is both an attitude of the African experience and a dimension of African culture. These two dimensions, the object–subject experience of the [female] body are central to Shawn Copeland’s approach to liberation theology. Hence the need for us to unpack them in context for a better understanding of the method. (1) The Body as Object. In Black Theology slavery was like the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the loss of freedom and liberty of the black body, the loss of the subject in humanity [created in the likeness and image of God] to the ugliness of objectification. In the words of Chinua Achebe, “Things Fall (fell) Apart” during the Enlightenment, when the Europeans found their instruments of production in Africa.8 They used human beings as instruments for production. Defying creation anthropology, they usurped the place of God, and imposed the anthropology of the slave master.

within the later con/texts echoes intertextuality; the dialogues, debates, agreement, and disagreements are all valuable assets for form-critical analysis and interpretation. 6 Copeland uses the farming imagery in African traditional society to describe what the garden of Eden in the anthropology of creation looks like. Instead of using the word “garden of Eden” or “Paradise,” she uses the term “Clearing.” In African tradition “Clearing” is like a place of the spirits; where one can meet the spirit in the wood. There one gets a feeling of God’s presence. So, for her the creation story is like that, like returning to the wood. 7 Copeland, Enfleshing Freedom, 51. 8 Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (New York: Anchor Books, 1994).

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The European Renaissance articulated the justification of their slavery project with the desensitization of the mind and spirit of their Royals, Lords, and Kaisers, using theories and philosophies conceived by their thinkers. These thinkers abandoned the creationist notion of human, and deconstructed the status of the humanity of the black body in the global culture. And with cartography and mapping of the people, the skin became a way of classifying people and the lens through which people were seen: Readers may be familiar with Hume’s suspicion that black people “are naturally inferior to the Whites,” or Kant’s insistence that the differences between blacks and whites were fundamental and that differences in their skin pigmentation mirrored differences in their mental capacities, or with Hegel’s pronouncement that Africa was bereft of history and its inhabitants lived “in barbarism and savagery [without] any integral ingredient of culture.9

These observations of Copeland cited from David Hume,10 Immanuel Kant,11 and Friedrich Hegel12 among others, show how the black body was reduced to the bottom of the scale, associated with all kinds of negativity and bias: ugly, inferior, unintelligent, worthless except as property, instrument of production, breeding/reproduction, and sexual violence. The toxicity of slavery destroyed the black body, especially the black female body, and dispossessed it of the self. Therefore, the idea of body as object in Shawn Copeland’s work is not a place for humanity. It is a body dispossessed, damaged, destroyed. The question then is, how do we undo the damage and destruction done to the black body by the dark and nefarious side of the Enlightenment, the market society, and the evil of slavery? Shawn Copeland explores that question in the idea of the body as subject. (2) The Body as Subject. The body as subject is central to understanding Copeland’s anthropological and womanist hermeneutics of Black Theology of liberation. Her theological conception of the body looks back to the status of the body at creation and forward in active hope to redemption and beautification of the body in Christ (Christification). For Copeland, the body is the totality of our being, the body is the place from which everything is 9

Copeland, Enfleshing Freedom, 10. David Hume, Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1825), 1:521–22. 11 Immanuel Kant, Observation on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime [1764; ET: Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schonen und Erhabenen], trans. John T. Goldthwait (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960), 111. 12 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, “Geographical Basis of World History,” in Race and the Enlightenment: A Reader, ed. Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), 124. 10

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connected. It is within the human person, with the human person, and the component of the totality of the being of the human person. The body is not only the site of the self but it is also the shelter of the transcendence.13 As the house and home of the self, the body is in relation with itself, it is in relation with others, it is in relation with nature, and it is also in relation with the divine. From the point of view of the body relationship with itself, the nature of the body is not external to it but intrinsic. This is why rediscovery of one’s identity requires a reflective examination of one’s journey; a journey of the body within itself. Perhaps, it is in this sense that we could understand Leopold Sedar Senghor’s saying that the real slave is the one who does not know that he is a slave because when you realize so, you begin to struggle for your liberation. The body as a subject is a historical subject. This means that it recognizes that it has tasks to fulfill, the task of freeing the mind and the spirit from the damage done by many centuries of, and yet lingering, objectification. Thus, it takes responsibility and proactive steps in acquiring whatever it requires for freedom and liberation. From the point of view of relationship with others, the body as subject is a social body because the self in the body is a communion. Though on a journey through the horizon of itself, the body as subject needs others, the support and solidarity of the community, a communion of up-lifters because one cannot do it alone. Here the Nguni Bantu philosophy of Ubuntu comes to mind insofar as the bodies, especially the female bodies, do not fight for themselves alone but also for their community, their children, and their future generation. It is a communion with the “here and now” present and “the yet to come” (déjà la et pas encore). From the point of view of relationship with the divine, the self in the body is a transcendence. Therefore, in the dimension of subjecthood, the self without constraints is open to the communion and fellowship with the divine. This is because freedom of the body is seen in the context of freedom for worship. This is not only true of the anthropological hermeneutics of Black Theology but also of the Jewish Scriptures. In the book of Exodus: The people believed; when they heard that the Lord had given heed to the Israelites that he had seen their misery, the people were happy, they bowed down and worshipped. But then. Afterwards Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, so that they may celebrate a festival to me in the wilderness.’” (Exod 4:31–5:1)

13 The Greek philosopher Plato always looked down on the body. For him the body is a prison from which the soul needs to be liberated to be able to contemplate the forms, the ideas, and the reality. In Platonism, the body has no value as such because it belongs to the world of appearance, in contrast to what he called the world of reality (cf. Plato, The Republic, Books V–VII).

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This means that freedom is not for the isolation of the self; rather, freedom is for the body [that has endured the slavery tree of objectification] to place itself in the presence of God, the source of its being and liberation. Thus, from the self’s consciousness of being dispossessed of the self to freedom of the mind; from freedom of the mind to freedom of the spirit; and from freedom of the spirit to fellowship and worship of the divine, the body affirms its subjecthood. Now that the anthropology of the slave masters and the Pharaohs has been deconstructed, the body still needs healing, redemption, and beautification so that a new subject could build up and thrive. This is the model of doing theology, especially Black Theology, that M. Shawn Copeland has used and proposes as a method of the womanist hermeneutics for liberation theology. I find the object-subject dimension in Copeland’s approach to Black Theology a useful lens for reading the story of the biblical Hagar and the way Hagar’s story intersects and/or parallels the raison d’être behind the struggles of every oppressed black body. It is also part of the task of this essay to explore and address these.

3. The Hagar Narratives The Hagar-passages are found within what Biblicists commonly refer to as the cycle of Abraham narratives. Generally, scholars use this phrase to refer to the narrative passages that tell the life and events around the patriarch Abraham14 beginning from the time he was born and asked to leave his father’s house to the time his sons, Isaac and Ishmael, returned to bury him in the cave of Machpelah (cf. Gen 11:27–25:18). Several narratives are merged and structured together to build up the cycle. The passages that narrate the story of Hagar are two instances of these narratives. The case of Hagar is presented in Gen 16:1–16 and Gen 21:9–21. The promises made to Abraham – the promise of land, wealth, and an heir, especially the promise of an heir that would inherit his possessions – makes the whole cycle a unified plot.15 But it is also a major factor in the events: the experience, the life, and ordeal of Hagar. 14 I refer to Abraham as a patriarch in conformity with orthodoxy in biblical interpretation. I am also not unaware of the feelings of some modern scholars who have discovered patterns of matriarchy in the cycle of Abraham narratives. Scholars like Tammy J. Schneider, among others, have published their findings in this regard (cf. Tammi Schneider, Mothers of Promise: Women in the Book of Genesis [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008]). 15 According to Aristotle’s Poetics, plot is “the ordered arrangement of the incidents” (Poetics 6), a dynamic sequential element in narrative literature. See Jean Louis Ska SJ, “Our Fathers Have Told Us”: Introduction to the Analysis of Hebrew Narratives (Rome: Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 2000), 17.

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In recent scholarship, the numerous studies that have been inspired by the biblical Hagar have made her somehow a metaphor for people of all kinds and belief systems, especially among the struggling and oppressed [female] bodies. Her story has resonated with the social sciences and popular culture as modernity links freedom and right more to natural law. Little wonder many feminist/womanist hermeneuticians have popularized and forged kindred spirit with her. The first textual encounter with Hagar occurs in Gen 16:1–16.16 Sarai wife of Abram did not bear (‫ )לא ילדה‬for him. But she has an Egyptian maid (‫ )שׁפחה‬whose name is Hagar. 2So Sarai said to Abram, look now, YHWH has restrained me from bearing, please come to my maid (‫)שׁפחתי‬. Perhaps, I will build from her (‫)אבנה ממנה‬. Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. 3Sarai wife of Abram took Hagar, her Egyptian maid (‫)המצרית שׁפחתה‬. For ten years Abram lived in the land of Canaan, and Sarai gave her maid, Hagar, to her husband, Abram, for wife ( ‫)לאשׁה‬. 4He went into Hagar and she conceived and she saw that she has conceived (‫)ותהר‬, and when she saw that she has conceived, she slighted her mistress in her eyes (‫)ותקל גברתה בעיניה‬. 5And Sarai said to Abram: (may) my violence be upon you. I gave you my maid (‫ )שׁפחתי‬in your lap, and she saw that she has conceived and I am despised in her eyes. May YHWH judge between you and I. 6And Abram said to Sarai: Behold your maid (‫ )שׁפחתך‬is in your hand, do with her what is good in your eyes. So, Sarai oppressed (‫ )ותענה שׂרי‬her, and she fled (‫)ותברח‬ from her face. 7Then the angel of YHWH found her by the spring of the water in the desert; by the spring on the way to Shur. 8And he said: Hagar, maid of Sarai: whence comes you from and whither goes you? She answered, I am fleeing (‫ )אנכי ברחת‬from the face of my mistress Sarai. 9The angel of YHWH said to her: Return to your mistress and submit yourself under her hands. 10And the angel of YHWH said to her, I will surely make your seed great, and no multitude can count (them). 11And the angel of the Lord said to her, See, you are pregnant, and you shall beget a son. You shall call his name Ishmael because YHWH has heard your affliction (‫)עניך‬. 12He will be a wild man, his hand (will be) against every one and the hand of every one against him and in the face of all his brothers he shall dwell. 13And Hagar called the name of YHWH who spoke to her: You are God who sees me for she said; now I have seen the one who sees me. 14Therefore, the well was called Beer-lahai-roi. 15Then Hagar bore a son to Abram, and he called his son which Hagar bore, Ishmael. 16Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to him. 16:1

Reading the story with the lenses of Shawn Copeland’s model of interpretation, the double standards in the treatment of the characters involved in the narrative exposes the object/subject disparity raised in Copeland’s anthropological approach. In the narrative world of Hagar, we see how the object– subject disparity plays out in the way “the Body,” “the Race,” and “the Being”17 of Hagar is treated in the narrative.

16

The translation, which is mine, was realized from Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. For Copeland, “the body provokes theology”; so does race and the being of the human person since these are sheltered in the body as self (cf. Copeland, Enfleshing Freedom, 7). 17

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She is racialized in body, mapped in race, dispossessed of her-self in words and treatment as a resident alien, an Egyptian (Gen 16:1; 21:9, 21), a nameless maid (16:1, 3–4, 15–16; 21:9, 14, 17), a reproductive object (16:2– 5), a divorced and single parent (16:10–16). Yet during the many years of her life under objectification in patriarchy and matriarchy, Hagar did not give up on the dream of becoming a historical subject. She took the challenge of freedom to task, and responsibly built from an abused and battered female body a new and beautified subject.18 In her new status, which is “an anthropological shift,” Hagar became a tenacious survivor and a woman of strength. Her commitment to struggle and survival explains why according to Ruth Behar, “African American readers have lovingly claimed Hagar as their own, made her a foremother, taken pride in her struggle, formed spiritual churches in her name, and led the way in creative appropriation of her story.19 The struggle and survival personage of Hagar has also been attested in extra-biblical sources like the Hadith and there is no doubt that she is regarded in Islam as a tenacious survivor and a woman of strength. On the contrary, it could be said that it is this image that informs part of what Muslim pilgrims celebrate during the hajj. Seen from this perspective, it would not be out of place to say that Hagar’s tenacity is enshrined in the ritual of hajj. As a symbol of the ritual of hajj, the importance of Hagar is reflected in one of the seven pillars of Islam, the pilgrimage to Mecca or the Hajj. Abraham accompanies Hagar and Ishmael into exile, bringing them to Mecca before returning to Sarah. This place becomes the Holy City of Islam because while there, Abraham and Ishmael built the Ka’ba, the shrine Muslims visit during the hajj. Furthermore, the rituals of the Muslim pilgrims during the Hajj – running seven times between the hills of Safa and Marwa, and the drinking from the well of Zam-zam – are done to re-create and honor Hagar’s experience of running back and forth in her desperate search for water and of Ishmael kicking the ground with his heel to reveal the sacred well. So, when Muslim pilgrims run seven times between the hills of Safa and Marwa, and drink from the well of Zam-zam during the ritual of Hajj, they honor Hagar’s tenacity and struggle for survival. Muslim scholars, like Savina Teubal, have made a case for preference of the tenacious and survivor image of Hagar more than any other image under which scholars may have interpreted her. Teubal argues against the emphasis on parity in the relative social status of Hagar and Sarah. For her, Hagar is neither a slave nor a 18

Copeland, Enfleshing Freedom, 85–105. Ruth Behar, “Sarah and Hagar: The Heel-prints upon Their Faces,” quoted by Adele Reinhartz and Miriam-Simma Walfish, “Conflict and Coexistence in Jewish Interpretation” in Hagar, Sarah, and Their Children: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Perspectives, ed. Phyllis Trible and Letty M. Russell (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006), 120. Reinhartz and Walfish add “especially when slaves were forced to bear children by their masters because wives were barren” to the end of the Behar quote. 19

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concubine, but the matriarch of a nation whom she calls the “Hagarites.” In her view both Hagar and Sarah were women struggling for religious and social rights in the context of an environment in which they enjoyed some measure of divinely sanctioned authority.20 Savina’s view is based on the way in which Hagar’s status and image is viewed in Islam where she is honored as the matriarch of Muhammad and not as a voiceless victim of oppression. Rather than seeing her as a victim, they see her as a survivor and a victor. They identify with her as a tenacious and strong woman, a woman of exceptional faith, love, fortitude, resolution, and strength of character; a pioneer woman who led the way to the establishment of a new civilization, as the mother of all Arabs and as a transformer of the wilderness. 21 These are but some of the perceptions/image of Hagar which some Muslim feminist scholars22 have projected in their quest to understand what it means to be a Muslim woman in the literal world of Hagar. Thus, for them, inasmuch as for our narrative text, Hagar is a metaphor of hope, struggle, strength, inspiration, survival, freedom, human rights, and justice. It is in the context of these last two qualities, equally very remarkable, that we would want to locate black bodies in the Hagar narrative.

4. Hagar and Black Body Advocates: Champions of Human Rights/Justice and Freedom The 1960s was a turbulent period but it was also the beginning of a transformative era for black bodies around the world, and especially in the United States. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X laid the ground work for a new American theology of freedom and liberation. However, King rejected Malcolm’s definition of the quasi-religious movement of Black Power, and invested the phrase with a more positive meaning and content that he

20 Savina J. Teubal, Hagar the Egyptian: The Lost Tradition of the Matriarchs (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990), 116. 21 Islam traces its religious heritage to Abraham through Ishmael who is regarded as the ancestor of Arabs. Since Hagar is the mother of Ishmael, Arabs and indeed Muslims claim her as their ancestress. 22 Some of these works include: Kenneth Cragg, The Qur’an and the West (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 2006); Riffat Hassan, “Islamic Hagar and Her Family,” in Trible and Russell, eds., Hagar, Sarah, and Their Children, 149–67; Hibba Abugideiri, “Hagar: A Historical Model for ‘Gender Jihad,’” in Daughters of Abraham: Feminist Thought in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, ed. Yvonne Y. Haddad and John L. Esposito (Florida: University Press of Florida, 2001), 81–107: Hibba’s article devotes much interest to an image of Hagar that she thinks offers a narrative of social liberation that Hagar’s life history provides, most significantly in her struggles.

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considered was a healthy movement toward “black consciousness.” 23 Later he would form a coalition of forces for civil rights, for equality and freedom for all, especially the oppressed black bodies. The light of human rights advocacy which King and his coalition lit then has since become an inspiration to many people, and a torch being handed from one generation to the next. In recent years, the Black Lives Matter movement has positioned itself, at least socio-politically, as one of the modern-day advocates of black bodies, against police brutality, mistreatment, and what it considers as imbalance in the way justice and fairness is administered when it affects black bodies. While I acknowledge that more study still needs to be done in this area, suffice it to express here some of my observations about the Black Lives Matter ideals and sentiments which intersect and parallel to the story of Hagar as a black body with the hermeneutics proposed by Shawn Copeland. These include resistance against [police] brutality of unarmed and innocent black bodies; desire for a change of system that values black lives less than other lives; demand for justice against those who take away life that only God gives and can take; affirmation of the beauty of black lives since all lives would not matter if black lives do not matter or matter less. This is the gospel of life; the Black Lives Matter Gospel is the gospel that every life is precious and each life is a subject, not an object. In African culture and traditional religion, the concept of rights and freedom are indispensable for life, indeed for abundant life. In other words, there is no option, there is no choice for nihilism, no choice for death or for nothingness. There is only one choice, namely to act for life and to protect the dignity of life. In the resistance and courage, I find the intersections and parallels between the story of Hagar and the Black Lives Matter movement. Both are black bodies (of an African young woman, Hagar, and the social body of black life movement), and both are historical subjects as well. Any time one hears of “rights and freedom,” the mind goes back to their opposites, namely, slavery/domination and bondage. From the story of Hagar, it is apparent that she is a personification of these opposites. Once she was in bondage, and then she could enjoy freedom; once she was under domination and then she could enjoy rights. From the texts, the narrator is clear enough to tell her that she was a slave, with neither rights nor freedom. Furthermore, Hagar was not only a slave, but also a victim of sexual abuse and physical violence. When, faced with neither freedom nor rights, confronted with patriarchy and matriarchy at the service of imperialism,24 she initiated 23 James H. Cone and Gayraud S. Wilmore, eds., Black Theology: A Documentary History, Vol. 1 1966–1979 (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1993), 4. 24 Musa W. Dube has made an important observation about how patriarchy is only a little of what we may understand today as imperialism. She thinks that imperialism is not just about male power over women and children. It is also the power of one nation

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resistance by despising her mistress, and her fight back culminated in her expulsion. Consequent to the experience of Hagar, some scholars have tried to contain Sarah’s highhandedness in dealing with Hagar’s disrespect by contextualizing the narrative events in the customs and legal worlds of the ancient Near East. Frymer-Kensky, for instance, has noted that in the Old Assyrian colony in Anatolia, there existed a cuneiform marriage contract that dates to 1900 BCE which gives us insight into what may have been the custom in the ancient Mesopotamia culture.25 The text stipulates that in the case of a wife who does not bear a child for her husband after two years of marriage, she should purchase a slave for her husband. Similarly, in the Code of Hammurabi (146), a husband of a woman (naditu) who is attached to a temple and who is not allowed to bear children has the right to marry a second wife. However, the wife could choose the alternative of giving her husband a slave. The assumption here is that by degrading and dealing harshly with Hagar, Sarah was after all not doing anything different from what was customarily or legally permitted. Rather than the oppressor, it was the victim who was wrong and is to be blamed for her fate. The problem with such an argument is that it does not go beyond appeal to “what was,” the “status quo” in the social system of the dominant culture of the era. But we also know that the fact that slavery, abuse, or oppression of women was not necessarily frowned at in the culture of the ancient Near East does not make it right. In the light of womanist and anthropological hermeneutics, they were simply how things were as opposed to how they might be. This is where the figure of Hagar as a champion of rights emerges clearly. If the assumption surrounding the legal genre of the narrative behind Sarah and Abraham’s treatment of Hagar is correct, and if Sarah and Abraham were acting in conformity with the customs and legal codes of their time,26 then Hagar is a metaphor and symbol of resistance of an oppressive code of conduct, for she refused to be passive to such laws that treat her as a property rather than as a subject (personhood). Whether Hagar’s attitude was the unacceptable reaction then or not, a couple of things are clear from her narrated life and actions: while Hagar could endure oppression, she had little or no patience for abuse, and yet she was consisting of men and women, over men and women of distant lands and nation (Postcolonial Feminist Interpretation of the Bible [St. Louis: Chalice, 2000], 72–73). 25 Tikva Frymer-Kensky, “Patriarchal Family Relationships and Near Eastern Law,” BA 44 (1981): 209–14. 26 The legal code acknowledged that a pregnant slave woman might claim equality with her mistress, but at the same time, it allowed the mistress to treat her slave woman as an ordinary slave (a property). A classical case and example of what Savina Teubal calls the struggles of two women for religious and social rights in the context of an environment in which they enjoyed a measure of divinely sanctioned authority and/or limited rights.

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not an enemy of freedom for she believed that her freedom, the freedom of subjects, was worth more than the kind of property rights that depicted itself in enslavement and domination, or brutality of any kind. The courage in Hagar’s actions could only be appreciated when one considers a couple of things that overstretched the elasticity of her endurance. First is the fact that she had no choice and no voice in the events surrounding her. Second is that she was taken and given, hated and beaten. Third is the fact that the language or word, ‫( ענה‬Gen 16:6), which Sarai used in degrading her, is the same language/word that the Egyptians used in their oppression and degradation of the Israelites during their slavery in Egypt (cf. Exod 1:11, 12). The parallel here is that just as Israel was delivered from the mistreatment, affliction, and oppression they endured in the hands of the Egyptians, so Hagar, who lived under domination and oppression, initiated, on her own, a flight for self-liberation. James Mays articulates this parallel in the following lines: Another noteworthy element in the annunciation of the birth of Ishmael is the striking similarity of Gen 16:11 to Deut 26:6–7 (“Since the Egyptians mistreated and abused us, we cried out to Yahweh, the God of our ancestors; Yahweh heard our voice, and he saw our abuse”). The “abuse” that is mentioned twice in the Deuteronomy passage and three times in Genesis 16 (vv. 6, 9, 11) occurs as well in Gen 15:13, in the prediction of Israel’s oppression by Egypt. In an ironic twist, it is Hagar the Egyptian who, in Gen 16, endures slavery and abuse by Sarai. This link with the Exodus story is further underlined by Hagar’s flight to the wilderness (Gen 16:6–7; Exod 14:3, 5) and her encounter there with an angel of the Lord (Gen 16:7; Exod 2:15–3:2; 14:19). In both cases (Sarai’s mistreatment of the Egyptian slave Hagar and the oppression of the descendants of Sarai by Hagar’s compatriots), a cry for help is answered by a compassionate God (Exod 3:7–8).27

The beauty of Mays’s twist of irony lies in the connection it makes with the liberating story of Exodus but it also fails to highlight the unique distinction in the two stories of liberation. What James Mays fails to highlight is that in the Exodus story of liberation, it was YHWH who took the initiative (Exod 2:24–25; 3:7–10), whereas in the case of Hagar, it was Hagar herself, the one under oppression, who was the historical subject and took the initiative to liberate herself from the bondage of Sarai. She did something to better her life and the life of her future generation and, in doing so, changed her situation and circumstance for good.

27 James L. Mays, ed., The Harper Bible Commentary (New York/San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1988), 92.

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5. Conclusion In conclusion, we can affirm based on our exploration of the story of Hagar in the light of M. Shawn Copeland model that it is the disdain for objectification and the inner quest for freedom, for the healing and redemption of the body of Hagar and for her future generation (Ishmael+), that Hagar embarked on a journey of historical “subjecthood” and “beautification.” Hagar’s journey of historical “subjecthood” and “beautification” was also, and rightly so, in the scholarly sentiment of Hye Kyung Park, “a spiritual journey” because in this journey, Hagar, “a fascinating womanist theologian,” discovered for herself and for her children the beauty and compassion in the image of God who was not oblivious of her suffering, and she named him accordingly: the God who sees me (‫ ;)אל ראי‬the God who gazes upon me (ὁ θεὸς ὁ ἐπιδών με). Today, many of the oppressed, especially African American [female] bodies have found a kindred spirit in her. Similarly, those who find themselves in situations and circumstances like those Hagar found herself want freedom and liberation; they want life for themselves and their future generation; they want to be treated as subjects with respect and dignity; and, above all, they want their lives to be recognized as sacrosanct. God alone is the giver of life and only God ought to decide when it ends.

Writing to Survive The Voice Returns in Jeremiah’s Subversive Sefer* Louis Stulman When our children were young, their elementary school teacher introduced the class to a unit on the great empires of the ancient Near East: Sumer, Akkad, Babylon, Assyria, Anatolia, Egypt, Nubia, Persia, Media, with of course a nod to Greece and Rome. Barb Meyers, their wonderful teacher, asked if I would do a presentation on ancient Egypt, an invitation I could hardly refuse. I talked about Egyptian funeral rites and showed slides of tombs and sarcophagi from the second millennium BCE. The kids oohed and aahed and for one flash moment, I was my kids’ hero. Afterwards, however, I recall being irritated that their textbook barely mentioned ancient Israel, which it relegated literally to a footnote, referencing only its influence on the Western canon. In retrospect, I cannot imagine why this lacuna disturbed me so: ancient Israel never belonged in the company of the powerful. It inhabited the space of the disempowered, a minor state invaded and occupied throughout much of its history by colonizing forces on the Tigris and the Euphrates. Its legacy is principally the written testimony of those on the margins, not the center, often the historical survivors. To ignore this history of loss and its myriad iterations is to misconstrue the Hebrew Bible’s metanarrative of salvation, which throbs with the pain of war. As I have suggested on several occasions,1 reading the Jewish and Christian Scriptures as a text of the powerful, the winners,2 ignores a preponderance of biblical voices that testify to a God who resides on the margins with the wounded and the defeated. * An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2019 Society of Biblical Literature Meeting in San Diego, CA. I offer it here, in revised form, in honor of Marvin A. Sweeney. I am grateful to Jacob Clagg, my former student and current TA, for reading an earlier version of this essay and offering many valuable suggestions. 1 See, e.g., Louis Stulman, “Trauma not Triumph: Reading the Hebrew Bible as Disaster and Resistance Literature,” in Orthodoxy and Orthopraxis: Essays in Tribute to Paul Livermore, ed. Douglas R. Cullum and J. Richard Middleton (Eugene: Pickwick, 2020), 65–83. See also, Louis Stulman and Hyun Chul Paul Kim, You are My People: An Introduction to Prophetic Literature (Nashville: Abingdon, 2010). 2 For a rather odd and disconcerting recent example, the Christian Right in the U.S. used the biblical story of the Persian King Cyrus to defend and legitimize the 2020

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1. The Book of Jeremiah as a Testimony of Loss Few biblical writings are as laden with loss as the book of Jeremiah. Language of fracture and dislocation is palpable – in the text’s atonal character, dischronologized structure, conflicting theological claims, and impassioned laments. This vernacular of suffering is likely the product of complex diachronic processes and the cumulative witness of the Jeremiah traditions. Specifically, history (diachronic workings) and artistic expression (synchronic contours) converge in the deep ruptures of Judah’s final decades as a national-cultic state. The wreckage of war defines this prophetic text. From superscription (1:1–3) to historical appendix (52:31–34), it leaves an indelible mark on configurations of land, people, prophet, and Jeremiah’s God. A pot boiling over from the north…tribes of great countries. (1:13–14) A lion attacks from the thicket A destroyer of nations advances… So prepare for the funeral…weep and wail… (4:7–8) Escape, people of Benjamin, Flee Jerusalem. Blow the trumpet in Tekoa Sound the battle alarm in Beth-haccerem For calamity is approaching from the north, great destruction. (6:1) YHWH declares: An army is advancing from the north, A great nation is stirred from the ends of the earth. They come with bow and javelin They are cruel and merciless. Their horsemen sound like the roaring sea, In battle formation against you, Daughter Zion. (6:22–23) How long will the land mourn and the grass of the field wither? (12:4a) Every day I open my mouth, I cry out and say, “Violence and disaster.” (20:8a) If only my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, I would weep without stop for the wounds of my people.3 (8:23)

presidential candidacy of Donald Trump. See https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/3/5/ 16796892/trump-cyrus-christian-right-bible-cbn-evangelical-propaganda and https://www .nytimes.com/2018/12/31/opinion/trump-evangelicals-cyrus-king.html (last accessed 14 September 2022). 3 The translations are mine unless noted.

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Jeremian speech makes little sense apart from disaster and dirge. Often this loss is direct and demonstrable as in its many utterances of devastation and displacement, from the destruction of the holy city and its temple to the seizure of land and forced relocation. At other times, distress bubbles beneath the text as in the Oracles Against the Nations (Jer 46–51), the discourses on prophetic conflict (Jer 28–29), and even oracles of deliverance (30:4–7). Many of the prophet’s early poetic oracles of judgment are written in the cadence of the lament (the qinah meter). Whether indices of grief are on or below the surface of the text, refractions of land seizure, physical dislodgment, military defeat, and confinement give the book of Jeremiah its distinctive character. The dialect of this literary tradition is that of trauma, not triumph.4 In the past few decades, interpreters have deployed a range of interdisciplinary methodologies to explore this concentrate of loss. Mary Mills has engaged symbolic landscapes, eerie deathscapes, to chart the Jeremian terrain.5 Amy Kalmanofsky has brought to bear the rhetoric of horror.6 Kathleen M. O’Connor has employed contemporary trauma theory to focus attention on a traumatized prophet and trauma-fraught book,7 as have Elizabeth Boase and Christopher Frechette, 8 and L. Juliana Claassens. 9 Carolyn J. Sharp and Christl M. Maier have explored gendered language and gendered performance in Jeremiah, which can hardly be divorced from the violence of hierarchy.10 Else Holt has challenged exegetical conventions by blurring categories of prophetic persona and prophetic word.11 Mary Chilton Callaway has done 4 Louis Stulman, “The Book of Jeremiah,” in New Oxford Annotated Bible, 5th ed., ed. Michael Coogan et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 1069–1161; idem, “Reflections on the Prose Sermons in Jeremiah: Duhm and Mowinckel’s Contribution to Contemporary Trauma Readings,” in Bible through the Lens of Trauma, ed. Christopher Frechette and Elizabeth Boase, SemeiaSt 86 (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2016), 125–39. 5 Mary Mills, Alterity, Pain and Suffering in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2007). 6 Amy Kalmanofsky, Terror All Around: Horror, Monsters, and Theology in the Book of Jeremiah, LHBOTS 390 (New York: T&T Clark, 2008). 7 Kathleen M. O’Connor, Jeremiah: Pain and Promise (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2011). 8 Elizabeth Boase and Christopher G. Frechette, eds., Bible through the Lens of Trauma (Atlanta; SBL Press, 2016). 9 L. Juliana M. Claassens, “Jeremiah,” in The Paulist Biblical Commentary, ed. José Aguilar et al. (New York: Paulist, 2018), 666–713; eadem, “The Rhetorical Function of the Woman in Labor Metaphor in Jeremiah 30–31: Trauma, Gender and Postcolonial Perspectives,” JTSA 150 (2014): 67–84. 10 Christl M. Maier and Carolyn J. Sharp, eds., Prophecy and Power: Jeremiah in Feminist and Postcolonial Perspective, LHBOTS 577 (London/New York: T&T Clark, 2013). 11 See Holt’s essays in Jeremiah Invented: Constructions and Deconstructions of Jeremiah, ed. Else K. Holt and Carolyn J. Sharp, LHBOTS 595 (London/New York: T&T Clark, 2015); Eve-Marie Becker, Jan Dochhorn, and Else K. Holt, eds., Trauma and

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pioneering work on the Nachleben of Jeremiah, especially its artistic afterlife, which often appears in iconic representations of suffering, persecution, and lamentation. 12 And Walter Brueggemann continues to examine Jeremiah’s radical suffering under a probing theological microscope.13 While consensus still eludes the Jeremiah guild, the text’s war-ravaged spaces and fractures in culture have captured the imagination of many.

2. The Book of Jeremiah as Meaning-Making Literature The book of Jeremiah, however, is more than an artifact of memory, recounting the collapse of Judah’s pre-exilic institutions and culture. It is also meaning-making literature that attempts to make sense of the country’s devastating losses.14 The dominant interpretive perspective in this “collection of multivoiced meditations on the abyss of the exile”15 places the exigencies of military aggression and the violation of the sacred space within an exacting system of moral causality, usually expressed in terms of transgression and punishment. 16 Such a view upholds an understanding of the world that is orderly and congruent, moral and stable, demanding penalties for wrongdoers. To this end, the prose and poetic Jeremiah by and large blames Israel/Judah for its dire circumstances, insisting that God’s people have sinned against YHWH, often in the form of idolatry and disobedience (‫ )לא שמע‬to divine law. In response, YHWH executes judgment. My people have committed two sins: They have abandoned me, the fountain of living water, and they have dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that cannot hold water. (2:13)

Traumatization in Individual and Collective Dimensions: Insights from Biblical Studies and Beyond, SAN 2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014). 12 Mary Chilton Callaway, Jeremiah through the Centuries (Malden: Wiley Blackwell, 2020). 13 Walter Brueggemann, Preaching Jeremiah: Announcing God’s Restorative Passion (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2020). 14 For the importance of theodicy in the Hebrew Bible, see Marvin A. Sweeney, Reading the Hebrew Bible after the Shoah: Engaging Holocaust Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008). 15 Brueggemann, Preaching Jeremiah, xv. 16 Mark Leuchter, “Jeremiah: Structure, Themes, and Contested Issues,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Prophets, ed. Carolyn J. Sharp (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 171–89.

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Look, one approaches like the clouds, his chariots advance like the whirlwind; his horses are swifter than eagles, woe to us, for we are doomed Cleanse your heart from evil, Jerusalem, that you may be saved. How long will you entertain your evil thoughts? A voice declares from Dan and proclaims disaster from the highlands of Ephraim. Warn the nations; announce it to Jerusalem, “Armies are coming from a distant land; raising their war cries against the cities of Judah. They hem her in like keepers of a field, because she has rebelled against me, says YHWH. Your own ways and actions have brought this on you. This is your punishment. and it is bitter, Piercing to the heart!” (4:13–18) This is what YHWH, God of Israel, said to me: Take from my hand this cup filled with wrathful wine and make all the nations where I am sending you drink from it… So I took the cup from YHWH’s hand, and I made all the nations drink from it where YHWH had sent me: Jerusalem and the towns of Judah, its kings and officials. This was to make them a wasteland, an object of horror, shock, and cursing, as it is today. (25:15, 17)

The prose sermons of the book of Jeremiah give voice to this exacting rendering of life (e.g., 7:1–15; 11:1–13; 18:1–12; 21:1–10). Influenced by the rigors of Deuteronomic and Deuteronomistic theology, these discourses contend that Judah’s political and social convulsion is largely the result of its own moral miscalculations. Sometimes the Deuteronomic Jeremiah accuses worshippers of divorcing piety from acts of social justice, sometimes he indicts God’s people for covenant violations, at other times he condemns kings for self-serving policies and priests for spiritual amnesia. In the most sweeping of terms, the prophet declares that YHWH repeatedly warned the people Israel to turn from their evil ways and keep his commandments but they rejected this mandate and therefore suffered divine punishment (see, e.g., Jer 7:25–34; 25:4–11; 26:4–6; 29:17–19; 44:4–6; cf. 2 Kgs 17:13–18). Although this harsh rhetoric at times blames the victims rather than the perpetrators of violence, it functions principally as a rhetorical device in the service of theodicy: it places Judah’s sixth-century hardships within a theological framework of meaning, “making sense” of suffering and presumably helping war-torn communities cope with their crumbling worlds. When the prose sermons wage war against insiders with an arsenal of allegations,

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indictments, correlations between conduct and condition, and scalding (Jeremiad) homilies, they are fostering stability and symmetry in a world that is fractured seemingly beyond repair. The result is the creation of a morally stringent universe in which geo-political aggressions neither impugn the divine character nor destroy faith in God. Some interpreters have been quick to demean such well-ordered retributive understandings, 17 but both trauma theorists and therapists have long recognized the import of viable explanations of suffering – especially those that keep at bay the arbitrary and senseless character of traumatic violence – in the healing of individuals and groups. In this vein, Jeremiah’s punitive theology, preserved in both prose and poetry, serves as both disaster and survival literature. Despite the prevalence of this Weltanschauung, other interpretive perspectives in the book problematize it. Ironically, the representation of the life of Jeremiah, which is a construction of various times, places, and poets, does much to deconstruct the prophet’s morally coherent message. Unlike most prophetic writings in the Hebrew Bible, the book of Jeremiah shows great interest in the personal life of its hero. As Else K. Holt has argued, the figure of Jeremiah emerges in the book as the authoritative word of YHWH no less than the divine word the prophet proclaims. 18 Accordingly, message and messenger share center stage and bear witness to the sacred but in profoundly divergent, indeed disparate, ways: a prophetic message defined by transgression and divine judgment and, in stark contrast, a life of innocent, even gratuitous, suffering. This sharp bifurcation waged within the bios of the prophet Jeremiah plays a formative role in the tradition’s complexity of thought and intensity in emotion. The literary portrait of the prophet’s life experiences – including his call and conflicts, prayers and protests, struggles and hardships, and “failed” interactions with kings, priests, and other prophets, as well as his deportation to Egypt, indeed all of Jeremiah’s tormented life experiences – contributes to the construction of a metanarrative of the righteous sufferer. 19 This Joban archetype, fortified by his laments and Baruch’s narrative of Jeremiah’s suffering, destabilizes the tradition’s well-ordered ideological arrangements (especially correlations drawn between conduct and condition) and broaches an understanding of the world that honors moral complexity and theological dissonance. To be sure, Jeremiah not only suffers innocently but for God’s 17 See, e.g., Bernhard Duhm, Das Buch Jeremia, KHC 11 (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1901). 18 Else K. Holt, “Word of Jeremiah – Word of God: Structures of Authority in the Book of Jeremiah,” in Uprooting and Planting: Essays on Jeremiah for Leslie Allen, ed. John Goldingay (London/New York: T&T Clark, 2007), 172–89. 19 See Edward L. Greenstein, “Jeremiah as an Inspiration to the Poet of Job,” in Inspired Speech: Prophecy in the Ancient Near East: Essays in Honour of Herbert B. Huffmon, ed. John Kaltner and Louis Stulman (London/New York: T&T Clark, 2004), 98–100.

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sake. In this capacity, the archetypal prophet becomes a symbol of hope and resilience for those for whom retributive ideologies make little tangible sense.20

3. Writing as Survival Stratagem This embattled prophet is enamored of writing. As Thomas Römer observes, “The prophet Jeremiah is by far the most prolific ‘writer’ among the prophets.” 21 Put otherwise, the book of Jeremiah reflects an unusual interest in writing – written records, scroll production, and shifts from spoken prophecy to written prophecy.22 This topography of literacy is likely due to historical developments in textualization, perhaps as early as the sixth century BCE, as well as theological forces constitutive of the witness of Jeremiah traditions (MT and LXX). With reference to the latter, the preoccupation with writing can hardly be separated from the tradition’s history of damage and its narration of the life of the prophet Jeremiah. Many interpreters, for instance, have called attention to the tradition’s Tendenz to fashion Jeremiah in the image of Moses, the reader, recorder, and preserver of the ‫ ספר הברית‬and ‫ספר‬ ‫התורה‬.23 Like Moses, Jeremiah responds to God’s call with reluctance – “I do not know how to speak” (Jer 1:6; see Exod 4:10). Like Moses, Jeremiah is a preacher of the ‫ תורה‬who summons the community to obedience. Like Moses, Jeremiah is man of prayer (Jer 32:16–25; see, e.g., Exod 33:7–23), although he is forbidden to intercede on behalf of God’s people (Jer 7:16;

20 The laments of Jeremiah and the laments in the Psalter share several distinguishing features: they both originate in settings of injustice; they cry out to God for help; they rarely perceive suffering as a consequence of wrongdoing; and they seek retribution against their enemies. These are not only formal indices (Formgeschichte) but also characteristics of a particular piety and Weltanschauung. 21 Thomas Römer, “From Prophet to Scribe: Jeremiah, Huldah and the Invention of the Book,” in Writing the Bible: Scribes, Scribalism and Script, ed. Thomas Römer and Philip Davies, BibleWorld (Durham: Acumen, 2013), 86–96. 22 See Chad L. Eggleston, “See and Read All These Words”: The Concept of the Written in the Book of Jeremiah, Siphrut 18 (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2016); Mark Leuchter, “The Pen of Scribes: Writing, Textuality, and the Book of Jeremiah,” in The Book of Jeremiah: Composition, Reception and Interpretation, ed. Jack R. Lundbom, Craig A. Evans, and Bradford A. Anderson, VTSup 178 (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2018), 3–25; Joachim Schaper, “On Writing and Reciting in Jeremiah 36,” in Prophecy in the Book of Jeremiah, ed. H. M. Barstad and R. G. Kratz, BZAW 388 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009), 137– 47. 23 See the incisive essay by Georg Fischer, “Jeremiah – ‘The Prophet like Moses’?,” in Lundbom, Evans, and Anderson, eds., The Book of Jeremiah, 45–66.

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11:14; 14:11; see also 15:1). 24 Eventually we see Jeremiah emerge as a preacher of justice (e.g., Jer 7:1–15; 21:1–10; 25:1–14) whose Deuteronomic passions punctuate with “all that is written in this scroll” (25:13). Indeed, like Moses, Jeremiah is a scroll figure (30:2; 36:2; Exod 34:27; cf. Deut 6:4–9; 17:14–20) whom YHWH instructs to “write down” the divine words.25 It is also significant that the metamorphosis of Jeremiah’s spoken words into writing appears most forcefully at crucial junctures of the prophet’s life and Judah’s history of damage. When Jeremiah is in grave danger and the nation is in great peril – as indicated by the code phrase “the fourth year of Jehoiakim” – his voice survives in written form (Jer 36; 45; see also 25, 26; 29; 51:59–64). Accordingly, writing and scroll production play an integral role in the story of the life of the Jeremiah. Although Jeremiah’s prophetic mission fails and his oracular speech is largely rejected, the written word, the sefer, persists as a resilient witness of God’s faithfulness to the ill-treated prophet and his war-torn community. The word sefer, translated as book, scroll, written deed/document, or letter, occurs over twenty times in the book of Jeremiah, which is far more than any other prophetic text in the Hebrew Bible. In Jer 3:8, it refers to a written decree of divorce against faithless Israel (see also Deut 24:1–4, a significant intertextual element). In Jer 32:10, 11, passim, the term denotes the written deed of purchase to the prophet’s family land in the territory of Benjamin that YHWH instructs Jeremiah to redeem, to show, among other things, that the land under siege by the powerful still belongs to the dispossessed. Of greater importance, at least for this essay, are six chapters that employ sefer in the transcription of Jeremiah’s spoken words: Jer 25:1–14 (13); 29:1– 32 (2–3); 30–31 (30:1–3); 36:1–32 (2, 4, passim); 45:1–5 (1); and 51:59–64 (60), each of which is attested in the MT and LXX, although at times for different purposes. Interestingly, all but one of these references occurs within prose contexts that are arguably Deuteronomistic and, as noted above, at key intervals of the life of Jeremiah. The first instance (25:1–14) marks the end of twenty-three years of Jeremiah’s prophetic ministry and the dénouement of the first half of the prophetic drama. This final prose homily of Jer 1–25, replete with Deuteronomic and Deuteronomistic traits, follows a series of prose discourses that map out the dismantling of Judah’s pre-exilic beliefs and cherished institutions (i.e., the temple and its cultus, the covenant and election traditions, as well as dynastic

24 See Georg Fischer, “Is there Shalom, or Not? Jeremiah, a Prophet for South Africa,” OTE 28 (2015): 359. 25 For an incisive critique of Mosaic overtures in the book of Jeremiah, see Fischer, “Jeremiah – ‘The Prophet like Moses’?,” 45–66; also see Benedetta Rossi, “Reshaping Jeremiah: Scribal Strategies and the Prophet like Moses,” JSOT 44 (2020): 580–81.

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and land rights in chs. 7, 11, 18, and 21, respectively).26 It summarizes Jeremiah’s prophetic ministry from the thirteenth year of King Josiah to the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, the ominous accession year of Nebuchadnezzar. Reminiscent of the prominent speeches of the Deuteronomistic History (e.g., 2 Kgs 17:13–23), this prose address reduces twenty-three years of Jeremiah’s interactions with the people of Judah to a singular accusation: ‫לא שׁמע‬, the people have “not listened” (vv. 4, 7, 8) after frequent prophetic warnings. Therefore, YHWH threatens to marshal “all the tribes of the north” including his servant Nebuchadnezzar who will turn Judah into a wasteland. After this sweeping indictment which includes seventy years27 of subjugation to the king of Babylon (25:3–11), YHWH pledges to punish Babylon and its king according to everything written ‫ בַּ סֵּ פֶ ר הַ זֶּה‬and prophesied by Jeremiah “against all the nations” (25:12–13). Thus, the sefer authorizes the demise of Judah’s nemesis Babylon, signaling hope for the writing/reading Judean community in exile. Also noteworthy, while Jeremiah MT employs the sefer motif to bring to a close twenty-three years of Jeremiah’s prophecies, Jeremiah LXX deploys the βιβλίον to introduce the Oracles Against the Nations (OAN). In this capacity, the scroll functions as a hinge text that provides a retrospect of Jeremiah’s oracles, including his denunciation of Babylon, and a glimpse forward to YHWH’s cup of wrath from which the nations will drink (OAN). In both the MT and the LXX, the scroll affirms that oppressive world powers will not have the final say in Judah’s unfolding history and that the God of refugees will not succumb to the prevailing forces of injustice, tyranny, and brutality. The text traditions envision the scroll dispensing judgment against Babylon, which serves as a precondition for Judah’s survival and eventual restoration. Still, judgment begins with the household of God (Jer 25:17–18; cf. 1 Pet 4:17a). The second reference to the transcription of Jeremiah’s words occurs in ch. 29 (MT; LXX 36). Dated to the year 598 BCE, Jeremiah sends a sefer (29:1; see also 29:25, 29) from Jerusalem to the surviving elders among the golah in Babylon. Also bristling with Deuteronomistic indices, this narrative, together with the previous two in chs. 27 and 28, forms a literary unit that 26 See Robert R. Wilson, “Poetry and Prose in the Book of Jeremiah,” in Ki Baruch Hu: Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical and Judaic Studies in Honor of Baruch A. Levine, ed. Robert Chazan et al. (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1999), 413–27. Also, see Louis Stulman, Order amid Chaos: Jeremiah as Symbolic Tapestry (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998). 27 The term “seventy years” symbolizes the fullness of divine judgment according to Robert P. Carroll, Jeremiah, A Commentary, OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986), 495. William L. Holladay maintains, “one must assume that [the term ‘seventy years’] was intended as a round number suggesting a normal life-span” (Jeremiah 1: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah. Chapters 1–25, Hermeneia [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986], 669).

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describes a dispute with priests and fellow prophets over the import and duration of the first deportation of Judeans. The contents of the sefer are delineated in vv. 4–14 and developed subsequently. Jeremiah conveys a sense of optimism that the God of Israel has neither forsaken nor abandoned the golah to the whims of their captors. Nonetheless, his words of hope differ markedly from his detractors who insist that the Judean deportation will be brief and with little lasting impact (see, e.g., Hananiah’s prophecies in the previous chapter). Jeremiah asserts that the refugee community in Babylon must prepare for a relatively lengthy exile. They must settle down and seek the welfare of the city where YHWH has sent them (vv. 4–7). At the same time, Jeremiah’s sefer predicts Babylon’s demise (v. 10) and the refugees’ eventual return to their ancestral home “after Babylon’s seventy years are completed.” With these words of restrained assurance, Jeremiah discourages insurrection and encourages patience.28 In Jer 30:2, Jeremiah is directed (in the imperative) to write on a scroll all the words YHWH has spoken to him: “Write on a sefer all the words that I have spoken to you. For the days are surely coming, says YHWH, when I will reestablish the fortunes of my people Israel and Judah.” The Scroll/Book of Consolation, which Clements identifies as the centerpiece of Jeremiah, 29 looks forward to the restoration of north and south Israel (Jer 30–31, 32–33): liberation from oppressors, defeat of enemies, the reestablishment of ancestral promises, including increase of progeny and blessing, as well as the renewal of joy, a restored covenant, and ecological rejuvenation. All of these buoyant affirmations, which can be subsumed under the tradition’s central code rhetoric, “I will rebuild you, and you will be rebuilt, Maiden Israel” (31:4a), are teeming with the realism of war and its aftermath. Still they interrupt the nightmare of war long enough to create space for the imagination of hope: hope that violence will end, that God cares for suffering people, and that raw power is not ultimate power. The witness of this Jeremian hope is now firmly established in a sefer that preserves all the words YHWH has spoken to the prophet (30:1). Even though Jeremiah may be “confined to the prison quarters” (33:1), the robust scroll persists. It transcends hegemonic pressures and generates hope in those whose worlds have been shattered by violence. It imagines a better life for survivors and their children who suffer from secondary trauma. The sefer of consolation, whether it concludes with ch. 31 or ch. 33, preserves the most enduring expression of salvation in the book of Jeremiah.

28 In v. 29, the word sefer is used for the document written by Shemaiah and read by the priest Zephaniah before Jeremiah. 29 Ronald E. Clements, Jeremiah, IBC (Atlanta: John Knox, 1988), 8–10.

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The next constellation of texts in which the sefer plays a prominent role is of course ch. 36, which focuses on the creation, recitation, rejection, and recreation of scrolls, or more exactly, the Word of God. Take a ‫ מגלת־ספר‬and write in it all the words that I have spoken to you concerning Israel, Judah, and all the nations from the day I spoke to you during the time of Josiah until today. (36:2)

This chapter, like its counterparts, plays a vital role in the structure of the Jeremiah book and in the story of the life of the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah 36 and 45 frame the so-called Baruch Narrative, a relatively coherent collection that highlights the suffering of Jeremiah in conjunction with the rejection and fulfillment of his prophetic words. As bordering texts, both allude to the scroll transcribed by Baruch at Jeremiah’s dictation in the fateful year 605 BCE (36:2, 4; 45:1). Jeremiah 36 also enjoys lexical and thematic links to ch. 25. In the first place, both are sefer texts. Both are concerned with Jeremiah’s oracles to all the nations (25:13; 36:2). Both focus on the fourth year of King Jehoiakim, a year that foreshadows the demise of the cultic-dynastic state (25:3; 36:2).30 And both call to mind Jeremiah’s oracles from the reign of Josiah until 605 BCE. Although the prophet Jeremiah offers little hope for repentance and forgiveness in 25:1–14, he holds out promise for a change of course in 36:1–3. Also suggestive are points of correspondences in chs. 36 and 26. These bridge texts are set in the early years of Jehoiakim’s reign. Much of their action takes place within the temple precincts, although, four years into the reign of Jehoiakim (36:1), Jeremiah no longer enjoys access to YHWH’s house (36:6). Both narratives speak of YHWH offering the people of Judah an opportunity to shuv, to avert catastrophe (36:3; 26:3) and accentuate the authority of written prophecy (e.g., 26:17–19). Moreover, both zero in on divergent reactions to Jeremiah’s words, oral and written, by Judean leaders. In ch. 26, prophets and priests arrest Jeremiah and threaten him with death after his alleged assault on the temple and the nation. In response, “officials” come to Jeremiah’s aid, as do a few community elders who appeal to historical precedent based on, most probably, written oracles of Micah. Their defense prevails and Jeremiah’s life is spared, assisted in no small measure by the intervention of Ahikam son of Shaphan (26:24; see also 36:25) whose family was known for its loyalty to the Deuteronomic scroll (see 2 Kgs 22). Overall, ch. 36 surveys the range of responses to written prophecy by the king and his court officials. Their reaction to Jeremiah’s message is mixed, although Jehoiakim’s is adamant and intransigent. These framing texts paint the king in the worst possible light (26:20–23; 36:20–26). 30 See John Hill, Friend or Foe? The Figure of Babylon in the Book of Jeremiah MT, BibInt 40 (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 1999).

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According to the Jeremiah tradition, Jehoiakim is not merely one in a long line of corrupt leaders. He is the antithesis of a good king. Unlike his father Josiah “who defended the cause of the poor and destitute” (Jer 22:16), Jehoiakim builds his bayit, that is, his palace and dynasty, “by unrighteousness and his upper rooms by injustice” (Jer 22:13). This narcissistic figure brings down the nation. He silences opposing voices. He shows little concern for the welfare of his people (Jer 22:13–17). He exploits the resources of the nation to erect his own monuments. His greed and self-interest give rise to dread allaround. His eyes and heart “are set only on defrauding others, on shedding innocent blood and on oppression and blackmail.” (I can hardly read this damning story without thinking of the dangerous political context in the U.S under the Trump administration.) But this is not only a story of intimidation; it is also a story of great courage. Despite grave personal danger, Jeremiah and Baruch – whistleblowers representing the prophetic and scribal traditions – refuse to be silenced by raw political power, cruelty, and injustice. Much has been written on ch. 36 and scribal culture, including incisive essays by Yvonne Sherwood and Mark Brummitt in Jeremiah (Dis)Placed 31 and, more recently, by Mark Leuchter.32 Here I would only reiterate that this text is far more than an anatomy of scroll production. This is a metanarrative of an unassuming, albeit resilient, megillat sefer and its beleaguered custodians from the prophetic and scribal traditions. Jeremiah and Baruch do not coward before a volatile king who defies YHWH by cutting (qr‘) the scroll rather than his garments in remorse, as his father Josiah once did when hearing the scroll of divine instruction (2 Kgs 22:11). Jehoiakim rejects the council of his trusted advisers, and with a scribal knife used for cutting papyrus in the preparation of scrolls, “cuts” (qr‘) and burns the scroll (36:23). And when Jehudi read (qr’) three or four columns of the scroll, the king cut them off (qr‘) with a scribe’s knife and threw them into the firepot until the entire scroll was burned up. Neither the king nor any of his servants who heard (šm‘) all these words were alarmed or tore their clothes (qr‘). Elnathan, Delaiah, and Gemariah begged the king not to burn the scroll, but he would not listen (l’ šm‘) to them.

After Jehoiakim’s brazen act,33 YHWH commands Jeremiah to “get another scroll (megillah) and write on it all the words that were on the first sefer 31 Mark Brummitt and Yvonne Sherwood, “The Fear of Loss Inherent in Writing: Jeremiah 36 as the Story of a Self-Conscious Scroll,” in Jeremiah (Dis)Placed: New Directions in Writing/Reading Jeremiah, ed. A. R. Pete Diamond and Louis Stulman, LHBOTS 529 (London/New York: T&T Clark, 2011), 47-66. 32 Leuchter, “The Pen of Scribes,” 3–25. 33 Susan Niditch observes in her pioneering work, Oral World and the Written Word: Ancient Israelite Literature, LAI (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996), 105: “The burned scroll has in fact become an implicit sign act symbolic of the land and the king.

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which King Jehoiakim of Judah burned” (v. 28). This new scroll, written again by Baruch at Jeremiah’s dictation, contains the words of the first scroll along with additional ones, including judgment oracles against the king, his offspring, and the nation. As importantly, despite the king’s efforts to silence the prophet Jeremiah and his scribe Baruch, they survive, as does the word of YHWH in written form. “The Temple may be destroyed; the texts which it housed sing in the winds that scatter them.”34 The penultimate reference to sefer occurs in a short prose piece (45:1–5) in which Jeremiah addresses his scribe Baruch (for similar language, see 39:15– 18). This vignette together with Jer 36 frames the Baruch Narrative (chs. 36– 45), forming an envelope that holds together the intervening materials. Interestingly, these framing texts do not employ chronological arrangements or linear logic to unify the larger prose unit, nor do they seek to create coherence with conventional literal categories (e.g., a prologue and an epilogue, as in the book of Job). Rather, Jer 36 and 45 anchor and surround the Baruch Narrative in “scroll or sefer time,” not entirely unlike the divine word which organizes Second Isaiah (Isa 40:5, 8 and Isa 55:10–11). In this capacity, the sefer manages the chaos of invading armies, cowardly kings, tormented prophets, and ill-treated scribes. In the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, Judah’s king, this word came to Jeremiah from YHWH:2 Take a megillah sefer and write on it all the words I have spoken to you concerning Israel, Judah, and all the nations from the time of Josiah until now. (36:1–2) The word that Jeremiah the prophet spoke to Baruch the son of Neriah when he was writing these words on the sefer at the dictation of Jeremiah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, Judah’s king. (45:1)

Once again, the scroll written by Baruch at the dictation of Jeremiah is linked to the portentous “fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, Judah’s king.” This fraught moment not only represents Nebuchadrezzar’s ascension to the throne – and metaphorically, the inauguration of the collapse of what YHWH has built, the uprooting of what YHWH had planted (45:4) – but also, not coincidentally, the transition of oral prophecy to scribal prophecy. When both Jeremiah and Baruch face grave dangers (see, e.g., 43:1–7), the sefer safeguards their voice from suppression. The resilient scroll, moreover, prepares the way for a season of judgment (36:27–32; 45:4) as well as the survival of an embattled scribe whom YHWH assures will not perish: “You seek great things for yourself, but should not bother. Although I am bringing disaster on all humanity, declares YHWH, wherever you go I will let you escape with your life” (45:5). If Baruch functions in this context as an emblematic figure, God declares that Jehoiakim and his line will be destroyed; the land will indeed be burned and destroyed by Babylonia.” 34 George Steiner, “Our Homeland, the Text,” Salmagundi 66 (1985): 21.

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the text serves to buoy the faith of the disheartened, likely the Judean golah in Babylon, with hope of enduring their historical ordeal. As Ronald Clements observes, “Baruch is presented here as representative of all the loyal Jewish citizens carried unwillingly into an alien and hostile world…[He] is given firm and full assurance that he remained a child of God’s election and heir of a great religious tradition. Daily he continued to receive the greatest of all gifts – life itself!”35 The scroll, in congruence with the code language of the Jeremian tradition (1:10; 12:14–17; 18:7–10; 24:6; 42:10) intimates the coming of both divine judgment and salvation, disaster and hope. The final reference in the book of Jeremiah to a sefer appears in a brief prose story that brings closure to the OAN and likely to an earlier edition of Jeremiah MT (51:59–64). In this brief narrative, dated to the fourth year of Zedekiah’s reign when Seraiah son of Neriah son of Mahseiah went with the king to Babylon, Jeremiah writes on a scroll “all the disasters that would happen to Babylon, all these words that are written concerning Babylon” (v. 60). Jeremiah entrusts the scroll to the quartermaster Seraiah who upon arriving in Babylon is to read it, tie a stone to it, and cast it into the Euphrates River, symbolizing the destruction of Babylon. This concluding narrative plays an important role in the landscape of prophetic drama and in the unfolding story of the prophet Jeremiah. It sheds light on the evolving import of written prophecy over the spoken word, the emergence of a scribal culture, and the public reading of the scroll, which is a poetic act of liturgical subversion by a struggling community imagining the downfall of its oppressor. Amid strongman politics and a “dangerously fluid” world (Bright), the unpretentious sefer, indeed the written word of YHWH, supports and buoys a displaced people, akin to the construct chain, ‫דברי ירמיהו‬, which borders and secures the text’s trauma-laden content (1:1 and 51:64).

4. Observations and Reflections Although sefer is not the only term for written artifacts or writing in the book of Jeremiah, its relative frequency, intertextual connections, and Sitze im Buch, often located at pivotal moments in the prophetic narrative, give it particular significance. 36 Furthermore, Jeremian sefer texts are attested in both the MT and the Greek (as βιβλίον), and likely its Hebrew Vorlagen, 35

Clements, Jeremiah, 243–44. While writing is of course not unknown elsewhere in the Latter Prophets – Isaiah, for example, is engaged in a symbolic action that involves writing (Isa 8:1–4) and YHWH instructs Habakkuk to write down a vision and pass it on to a runner who will read it aloud (Hab 2:2) – Jeremiah’s multiple allusions to the shift from oral to written prophecy is clearly distinctive. 36

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suggesting a sustained interest in the conversion of spoken prophecy to written prophecy, and perhaps a shift from prophetic to scribal authority.37 Thus, the substantive sefer, often used in conjunction with the verb ktb, deserves careful exegetical consideration. When used to denote the shift from oral prophecy to written divine–human communication, the Jeremian sefer occurs mostly in prose contexts that are replete with Deuteronomic and Deuteronomistic indices38 (25:1–14; 29:1–32; 36:1–32;39 45:1–5; see 30:1–3;40 32:6–44). These characteristics – in conjunction with an early poetic criticism of scribalism in 8:8 41 (see also 17:1) – suggest a development in thought and an eventual acceptance of scribal culture, alongside prophetic circles, in the later stages of the tradition. The surplus of “C” or Deuteronomistic indices in sefer clusters also supports the view that the book of Jeremiah casts its hero in a Mosaic mold.42 Jeremiah, the “prophet like Moses,” replicates the character and language of the lawgiver, a reluctant, pathos-laden, and resilient hero; he is a person of prayer who is devoted to torah values and whose prose discourses culminate, in the first half of the prophetic drama, in a sefer, which he “prophesied to the nations” (25:13). Mosaic overtures are harsh and often disparaging in Jer 1– 25. However, they become more sanguine in the second half of the book, as evident in the scroll of consolation chs. 30–31 (32–33), the invitation to shuv (36:2–3), the focus on land claims for the dispossessed (32:9–32), the endurance of the scroll and its handlers (36:1–32), and the modest encouragement to Baruch (45:1–5). The sefer / βιβλίον texts surveyed in this essay are rooted deeply in the tragic story of the life of the prophet Jeremiah. As noted, three sefer passages are dated to 605 BCE, “the fourth year of Judah’s King Jehoiakim” (25:1; 36:1; 45:1). This date denotes more than grave historical circumstances, expressly the ascension of Nebuchadnezzar to the throne and his military 37 Baruch son of Neriah or Seraiah son of Neriah are mentioned in several sefer clusters, including Jer 36:4, 5, 8, 10; 45:1–5; 51:59; cf. 32:12. 38 See Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972; repr. Winona Lake; Eisenbrauns, 1992). For a list of “C” and Deuteronomistic characteristics in the book of Jeremiah, see Louis Stulman, The Prose Sermons in the Book of Jeremiah: A Redescription of the Correspondence with the Deuteronomistic Literature in the Light of Recent Text-Critical Research (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986), 7–48. 39 J. Andrew Dearman, “My Servants the Scribes: Composition and Context in Jeremiah 36,” JBL 109 (1990): 403–21. 40 For a detailed explanation, see Rossi, “Reshaping Jeremiah,” 580–81. 41 Mark Leuchter argues against the dominant view that Jer 8:8–9 is a condemnation of scribes and scribalism in The Levites and the Boundaries of Israelite Identity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 191–93. 42 Christopher R. Seitz, “The Prophet Moses and the Canonical Shape of Jeremiah,” ZAW 101 (1989): 3–27.

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campaign west to subdue rebellious states. It also serves as a code phrase for the onset of YHWH’s program to “break down all that I have built” (45:4), which initiates the collapse of Judah’s pre-exilic world. Furthermore, the code phrase signals the dangers Jeremiah himself will encounter due, in large part, to Jehoiakim’s accession to the throne. Whereas Zedekiah’s responses to Jeremiah are rather unpredictable (e.g., 37:1–21), Jehoiakim’s posture is coldhearted and poses an existential threat to the prophet. Already at the start of his reign, royal officials threaten to put Jeremiah to death because of his criticism of the temple and the city (26:1–24). By the fourth year of his reign, Jeremiah no longer enjoys freedom of movement or access to the temple (36:5–6). At that point, the king orders “Jerahmeel, the king’s son, along with Seraiah, Azriel’s son, and Shelemiah, Abdeel’s son, to arrest the scribe Baruch and the prophet Jeremiah” (36:26). To survive Jehoiakim’s brutality, Jeremiah employs a new modus operandi: conveying the divine word in written form. Ruthless despots can silence and even murder prophets, but justice scrolls are robust enough to endure their assaults. Even when kings destroy these scrolls, others can be produced, however painstakingly. Not long after his encounter with Jehoiakim, while still ensnared in conflicts with kings, prophets, and priests, Jeremiah dispatches a sefer “to the surviving elders among the exiles, to the priests, the prophets, and all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar deported from Jerusalem to Babylon” (29:1). Jeremiah’s sefer to the golah functions as a surrogate of oral prophecy with fewer spatial and temporal constraints. Not unlike its oral counterpart, and perhaps to an even greater extent, it elicits hostile reactions that place the prophet’s life in jeopardy (29:24–28).43 Still, the sefer survives, while attending to those who have suffered the ravages of despots from within and beyond the borders. The broad context of war, especially the resulting breakdown of Judah’s pre-exilic structures, distinguishes and defines sefer clusters in the book of Jeremiah (see sefer texts in Jer 25, 29, 30, 36, 45, and 51). Even the Scroll of Consolation is laced with loss and replete with war imagery. This is what YHWH says: We hear cries of terror; there is no peace. Ask and see: Can men bear children? 43 The written transcription of prophecy is a technological revolution of sorts with both advantages and disadvantages to its oral counterpart. As for benefits, written prophecy enjoys resilient and enduring qualities alien to divine spokespersons. Whereas prophets are constrained by spatial and temporal categories, the written word can operate freely in diaspora. This freedom, however, is a double-edged sword. Once prophecy departs from the speaker, it becomes susceptible to all kinds of transactions by bad players. Likewise, its shadow, not unlike traceable digital actions, can elicit violence and prolong hostilities.

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Then why do I see every man bent over in pain as if in labor? Why have all turned pale? That day is terrible, beyond words. A time of unspeakable pain for my people Jacob. Yet they will be rescued from it. (30:5–7)

These sefer texts pulsate with pain due to the violence of dangerous power brokers, both foreign and national. Despite these liminal spaces, Jeremian sefer clusters retain an idiom of hope in nearly every instance. Jeremiah 25:13 affirms that nothing “written in the scroll, which Jeremiah prophesied against the nations” will flounder. In this way, the scroll not only authorizes Jeremiah, God’s spokesperson and scroll-giver; it also dares to assert that YHWH, the God of refugees, will reduce the land of the oppressor “to a wasteland for all time,” a bold act of subversion which serves as a precondition to the reinstatement of ancestral promises. Although Jeremiah’s sefer in ch. 29 concedes that Judah’s deportation to Babylon will be long and difficult (vv. 4–9), it also maps out a passage of hope for the refugee community. The letter reaffirms God’s good intentions for God’s people, plans for peace, not for harm, and in due time the restoration of the golah to their homeland “when Babylon’s seventy years are up” (v. 10). In this way, the sefer encourages the refugee community not to lose heart. The scroll of consolation overflows with promising language (chs. 30–31; 32–33). The sefer imagines the golah’s deliverance, restoration, and homecoming (30:8–9, 10–11, 17, 18–22; 31:7–14; 32:6–44). 44 It stresses that God’s people will enjoy a renewed and everlasting covenant (31:31–34; 32:40) under the auspices of just and benevolent leaders (30:21; 33:19–22). In ch. 36, the sefer triumphs over unjust and malevolent political leaders, highlighting God’s purposes, inscribed in writing, realized in and through the vagaries of history. It also drives home that oppressive power brokers will not have the final say in Judah’s traumatized history. The brief scroll-related oracle to Baruch in Jer 45:1–5 encourages a weary scribe that he will survive the coming deluge of trouble, providing a “bright abyss” (Christian Wiman’s term) during a time of great scarcity. The final sefer vignette encourages hope and resilience with a daring liturgical act of resistance (51:59–64). Not unlike the rhetorical device of the Jeremiad, the Jeremian scroll is “suffused with…wrath, mystery, pathos, history, justice, and optimism.”45

44

Those addressed are “my people Israel and Judah.” This language derives from David W. Blight, “Obama’s Call to Save America,” New York Times, August 21, 2020. 45

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In sum, the transition from spoken word to written document in the book of Jeremiah is an aesthetic move that combats despair and humiliation no less than other artistic expressions that emerge during moments of existential threat, whether it be graffiti murals in West Baltimore, arts and crafts by American Japanese in internment sites, or drawings etched on prison walls by Salvadorian prisoners of war. As resistance literature, Jeremian sefer texts provide devastated communities, including the golah in Babylon, with fissures of hope, reassuring vulnerable and disoriented people that God still orients life and creates order out of chaos. They intimate and often envisage a future beyond the trauma of war and forced relocation. As such, they function as survival texts, mocking the violence of the empire by affirming that the weapons of the weak – mere words – are mightier than the brute force of the winners. 46 The very presence of the sefer bears witness to an unexpected future for the “historical losers.” Literature of loss rarely survives the revisionist networks of geo-political powerbrokers, both ancient and contemporary. The Jeremiah tradition and its sefer clusters is a remarkable exception. In this fissured and loss-laden literary world, the silenced voice of survivors returns in the idiom of rage, resistance, and hope. Not unlike other aesthetic expressions forged by the trauma of war and displacement – be it visual art, blood poetry, or street theatre – the apparatus of writing is a robust source for social transformation. It also provides a besieged prophet and a dislocated community a way to transform their shattered world into something of beauty and meaning.

46

James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985). When the powerful exploit the weapons of the weak, that is, scrolls or sacred texts, for their own unjust ends – such as when Donald Trump held a Bible in front of Ashburton House of St. John’s Episcopal Church on June 1, 2020 – it makes a cruel mockery of the entire enterprise.

Orientalism and the Hebrew Bible How the History of Science Dealt with the Historical Origins of the Idea of Laws of Nature Konrad Schmid 1. Introduction In the history of science, the emergence of the notion of “laws of nature” has often been considered, and the origins of that concept have usually been found in ancient Greek philosophy.1 The pre-Socratics seem to attest a logoslike order of the universe; Plato is the first to use the term “laws of nature,” and especially the Stoics describe certain regularities in the cosmos that they identify as theōrēmata. The so-called Orient – especially ancient Israel and Mesopotamia – has remained largely out of view with regard to the historical origin of the idea of “laws of nature” – unjustly so, because the evidence tells us otherwise. One can describe this situation in connection with Edward Said as an “Orientalism”: 2 the roots of the Western scientific tradition lie in the realm of what is quite tellingly identified as “classics,” to which the biblical and the cuneiform literature do not seem to belong.3 This approach, whose focus on ancient Greece simply neglects the ancient Near East, including the Hebrew Bible, shall be illustrated by means of a few examples. * This text was written in the context of the ERC Advanced Grant 833222 and has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. 1 See, in more detail, Konrad Schmid, “Der vergessene Orient: Forschungsgeschichtliche Bestimmungen der antiken Ursprünge von ‘Naturgesetzen’,” in Laws of Heaven – Laws of Nature: Legal Interpretations of Cosmic Phenomena in the Ancient World / Himmelsgesetze – Naturgesetze. Rechtsförmige Interpretationen kosmischer Phänomene in der antiken Welt, ed. Konrad Schmid and Christoph Uehlinger, OBO 276 (Fribourg: Academic Press; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016), 1–20. 2 On the discussion of Said’s Orientalism thesis and a sophisticated description of scholarship on Orientalism from its beginnings to the present, see Robert Irwin, Dangerous Knowledge: Orientalism and Its Discontents (Woodstock: Overlook, 2006). 3 Counter-examples include André Pichot, Die Geburt der Wissenschaft: Von den Babyloniern zu den frühen Griechen (Darmstadt: WBG, 1995), and Francesca Rochberg, Before Nature: Cuneiform Knowledge and the History of Science (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016).

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The Dictionary of the History of Ideas, for example, starts its entry on “Natural Law” with Greece and Rome without further ado.4 The philosopher Michael Hampe, one of the authorities on the history of the concept of nature in the modern period, writes the following when he addresses the historical origins of the concept in his study entitled “Eine kleine Geschichte des Naturgesetzbegriffs” (“A Small History of the Concept of the Law of Nature”): When one goes back to the premodern ancient usages of ‘nature’ and ‘law,’ then it becomes clear that the expression ‘natural law’ would have constituted an oxymoron in the semantic landscape of the time. For the Greek term νόμος represents a contrasting concept to φύσις since at least the 5th century BCE.5

Hampe’s basic argument of the contrast between νόμος and φύσις in Greek thinking cannot be discussed here, but one can easily recognize that what he calls “premodern antique usages” readily and without further discussion focus on Greek antiquity. Non-Greek sources do not come into view, and neither do cultural or historical connections between ancient Greece and the ancient Near East including ancient Israel. Another example appears in the detailed treatment of ancient precursors to the modern conception of natural law undertaken in 1995 by Wolfgang Kullmann (“Antike Vorstufen des modernen Begriffs des Naturgesetzes”). His long article contains the following structure: “1. Introduction, 2. The Archaic and Classical Period, 3. Plato and Aristotle, 4. The Orator, Theophrastus, Aristotle’s Rhetoric, Stoics, 5. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Philo, 6. Lucretius and Seneca, 7. The Imperial Period, 8. The Greek Church Fathers, 9. The Latin Church Fathers, 10. Conclusion.”6 The essay advances through Greek and Latin antiquity, in order to conclude with the Greek and Latin church fathers. Mesopotamia, Israel, and Egypt are omitted. In 2010 Kullmann followed up on this essay with a monograph treating the conception of natural law especially in the Stoics,7 which essentially expanded the chapter on the Stoics from the fifteen-year-old essay. This list of samples could easily be continued. 4

See Paul Foriers and Chaim Perelman, “Natural Law and Natural Rights,” DHI III:14. Michael Hampe, Eine kleine Geschichte des Naturgesetzbegriffs, STW 1864 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2007), 51 (translation K.S.). 6 Wolfgang Kullmann, “Antike Vorstufen des modernen Begriffs des Naturgesetzes,” in Nomos und Gesetz. Ursprünge und Wirkungen des griechischen Gesetzesdenkens: 6. Symposion der Kommission “Die Funktion des Gesetzes in Geschichte und Gegenwart,” ed. Okko Behrends and Wolfgang Sellert, AAWG.PK III/209 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995), 36–111 (translation: K.S.). 7 Wolfgang Kullmann, Naturgesetz in der Vorstellung der Antike, besonders der Stoa: Eine Begriffsuntersuchung (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2010). 5

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One can fairly say that neglecting the Orient is comparably well rooted in the Western tradition of the history of science. It is, however, correct that the very term of “laws of nature” (τοὺς τῆς φύσεως νόμους) appears first in ancient Greek texts. Plato’s Timaios (83e) mentions it – probably for the first time – but in a rather unspectacular context. This indicates that the term did not have a programmatic or foundational meaning. Plato describes diseased excretions of all kinds in humans and explains them as follows: all these substances (sc. diseased excretions) are natural instruments of diseases, when the blood does not naturally nourish from foods and drinks, but its mass takes on the opposite, against the laws of nature (παρὰ τοὺς τῆς φύσεως…νόμους).8

In this case the “laws of nature” are applied to humanity and its organism rather than to physics. The term is used metaphorically and lacks the universal dimension that characterizes the speculations on order such as those by the pre-Socratics. They, however, do not employ the term νόμοι “laws.” Anaximander speaks of the cosmos as organized κατὰ τὸ χρεών (“according to necessity”) and Heraclitus uses the term logos. Aside from the pre-Socratics and Plato, especially the Stoics have a reputation for arguing for a natural order to the cosmos: “The stoics understand [sc. the Heimarmene] a chain (εἱρμός) of causes that is an unbreakable order and reciprocal connection.”9 On the other hand, the specific terminology of natural laws is missing here, though the cosmic order is conceived of as governed by norms. However, as Susanne Bobzien has rendered more precisely, [t]he stoics are often assumed to have grounded their determinism on the idea of an allencompassing set of ‘laws of nature’, similar to some modern theories of determinism, and that such a concept lies behind Philopator’s principle. The assumption of such laws is an essential feature of those theories of determinism that are based on universal regularity. However…, what comes closest to modern laws of nature in early Stoic philosophy, the theorems (θεωρήματα) are precisely not causal laws, but superimposed regularities. Furthermore, …we have no signs that Philopator developed a concept of empirical laws of nature.10

Therefore, some reservations remain warranted even for the traditional, but short-sighted argument that ideas of “natural laws” were first articulated among the ancient Greeks: while the conception of a lawful order of the world is discernible among the Greeks, it is still strongly dynamic and socially shaped. 8

Platon, Timaios. Griechisch / Deutsch, ed. Rudolf Rehn and Thomas Paulsen (Leipzig: Reclam, 2003), 83e (translation: K.S.). 9 Rainer Nickel, ed., Stoa und Stoiker. Vol 1, Griechisch-lateinisch-deutsch (Düsseldorf: Artemis & Winkler, 2008), 510–11 (translation K.S.). 10 Susanne Bobzien, Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998), 374.

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2. Edgar Zilsel’s Pioneering Work To be fair, though, this tendency to exclude the Orient is not without exception in the history of science dealing with the origins of laws of nature. One figure in particular who deviates from the main trend was the Austrian philosopher Edgar Zilsel, who lived from 1891 to 1944. His essay “The Genesis of the Concept of Physical Laws,” published in 1942 during his American exile, proves especially interesting.11 He traces the pre-history and history of the concept of laws in and of nature from the Hebrew Bible into the seventh century CE. Even the span of this investigation alone is remarkable, as it does not start with the Greeks. His sensibility for the Hebrew Bible was motivated by his orthodox Jewish upbringing in Vienna, from which he detached himself increasingly in his adulthood in favor of Marxist views. Surprisingly, Zilsel first relativized the significance of the pre-Greek history of the concept of natural laws in a very general manner: “To primitive and oriental civilizations the notion of natural law was completely unknown.”12 It is even not entirely clear whether “primitive” and “oriental” are used here as synonyms or as complements. Zilsel then proceeds, however, de facto to contradict this statement by devoting three pages to biblical conceptions of lawful processes in nature13 and views these as follows: The roots of our concept go back to antiquity. They consist in a few passages of the Bible and the Corpus Juris.14

He cites the following biblical verses: As he [i.e. God] gave the wind its weight and determined the measurement of the water as he created the limit for the rain and a way for the lightning and thunder… (Job 28:25–26) Round about the water he drew a boundary, where light and darkness separate. (Job 26:10) I dug him [sc. the sea] a basin and gave him gate and cross bar. (Job 38:10) And I said: Until here and not further! here your proud waves must subside. (Job 38:11) You have set a boundary that they [i.e. the waters of the primordial flood] do not overstep, never again will they cover the earth. (Ps 104:9) 11 Edgar Zilsel, “The Genesis of the Concept of Physical Laws,” Philosophical Review 51 (1942): 245–79. 12 Zilsel, “The Genesis,” 245. 13 Zilsel, “The Genesis,” 247–49. 14 Zilsel, “The Genesis,” 247.

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…as he set a boundary for the sea, and the water did not overstep his command, as he established the foundations of the earth. (Prov 8:29) For I place the sand as the boundary of the sea, as an eternal barrier that it may not overstep. and the waves surge back and forth, they cannot reach anything, and though its swells roar, they will not overstep it. (Jer 5:22)

In these passages, Zilsel identifies the conception of a lawful determination of nature by God. Especially meaningful in his perspective is the fact that the Vulgate in two texts uses the term lex, a fact which he highlights explicitly: Job 28:26: … quando ponebat pluviis legem Prov 8:29: … et legem ponebat aquis

Noteworthy in these texts is the fact that both the regularity of nature and its non-regularity (i.e., the roaring waves) serve as expressions of God’s lawful order. Lawful processes in nature do not follow their own laws but rather the legal promulgation of God, who can cause both regularities and irregularities. In a certain sense, the Hebrew Bible thus reflects the difference between creatio prima and creatio continua, i.e., between the first creation and the ongoing creation: God imposes his law onto nature during the act of creation, but he continues to act as a creator by maintaining and controlling his creation. Obviously, this double notion of God’s actions in nature demonstrates the basic and most important difference between the perception of law in these biblical texts on the one hand and in modern physics on the other hand: The conception of physical law as it is used in the modern natural sciences, does not have notions of command and obedience.15

However, Zilsel remains convinced: We have met with the most ancient stage of the concept of physical law in nine verses of the Old Testament. [Job 28:25–26; 26:10; 38:10–11; Ps 104:9; Prov 8:9; 8:29; Jer 5:22] The influence of the Bible on occidental thinking is immense.16

15

Edgar Zilsel, Die sozialen Ursprünge der neuzeitlichen Wissenschaft, ed. Wolfgang Krohn (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1976), 66; this statement does not appear in the original English essay; cf. “These observations refer to certain empirical regularities and would not be so different from the statements made in modern physical laws, if only the regularities were specified” (Zilsel, “The Genesis,” 249). 16 Zilsel, “The Genesis,” 248.

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Zilsel is probably right in determining the Bible’s influence as “immense,” but, as we have seen, his insight has barely found its way into the history of science.

3. The Hebrew Bible However, he surprisingly makes no mention of the most obvious text passages for his topic that can be found in the Hebrew Bible. The following passages are even more striking than Zilsel’s examples, as they very explicitly apply legal language to cosmic phenomena:17 Thus says Yhwh, who made the sun to light for day, the regulations (‫ )חקת‬of the moon and the stars to light in the night, who puts the sea into movement, so that its waves roar, Yhwh Sabaoth is his name: If these regulations (‫ )החקים‬from me could disappear, declaration of Yhwh, then so also the descendants of Israel cease forever, to be a nation before me. (Jer 31:35–36) Thus says Yhwh: If my covenant with day and night does not persist, if I have not established the regulations (‫ )חקות‬of the heavens and the earth, then I would also reject the descendants of Jacob and David, my servant, such that I would no longer take rulers from his descendants to place over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But I will restore their fortunes and have mercy on them! (Jer 33:25–26) Have you in your life ever commanded the morning (‫)צוה‬, shown the dawn its place. (Job 38:12) Do you know the laws (‫ )חקות‬of the heaven, and do you assert its dominion on earth? (Job 38:33) Praise him [sc. Yhwh], sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars. praise him, you heavens of the heavens and you, water above the heavens. they should praise the name of Yhwh, for he commanded (‫)צוה‬, and they were created. He established them forever and eternally, he provided an order (‫)חק‬, and no one is able to violate it. (Ps 148:3–6) 17 This appears quite clearly in Hebrew Bible studies: “In jener Welt droben bestehen ‘Ordnungen’ oder Naturgesetze, die natürlich von Gott gegeben sind (vgl. Jer 31,35f; 33,25; Ps 148,6).” Georg Fohrer, Das Buch Hiob, KAT XVI (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlaghaus Mohn, 1963), 508. The importance of this text for the history of science is not, however, recognized sufficiently.

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Obviously, the terms for “to command” (‫)צוה‬, “regulations” (‫)חקות‬, and “order” (‫ )חק‬belong to the realm of legal terminology. The root ‫“ צוה‬to command” stands behind the expression “commandment” (‫ ;)מצות‬the Torah consists of 613 ‫מצות‬. “Regulations” (‫ )חקות‬designate the legal statements within a collection of laws.18 In terms of the dating of these Hebrew Bible texts, there is a controversial discussion that cannot be addressed here, but one can assume with high probability that all these texts arise from postexilic origins. In absolute terms, they are hardly earlier than the sixth century BCE.19 The universal interpretation of natural phenomena in the form of laws in the Hebrew Bible to some degree probably presupposes the experience of Persia’s universal and lawful hegemony, which was considered to be analogous to God’s universal and legal rule of the cosmos. In ancient Greece, democracy seems to be the background of the idea of nature’s legal and lawful organization. In the Hebrew Bible, it is the decentralized, partially autonomous legal management of a worldwide empire – Persia – whose individual parts live according to their own stipulations, that serves as a model for legal interpretations of the cosmos.

4. Mesopotamia Zilsel’s contribution, as important as it was, did however not take into account the Mesopotamian evidence for the idea of laws of nature and the cosmos which, to a certain extent, can be excused by the publication date of his article, 1941. The Hebrew Bible did not invent this conception of a legal organization of nature. Instead it was already anticipated in Mesopotamian texts. A fragmentary, but also sufficiently clear example appears first in the text K 7067, to be dated to the second millennium BCE, which Wayne Horowitz edited in his volume Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography:20 Ea in the Apsu … The Great Gods took council and their d[ecisions.] The stars, like a beaut[iful] glo[w of] 18 One may also mention Ps 19, which evokes the impression of the description of a correspondence of natural laws and Torah at least through its compositional juxtaposition of creation and law. Finally, one may also recall creation by speech in Gen 1, which seems to imply the conviction that the world has an intelligible, textual structure and its order can, so to speak, be read. See Mark S. Smith, The Priestly Vision of Genesis 1 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2010), 64–71. 19 See the overview in Konrad Schmid, The Old Testament: A Literary History (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012). 20 Wayne Horowitz, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1998), 147–48.

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The vast heavens [...] From sunrise to sunse[t] They multiplied the width by the height.

Despite the fragmentary nature of this text, one can recognize that it appears to trace the ordering of the celestial world back to divine ordinances. One should also mention Tablet 5 of the so-called Babylonian creation epic Enuma Elish, which does not focus primarily on the creation that comparative studies with the Bible find so interesting, but instead on the manifestation of Marduk’s supremacy over the divine world. This tablet reads as follows: He [sc. Marduk] made the position(s) for the great gods, He established (in) constellations the stars, their likenesses. He marked (ú-ad-di) the year, described its boundaries, He set up twelve months of three stars each. After he had patterned the days of the year, He fixed (ú-šar-šid) the position of Neberu to mark the (stars’) relationships. […] He made the moon [sc. Nannar] appear, entrusted (to him) the night. He assigned (ú-ad-di-šum-ma) to him the crown jewel of nighttime to mark the day (of the month): Every month, without ceasing, he exalted him with a crown. At the beginning of the month, waxing over the land, You shine with horns to mark six days, At the seventh day, the disk as [ha]lf. At the fifteenth day, you shall be in opposition, at the midpoint of each [month]. When the sun [sc. Shamash] f[ac]es you from the horizon of heaven, Wane at the same pace and form in reverse. At the day of di[sappeara]nce, approach the sun’s course, On the [ ] of the thirtieth day, you shall be in conjunction with the sun a second time. I d[efined]? the celestial signs, proceed on their path, […] approach each other and render (oracular) judgment. […] (EE V.1–22)21

The regularity of the celestial movements and the course of the moon are described here as the results of Marduk’s legislative design. However, it is sufficiently clear that the stars and moon could conduct themselves differently, if they so desired. Therefore the star Neberu – which means Jupiter – must keep watch so that none of the celestial bodies “sin,” which means to trespass Marduk’s laws. Unlike modern laws of nature, these ancient laws of nature could be broken.

21

Translation by Benjamin R. Foster, “Epic of Creation,” COS 1.111:390–401.

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The text that follows these regulations proves especially interesting, for it goes on to describe irregular natural phenomena such as the raging of the wind and of rainstorms: [...] The spittle, Tiamat [...] Marduk [...] collected it and made it into clouds. To raise the raging wind, to cause heavy rainfall, to make mists steam, to pile up her spittle (as snow?), he assigned to himself (ú-ad-di-ma ra-ma nu-uš), put under his control. (EE V.46, 50)

Both storms and heavy rainfall are subject to Marduk’s direct jurisdiction: the relevant terminology (wadû D-stem “to assign”) in EE V.52 is the same as in EE V.3, 13. The regularities and irregularities of heavenly and natural phenomena are not explained through the presence or absence of divine order, but rather with different hierarchical levels of divine responsibility: the deeper the anchor of responsibility, the more regular the corresponding phenomenon, for there are control mechanisms. Irregularities rest on the intervention of superior authorities of the divine world. An eloquent example appears in the text of EE IV.17–28, where Marduk is addressed by his divine parents: “O Lord, spare his life who trusts in you, But the god who has taken up evil, snuff out his life!” They set up among them a certain constellation, To Marduk their firstborn they said (these words), “Your destiny, O Lord, shall be foremost of the gods, Command destruction or creation, they shall take place. At your word the constellation shall be destroyed, Command again, the constellation shall be intact.” He commanded and at his word the constellation was destroyed, He commanded again and the constellation was created anew. When the gods, his fathers, saw what he had commanded, Joyfully they hailed, “Marduk is king!”

Marduk’s dominion over the gods manifests itself in his ability to make a constellation disappear and reappear again.22 The fact that he provides lawful regularities in the heavenly and natural world is the basic premise of the fact that extrapolation in the observation of the heavens or nature is possible: whoever observes the heavens or nature can predict what will happen. The

22

Matthias Albani, “‘Kannst du die Sternbilder hervortreten lassen zur rechten Zeit...?’ (Hi 38,32): Gott und Gestirne im Alten Testament und im Alten Orient,” in Das biblische Weltbild und seine altorientalischen Kontexte, ed. Bernd Janowski and Beate Ego, FAT 32 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001), 209.

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flourishing of divination in the ancient Near East builds its case on this conviction. The notion of the world’s fundamental regularity apparently triggered the use of legal language in the business of divining the future. Divinatory oracles include a protasis introduced by šumma (“if”), followed by an apodosis (“then”), and this grammatical structure reproduces the basic elements of legal language, as is evident, for example, from the famous Codex Hammurapi. Stefan Maul, the Assyriologist from Heidelberg, has plausibly described this feature in the following words: All complex sentences of this kind [sc. “if” – “then”] mean that the connection established by the linkage of the protasis and apodosis presents the disclosure of a lawfulness of the dynamic structure of the world in the ancient Near Eastern worldview.23

This fundamental correspondence between divinatory and legal language also appears in the analogous descriptions of the activities of the sun god Shamash on the one hand and the judicial activities of human judges on the other hand: Shamash the sun god is the guarantor of creational order. In prayers he is often described as muštēširu, “the one who brings into order” (>šutēšuru, i.e., ešēru Št-stem). Maul comments: Precisely this verb šutēšuru ‘to bring into order,’ is also the verb for the technical judicial term that describes the activity of a ‘profane’ judge, that is, the ‘establishment of justice.’24

Shamash’s creational order is thus a lawful one. The cosmos is structured according to legal principles of justice.

5. Conclusion These legal interpretations of celestial and natural phenomena in Mesopotamia and ancient Israel clearly prompt the history of science to reassess the origins of the idea of natural laws in past scholarship: the idea of a legal organization of nature is not originally a product of the Greeks, but of the Babylonians and ancient Israelites. 23

Stefan M. Maul, “Omen, Omina,” in Reallexikon der Assyriologie 10:45–88 (translation: K.S.). German original: “Allen Satzgefügen dieser Art ist in jedem Falle gemein, dass der durch die Verknüpfung von Protasis und Apodosis hergestellte Zusammenhang im altorientalischen Weltbild das Offenlegen einer Gesetzmässigkeit des dynamischen Weltgefüges darstellt.” 24 Stefan Maul, “Der assyrische König – Hüter der Weltordnung,” in Gerechtigkeit. Richten und Retten in ihrer abendländischen Tradition und ihren altorientalischen Ursprüngen, ed. Jan Assmann et al. (Munich: Fink, 1998), 65–77, here 66 (translation K.S.); cf. also šutēšuru in CH XXIV.73, XXV.38 and V.16.

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Of course, there are fundamental differences between ancient and modern understandings of law (some of which have already been mentioned) that need to be taken into account at this point. The legal interpretation of natural and cosmic phenomena in Mesopotamia and in the Bible follows the ancient Near Eastern understanding of law, which was not normative, but rather descriptive. Law was not placed above rulers in the ancient Near East, but instead held a position subordinate to them. Law was not a static, constant entity, but a malleable instrument of authority for an ancient Near Eastern king. Legal interpretation of celestial and cosmic phenomena in the ancient Near East and ancient Israel analogously follows the legislative activity of the particular deity, but in principle the heavenly bodies could also disobey their lawgivers. The conception of constant natural laws that are not subject to change is the later result of a profound transition in the understanding of laws in the ancient world. This transition can be observed in the early democracies of Greece and in post-state Judah in the Persian period. 25 Law in these postmonarchic societies came to be understood as a normative authority that itself had binding effects. Only in the wake of this process in legal history was the notion of never-changing and absolutely binding natural laws established.

25

Konrad Schmid, “Divine Legislation in the Pentateuch in its Late Judean and NeoBabylonian Context,” in The Fall of Jerusalem and the Rise of the Torah, ed. Peter Dubovský, Dominik Markl, and Jean-Pierre Sonnet, FAT 107 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 129–53.

“Unless You Have Utterly Rejected Us” Trauma, Poetry, and Theology in Lamentations* Corrine Carvalho 1. Introduction The year that was 2020 provided many opportunities for lament. The cavalcade of global disasters provided ample evidence that inequitable access to basic needs (housing, food, health care, and education) has everything to do with the intersections of politics, social systems, and post-colonial global economic structures. In the United States, these inequities were illustrated by the incommensurate responses to the Black Lives Matter protests after the murder to George Floyd over the summer, in contrast with the armed insurrection of the national Capitol in January, 2021. For much of the audience sequestered in voluntary isolations due to the COVID 19 pandemic, watching the daily news became a litany of “Why? How long?” We know that 2020 will shape our collective memory and identity. What rituals, what biblical imagination do we have to weave meaning from these tendrils of events? And what meaning will we create? As a white, cisgendered Christian in the U.S., this year has forced me to read the emphasis on shame in the book of Ezekiel, for example, in a whole new way and has demanded that I step back to examine my own location vis-à-vis the lamenting voices in the book of Lamentations.1 If I co-opt the voice of lament, I sound like a spoiled whiner, and if I analyze it from a so-called neutral position, I simply reinforce the invisibility of those most damaged in system-wide political and social failures. If I admit that I probably stand in the position of God in the text as the one responsible, I shudder, realizing I have just uncovered my own hubris. So, I must admit that the book of Lamentations is not about me.

* I humbly offer this short essay to my friend and colleague, Dr. Marvin Sweeney, whose work I admire and whose friendship I treasure. 1 For a similar discussion on anger in Lamentations, see Robert Williamson, Jr., The Forgotten Books of the Bible: Recovering the Five Scrolls for Today (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2018), 69–106, esp. 69–71 and 103–6.

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The co-option of laments has been common practice, however, since their inception in Sumeria millennia ago. Their liturgical setting is part and parcel of their language.2 That liturgical Sitz im Leben clings not only to the imagery and structures of the poems but persists in the reception history of the poems of Lamentations in both Judaism and Christianity. This paper will examine the book of Lamentations as providing a theology of liturgical lament as a means to unsettle the positionality of the ritual participants both in the ancient world and in ongoing practice.

2. Liturgical Laments in the Ancient Near East As many scholars have pointed out, the book of Lamentations has its closest literary parallels in the city laments from Mesopotamia. For the past forty years, scholars have examined the unique parallels between biblical communal laments, including the poems in Lamentations, and city laments found in the Mesopotamian corpus. 3 Dobbs-Allsopp concludes that Israel had developed its own tradition of city laments, reflected in Lamentations and other communal laments.4 The epic narratives of the collapse of cities, such as Sumer, Akkad, Ur, and Agade, verbalize assumptions about the relationship between urban disaster and the divine realm. These poems on the whole uphold the divine masculinized prerogative to act capriciously, abandoning populations at will, leaving them victim to violence and destruction. That divine male prerogative is not mitigated even by the laments of a patron 2

On Lamentations as a hybrid of ancient Near Eastern genres, see William S. Morrow, Protest against God: The Eclipse of a Biblical Tradition, Hebrew Bible Monographs 4 (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2006), esp. 107–19; Jill A. Middlemas, “Speaking of Speaking: The Form of Zion’s Suffering in Lamentations,” in Daughter Zion: Her Portrait, Her Response, ed. Mark J. Boda, Carol J. Dempsey, and LeAnn Snow Flesher, SBLAIL 13 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2012), 39–54. 3 See especially Mark I. Cohen, Balaǧ-Compositions: Sumerian Lamentation Liturgies of the Second and First Millennium B.C., SANE, vol. 1 fasc. 2 (Malibu: Undena, 1974), and Sumerian Hymnology: The Eršemma, HUCASup 2 (Cincinnati: KTAV, 1981); Paul Wayne Ferris, Jr., The Genre of Communal Lament in the Bible and the Ancient Near East, SBLDS 127 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1992); Walter C. Bouzard, Jr., We Have Heard with Our Ears, O God: Sources of the Communal Laments in the Psalms, SBLDS 159 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997); Hans Ulrich Steymans, “Traces of Liturgies in the Psalter: The Communal Laments, Psalms 79, 80, 83, 89 in Context,” in Psalms and Liturgy, ed. Dirk J. Human and Cas J. A. Vos, LHBOTS 410 (London/New York: T&T Clark, 2004), 168–234; Nathan Wasserman and Uri Gabbay, “Literatures in Conflict: The Balag Úru Àm-Ma-Ir-Ra-Bi and Its Akkadian Translation Uet 6/2, 403,” JCS 57 (2005): 69–84; and Morrow, Protest against God, esp. 81–93. 4 F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp, Weep, O Daughter of Zion: A Study of the City-Lament Genre in the Hebrew Bible, BibOr 44 (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1993).

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goddess, such as Inanna or Ishtar who pleads on behalf of the powerless. While the situation of a lament over the destruction of a city and the pathos placed in the mouth of a feminized mourner connects the Sumerian laments to the book of Lamentations, the considerable gap in time, location, and language argues against direct borrowing. Even if there had been an Israelite scribe conversant with these specific Mesopotamian texts, the parallels would likely not have been meaningful to the target audience. A more proximate parallel can be found in the liturgical laments, the balaǧs and Eršemmas which were used annually in Babylonian rituals throughout the Persian period. Many of these poems also lament urban and temple destruction, but in a generalized way, not tying the collapse to a particular historical event. 5 While we have liturgical texts that state on which days these songs should be intoned, we do not know, however, how they functioned within that overall annual calendar. For example, they are not tied to a specific high holy day, such as a New Year’s festival, so it is unclear how annual lamenting functioned in Mesopotamia. More importantly, although there are bilingual texts of the poems, these songs were sung by priests in a ritual dialect of Sumerian, Emesal, so it is unlikely they seeped into Israelite tradition by casual observers among the Judean exiles. The use of these bilingual texts is also not known: were the translated poems used outside of the cult, perhaps through a more popularized vehicle, or were these simply esoteric translations for ritual specialists or scribes, as is more likely? The use of esoteric Mesopotamian literature in exilic texts such as Ezekiel and Jeremiah, for example, has garnered increasing attention, including the question of whether the balaǧ formed part of that influence. Most recently, Robin Baker cogently argued that Jer 8:18–23 explicitly engages this Mesopotamian ritual form. 6 Most of these studies, however, such as those on Ezekiel by Winitzer and Stökl, operate at the level of written borrowings, concluding that these parallels stem from the esoteric work of elite scribes.7 5

Uri Gabbay has published many detailed studies of these Akkadian and Sumerian texts. He provides a nice overview of their liturgical and theological function in “The Balaǧ Instrument and Its Role in the Cult of Ancient Mesopotamia,” in Music in Antiquity: The Near East and the Mediterranean, ed. J. G. Westenholz, et al., YSJMRC 8 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014), 129–47, esp. 138–42. 6 Robin Baker, “Jeremiah and the Balaǧ-Lament? Jeremiah 8:18–23 Reconsidered,” JBL 138 (2019): 587–604. 7 Abraham Winitzer, “Assyriology and Jewish Studies in Tel Aviv: Ezekiel among the Babylonian Literati,” in Encounters by the Rivers of Babylon: Scholarly Conversations between Jews, Iranians, and Babylonians in Antiquity, ed. Uri Gabbay and Shai Secunda, TSAJ 160 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 163–216; Jonathan Stökl, “‘A Youth without Blemish, Handsome, Proficient in All Wisdom, Knowledgeable and Intelligent’: Ezekiel’s Access to Babylonian Culture,” in Exile and Return: The Babylonian Context, ed. Jonathan Stökl and Caroline Waerzeggers, BZAW 478 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015), 223–52.

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While such conclusions may be factually true, they do not give sufficient attention to either the performative nature of the Mesopotamian balaǧs nor to the performative setting of ancient Israelite laments.8 While certainly some rituals were secret or had more (even hidden) meaning to educated priestly performers, clearly one of the purposes of this material was its public, annual, and aural ritual performance, whose instrumentation would have been audible if not its words. In the ancient Near East there is evidence of annual ritual use of lamenting urban/sacred destruction in various places across a wide swath of time. This lamenting would represent the voice of the collective body performed by elite ritual specialists on behalf of and probably with at least the passive participation of elite citizens who benefited the most from the urban economy (monarchic households, landowners who could travel and owed taxes, city-based military personnel, and professional elite religious personnel). Given this social location, the laments memorialize the fragility of the web that supported their privilege. Although poems use the fate of the vulnerable, such as women and children, as elements to evoke empathy, the poems themselves actually stem from and serve masculinized interests.9 This brief review of liturgical laments in Mesopotamia, while not focused on specific textual parallels, does raise the probability of the following parallels in social function. First, liturgical lament is performative literature, meaning its target participants are not just esoteric elite scribes but rather some form of communal actualization (even if that actualization is performed by priests on behalf of the people). Second, its performance is not episodic or responsive, meaning it is not the spontaneous outpouring of a traumatized survivor. 10 While there are rich studies of Lamentations as trauma literature, I am less comfortable with the aim to recover the trauma of an individual than I am in the concept of collective and intergenerational trauma which are social realities. Instead, it is regularized, communal, and 8

The notable exception is Donna Lee Petter, The Book of Ezekiel and Mesopotamian City Laments, OBO 246 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011). 9 On gender issues in Lamentations, see Mary L. Conway, “Daughter Zion: Metaphor and Dialogue in the Book of Lamentations,” and Michael H. Floyd, “The Daughter of Zion Goes Fishing in Heaven,” in Boda, Dempsey, and Flesher, eds., Daughter Zion, 101–26 and 177–200, respectively, along with the bibliographies noted there. I follow Elizabeth Boase that the gendered nature of the various speakers in the book are significant elements of the poems’ meanings (“The Traumatized Body: Communal Trauma and Somatization in Lamentations,” in Trauma and Traumatization in Individual and Collective Dimensions: Insights from Biblical Studies and Beyond, ed. E. M. Becker, J. Dochhorn, and E. K. Holt, SAN 2 [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014], 193–209). 10 See the discussion of collective trauma in David Janzen, Trauma and the Failure of History: Kings, Lamentations, and the Destruction of Jerusalem, SemeiaSt 94 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2019) esp. 35–39.

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expected – part of a larger liturgical “narrative” constructed through a liturgical calendar. Third, while the efficacy of the performance is not located in it being heard but rather in the fact that it is voiced, its secondary effect is the formation of communal identity. Fourth, the rhetoric of the lament is designed to evoke empathy with the victims, rather than on the fear or hatred of a human enemy, past or future. Fifth, the rhetoric when seen in its ritual context targets male participants, who use the material in part to deflect their fear of shame, humiliation, and unmanning by eliciting the event as tragic, even if deserved. It now remains to be seen whether these elements that stem from a liturgical setting adhere to the material in Lamentations in its ancient context as well.

3. Lamentations as Liturgy of Memorialization When reading the book of Lamentations through the lens of other ancient Near Eastern liturgical laments, the relationship between audience and text immediately shifts from that of the text as object to that of language as performative.11 The audience does not stand outside of the text but participates in it as an element that creates sacralized time and space. There is no external object in text nor an ancient audience, only subject speaking, hearing and lamenting. To use a modern parallel, while the script of a Catholic Mass can be read and analyzed as an object and while it can be featured in a scene from a movie, this in no way substitutes for the purpose of the language and actions within a ritual context. These are all derivative uses of the material. In other words, the performative element of Lamentations comes to the fore when read through the lens of liturgical speech act. Liturgies create virtual space, to use terms from spatial theorists, in an overt and deliberative way. While sounds, including music and spoken word, are part of the strategy of creating that space, they do not function alone. Yet, when we think of the wide variety of elements that go into making the virtual 11

Performative analyses of Lamentations have become increasingly popular. See Carleen R. Mandolfo, Daughter Zion Talks Back to the Prophets: A Dialogic Theology of the Book of Lamentations, SemeiaSt 58 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007), and Elizabeth Boase, “Grounded in the Body: A Bakhtinian Reading of Lamentations 2 from Another Perspective,” BibInt 22 (2014): 292–306. For a similar approach to psalms of lament, see Carleen Mandolfo, God in the Dock: Dialogic Tension in the Psalms of Lament, JSOTSup 357 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2002). See also Nancy C. Lee, The Singers of Lamentations: Cities under Siege, from Ur to Jerusalem to Sarajevo, BibInt 60 (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2002); eadem, Lyrics of Lament: From Tragedy to Transformation (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2010), 159–62 (esp. 51); and Kelly M. Wilson, “A PerformanceCritical Analysis of Lamentations” (Ph.D. diss., The Catholic University of America, 2013).

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become real, we notice that they primarily focus on the active role that bodily sensations play. The space often engages not just sound but sight, smell, and sometimes taste. In the ancient world, touch was also utilized, especially through the feel of ritual clothing against the skin, the ground beneath bare feet and/or the weight and texture of an offering, branch, or votive item held in the hand. Although we know more about the use of these elements by the ritual specialists within the temple, there are enough references to worship and prayer practices by non-priests in Israelite texts to know that these extratemple rituals used incense, had figurines, participated in sacralized meals, raised and pilgrimaged with livestock, small animals, or foodstuffs to pay their temple taxes, etc. to know that extra-temple religious practices also involved the senses. Even the deity to whom worship was directed is described as smelling, tasting, and hearing. Although we do not have direct evidence of how the book of Lamentations would have been “originally” performed,12 as communal laments, they were not written to be read privately by individuals, nor do they suggest a function within the household. In this, their singular genre is more proscribed than the liturgical music preserved in the book of Psalms. The poems of Lamentations commemorate communal trauma by re-creating the experience of that trauma through metaphors and symbolic images. While the texts describe events that occurred in a real, lived space, the poems themselves create a virtual space of disaster and destruction.13 Their ancient urban setting places them squarely in the public square. The more difficult question is whether they were meant to be the liturgy of priests alone, performing the laments sequestered in the inner court, or whether their performance would have included the embodied experience of non-priestly participants. Scholars who hold that these are esoteric texts would emphasize their sequestered use, but that precludes neither more passive participation by non-priests (hearing the music while standing in an outer court, for instance) nor even active performance of the laments by professional mourners, such as mourning women, decidedly outside the inner court. These performances would also be liturgical even if performed outside the temple. While the use of the qinah meter and acrostic structures fit well within a liturgical context, the content of these five poems must be considered in any attempt to reconstruct their original setting. The imagery of the poems is not just evocative, but the emotions it evokes cast the city and its temple as a 12 On the later use and reception of Lamentations, see the essays in Robin A. Parry and Heath A. Thomas, eds., Great Is Thy Faithfulness? Reading Lamentations as Sacred Scripture (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2011). 13 Christl M. Maier, Daughter Zion, Mother Zion: Gender, Space, and the Sacred in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008), esp. 141–60.

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virtual space for memorialization. While often national identity is formed by recounting a glorious beginning, identity is also re-formed and re-inscribed by collective memory of communal disaster. For example, Jewish identity since the end of the Second World War is constructed as much by the Shoah as it is by the reign of David, while Christian identity is as much about the cross as it is the empty tomb. 14 Each poem in Lamentations has distinct speakers or voices, resulting in the story of the fall of the city being repetitively told from different perspectives; 15 this literary device supports the book’s focus on the collective element of this social memory.16 Just as the arrangement of space, use of physical memorials and engagement with words, testimony and signage in places such as the site of the World Trade Center, the memorial of the Oklahoma City bombing, and the Smithsonian’s Holocaust Museum all reinforce these spaces as sites of collective memory for the United States, so too the poems in Lamentations represent Jerusalem/Zion as a site of collective memory for the people of Yehud.17 The language functions to create that virtual space even while the physical place might be bustling with newly built sacred structures. It reminds the hearers that when they walk through Persian-period Jerusalem, when they pilgrimage to that site, it is not just a pilgrimage to a current functioning sacred space; it is also a place made holy by the bodies of the 14

On reading Lamentations through the lens of the Holocaust, see Tod Linafelt, “Margins of Lamentation, Or, The Unbearable Whiteness of Reading,” in Reading Bibles, Writing Bodies: Identity and the Book, ed. Timothy K. Beal and David M. Gunn, Biblical Limits (London/New York: Routledge, 1997), 219–31; idem, “The Impossibility of Mourning: Lamentations after the Holocaust,” in God in the Fray: A Tribute to Walter Brueggemann, ed. Tod Linafelt and Timothy K. Beal (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998), 279– 89; and Kelly M. Wilson, “Daughter Zion Speaks in Auschwitz: A Post-Holocaust Reading of Lamentations,” JSOT 37 (2012): 93–108. 15 See Janzen’s discussion of the repetitiveness of Lamentations in Trauma and the Failure of History, 89–120. 16 Adele Berlin, Lamentations, OTL (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002). Benjamin Morse compares them to a photo montage (“The Lamentation Project: Biblical Mourning through Modern Montage,” JSOT 28 [2003]: 113–27). 17 On sites of memory in the Bible and the U.S., see Christl M. Maier, “Lost Space and Revived Memory: From Jerusalem in 586 BCE to New Orleans in 2009,” in Interpreting Exile: Displacement and Deportation in Biblical and Modern Contexts, ed. Brad E. Kelle, Frank Ritchel Ames, and Jacob L. Wright, SBLAIL 10 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011), 365–76. I build on the theoretical framework of Mark S. Smith on collective memory in The Memoirs of God: History, Memory, and the Experience of the Divine in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004), esp. 124–40. On the concept of “traumascapes,” see Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Culture of Defeat: On National Trauma, Mourning, and Recovery, trans. Jefferson Chase (New York: Picador, 2003); Maria Tumarkin, Traumascapes: The Power and Fate of Places Transformed by Tragedy (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2005); and Allen Meek, Trauma and Media: Theories, Histories, and Images, RRCMS 23 (London/New York: Routledge, 2010).

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children boiled as food by compassionate mothers (Lam 4:10). In a previous article I used the phrase “Never forget” to describe this role of memorialization.18 Communal trauma is distinct from individualized trauma.19 While the two are interrelated, the hyper-individualism of U.S. culture has left the intergenerational effects of communal trauma in our own context invisible, even with the recent COVID 19 global tragedy. Only now are citizens of privilege starting to recognize that the sins of our fathers really have been visited upon the lives of the victims down through the generations. While Kelly Wilson identifies this as communal apathy 20 and Black theologians name this as collective amnesia, this is what I would call the “get over it” fallacy perpetrated by those whose identity is not shaped by that trauma. It often takes the form of privileged outsiders chiding a group shaped by that event to live in the present and not the past. But tragic events, especially those that reconfigure a group’s collective identity, narrative storyline, or memorialization of their pre-event past, also function as stories of origin. Symbolic traumas become a critical part of collective identity.21 The memorialization of that tragic event transforms factual history into deep symbol by shifting the physical details of that event into a virtual symbolic space that prioritizes elements that continue to shape present identity. The identity shaped by paradigmatic tragedy forms identity in at least four ways. It creates community by including the dead (joined by the witnesses who survived and gave testimony). It also strengthens social bonds in how it organizes a matrix of insiders and outsiders, whether that be through rhetoric of family and foreign, or friend and foe. Third, the testimony forms moral identity insofar as it re-inscribes certain moral codes, explicitly or implicitly. 18 Corrine L. Carvalho, “The Ethics of Survival in the Book of Lamentations: Trauma, Identity, and Social Location,” in Scripture and Social Justice: Catholic and Ecumenical Essays, ed. Anathea E. Portier-Young and Gregory E. Sterling (Lanham: Lexington, 2018), 65–85. 19 The analysis of the book of Lamentations as trauma literature has proven insightful. My work builds on these studies. See, for example, Tod Linafelt, Surviving Lamentations: Catastrophe, Lament, and Protest in the Afterlife of a Biblical Book (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001); Lee, The Singers of Lamentations; Kathleen M. O’Connor, Lamentations and the Tears of the World (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2002); Mandolfo, Daughter Zion Talks Back to the Prophets; Christl L. Maier, “Body Space as Public Space: Jerusalem’s Wounded Body in Lamentations,” in Constructions of Space II: The Biblical City and Other Imagined Spaces, ed. Jon L. Berquist and Claudia V. Camp, LHBOTS 490 (London/New York: T&T Clark, 2008), 119–38; Elizabeth Boase, “Fragmented Voices: Collective Identity and Traumatization in Lamentations,” in Bible through the Lens of Trauma, ed. Christopher G. Frechette and Elizabeth Boase, SemeiaSt 86 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2016), 49–66. 20 Wilson, “Daughter Zion Speaks in Auschwitz.” 21 See Meek, Trauma and Media.

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Lastly, for the biblical material at least, communal identity hinges on belief in a particular God. 22 Therefore, the depiction of who YHWH is becomes an essential element of biblical identity formation. Therefore, Israelite accounts of the comprehensiveness of the fall of Judah are not about recounting facts; it is a way to express that Judean identity changed for all members of that community in the events surrounding Babylonian colonization. Jerusalem is a symbol, not for the other towns, but for a collective psyche. The use of the balaǧs in contemporaneous Babylonia and the poems in Lamentations on an annual cycle add an additional layer to the function of memorialization of tragedy: regularized performance of the memorialization of tragedy.23 Such regularization bolsters the effect of that material on continuity of the communal identity formed by those laments. The fall of Jerusalem in 587 BCE is lifted up over most other national tragedies that dotted Judean histories, including other sieges of the city (although the one under Hezekiah plays a close second), any number of natural disasters, and any internal civil unrest. The book of Deuteronomy expressly commands repetition of the narrative of enslavement in Egypt and law-giving at Horeb as an event that must be regularly evoked so that each generation becomes part of the collective that was “there” through this virtual construal of time and space. Similarly, the conjuration of Zion’s corpse on the same hill that holds a new temple aims to create its own virtual reality for the participant who is physically standing in a safe place. The ritual, while not always effective at the individual level, is effective as the communal transformation of the standpoint of the assembly, to use a biblical term. The ritualized, regularized recitation attempts to reinforce the threads that tie the present community to the experience of these figures in the past. In contemporary memorials, one strategy to accomplish this is by adding elements that communicate that this event could happen anywhere at any time especially for the target group who is constructed as part of this intergenerational collective.24 In Lamentations, the use of generic sins and the relative facelessness of the enemy both serve to disconnect the symbolic event from the particularities that led to it and tie them tightly to the group’s perennial identity.25 22

See Smith, The Memoirs of God. Delbert R. Hillers connects references to communal lamenting in later biblical texts to later Jewish liturgical use of Lamentations to suggest a continuity of use (Lamentations: Introduction, Translation, and Notes, AB 7A [Garden City: Doubleday, 1972]). 24 Steed Vernyl Davidson notes that the effects of exile are felt in multi-generational contexts (Empire and Exile: Postcolonial Readings of the Book of Jeremiah, LHBOTS 542 [London/New York: T&T Clark, 2011], esp. 9–11). The same is true for collective trauma. 25 Yehoshua Gitay notes that the language in Lamentations presents these events as universal human experiences (“The Poetics of Exile and Suffering: Memory and Perceptions: A Cognitive-Linguistics Study of Lamentations,” in Exile and Suffering: A Selection of 23

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One effective method for double-knotting that tie is through the evocation of empathy for symbolic sufferers of the source event.26 In the film Titanic, the fictional Jack becomes the “every man” through whom the audience boards the ship surreptitiously, serves as witness to the tragedy, and then disappears into the deep abyss of non-existence at the end of the film. In the book of Lamentations, the representative figures who narrate the poems play the role of avatar.27 These varying avatars serve two functions. They provide various audiences entrance into the symbolic re-creation, and they provide a single performative participant opportunities to view the disaster from several vantage points as a way to communicate the symbolic totality of the disaster. This was not a disaster reserved for impoverished landowners or for the royal household. Like COVID, this disaster reached its tendrils into every home and workplace. Most importantly, however, the cacophony of voices personalizes a national event, making it more than a date in an annal. It returns flesh to the buried skeletons under the pilgrims’ feet.

4. Deflection, Fear, and God Besides forming identity, what other theological and social functions did liturgized laments have? As Cohen and Gabbay suggest for the Mesopotamian laments, in part they had an apotropaic effect. The music appeased the divine realm for any perceived dishonor that might ensue from a particular human behavior.28 This function, however, is only tangentially engaged in the book of Lamentations. While some scholars do maintain that the

Papers Read at the 50th Anniversary Meeting of the Old Testament Society of South Africa OTWSA/OTSSA, Pretoria August 2007, ed. Bob Becking and Dirk Human, OtSt 50 [Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2009], 203–12). 26 On empathy in trauma literature, see E. Ann Kaplan, Trauma Culture: The Politics of Terror and Loss in Media and Literature (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005); eadem, “Empathy and Trauma Culture: Imaging Catastrophe” in Empathy: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives, ed. Amy Coplan and Peter Goldie (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 255–76. 27 Several scholars have criticized the tendency of older scholarship on Lamentations to privilege the male voice of the third poem which provides the most optimistic outlook on the tragedy. See, for example, Linafelt, Surviving Lamentations, and Archie Chi Chung Lee, “Mothers Bewailing: Reading Lamentations,” in Her Master’s Tools? Feminist and Postcolonial Engagements of Historical-Critical Discourse, ed. Caroline Vander Stichele and Todd Penner, GPBS 9 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005), 195–210. 28 See also Anne Löhnert, “Manipulating the Gods: Lamenting in Context,” in The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture, ed. Karen Radner and Eleanor Robson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011; DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/99780199557301.013.0019).

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Lamentations are meant to appease Israel’s god,29 in the Mesopotamian texts this function seems only to pertain to the use of the laments in demolition and restoration of temple structures. Given that we do not know how these same balaǧs were used in the context of the regular calendar rituals, it is impossible to conjecture their ritual function with respect to God. Later Jewish use of the recitation of Lamentations to commemorate the destruction of the temples provides an additional, albeit anachronistic, avenue to explore their function. The identity of the original or ideal audience of the poems in Lamentations is itself not straightforward. The book contains multiple direct pleas to God to respond to the suffering that is being described. These pleas are scattered throughout the book (Lam 1:20–22; 2:18–22; 3:55–66; 5:19–22), and the collection ends with this final plea, “unless you have utterly rejected us and are angry with us beyond measure” (5:22 NRSV). As a ritual text, God is presumably the ideal audience; 30 the rituals are addressed to YHWH, who should somehow be effected by or respond to the ritual action. The ritual context of the plea, however, actually complicates the question of how this literature is supposed to have functioned vis-à-vis God. First, although God as ideal audience within the narrative framework of the poems makes sense, can the same conclusion be made if the poems were not written in the immediate context that they describe, that is, if they were written to be used in later ritual contexts? As alluded to above, it is highly unlikely that the poems were being written as the city was falling. There must have been some distance from the events that tore apart Judah’s social fabric and the production of literature that reflected on it. Given the highly structured nature of these poems, the fact is, the poems as we have them more likely stem from a later period, when there was enough social stability and support to create textual versions of the poems.31 This would mean that they were textualized not as immediate pleas to God to relieve present suffering.32 The appeals to God serve a different function. 29 Edward L. Greenstein asserts that this is exactly the purpose of the poems in Lamentations (“The Book of Lamentations: Response to Destruction or Ritual of Rebuilding?,” in Religious Responses to Political Crisis in Jewish and Christian Tradition, ed. Henning Graf Reventlow and Yair Hoffman, LHBOTS 444 [London/New York: T&T Clark, 2008], 52–71). 30 See Parry, “The Ethics of Lament.” 31 See the discussion of the textualization of warrior poetry in Mark S. Smith, Poetic Heroes: Literary Commemorations of Warriors and Warrior Culture in the Early Biblical World (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014) esp. 284–307. Smith deals with a very different genre of poetry, from a very different period of social change for Israel than are applicable to the book of Lamentations. 32 I am influenced in part by the work of Ehud Ben Zvi and Robert Wilson. See, for example, Ben Zvi’s “The Prophetic Book: A Key Form of Prophetic Literature,” in The

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Is God then actually only a character in the book (with a silent but active role in the drama) who is supposed to empathetically respond to the choruses of voices singing their laments? Or, when these were sung, did those participating in these rituals understand them as direct addresses to God? But, if so, what are the poems asking God to do? To be sure, the same conundrum exists for the Mesopotamian city laments. Like many other texts in the Hebrew Bible, the voices in Lamentations both voice a challenge to this divine being while also portraying YHWH as distant, unmoved, and pitiless – characteristics that make the human challenge even more bold and daring.33 Instead, the poems in the book of Lamentations depict the disaster as a conscious act of the divine will who brokers no pity. It projects God as a dangerous, powerful being, who is not capricious so much as hyper-righteous.34 When this deity says the whole nation will be destroyed, that means every bit of it. Since God is not being asked to do anything for the worshipping audience, then the ideal audience is not God but rather the collective assembly. This fits well with the social purpose of collective memorialization of tragic events. For the worshipping audience, while they know that God had not utterly rejected them, the poems require them to identify with their ancestors whose experiences did lead them to this foundational issue of theodicy. The collective body identifies itself as the subject of a near-death experience that has indelibly changed their view of God, human vulnerability, and the precariousness of systems that had provided what was only temporary security.

Changing Face of Form Criticism for the Twenty-First Century, ed. Marvin A. Sweeney and Ehud Ben Zvi (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 276–97, and Wilson’s “The Persian Period and the Shaping of Prophetic Literature,” in Focusing Biblical Studies: The Crucial Nature of the Persian and Hellenistic Periods; Essays in Honor of Douglas A. Knight, ed. Jon L. Berquist and Alice Hunt, LHBOTS 544 (London/New York: T&T Clark, 2012), 107–20. On texts as sites for collective memory, see Ehud Ben Zvi, “Towards an Integrative Study of the Production of Authoritative Books in Ancient Israel,” in The Production of Prophecy: Constructing Prophecy and Prophets in Yehud, ed. Diana V. Edelman and Ehud Ben Zvi, Bible World (Sheffield: Equinox, 2009), 15–28. 33 F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp, “R(az/ais)ing Zion in Lamentations 2,” in David and Zion: Biblical Studies in Honor of J. J. M. Roberts, ed. Bernard F. Batto and Kathryn L. Roberts (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2004), 21–68. 34 On ethics in the book of Lamentations, see O’Connor, Lamentations and the Tears of the World. Other notable studies are F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp, “Lamentations,” in Dictionary of Scripture and Ethics, ed. Joel B. Green (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 460–61; Robin A. Parry, “The Ethics of Lament: Lamentations 1 as a Case Study,” in Reading the Law: Studies in Honour of Gordon J. Wenham, ed. J. Gordon McConville and Karl Möller, LHBOTS 461 (London/New York: T&T Clark, 2007), 138–55; Corrine L. Carvalho, “Lamentations,” in Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Ethics, ed. Ralph Klein (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), and “The Ethics of Survival.”

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If we presume that the target audience would always include elite males – a reasonable conclusion given the book’s symbolization of the fate of elite spaces, how does the use of the fate of the vulnerable (women, children, elderly, etc.) to evoke empathy either reshape or reinforce the collective identity? For post-exilic Yehud the collective conjuration of the fall of a feminized city threatened to trigger elite male shame. Performance of patriarchal masculinity depended in large part on their ability to protect their households, as demonstrated by Chapman.35 Mothers who need to cook the corpses of dead offspring necessitate a male unable to provide for the basic needs of those in his care. Unlike poems recalling military defeat which do portray the unmanning of masculine soldiers, the poems in Lamentations do not participate in the rhetoric of gender shaming in an overt way. There are no taunts of the unmanned, no distancing from those who suffered and died. These poems recast the horrors rhetorically predicted as thoroughly justified by the material in Jeremiah and Ezekiel, for example, into testimony by those whose bodies were desecrated in the siege. There is no divine voice who objectifies the victims. Rather, in bitter irony, the poems objectify the God who is responsible. As a result, the poems both deflect the gaze of the audience away from male fear, which is shameful, and onto the collateral damage. To be sure, this deflection does elicit fear in the performative audience who never wants to be in that position again, but it does not depict the male characters in the poem as shameful cowards. While the speakers present themselves as sinners, deserving of a certain amount of divine punishment, there is only general confession of generic sin (e.g., Lam 1:5, 8, 18, 22; 3:42; 4:6, 13, 22; 5:7, 16). In other words, the fear clings to the ritual audience, rather than to the lamented dead.36 Instead, the texts give witness to the atrocities the citizens were reduced to.37 The result feels like an uncensored tour through a city in complete collapse. In addition to references to cannibalism, there are graphic images of the myriad ways people died: the wasting death from hunger (1:11; 4:4), the deteriorating bodies of the once healthy elite (2:10; 4:7–8), the rape of women (1:8; 5:11),38 the violent fate of men (2:3–4), the slow death of children (2:11–12), and the inescapable capture of those who thought they

35 Cynthia R. Chapman, The Gendered Language of Warfare in the Israelite–Assyrian Encounter, HSM 62 (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2004). 36 Mary E. Mills, “Deathscape and Lament in Jeremiah and Lamentations,” in Jeremiah Invented: Constructions and Deconstructions of Jeremiah, ed. Else K. Holt, and Carolyn J. Sharp, LHBOTS 595 (London/New York: T&T Clark, 2015), 74–86. 37 On Lamentations’ theology of witnessing, see O’Connor, Lamentations and the Tears of the World, 96–109. 38 Maier, Daughter Zion, Mother Zion, 146–49.

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had escaped (5:9). 39 This protection of the character of the victims is an essential element of social memory of communal experience displayed as tragedy. This rhetorical move, then, also supports the strategy of reading Lamentations as liturgical, performative script. Although we cannot pinpoint when the poems in Lamentations became part of an annual liturgical calendar, or even if they were, from the beginning, preserved in writing because they were composed specifically for that setting, their ability to evoke the right responses to communal tragedy make this use unsurprising. 40 At some point, they became part of the ritual contours of collective identity. In the Second Temple period, with the reconfiguration of elite male status in colonized, king-less Yehud and the threat of shamed masculinity always present, the poems provide voice to those unduly burdened by the structures of colonizing power then in place. This was an identity that spoke to and for that colonized collective. The people who starved first when taxes became too high, the people who were displaced by occupying imperial structures of law and order, the bodies that were physically and sexually assaulted by those above reproach were the very same voices in Lamentations whose countenance had been changed and whose bodies had been scarred. Although some scholars argue that Persian imperial power was rather benevolent, even in that context, empire created and sustained systemic hierarchies based on ethnic identity. The book of Lamentations, then, contains poems used in liturgical settings to form collective identity through the performative enactment of the pleas of the empathetic victims. For the ideal Yehudite audience of the Second Temple period, this identity formation both inculcates pathos for those whose bodies became the site of imposition of foreign imperial power as well as the rightness of both lamenting and protesting that fate. By not composing the poems from the perspective of God or the prophetic intermediaries, the poems negotiate the tension between the role of structured worship in continuing 39

Simon B. Parker, “Graves, Caves, and Refugees: An Essay in Microhistory,” JSOT 27 (2003): 259–88, esp. 273. 40 Although the date of when the poems were written is debated, in general, scholars seem to assign them to the period of the exile. See, for instance, F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp, Lamentations, IBC (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002). Jill Middlemas ascribes them to those who were not exiled (The Troubles of Templeless Judah, OTM [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005], esp. 171–228), while Wilkins attributes them to urban elites for whom the fall of the city had a more devastating impact than for rural peasants (The Book of Lamentations and the Social World of Judah in the Neo-Babylonian Era, Biblical Intersections 6 [Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2010]). On the book’s meaning beyond their historical context, see Paul M. Joyce, “Sitting Loose to History: Reading the Book of Lamentations without Primary Reference to Its Original Historical Setting,” in In Search of True Wisdom: Essays in Old Testament Interpretation in Honour of Ronald E. Clements, ed. Edward Ball, JSOTSup 300 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999), 246–62.

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communal identity and the reality of the near loss of that identity through the imposition of imperial power.

5. Recovery of Lamentations as Forming Communal Identity My questions do not end there. Where were the Persians, the Seleucids, the Ptolemies, or the Romans when the Jews sang their laments? Where were the Jewish cohorts who supported and sustained this structural imposition? 41 Today, where are those, like me, who benefit from structures of colonial imposition, when we hear the poems of the colonized in our own ritual settings? To put in another way, whose identity do the poems of Lamentations shape today? This question is not a new one;42 in fact, it is part of the context within which Lamentations itself was created. The poems in Lamentations subvert the hegemonic power of the colonizer, sometimes openly, but more often subtly.43 Archie Lee has demonstrated how the subversive nature of the voice of Daughter Zion in Lamentations is better understood from the perspective the Tiananmen Mothers Campaign, a group that practices civil disobedience by publicly mourning the dead of the 1989 protests.44 Lee notes, “The lament does not seek to explain but instead represents the prevailing struggle to counteract national power and massive violence that threatens life.”45 The continuing relevance of the strategies that Lamentations uses to restructure identity stands in clearer focus in contrast to a book like Ezekiel. The rhetoric in Ezekiel deliberately avoids the evocation of empathy and instead shames the masculinized elite audience as the ones responsible for the deaths of innocents portrayed in Lamentations. If used in a ritual setting, the identity that would be formed by Ezekiel would be that of debasement, 41 On the inter-generational effects of forced migration, see John J. Ahn, Exile as Forced Migrations: A Sociological, Literary, and Theological Approach on the Displacement and Resettlement of the Southern Kingdom of Judah, BZAW 417 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011). 42 Paul M. Joyce and Diana Lipton (Lamentations through the Centuries, WBBC [Malden; Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013]) briefly describes some prominent ethical objections to reading the book at all. 43 See Robert Williamson, Jr., “Lament and the Arts of Resistance: Public and Hidden Transcripts in Lamentations 5,” in Lamentations in Ancient and Contemporary Cultural Contexts, ed. Nancy C. Lee and Carleen Mandolfo, SBLSymS 43 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008), 67–80; Carolyn J. Sharp, “Sites of Conflict: Textual Engagements of Dislocation and Diaspora in the Hebrew Bible,” in Kelle, Ames, and Wright, eds., Interpreting Exile, 365–76; Carvalho, “The Ethics of Survival.” 44 Lee, “Mothers Bewailing,” 195–210. 45 Lee, “Mothers Bewailing,” 201.

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subservience, and penance. Neither material, however, plays a large role in contemporary Christian lectionaries, not even during Lent when Christians are called to reflect on their sinfulness. In the United States, where Christianity is part of the dominant culture, we must recognize the ways that Christian structures, like the Lectionary, support systemic oppression by continuing to foster collective amnesia, rendering invisible those who today suffer because of the systems created by the dominant culture. If the purpose of Lent is to evoke collective repentance and public acknowledgment of sinfulness, then should not Christian liturgies engage the uncomfortable rhetoric of Ezekiel? Instead, we fetishize the bleeding body of Jesus who becomes our avatar and create a false collective identity as noble sufferers. Or we rush to the triumph over death on Easter Sunday, without lingering with the unanswered question: Could God utterly reject us? White Christians in America cannot sing Lamentations as texts of collective identity. To do so would not only be inappropriate, it would be immoral. Our identity has been shaped by our willingness to colonize, rape, and pillage especially indigenous and Africana bodies. Our continued identity builds on the foundation of a global economy that is willing to remain blind to the global exploited labor that we bury beneath the surface. Our so-called safety and security depends on a racialized and monetized judicial system. No, what white Christians need today is not to sing Lamentations, but rather to listen to those who identify with its horrors and place ourselves in the function of the perpetrators who thought we were God. Those migrating away from systemic white Christianity in the United States today do so because they see the ways in which that institution has created and sustained the inequities that we now experience. They know it is time for institutionalized Christianity to reform identity through Ezekiel and not co-opt the songs of lament, drowning out those whose identity stems from a font of unjust embodied oppression, violence, assault, and starvation of basic needs. Psalm 137 asks, how can we sing a song of Zion in a foreign land? The question today is, how can we sing a song of Zion if we have been the agents of its destruction? Where do we turn to reform the collective identity of hegemonic Christianity? The book of Lamentations suggests that we do so only by remaining silent, listening to the authentic songs of lamentations that surround us today.

The Pauline Understanding of “the Day of the Lord” in Relation to “the Day of YHWH” in the Book of Zephaniah Mariko Yakiyama 1. Introduction: “Imminent” Eschatological Hope in 1 Thessalonians? In Christian theology, it is widely believed that Paul predicted that the Parousia (παρουσία), Christ’s second-coming, was imminent. Because it did not happen in Paul’s time, nor has it happened yet, theologians began to develop the concept of the delay of the Parousia.1 But what if Paul did not mean the Parousia was imminent? I contend that in 1 Thessalonians Paul insisted on the certainty of the Parousia, but he did not specify when it would be. Only 1 Thess 1:10 seems to suggest imminence, as I will argue, because of the influence of the words of the prophet Zephaniah. In this paper, I will examine 1 and 2 Thessalonians in light of Zephaniah to show that Paul only emphasized the certainty, but did not insist on the imminence of the Parousia. After this, I will examine the rest of the Pauline epistles to see if what I observed in 1 and 2 Thessalonians is applicable to the other Pauline letters. Finally, I will conclude that not even in Rom 13:12 and 1 Cor 7:29, which many scholars cite as the basis for their conclusion that Paul meant imminence, was this the case. Marvin Sweeney pointed out that “the Day of YHWH” in the book of Zephaniah does not entail an eschatological scenario of the end of human history but “represents an ideal scenario of what might take place within time and within human events,” such as “the purification of its religious observance from within.”2 This causes us to question whether or not Paul insisted upon the imminence of Parousia and leads to the conclusion that not only the words of Zephaniah, but also the words of 1 and 2 Thessalonians, do not insist on eschatological imminence. 1 and 2 Thessalonians taught readers to live faithfully while waiting for the Parousia as it would be actualized in God’s timing. 1 Gerd Theissen, Das Neue Testament (Munich: Beck, 2015), 128. He expressed the delay of the Parousia as “Parusieverzögerung” or “Parusieenttäuschung.” 2 Marvin Sweeney, Zephaniah, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 81.

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2. Timing of the Parousia: Imminent Parousia or Sudden? Many commentators argue that 1 Thessalonians expresses Paul’s enthusiastic hope for an imminent Parousia. I will first examine 1:10, where the theme of God’s wrath is introduced, and I will examine passages where the word Parousia is used. The word Parousia is used in 2:19; 3:13; 4:15; 5:23.3 2.1. Precise Descriptions of the Parousia in 1 Thessalonians Paul first wrote about the Parousia in 1:9–10 as “They [Thessalonians] are preaching about us [Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy] what sort of entrance we made, how you turned to serve the living and faithful God, leaving from idols, waiting for his [God’s] son from heaven whom he raised from the dead. Jesus is our savior from the coming wrath.”4 When Paul wrote that Christ is “our savior from the coming wrath” in 1:10, was he referring to God’s wrath in an eschatological judgment or in a cyclically repeated religious purification? (1) Coming Wrath in 1:10. The wrath was the main characteristic of the Parousia in 1 Thess 1:10, in which Paul said the wrath is coming (τῆς ὀργῆς τῆς ἐρχομένης). There are so many parallel sayings in the Hebrew Bible that Paul must have received this image from them. For example in Isa 13:9, “the Day of the Lord” was “the Day of Gods’ wrath” (ἡμέρα κυρίου ἀνίατος ἔρχεται θυμοῦ καὶ ὀργῆς), as well as in Zeph 1:18 (ἡμέρᾳ ὀργῆς κυρίου) and in 2:3 (ἐν ἡμέρᾳ ὀργῆς κυρίου). Paul, however, when he adopted the idea of the wrath of the Lord in 1 Thessalonians, did so focusing upon salvation from it5 as in 1 Thess 1:10 and 5:9. In 2:19 and 3:13, Paul talked about the reward he was expecting because of the Thessalonians’ enthusiastic faith before God in 2:19: “Who is our hope and joy and crown of pride in front of our Lord in his coming, if is it not you?”; and in 3:13: “May your hearts strengthen blamelessly in front of our God the father in the Parousia of our Lord Jesus with all the saints belonging to him.” Although these descriptions of the Parousia are distinctive, there is no indication of when it would happen. In 4:13–18, Paul described 3 James D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 298–305. 4 Here and in the following the translations are my own. 5 Only in 2:16, punishment caused by the wrath is indicated. The clause, “the ultimate wrath fell on” (ἡ ὀργὴ εἰς τέλος) invited numerous arguments. For example, Bruce’s translation “to the utter most” in 1 and 2 Thessalonians, WBC (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1982), 48, is similar to my translation, though without an eschatological connotation. Gordon D. Fee translated “at last” (The First and Second Letters to the Thessalonians [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009], 90). James Dunn translated “in particular” (Dunn, The Theology of Paul, 299 n. 24).

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how “the Day” would be and discussed the timing of the Parousia in 5:1–11 so that both passages require more careful examination to find out if Paul said it was near. (2) The Parousia for the Dead in 4:13–18. In 1 Thess 4:13–18, Paul wrote what would happen when the Parousia was realized. “This we say to you according to the word of the Lord that we, living until the coming of the Lord, would not come before those who are sleeping” (4:15). In short, Paul told the Thessalonians that those who are alive at the Parousia will not be ahead of the dead (4:15) but the dead and alive jointly meet Jesus (4:10–17). The word which indicates the dead in v. 13 is κοιμωμένων. The verb “sleep” is used in the present participle form indicating the progressive action for those who are now about to sleep and/or those who are sleeping. Many commentators, such as Theissen, understood v. 13 to mean that there was someone in the Thessalonians’ congregation who had passed away. Normally, however, to describe those who had previously passed away, the aorist participle form is used as in the following vv. 14 and 15 (κοιμηθέντας). The present participle can “denote a relatively future action with various nuances.”6 As a result, Paul by saying “those who are about to fall in sleep,” tried to think about the death of believers in the future. If so, Theissen’s argument is not likely; the sudden death of the believers caused confusion in the congregation because they feared these believers would not have a chance to experience the Parousia that Paul taught.7 Theissen also concluded that Paul must have written 1 Thess 4:17 to encourage believers in doubt, saying not to give up their eschatological hope.8 Dunn also understood that Paul wrote 1 Thessalonians in response to the sudden death of believers.9 I, however, propose to read v. 13 without implying there was a sudden death in the Thessalonian congregation. I do not think v. 13 suggests a sudden death in the Thessalonian congregation, because in 4:17 Paul writes that Christians, both alive and dead would be with Christ at the Parousia which does not require any circumstantial conditions. 6

F. Blass and A. Debrunner, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, trans. Robert W. Funk (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), 174–75. 7 Fee also comments that someone from the believing community “apparently unexpectedly” died, but he seems to place more focus on Paul’s purpose of this passage to encourage those who are in sorrow and to have hope (v. 18). See Fee, The First and Second Letters to the Thessalonians, 166. 8 Theissen, Das Neue Testament, 40–42. See also Dunn, The Theology of Paul, 299: “Some of the Thessalonian believers had died. The implication is that the other Thessalonians believers feared that those who had died would therefore be disadvantaged or even missed out at the Parousia” (4:15). To those, Paul replied as in 4:13–17:9. 9 Dunn, The Theology of Paul, 302–5.

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(3) Gathering of the Dead and the Living in 4:15. There is another disputed issue related to 4:15: “This we say to you according to the word of Lord that we, living until the coming of the Lord do not have advantage over those who are sleeping.” The main issue in this verse is how to interpret “the word of the Lord.” F. F. Bruce noted that in the Hebrew Bible, “the word of the Lord” was the words of the prophets as conveyed through the spirit of God, so that some take “the word of the Lord” as the words that Paul had received through the spirits “in the name of the risen Lord.”10 It is simpler, however, to understand that Paul was implying the Jesus tradition by his use of “word of the Lord.” There are similar passages where Paul quoted or implied Jesus’ word by indicating “Lord’s command,” “I command, as the Lord commanded” (in 1 Cor 7:10–12 also as “the Lord taught” in 1 Cor 9:14). In 1 Thess 4:15, too, Paul was indicating the Jesus tradition by the phrase “word of the Lord.” A problem of this understanding is that there is no exact saying of Jesus in the Gospels referring to the words in 1 Thess 4:15, “we, living until the coming of the Lord do not have an advantage over those who are sleeping.” If it is appropriate to replace the word “Lord” by “Son of Man,” there are words of “Son of Man” descending from heaven in Mark 13:26–27 (cf. Mark 8:38, parallel to Matt 24:31; Luke 21:25-28). These words are all related to the Son of Man in Dan 7:13–14. In this passage, the Son of Man descends from heaven with the clouds to gather all nations. Paul must have adopted the image of the descending Son of Man in 1 Thessalonians, replacing all nation’s gathering in Dan 7:13-14 with the gathering of the dead and alive in 1 Thess 4:15– 17.11 Since Paul included himself in this passage by saying “we, living until the coming of the Lord,” some commentators argue that Paul believed that he would experience the Parousia in his lifetime, which means Paul believed in an imminent Parousia. In v. 16, however, Paul indicates simply that he was alive at the time of his writing of the letter and he said nothing more than that.12 Paul tried to explain that living at the time of the Parousia does not mean any advantage over the dead.13 10

Bruce, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 98–103. Also, in Matt 12:41, the image of Dan 7:13–14 works in a very meaningful way. The Gentiles were raised because the people of Nineveh listened to Jonah and the Queen of the South listened to Solomon. They were front-runners of the Gentiles to repent and to be saved. At the end of the Gospel of Matthew in 28:18, the Gentiles were all invited to listen to Jesus for salvation. See Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2016), 185. 12 Fee comments that the purpose of v. 17 is to say that those who are already dead are not disadvantaged, and Paul indicated “he was simply currently among ‘the living.’” See Fee, The First and Second Letters to the Thessalonians, 175. 13 Dunn opined that this passage was the reason for Paul to write this letter (Dunn, The Theology of Paul), but the purpose for Paul to write 1 Thessalonians was, first of all, to 11

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(4) The Occasion of the Parousia in 5:1–11. About the occasion of the Parousia, Paul said that “the Day of the Lord” would come suddenly and unexpectedly. However, it cannot be confused with an idea that he thought it would happen “quite soon.”14 Rather than suggesting an immediate Parousia, Paul in 1 Thess 5:1–11 taught that Thessalonians should not worry about when “the Day” would be. In 1 Thess 5:2 Paul said that “The day of the Lord comes at night as a thief,” and in 5:4, “Brothers, you are not in the darkness so that the day would not take you over as a thief.” He elaborated upon this in 5:5 “All of you are children of light and the children of daylight, we do not belong to the darkness nor to the night.” Since “the day” connotes “the day of the Lord,” the phrase means that neither “the Day of the Lord” nor a thief at night would not take one suddenly, because believers belong to “the Day.” In the following passage, Paul enthusiastically taught how the believers should live in the present time in 5:6–11.15 Paul taught in 5:8: “You belong to the day, so be awake, wearing a plate of faith and love, with helmet of hope for salvation.” Indeed, Paul taught believers how to live in the present time, throughout the letter (2:11–14; 3:6–13; 4:1–12; 5:4–24).16 In these teachings the word Parousia is used in 5:23. In 1 Thess 5:9, Paul said “Since God appointed us not for the wrath but for assurance of the salvation through our Lord, Jesus Christ.” In 4:13–18, Paul discussed the Parousia, but he did not clearly write it was approaching. In 5:1–11, however, Paul taught “the Day” would come suddenly. So far, I found the only indication of the Parousia being near is in 1:10, encourage the Thessalonians, as in chs. 1–3. Then Paul started 4:1 with the adverb, “And finally” (Λοιπὸν οὖν). 14 Fee, The First and Second Letters to the Thessalonians, 167. In contrast, Bart D. Ehrman read 5:2–3, putting more focus on the event’s emergency, suggesting Paul “goes on to say that it will be a sudden, unexpected event” (Forged: Writing in the Name of God [New York: HarperCollins, 2011], e-book version). 15 Gerhard Friedrich understood that 1 Thess 4:13–18, insisting on the imminent Parousia, was contradicting with 5:1–11, which contained traditional teachings common to other Pauline passages. Friedrich concluded that 1 Thess 5:1–11 was a later redaction (“1 Thessalonicher 5, 1–11, der apologetische Einschub eines Späteren,” ZTK 70 [1973]: 288–315). Traugott Holtz, however, pointed out that the two passages could be Pauline authentic writings dealing with two different purposes. Chapter 4 tried to assure salvation and ch. 5 is about the present time when the salvation of the followers has already been fulfilled (Der erste Brief an die Thessalonicher, EKKNT [Neukirchener Verlag, 1990]). Gordon Fee noted that Paul’s main concern is that how the Thessalonians should live (The First and Second Letters to the Thessalonians, 191–92). 16 In Acts 1:7, the words χρόνος and καιρός were used together, as in 1 Thess 5:1. Both passages insist that only God should know the timing of the Parousia. This agrees with the overall biblical attitude of trusting in faithful God and living daily life in faith. See Beverly Gaventa, First and Second Thessalonians, IBC (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1998), 69.

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when Paul mentioned that the Thessalonians were waiting for “the coming Wrath.” Second Thessalonians is also deeply influenced by the prophets’ words of God’s judgment on Israel and the restoration of Israel by God. I will examine 2 Thessalonians next. 2.2. The Eschatological Scenario in 2 Thessalonians Since the nineteenth century, the authenticity of 2 Thessalonians has been disputed. Now, most New Testament scholars agree that 1 Thessalonians is Paul’s authentic letter, but not all agree on 2 Thessalonians’ authenticity because the two have different descriptions of the Parousia.17 The word Parousia is used in 2 Thess 2:1, 8 (it is also in 2:9, but this verse is not about Christ). The phrase “the Day of the Lord” is used in 2:2, also in 1:10, where the word “the Day” is used to indicate “the Day of the Lord.” In ch. 2 the author depicts how this eschatological program will be realized and, finally, “the Day” will come. It writes that a sequence of events must happen before “the Day of the Lord.” Some commentators think that 2 Thessalonians deals with the delay because it describes the events before “the Day” arrives. I agree that both texts emphasize the reality of the Parousia, but this does not mean that the Parousia is imminent. The eschatological scenario emphasizes the drama of the end time in the apocalyptic literature.18 (1) The Saying about “the Day has begun” in 2 Thessalonians 2:2. It is assumed that 2 Thess 2:2 was written to refute anyone who thought that “the Day of the Lord” has begun. Second Thessalonians 2:2 reads “[we ask you] not to be shaken instantly being out of mind, nor being stirred by spirit or word or by a letter, alleged by us saying the Day of the Lord has begun.” In 17

The non-Pauline authorship is proposed with a variety of reasons: H. J. Holtzman, “Zum zweiten Thessalonicherbrief,” ZNW 2 (1901): 97–108, understood that 2 Thessalonians corrected the false eschatology in 1 Thessalonians. William Wrede, Die Echtheit des zweiten Thessalonicherbrief Untersucht (Leipzig: Henrichs, 1903), examined the differences of the two letters in terms of vocabulary, contents, and theological orientation, and especially pointed out that 2 Thess 2:4 indicated that the letter was composed after 70 CE. Andreas Lindemann, “Zum Abfassungszweck des Zweiten Thessalnicherbriefs,” in Paulus, Apostel und Lehrer der Kirche (Tübingen: Mohr, 1999), 228-240, took over and developed Hotzman’s understanding that 2 Thessalonians not only corrected 1 Thessalonians but denied it and insisted on its own authenticity. Bart D. Ehrman, Forgery and Counterforgery (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 162–71, followed Lindeman’s thesis. 18 Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 310–13. Dunn, however, considers that 2 Thessalonians was an authentic Pauline letter and that delay of the Parousia was not a concern for Paul. Dunn noted that the two passages, 1:7–10 and 2:3–12, showed characteristic features of apocalyptic literature: “vivid visionary character and harsh note of vengefulness,” but at the same time, the “vengeance” of God is, of course, an established idea in Jewish eschatology; see Dunn, The Theology of Paul, 304.

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this sentence to think “the Day of the Lord has begun” is wrong even though it was thought to be conveyed through spirit or word or a letter thought to be “from us [Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy]” (1:1).19 The verb in the sentence – “the Day” has begun (ἐνέστηκεν) – is in the perfect indicative form so that there are two possibilities as to what it means: normally, perfect indicative forms indicate an action completed, so that in this case, “the Day of the Lord has already begun” is its meaning.20 In contrast, the perfect tense form can indicate the immediate future, as to the Parousia is at hand.21 It seems that because of the perfect tense in the saying, the confusion must have happened so that the author wrote 2:2–12 attempting to clarify this sentence. The author then introduced the apocalyptic scenario before “the Day of the Lord” would arrive in 2:3–12. It is a similar image to the apocalyptic scenario in Mark 13:3–13; Luke 17:20–37, and Matt 24:3–44. As Christiaan Beker insisted, a precise apocalyptic sequence is not a “historical chronicle, but a dramatic device that stimulates Christian hope.”22 The scenario is as follows: in 2 Thess 2:3 it is said that “the rebellion” (ἀποστασία) occurs first, and the lawless one, “the son of destruction” (ὁ ἄνθρωπος τῆς ἀνομίας, ὁ υἱὸς τῆς ἀπωλείας) appears, yet there is “one who holds” (τὸ κατέχον, v. 6) the chaotic situation. “The one holding” (ὁ κατέχων) is going to leave from the middle, when the time is right (v. 7). The terms “one who holds” and “the holding one” have long been disputed since ancient patristic times. According to Strobel, it is best explained if we think these terms indicate God, because the timing of when the final judgment starts depends on God.23 The sequence of events leading to the end of history is the characteristic description in 2 Thessalonians to dramatize the end. In addition, 2 Thessalonians depicts “the Day of the Lord” by focusing on the eschatological judgment before restoration. Second Thessalonians 1:6 reads “Indeed, it is God’s righteousness to repay trouble to those who troubled you.” In v. 7, it is said that an act of vengeance will occur at the Parousia: “and to those of you being troubled have a rest with us at Jesus’s revelation from heaven with his powerful angels.” In the Parousia fire burns down 19

G. Fee, “Pneuma and Eschatology in 2 Thessalonians 2.2–2: A Proposal about ‘Testing the Prophets’ and the Purpose of 2 Thessalonians,” in To Tell the Mystery: Essays on New Testament Eschatology in Honor of Robert H. Gundry, ed. T. Schmidt et al. (Sheffield: JSOT, 1996), 201–2. 20 Fee, The First and Second Letters to the Thessalonians, 273. 21 P. Vielhauer, Geschichte der urchristlichen Literatur: Einleitung in das Neue Testament, die Apokryphen und die Apostolischen Väter (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1975), 94. 22 J. Christiaan Beker, Paul’s Apocalyptic Gospel: The Coming Triumph of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 97–98. 23 A. Strobel, Untersuchungen zum eschatologischen Verzögerungsproblem auf Grund der apätjüdisch-urchristlichen Geschichte von Habakuk 2.2 ff. (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 1961), 194–98.

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everything in v. 8. In 1 Thessalonians, there was no description of the wrath or the judgment, so that the author of 2 Thessalonians must have quoted directly from the Hebrew Bible, especially from the prophets’ words on the judgment to the people of Israel, as in Zephaniah and other prophetic books. At the beginning of the book in 1:7, the phrase “the Day of the Lord” is mentioned and 1:15 clearly announces that “the Day of the Lord” is a day for suffering it: “that Day is a day of wrath, a day of suffering, a day of distress, a day of death and a day of destruction, a day of darkness and shadow, a day of cloud and mist.” In Zeph 3:8, it is explained that “the Day” is for the judgment: “For this wait for me, says the Lord. For the Day I stand to testify. Because my righteousness gathers nations, receives kings and upon them, all my wrath I pour. By flaming fire all the earth will be burned down.” The descriptions of judgment and punishment in 2 Thessalonians must have been prompted by these prophetic words. I take 2 Thessalonians to be a pseudo-Pauline letter because it describes the Parousia focusing on God’s judgment24 whereas 1 Thessalonians emphasizes the salvation from it.25 A few commentators have thought 2 Thessalonians sought to cancel the message of an imminent Parousia in 1 Thessalonians. Yet, as this paper has pointed out, the reality of the judgment of God in 2 Thess 2 is clear. As a result, I do not think 2 Thessalonians deals with the delay of the Parousia.

3. “The Day of the Lord” in the Septuagint and its Influence on Paul As I have observed, 1 and 2 Thessalonians adopted the prophets’ words of the “Day”; accordingly, I would like to examine the passages where the phrase “the Day of the Lord” is used in the Septuagint (LXX). The phrase “the Day of the Lord” (ἡμέρα and κυρίου used together in a phrase) appears in LXX of Isa 2:12; 13:6, 9; Jer 32:33; Ezek 7:10; 13:5; 30:3; Amos 5:18, 20; Joel 1:15;

24

Joseph Plevnik, Paul and the Parousia (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1997), 120–21. Most commentators agree that the first letter was written before the second, but Wanamaker insisted that the second was written earlier. Charles A. Wanamaker, The Epistles to the Thessalonians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990). According to Dunn, both letters to the Thessalonians were preoccupied with hope for Christ’s second coming but the second used apocalyptic vision (The Theology of Paul, 298–305). Gerd Theissen argued that 2 Thessalonians was written by Paul’s successor in order to warn not to read 1 Thessalonians as it insisted imminent eschatology (Das Neue Testament, 86–87). Andreas Lindemann understood that 2 Thessalonians tried to deny 1 Thessalonians (“Zum Abfassungszweck des Zweiten Thessalonicherbriefes,” ZNW 68 [1977]: 36–42). 25

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2:1, 11; 3:4 [Eng. 2:31]; 4:14 [Eng. 3:14]; Obad 15; Zeph 1:7, 14; Zech 14:1; Mal 3:19; 3:22, 23. 3.1. “The Day of YHWH” in the LXX It is noteworthy that many of the passages just listed indicate that “the Day of the Lord” is near (Isa 13:6; Ezek 30:3; Joel 1:15; 2:1; 4:14; Obad 15; Zeph 1:7, 14) by using the same word ἐγγύς (‫)קרוב‬. It appears that it was a formal pattern used to indicate “the Day of the Lord” is near. Other than this, the concept of “the Day of the Lord” in the Hebrew Bible, i.e., “the Day of YHWH,” is difficult to generalize. Before G. von Rad, Amos 5:18 was thought to be a basic text of conveying the concept of “the Day of the Lord.” Von Rad thought Isa 13; 34; Ezek 7 and Joel 2 “conveyed a more unequivocal, but at the same time a broader, conception” of it, and by it “the prophecy understands the day of battle and of the complete victory of Yahweh.”26 At the same time, von Rad observes Zephaniah’s description of the “Day” as a sacrificial festival, which is the “most important material at our disposal concerning the concept of the Day of Yahweh.”27 It is an overwhelming task to try to conceptualize “the Day of YHWH” in this paper, so I will just try to understand what it means in Zephaniah. Von Rad notes that the description of “the Day of YHWH” in Zephaniah started with the nearness of “the Day.”28 3.2. “The Day of YHWH” in the Book of Zephaniah “The Day of YHWH” by Zephaniah has all the characteristics that Paul indicated in 1 Thessalonians: the wrath of God, the judgment of God, the imminence of “the Day of the Lord,” and the gathering of believers. According to Zeph 1:1, the prophet spoke during the rule of King Josiah of Judah: 640–609 BCE, but when exactly during Josiah’s rule the prophet spoke was not indicated. For example, K. Elliger considered that the prophet became active before Josiah’s reformation and the prophet led the reformation with his idea of “the Day of the Lord,” which corresponds to the prophecies by Isaiah (Isa 2:12–20) and Amos (5:16–20). 29 Vlaardingerbroek thought that Zephaniah was not in line with Josiah’s reformation but 26

G. von Rad, “The Origin of the Concept of the Day of Yahweh,” JSS 4 (1959): 98–99. Von Rad, “The Origin of the Concept of the Day of Yahweh,” 102. 28 Sweeney argues that Zephaniah may have adopted the form according to the words of Ps 145:18, where God is said to be near for all (Zephaniah, Hermeneia [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003], 96). Johannes Vlaardingerbroek thought that by adding the term, Zephaniah adapted the cultic summons in his prophecy. By doing so, Zephaniah’s message altered the meaning of nearness from local nearness to temporal nearness (Zephaniah, HCOT [Leuven: Peeters, 1999], 83). 29 Karl Elliger, The Propheten Nahum, Habakuk, Zephanija, Haggai, Sacharja, Maleachi, ATD 25/2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1949). 27

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belonged to “the prophetic school which had long ceased to see any benefit in political and religious reformation and at most preached transformation – the survival of a remnant – through judgment.”30 As a result, he concluded that Zephaniah did not leave any clear clue about whether he was pre- or postreformation.31 On the other hand, the book of Zephaniah showed some features that suggested the prophet was in the middle of the reformation and promoting it through the words in 2:1–3. In the entire book of Zephaniah, especially in a parenthetic speech of 2:1–3, the prophet encouraged readers to seek God. Precisely, it invited readers to worship God by offering sacrifices in 1:7 and 3:10 on “the Day of YHWH.” 32 The theme of the book, “the Day of the YHWH,” is introduced and then, in 1:2–6, “the fundamental premise of the entire book,” which invites audiences to change their ways directing them to serve God, appears. Then, in the rest of the book, 2:4–3:20, the punishment of the nations (2:4–15) and the restoration of Jerusalem (3:1–30) follow.33 The first indication of “the Day of YHWH” appears in 1:7, which was among the prophet’s announcement of “the Day” in vv. 7–13. The prophet called people to come to worship. Then, in vv. 14–18, the prophet explained the significance of “the Day” and ordered people to be silent for the sacrificial cult. Here, YHWH was taking action and those who came to join in the sacrifice would in fact, be examined to see if they were to be punished by being sacrificed.34 This is a unique depiction of “the Day of YHWH.” Not just the nations, but the people of Judah/Jerusalem/Israel would be examined. Vlaardingerbroek argued that the term “the Day of YHWH” carried an eschatological significance to an overall cultic summons. According to his understanding, the prophet Zephaniah did not have hope in the future political situation, so that his reference to “the Day of the Lord” conveying eschatological hope is the only hope.35 In ch. 1, however, the book demands that the reader immediately join the sacrificial cult in order to determine whether or not the person deserves to join the sacrificial liturgy. As a result, this call is not necessarily eschatological. The call is simply an invitation to worship God in the Temple, as Sweeney understands it in his commentary on Zephaniah – a topic to which we now turn.

30

Vlaardingerbroek, Zephaniah, 20. Vlaardingerbroek, Zephaniah, 21. 32 Sweeney notes that the targumist altered the meaning of the book to indicate future events and “the Day of YHWH” as the Day of “killing” as the retribution to the Romans for the destruction of the Temple (Zephaniah, 29–34). Similar interpretative difference could be pointed out when one observes the difference between 1 and 2 Thessalonians. 33 Sweeney, Zephaniah, 50–54. 34 Sweeney, Zephaniah, 73–105. 35 Vlaardingerbroek, Zephaniah, 78–79. 31

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(1) Sweeney’s Understandings of the Book of Zephaniah. In his commentary on Zeph 1:7, Sweeney insisted that this passage must be read in the context of the ancient Jerusalem Temple setting, where holidays and Sabbaths mark the suspension of linearly progressing time to remember God’s creation 36 in a sacrificial cult as in 1:8 and 3:10. Also, Sweeney pointed out that Deut 26, showed “an interest in subsuming linear historical perspective to the cyclical pattern of agricultural life.”37 The most ancient credo would be recited when farmers offered agricultural harvests to God, which would take place annually. Here, Sweeney noted that “the relationship is no longer constituted in terms of linear historical progression, but on a cyclical pattern of seasonal change and natural renewal.”38 In the course of history, however, there were occasions on which this relationship between God and the people of Israel was required to change. The house of David failed to obey God, which led to the Babylonian exile. Then, the Latter Prophets and twelve Minor Prophets depicted the defeat of evil and the restoration of their relationship with God in their own way. For example, in the book of Isaiah, God was the creator. Zion and the Temple were at the center of Creation. The Covenant bound the People of Israel and Judah to God. Sweeney articulated this significance of the Temple as the center of the creation, to his reading of Isaiah. In the passage it is said that all nations gather at Zion in later days (‫הימים באחרית‬, 2:2) to renew the covenant. 39 This idea of how “the Day of the Lord” would be is adapted from Micah, Joel, and Zechariah in different ways.40 “The Day of YHWH” is “the Day” to remember historical events where YHWH defeats enemies within and outside the people of Israel in a cyclical time frame in which YHWH takes the role of the creator. In this sense, “the Day of YHWH” celebrated in the Temple was the occasion for worshipers to Also, Sweeney interprets the phrase in Isa 2:2, ‫הימים באחרית‬, as “in the later days.” See his “Eschatology in the Book of Isaiah,” in The Book of Isaiah: Enduring Questions Answered Anew: Essays Honoring Joseph Blenkinsopp and His Contribution to the Study of Isaiah, ed. Richard J. Bautch and J. Todd Hibbard (Grand Rapid: Eerdmans, 2014), 183–85. 37 Marvin A. Sweeney, “Tanak versus Old Testament: Concerning the Foundation for a Jewish Theology of the Bible,” in Problems in Biblical Theology: Essays in Honor of Rolf Knierim, ed. Henry T. C. Sun and Keith L. Eades (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 367. 38 Sweeney, “Tanak versus Old Testament,” 368. 39 Sweeney claimed that an intention to understand the phrase as “end of days” in an eschatological sense is influenced by the Greek translation which reads ἐν ταῖς ἐσχάταις ἡμέραις, see “Eschatology in the Book of Isaiah,” 184–85. 40 “The Day of the Lord” in Isa 2:12, implies when the covenant sought to be renewed. In Isa 2:1–5, prior to “the Day of the Lord,” nations gather at Zion and learn that God’s law and peace realized in the world (Marvin A. Sweeney, “Swords into Plowshares or Plowshares into Swords? Isaiah and the Twelve in Intertextual Perspective on Zion,” TJT 34 [2018]: 97–110). 36

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remember the works of God in the linear progression of history and, at the same time, to present seasonal offerings to God linearly but also cyclically. Notably, the concept progresses linearly throughout the year from one New Year to the next in the festival system and “the Day of YHWH” does not represent the end of time; it represents an ideal scenario of what might take place within time and within human events.41

4. Zephaniah’s Influence on Paul It is suggested that Zephaniah’s words indicating “the Day of YHWH” do not have an eschatological sense. The prophet Zephaniah invited people to make sacrifices in the Temple so that they may seek a cyclical, stable relationship with God.42 I believe this understanding of Zephaniah should be applied to the readings of Pauline epistles not only in 1 Thessalonians, but also other letters, since Zephaniah’s words seem to be directly quoted by Paul. In order to indicate the second coming of Christ in 1 Thessalonians, Paul used the word Parousia four times; he also used the phrase “the Day of the Lord” in 1 Thess 5:2. In other Pauline writings, Christ’s Parousia appeared only in 1 Cor 15:23. It seems that Paul preferred to use the phrase “the day of the Lord,” and other related expressions with “the Day” rather than “the Parousia.” “The Day of the Lord” is used in Rom 2:5; 1 Cor 1:8; 5:5; 2 Cor 1:14; “The day of salvation” is used in 2 Cor 6:2; “the Day” is used in Rom 2:16; 13:12–13; and in 1 Cor 3:13. “The day of Wrath” is used in Rom 2:5, and “The day of Christ” in Phil 1:10; 2:16. “The day of Jesus Christ” appears in Phil 1:6; 1 Cor 1:8; 2 Cor 1:14. In these passages, Paul discussed about what would happen on the “Day,” but not when it would be, as in 1 and 2 Thessalonians. Paul did not write precise temporal explanations as to when it would be. The only passage that contained a temporal indication is in Rom 13:12, where it is said that “the Day is near” (ἡ δὲ ἡμέρα ἤγγικεν). 4.1. Imminent Parousia in Romans 13:12? The phrase in Rom 13:12, “the Day is near” (ἡ δὲ ἡμέρα ἤγγικεν), may be related to Zeph 1:7 and 1:14, where “the Day of the Lord” is said to be near. In Zeph 1:7 and 14, the adverb for near ἐγγύς is used. This adverb may be used in Rom 13:12 in a verb form (ἤγγικεν). 41

Sweeney, Zephaniah, 80–81. For the study of the linear aspects of time in the Bible, see Bertil Albrektson, History and the Gods: An Essay on the Idea of Historical Events as Divine Manifestations in the Ancient Near East and in Israel (Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1967). For a study of Zephaniah in the linear aspects of history, see Johannes Unsok Ro, Die sogenannte „Armenfrömmigkeit“ im nachexilischen Israel, BZAW 322 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2002), 76–106. 42

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C. E. B. Cranfield did not understand Paul’s words in Rom 13:12 in an eschatological sense. He wrote in his Romans’ commentary that Paul said the “Day” is near to suggest that “the time which is left is time in which watching for Christ’s second coming with alert minds – with proper eagerness and a proper sense of urgency, and with all the active and resolute engagement in the tasks of faith and obedience and love which these involve – is the whole duty of Christians.”43 But he did not believe that Paul meant the Parousia was imminent. Among early Christians, however, Paul’s words must have been misunderstood as if Paul believed that the second coming was to be realized within a short time. Such misunderstanding is observed in John 21:23, and 2 Pet 3:3–4, where the authors of these books tried to refute claims that the second coming would happen in a short time, perhaps within a couple of decades. Rather, the whole point of Paul’s words is to wait for the Parousia enthusiastically and faithfully. In this paper I have pointed out that the “coming wrath” in 1 Thess 1:10 was the only indication that clearly suggested the Parousia was imminent in 1 Thessalonians. In 1 Thess 1:10, Paul used the participle form (ἐρχομένης) of the verb “come.” It may be related to Zeph 2:2, where the infinitive of the same verb with preposition (ἐπελθεῖν) is used to write “before the wrath of the Lord comes upon you.” As a result, it is assumed that in both cases, 1 Thess 1:10 and Rom 13:12, Paul adopted the words of Zephaniah, but with slight changes to refer to Christ rather than God. Paul’s intent in both sentences was to emphasize the reality of God’s nearness, not the temporal nearness of the end time.

5. The Pauline Concept of Time If Paul did not think of an imminent Parousia, did he not think of the end of this age at all? Although, in 1 Thessalonians, Paul did not explain how soon the Parousia would arrive, throughout the Pauline letters there are certain descriptions of the urgent reality of the end of this era, as in I Cor 10:11, “…to us, the ends of the ages have arrived” (cf. Rom 5:2; 8:18; Gal 4:4), but this is not simply saying the end of time is imminent. To understand the Pauline concept of time, what M. Gorman noted is insightful. Gorman described Paul’s apocalyptic vision as “the inaugurated new age currently overlaps with the present age.”44 Paul, in 1 Cor 7:29, said time is shrinking and here time is not in linear progression. Such a concept of time can be observed in 1 Cor 7:31; 10:11; 2 Cor 5:17; Rom 13:11–12 as well. 43

C. E. B. Cranfield, Romans, A Shorter Commentary (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1985),

333. 44

M. Gorman, Reading Paul (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2008), 57–64.

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5.1. Imminent Parousia in 1 Corinthians 7:29? Almost all interpreters understand that Paul’s concept of time was linear, and so they translated 1 Cor 7:29 as “The appointed time has been shortened.”45 The verb Paul used in 1 Cor 7:29 “shortened,” however, needs special attention. Paul’s sense of urgency is expressed in this passage. Paul wrote his concept of time as shrinking toward the end of the history in 1 Cor 7:29, where he was clear that he did not simply mean the end of history is approaching. He used the participle συνεσταλμένος, “shrinking,” which means not just time has shortened but time is shrinking in between times. According to Paul, the historical time is completely interrupted by the events of Christ, which inaugurated a new age so that the time is shrinking. He used five ὡς (“as”) phrases to describe living in shrinking time. He recommended believers should live without attachment to this world: Brothers, this I say to you, because the time is shrinking. Yet, those who have wives, be as though they had none. Those who weep, as though they were not weeping, those who rejoice, as though they were not rejoicing, those who buy as though they did not have anything, those who deal with this world, as though they had no dealings with it. For this world is passing away. (7:29–31)

This is the way to live in the presently shrinking time.

6. Conclusion In this study I have examined the Pauline epistles and have found that Paul did not mean to suggest that Parousia was imminent. He was influenced by the words of Zephaniah when he wrote that Christ is the savior from “the coming wrath.” Yet, these words of urgency invited misunderstandings. In Zephaniah, these words are used to urge repentance and invite people to worship God at the Temple on “the Day of YHWH.” Following these words, Paul also invited people to believe in the Parousia when the dead and alive would all meet with Jesus in heaven. I have argued in this paper that his descriptions of Parousia did not have an eschatological sense of urgency; rather they convey the absolute certainty of the Parousia. Somewhere in the course of history, especially after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE and the failure of the second Jewish revolt, both the words of Paul and the Prophets might have been read with eschatological expectations. The works of 1 and 2 Thessalonians and Zephaniah, when read together, gave readers a new insight into the meaning of the eschatological hope.

45

Dunn, The Theology of Paul, 21.

Contributors Bob Becking is Emeritus Senior Research Professor of Bible, Religion, and Identity of the Faculty of Humanities, Utrecht University, Netherlands. Willem A. M. Beuken is Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at KU Leuven, Belgium. Mark E. Biddle is the Dean of Sophia Theological Seminary, Dinwiddie, Virginia, USA. Corrine Carvalho is Professor of Theology at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA. Stephen L. Cook is the Catherine N. McBurney Professor of Old Testament Language and Literature at Virginia Theological Seminary, Alexandria, Virginia, USA. Tamar Frankiel is Professor Emerita at the Academy for Jewish Religion California, Los Angeles, California, USA. Koog P. Hong is Associate Professor of Old Testament at Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea. Christoph Levin is Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at LudwigMaximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany. Hyun Chul Paul Kim is Harold B. Williams Professor of Hebrew Bible at Methodist Theological School in Ohio (MTSO), Delaware, Ohio, USA. Peter Machinist is Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages Emeritus at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Tyler D. Mayfield is A. B. Rhodes Professor of Old Testament at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, USA. James D. Nogalski is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Director of Graduate Studies at Baylor University, Waco, Texas, USA.

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Contributors

Margaret S. Odell is Professor Emerita of Religion at St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota, USA. Hye Kyung Park is Associate Professor of Old Testament at Chang Jung Christian University, Tainan City, Taiwan. David L. Petersen is Franklin N. Parker Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Dalit Rom-Shiloni is Professor of Hebrew Bible at Tel Aviv University, Israel. Konrad Schmid is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Judaism at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. Jeffrey Stackert is Professor of Hebrew Bible at the University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA. Brent A. Strawn is Professor of Old Testament and Professor of Law at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA. Louis Stulman is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Findlay, Findlay, Ohio, USA. Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer is Professor of Old Testament Exegesis at Örebro School of Theology, Sweden, and Research Associate at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Steven S. Tuell is the James A. Kelso Professor Emeritus of Hebrew and Old Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. Emmanuel Ukaegbu-Onuoha is Professor of Philosophy and Old Testament at St Junipero Serra Formation & College Seminary, Grand Terrace, and Ministry Formation Institute, San Bernardino Diocese, California, USA. Mariko Yakiyama is an Associate Professor at International Christian University, Tokyo, Japan.

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Wyler, Bea. “Mary’s Call.” Pages 136–48 in A Feminist Companion to the Hebrew Bible in the New Testament. Edited by Athalya Brenner. FCB 10. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1996. Yee, Gale A. Poor Banished Children of Eve: Woman as Evil in the Hebrew Bible. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003. Zilsel, Edgar. “The Genesis of the Concept of Physical Laws.” Philosophical Review 51 (1942), 245–79. (Reprinted with changes in translation as: idem. “Die Entstehung des Begriffs des physikalischen Gesetzes.” Pages 66–97 in Die Sozialen Ursprünge der neuzeitlichen Wissenschaft. By Edgar Zilsel. Edited by W. Krohn. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1976). Zimmerli, Walther. “Die Eigenart der prophetischen Rede des Ezechiel: Ein Beitrag zum Problem an Hand von Ez. 14:1–11.” ZAW 66 (1954): 1–26. –. Ezekiel 1: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, Chapters 1–24. Translated by R. E. Clements. Hermeneia. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979 (German original: 1969). –. Ezekiel 2: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, Chapters 25–48. Translated by Ronald E. Clements. Hermeneia. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983. –. “The Word of Divine Self-Manifestation (Proof-Saying): A Prophetic Genre.” Pages 99– 110 in I Am Yahweh. Edited by W. Brueggemann. Translated by D. W. Scott. Atlanta: John Knox, 1982. –. “Zur Vorgeschichte von Jesaja LIII.” Pages 236–44 in Congress volume: Rome 1968. Edited by J. A. Emerton. VTSup 17. Leiden: Brill, 1969. Zvi, Ehud Ben. Hosea. FOTL 21A/1. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005. –. “Observations on the Marital Metaphor of YHWH and Israel in Its Ancient Israelite Context: General Considerations and Particular Images in Hosea.” JSOT 28 (2004): 363–84. –. “The Prophetic Book: A Key Form of Prophetic Literature.” Pages 276–97 in The Changing Face of Form Criticism for the Twenty-First Century. Edited by Marvin A. Sweeney and Ehud Ben Zvi. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003. –. “Towards an Integrative Study of the Production of Authoritative Books in Ancient Israel.” Pages 15–28 in The Production of Prophecy: Constructing Prophecy and Prophets in Yehud. Edited by Diana Vikander Edelman and Ehud Ben Zvi. Bible World. London: Equinox, 2009.

Index of References Old Testament Genesis 1 1:1–9:17 1:26–28 1:26 1:27 1:28 1:31 2–3 2:5–3:24 2:5–8 2:7 2:8 2:19 2:21 2:22 3 3:13 3:21 4:10 4:14–15 4:15 4:23–24 4:25 5:3 6:7 6:9 7:1 7:18–19 9:2 9:6 11:27–25:18 12–36 12:2 14:18–20 14:18 14:19 14:20 14:22

32 32 33 71, 173 173, 199 71 55 26 26 26 33 33 33 33 33 44 136 33 246 260 140 140, 141 33 173 219 242 242 55 71 173 276 35 36 242 20, 242 20 20 20

15:5 15:13 15:16 16 16:1–16 16:1 16:2–5 16:3–4 16:6–7 16:6 16:7 16:9 16:10–16 16:11 16:15–16 17 17:1 17:4–5 17:5–8 17:5 17:6 17:8 17:11 17:14 17:16 17:20 17:21 18 18:1–16 18:1–6 18:19 18:20–21 18:25 18:32 19 19:1 19:5 19:8 19:9

243 282 141 282 8, 271, 276, 277 278 278 278 282 282 282 282 278 282 278 3, 36, 37, 41 33, 36 36 243 38 36 36 37 202 36 36 37 7, 21, 22, 268 21 2 203, 241, 243 139, 246 242, 255 258 22 22 22 22 22

382 19:10 19:12 19:15 19:16 19:21 19:25 19:29 20 21:6 21:9–21 21:9 21:14 21:17 21:21 22:1 22:7 22:11 22:16–17 23 24 24:3 24:7 24:34–48 25:12–18 25:16 25:19–37:1 25:19–27:45 25:19–20 25:26 26:13 26:34–35 26:34 27:28 27:46–28:9 27:46–28:4 27:46–28:2 27:46 28 28:1–4 28:1 28:3 28:4 28:5–9 28:5 28:6 28:8–9 28:8 28:9 28:10–22

Index of References 22 22 22 22 139 139 139 44 33 8, 271, 276 278 278 278 40, 278 112 112 112 71 41 26, 81 26 26 79 37 37 3, 35 37 35 35 55 35 40 33 3, 35, 39 35 40 35 3, 36–38 35 36 36 36 40 35 35 39 39 40 3, 37

28:10 28:11–22 28:11–19 28:12 28:16 28:17 28:43 29–31 31:17–18 32:2 32:3 32:9 32:10 MT 32:12 32:13 32:13 MT 32:22–32 32:23–33 32:23–30 32:26 32:28 32:29 32:31 33:15 33:18 35 35:1–5 35:1 35:2–3 35:6 35:7–8 35:7 35:9–15 35:9–12 35:9 35:10–12 35:10 35:11 35:12 35:13–15 35:14–15 35:14 35:18 35:22–26 35:27–29 35:27 35:28–29 35:31 36:1–43

3, 39 24 2, 25 33 38 33, 38 39 3, 37 35 33 33 135 135 135 71 135 3, 37 2, 22, 23 23 23 38 36 23 35 35 3, 35–38 35 35 35 35 35 35 35 36 36 35 38 36, 37 36 38, 39 38 35 35 35 35 35 35 37 35

383

Index of References 36:1–40 36:2 37:26 45:5–8 49 49:9 49:10 49:25–26 49:26 50:6–11 50:20

35 40 208 245 37 229 37 38 37 247 38

Exodus 1:11 1:12 2:15–3:2 2:23–25 2:24–25 3–4 3 3:1–12 3:1–8 3:1–5 3:1–4 3:4–9 3:4 3:7–10 3:7–8 3:7 3:10 3:11 3:12 3:13 3:14–15 3:14 3:18 4:1 4:2–5 4:3–5 4:6–9 4:10 4:12 4:14–17 4:14–16 4:15–16 4:17 4:18 4:31–5:1 5:1–3

282 282 282 246 282 85 25, 134, 135 81 25 2, 25 81 81 33 282 282 246 81 81 81, 90, 136 85 135 90, 134, 136 90, 247 85 85 90 90 85, 291 90 90 85 52 85 247 275 247

6:2–3 6:5–7 6:7–8 6:29 7–12 7:1–5 7:14 7:17 7:19 7:20 7:22 7:25 7:26–29 7:28–29 7:28 7:29 8:1–3 8:1–2 8:1 8:2 8:3–11 8:3 8:4 8:11 8:13 8:14 8:16 8:28 9–10 9:2 9:5 9:7 9:13–21 9:18 9:19–21 9:19 9:22 9:23 9:24–25 9:24 9:25 9:26–30 9:26 9:27 9:29 9:31–32 9:33–34 9:33 9:34–35

33 33 247 87 49 51 49 52 49 52 51 52 50–53 52 49 49 50 52 49 49 50 47–52, 57 52 50, 51 46, 47 46 49 50 215 56 49 50 56 55–57 57, 58 58 56–58 56 56 56, 57 49, 56–58, 215 56 57 247 49, 57 56 56 49 51

384 9:34 9:35 10:3 10:12 10:15 10:16–17 10:20 10:21 11:5–6 11:6 11:9–10 11:10 12:19 12:28 13:39 14:3 14:5 14:15–18 14:14 14:19 14:21 14:24 14:25 14:27 14:28 15:14–16 15:21 16:32 18–19 118:16 18:18 18:27 19–34 19–24 19:1–2 19:2–34:28 19:2–9 19:2 19:3 19:9 19:16–18 19:16–17 19:16 19:18–19 19:18 20:2–3 20:3 20:4–6 20:5–6

Index of References 51 50, 56 49 49 57 247 50 49 50 50 51 50 202 49 248 282 282 248 33 282 33 33 33 33 248 248 33 203 54 53 53 54 25 54 54 25 54 26 26, 33 54 54, 55 54 53, 54, 56 54 53–57 14 19, 32 142 131, 137, 145

20:5 20:6 20:11 20:12 20:18–20 20:23–23:19 24:7 24:18 25–29 25:1–2 25:8 29:43 29:45–46 31:14 32:10 32:11 32:12 32:14 32:27 32:35 33:3 33:4–6 33:5 33:7–23 33:8 33:10 33:14 33:16 33:19 34 34:5–6 34:5 34:6–7

34:9 34:27 34:28 35–40

134, 141, 142, 145 134, 260 71 203 54 55 139 26 32 33 33 33 33 202, 203 142 142 142 143 143 143 143 143 143 291 143 143 143 142 133–35, 137, 143 135 135 26, 135 131–35, 137, 140, 142–47 135 132, 134, 140, 141, 144, 145, 147 26 292 26 45

Leviticus 1:2 2:1 4:2 6:18 5:1 5:17

201, 202 202 201 201 204 204

34:6 34:7

385

Index of References 5:18 5:21 7:20 7:21 7:25 7:27 7:29 10:17 11 11:10–12 11:10–11 11:20–23 11:20–21 11:39–40 11:41–43 15:2 16 17 17:1–16 17:2 17:3–4 17:3 17:4 17:5–7 17:5 17:8–10 17:8–9 17:8 17:9 17:10–11 17:10 17:11–12 17:11 17:13–14 17:13 17:14 17:15–16 17:15 17:16 18:2 18:22 19:2 19:4 19:8 19:20 20:2 20:3 20:5

204 236 202 202 202, 203 202 201 236 177 177 177 177 177 204 177 201 6, 185, 191 6, 195, 200–202, 204–207, 209 205 201 204 201, 202 201 201, 203, 204 203, 204 205 204 201, 202 201, 203 204 201, 202 201, 203 209 204, 206–208, 210 201, 202, 207, 208 201, 203 204 201, 202 201, 204, 205, 209 201 149 201 179 202 202 201 202 202

20:6 20:13 20:17 20:19 21:2 21:17 22:3 22:18 23:2 23:10 23:24 23:29 23:34 24 25:2 25:18–19 26 26:1–13 26:1 26:12 26:30 26:31 26:40 27:2

202 149 204 204 201 201 202 201 201 201 201 202 201 207 201 75 179, 197, 198 199 179 205 179 102 145 201

Numbers 1:13 5:12 5:31 6:2 8:2–3 14 14:13–25 14:18 14:19 14:33 14:34 15:2 15:30 16:22–24 16:22 16:24 17:5 19:13 19:20 22–24 22:12 22:22 24:3

202 201 204 201 171 132 143 131, 133, 134, 137 219 219 140 201 202 145 145 145 203 202 202 2, 23 33 33 24

386

Index of References

24:4–6 24:4 24:6 24:9 30:16 33:52

24 33 24 24 204 172, 173

Deuteronomy 1:5 3:24 4:1 4:3 4:16 4:17–18 4:20 4:23 4:25 4:26 4:27–28 4:28–31 4:28 4:35 4:39 5:6–7 5:7 5:8 5:9 5:10 6:4–9 6:4 6:11 6:15 7:4 7:5 7:9 7:13 7:23 7:24 8:2 8:8 8:16 9:8 9:12 9:16 9:19 9:25 11:14 12:2 12:3

74 26 203 203 178 170 235 178 178 203 199 132 199 15 15 14 19, 32 178 134, 141, 145 134 292 18 74 203 203 178 138 224 203 203 203 222 203 203 178 178 203 203 224 199 178

12:10 12:16 12:17 12:24 12:30 13:2–16 14:23 16:22 17:2–5 17:14–20 18:4 20:5–7 20:18 21:1–9 23:6 23:7 MT 24:1–4 24:16 24:21 26 26:6–7 27 27:3 27:15 27:16 28 28:8 28:20 28:22 28:24 28:26 28:27 28:30–32 28:35 28:36 28:45 28:51 28:61 28:63 28:64 29:1 29:3 29:16 29:17 30:15 30:19 31:3 31:4 31:12

75 207 224 207 203 32 224 178 32 292 224 199 203 208 135 135 292 141, 199 74 341 282 210 203 178, 199 178 102 221 203 214 203 199 102 199 102 199 203 203, 224 203 203 199 74 199 165, 178 178 263 263 203 203 203

387

Index of References 31:14–15 32:3–4 32:10 32:32 32:39 33:2 33:12 33:27 33:28

46 132, 136 136 228 15, 31 19 75 203 75

Joshua 2:11 3:4 3:15 7:24–26 11:4 15:9 15:29 19:38 20 24:13

26 203 219 74 71 15 15 15 44 74

Judges 1:33 6:11–17 6:11–12 6:12–13 6:14 6:15 6:16 6:17

15 79, 81 81 81 81 81 81 81

1 Samuel 1:17–27 2:6–7 6:5 6:11 8:7–8 8:21–22 13–14 13:5 14:29–30 15:2 16–26 16–18 16–17 17:1–18:5 18–20 18–19

149 30 173 173 250 250 149, 150, 154 71 157 140 157 44 157 154 149 155

18 18:1–5 18:1–4 18:1 18:3 18:4 19–20 19 19:1 20 20:1–24 20:25–34 20:27–34 20:30–34 20:30–32 20:30 20:33 20:35–43 20:41–43 20:41–42 20:41 20:42 22:8 23 23:15–18 23:17 23:18 24:21 27 29–30 31

155 154, 156 150 155 155, 159 154, 156 156 155 150, 158 155, 158, 159 155 155 157 157 156 158, 161 157 156 156 150 159 159 157 149 153 158 159 153 151 151 149

2 Samuel 1:19–27 1:26 2:8 4:4 6:2 11:2–4 11:6 11:8–11 12:9 12:11–12 13:5 16:20–23 17:11 21:8

163 150, 155, 159, 163 15 15 15 160 159 160 160 208 203 208 71 15

388

Index of References

1 Kings 1:17–21 2:20–21 2:26 4:20 6:35 8:37 8:51 9:18 9:19 10:18–20 14:10 15:1 15:12 15:33 17:18 19:11–13 21:26 22 22:17

159 159 15 71 171 214 235 15 221 229 177 16 178 16 140 132 178 79 236

2 Kings 1:2 11:18 14:3–4 14:6 14:25 17:12 17:13–23 17:13–18 18:13 19:31 20:13 20:15 21:11–15 21:11 21:21 22 22:11 23:4–20 23:5 23:11 23:12 23:13 23:15 23:19 23:21–23 23:23 23:24

18 173 141 141 146 178 293 289 224 97 220 220 262 178 178 295 296 178 178 178 178 178 178 178 178 178 178

24:13 25 25:1

220 264 232

1 Chronicles 8:33 8:34 9:26 9:39 9:40 15:2 16:15 26:15 26:17 26:20 26:22 26:24 26:26 27:25 27:27–28 27:28

15 15 220 15 15 219 138 221 221 220 220 220 220 220, 221 220 221

2 Chronicles 6:28 8:4 8:6 9:17–19 11:11 16:4 17:12 18:16 23:17 30:9 32:28 36:23

214 221 221 229 221 221 221 236 173 131, 136 221 26

Ezra 1:2 5:8 5:11 5:12 6:4 6:9 6:10 7:12 7:21 7:23 9:1–2 9:2

26 169 26 26 169 26 26 26 26 26 40 40

Index of References 9:7 10:16 Nehemiah 1:4 1:5 2:4 2:20 5:11 9:2 9:17

140 40

9:31 10:39 12:44 13:5 13:12

26 26 26 26 224 145 131, 133, 134, 136, 137 136, 137 224 221 224 224

Job 7:20 11:9 12:8 16:18 20:7 26:10 28:25–26 28:25 28:26 38:5 38:10–11 38:10 38:11 38:12 38:22 38:33

135 71 71 208 177 9, 306, 307 9, 306, 307 71 307 71 307 9, 306 9, 306 308 215 71, 308

Psalms 2:6 18:8 18:13–14 19A 25:6 25:10 28:9 39:7 40:6 40:11 40:12 40:12 MT

97 55, 137 215 19 136 134 219 173 71 134 140 134

40:13 MT 46:3–4 48:2 48:11 51:1 65:6 69:35 72 72:8 72:16 75:20 74 74:2 74:3–7 78:47 78:48 78:68 79 79:1 79:2 79:6–7 84:12 86:5 86:15 92:9 96:11 103:8–9 103:8 103:11 103:13 104:9 104:15 104:32 105:8 105:32 111:4 112:4 116 116:4 116:5 116:13 116:17 125:1 128:3 133:3 135:6 136:26 137

389 140 55 97 97 160 71 71 19 71 55 173 259, 261 97 259 215 215 97 261 97, 99, 259 259 259 19 134 131, 133, 134, 136, 137 26 71 131, 132 133, 134, 136, 137 136 136 9, 306, 307 228 55 138 215 131, 133, 136 131, 136 135, 136 135 131, 133 135, 136 135, 136 97 228 97 71 26 330

390

Index of References

137:7 145:8–9 145:8 145:18 146:6 148:3–6 148:8

40 131, 132 133, 134, 136, 137 339 71 9, 308 215

Proverbs 2:16–19 3:10 5:3–6:20 5:22 6:20–35 7:5–27 8:29 9:13–18 13:3 16:9 16:17 17:3 20:28 22:14 23:26–28 24:12 27:21

117 221 117 140 117 117 9, 71, 307 117 135 259 135 235 134 117 117 135 235

Ecclesiastes 7:26–28 7:26

117 117

Song of Songs 1:6 1:14 2:13 7:8 7:12

228 228 228 228 228

Isaiah 1–39 2:1–5 2:2 2:12–20 2:12 4:5 5:1–7 5:1 5:25 6

272 341 341 339 338, 341 97 228 228 55 79

6:1–13 6:1–2 6:3–7 6:8–10 6:11–13 6:11 8:1–4 8:18 10:5–6 10:12 10:15 10:29 10:32 11:9 12:1 13 13:6 13:9 14 14:13–14 16:1 18:7 21:13 24:23 26:21 28:2 28:17 29:8 30:30 31:9 37:32 40:1–11 40:1–2 40:3–6 40:5 40:8 40:8–11 40:12 41:5 42:6 42:10 44:6 45:5 45:6 45:14 45:18 45:21 45:22 46:9

82 81 81 81 81 82 298 97 267 97 267 53 97 71 144 339 338, 339 332, 338 267 267 97 97 98 97 208 215 215 97 215 97 97 81 82, 141, 144 82 297 297 82 71 53 136 71 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15

391

Index of References 47 47:6–7 48:10 49:8 52:14 53 53:2 53:3 53:5 54:10 55:10–11 60:1–3

251, 267 267 235 136 192 6, 181–85, 187–89, 191, 193, 194 192 192 192 55 297 19

Jeremiah 1–25 1–20 1 1:1–3 1:1 1:4–10 1:4 1:5 1:6 1:7–8 1:9–10 1:10 1:11 1:13–16 1:13–14 1:13 1:15 1:16 2–10 2:3 2:4–8 2:4 2:8 2:9 2:13 2:15 2:20 2:21 3 3:6–11 3:8 3:12 3:18 3:23–25

292, 299 257, 260, 262 268 286 298 82 81 81, 268 81–84, 291 81 81, 264 82, 268, 297 268 233 286 233, 268 233 199 8, 257, 258 266 257 257 258 257 288 258 199 228 261 257 292 233 233 260

4:1–4 4:5–8 4:7–8 4:7 4:9 4:13–18 4:19–26 4:24 4:29–31 5–9 5:1–10 5:1–5 5:1 5:4 5:5 5:7 5:9 5:11 5:13 5:15 5:20 5:21 5:22 5:23 5:29 5:31 6:1–5 6:1 6:9 6:10 6:13 6:19 6:22–25 6:22–23 7 7:1–15 7:5–7 7:16 7:25–34 7:27–28 8:2 8:8–9 8:8 8:10 8:18–9:2 8:18–23 8:19 8:22 8:23

261 257 286 258 258 289 257 55 257 258 258 260 258 258 258 258 258 257 258 257 257 199 9, 307 258 258 258 257 233, 286 228, 258 258 258 258 233 286 249, 292 289, 291 232 291 289 259 199 299 299 258 258 317 257, 261 102, 257, 261 287

392 9:3 Eng. 9:6–7 9:7–9 9:9–10 9:9 9:10–11 Eng. 9:11 9:14 9:15 9:21 9:22 Eng. 10:23–25 10:23 10:25 11 11:1–14 11:1–13 11:1–5 11:4 11:10 11:14 11:20 12:4 12:7–13 12:14–17 13:13 13:15–17 14:1–15:8 14:2–6 14:7–9 14:7 14:8–9 14:9 14:10–12 14:10 14:11–12 14:11 14:13–16 14:13 14:14–18 14:17–18 14:19–22 14:19 14:20 14:21 14:22 15:1–8 15:1 15:4

Index of References 258 258 257 258 258 258 258, 267 144 199 199, 258 258 259 260 268 292 210 289 210 235 144 259, 291 259 286 258 297 258 258 261 261 261 261 261 261 259 258, 261 261 291 258 261 261 258 261 261 261 261 261 261 262, 291 262

15:5–9 15:6 15:8 15:14 16:1–9 16:11–12 16:12 17:1 17:4 18 18:1–12 18:7–10 20–45 20–21 20:6 20:8 21 21:1–10 21:4–8 21:7 21:8–10 21:8 21:9 21:10 22:1–23:8 22:13–17 22:13 22:16 22:28 23:1–8 23:9–40 24–25 24 24:3 24:5 24:6 24:8–10 25 25:1–14 25:1 25:3–11 25:3 25:4–11 25:4 25:6–7 25:7 25:8

258 262 71 199 259 144 145 299 199 263, 292 289 297 262 264 140 286 263, 292 289, 291 263 263, 264 263 263 263 263 263 295 295 295 199 263 258 268 263, 264 268 268 297 268 265, 268, 292, 295, 300 8, 291, 292, 295, 298 299 293 295 289 293 199 293 293

Index of References 25:9–11 25:9 25:12–13 25:12 25:13 25:15–32 25:15 25:17–18 25:17 25:29 25:31 26 26:1–24 26:3 26:4–6 26:9 26:17–19 26:18–19 26:18 26:20–23 26:24 27–29 27 27:6–8 27:6 27:7 27:11 27:13 27:17 27:21 28–29 28 29 29 MT 29:1–32 29:1 29:2–3 29:3 29:4–14 29:4–9 29:4–7 29:5–6 29:10 29:16–20 29:17–19 29:24–28 29:25 29:29

268 268 293 268 268, 292, 295, 299, 301 264 289 293 289 269 269 292, 295 299 295 289 258 295 95 97, 98 295 260, 295 258 293 264 265 264 264 264 264 264 287 293 292, 300, 301 293 8, 292, 298 293, 300 292 260 293 301 294 199 294, 301 264 289 300 293 293, 294

29:30–31 29:32 30–31 30 30:1–3 30:1 30:2 30:4–7 30:5–7 30:6 30:8–9 30:10–11 30:11 30:16 30:17 30:18–22 30:21 31 31:4 31:7–14 31:12 31:29–30 31:30 31:31–34 31:35–36 31:37 32–33 32:6–44 32:7 32:9–32 32:10 32:11 32:12 32:16–25 32:32 32:33 32:40 33 33:1 33:19–22 33:22 33:25–26 34:7 34:13 34:17 34:21 34:22 35:19

393 8 144 292, 299, 294, 301 300 292, 299 8, 294 292, 294 287 300 214 301 301 144 266 301 301 301 140, 294 294 301 224 132, 144 199 301 9, 308 71 294, 299, 301 299, 301 15 299 292 292 298 291 258 338 301 294 294 301 71 9, 308 264 264 264 264 258 260

394 36 36 LXX 36–45 36:1–32 36:1–3 36:1–2 36:1 36:2–3 36:1–32 36:2 36:3 36:4 36:5–6 36:5 36:6 36:8 36:10–16 36:10 36:16–20 36:20–26 36:23 36:26 36:27–32 36:28 37–43 37:1–21 37:19 38 38:2 38:12 38:17 38:33 39–44 39–41 39:4–13 39:15–18 39:16 40:2–6 40:5 40:9 40:10 40:11 42–43 42:6 42:10–18 42:10–12 42:10 43:1–7

Index of References 292, 294, 295, 297, 300 293 297 292, 299 295 297 295, 299 299 8, 292, 294, 295 8 295 292, 295, 298 299 298 295 298 260 298 264 295 296 300 297 296 262 299 258 264 264 9 264 9 264 262, 264, 265 264 297 260 264 260 260, 264 264 262 262 203 265 265 262, 265, 266, 297 297

44:4–6 44:8 44:22 45 45:1–5 45:1 45:4 45:5 46–51 46:28 50–51 50:2 50:7 50:15 50:18 50:24 50:29–32 51 51:5 51:9 51:11 51:24 51:25 51:33–40 51:33 51:34–35 51:34 51:35 51:36 51:44 51:50 51:51 51:53 51:59–64 51:59 51:60 51:64 52 52:4 52:31–34

289 199 258 292, 295, 297, 300 8, 292, 297–99, 301 292, 295, 297, 299 297, 299 260, 297 287 144 8, 257, 267 165, 178 266 267 267 266, 267 267 300 266 219 266 266 147 266 267 267 267 267 267 267 266 266 267 8, 292, 298, 301 298 292, 298 298 264 232 286

Lamentations 1:5 1:8 1:11 1:18 1:20–22 2:3–4 2:10

327 327 327 327 325 327 327

Index of References 2:11–12 2:18–22 3:41 3:42 3:55–66 4:4 4:6 4:7–8 4:7 4:10 4:13 4:21 4:22 5 5:7 5:9 5:11 5:16 5:18 5:19–22 5:22

327 325 26 327 325 327 327 327 208 322 327 40 40, 141, 327 258, 259 140, 327 328 327 327 259 325 325

Ezekiel 1–24 1–3 1:1–3:15 1:1–28 1:1–3 1:1 1:2 1:3 2–3 2:1–2 2:3–5 2:6–7 2:8–3:11 2:8–3:3 3:9 3:14–15 3:14 3:18 3:19 3:22–27 3:22 4:12 4:15 4:17 6 6:4

206 230 79, 81 81 196 230, 231 230 231 79 81 81 81 81 227 85 85 231 199 199 196 231 177 177 210 171 166, 168, 171

6:5 6:6 6:9 6:13 7 7:10 7:20 8–11 8 8:1–4 8:1 8:3 8:8–12 8:8–10 8:10 9:2 11 11:1–13 11:2 11:3 11:6–7 11:14–15 12:2 12:15–16 12:21–14:11 13:5 12:22–23 14 14:1–11 14:1 14:2 14:3 14:4 14:5 14:6 14:7–8 14:7 14:8 14:9–11 14:9–10 14:9 14:10 14:10 14:11 14:11 14:13

395 166, 168, 171, 179 166, 168, 171, 199 166, 168, 171 166, 168, 171, 199 339 338 173, 177, 178 230 170 231 196, 230, 231 230 180 170 166, 168, 170, 171, 177 233 7, 233 208 232 232, 233 232 232 199 199 210 338 233 6, 180 195, 200–202, 204, 205, 209, 210 196, 209 171 166, 171, 202 166, 201, 202, 205, 209 166, 168, 201, 203 166, 168 205 166, 168, 201, 202 201–203 205 209 202, 203 205, 209 201 205, 210 201, 203 202

396 15:1–8 15:3 15:4–5 16 16:15–22 16:17–19 16:17 16:23–34 16:23–29 16:25–28 16:36 16:44–45 16:44 17 17:1–10 17:2 17:8 17:13 17:16 17:18 17:19 18 18:2–3 18:2 18:4 18:5 18:6 18:12 18:15 18:18 18:21 19:1–9 19:4 19:8–9 20 20:1 20:4 20:7 20:8 20:16 20:18 20:24 20:25–26 20:30–31 20:30 20:31 20:32–33 20:32

Index of References 228, 235 228 228 166, 167, 172, 175, 180 173, 174 174 173–75, 178 174 174 173 166–68, 172 141, 144 233 168 228 228, 233 219 169 169 169 169 132, 140, 144, 199 233 144 145 202 166, 168, 180 166, 168, 180 166, 168, 180 202 202 229, 235 229 229 75, 198 196, 230 144 166, 168 166, 168 166, 168 166, 168 166, 168 208 144 144 166, 168 166 177

20:39 20:49 21:5 21:8–17 Eng. 21:13–22 21:24 22 22:1–14 22:3–4 22:3 22:4 22:17–22 22:18–19 22:20–22 23 23:7 23:14–15 23:14 23:20 23:24 23:27 23:29–30 23:30 23:37 23:39 23:49 24 24:1–14 24:1 24:2 24:3–5 24:3 24:4–5 24:5 24:6–8 24:6 24:7 24:8 24:9–14 24:9–10 24:9 24:10–14 24:10 24:11–12 24:11 24:14 24:21 25:12

166, 168 228 228 236 236 140 7 208 180 166, 168 166, 168 235, 237 235 235 166, 167, 172, 175, 180 166–68, 172 171, 172, 175 171, 173, 178 166 233 166 172 167, 168, 172 167, 168, 172 166–68, 172 166–68, 172 6, 7, 208 206, 207, 232, 234 230, 232 232 206, 207 206 233 208 200, 206–10 206, 207, 233 207, 208 208 206–209 234 206, 207 207 207 233, 235 234 168 210 40

397

Index of References 26:1 26:4 26:6–8 26:14 26:18 27:33 28:25–26 29–32 29:1 29:5 29:17 30:3 30:6 30:13 30:20 31:1 31:14 32:1 32:9 32:17 33:2 33:6 33:9 33:10 33:21–22 33:21 33:25 33:30–33 33:32 33:28 34:8 34:16 36:18 36:25 36:40 37:1–14 37:1 37:23 38–39 38:20 40–48 40–42 40:1 40:2 40:3–4 43:12 44:10 44:12 45:6

230 208 195 208 53 71 199 230 230 199 230 338, 339 210 165, 168 230 230 203 230 199 230 202 202 202 210 196 230 166 196 228 210 236 203 166 166, 168 203 230 231 166, 168 233 71 230, 231, 237, 238 231 230, 231 230, 231 230 238 166, 168, 204 166, 168, 204 231

45:15 45:17 46:18 47:1–12 48:15 48:30–35

209 209 203 231 231 231

Daniel 2 2:18 2:19 2:31–35 2:31 2:32 2:35 2:37 2:44 3 3:1 3:2 3:3 3:5 3:7 3:10 3:12 3:14 3:15 3:18 3:19 3:21–25 4:34 5:23 7:13–14 9:16 10:11 11:40–45

175, 176, 179 26 26 176 173 173 173 26 26 175, 179 173 173, 175, 176 173, 175 173, 175 173 173 173, 175 173, 175 173, 175 173, 175 173 176 26 26 334 145 87 233

Hosea 1–2 1 1:1 1:2–2:3 1:2–9 1:2 1:3–5 1:3 1:4–7

3, 61, 64, 69, 70, 75, 76 67, 69, 72 3, 61, 64–66, 70, 76 61, 63, 67 3, 61, 63, 65, 66, 68–72 63, 65, 66, 70–73 63 66 70

398 1:4–5 1:4 1:5–6 1:5 1:6–7 1:6 1:7 1:8–9 1:9 1:10 Eng. 1:10–2:1 Eng. 1:10–11 Eng. 1:15 2 2:1 2:1 Eng. 2:1–3 2:1–2 2:2–23 Eng. 2:2–15 Eng. 2:2 2:3 2:4–25 2:4–17 2:4–7 2:4–6 2:4 2:5 2:6 2:7–17 2:7 2:8–17 2:8–10 2:8–9 2:8 2:8 Eng. 2:9–10 2:9 2:10–11 2:10 2:11–17 2:11–15 2:11–12 2:11 2:12

Index of References 64–66, 71 63, 64, 70, 71 69 64, 68, 70, 71 63, 65, 71 63, 64, 66, 70, 75 65, 70, 71 63 18, 61, 63–66, 70, 71 61 61, 65 65 67 224 61, 65, 66, 68, 70– 73 61, 65 3, 61, 63, 65, 67, 69, 71, 72 65 61 67, 72 3, 65, 66, 70–73, 74 61, 65, 75 61, 75 3, 61, 67, 68, 69, 72, 75 67 67 61, 67, 68 67, 70, 73 67, 75 68 67, 72, 73 67, 72 67 67, 72, 73 67, 70, 73 224 73 72, 73, 75 70 67, 69, 73, 224 72 67 73 67, 73 72

2:13 2:14–17 2:14–15 2:14 2:15 2:16–20 Eng. 2:16–17 2:16 2:17 2:18–25 2:18–22 2:18–19 2:18 2:19 2:20–22 2:20 2:21–23 Eng. 2:21–22 2:22 Eng. 2:23–25 2:23–24 2:23 2:24 2:25 3 4:3 6:3 6:5 8:13 9:2 9:9 10:1 12 12:2–4 12:2–3 12:3 ET 12:4 12:7–8 14 14:7 14:8 14:10 Joel 1–2 1 1:10 1:15

73 73 73 68, 70, 72, 98 67, 69, 72–75 68, 74 67, 74 67, 70, 74, 75 68–70, 74–76 3, 61, 69 61, 68, 74 68, 75 68, 75 68, 75 68, 75 69, 70, 76 68, 74 68, 75 224 61, 69, 74, 75 69 70, 74 224 69, 70, 76 61 71 19 20 140 225 140 228 3 41 41 41 41 41 224, 225 224, 228 224 62

6, 217, 222, 224, 225 213, 225 224 338, 339

399

Index of References 1:17 2 2:1 2:11 2:12–17 2:13 2:19 2:20 2:22 2:24 2:31 Eng. 3–4 3:4 3:14 Eng. 3:17 4:14

220, 221 224, 225, 339 339 339 224 131, 136, 137, 146 224 233 219, 224 224, 225 339 225 339 339 97 339

Amos 3:14 4:9 4:6–12 4:6–11 4:9 5:8 5:16–20 5:18 5:20 5:26 7:17

140 6 225 213, 225 214–16, 225 71 339 338, 339 338 173 140

Obadiah 10–14 15 17 21

40 339 97 97

Jonah 1 1:1–3 1:1 1:2 1:3 1:4 1:9 1:14 1:17 2 2:10 3

4, 83, 84, 87–90, 92 82, 89 82 82, 87, 88, 90, 139 83, 87, 88 90 26 84 90 91 86 4, 76, 87–92

3:1–3 3:1 3:2 3:3 3:4 3:9 3:10 4

4:5 4:6 4:7 4:8 4:11

86, 89 86 86, 88 88, 89, 92 89, 90, 139 137, 139 83 77, 84, 86 89, 90, 93 90 83, 89 92 83, 84, 89–91, 131, 132, 136, 137, 145– 47 89 90 90 90 92

Micah 1–5 1 1:5 1:6 1:9 2–5 2:7 3 3:1–4 3:1–3 3:3 3:5–8 3:9–12 3:10 3:12 4 4:1–5 4:6 4:7 5:5 6–7 6:6 6:8 6:14–15 6:14 7:2 7:18–20

103 99 99 99 102 99 139 95 95 232 102 95 95 95 95–98, 103 95 95 102 97 146 103 26 253 103 103 139, 141 145, 146

4:1–2 4:1 4:2–4 4:2

400 7:18 Nahum 1:1 1:2 1:3 1:5 2:11–12 2:12–13 3:13 3:19

Index of References 131, 146

234 147 131, 134, 139, 145– 47 55 229 229 117 102

2:14 2:15–16 2:16–17 2:16 2:17 2:18–19 2:18 2:19 2:20–23 2:20 2:23 Zechariah 1–8

Habakkuk 2 2:2 2:14 3:2

95 298 71 143

Zephaniah 1 1:1 1:2–6 1:7–13 1:7 1:8 1:14–18 1:14 1:17 1:18 2:1–3 2:2 2:3 2:4–3:20 2:4–15 3:1–30 3:5 3:8 3:10

340 339 340 340 339–42 341 340 339, 342 177 332 340 343 332 340 340 340 19 338 340, 341

Haggai 1:1 1:11 1:15 2 2:1 2:10–16 2:10 2:11–17

230 224 230 6 225, 230 213 225, 230 213

1:1 1:2–6 1:4–6 1:6 1:7–17 1:7 1:9 1:15 1:18–21 Eng. 1:19 Eng. 2:1 Eng. 2:1–5 Eng. 2:1–4 2:2 2:2 Eng. 2:3–5 Eng. 2:5–9 2:5 2:6–7 2:6 2:7–9 3:1–10 3:8 4:1–5 4:6–10 4:10–14 5:1–4 5:3 5:5–11 5:6–8 5:10–11 6:1–8 6:5–6 6:8

216 215, 216 217 214, 215 213–17, 223–26 217 225, 230 6, 213, 217–24, 226 235 225, 230 236

225, 229, 230, 235, 237, 238 225, 230 225, 226 225 225 230 225, 230 230 267 230 230 231 230, 231 230 230 231 230 230, 231 231 233 231 230 230 235, 236 230 235 230 230 230 230 230 230 230 230 233

401

Index of References 6:9–15 6:12–13 7:1–7 7:1 7:5 8:8 9–14 9–11 9:1–10 9:9–10 9:10 9:13 10:2 10:3–5 11:4–17 12–14 12 12:1–6 12:1–5 Eng. 12:5–9 12:6 12:7–9 12:7 12:8 12:10 12:12 13:1 13:7–9

235 236 39 230 39 237 229, 234–36, 238 234 235 236 71 229 236 236 236 234 7 234 234 234 234, 235 234 236 236 236 236 236 235, 236

13 13:8 13:9 14:1

7, 236 237 237 339

Malachi 3:19 3:20 3:22 3:23

339 19 339 339

Tobit 7:13 8:5

26 26

Judith 5:8 6:19 11:17

26 26 26

Ecclesiasticus 1:1–3 9:1–9 25:21 25:24 26:6–12 42:13–14

71 117 117 117 117 1

New Testament Matthew 12:41 24:3–44 24:31 26:31

334 337 334 236

Mark 8:38 13:3–13 13:26–27 14:27

334 337 334 236

Luke 1 17:20–37 21:25–28

92 337 334

John 21:23

343

Acts 1:7

335

Romans 2:5 2:16 5:2 8:18 13:11–12 13:12–13 13:12

342 342 343 343 343 342 331, 342, 343

402

Index of References

1 Corinthians 1:8 3:13 5:5 7:10–12 7:29–31 7:29 7:31 9:14 10:11 15:23

342 342 342 334 344 331, 343, 344 343 334 343 342

2 Corinthians 1:14 5:17 6:2

342 343 342

Galatians 4:4

343

Philippians 1:6 1:10 2:16

342 342 342

1 Thessalonians 1–3 1:9–10 1:10 2:11–14 2:16 2:19 3:6–13 3:13 4:1–12 4:1 4:10–17 4:13–17:9 4:13–18 4:13 4:14 4:15–17 4:15 4:17 4:18 5 5:1–11 5:1

335 332 331, 332, 335, 343 335 332 332 335 332 335 335 333 333 332, 333, 335 333 333 334 332–34 333, 334 333 335 333, 335 335

5:2 5:4–24 5:4 5:5 5:6–11 5:8 5:9 5:23

335, 342 335 335 335 335 335 332, 335 332

2 Thessalonians 1:1 1:6 1:7–10 1:7 1:10 1:15 2 2:1 2:2–12 2:2 2:3–12 2:3 2:6 2:7 2:8 2:9

337 337 336 337, 338 336 338 336, 338 336 337 336 336, 337 337 337 337 336, 338 336

1 Peter 4:17

293

2 Peter 3:3–4

343

Pseudepigrapha 4 Ezra 3:20 3:28 3:29–36

267 267 267

Talmuds b: Ber. 7a

145

403

Index of References

Classical Diogenes 5.1 Plato Timaios 83e

257

305

Republic V–VII

275

Other Ancient Sources Coffin Text 1330

28

P.Bulak 17

28

P.Cairo 58038

28

Inscriptions Atrahasis Myth III v 34–36

118

Code of Hammurabi V.16 312 XXIV.73 312 XXV.38 312 Rev. XXVIII. 50–65 102 CT 34 37.81

169

Dial pessI 1–2 I1 I 3–4 I 4–9 I4 I 7–8 II 10–16 II 13

106 111 112 107 112 112 107 113

II 14 III 17–28 III 17–20 III 17 III 19–22 III 21–28 III 22 III 25–28 III 27 III 28 IV 29–38 IV 30–31 IV 32 IV 34 IX 70–71 IX 71 IX 72–78 IX 72 IX 73 IX 76–78 IX 78 V 39–45 VI 46–52 VI 51–52 VII 53–54 VII 54–56 VII 54–55 VII 55–61 VII 56–57 VII 60–61 VII 60 VII 61 VIII 62–69 VIII 63–67 VIII 67 X 79–86 X 80 X 81–84 X 81–82 X 85

113 113 107 113 123 108 113 123 113 114 108, 114 115 116 116 110 119 111 119 119, 120 120 119 109, 116 109 117 109 125 125 110 117 118 118, 125 118, 125 110 119 119 111, 121 126 126 126 126

Enuma Elish IV.17–28 V.1–22 V.3 V.13 V.46 V.50

311 310 311 311 311 311

404

Index of References

V.52 VI 113–14 VI 119–21

311 31 31

Gilgamesh Epic I 18 XI 116 XI 161–163 XI 323

120 118 118 120

KAI 222 A.32–33 Kennicott 1 4 6 69 82 84 107 108 109 111 129 132 136

101

49 49 49 49 49 49 49 49 49 49 49 49 49

152 155 181 199 248 389 A 615

48 49 49 49 49 48 49

MDP 21

170

SAA 2 vi 547–550 2.2 i 10–20 2.2 i 4–6 2.6. 545–46 §§68 II 6 §§52

102 103 101 101 102

Sargon II 20 II 21 II VI:58–62

100 100 102

YOS 3 4.7 10 17:12

170 100

Index of Authors Alter, R. 81 Abernethy, D. 156 Abugideiri, H. 279 Achebe, C. 273 Achtemeier, E. 234 Ackerman, S. 155, 161 Ackroyd, P. R. 215 Ahn, J. J. 329 Aichele, G. 182 Albani, M. 15, 311 Albrektson, B. 342 Allen, L. C. 81, 88, 166, 168, 210 Allsopp, F. W. 17, 18 Amsler, S. 217 Andersen, F. I. 74, 75, 96, 146 Aurelius, E. 18, 19, 136 Baden, J. S. 47, 54, 55 Bail, U. 98, 103 Baker, R. 317 Barger, D. G. 266 Barton, J. 255, 256 Baudissin, W. W. G. von 169 Baumgartner, W. 18 Beaulieu, P.-A. 174 Becker, E.-M. 288 Becking, B. 95 Begg, C. T. 212 Behar, R. 278 Beker, J. C. 337 Bellinger, W. H. 184 Ben Zvi, E. 61, 68, 80, 325, 326 Bergsma, J. S. 199 Berlin, A. 321 Beuken, W. A. M. 215 Bickerman, E. 77, 78 Biddle, M. E. 255–60, 263–66 Biggs, R. 121 Black, J. A. 112 Blackburn, W. R. 134, 143 Blass, F. 333

Blenkinsopp, J. 35, 184, 237 Blight, D. W. 301 Block, D. I. 79, 166, 168, 201, 203, 206, 208, 210, 232 Blum, E. 18, 20, 24, 38, 50 Boase, E. 287, 318, 319, 322 Bobzien, S. 305 Böhl, F. M. T. de L. 127 Borowski, O. 220, 221 Bottéro, J. 122, 127 Bouzard, W. C. Jr. 316 Bowman, R. A. 169, 177 Breed, B. W. 176 Bruce, F. F. 332, 334 Brueggemann, W. 288 Brummitt, M. 296 Buccellati, G. 124 Callaway, M. C. 288 Carpenter, J. E. 55 Carr, D. M. 41, 43, 44, 226 Carroll, R. P. 255, 293 Carvalho, C. L. 322, 326, 329 Cary, P. 137, 139, 146, 147 Cassuto, U. 56 Chapman, C. R. 167, 175, 327 Chary, T. 216 Chavel, S. 44, 47, 54 Childs, B. S. 49, 56, 143 Claassens, J. M. 266, 287 Clark, D. J. 215, 217 Clements, R. E. 294, 297 Clines, D. J. A. 160, 161, 188 Cogan, M. 174 Cohen, M. I. 316 Cohen, Y. 127 Cone, J. H. 280 Conway, M. L. 318 Cook, S. L. 135, 145 Cooke, G. A. 202, 206 Copeland, M. S. 271–74, 277, 278

406

Index of Authors

Cowley, A. 17 Cragg, K. 279 Craig, K. M. Jr. 81, 90 Cranfield, C. E. B. 343 D’Agostino, F. 115, 116, 121 Darshan, G. 44 Davidson, S. V. 323 Davies, G. I. 18 Davis, E. F. 80, 93, 196, 227 Day, P. L. 16, 166 DeGrado, J. 44 Dearman, J. A. 66, 299 Debrunner, A. 333 Delitzsch, F. 29 Denning-Bolle, S. 124 Dick, M. B. 228, 229 Dietrich, W. 156 Dillmann, A. 50, 51, 53 Doak, B. R. 242 Dobbs-Allsopp, F. W. 256, 316, 326, 328 Dochhorn, J. 288 Donner, H. 18 Driver, S. R. 50, 197 Dube, M. W. 281 Duhm, B. 290 Dunn, J. D. G. 332–34, 336, 338, 344 Ebeling, E. 106, 119 Edzard, D. O. 29 Eggleston, C. L. 291 Ehrlich, A. B. 53 Ehrman, B. 335, 336 Eichrodt, W. 166 Eldridge, V. P. 257 Elliger, K. 87, 339 Enns, P. 141 Erickson, A. 78, 81 Ewald, G. H. A. 196 Exum, J. C. 150, 151, 155, 160 Farmer, W. R. 184 Fee, G. D. 332–35, 337 Ferris, P. W., Jr. 316 Fewell, D. N. 182 Finsterbusch, K. 265

Fischer, G. 291, 292 Fishbane, M. 35, 200, 209 Fiskesjö, M. 192 Floyd, M. H. 78, 234, 318 Fohrer, G. 308 Fohrman, D. 246 Foriers, P. 304 Foster, B. R. 31, 105, 112, 114, 115, 117, 118, 120, 121, 127, 310 Fox, E. 136 Frahm, E. 127 Frankena, R. 101 Frechette, C. G. 173, 258, 287 Freedman, D. N. 74, 75, 96, 136, 177, 237 Fretheim, T. E. 78, 81, 89, 267 Friedman, R. E. 139 Friedrich, G. 335 Frymer-Kensky, T. 281 Gabbay, U. 316, 317 Gadd, C. J. 100 Galambush, J. 116, 166 Ganzel, T. 165, 170 Gaventa, B. R. 335 Gelston, A. 87 George, A. R. 118, 120 Gerstenberger, E. S. 82, 204, 205, 209 Gesenius, W. 22 Ginzberg, L. 146 Girard, R. 181, 182, 185–88, 190, 192 Gitay, Y. 77, 78, 323, 324 Goetze, A. 100 Goodman, M. 249, 251 Gorman, M. J. 343 Gottlieb, L. 47 Gowan, D. E. 135, 137, 145 Green, B. 156 Greenberg, M. 50, 55, 165, 168, 177, 199, 201, 202, 205–208, 210 Greenspahn, F. E. 123, 325 Greenstein, E. L. 128, 290 Grohmann, M. 182 Gruber, M. I. 66 Gunkel, H. 2, 196, 227 Guyette, F. 79

Index of Authors Habel, N. 78–81, 84–86 Haddox, S. E. 161 Hägglund, F. 185 Hahn, S. 237 Halpern, B. 139, 144 Hals, R. M. 166 Hamilton, M. W. 63 Hampe, M. 304 Harding, J. E. 155 Harford-Battersby, G. 55 Hartenstein, F. 17 Hartley, J. E. 204 Hartmann, B. 29 Hassan, R. 279 Hatton, H. A. 217 Hays, R. B. 334 Healey, J. F. 16 Hegel, W. F. G. 274 Herrmann, W. 16, 18 Heschel, A. J. 131, 250 Hetzel, A. 185 Hildebrand, D. R. 217 Hill, J. 295 Hillers, D. R. 97, 98, 101–103, 323 Hoftijzer, J. 24 Holladay, W. L. 293 Holt, E. K. 287, 288, 290 Holtz, T. 335 Holtzman, H. J. 336 Holzinger, H. 50 Hong, K. P. 188, 189 Hopkins, D. C. 97 Hornung, E. 27 Horowitz, W. 174, 309 Hossfeld, F.-L. 21, 133, 135, 136 Houtman, C. 54, 55 Hubler, C. 75 Huehnergard, J. 100 Hume, D. 274 Hurvitz, A. 197 Hutchinson, J. 183 Hyatt, J. P. 54 Irwin, R. 303 Jacobs, M. R. 215, 217, 219 Jacoby, N. 265

407

Janowski, B. 19, 184, 185 Janzen, D. 318, 321 Jeremias, A. 29 Jeremias, J. 97 Joachimsen, K. 185 Jobling, D. 150, 161, 164 Jonas, H. 269 Joseph, A. L. 190 Joüon, P. 22, 222 Joyce, P. M. 166, 202, 206, 208, 328, 329 Kalmanofsky, A. 287 Kämmerer, T. R. 31 Kant, I. 274 Kaplan, E. A. 324 Kasher, R. 208 Kaufmann, Y. 139, 197 Kedar-Kopfstein, B. 55 Kennett, R. H. 196, 198 Keren, O. 156, 157 Kessler, M. 266 Kilian, R. 22 Kim, H. C. P. 182, 285 Kim, S. J. 231 Kindl, E.-M. 135, 136 King, P. J. 98 King, T. 35 Kinnier-Wilson, J. V. 121 Kirova, M. 162 Klostermann, A. 229 Knauf, E.-A. 17 Koenig, S. M. 160 Köhler, L. 18 Konkel, M. 237 Kooij, G. van der 24 Koopmans, W. T. 216 Kopilovitz, A. 198 Kratz, R. G. 15 Krebernik, M. 13, 29 Kristeva, J. 181, 182 Kuenen, A. 196 Kullmann, W. 304 Kutsko, J. F. 165, 177, 179 Kwakkel, G. 64 Labat, R. 114, 116, 120–22

408

Index of Authors

Lacocque, A. 217 Lambert, W. G. 30, 105, 106, 112, 115, 118–23, 125, 127 Landy, F. 63, 156 Langdon, S. 105, 121 Lauinger, J. 117 Lee, A. C. C. 324, 329 Lee, N. C. 319, 322 Leeuw, G. van der 16 Lemmelijn, B. 43–45, 47, 48, 57 Lesher, J. H. 27 Leuchter, M. 288, 291, 296, 299 Levenson, J. D. 251 Levin, C. 13, 21–26, 33 Lévinas, E. 194 Levine, B. A. 146 Levitt Kohn, R. 197–99, 203, 212 Lichtheim, M. 15, 117 Lilly, I. E. 170 Limburg, J. 81, 87 Linafelt, T. 321, 322, 324 Lindemann, A. 336, 338 Lipton, D. 329 Livingston, A. 115 Löhnert, A. 324 Lundbom, J. R. 88 Lust, J. 167, 168 Lyons, M. A. 195–97, 199, 200, 202, 205, 207–10, 212 Maag, V. 16 MacCarthy, P. 223 MacIntosh, A. A. 65, 76 Magonet, J. 77, 151 Maier, C. M. 167, 174, 287, 320–22, 327 Mandolfo, C. R. 319, 322 Marchesi, G. 100 Marcus, D. 77, 81, 85, 88, 90 Mathews, D. 79 Maul, S. 31, 312 Mays, J. L. 281 McEntire, M. 227 McGeough, K. M. 151, 152, 160, 162 McKane, W. 85, 97 Meek, A. 321, 322 Mettinger, T, N. D. 184, 231

Meyers, C. L. 216, 218, 225, 229–31 Meyers, E. M. 216, 218, 225, 229–31, 238 Middlemas, J. A. 166, 177, 316, 328 Milgrom, J. 177, 179, 202–205, 207– 209, 266 Miller, G. D. 182 Mills, M. E. 287, 327 Milstein, S. J. 79 Minunno, G. 118 Moberly, R. W. L. 77, 89, 91, 134 Moor, J. C. de 99 Morrow, W. S. 316 Morse, B. 321 Moughtin-Mumby, S. 69 Mowinckel, S. 17 Muffs, Y. 117 Muilenburg, J. 79 Müller, H.-P. 17 Müller, R. 17 Muraoka, P. 22, 203, 222 Murphy, F. 154, 158 Na’aman, N. 15 Newsom, C. A. 176, 228 Nickel, R. 305 Niditch, S. 296 Nihan, C. L. 198, 204, 205 Nissinen, M. 149, 226, 227 Nogalski, J. D. 222, 224 Noriega, C. 152, 154 North, C. R. 184 Noth, M. 51 O’Brien, J. M. 103 O’Connor, K. M. 202, 258, 266, 287, 322, 326, 327 O’Connor, M. P. 97 Odell, M. S. 166, 173, 230 Olyan, S. 150 Oorschot, J. von 13 Oshima, T. 174 Palaver, W. 181, 189 Parke-Taylor, G. H. 260 Parker, S. B. 328 Parpola, S. 29, 30

Index of Authors Parry, R. A. 320, 325, 326 Patton, C. L. 167 Paul, S. M. 120 Peleg, Y. 158, 162 Perelman, C. 304 Perlitt, L. 135, 136 Perry, T. A. 83, 93 Person, R. F., Jr. 81, 83, 85, 89, 90, 92 Petersen, D. L. 214–17, 231 Petter, D. L. 318 Pfeiffer, R. H. 121 Phillips, G. A. 182 Pichot, A. 303 Plant, R. J. R. 255, 257, 263, 264 Plevnik, J. 338 Pohlmann, K.-F. 262, 264 Pola, T. 32 Ponchia, S. 115, 116, 119 Porten, B. 17, 18 Porter, B. N. 13, 29 Preuss, H. D. 165, 177 Propp, W. H. C. 48–51, 53, 54, 56, 57, 135, 137, 144, 145 Prouser, O. H. 154 Puech, E. 17 Pury, A. de 20, 35 Quick, L. 103 Rad, G. von 32, 339 Raitt, T. M. 257 Redditt, P. L. 217, 236 Renz, J. 17 Reventlow, H. G. 215, 217 Richardson, H. N. 223 Ritner, R. K. 28 Ro, J. U. 342 Roberts, J. J. M. 229 Rochberg, F. 303 Rofé, A. 43 Rogland, M. 216 Rom-Shiloni, D. 195, 199, 210, 211 Römer, T. 291 Rossi, B. 292, 299 Rowe, J. 162 Rudolph, W. 66 Ruppert, L. 184

409

Russell, S. C. 67 Ryu, C. J. 89 Samet, N. 113, 115, 116, 121, 123, 127 Sanders, S. 174 Saporetti, C. 114, 115 Sarna, N. M. 84, 135 Sasson, J. M. 80, 82, 84, 87, 89 Schaper, J. 291 Scharbert, J. 144, 211 Schipper, J. 185, 192 Schivelbusch, W. 321 Schmid, K. 20, 303, 309, 313 Schneider, T. J. 276 Schniedewind, W. W. 237 Schoors, A. 117 Schroer, S. 161 Schultz, R. L. 200 Schütte, W. 76 Schwager, R. 185, 187 Schwartz, B. J. 47, 54, 203–205, 207 Schwienhorst-Schönberger, L. 117 Scott, J. C. 302 Screnock, J. 53 Seitz, C. R. 262, 299 Shalom-Guy, H. 79 Sharp, C. J. 77, 262, 268, 287, 329 Shaw, C. S. 97, 101 Sherwood, Y. 77, 83, 88, 91, 296 Simian-Yofre, H. 136 Simon, U. 80 Ska, J. L. 276 Smend, R. 227 Smith, A. D. 183 Smith, M. S. 309, 321, 323, 325 Smith, R. L. 217 Smith-Christopher, D. L. 101 Snaith, N. H. 87, 266 Soden, W. Von 112–16, 118–21 Speiser, E. A. 31, 112, 113, 115, 116, 118, 120, 121, 123, 127 Spieckermann, H. 132, 184 Spiegelberg, W. 238 Stackert, J. 46, 47, 50, 55, 56 Stähli, H.-P. 19 Staubli, T. 161 Stavrakopoulou, F. 190

410

Index of Authors

Steiner, G. 296 Stendebach, F. J. 173 Steymans, H. U. 101, 102, 316 Stiebert, J. 153, 159, 160, 162 Stipp, H.-J. 45, 265 Stökl, J. 317 Stolz, F. 16 Stone, K. 155, 162 Stone, M. E. 267, 268 Strawn, B. A. 78, 82, 85, 91, 92 Strobel, A. 337 Stuart, D. 66 Stuhlmacher, P. 184 Stulac, D. J. 76 Stulman, L. 285, 287, 292, 299 Suderman, D. 267 Sweeney, M. A. 2, 5, 78–80, 85, 87, 95, 96, 98, 99, 181, 182, 189, 192, 193, 195, 218, 241, 242, 252, 255–57, 269, 272, 288, 331, 339–42 Sykes, S. 230 Tadmor, H. 100, 168 Testen, D. 100 Teubal, S. J. 279 Theissen, G. 331, 333, 338 Thomas, H. A. 320 Tigay, J. H. 17, 44 Timmer, D. C. 145 Tollerton, D. 151 Tollington, J. E. 215 Toorn, K. van der 226 Tov, E. 45, 46, 48, 49, 54 Töyräänvuori, J. 149 Trebolle Barrera, J. 44 Trible, P. 77, 78, 80–83, 88, 272 Tsevat, M. 168 Tucker, W. D. 82, 87 Tuell, S. S. 166, 229, 230, 237 Tumarkin, M. 321

Vlaardingerbroek, J. 339, 340 Volf, M. 183 Vroom, J. 53 Vuilleumier, R. 217 Wagenaar, J. A. 97 Wagner, M. 97 Waltke, B. K. 97, 202 Wanamaker, C. A. 338 Wanke, G. 17 Wasserman, N. 316 Weimar, P. 41 Weinfeld, M. 298 Weippert, M. 18, 24 Weiser, A. 197 Welch, A. J. 177 Wellhausen, J. 17, 44, 50, 196 Wenham, G. J. 203 Westenholz, J. G. 100 Westermann, C. 35 Wet, C. L. de 2 Wevers, J. W. 54 Widmer, M. 134, 137 Wilkins, L. L. 328 Willi-Plein, I. 154, 155 Williams, J. G. 185, 187 Williamson, R. Jr. 169, 315, 329 Wilmore, G. S. 280 Wilson, J. A. 28 Wilson, K. M. 319, 321, 322 Wilson, R. R. 198, 227, 292, 326 Winitzer, A. 317 Winter, I. J. 173–75 Wiseman, D. J. 112 Wolff, H. W. 81, 93, 178, 215, 217, 222 Woude, A. S. van der 97, 215, 217 Wrede, W. 336 Wyler, B. 92

Ungnad, A. 123

Yardeni, A. 17, 18 Yee, G. A. 167

Vater, A. M. 52 Vaughan, P. H. 98 Verhoef, P. A. 215, 217, 218 Vielhauer, P. 337

Zenger, E. 133 Zilsel, E. 306, 307 Zimmerli, W. 79, 166, 168, 184, 196– 99, 202–207, 232, 235