The Artistic Dimension: Literary Explorations of the Hebrew Bible 9781472550828, 9780567442628

Citation preview

LIBRARY OF HEBREW BIBLE/ OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES

590 Formerly Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series

Editors Claudia V. Camp, Texas Christian University Andrew Mein, Westcott House, Cambridge

Founding Editors David J. A. Clines, Philip R. Davies and David M. Gunn

Editorial Board Alan Cooper, John Goldingay, Robert P. Gordon, Norman K. Gottwald, James Harding, John Jarick, Carol Meyers, Patrick D. Miller, Francesca Stavrakopoulou, Daniel L. Smith-Christopher

ii

THE ARTISTIC DIMENSION

Literary Explorations of the Hebrew Bible

Keith Bodner

LON DON • N E W DE L H I • N E W YOR K • SY DN EY

Bloomsbury T&T Clark An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

1385 Broadway New York NY 10018 USA

www.bloomsbury.com First published 2013 © Keith Bodner, 2013 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Keith Bodner has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identi¿ed as Author of this work. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury Academic or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. eISBN:

978-0-56744-262-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

Typeset by Forthcoming Publications Ltd (www.forthpub.com)

CONTENTS Acknowledgments Abbreviations

vii ix 1

INTRODUCTION Part I TEXTUAL PROBLEMS AND LITERARY ANALYSIS Chapter 1 CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION: A TEXT-CRITICAL MYSTERY AND THE STRANGE DEATH OF ISHBOSHETH

15

Chapter 2 THE LOCUTIONS OF 1 KINGS 22:28: A NEW PROPOSAL

36

Chapter 3 THE “EMBARRASSING SYNTAX” OF PSALM 47:10: A (PRO)VOCATIVE OPTION

50

Part II READERS OF THE LOST ARK Chapter 4 ARK-EOLOGY: SHIFTING EMPHASES IN “ARK NARRATIVE” SCHOLARSHIP

59

Chapter 5 MOUSE TRAP: A TEXT-CRITICAL PROBLEM WITH RODENTS IN THE ARK NARRATIVE

86

vi

Contents Part III FURTHER SOUNDINGS

Chapter 6 JONATHAN SON OF ABIATHAR: THE FULFILLMENT OF A PROPHETIC WORD ABOUT THE DISSOLUTION OF A PRIESTLY LINE

103

Chapter 7 HIGHWAY TO SHEOL: SEDUCTIVE SPEECH AND PROMISCUOUS PLACES IN PROVERBS 7

114

Part IV THE WORLD OF CHRONICLES Chapter 8 THE ROYAL SKULL IN A TEMPLE OF DOOM: AN INTERPRETATION OF 1 CHRONICLES 10:10

133

Chapter 9 ABIJAH’S ELEVATED RHETORIC AND THE CIVIL WAR OF 2 CHRONICLES 13

144

Chapter 10 CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: THE CONFIGURATION OF AHAZIAH’S LAST HOURS IN 2 CHRONICLES

157

CONCLUSION

179

Bibliography Index of References Index of Authors

188 202 207

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am very grateful to Andrew Mein and Claudia Camp for allowing me to contribute to the LHBOTS series, and for their encouragement to offer something of a bridge between literary analysis and more traditional critical concerns across a range of different kinds of texts. I would also like to thank the publishers of the various journals where the essays in the ¿rst half of the book originally appeared: Chapter 1 “Crime Scene Investigation: A Text-Critical Mystery and the Strange Death of Ishbosheth,” Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 7, article 13 (2007): 1–18. Chapter 2 “The Locutions of 1 Kings 22:28: A New Proposal,” Journal of Biblical Literature 122 (2003): 533–43. Chapter 3 “The ‘Embarrassing Syntax’ of Psalm 47,10: A (Pro)vocative Option,” Journal of Theological Studies 54, no. 2 (2003): 570–75. Chapter 4 “Ark-eology: Shifting Emphases in “Ark Narrative” Scholarship,” Currents in Biblical Research 4, no. 2 (2006): 169–97. Chapter 5 “Mouse Trap: A Text-Critical Problem with Rodents in the Ark Narrative,” Journal of Theological Studies 59, no. 2 (2008): 634–49.

I certainly bene¿tted from the opportunities to experiment with these ideas in different settings, and I would like to thank Ehud Ben Zvi, Gail O’Day, Morna Hooker, Alan Hauser, and John Barton for their editorial oversight. The rest of the chapters have not been previously published, but most were presented as conference papers at the annual meetings of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies and the Society of Biblical Literature, so a word of thanks should be extended to program chairs and others who provided encouragement along the way: Bob Knowles, Steve Schweitzer, John Wright, Gary Knoppers, Chris Cudahy,

viii

Acknowledgments

Steve Dempster, Andrew Marshall, Hugh Rendle, Jeff Greenman, Jeremy Hutton, Brent Strawn, John Stackhouse, Mark Leuchter, Jeremy Schipper and Jacob Wright. On the production side, I am once again indebted to my copy-editor, Duncan Burns.

1

ABBREVIATIONS AB ABD AOTC BASOR BCOTWP BibInt BTCB BWANT BZAW CB CBQ DJD ESHM EvT FAT FCB FOTL GKC HBM HS ICC Int JBL JHS JNSL JSJSup JSNTSup JSOT JSOTSup JTS KAT LCBI LHBOTS LXX MT

NAC

Anchor Bible The Anchor Bible Dictionary. Edited by David Noel Freedman. 6 vols. New York, 1992 Abingdon Old Testament Commentaries Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms Biblical Interpretation Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible Beiträge zur Wissenschaft vom Alten und Neuen Testament Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft The Cambridge Bible Commentary Catholic Biblical Quarterly Discoveries in the Judaean Desert European Seminar in Historical Methodology Evangelische Theologie Forschungen zum Alten Testament Feminist Companion to the Bible The Forms of the Old Testament Literature Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar. Edited by E. Kautzsch. Translated by A. E. Cowley. 2d. ed. Oxford, 1910 Hebrew Bible Monographs Hebrew Studies International Critical Commentary Interpretation Journal of Biblical Literature Journal of Hebrew Studies Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages Journal for the Study of Judaism: Supplement Series Journal for the Study of the New Testament: Supplement Series Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Journal for the Study of the Old Testament: Supplement Series Journal of Theological Studies Kommentar zum Alten Testament Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies Septuagint Masoretic Text The New American Commentary

x NCBC NEB

NIB NIBC NICOT NKJV NJB NJPS NRSV

OBO OTG OTL OTS OtSt OTT SBLDS SJOT SSEJC TynBul VT VTSup WBC ZAW

1

Abbreviations New Century Bible Commentary New English Bible The New Interpreter’s Bible New International Biblical Commentary New International Commentary on the Old Testament New King James Version New Jerusalem Bible New Jewish Publication Society Version New Revised Standard Version Orbis biblicus et orientalis Old Testament Guides Old Testament Library Oudtestamentische Studien Oudtestamentische Studiën Old Testament Theologies Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament Studies in Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity Tyndale Bulletin Vetus Testamentum Vetus Testamentum Supplements Word Biblical Commentary Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

INTRODUCTION Great works of art exercise a certain magnetic attraction, and biblical literature is no exception in this regard. Innumerable readers over many centuries have been drawn to these ancient stories and poems, among other reasons, for the artistic experience afforded by these justi¿ably famous texts. Yet for a long time academic study of the Hebrew Bible was restricted to certain modes of inquiry, such as the source-critical parsing of the documentary hypothesis, historical criticism, redactional theorizing, comparative religion, ancient Near Eastern parallels, and form-critical scrutiny. It would be unwise to deny that signi¿cant interpretive gains were made because of insistence that biblical texts be ¿rmly located in their social-political contexts and compositional milieu. Undoubtedly this was a positive contribution, and remains a valid mode of inquiry and integral to the professional discipline of biblical studies. But relegated to the back seat, so to speak, was an interest in the traditional elements of literary readings, such as plot, character, irony, motif, theme, temporal and spatial settings, point of view, intertextuality, and structural design. However, in the past several decades the methodological landscape has visibly altered. In more recent days there has been a marked increase in literary analysis of the Hebrew Bible, allowing one to conclude that attention to the artistic features of the biblical text is now substantially closer to the mainstream of scholarly endeavor. Considerable gains have been made, but many critics would agree that much more can be done. While there are more introductory textbooks that devote attention to various literary methods than ever before, there are comparatively fewer books that provide a fund of lengthier examples of close-readings of selected passages or sustained literary engagement with Hebrew narrative.1 To that end, the present book is less concerned about theoretical mapping and more interested in engaging a moderately diverse range of 1. Recent examples of such textbooks include a pair of volumes by J. T. Walsh, Style and Structure in Biblical Hebrew Narrative (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2001), and Old Testament Narrative: A Guide to Interpretation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010).

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The Artistic Dimension

texts, in order to illustrate how literary scrutiny has a number of applications within biblical interpretation. It is my contention that literary analysis has great value as a complementary enterprise, that is, as a reading strategy that can be deployed alongside other methods and approaches for studying the Hebrew Bible. Numerous scholars have contributed to the present state of affairs whereby there is now heightened attention to literary analysis. If one was to compile a short list of scholarly works that have played a key role, then a natural place to begin would be the groundbreaking work of Robert Alter, whose 1981 volume The Art of Biblical Narrative has been a seminal point of reference. His opening comments address both the necessity—and the somewhat surprising absence—of attenuated concentration on the narrative dynamics at work in biblical stories: “It is a little astonishing that at this late date literary analysis of the Bible of the sort I have tried to illustrate here in this preliminary fashion is only in its infancy.” Alter continues: “By literary analysis, I mean the manifold varieties of minutely discriminating attention to the artful use of language, to the shifting play of ideas, conventions, tone, sound, imagery, syntax, narrative viewpoint, compositional units, and much else; the kind of disciplined attention, in other words, which through a whole spectrum of critical approaches has illuminated, for example, the poetry of Dante, the plays of Shakespeare, the novels of Tolstoy.”2 The example Alter refers to is his now signature discussion of Gen 38, the reading that commences the book and in many respects de¿nes the project. Citing E. A. Speiser—the eminent authority and author of the well-regarded mainstream commentary on Genesis in the Anchor Bible series—Alter dutifully summarizes the regnant source-critical assumption that the story of Judah and Tamar in ch. 38 is an interpolation in the midst of the Joseph narrative, “ ‘a completely independent unit,’ as Speiser sees it, having ‘no connection with the drama of Joseph, which it interrupts at the conclusion of Act I.’ ”3 In dramatic contrast, Alter proceeds to demonstrate a litany of connections (including motif, theme, character, and keywords) between Gen 38 and the larger Joseph narrative where it is embedded. Led by Judah, the brothers sell Joseph into slavery, and aim to fool their father into thinking he is dead by dipping his infamous robe into the blood of a slaughtered young goat. A central 2. R. Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 1981), 11–12. 3. E. A. Speiser, Genesis: Introduction, Translation, and Notes (AB 1; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1964), 299, cited in Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative, 3. On the Anchor Bible commentary series (now under the imprint of Yale University Press), it should be noted that under the editorship of the late D. N. Freedman, the series became, and remains, a benchmark in the academic guild.

1

Introduction

3

pillar of Alter’s reading rests on the verbal links between the words of the brothers (including Judah) when they beseech their father to “recognize, please” (DQU.K) the bloodied coat of Joseph in 37:32, and the subsequent words of Tamar to Judah when she implores him to “recognize, please” (DQU.K) the startling evidence that convicts him of manifest duplicity in his personal dealings in 38:25. Overall it is hard to deny the compelling case that emerges for the artistry of the composition as illuminated by Alter, and the results have been commended by a variety of distinguished scholars who practice, one can say, varying styles of biblical interpretation.4 In programmatic terms Alter was not, to my mind, interested in pioneering a new method, but rather more concerned with recovering a basic sensitivity to the literary operation of the text.5 As such, his supple approach to biblical literature dovetails with other reading strategies and fruitfully can be adopted by researchers using a range of different methodologies.6 In conjunction with Alter’s writings, the work of one other scholar needs to be acknowledged as part of the background for this present book. Michael Fishbane’s collection of studies Text & Texture has gone through several iterations and two publishers.7 The book is structured in three parts that are interrelated on several levels: part one, narratives and narrative cycles (Gen 1:1–2:4a: The Creation; Gen 2:4b–11:32: The Primeval Cycle; Gen 25:19–35:22: The Jacob Cycle; and Exod 1–4: The Prologue to the Exodus Cycle), part two, speeches and prayers (Deut 6:20–25: Teaching and Transmission; Ps 19: Creation, Torah, 4. For example, the positive evaluations of J. Barton (The Old Testament: Canon, Literature and Theology: Collected Essays of John Barton [Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007], 182–83) and D. Jobling (“Robert Alter’s The Art of Biblical Narrative,” JSOT 27 [1983]: 87–99). See also the instructive survey by S. Weitzman, “Before and After The Art of Biblical Narrative,” Prooftexts 27 (2007): 191–210. “However newfangled it seemed in the 1980s,” says Weitzman (p. 192), “the ‘literary approach’ to the Bible, the attempt to understand it as a work of aesthetic and not just religious or historical value, is as old as most other methods of biblical study.” 5. As Alter himself puts it, “In making such a sweeping negative assertion about biblical criticism, I may be suspected of polemical distortion impelled by the animus of a modern literary person against antiquarian scholarship, but I do not think this is the case” (The Art of Biblical Narrative, 12). 6. For recent appraisals and extensions, see B. Britt, “Robert Alter and the Bible as Literature,” Literature and Theology 24 (2010): 56–72, and R. S. Kawashima, Biblical Narrative and the Death of the Rhapsode (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004). 7. M. Fishbane, Text and Texture: Close Readings of Selected Biblical Texts (New York: Schocken Books, 1979), republished as Biblical Text and Texture: A Literary Reading of Selected Texts (Oxford: Oneworld, 1998). 1

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The Artistic Dimension

and Hope; Jer 20:7 –12: Loneliness and Anguish; Ps 122: Space in Suspension: The Pilgrimage), and part three, motifs and other texttransformations (The “Eden” Motif: The Landscape of Spatial Renewal; The “Exodus” Motif: The Paradigm of Historical Renewal). By his own admission, Fishbane seeks to teach a relatively straightforward literary reading of the text, while aware of the kind of tension such an approach may have with other more established methodologies: “Thus, while the scholars will easily recognize my departure from conventional approaches to interpretations of familiar texts, I have not sought to advocate my positions against those of others. To the contrary—I have tried to allow the reader to engage the texts studied through my particular interpretations of them, not through the tangled history of exegesis.”8 Rather than establishing a rigorous method, Fishbane effectively outlines the possibilities of attending to literary elements in the explication of texts. As but one example among the many insights in his book, consider an observation developed in Chapter 3. A particular strength of this chapter is Fishbane’s drawing connections between the various sections of material. So, during his discussion of a number of intriguing wordplays and verbal echoes within the matrix of the Jacob Cycle (Gen 25–35), he notes: “One ¿nal term should be mentioned in this regard, both because of its dramatic signi¿cance to this text and because of its recurrence later on. In v. 12 Jacob is described as smooth-skinned; he consequently fears that his father will ‘feel’ him (stem: mashash) when he approaches, and so discover his duplicity. Although Isaac did ‘feel’ him (vv. 21–22), he was nonetheless duped.” Fishbane concludes: “Years later, in an ironic reversal, Jacob’s wife Rachel (the younger sibling) stole the household gods—perhaps symbolic of inheritance rights—from her own father Laban, who ‘felt’ (stem: mashash) her baggage in search of them (31:34, 37). The search was inconclusive, and a patriarchal blessing was again abducted deceitfully.”9 A disarmingly simple point, drawing attention to same verb “felt” (YYP) as used by the two (hoodwinked) fathers Isaac and Laban unlocks a number of interpretive options, such as larger patterns within the narrative unit and indirect characterization by analogy.10 8. Fishbane, Biblical Text and Texture, ix. Cf. Fishbane’s later work, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985), and note the helpful review of some of the salient issues in B. M. Levinson, Legal Revision and Religious Renewal in Ancient Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 120–24. 9. Fishbane, Biblical Text and Texture, 51. 10. See further P. D. Miscall, “The Jacob and Joseph Stories as Analogies,” JSOT 6 (1978): 28–40. 1

Introduction

5

In brieÀy highlighting the work of Alter and Fishbane I do not intend to overlook the lengthy register of other books and articles that have been instrumental in raising the pro¿le of literary analysis, as there have been many other helpful studies both earlier and in more recent days.11 My own project here, on a far more modest scale, builds on these two works, and so I have canvassed several of their examples by way of introduction to the various kinds of texts analyzed in this present book. In light of the criticisms one frequently hears leveled at literary readings—namely, that they are ahistorical, deploy unnecessary jargon, and impose arbitrary interpretation—in my view the elegant strategies of Alter and Fishbane have certainly not faded, but maintain their validity several decades later. Of course, the current academic climate is far more multidisciplinary than ever before, with scholars working in more traditional ¿elds (e.g. text-critical, historical, linguistic, comparative, history of interpretation), as well as more innovative approaches (concerned with gender, political, ideological, and power relations).12 I would submit—notwithstanding the methodological foment and recognition of 11. For instance, D. J. A. Clines’s The Theme of the Pentateuch (JSOTSup 10; Shef¿eld: JSOT, 1978) was a timely study, while some formative works include A. Berlin’s Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative (Bible and Literature 9; Shef¿eld: Almond 1983), and M. Sternberg’s massive The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985). One could also point to J. P. Fokkelman, D. M. Gunn, J. C. Exum, and numerous others cited in the course of this book. In addition to the acute piece by Weitzman (and the accompanying bibliographic citations in the endnotes), for surveys of the rise of literary criticism in biblical studies I would refer the reader to the essays of M. M. Mitchell, “Rhetorical and New Literary Criticism,” in The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies (ed. J. W. Rogerson and J. M. Lieu; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 615–33, and D. Jobling, “Methods of Modern Literary Criticism,” in The Blackwell Companion to the Hebrew Bible (ed. L. G. Perdue; Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), 19–35. Note also the recent critique of G. Andersson, Untamable Texts: Literary Studies and Narrative Theory in the Books of Samuel (LHBOTS 514; New York: T&T Clark International, 2009). For instance, see Andersson’s comment on p. 17: “As a consequence, there is, according to my notion, often no real ‘paradigm shift’ at all between the historical and literary approach, and biblical scholars can without further ado supplement their traditional toolbox with methods from the ¿eld of literary studies. It could even be suggested that these ‘new’ methods are actually only the ascription of new terminology to observations earlier scholars had already made, even though they studied the text diachronically.” 12. On some of these latter categories that arise in 1 Kgs 11–14, see my recent study, K. Bodner, Jeroboam’s Royal Drama (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 1

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The Artistic Dimension

complexity in terms of textual production and the business of interpretation—there is ample scope for the kind of detailed attention to literary categories and reading habits espoused by Alter, Fishbane, and others inclining toward a similar approach. This book has four parts, and is designed to provide the reader with a number of different types of studies in order to demonstrate that literary analysis has various kinds of application in biblical interpretation. Part I of the book deals with the area of textual criticism. The three chapters in this part each offer an example of how literary analysis is, in fact, a vital (yet sometimes neglected) component of textual criticism. Part II features a sustained engagement with one particular section of the Hebrew Bible, the so-called Ark Narrative of 1 Sam 4–6. The two chapters in this part both address different facets of recent scholarship, with the larger argument that literary analysis is extremely helpful for understanding the poetics of this narrative. Part III ventures deeper into the historiographic material of the Deuteronomistic History and also into the book of Proverbs, focusing on different kinds of character con¿gurations and plot development. The fourth part of the book turns to Chronicles, and there is a reason for devoting the ¿nal three chapters to the often neglected books of 1 and 2 Chronicles. Recent times have seen a resurgence of interest in the closing books of the Hebrew canon, and the three chapters in this part illustrate how the Chronicler’s work is a congenial site for literary analysis. Although each chapter has a degree of independence and can be read individually, together the assembled chapters petition for a heightened awareness of the artistic achievement of the Hebrew Bible, and the four parts of this book each address various questions and visit different kinds of sites in the Hebrew Bible. Part I (“Textual Problems and Literary Analysis”) has three chapters that address the possibilities of bringing literary criticism into the equation when seeking to resolve problematic issues of the Hebrew text. Traditionally, text criticism of the Hebrew Bible has not paid a great deal of attention to literary features of the text. But as Ronald Hendel puts it, “For the modern scholar, textual criticism is a theoretically necessary part of the process or activity of close reading.”13 When there are variants (between the Hebrew Masoretic text and the Greek Septuagint, and even the Qumran manuscripts) or problematic passages, literary categories of plot, character, intertextuality and semantic range are not always invoked, but there are occasions where such analysis can be helpful. The ¿rst chapter in this part, “Crime 13. R. S. Hendel, “Plural Texts and Literary Criticism: For Instance, 1 Samuel 17,” Textus 23 (2007): 2. 1

Introduction

7

Scene Investigation: A Text-Critical Mystery and the Strange Death of Ishbosheth,” investigates a (politically motivated?) murder during the height of tensions between Judah and the northern tribes of Israel. The popular American television series “CSI” (and its legion of spin-offs) is a procedural drama that focuses on how crimes are solved by a group of forensic detectives. Taking my cue from the program, this chapter investigates a mysterious crime scene in 2 Sam 4, a murder that tips the balance decisively in favor of David and the tribe of Judah. The victim of regicide is none other than poor Ishbosheth, whose Àeeting reign is anything but a high point in the annals of the Israelite monarchy. On the one hand there is little doubt about the identity of the murderers, as two of his own captains, the brothers Rechab and Baanah, publicly admit their culpability. But on the other hand, there are substantial differences between the MT and the LXX as to how exactly the murder is carried out, resulting in the need for some text-critical forensics in this stretch of narrative. In this study I review several text-critical autopsies that have been performed by previous scholars, and include a comparison of the Hebrew and Greek readings. Moving to the era of the divided kingdom, the next chapter, “The Locutions of 1 Kings 22:28: A New Proposal,” revisits an old textual dif¿culty during the intense and shockingly sarcastic confrontation between King Ahab and the prophet Micaiah. Considerable narrative space is allocated to the vicissitudes of Ahab’s career as northern monarch. As the heir of Omri and husband to the incomparable Jezebel, immediately after Ahab’s formal introduction in 1 Kgs 16 there is mention of a prophetic ful¿llment: “In his days Hiel of Bethel rebuilt Jericho; he laid its foundation at the cost of Abiram his ¿rstborn, and set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the LORD that he spoke by Joshua son of Nun” (16:34). This notice must serve to alert the reader to some forthcoming prophetic conÀicts during Ahab’s reign. Indeed, even after several entanglements with Elijah, Ahab’s prophetic hassles are far from over, and 1 Kgs 22 records a climactic confrontation with the hitherto unknown Micaiah. In the context of a proposed invasion of Ramoth-Gilead and an uneasy partnership with the southern king Jehoshaphat, Micaiah is ushered on stage to present his counsel. An interesting character to say the least, Micaiah enters into a sustained dialogue with Ahab. At the height of their repartee, there is a strange moment in v. 28. In this chapter I am making the unique argument that v. 28b is not spoken by Micaiah, but rather by King Ahab. Such a consideration has numerous implications for interpreting the text, and several of these implications are discussed here. 1

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The Artistic Dimension

The third chapter of this part, “The ‘Embarrassing Syntax’ of Psalm 47:10: A (Pro)vocative Option,” presents a brief study of a problem in the one of the poetic lines in the Psalter. Psalm 47 is a processional poem that unfurls a liturgical invitation to celebrate divine kingship over Israel and the entire earth. Translators of Ps 47 have perennially found v. 10a to be dif¿cult, prompting C. A. Briggs to observe that the line is “variously, but unsatisfactorily, explained” even a century ago. More recent attempts have yet to reverse Briggs’s judgment. Michael Goulder wryly describes the syntax of v. 10 as something of an “embarrassment,” no doubt because of the theological implications that arise. In this study I canvass a number of scholarly opinions and argue that the impasse can be resolved if v. 10ab is translated as a vocative. Such an option has the advantages of making sense of the MT and poetically coheres with the larger structure and drama of the psalm. Although this is the shortest chapter in the book, it offers a further instance of how literary analysis might provide insight or an alternative perspective when attempting to resolve a dif¿cult textual problem. The second part of this book deals with a single unit of text. It could be argued that few extended passages in the Hebrew Bible more strikingly exemplify the trend toward literary analysis than the Ark Narrative of 1 Sam 4–6. Not only does this unit offer a compelling storyline (Israel’s ark of the covenant is captured and deported to a foreign land, but then triumphs over its captors), but has also been the subject of considerable scholarly interest. Since the methodological foci of such studies appear to have undergone a transformation in more recent times, the Ark Narrative is an ideal site for demonstrating the value of literary analysis. Chapter 4, “Ark-eology: Shifting Emphases in ‘Ark Narrative’ Scholarship,” takes a wide-angle view of research on this unit. There has been, so I seek to demonstrate in this study, a discernible shift in recent studies of the Ark Narrative of 1 Sam 4–6. Not so long ago there was widespread agreement that this material constituted a thoroughly “independent entity.” In more recent times, however, the statement has been made with equal con¿dence, “there is no independent ark narrative.” Of course, many a former consensus has collapsed in recent years, but the particular case of the Ark Narrative allows a unique frame of reference in terms of the shifting emphases of scholarly interest. This chapter showcases twelve literary treatments of the Ark Narrative from recent interpreters (including Alter, Fokkelman, Polzin, and Brueggemann, a number of whom, serendipitously, have been proponents of a literary approach to varying degrees) and traces the changing interpretive trends of scholarly engagement with this material. 1

Introduction

9

The other chapter in this part, “Mouse Trap: A Text-Critical Problem with Rodents in the Ark Narrative,” is much more speci¿c and deals with a single issue that surfaces in the account. As we have seen in Part I, the books of Samuel present the interpreter with a number of textual dif¿culties, and where the Masoretic text is hard to read or suspected of corruption, scholars routinely turn to the versions (such as the Greek Septuagint or the Qumran material) for assistance. There are occasions, however, when the MT is intelligible enough, yet the LXX features a completely different reading, and the usual text-critical methods and tools are hard pressed to explain the reason for divergence as a result of scribal error or lapse in transmission. One such example—the subject of this chapter— can be found in the Ark Narrative at the point where the ark of the covenant is captured by Philistines and taken to the temple of Dagon. When comparing the Hebrew and Greek texts of 1 Sam 5–6, there is a discrepancy in the presentation of mice in the story. In the LXX, mice are featured at an early point in the story, as shalom-disturbers wreaking considerable havoc on Philistines and their property. In the MT, by contrast, mice are not even mentioned until the ark is poised to return to Israel, and even here any (earlier) nefarious activity can only be inferred. In this chapter I provide a survey of scholarship on the issue and then evaluate the differences in the two textual traditions, with an interest in hearing the unique literary voices of each trajectory. Part III of the book leaves textual problems and the Ark Narrative behind and looks more expansively at other characters and sectors of the Hebrew Bible. One of the most dominant scholarly constructs of the modern era has been the Deuteronomistic History, encompassing the books of Joshua to 2 Kings (traditionally known as the Former Prophets). While there has been considerable debate in recent years over the date of composition and provenance of this material, the Deuteronomistic History is a vast stretch of text that proves quite amenable to literary readings. The ¿rst chapter in this part seeks to demonstrate how such analysis can be a component of scholarly engagement as well. Despite the dominance of Martin Noth’s theoretical delineation of the Deuteronomistic History, recent times have seen a plethora of new ideas as to the layers of redaction and purpose(s) of the material in Joshua to Kings. Even though scholars now proffer an almost bewildering number of hypotheses and reconstructions, one can sense a measure of agreement as far as the literary sophistication of many aspects of the narrative. One such engaging feature is an array of minor characters who, along the way and at various points, are intriguingly drawn and have a vital role in the unfolding of the plot. One such character is a remnant of Eli’s family, 1

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The Artistic Dimension

the subject of Chapter 7 of this book, “Jonathan son of Abiathar: The Ful¿llment of a Prophetic Word about the Dissolution of a Priestly Line.” There are two episodes that feature Jonathan in a supporting role, both involving incidents where David’s offspring are struggling for the throne. The ¿rst episode is during the rebellion of Absalom, and the second takes place as Solomon assumes the throne ahead of his older brother Adonijah: in the ¿rst Jonathan son of Abiathar is an undercover operative, whereas in the second he has the role of a messenger. There are grounds for supposing, therefore, that through the character of Jonathan the reader is invited to consider larger issues of succession in the narrative, possibly with some irony because Jonathan himself is part of a rejected priestly line that is succeeded by a rival house. An additional chapter in this part presents a short reading of Prov 7, an arresting episode that features an anonymous student and his disastrous peregrination, as he neglects the advice of the sage and falls for the charms of a dangerous seductress. Various questions are addressed in this chapter, such as the construction of images in the lengthy discourse of the seductress. The use of temporal and spatial settings is also a notable feature in Prov 7, and the ambiance of increasing darkness has a typological function in the lad’s journey. There is a wordplay near the beginning of the episode: the young man is encouraged to keep the sage’s teaching as the “pupil” ($Y\DL) of his eye, but such teaching is eschewed as he marches steadily closer to the woman’s neighborhood as the “pupil” ($Y\DL) of night and increasing gloom envelopes the story. Also discussed in this chapter is the type-scene of the woman at the window, an intertextual reÀex to other accounts that feature similar plot ingredients. There has been some useful scholarship on this text, and the goal of this chapter is to illustrate possible ways that literary analysis might continue to provide researchers with food for thought. Part IV of this book turns to the world of Chronicles. Led by eminent commentators such as H. G. M. Williamson and Sara Japhet, there has been a renaissance of Chronicles study in the past few decades.14 Building on a number of recent books and articles in the ¿eld, the ¿nal part of this book, “The World of Chronicles,” presents three chapters, each maintaining that the Chronicler’s narrative is a complex work of art and a useful site for literary analysis. Chapter 8, “A Royal Skull in the Temple of Doom: An Interpretation of 1 Chronicles 10:10,” begins with 14. For an overview and bibliography, see P. C. Beentjes, Tradition and Transformation in the Book of Chronicles (SSN 52; Leiden: Brill, 2008), 1–13; cf. R. K. Duke, “Recent Research in Chronicles,” Currents in Biblical Research 8 (2009): 10–50.

1

Introduction

11

a foray into the rather dense genealogical jungle of the ¿rst nine chapters of the Chronicler’s epic. First Chronicles 10 deals with the death of Israel’s ¿rst king, Saul. Although I am primarily dealing with the exegesis of a single verse in this chapter—one that has signi¿cant differences with the parallel text in 1 Sam 31—I am suggesting that its variations are best appreciated when considering the larger presentation of Saul in Chronicles. In this case, the material relating to Saul in the genealogical portion of Chronicles may prove helpful for interpreting not only this verse, but assist the reader in making sense of how the Chronicler integrated Saul’s story within the broader narrative. The schism at Shechem—where Israel is partitioned into north and south with Jeroboam crowned as the ¿rst king of the northern tribes while Rehoboam reigns over a vastly truncated kingdom of Judah—is extensively narrated in the parallel texts of 1 Kgs 12 and 2 Chr 10. In both Kings and Chronicles these political events cast a shadow over much of the subsequent history, and tensions between the two nations often escalate to the point of military conÀict. One example of such conÀict that occurs in the wake of the schism is recorded in 1 Kgs 15:6, during the brief reign of Rehoboam’s successor, Abijah. A single, enigmatic sentence (“Now there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of his [i.e. Abijah’s] life”) hints at some serious combat, yet this one verse is enlarged to encompass virtually the entire chapter of 2 Chr 13, producing a multifaceted narrative that includes some elaborate preparation, pre-battle oration, and even extends to incorporate details concerning the aftermath of the war. A good deal of scholarly energy has been invested in the attempt to identify another source that the Chronicler may have had access to, a source that would explain why this narrative has no counterpart in Kings. Worthy as such a pursuit may be, it seems to me that momentarily bracketing such a quest and analyzing the chapter from a literary perspective may prove worthwhile for the interpreter. Such is the aim of Chapter 9, “Abijah’s Elevated Rhetoric and the Civil War of 2 Chronicles 13.” In the Kings material Abijah’s characterization is rather Àat, and his reign is treated in a relatively meager half-a-dozen verses or so. The situation is radically different in Chronicles, where Abijah is a far more dynamic and involved ¿gure, and a principal actor in the drama of battle. He enters the narrative courtesy of an intriguing maternal controversy, and exits the chapter as one of the most procreative kings in all of Judah’s history. In between is an elongated example of stunning oratory, and Abijah’s rhetorical performance has more af¿nities with the Shakespearean stage than is typical among kings who reign for so brief a period. Because 2 Chr 13 1

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has no parallel in Kings, it affords an opportunity to assess some of the features of literary artistry in the book, and this study will evaluate the contribution of the chapter with respect to some of the larger narrative interests. The tenth and ¿nal chapter of this book, “Capital Punishment: The Con¿guration of Ahaziah’s Last Hours in 2 Chronicles 22,” explores a textual sequence closer to the end of the line of Israel’s royal story. As with Saul and Abijah studied in previous chapters, Ahaziah’s portrait in Chronicles differs substantially from its Deuteronomistic counterpart in 2 Kgs 8–9. Most acute is the report of Ahaziah’s death in 2 Chr 22, where the details of his demise are palpably different from his death in Kings. In the textual tradition of 2 Kings, the southern king Ahaziah’s death is somewhat ancillary to the main action of hunting the northern monarch Joram, and he is essentially part of the collateral damage of Jehu’s violent purge of the house of Ahab, and nearly escapes with his life. Yet in Chronicles Ahaziah is executed by Jehu after he is discovered hiding in Samaria, the capital city of the northern kingdom. What can account for such discrepancies? Though scholars have labored to produce bold attempts at reconciling the two narratives, the approach taken in the last chapter of this book opts for a different course. Rather than attempting yet another ill-fated task of harmonization, this study interprets the story of Ahaziah’s demise within its broader context in this particular stage of the Chronicler’s narrative. As it turns out, the unique story of Ahaziah’s death in Chronicles is but one of numerous recon¿gurations in this stretch of text. When examining this character from a literary perspective, numerous other interesting features become apparent, ranging from Jehoiada the priest’s marriage to King Jehoshaphat’s shipping expedition, and even a most extraordinary epistle sent by none other than the (deceased?) prophet Elijah. The fourth chapter in Part IV explores this slice of creativity, and thus concludes our study of Chronicles. This last chapter is followed by a short conclusion where several ¿nal examples are proffered, and closing comments that end our study.

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Part I

TEXTUAL PROBLEMS AND LITERARY ANALYSIS

14

Chapter 1

CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION: A TEXT-CRITICAL MYSTERY AND THE STRANGE DEATH OF ISHBOSHETH

1. Introduction The troublesome reign of Ishbosheth comes to a graphic conclusion when he is assassinated—audaciously, at midday while reclining on a couch in his own house—by two of his own captains, the brothers Rechab and Baanah. Ishbosheth himself is something of an enigmatic ¿gure in the Deuteronomistic History; he does not do a great deal in the narrative apart from tremble in fear. Ishbosheth only speaks one line in the entire narrative (2 Sam 3:7), and this sentence itself is awkward and indirect. In light of the artful enterprise of the Deuteronomist with respect to Ishbosheth’s characterization, perhaps it is not overly surprising that the manner of Ishbosheth’s death should be shrouded in ambiguity. That Ishbosheth is assassinated (while sleeping in his house at high noon) there is no doubt: the guilty confess, are charged, and are duly executed. But the puzzle is how exactly the murder takes place— and this is subject of my analysis—as there are signi¿cant discrepancies between the Hebrew and Greek texts. The MT seems to imply that the brothers gain access to the house by impersonation and stealth, and subsequently eliminate their target. The LXX, by contrast, introduces a new character into this somnolent drama: a doorkeeper of presumably feminine gender whose apparent siesta allows the assassins to enter the inner chamber of the Saulide king. After some necessary background discussion of the story in 2 Sam 2–3 as well as the build-up of 4:1–5, I will then assess the problem of Ishbosheth’s murder. My plan is to survey a number of “solutions” posited by scholars and evaluate various attempts that have been made to resolve this text-critical mystery. I will then move toward a conclusion by summarizing the key differences between the MT and LXX in this passage and discussing some of the literary implications that emerge

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The Artistic Dimension

when these textual trajectories are compared. As a witness to the murder, the LXX provides an exciting and compelling testimony, but the MT account features several important details that cannot be ignored in light of the larger storyline. 2. Two Previous Deaths in the “Fifth” Degree I should begin by stressing that Ishbosheth is not the ¿rst victim of homicide in 2 Samuel. Indeed, there are two other killings in earlier sections of this narrative that involve the speci¿c anatomical area referred to as YP[R, often translated in English as the “¿fth [rib].” Since—in my view—the death of Ishbosheth presupposes these two prior events, it would be wise to give them a brief review. a. Death # 1 After the self-skewering of King Saul on the slopes of Mount Gilboa, David is anointed king over Judah, while Saul’s son Ishbosheth—largely through the efforts of Abner, the commander of the army—is crowned at Mahanaim. There begins the protracted struggle between the houses of Saul and David, with formal hostilities commenced at Gibeon in 2 Sam 2:12. In the ensuing battle, the “swift of foot” Asahel chases after Abner, and does not swerve to the right or the left, with a single-minded determination that proves fatal. “Abner was saying to Asahel, ‘Turn away from following me! Why should I strike you to the ground? How could I lift up my face to Joab your brother?’ But [Asahel] refused to turn away. Then Abner struck him with the end of his spear in the ¿fth rib (YP[)R , and the spear came out behind him” (2:19–23). As one commentator summarizes, “The account seems to be at great pains to show that Abner was forced into combat against his will in killing Asahel. Others come to where Asahel lies and stand…still, perhaps in shock at the loss of one of these seemingly invincible brothers.”1 This death will certainly be remembered as the narrative continues. b. Death # 2 The central reason for Abner’s hesitancy to slay Asahel—in his own words—is the fear of Joab, as Abner turns to the Àeet-footed Asahel in hot pursuit of him: “Why should I strike you to the ground? How could I lift up my face to Joab your brother?” It will be some time before this question is ¿nally answered, and other great affairs of state seem to deÀect attention from this unreciprocated fatality; yet a brother’s death is 1

1. B. C. Birch, “The First and Second Books of Samuel,” NIB 2: 1217.

1. Crime Scene Investigation

17

not so easily forgotten, and certainly not by such a character as Joab— commander-in-chief of the southern forces of Judah. Among the most controversial moments in the story is Abner’s surprising offer to “bring around” all Israel to David—to the profound detriment of Ishbosheth’s tenure—and to this end Abner journeys to Hebron to make a deal with the recently crowned king of Judah. The hard negotiations take place, one should note, during the rather convenient absence of Joab who is “out on a raid” (GZGJ). But Joab returns to Hebron just has Abner has departed, and upon hearing the news, he is outraged with David for cutting a deal with Abner, and Joab proceeds to send messengers to bring Abner back: Then Abner returned to Hebron, and Joab swerved him toward the midst of the gate to speak with him quietly, and struck him there in the ¿fth rib (YP[R). So he died because of the blood of Asahel his brother… (But Joab and his brother Abishai killed Abner because he put their brother Asahel to death in Gibeon, during the war.) (3:27–30)

“There is a fraternal symmetry,” notes Robert Polzin with respect to this developing theme that is far from over, as “brothers kill brothers for the murder of a brother.”2 Fratricide on this scale, I would argue, is woven into the fabric of the larger narrative design, and such killings will be seen again. But for the moment, the death of Abner is an important prelude to the death of Ishbosheth, not least because Joab is palpably a man with two motives: blood vengeance and his own job security.3 Since it is not unreasonable to assume that Abner would have taken control of the army had he lived, Joab’s own interests are obviously threatened by such developments, and hence these twin motives should be kept in mind. 2. R. Polzin, David and the Deuteronomist (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), 48. 3. Again, Birch provides a convenient summary: “Joab must be seen as a ¿gure with two interests that work against the acceptability of an alliance with Abner. The ¿rst is his hatred and distrust of Abner, stemming from Abner’s killing of Joab’s brother Asahel in the battle described in 2:12–32. Joab sees himself as the legitimate bearer of a claim for vengeance against Abner, although ordinarily bloodguilt would not be recognized for a death suffered in war—i.e., it was not considered murder. The second of Joab’s interests in this matter has to do with inÀuence on David. Joab eventually becomes commander of David’s armies (8:16), but it is reasonable to think that Abner might have assumed this role if he had lived. In any case, Abner would have been a powerful and inÀuential military adviser and leader within David’s kingdom, and this would make him Joab’s natural rival for David’s favor” (“The First and Second Books of Samuel” 1225). 1

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3. The Build-up of 2 Samuel 4:1–5 a. A King’s Reaction to Abner’s Death The prior slayings of Asahel and Abner need to be kept in mind by the reader, as these deaths present essential background information that any reading of 2 Sam 4 must reckon with. Consider v. 1: Then Saul’s son heard that Abner was dead in Hebron, and his hands hung loose, and all Israel was dismayed.

The death of Abner is no doubt a bitter blow for the house of Saul, yet one recalls that the relationship between Abner and Ishbosheth was not without its acrimonious moments. For instance, in 3:7 the reader is told that “Saul had a concubine, whose name was Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah; and he said to Abner, ‘Why did you enter my father’s concubine?’ ” The subject of UPDZ(DE) and WU>Z(Y) which separates KQKZ from W\EK in the two textual traditions. One of these textual traditions seems, therefore, to have constructed the beginning of its verse on the ruins of the other’s. But, in what follows 6a, innovative textual tradition has improvised much more liberally since no one has put forward a convincing relationship between *M and the eventual Vorlage of GXMCSCKTGP[“cleaned”] or of MCK GXPWUVCZGP MCK GXMCSGWFGP [“grew drowsy and fell asleep” in the Greek text].

The absence of a “convincing relationship” through known mechanical lapses or errors of transmission strikes me as containing the heart of the matter. As Stanley Walters has cautioned: When the text critic assumes that two MSS have developed from each other or from a common original text—however many generations of copyists back—the posited original text should be one from which the development of both texts can be accounted for by known processes of textual change; and the reconstruction is plausible only as the critic shows what those processes might have been. You cannot simply replace the actual texts with a theoretical one that reads more smoothly; you must account for the given texts.16

It is this “accounting” that has not, in the committee’s judgment, been persuasively demonstrated, and hence they move closer toward a resolution: Let us restate : *G is much more satisfying than *M, because it offers us in one colourful scene exactly what is needed to advance the narrative. But does his Vorlage render the original text more probably than does *M?

16. S. D. Walters, “Hannah and Anna: The Greek and Hebrew Texts of 1 Samuel 1,” JBL 107 (1988): 386. 1

1. Crime Scene Investigation

25

Since the committee goes on to discuss various points in favor of the MT and reasons why the Greek differences can result from secondary clari¿cation, one suspects that their answer to this question is negative. I will return to the types of divergence between the two texts in my conclusion, but it should be noted that other solutions to the strange death of Ishbosheth have also been proffered, and two will be summarized here. Consider, ¿rst, H. W. Hertzberg. He translates 4:6–7a as follows: “And they had already [Hertzberg notes, ‘Read wehinnƝ’] come into the midst of the house (as though) fetching wheat, when they found a woman cleaning wheat. And they smote her in the belly; and thus Rechab and Baanah his brother escaped, and came into the house, as he lay on his bed…”17 Hertzberg then comments as follows: MT is so completely different that corruption or paraphrase is out of the question; in its present form, however, it is incomprehensible. It seems that the murderers sneaked into the house as wheat-carriers, where they then meet someone whom they killed by stabbing in the belly. Perhaps this person was originally the woman found cleaning wheat, and whom LXX made into a doorkeeper. The alteration of the originally feminine suf¿x to the masculine suf¿x wayyakknjhnj can easily be explained, because the person stabbed was expected to be Ishbaal, and because a sentence such as wehinnƝ ’iššƗ bǀreret ­iÓÓƯm, ‘and behold there was a woman cleaning corn’, fell out after the word ­iÓÓƯm. It is in any case improbable that the king’s house was watched over only by a woman worker. But if the two had come in appearing to have some business at the house, they could easily have got past the guard, which would, of course, have been there. It continues to remain strange that LXX should merely have retained the clause supposed to have fallen out here and should have given it its present form. One reason could be the corruption of wayyakknjhƗ; after that, the whole sentence would have become obscure.18

For a second opinion from another textual coroner, consider A. A. Anderson, who contests Hertzberg’s position, though his criticisms are not necessarily posited on precise text-critical grounds, but rather on the overall sense of the story’s construction. Anderson translates 4:6–7a: “So they came inside the house pretending to fetch wheat, but they stabbed him in the abdomen; subsequently both Rechab and his brother Baanah escaped. Thus they entered the house while Ishbosheth was asleep on the couch in his bedroom, and they struck him and killed him.”19 Anderson notes in v. 6a that he is “Following G ‘and behold’ and repointing MT’s 17. H. W. Hertzberg, 1 & 2 Samuel (trans. J. S. Bowden; OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964), 262. 18. Ibid., 264–65. 19. A. A. Anderson, 2 Samuel (WBC 11; Dallas: Word, 1989), 66.

1

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The Artistic Dimension

K1KH ‘thither’ to read K1(KL ‘behold,’ ” while of v. 6b he says: “The translation of the ptcp \[TO by ‘as though fetching wheat’ (cf. KJV) is doubtful (see Driver, 255); perhaps, we should read the qal inf constr W[TO ‘to fetch’.”20 Anderson proceeds to comment on the text as follows: These verses have created considerable problems for the exegetes. It is possible that we have here not only a textual corruption (in v 6) but also a conÀation of two alternative accounts (cf. Ackroyd, 51). The words, “…and they escaped” in v 6 may well mark the end of one version while v 7 may form part of another more detailed account… Many scholars follow G in v 6, rendering “And behold, the doorkeeper of the house had been cleaning wheat, but she grew drowsy and slept; so Rechab and Baanah his brother slipped in” (RSV). However, it is somewhat odd that the king’s residence had no guards and that a female doorkeeper (cf. John 18:16) was the only “security of¿cer”! Of course, it is not impossible that the sons of Rimmon were part of the royal bodyguard. Kirkpatrick (77) suggests that they gained entry to the house by mixing with the “wheat-fetchers” (a\M[\[TO), but this interpretation would create further exegetical dif¿culties. Equally speculative is the view that v 6 refers to the killing of an unnamed guard or porter (so Hertzberg, 264; Stolz, 203). It is by no means certain that G has preserved the authentic reading of v 6; it may well be an ingenious attempt to make one version out of two. We prefer the MT (with minor alterations), and we assume that vv 6 and 7 provide a parallel account of the slaying of Ishbosheth.21

5. Hung Jury This brief survey indicates to me that as far as the text-critical murder mystery of the hapless Ishbosheth’s assassination is concerned, the jury is still out. Among the various commentators, in this instance it seems to be that the disputed zone is not so much a text-critical decision as it is a governing literary sensibility. It is, by any measure, a literary decision for J. P. Fokkelman, who in the end opts for the Greek reading in a manner somewhat counter to expectation, given his general regard for the MT throughout his massive four-volume, 2,441-page, treatment of the books of Samuel. Fokkelman observes the different emphases on time 20. Anderson, 2 Samuel, 68, citing S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel (2d ed.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1913). 21. Anderson, 2 Samuel, 70, citing P. R. Ackroyd, The Second Book of Samuel (The Cambridge Bible Commentary; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977); A. F. Kirkpatrick, The Second Book of Samuel (Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1890); Hertzberg, 1 & 2 Samuel; F. Stolz, Das erste und zweite Buch Samuel (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1981).

1

1. Crime Scene Investigation

27

and space in vv. 5 and 7, and as for v. 6, notes that “The subtle play of repetition and consecutiveness is now catastrophically disturbed if we leave the corrupt sixth verse as it is.” He argues, contra S. R. Driver, that nimlatu must mean “escape,” not “slipped in.” “That is why verse 6c can only refer,” and here Fokkelman is surely right, “to the departure of Rechab and Baanah.22 In fact, Fokkelman goes on to argue that for him the crux of the matter does not involve a text-critical decision. He says: “I will not be undertaking an attempt to trace the Greek text back to, or employ textual criticism to link it with, the Hebrew original. But I do consider defending the matter of the porter worthwhile, on grounds which, to my surprise, have not been put forward earlier, and which are narratological or structural.”23 Fokkelman’s position vis-à-vis the Greek text will be further delineated in a moment—but his footnotes do contain a good deal of interaction with Barthélemy and others—yet Fokkelman seems to concede that the Hebrew and Greek readings are so different that it must result in a decision that is, as he puts it, “narratological.” Fokkelman’s honesty here is laudable: given that a putative “original” is hard to ¿nd on text-critical grounds, his decision on the matter is made according to literary sensibility: what makes the best sense in the context. I am here reminded of the historical appraisal of James Sanders in his magisterial essay “The Task of Text Criticism.” “Text criticism,” says Sanders, “since the formulation of its task by Johann David Michaelis in the mid-eighteenth century, had been understood to be a part of exegesis of the text in the sense that one can better judge which reading to choose if one knows ¿rst what the fuller context is about. There can be no doubt that the observation is true. But the practice developed to the point, by the time of Julius Wellhausen’s work on Samuel in the mid-nineteenth century, that text-criticism was not limited to choice among available ‘variants’ but was obligated to include conjecture in the conviction that it was possible to reconstruct Urtexte of much of the biblical text.”24 In the case of 2 Sam 4:6, a consensus has not emerged on a probable Urtext, 22. Fokkelman, Throne and City, 124–25. He further notes, “Consequently the whole of v. 6 must be described and recognized as a coherent system in itself: in 6a is the entry of the murderers, in 6b the murder, and in 6c the unimpeded departure. Well then, what can be said of all three parts is that they are intolerable, or much too redundant duplications which add virtually no information, and do a lot of damage, to the report enclosing v.6.” 23. Ibid., 126. 24. J. A. Sanders, “The Task of Text Criticism,” in Problems in Biblical Theology: Essays in Honor of Rolf Knierim (ed. H. T. C. Sun and K. L. Eades, with J. M. Robinson and G. I. Moller; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 316.

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The Artistic Dimension

and thus we are left with two stories, each having, in my view, its own literary ef¿cacy.25 The absence of a de¿nitive text-critical explanation coupled with the fact that the two texts unfold such alternative readings cause me to posit that a qualitatively different dramatic sequencing is at work in the MT and the LXX. I would propose, then, to explore the strange death of Ishbosheth from a new angle, and in the remainder of this study I will focus on some of the key differences between the MT and LXX in this passage, and highlight some of the literary implications and interpretative possibilities that emerge when these textual trajectories are compared. Indeed, as Moshe Greenberg has already argued at length, there can be a host of advantages that accrue during a close reading of divergent texts: “although there is no logical basis for choosing one version over another when they both make sense, a comparison of the divergences, each read in its own context, provides a powerful heuristic resource that can alert us to the particular focus of each version.”26 Along such lines, the remainder of my analysis will be a comparative study of what I understand as two rather different texts. In placing the MT and the LXX side by side, as it were, I am primarily interested in the various con¿gurations of plot, character, and point of view that are discernable in each narrative.27 6. Some Conclusions So, if a case can be made that there are two different stories here, then let me move toward a conclusion by summarizing the literary advantages of the respective Greek and Hebrew texts. First: 25. Note also, in general terms, the approach to the LXX by J. J. Collins, Daniel (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993). 26. M. Greenberg, “The Use of Ancient Versions for Interpreting the Hebrew Text,” in Congress Volume: Göttingen, 1977 (ed. J. Emerton; VTSup 29; Leiden: Brill, 1977), 131–48 27. There are grounds for suggesting that certain exigencies of storytelling exist here. One way or another, the MT has made enough sense to enough readers that the interpreter probably has to admit that it can be understood in its larger context. Yet the LXX has an undeniable attractiveness and is adopted by a legion of commentators. A neutral observer might say that there is value in each, and make the assertion that both versions are governed by their own literary logic. The LXX has a certain internal consistency, since a new minor character emerges, and this phenomenon is attested elsewhere in the Greek text of Samuel. The Hebrew is also consistent, since there is thematic repetition that integrates within the larger context of the story. Each narrative can be read on its own terms, and attending to the unique subtleties of both has that “heuristic” value which Greenberg adumbrates. 1

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a. Literary Advantages of the Greek Reading To reiterate the words of Dominique Barthélemy, “*G is much more satisfying than *M, because it offers us in one ‘picturesque’ scene exactly what is needed to advance the narrative.” Since other commentators have not dissimilar reasons, I would outline the advantages of the LXX as follows: 1. There is an uninterrupted focus on the brothers Rechab and Baanah as they enter, destroy, and exit. Indeed, they resemble Hemingway’s killers, with a string of verbs tracing the lineaments of their movement. Even their perception is refracted through the “and behold” (MCKKXFQW), and the camera angle on the sleeping doorkeeper is presented from their visual perspective.28 The killers enjoy a generous slice of luck in the Greek text: the doorkeeper could represent an obstacle, but the drowsiness caused by cleaning wheat vitiates any potential opposition, and they enter the bedchamber unimpeded to dispatch their mission with clinical effectiveness. Whether the (female) doorkeeper was supposed to restrain them or sound the alarm (both ideas have been proffered) I suppose is up for debate, but from Rechab and Baanah’s point of view, the plan unfolds perfectly. As far as a linear unfolding of events on the temporal plane, from the vantage of the killers the Greek text is the smoother. By the end of v. 6 in the Hebrew text, the murder is done; in contrast, by the end of v. 6 in the LXX, the brothers have just slipped by the sleeping doorkeeper and—for those who prefer suspense—they are only about to enter the bedchamber.29 28. As Fokkelman (Throne and City, 128) puts it, “One might interpret the line as what the brothers come across and what they see with their own eyes after their entry. The reader, who has gradually become uneasy, can almost feel, between the words, the vulnerability of the man who lies asleep, and who is about to become the target throughout the entire length of his armorless body.” It is possible that Rechab and Baanah’s point of view continues right into the entrance of Ishbosheth’s bedchamber, since there is an uninterrupted succession of verbs. 29. Assuming with the RSV (“And behold, the doorkeeper of the house had been cleaning wheat, but she grew drowsy and slept; so Rechab and Baanah his brother slipped in”) that the doorkeeper is sleeping in 4:6. Bernard A. Taylor’s recent translation (“The Kaige Text of Reigns,” in A New English Translation of the Septuagint, and the Other Greek Translations Traditionally Included Under That Title [ed. Albert Pietersma and Benjamin G. Wright; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007], 279) understands the king as the subject of the verbs (“and behold, the porter of the house was cleaning wheat, and he slumbered and slept, and Rekcha and Baana, the brothers, escaped notice”). One could certainly argue that there is an ambiguity here, and an element of uncertainty as to whether the doorkeeper is otherwise occupied, or 1

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The Artistic Dimension

2. There is also the exciting new character of the doorkeeper in the Greek text. This napping character produces a symmetry in the story: everyone is sleeping, which in turn symbolizes the rather dormant state of the house of Saul in general. But the more compelling argument—and this is Fokkelman’s point at length—is that the drowsy doorkeeper of 4:6 matches the butter¿ngered nurse of 4:4. Fokkelman examines the larger context of the unfolding chapter, and sees here “another example of an anonymous woman as a functionary in a literary unit on Saulide misery.”30 Just as Rizpah and Michal are crucial in the political earthquake that rocks the house of Saul in ch. 3, so here are two more female characters whose roles further underscore “the decline of the house of Saul.”31 On the two characters in ch. 4, Fokkelman says that “Their contributions are, in themselves, unfortunate. In her haste to Àee with Mephibosheth, the…nurse has the terrible misfortune of crippling Jonathan’s little boy, and the porter, when it is her turn, is unable, through tiredness, to help her master, Ishbosheth, by sounding the alarm for instance.”32 This provides, by Fokkelman’s reasoning, a cogent reason for “postponing” the report of Mephibosheth’s crippling accident to this point in 2 Sam 4: the Àashback is now imparted to the reader immediately before the fatal accident to his regal relative Ishbosheth, thus heightening the theme of the entire chapter, “the adversity of the house of Saul.”33 In both cases, a character’s negligence (to whatever degree) results in a serious injury to a Saulide: in the case of the nurse in 4:4, she drops Mephibosheth; in the case of the doorkeeper in 4:6, her drift into subconsciousness allows unfettered access to the royal bedchamber. For the present discussion, it should be noted that this is not the ¿rst occasion where a “new” minor character appears in the Greek text of Samuel. One recalls a previous occasion in 1 Sam 1:14, where a hitherto unknown “servant of Eli” is the one who delivers the rebuke to the (allegedly) drunken Hannah: sleeps on the job, or is somehow fooled by the brothers, or merely trusts them; after all, they are raiding captains of the king, so a visit to their employer is not out of the question. 30. Fokkelman, Throne and City, 126. 31. Ibid., 127. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid., 127–28. 1

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MT:

And Eli said to her, “How long will you be drunken? Put away your wine from you.” LXX:

And the servant of Eli said to her, “How long will you be drunken? Take away your wine from you, and go out from the presence of the Lord.”

In all likelihood this Elide servant is acting on orders, but his loquacious speech (relative to the MT) is certainly not without irony: the sanctuary of Shiloh is fraught with corruption because of the sons of Eli and their proÀigate management style. Yet the servant objects to Hannah’s conduct with an assertion of holiness even though Hannah is actually praying (in contrast to the wayward Elides). So the servant of Eli in 1 Sam 1:14 has an interesting role to say the least (and, like the Greek doorkeeper in Ishbosheth’s house, adds a Àavor to the drama at hand). Similarly, there are servants of Joab in the Greek text of 2 Sam 14:30 that have no Hebrew counterparts: MT:

And he said to his servants, “Behold, Joab’s ¿eld is next to mine, and he has barley there; go and set it on ¿re.” So Absalom’s servants set the ¿eld on ¿re. (cf. 4QSamc): And Abessalom said to his servants, “Behold, Joab’s portion in the ¿eld is next to mine, and he has barley in it. Go and set it on ¿re.” And the servants of Abessalom set the ¿eld on ¿re, and the servants of Joab come to him with their clothes torn, and they said to him, “The servants of Abessalom have set the ¿eld on ¿re.”

LXX

As in the previous example, these servants of Joab have an interesting role in the Greek text, not least because the two sets of servants—those belonging to Absalom and Joab respectively—will soon be engaged in the civil war soon to be commenced by Absalom, whose pyromania leaves Joab as a permanently disaffected adversary (rather unwise, as he learns when Joab later discovers him hanging from the boughs of a oak and thrusts three javelins into his heart). The servants, then, though their activity is limited, serve to foreshadow the looming civil conÀict where Joab and Absalom are central participants. When one consults the relevant scholarly literature on these subjects, there are naturally the standard arguments proffered to account for the differences (haplography or the like), and of course, the customary arguments on the other side of the ledger as to why the secondary characters are secondary additions.34 34. See A. Rofé, “The Methods of Late Biblical Scribes as Evidenced by the Septuagint Compared with the Other Textual Witnesses,” in Tehillah le-Moshe: 1

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So it is that our case of the doorkeeper in 2 Sam 4 is not altogether unique. It is hard—in absolutely every case—to point to mechanical errors in transmission that give rise to the alternative reading; instead, I would submit that it is another way to tell the story, with different shades of plot, character, and focalization that point to an alternative literary imagination. In each of these cases, there is a dramatic element that is added in the LXX through the actions of minor characters, and the respective pro¿le of a nearby major character is enhanced or diminished accordingly. In the judgment of A. F. Campbell, the breathless report of Joab’s servants’ relaying the news of Absalom’s arsonists, “offers a classic case of what may be regarded as a reminder to storytellers of the possibilities of the situation.”35 At the very least, a case could be made that 2 Sam 4:6 provides an example of the same kinds of narrative possibilities. b. Literary Advantages of the Hebrew Reading Let me turn, ¿nally, to some perceived literary advantages of the Hebrew text. There is no sleeping doorkeeper in the MT. Only the king is slumbering in what appears to be a comparatively more insomniac household. Consequently, the MT captures a different pro¿le of the Gibeonite killers: the stealth of the brothers as they gain access to the center of the house as “takers of wheat”—presumably a handy charade for “taking” the head of Ishbosheth out of the house without raising a host of inconvenient questions. Such deception, incidentally, would not be out of character for Gibeonites; one recalls disguise and deception in Josh 9, so such Gibeonite activity does have some precedence. In the Greek text the brothers can walk right past the sleeping doorkeeper with the head of the king, whereas the MT implies at least some modest impediments that require the pretence of “taking wheat.” A number of commentators understand that vv. 6 and 7 provide two views of the death of Ishbosheth: hence, the MT has a different plot con¿guration that requires a different use of the reader’s imagination—v. 6 is one view of the killing, while v. 7 provides a Àashback with added

Biblical and Judaic Studies in Honor of M. Greenberg (ed. M. Cogan, B. L. Eichler, and J. H. Tigay; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1997), 259–70. Note the point raised in R. G. Smith, The Fate of Justice and Righteousness During David’s Reign: Rereading the Court History and Its Ethics According 2 Samuel 8:15b–20:26 (LHBOTS 508; London: T&T Clark International, 2009), 79, about Joab’s children bearing the news in 4QSamc and its possible signi¿cance. 35. Campbell, 2 Samuel, 127. 1

1. Crime Scene Investigation

33

data.36 Only the MT, it should be stressed, brings out the disguised dimension of the Gibeonite assassins. Many scholars incline toward the LXX not just because it is a smoother reading, but also because of the “picturesque” quality of the scene, no doubt heightened by the negligent doorkeeper. However, there is a crucial piece of evidence that the Greek text does not include: in the MT, the assassination of Ishbosheth is a murder in the “¿fth” degree—that is, the “¿fth rib” (YP[R) is the place of the stabbing, and I would submit this physiological location of the king’s death is a vital organ within the larger narrative design. With the mention of the ¿fth rib, the reader gains insight into the motive for the killing and connects the death of Ishbosheth with other slayings in 2 Samuel. With respect to the motive, in my view Martin Noth is a ¿ne detective when he describes the crime scene as follows: “One day the weak Eshbaal, who now lacked the strong hand of Abner, was murdered… during his midday sleep by two professional soldiers (‘captains of bands’) from the originally Canaanite city of Beeroth which had been absorbed by the tribe of Benjamin, and the inhabitants of which had probably been forced to leave the city in a conÀict with Saul and [whose relatives] now took their revenge on the son of Saul.”37 Such forensic work is worthy of primetime television. Of course, the death of Ishbosheth represents forthcoming public relations problem for David, just like the ¿fth rib murder of Abner in ch. 3. Abner’s funeral is deftly handled by David as he distances himself from the brothers Joab and Abishai, who are responsible for the messy deed. So, just as ch. 3 is a triumph of public relations, the public hanging of more killers, the brothers Rimmon, successfully distances David from the murderers. So, the “¿fth rib” represents two problems for David with respect to the deaths of Abner and Ishbosheth, but it also serves to link the perpetrators of the deeds; that is, the brothers Rechab and Baanah are now aligned with the brothers Joab and Abishai. These two sets of brothers have something in common: namely, a twin set of motives for

36. In favor of the MT, Dominique Barthélemy and the CTAT committee observe: “The repetitive character of verse 7 in relation to the form of *M in verse 6 can be explained by the fact that 7 resumes the tale of the murder so as to add a new fact: the removal of the head as proof to be taken to David. Elsewhere we also ¿nd repetitions of the arrival of Joab in 3,22.33 and in the coming of the tribes of Israel to Hebron in 5,1.3.” The Àashback of 4:7 indicates that different kind of dramatic sequencing is at work here. 37. M. Noth, The History of Israel (London: A. & C. Black, 1960), 185. 1

34

The Artistic Dimension

the respective killings. With the brothers Joab and Abishai, as I discussed above, the motives are both blood vengeance for a previous crime (the slaying of their brother Asahel) by Abner along with the fact that the interests of their military careers are served by having Abner eliminated. The situation is not dissimilar to that of the brothers Rechab and Baanah. As Martin Noth argues, they have an opportunity for revenge on the house of Saul by killing Ishbosheth (their boss) and simultaneously they have a chance to further their careers in the new regime of David by ingratiating themselves to a new employer with the severed head of their (previous) master. The fact that they underestimate David and end up impaled by the pool of Hebron is merely beside the point: it is their motives that I am interested in, and their motives resemble Joab and Abishai. This is the reason why, I would propose, the MT provides the reader with two different descriptions of the murder. In v. 6 the stress is on the body part of the ¿fth rib: “And there they came, as far as the middle of the house, taking wheat, and they struck him in the ¿fth rib. Then Rechab and Baanah his brother escaped.” In v. 7 the stress is on the body part of the head: “And they entered the house, but he was lying upon his couch in the inner part of his bedroom, and they struck him, and killed him, and turned aside his head, and took his head and went the way of the Arabah all night.” The twin motives are thus represented by the twin description: v. 6 underscores the motive of revenge while v. 7 shows the crass opportunism of the “head” which represents their hope for compensation. On the latter, Julius Wellhausen noted years ago in his Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel that David eventually becomes king in place of Saul, but “What a length of time these affairs demand, how natural is their development, how many human elements mingle in their course—cunning, and treachery, and battle, and murder!”38 It would not be a stretch to add that a speci¿c literary device for representing David’s throne secured by “cunning, and treachery, and battle, and murder” is through the use of the unique term “¿fth rib” (YP[R). The deliberate emphasis of the “¿fth rib” in v. 6 connects the death of Ishbosheth with other murders in 2 Samuel. The term YP[,R according to the venerable statistics of BDB, only occurs four times and is unique to the books of Samuel. It is used in ch. 2 to describe the killing of Asahel, in ch. 3 for the death of Abner, here in ch. 4 for the death of Ishbosheth, and later in 2 Sam 20 for the death of Amasa at the hands of Joab. 38. J. Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel (trans. J. S. Black and A. Menzies; Edinburgh: A. & C. Black, 1885 [orig. 1878]).

1

1. Crime Scene Investigation

35

Conspicuously, each of the four deaths all have something to do with the stability of the Davidic throne, and competition among and within houses. Through this speci¿c use of “¿fth rib” the Deuteronomist is connecting all four deaths and showing the fraternal cost of this stability. As Polzin comments: Murder and mayhem caused by the pursuit of kings not only include intra-tribal killing within the house of Saul but will even involve intrafamilial murder within the house of David. Thus we have a variegated series of capital crimes revolving around matters of royal succession, with each instance in the narrative series progressing toward an ever more narrow meaning for fratricide.39

If we consider the reason for inclusion of the “¿fth rib,” we gain this subtle narrative critique, and Ishbosheth’s death thus takes place within this larger network of allusion. Similarly, the two descriptions of the murder in vv. 6 and 7 highlight the dual motives that the MT is at pains to show. And so, ¿nally, at the risk of turning this higher-critical issue into the low art stuff of murder mystery pulp ¿ction, I would contend that there are different shades of plot, character, point of view, and theme con¿gured in the Hebrew and Greek texts, leading to different reports of execution in the narrative. While I think this kind of literary analysis has value in itself, a corollary of such a comparative exploration is that it may well help formulate a new solution in the future to this assassination in the house of Saul, and shed light on reasons for the textual divergences that we ¿nd in 2 Sam 4:5–7. As far as the history of interpretation goes, this complex issue offers some evidence that the dramatic contours of this narrative were not lost on early audiences; someone went to the trouble to preserve the Greek text, and it behoves me as an interpreter to try and make sense of the variant descriptions of the strange death of Ishbosheth.

1

39. Polzin, David and the Deuteronomist, 52.

Chapter 2

THE LOCUTIONS OF 1 KINGS 22:28: A NEW PROPOSAL

The varieties of direct speech contained in 1 Kgs 22 have provoked considerable debate, and scholars have long puzzled over v. 28b in particular.1 Within the broader context of the episode as a whole, there are a host of complex discourse patterns from a range of speakers: kings, high-ranking of¿cials, sycophants, true and false prophets, God, and various members of the divine council are all afforded a voice in this narrative. While 1 Kgs 22 has elicited a number of divergent readings, there is general agreement among scholars that the dynamics of true and false prophecy and the fate of Ahab are dominant literary and theological concerns within this episode.2 The central dialogue of the narrative 1. For an overview of the debate surrounding the putative compositional history, see S. L. McKenzie, The Trouble with Kings: The Composition of the Book of Kings in the Deuteronomistic History (Leiden: Brill, 1991), 90–93. Cf. S. J. De Vries (1 Kings [WBC 12; Waco: Word, 1989], 262), who describes 1 Kgs 22:28b as a “scribal gloss” which does not feature in his translation, and J. Gray (I & II Kings [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963], 397), who states that v. 28b “is obviously a gloss by a late hand which wrongly considered the son of Imlah identical with the prophet Micah.” A convenient bibliography of relevant secondary literature is compiled in B. O. Long, 1 Kings, with an Introduction to Historical Literature (FOTL 9; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984), 239–40; cf. Robert L. Hubbard, Jr., “ ‘Old What’s-HisName’: Why the King in 1 Kings 22 Has No Name,” in God’s Word for Our World. Vol. 1, Biblical Studies in Honor of Simon John De Vries (ed. J. H. Ellens, D. E. Ellens, R. Knierim, and I. Kalimi; JSOTSup 388; London: T&T Clark International, 2004), 294–314. 2. E.g. D. Robertson, “Micaiah ben Imlah: A Literary View,” in The Biblical Mosaic: Changing Perspectives (ed. R. Polzin and E. Rothman; Philadelphia: Fortress; Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1982), 139–46; J. J. M. Roberts, “Does God Lie? Divine Deceit as a Theological Problem in Israelite Prophetic Literature,” in Congress Volume: Jerusalem, 1986 (ed. J. A. Emerton; VTSup 40; Leiden: Brill, 1988), 211–20; B. O. Long, “The Form and Signi¿cance of 1 Kings 22:1–38,” in

2. The Locutions of 1 Kings 22:28

37

belongs to Micaiah son of Imlah and Ahab king of Israel. As is evident from their verbal transaction, the king and the prophet have confronted one another hitherto. The prophet’s ostensible sarcasm in 22:15b (“And he answered him, ‘Go up and triumph; the LORD will give it into the hand of the king’ ”) is met with a histrionic remonstrance from the king, citing what must be previous interviews. Their lengthy altercation in this chapter culminates in vv. 26–28: The king of Israel then ordered, “Take Micaiah, and return him to Amon the governor of the city and to Joash the king’s son, and say, ‘Thus says the king: Put this fellow in prison, and feed him on reduced rations of bread and water until I come in peace.’ ” Micaiah said, “If you return in peace, the LORD has not spoken by me.” And he said, “Hear, you peoples, all of you!” (NRSV)

The NRSV translation of v. 28 preserves a problematic ambiguity in the Hebrew text. The speaker in v. 28a is reported as Micaiah, but the locution of v. 28b (aONa\P>Z>PYUPD\Z, “And he said, ‘Hear, all you peoples!’ ”) features no such speci¿cation.3 Commentators and translators have long been uncomfortable with v. 28b, not only because of the grammar, but also because the same utterance occurs in Mic 1:2.4 For example, J. A. Montgomery categorizes these words as “a gloss, absent

Isac Leo Seeligmann Volume: Essays on the Bible and the Ancient World (ed. A. Rofé and Y. Zakovitch; Jerusalem: E. Rubinstein, 1982), 193–208. Cf. Simon J. De Vries, Prophet Against Prophet: The Role of the Micaiah Narrative (1 Kings 22) in the Development of Early Prophetic Tradition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978); J. E. Brenneman, “Debating Ahab: Characterization in Biblical Theology,” in Reading the Hebrew Bible for a New Millennium: Form, Concept, and Theological Perspective. Vol. 1, Theological and Hermeneutical Studies (ed. W. Kim et al.; Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 2000), 89–107. 3. The dif¿culties v. 28 poses for translators are evident when several English versions are compared. Note, for example, NKJV’s “But Micaiah said, ‘If you ever return in peace, the LORD has not spoken by me.’ And he said, ‘Take heed, all you people!’ ” In contrast, the NJPS speci¿es that the speaker of v. 28b is the prophet: “To which Micaiah retorted, ‘If you ever come home safe, the LORD has not spoken through me.’ He said further (UPD\Z), ‘Listen, all you peoples!’ ” The NJPS footnote to v. 28b reads: “Perhaps a notation suggesting that Micaiah was identical with Micah, whose prophecies begin, ‘Listen, all you peoples,’ Mic. 1.2.” The NIV paraphrase is along similar lines: “Micaiah declared, ‘If you ever return safely, the LORD has not spoken through me.’ Then he added, ‘Mark my words, all you people!’ ” 4. Notably, translations such as the NEB and NJB do not include v. 28b. On the grammar of a/ .Xa\0L>:>PY,L see GKC §135r. Cf. W. McKane, Micah: Introduction and Commentary (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1998), 27; J. T. Willis, “Some Suggestions on the Interpretation of Micah 1:2,” VT 18 (1968): 372–79. 1

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in Ch. and in pre-Hex. Greek texts, identifying Micaiah with the canonical Micah.”5 Likewise, G. H. Jones remarks, “The ¿nal words, ‘Hear all you peoples!,’ are not found in Chronicles, LXX nor Luc. and appear in the margin in NEB. The same words appear in Mic. 1:2, and it is suggested that they have been inserted here in an attempt to identify Micaiah with Micah.”6 There are two issues here which traditionally have been used to argue that v. 28b is a late gloss: the text-critical matter, and the (mis)identi¿cation of Micaiah with Micah. First, on the textcritical issue of the omission of v. 28b in the LXX, E. Ball has previously argued that this is not “decisively in favour of its being a simple gloss. The reverse argument is plausible also: that the LXX translators took it to identify, mistakenly, Micaiah and Micah, and so omitted it. The phrase is read by Vulg., Pesh., and Targ.”7 Moreover, it should be noted that, despite the assertions of Montgomery and Jones, the relevant phrase does occur in the parallel text of 2 Chr 18:27 (aONa\P>Z>PYUPD\Z). Regarding this parallel occurrence in Chronicles, Ball comments: “The probability is that the Chronicler read the text of 1 Kgs. xxii.28 as we have it, suggesting that the gloss, if it be such, must have been an early one.”8 Further need for caution than has previously been acknowledged 5. J. A. Montgomery and H. S. Gehman, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Books of Kings (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1951), 340. Cf. D. R. Hillers, Micah: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Micah (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 16: “The words a/ .Xa\0L>:>PYLhave been inserted in the MT at 1 Kgs 22:28 and 2 Chr 18:27 (not in the original LXX at either point), as a result of the mistaken identi¿cation of Micah of Moresheth with Micaiah ben Imlah.” 6. G. H. Jones, 1 and 2 Kings, vol. 1 (NCB; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984), 369–70. 7. E. Ball, “A Note on 1 Kings xxii. 28,” JTS 28 (1977): 90. Ball also notes, “Baillet’s reconstruction of a fragment of I Kgs. xxii. 28–31 from Qumran Cave 6 suggests that the manuscript had our phrase [M. Baillet, J. T. Milik, R. de Vaux, Les “Petites Grottes” de Qumran (DJD 3; Oxford: Clarendon, 1962), 108]. This is interesting, since, as F. M. Cross and others have pointed out, the Cave 6 fragments of Kings in other ways seem to represent a text, like that of 4QSam, closer to that which underlies LXX—though, to be sure, caution is imperative when dealing with such tiny scraps.” 8. Ball, “A Note on 1 Kings xxii. 28,” 91. Cf. S. Japhet, I & II Chronicles (OTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993), 766: “The ¿nal words [of 2 Chr 18:27] ‘Hear, all you peoples’, are a citation of Micah 1.2, generally regarded as a secondary gloss, intended to identify Micaiah the son of Imlah with ‘Micah of Moresheth’… For the Chronicler, however, who found this exhortation in his Vorlage, it strikes the ¿nal chord for Micaiah’s exit: the whole world must witness his authenticity as a prophet. With this declaration, Micaiah disappears from the narrative; his future fate and actions remain unknown.” 1

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39

is required, therefore, with respect to the supposition that v. 28b is a late addition which is not integral to 1 Kgs 22 as a whole. Thus, it is fair to adjudge that Ball is correct in asserting that the absence of v. 28b from the LXX is not de¿nitive evidence that it is a gloss, and in light of the 2 Chr 18:27 parallel passage it at least would be prudent to concede that the textual issue is an open one. This leads to the second (and perhaps more substantial) issue, which is the apparent confusion between Micaiah in 1 Kgs 22 and the canonical Micah. In a recent commentary, J. T. Walsh summarizes the consensus position: “The last words attributed to Micaiah, ‘Hear, you peoples, all of you,’ do not belong to the story. They are in fact a citation of the ¿rst words of the book of the prophet Micah. Some later scribe, confusing Micaiah son of Imlah and Micah of Moresheth because of the similarity of the names, made a marginal cross-reference to the Book of Micah, thinking it contained further prophecies of the prophet. Eventually the marginal gloss crept into the text of the narrative.”9 This position has also been criticized by Ball. After evaluating various comparisons between 1 Kgs 22 and Micah, Ball concludes that 1 Kgs 22:28b “was not the haphazard comment of a stupid glossator, but a purposeful redactional addition stressing a deeper continuity between Micaiah and Micah than merely that of name, though no doubt the latter may well have suggested the continuity in the ¿rst place. It is, surely, highly unlikely that any later editor could simply confuse the two prophets.”10 Ball then proceeds to

9. J. T. Walsh, 1 Kings (Collegeville: Liturgical, 1996), 352. Cf. R. D. Nelson, First and Second Kings (Int; Atlanta: John Knox, 1987), 149–50: “Later readers of Kings added this gloss to point out the similarities between Micaiah and Micah, especially his attack on the salvation prophets (Mic 3:5). Whether this gloss actually intended to imply that Micaiah and Micah were the same person is uncertain, but the reader may treat it as a ‘cross reference’ to another portion of the canonical context. Micah, like Micaiah, separated the fate of the people from the fate of their monarchy and capital city and was well known to the exilic audience (cf. Jer. 26:18).” See also M. Cogan, I Kings: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 10; New York: Doubleday, 2001), 493: “Micaiah’s ¿nal words reÀect the Deuteronomic criterion by which a true prophecy may be recognized; cf. Deut 18:21–22. The MT has the additional clause, omitted by Luc., LXX: ‘He said: Hear all you peoples.’ This annotation, of uncertain date (see Ball 1977 for the unlikely suggestion that it stems from Dtr), sought to identify Micaiah with the late eighth-century prophet, Micah the Morashtite, by quoting the opening phrase in Mic 1:2.” 10. Ball, “A Note on 1 Kings xxii. 28,” 92. As I. W. Provan (1 and 2 Kings [Peabody: Hendrickson, 1995], 166) notes, deeper points of continuity can be discerned between Micaiah and Micah, and the parallel language “invites us (at the very least) to consider the book of Micah…against the background of the whole 1

40

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discuss the identity of the redactor(s) and Deuteronomistic editing of the “former” and “latter” prophets, noting that this clause provides a useful diachronic clue that helps to facilitate a deeper understanding of the textual transmission and compositional process. Ball’s critique of the consensus position has succeeded, to my mind, in demonstrating that the arguments for excising aONa\P>Z>PYUPD\Z are unsatisfactory. Nonetheless, rede¿ning 28b as a “purposeful redactional addition” in turn raises another series of dif¿culties, not least that it serves to undermines the role of this sentence in the larger storyline, and virtually admits that it is not integral to the narrative. While Ball has accomplished the task of showing that there is room for reasonable doubt in the consensus position, and that 28b should not be discarded, there remains an acquiescence to the view that this locution is inherently secondary and does not meaningfully contribute to the dramatic confrontation between king and prophet. This present study aims to take up this last point by employing a literary approach to explore the importance of 28b within the Ahab–Micaiah showdown. It is the contention of this study that a literary angle offers a productive way forward in assessing the signi¿cance of this utterance in the surrounding narrative; in other words, not only is 28b appropriate in context, but it is vital to the unfolding scene and has more literary currency than has been explicated by previous commentators. Assuming, with Ball, that there are insuf¿cient grounds for deleting 28b, there are in fact compelling literary reasons for retaining it in an overall analysis of 1 Kgs 22. So, in what follows, the plausibility of the consensus view will not be subject to further scrutiny. Rather, an alternative way of reading the locution of 28b is proposed. With a unanimity akin to the 400 prophets on the threshing Àoor, commentators are of one voice in presupposing that the speaker in both 28a and 28b is Micaiah. Without necessarily labeling it as such, it is clear that most exegetes would assume this to be an instance of resumptive direct discourse.11 However, this underlying premise merits revaluation Ahab story. It looks forward to the destruction of Samaria because of idolatry and prostitution (1:2–7) and it condemns both social injustice (2:1–5) and false prophecy (2:6–11; 3:1–12).” 11. For comprehensive study of the ways in which direct speech is signposted throughout the Hebrew Bible, see S. A. Meier, Speaking of Speaking: Marking Direct Discourse in the Hebrew Bible (Leiden: Brill, 1992). Although he amasses a legion of examples, 1 Kgs 22:28 is not among them. However, Meier does discuss various situations where resumptive direct discourse occurs. First, “UPD can be found repeated a second time within a quotation, reaf¿rming the identity of the speaker. The narrator will occasionally interrupt a character’s speech by simply inserting a seemingly redundant restatement” (73–74). Second, Meier observes that 1

2. The Locutions of 1 Kings 22:28

41

in light of the many other examples in the Hebrew Bible where UPD\Z is not used to indicate resumptive direct discourse, but rather to signal a change in speaker.12 Hence, an alternative possibility can be suggested: the subject and the speaker of the words aONa\P>Z>PYUPD\Z(“And he said, ‘Hear, all you peoples!’ ”) is not the prophet, but the king. Since it is grammatically feasible that UPD\Z in v. 28b indicates a change in speaker, the possibility exists that Ahab is the speaker rather than Micaiah. Furthermore, in the context of the episode as a whole, it seems more likely that the prophet Micaiah does not issue the imperative aONa\P>Z>PY. From a literary perspective, attributing the locution “Hear, all you peoples” to Ahab better coheres with the king’s characterization in the narrative; correspondingly, not attributing the imperative of v. 28b to Micaiah better coheres with the prophet’s overall presentation in the narrative. If Micaiah’s opening speech to Ahab in v. 15b is compared with his discourse in v. 28a, a suggestive symmetry emerges. In v. 15b the prophet uses sarcasm to goad Ahab into making a public reply—that is, Micaiah deploys his sarcastic comment as a rhetorical instrument to provoke a response from the king and personally involve Ahab in this contest surrounding the veracity of the prophetic word. Micaiah’s verbal strategy in v. 15b is engineered to induce further discourse from the king on the nature of prophetic truth, in effect “upping the ante” in this high-stakes game. there can be a resumption of direct discourse to highlight a temporal gap in the narrative (74). One could suggest that 1 Kgs 22:5 might be such an instance. Third, resumptive direct discourse can occur when a speaker speaks again, but to a different party, that is, “occasions where the speaker shifts his focus from one addressee to another” (74). An example of this is 1 Kgs 22:3–4, where Ahab continues to be the speaker, yet switches his address from “his servants” to “Jehoshaphat, king of Judah.” This would be the most compelling reason to retain Micaiah as the orator of v. 28b, arguing that UPD\Z is repeated because the prophet shifts his attention to the wider assembly, rather than strictly Ahab. However, there is a higher probability that the imperative of v. 28b is Ahab’s response to the prophet’s “if…then” declaration as he is being sent into con¿nement, as the king calls on everyone gathered to remember the prophet’s conditional pronouncement. Accordingly, the king’s wrath is ignited by the prophet’s use of the keyword “peace” (aZOYE), used moments earlier by Ahab (22:27), and which also happens to occur in Micaiah’s previous speech (22:17). Cf. C. L. Miller, The Representation of Speech in Biblical Hebrew Narrative: A Linguistic Analysis (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996), 233–97, for a useful study of reported speech in narration and dialogue from a linguistic perspective. 12. Within 1 Kgs 22 alone, vv. 17 and 19 are examples where UPD\Z indicates a shift in speaker, without the subject being explicitly identi¿ed. See also Gen 4:9; 18:30–33; 24:33; 33:8; Exod 4:2; Judg 3:19; 1 Sam 12:5; 16:11; 1 Kgs 11:22; 21:20, 24. 1

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The Artistic Dimension

As intimated above, there is strong evidence for surmising that Ahab and Micaiah have had previous animosities. As Ahab confesses to Jehoshaphat about the existence of a certain prophet of the LORD, he vehemently protests “…but I hate him, because he never prophesies anything good about me, but always evil” (DEQW\DO \N Z\WDQI\QDZ >UaD\N EZM \O>).13 B. O. Long characterizes Ahab and Micaiah’s relationship as one of “long standing enmity,” and Micaiah’s sarcastic gibe must serve to corroborate such a claim.14 His imitation of the false prophets is so precise that Ahab’s suspicion is immediately aroused. According to Ahab’s exegesis, Micaiah has tried this “sarcastic” approach before, prompting the royal outburst and reprimand of the prophet in 22:16, “How many times must I make you swear (KPNG> >EYP\QDa\P>S) to tell me nothing but the truth in the name of the LORD?” Again, as Long suggests, this narrative “follows an artistic pattern of response and counter-response,” indicating that Micaiah’s opening declaration (“Go up and triumph”) is intended to cajole a response from the king.15 Given that Micaiah has used a rhetorical strategy to induce a response from Ahab earlier in the narrative, it is not altogether surprising that he unleashes a similar strategy in v. 28a. Just as the prophet uses sarcasm to provoke a royal reply in 22:15, his “if…then” speech of v. 28a is also aimed at extracting a response from Ahab, daring him to have the last word, and further implicating him in what will be referred to in a moment as this prophetic lawsuit. Thus, there is a certain congruence between his ¿rst and last words to Ahab: both demand a response from the king. Not only is this a key component of Micaiah’s rhetorical strategy, but it also serves to heighten the ef¿cacy of his own prophetic utterance. It is yet another irony of 1 Kgs 22 that Micaiah is almost parodying Ahab’s manner of discourse with Jehoshaphat, whom Ahab has been enticing with a similar rhetorical strategy of open-ended comments that solicit a rejoinder.16 While this reading clearly assumes 13. To be sure, in the absence of some sort of psychological predicate, the king’s tone of voice (here and elsewhere) must be inferred. But given the colorful presentation of Ahab throughout this wider narrative stretch—e.g., his emotional vacillations in 1 Kgs 21 alone, where he is “sullen and out of humor” (#>]ZUV) in 21:4, and “walked about subdued” (MDOK\Z) in 21:27—one can argue that the reader is invited to view the scenes between king and prophet as having an intrinsic theatricality. 14. Long, 1 Kings, 235. 15. Ibid., 234. 16. That is, v. 4, where Ahab ¿rst addresses his servants concerning the status of Ramoth-Gilead, and then turns to the king of Judah. This strategy is more explicit in 1

2. The Locutions of 1 Kings 22:28

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that Micaiah is a “rounder” and more calculating character than is often assumed, it nonetheless has the interpretative dividend of making better sense of what the prophet is doing in the narrative: drawing Ahab into the prophetic conÀict and forcing him to side either with Micaiah himself or with Zedekiah, truth or untruth, and face the consequences.17 To appropriate a phrase from J. M. Hamilton, Ahab is lured into the “nets of prophecy” and becomes further complicit in his own downfall.18 Hamilton outlines four ways in which Ahab’s own actions in 1 Kgs 22 actually contribute to his own death: his initiative in the Ramoth-Gilead conÀict, admitting to Jehoshaphat that another prophet is available for consultation, his insistence on hearing the truth from Micaiah, and disguising himself for battle. I would submit that Ahab’s imperative of v. 28b would be a ¿fth way in which the king’s intransigent conduct serves to facilitate his demise. Clearly, this reading has further implications for the characterization of Ahab, especially when these speci¿c words (aONa\P>Z>PY) are considered in the broader context of the episode in 1 Kgs 22. To begin, I would argue that the king’s retort in v. 28b is a brazen mimicry of prophetic speech, rhetorically intended as a cynical gesture toward Micaiah as he is being led toward his place of con¿nement. Just as Micaiah has been sarcastic with Ahab, the king now responds in a like manner.19 Of course, by this “sinister clowning” Ahab is certainly acting the Chronicler’s version, where the verb “entice” (WZV) is used (2 Chr 18:2). On the role of Jehoshaphat, see W. Johnstone, 1 & 2 Chronicles. Vol. 2, 2 Chronicles 10–36, Guilt and Atonement (Shef¿eld: Shef¿eld Academic, 1997), 82–107; cf. G. N. Knoppers, “Reform and Regression: The Chronicler’s Treatment of Jehoshaphat,” Biblica 72 (1991): 510–12. 17. Stylistically, it would seem that his ¿nal words are designed to be the if… then statement: “If you return in peace, then the LORD has not spoken through me!” In this case, it is unlikely that he would then say “Hear all you peoples,” as not only would this be an anticlimax, but it would blunt his personal challenge to the king. One could also argue that it better ¿ts with his certain dif¿dence that has been consistent throughout. On a further stylistic note, this imperative seems more likely to come from Ahab, especially since he has apparently refused to address Micaiah directly since 22:18. 18. Hamilton, “Caught in the Nets of Prophecy? The Death of Ahab and the Character of God,” CBQ 56 (1994): 651–53. 19. There is another level of personal conÀict in this narrative. Long comments that Micaiah and Zedekiah “countermand each other, as though engaging in their own private war for authority and status” (1 Kings, 234). It is striking that Zedekiah’s sarcasm in 22:24 (“Which way did the spirit of the LORD pass from me to speak to you?”) is comparable to Micaiah’s reply to Ahab in 22:15. Sarcasm also features in the prophetic confrontation between Jeremiah and Hananiah (Jer 28:6). 1

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in character, as this kind of action is seen earlier in the narrative.20 When faced with the demands of the king of Aram in 1 Kgs 20:10–11, Ahab responds with the repartee: “Let the one who is equipping not praise himself like the one who removes!”21 If, as Cogan suggests, the laconic phrase [WSPNUJ[OOKW\OD is a kind of proverbial saying, then it may illustrate a tendency in Ahab for quoting popular slogans or utterances well-known to his hearers.22 Indeed, since this witty remark in 1 Kgs 20:11 occurs when the king of Israel is at a disadvantage with respect to the invading Arameans, it would seem that Ahab’s caustic reply is designed to encourage his followers for a battle which they seem illpositioned to win. Similarly, in 1 Kgs 22:28b Ahab’s mockery of the prophet Micaiah by imitating a prophetic/judicial utterance is intended to convey the message both to his own troops and to the army of Judah that he has every intention of returning “in peace” from this conÀict with the Arameans, just as on the previous occasion in 1 Kgs 20 when he gains the upper hand through his witty remark designed to encourage his army for the ensuing battle. In addition, when further attention is directed toward the speci¿c wording (aONa\P>Z>PY) of this imperative, there is a certain aptness to this particular locution. When compared with similar expressions, 1 Kgs 22:28b could be classi¿ed as a prophetic/judicial utterance, utilized to

20. N. Frye, The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982), 40: “Ahab…is portrayed in the main as a kind of sinister clown.” I was ¿rst alerted to Frye’s provocative discussion by F. O. García-Treto, “The Fall of the House: A Carnivalesque Reading of 2 Kings 9 and 10,” in Reading Between Texts: Intertextuality and the Hebrew Bible (ed. D. N. Fewell; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1992), 156. 21. Cogan (1 Kings, 464) translates “The one who girds up should not boast as the one who unbuckles,” and comments: “Ahab employs a proverbial saying to remind Ben-Hadad that the battle is not won until it is over. The actions depicted are those of a soldier buckling up his sword as he goes to the ¿eld (cf. 1 Sam 17:39, 25,13) and taking it off when he returns (cf. Isa 45:1). For the use of proverbs and parables in diplomatic negotiations, see Note on 2 Kgs 14:9 [M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 11; New York: Doubleday, 1988), 156].” 22. This is not the only literary portrait of a prophetic duel between two ideological antagonists in the Deuteronomistic History. As D. Rudman, points out (“Is the Rabshakeh Also Among the Prophets? A Rhetorical Study of 2 Kings XVIII 17–35,” VT 50 [2000]: 100–110), when the Rabshakeh speaks to the guardians of Jerusalem, he couches his speech in prophetic language in an attempt to persuade them. It is signi¿cant that this is another incident where prophetic speech is counterfeited in an attempt to deceive the target audience. 1

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call witnesses or observers in some sort of arraignment. Consider Lam 1:18 (a\P>ONDQZ>PY), an entreaty for all to assess the righteousness of the LORD over and against the rebelliousness of the speaker. Also, the similar language of Ps 49 (a\P>KONWD]Z>PY) can be compared, as it is an invocation to listen to the poet’s testimony and wisdom in light of the alternatives that are articulated.23 Neither of these instances are overtly prophetic as such, but certainly involve the summoning of witnesses to adjudicate an ideological dispute. This is where taking into account the immediate context of Micah is helpful, as both 1 Kgs 22:28b and Mic 1:2a are prophetic in tone and “judicial in character.”24 As Andersen and Freedman note, the judicial scope of Mic 1:2a involves calling the peoples (“the whole world”) to adjudicate a dispute.25 There are, then, grounds for tendering the idea that in 1 Kgs 22:28b Ahab issues a summons to the nations present (Israel and Judah) to adjudicate the dispute between him and Micaiah.26 Hence, there is a certain aptness to this particular expression as an appropriate mockery of the prophetic word in this literary context, as Ahab’s “summons to hear” functions much like the “judicial proceeding”27 of Mic 1:2 and dramatically heightens the arraignment of the prophet by the king. In other words, in this context of a judicial proceeding, the king deploys a prophetic utterance to summon witnesses against a prophet he has just incarcerated.

23. Despite the caution of Hillers that the “appeal to ‘all peoples’ to hear is relatively rare” in the Hebrew Bible, it seems that a case can be made that this is a general enough type of utterance (D. R. Hillers, Lamentations: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [2d ed.; AB 7A; New York: Doubleday, 1992], 76). On the complex voice structure of Lam 1, see C. W. Miller, “Reading Voices: Personi¿cation, Dialogism, and the Reader of Lamentations 1,” BI 9 (2001): 393–408. 24. J. L. Mays, Micah: A Commentary (OTL; London: SCM, 1976), 40. 25. F. I. Andersen and D. N. Freedman, Micah: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 24E; New York: Doubleday, 2000), 147. Mic 1:2a, they note, is a “Summons (by the prophet) to the whole world (to adjudicate the dispute between Yahweh and Jacob?).” 26. Andersen and Freedman (ibid., 146) also suggest that this could have been a standard-enough phrase which survives only here in the Hebrew Bible: “One wonders if it is a set phrase that could have been quite commonly used, but which happens to have survived in just these two places.” 27. H. W. Wolff, Micah: A Commentary (trans. G. Stansell; Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1990), 45. 1

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The Artistic Dimension

Quite conceivably, it is the full weight of Micaiah’s discourse, culminating with the “if…then” challenge of v. 28a and the king’s response to this in v. 28b, that ¿nally motivates Ahab to disguise himself upon entering into battle.28 S. Japhet makes a series of perceptive remarks alluding to the motif of clothing in this episode, and observes that the reference “arrayed in their robes” (1 Kgs 22:10; 2 Chr 18:9) prepares the reader for the function of these robes later: “Ahab’s change of garments will be his way of testing the reliability of God’s word, and will also put Jehoshaphat in danger.”29 In contrast, though, I would argue that the change of garments has very little to do with testing. Rather, Ahab is cunningly attempting to outmaneuver Micaiah’s prophetic word, and ironically he uses a strategy he learned earlier from another prophet! In 1 Kgs 20:38–43, the disguise motif occurs as an unnamed prophet dons a vizard (YS[) and deceives the king into pronouncing a selfjudgment. Thus, in the earlier narrative of 1 Kgs 20 a disguise is used by a prophet to dupe Ahab who has released an imprisoned king. In 1 Kgs 22 the roles are reversed, as Ahab uses a disguise to dupe an opposing army and thwart an imprisoned prophet. P. J. Kissling notes that “trickery or deception” is one of the major themes of this episode, and because Ahab disguises himself, it reveals that to some extent he takes the prophecy seriously and is trying to frustrate Micaiah’s words.30 As well as the attempt to foil Micaiah, the king of Judah is also one of the objects of Ahab’s deceptive attention: “By disguising himself, and having Jehoshaphat dress in a way designed to trick the Syrians into thinking that the latter is the king of Israel, Ahab thinks he can outwit the Syrians, Yahweh, and perhaps also his supposed ally Jehoshaphat.”31 Hence, 28. Cf. Walsh, 1 Kings, 352: “When the king says ‘until I come in peace,’ he is calling Micaiah’s bluff. It may be that he hopes to pressure Micaiah into reversing the oracle he has given, in order to assure Ahab’s safety and consequently Micaiah’s own release. Or it may be that the king wishes to detain Micaiah until after the battle; when the king returns safely, he intends to punish Micaiah for false prophecy. This seems to be Micaiah’s understanding, for his de¿ant reply is that should the king return safely, Micaiah is indeed guilty of false prophecy. If that is Ahab’s idea, it implies much about his condescending attitude toward Yahweh. As verse 16 shows, Ahab knows that Micaiah’s oracle is probably true, but he expects to be able to elude Yahweh’s trap.” 29. Japhet, I & II Chronicles, 760–61. 30. P. J. Kissling, Reliable Characters in the Primary History: Pro¿les of Moses, Joshua, Elijah and Elisha (JSOTSup 224; Shef¿eld: Shef¿eld Academic, 1996), 132. 31. Ibid., 134. It should be noted here that Ahab displays remarkable perspicuity in anticipating the exact tactics of the Aramean king in targeting “the king of Israel alone” (1 Kgs 22:31). 1

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Ahab’s words in v. 28b are not only a mockery of prophetic speech, but also the ¿rst component of his deceptive strategy, as indicated by the disguise that follows. Moreover, R. Coggins draws attention to several instances where the verb (YS[) is used for monarchs disguising themselves.32 In the case of 1 Kgs 22, it could be said that Ahab’s scheme of disguise is a “sensible precaution” in light of the king of Aram’s command (v. 31): “Do not ¿ght with small or great, but with the king of Israel alone.” On the one hand, this command is directed to the “the thirty-two captains of his chariots,” and thus can be understood as a straightforward logistical directive: the chariot commanders should make the king of Israel their prime target. But, on the other hand, there is a certain poignancy that it is precisely in the random vagaries of battle whereby Ahab is struck. As Coggins notes: “That the archer ‘drew his bow at a venture’ [v. 34] does not mean that the bow-shot was purely a matter of luck or chance. Here is a word of Yahweh spoken through the prophet Micaiah being brought into effect…the Aramean archers are merely the instruments through which the result is achieved, but nevertheless instruments of a will that cannot be thwarted by human attempts at disguise.”33 I would further enhance this point by suggesting that the “word of Yahweh spoken through the prophet Micaiah being brought into effect,” which Coggins mentions, culminates with Micaiah’s enunciation in v. 28a, “If you return in peace, the LORD has not spoken by me.”34 To conclude, if one assumes that the king of Israel is the speaker of v. 28b, then Ahab’s actions of disguise can be understood as virtually hiding from the prophetic word. The king, one supposes, is anxious to “return in peace” and bring the imprisoned prophet to trial: this is why he resorts to the strategy of disguise.35 Evidently, on both a literal and 32. Coggins, “On Kings and Disguises,” JSOT 50 (1991): 55–62. The other royal ¿gures are Saul, Josiah, and the wife of Jeroboam (although in this latter case the verb KQY is used rather than YS[). BDB de¿nes the Hithpael form of YS[ as “lit. let oneself be searched for” (344). 33. Ibid., 58. In Ahab’s case, his disguise illustrates his determination to survive, which adds to the theological drama that Coggins discusses at length. 34. Ahab’s obstinacy in opposing the prophetic word has interesting similarities with the Saul narrative: both monarchs are involved in escapades involving the verb YS[, and both discover (albeit in rather different circumstances) that it is dif¿cult to oppose either an irascible or a sarcastic prophet. 35. H. C. Brichto (Toward a Grammar of Biblical Poetics: Tales of the Prophets [New York: Oxford University Press, 1992], 282 n. 16) asks: “Why the need for two responsible wardens or, for that matter, the entire detail of Micaiah’s being locked up until the outcome of the battle?” I would argue that the detail of Micaiah’s 1

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symbolic level there is more than one conÀict being described here. The battle with the Arameans frames the conÀict with Micaiah, and it would seem that Ahab is concerned with achieving victory in both realms. Throughout the Ahab narrative there has been a consistent theme of hostility and antagonism between the king and various prophets. It is this battle which climaxes in the locutions of 1 Kgs 22:28, as Micaiah’s bold “if…then” con¿dence is matched by Ahab’s riposte. Consequently, I would argue that v. 28b is an integral direct speech in the narrative of 1 Kgs 22, and should not be discarded simply as a scribal gloss. Such a dismissal overlooks the important role that the locutions of 22:28 play in the literary presentation of the king, the prophet, and their conÀict. Finally, in this narrative of “competing prophecies,” a profound irony lies in the fact that Ahab dies in front of “all the peoples,” not only Israel and Judah, but the Syrians as well.36 Certainly this is contrary to Ahab’s intention in donning his disguise, and hence he is ultimately satirized as he becomes the washed-out victim of his own fulmination—a rather damp epilogue in light of his prophetic mockery of Micaiah. Just as he imprisonment is connected with the king of Israel’s disguise, as he attempts to evade the prophetic word by incarcerating the prophet and avert the forecast of judgment by surviving the battle. 36. Cf. Long, 1 Kings, 237: “The narrator conveys his interest in the personal fate of Ahab through ironic vision. The king-deceiver who disguises himself in battle meets his end, and one endangered by the deception is spared; one prophet, a deceiver who yet speaks the truth, triumphs over the four hundred prophets who spoke their truth while lying, having been deceived by Yahweh. The ironic twists are exquisite. The deceiver-king dies in battle, but apparently accidentally, with one set of circumstances undoing another. Ahab’s deception does not work because reality lies far beyond his and Jehoshaphat’s control. Or put another way, events lie in the hands of Yahweh, who sends both truth and falsehood with his prophets!” See also E. Ben Zvi, “A Contribution to the Intellectual History of Yehud: The Story of Micaiah and Its Function Within the Discourse of Persian-Period Literati,” in The Historian and the Bible: Essays in Honour of Lester L. Grabbe (ed. P. R. Davies and D. V. Edelman; LHBOTS 530; London: T&T Clark International, 2010), 94: “…the primary readers of the story cannot but note that Micaiah never prophesied anything for Ahab but disaster, and that at the time of the events Ahab was at the height of his power. Thus, obviously, Micaiah’s previous and consistent prophecies of misfortune have not come to pass at that time. If the test for true prophets is that their prophecies come to pass, then from the perspective of Ahab (and Jehoshaphat’s as well) Micaiah should have been considered a false prophet at the time when they summoned him, whereas those who prophesied good for Ahab up to this moment should have been considered by them true prophets (cf. Deut 18:22; 1 Sam 3:19; 1 Kgs 8:56; Jer 28:9; Ezek 33:33). Of course, the story clearly shows to the readers, who are all too aware of the eventual fate of Ahab, that fulfillment criteria for truthfulness in prophecy were not only unreliable, but also actually misleading at the time.” 1

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earlier predicts, Ahab undoubtedly “comes back” (DZE) from the battle in 22:37–38 (“They rinsed the chariot by the pool of Samaria, where the dogs licked up his blood as the harlots bathed, according to the word of the LORD which he had spoken”), but it is only for the purposes of burial, and to bring yet another creative interface with the prophetic word to the narrative surface.37 37. The implications for the book of Micah are beyond the scope of this present inquiry, as the main point here is to suggest that 1 Kgs 22:28b represents an important aspect of the conÀict between king and prophet. But in light of the above argument, the issue of connection between v. 28b and Mic 1:2 merits some reappraisal. Without attempting to resolve the diachronic issue—if there is one—of the relationship between these texts, consider the following two hypotheses. The ¿rst possible way of approaching the parallel between 1 Kgs 22:28b and Mic 1:2a would be as follows: from the perspective of literary intertextuality, 1 Kgs 22:28b is quoted by the prophet Micah not as a confused cross-reference to Micaiah, but as an ironic inversion of Ahab’s misguided (yet ultimately ful¿lled) challenge to the true prophet. When these words are later alluded to in Mic 1:2a, perhaps the prophet Micah can be understood as quoting something of an ominous byword, ironically preserved as a testimony to the failure of Ahab and his public invocation, Z>PY aONa\P>. A second possible way of understanding the relationship between these texts also produces an interesting angle; namely, that 1 Kgs 22:28b is alluding to the prophetic material in the book of Micah. In this case, scholars are certainly helpful in pointing out the connection between 1 Kgs 22:28 and Mic 1:2. Where the consensus breaks down, though, is that it is not necessarily a confused “later scribe” making an erroneous correlation between the two prophets with similar names, but rather the writer of 1 Kings is making an intentional theological and literary connection between these two texts, and thus the hypocoristicon of Micaiah and Micah functions as a hermeneutical key in this narrative. Walsh reminds us of previous scholarship: “The narratives, particularly the stories of Ahab and the Aramean wars, contain serious historical problems. Many historians of Israel, for instance, are convinced that the incidents recounted in chapters 20 and 22 reÀect relations between Israel and Aram not during Ahab’s reign but several decades later. If that is the case, stories originally told of some subsequent king have been transferred to Ahab for literary rather than historical purposes. In other words, the likelihood that these stories do not recount historical events from the reign of Ahab makes them all the more signi¿cant as narrative characterizations of him” (Walsh, 1 Kings, 293). Assuming this is the case for a moment, the writer of 1 Kings may be fully aware of the prophecies of Micah, and exploits the similarity of their names by giving Ahab this portion of dialogue (aONa\P>Z>PY) to underscore emphatically his demise in the face of the prophetic word. If, as some scholars advocate, there has been some chronological rearranging in 1 Kgs 20–22, it is notable that such a plot structure considerably enhances the characterization of Ahab, as the escalation of prophetic conÀict (which has been a hallmark of Ahab’s career) climaxes here in 1 Kgs 22. The writer of 1 Kings, one could argue, provides a highly sophisticated form of intertextual commentary. 1

Chapter 3

THE “EMBARRASSING SYNTAX” OF PSALM 47:10: A (PRO)VOCATIVE OPTION

Commentators and translators of Ps 47 have perennially found v. 10a to be a dif¿cult verse. Nearly one hundred years ago, C. A. Briggs observed that 10a is “variously, but unsatisfactorily, explained.”1 A survey of several more recent English translations illustrates that a number of solutions have been proffered, yet con¿rms that Briggs’ assessment remains applicable.2 The issue surrounds the relationship of \KODa> aKUED with the preceding half-line—undoubtedly complicated by the LXX’s “with” (OGVC). Thus, there have been a variety of ways in which

1. C. A. Briggs and E. G. Briggs, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Psalms, vol. 1 (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1906), 399. The entire psalm itself has been a source of considerable debate. M. D. Goulder (The Psalms of the Sons of Korah [Shef¿eld: JSOT, 1982], 271) refers to the assessment of E. LipiĔski (La Royauté de Yahwé dans la poésie et le culte de l’ancien Israël [Brussels: Paleis der Academiën, 1965], 21): “C’est le Ps. 47 qui eut le privilège du plus grand nombre d’hypothèses.” Convenient bibliographies are compiled in P. C. Craigie, Psalms 1–50 (WBC 19; Waco: Word, 1983), and E. S. Gerstenberger, Psalms, Part I: with an Introduction to Cultic Poetry (FOTL 14; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988). Cf. the relevant discussions of Ps 47 in H.-J. Kraus, Psalms 1–59 (trans. H. C. Oswald; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 465–70, and M. Dahood, Psalms I: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 16; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1965), 283–87. 2. E.g. NRSV: “The princes of the peoples gather as the people of the God of Abraham”; NJB: “The leaders of the nations rally to the people of the God of Abraham”; NJKV: “The princes of the people have gathered together, The people of the God of Abraham”; NJPS: “The great of the peoples are gathered together, the retinue of Abraham’s God.” Cf. LXX: CTEQPVGL NCYP UWPJESJUCP OGVC VQW SGQW $DTCCO. See also the translation of W. G. E. Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry: A Guide to Its Techniques (Shef¿eld: JSOT, 1984), 371: “The peoples’ gifts are collected for Abraham’s god, / for to God belong earth’s presents, as a huge offering.”

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v. 10aD is rendered and interpreted, with a number of questions arising: Do the “princes” (\E\GQ) gather themselves with the people of the God of Abraham (i.e. alongside), or do they gather together as the people of the God of Abraham? Likewise, who is responsible for the “gathering”? Do they gather themselves (reÀexive), or are they gathered by someone else (passive)? A. A. Anderson underscores this matter from a theological perspective: “This is a highly problematic verse: do the leaders of the nations come willingly to worship Yahweh, or are they captives in the train of the triumphant king (see on 68:18)?”3 Clearly, the perceived relationship between these two poetic clauses will determine the interpretation. The syntactical dilemma of v. 10 (v. 9 in many English translations) is usefully summarized by M. D. Goulder: There is some embarrassment over the syntax of v. 9ab [RSV text]. RVmg translates ‘are gathered together Unto the people,’ but there is no Hebrew preposition representing ‘unto,’ and this is generally disallowed (Delitzsch, Kirkpatrick). Kraus and others suppose haplography, for a> could have been written once for both a> , ‘people,’ and a>L ‘with.’ It is this kind of ingenious proposal which could be convincing with a sheerly literary text, but hardly with a liturgical one; surely 47 was preserved because it was used in worship… The suggestion that a> should be taken as a nominative of effect, however, as I have translated it—‘are gathered together As the people…’—has often seemed rather bold (though it is adopted by Delitzsch and Kirkpatrick); can we really think that the Israelite poet could have spoken of foreign princes as being the people of the God of Abraham?4

Goulder is surely helpful in pointing out dif¿culties in accepting the LXX reading. Not only does he dismiss the possibility of haplography, but his “nominative of effect” solution is at least grammatically feasible and retains the MT. Thus he resists the path of emendation in an attempt to make sense of the harder text, despite the allurement of a variant reading. Nonetheless, dif¿culties arise when the larger context of the psalm is considered, and the nominative of effect translation is ultimately unsatisfying. It is clear that Goulder understands “princes of the peoples” (\E\GQ a\P>) as foreign (probably military) leaders. What is less clear is how or why these princes would assemble themselves as the people of the God of Abraham.5 Goulder acknowledges that this is a problematic aspect, but 3. A. A. Anderson, The Book of Psalms. Vol. 1, Introduction and Psalms 1–72 (London: Oliphants, 1972), 365. 4. Goulder, The Psalms of the Sons of Korah, 158–59. 5. Cf. J. J. M. Roberts, “The Religio-political Setting of Psalm 47,” BASOR 221 (1976): 129–32. Roberts argues for the translation “The princes of the peoples have assembled to the God of Abraham,” and explains as follows: “Vs. 10b. !m should be

1

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proposes a resolution by arguing that the very mention of Abraham calls to mind the promise of the nations blessing themselves (Gen. 18:18; 22:18): “then it would be entirely natural to see the words ful¿lled in the royalty of the neighbouring lands who have come to join in Israel’s festival.”6 Ironically, if Goulder’s interpretation of the royalty of surrounding nations “joining” Israel’s festival is maintained, then the implied haplography (a>a>L) could conceivably provide the better reading.7 Further, even if such a pilgrimage may seem “natural,” it does not adequately complement the poetic lines on either side of v. 10a: read as !im with LXX and Syriac, but it has here the meaning ‘to,’ well attested in Ugaritic, and found elsewhere in biblical Hebrew in parallelism with l, as, for example, in Deut 32:43 (4QDt).” He also notes, “The widely adopted emendation of Ps 47:10 to !im !am is a mistake which reÀects the LXX’s similar double rendering of !mw in Deut 32:43” (131). Of the various proposals for emendation, Roberts’ suggestion is attractive, although critiqued by B. C. Ollenburger, Zion the City of the Great King: A Theological Symbol of the Jerusalem Cult (JSOTSup 41; Shef¿eld: JSOT, 1987), 183: “He [Roberts] takes a> in v. 10 as a>L in the dative sense, which is known from Ugaritic, and the O with a\KOD in the same verse as an emphatic. He also emends \QJP to JP. However, nothing stands in the way of regarding a> as ‘people’, taking it in apposition with \W\GQ, referring to the leaders and the people of Israel. This is the sense of the word in Num. 21.18, where it is in parallel with a\U;. This would allow the retention of \QJP and make the expression in v. 10 parallel to that in v. 9, both expressing Yahweh’s universal sovereignty (taking the lamedh in the possessive sense).” Despite the merits of these arguments, the proposal of this study is worth considering because (with respect to Roberts) no emendation is required, and (with respect to Ollenburger) a\P>\E\GQ is better construed as a reference to foreign leaders since the parallelism is with UD\QJP (“powers of the earth”) rather than aKUED\KODa> (“people of the God of Abraham”). 6. Goulder, The Psalms of the Sons of Korah, 159. 7. In an extended discussion of the “structure and drama” of this psalm, W. A. M. Beuken (“Psalm XLVII: Structure and Drama,” in Remembering All the Way [OtSt 21; Leiden: Brill, 1981], 38–54), intimates that vv. 9 and 10 need to be read together: “Vss. 9b, 10a likewise reÀect rites by which earthly rulers acceded to the throne and initiated their reign with the acclamation of the vassal princes. The wording is traditional and mirrors existing customs (‘to sit on the throne’: cf. I Ki. i 35, 46; ii 12; II Ki. xi 19; Jer. xxii 4; Esth. i 2; foreign princes and ambassadors, who gather together in Jerusalem: cf. II Sam. viii 10ff; xv 18ff; I Ki. xi 19; Ps. ii 10ff; II Chr. xxxii 23). However, it abandons the long-standing imagery in the last colon of vs. 10a: ‘The princes of the peoples—they gather as the people of the God of Abraham’ ” (45). Beuken classi¿es aKUED\KODa> as an “accusative of place (sp [#VD] with accusativus loci: Ex. ix 19; Jud. xx 14; I Sam. xiii 11; II Chr. xxx 13), or preferably as a predicative adjunct which expresses the result of the action” (45–46). While clearly Beuken’s argument is credible and followed by many translators, it is my view that the proposal offered in this study is preferable. 1

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v. 9a, a\ZJO>a\KODOP (“God reigns over the nations”), or v. 10bC, UD\QJPa\KODO\N (“For to God belong the shields/powers of the earth”).8 Discussions of Ps 47:10a by most exegetes struggle with these same theological tensions.9 In my view, what needs to be considered before such discussion is an alternative syntactic possibility: namely, that aKUED\KODa> be considered a vocative. Since there are other examples of such a vocative address in poetic texts of the Hebrew Bible without either an imperative verb or a second person pronominal suf¿x, such a reading is possible. Consider Song 5:16, “His speech is most sweet, and he is altogether desirable. This is my beloved and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem (aOYZU\WZQE\>UK]Z\GZGK]).” Another example, albeit a slightly more controversial one, is Jer 51:49, UDKON\OO[ZOSQOEEOaJODUI\\OO[OSQOOEEaJ. This verse is rendered by NAB as “Babylon, too, must fall, O slain of Israel, as at the hands of Babylon have fallen the slain of all the earth” (cf. NJB; contrast NRSV, “Babylon must fall for the slain of Israel, as the slain of all the earth have fallen because of Babylon”).10 There are grounds for 8. Although the majority of translations render \QJP as “shields,” KB (545) suggests a metaphorical understanding such as “those in power,” drawing on LXX (QKBMTCVCKQK) and Peshitta, and citing J. Barr, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968), 241–42. In a private communication, W. G. E. Watson pointed out that the translation “powers of the earth” provides a more attractive balance to the parallelism, and can be preferred on poetic grounds. It is debatable whether the ¿nal clause “He is greatly exalted” (KO>QGDP) should be seen as a liturgical addition, or a poetic and theological conclusion to v. 10 and the psalm as a whole. 9. See Beuken, “Psalm XLVII,” 46–47. Cf. the insightful analysis of J. Muilenburg, “Psalm 47,” JBL 63 (1944): 235–56. Gerstenberger (Psalms, Part I, 197–98) provides a helpful précis of the theological conundrum surrounding this psalm (and speci¿cally v. 10a) and the divergences of theological opinion which it has produced. 10. Commentators are divided on this issue. See G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, and T. G. Smothers, Jeremiah 26–52 (WBC; Dallas: Word, 1995), 353, “Babylon will surely fall, O slain of Israel, just as all the slain of the earth have fallen for Babylon”; contrast J. Bright, Jeremiah (AB 21; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1965), 352, and R. P. Carroll, Jeremiah (OTL; London: SCM, 1986), 849. See also the discussion of W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah 2 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), 430: “If O3RQ!OL is correct in the ¿rst colon, then it is more natural to understand or supply O before \OHO[, which might have dropped out by haplography, thus reading ‘Babylon must fall for the slain of Israel’ (so Cornhill, Volz, Condamin, Rudolph, Bright; so RSV). But given the vocative in v 50, it is more natural to understand a vocative here (so Duhm, Giesebrecht, and at least the suggestion of Cornhill and Condamin).” 1

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suggesting that the NAB is understanding ODUI\\OO[ in Jer 51:49 in the same way as is proposed here for aKUED\KODa> in Ps 47:10; that is, each be understood as a vocative address. In both, there is neither an imperative verb nor some kind of second person suf¿x to denote the vocative—yet each features a form of proclamation or testimony to a listening audience. Consequently, one could provisionally translate Ps 47:10 as follows: The princes of the peoples have been gathered together, O people of the God of Abraham, For to God belong the powers of the earth, He is greatly exalted.

Moreover, I would suggest that understanding this clause as a vocative has two distinct advantages. First, it makes sense of the Masoretic text in its present form and does not require any emendation. If one at least tentatively accepts that it is incumbent upon the exegete initially to attempt a translation of the MT as it stands, then this proposal warrants further consideration. Second, in the broader poetic context of the psalm, the idea that aKUED\KODa> is a vocative expression seems a natural reading. The poem commences with a vocative (a universal call to the foreign nations), and concludes with a vocative (speci¿cally addressing the people of the God of Abraham). Thus, there is an inherent envelope structure in the psalm, with the opening and closing vocatives forming a poetic inclusio.11 Indeed, Roberts translates v. 7, “Sing, O gods, sing! Sing to our king, sing!” He further renders a\KOD in v. 8 as a vocative as well, “For he is king of all the earth, O gods, sing a skillful song” (O\NIPZUP]a\KODUDKONOP\N). As Beuken persuasively argues, there is a profound dialogue of “different voices speaking to each other” in this psalm, that is, an “antiphonal drama” of people who report and those who are reported to.12 Preceding v. 10 there is an incremental buildup of tension and a sense of expectation that reaches its climax in this eschatological announcement to the people of the kingship of their God.13

11. On this technique of Hebrew poetry, see R. Alter, The Art of Biblical Poetry (New York: Basic Books, 1985), 75, 82, 105, passim. Cf. M. O’Connor, Hebrew Verse Structure (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1980); Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry, 282–87. With speci¿c reference to Ps 47, see Roberts, “The Religio-political Setting of Psalm 47,” 131, and Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry, 373 n. 38. 12. Beuken, “Psalm XLVII,” 39. 13. As intimated above, the eschatological character of this psalm is noted by many commentators. For a study of Ps 47 as a New Testament intertext, see C. A. Evans, “Ascending and Descending with a Shout: Psalm 47.6 and 1 Thessalonians 4.16,” in Paul and the Scriptures of Israel (ed. C. A. Evans and J. A. Sanders;

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To further Brueggemann’s argument of “the nations as Yahweh’s partner,” I would argue that this is another instance of a liturgical utterance whereby “the temple-dynastic establishment in Jerusalem sweeps away all other claims to legitimacy and subsumes all other worldly powers under their theological governance.”14 In light of the antiphonal drama of this enthronement psalm, the assembled royalty of the foreign nations become a witness, that is, a declaration of the LORD’s kingship to the people who are the immediate heirs of Abraham’s promise.15

JSNTSup 83; SSEJC 1; Shef¿eld: Shef¿eld Academic, 1993), 238–53. As a further note, based on the vocative one might enhance Muilenburg’s argument about the af¿nities of Ps 47 with the fascinating array of prophetic voices in the book of Isaiah: “The portrait of God as Judge and His universal sovereignty are characteristic eschatological ideas. His coming to rule the world belongs to the heart of eschatology. Psalm 47 is closely related to the poems of Second Isaiah, and with the latter the eschatological message is central and determinative. It is possible that we are moving in the world of eschatological thoughts, but that these are not yet expressed in the language of prophecy or apocalypse but of religious lyric” (Muilenburg, “Psalm 47,” 255). 14. W. Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997), 495. 15. I am extremely grateful to Professor Michael Goulder for his conversation surrounding this study, as well as Dr. W. G. E. Watson for his helpful comments. 1

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Part II

READERS OF THE LOST ARK

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Chapter 4

ARK-EOLOGY: SHIFTING EMPHASES IN “ARK NARRATIVE” SCHOLARSHIP

A survey of secondary literature over the past two decades reveals that there has been a discernible shift in studies of the “Ark Narrative” of 1 Sam 4–6. Not so long ago there was widespread agreement that this material constituted a thoroughly independent entity, and represented one of the oldest theological narratives in the Old Testament. In more recent times, however, a more skeptical consciousness has emerged, with statements made that there never was an independent Ark Narrative. Of course, many a scholarly edi¿ce has been crumbling in our times, but by any measure this represents a rather dramatic point of departure. The reasons for these shifting paradigms in the study of the Ark Narrative are no doubt complex and variegated, and at any rate beyond the scope of this selected survey of recent research. The results of such analyses, however, are easier to quantify. This present chapter of the book will discuss a number of studies of the Ark Narrative over the past several decades and explore the shifting emphases of scholarly engagement with this material. With that goal, in good tribal fashion I have chosen a sample of twelve readers of the lost ark, and focus on their efforts to understand 1 Sam 4–6 as part of its broader literary context. The interest here is not so much on critical evaluation, but rather I have compiled a series of comments from each of these readers. I will conclude with several summary points and observations on any discernible trends, and propose some potential directions for future research. 1. Robert Gordon A useful point of commencement is R. P. Gordon’s 1 & 2 Samuel volume in Shef¿eld’s Old Testament Guides series.1 While his treatment of the Ark Narrative is not overly long, it is written with characteristic 1. R. P. Gordon, 1 & 2 Samuel (OTG; Shef¿eld: Shef¿eld Academic, 1984).

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good sense and refers to most of the salient issues. Gordon’s discussion is divided into two parts: de¿nition, where he comments on sourcecritical matters and scholarly debate, and theme, focusing on the narrative of 1 Sam 4–6 itself. Gordon begins by summarizing the contribution of Leonhard Rost, and then provides assessments of several monographs such as The Ark Narrative by A. F. Campbell and The Hand of the Lord by Miller and Roberts.2 Gordon raises both matters of provenance (that is, source and date of origin, as well as possible reasons for its composition in the ¿rst place) and the issue of 2 Sam 6 as the logical conclusion to the Ark Narrative (that is, questions regarding whether the story ends in 2 Sam 6, and if so, how one resolves the Kiriath-jearim / Baale-Judah discrepancy, if in fact there is a discrepancy). Gordon also critiques Miller and Roberts’ “expansion” of the story by pre¿xing the anti-Elide portions of ch. 2 (vv. 12–17, 22–25, 27–36) to ch. 4 as the beginning of the Ark Narrative. His appraisal of the debate over the limits and extent of the text is succinct: “the lineaments of the ‘Ark Narrative,’ if it ever existed, have yet to be restored with a proper degree of exactitude.”3 So, when Gordon then turns to “theme,” he hastens to add that this second component of his discussion is not predicated on whether or not one accepts the Ark Narrative hypothesis, and has value regardless. Gordon’s central point concentrates on the spatial setting for 1 Sam 4–6 and Israel’s ongoing rivalry with the Philistines. This rivalry occurs on two levels. On one level, there is the struggle for land between “recent arrivals” with competing territorial claims. On the other level, there is the socio-religious conÀict, as the Philistines represent a policy of assimilation and acculturation, and such “mimetic tendencies” also include the sphere of religious devotion and practice. For Israel, the Philistines represent more than just military opposition, and hence Gordon argues that the ideological nature of the conÀict in the Ark Narrative is primary: The ark is brought to Ashdod and placed in the presence of Dagon, supposedly the victorious god, and, all unbeknown to the Philistines, the scene is set for the contest proper to begin. The judgment on Dagon as the representative god of Philistia happens at night (cf. Exod. 12.12), and is in two stages, as if to correspond to the twin defeats of Israel at Ebenezer.

2. A. F. Campbell, The Ark Narrative (1 Sam 4–6; 2 Sam 6): A Form-Critical and Traditio-Historical Study (SBLDS 16; Missoula: Scholars Press, 1975); P. D. Miller, Jr., and J. J. M. Roberts, The Hand of the Lord: A Reassessment of the “Ark Narrative” of 1 Samuel (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977). 3. Gordon, 1 & 2 Samuel, 34. 1

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Now, in a striking reversal of roles, Dagon is prostrated before the ark, a hapless torso. Hereafter there is no talk of the gods of Philistia; even Philistine priests are made to speak like Hebrew prophets (6.6).4

2. Lyle Eslinger Eslinger’s monograph Kingship of God in Crisis: A Close Reading of 1 Samuel 1–12,5 questions many genetic assumptions, and alternatively, pays attention to ¿nal form utilizing a “narratological” methodology. Eslinger challenges many source-critical conjectures, and draws on a number of literary theoreticians (including Wolfgang Iser, Menachem Perry, Meir Sternberg, and Seymour Chatman, among others6) to inform his analysis. “An interpretation produced by close reading will follow the order of presentation given in the text, noting along the way the various contributions of linguistic and literary devices to the developing meaning of the text.” Eslinger continues: At the same time, the close reading of any biblical text must be carried out in the light of previous historical-critical readings of the text. We have been cued to the tensions, doublets and varying points of view and their location in the narrative by historical criticism. A close reading will have to describe the contextual role of such phenomena if the hypothesis that the narrative can be read as a unity is to be maintained.7

When he turns to 1 Sam 4–6, Eslinger does not allocate space to de¿ne the “Ark Narrative” or evaluate the scholarly debate. Instead, he proceeds with his close reading directly from the end of ch. 3. His study proffers a host of interesting text-critical and literary insights, and I will summarize his contribution by drawing attention to three different kinds of observations: intertextual, text-critical, and literary. First, on the intertextual side, Eslinger compiles a list of connections between 3:2–18 and 4:12–18 as an illustration of his method and as an attempt to read ch. 4 (the ¿rst unit of the Ark Narrative) as a continuation 4. Ibid., 36. 5. L. Eslinger, Kingship of God in Crisis: A Close Reading of 1 Samuel 1–12 (Shef¿eld: Almond, 1985). 6. W. Iser, The Act of Reading: A Theory in Aesthetic Response (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978); M. Perry, “Literary Dynamics: How the Order of a Text Creates Its Meanings,” Poetics Today 1, no. 1–2 (1978): 35–64, 311–61; M. Sternberg, Expositional Modes and Temporal Ordering in Fiction (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978); S. Chatman, Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1978). 7. Eslinger, Kingship of God in Crisis, 42.

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of the previous episodes. “The literary links between 4.12–18 and 3.2–18 con¿rm that the defeats are Yahweh’s doing as he goes about punishing the Elides”: 3:2 3:2 3:4

Eli lies in his place Eli cannot see God begins to call Samuel, announcing what he is about to do (the “ear-tingling” event) Samuel runs (toward Eli)

4:13 4:15 4:10–11

Eli sits in a chair Eli cannot see Israel is defeated

4:12

3:11–14

Eli is not privy to the divine vision as he is “blind”

4:14–15

3:16–17

Eli asks Samuel “what is the 4:16 word?” Samuel tells what will 4:14 happen Contents of Samuel’s 4:17 message (including what the LORD had previously said in 2:27–36 according to 3:12)

A Benjaminite runs (toward Eli) Eli does not know what has happened because he is “blind” Eli asks the messenger “what is the word?” the messenger tells what has happened Content of message: Israel Àed, great losses, Eli’s sons dead, and the ark taken.8

3:5

3:18 3:18

A pattern therefore emerges of the prophetic word and its ful¿llment, a pattern that Eslinger notes will continue throughout the wider narrative of Samuel–Kings. Second, Eslinger raises an interesting textual point that pertains to the matter of mice and men, and the strange appearance of rodents in ch. 6 without antecedent in the MT. The issue is that mice are present in the LXX as early as 5:6 (cf. 6:1). He notes, “The introduction of the mice at this point has proved troublesome to scholars, who have offered various literary-critical explanations. Hertzberg suggests that the mice are a natural cause for the plague and hence their appearance is contrary to the purpose of divine glori¿cation in the narrative (1964:58; cf. Stoebe 1973:151).”9 Eslinger points out that even Miller and Roberts concede that there is no known, exact ancient Near Eastern parallel to the making of golden tumors and mice, but this raises the question as to the reason for the ¿rst appearance of the rodents occurring at this point in the narrative. His solution is one of elegant simplicity: “it is a further reÀection of the Philistine priests’ human uncertainty about the causes 8. Ibid., 176. 9. Ibid., 206, citing Hertzberg, 1 & 2 Samuel; H. J. Stoebe, Das erste Buch Samuelis (KAT VIII/1; Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1973). 1

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and meanings of the plague.” Eslinger concludes, “The mice need no explicit introduction in the previous narrative; their introduction here, as the product of Philistine uncertainty, is another instance in a continuing series of situations where [the human actors are] not certain how to respond to Israel’s God’s intervention in human affairs.”10 By raising this point I am not here arguing for the plausibility of this solution, but rather noting that it represents an example of Eslinger’s consistent approach of resisting hasty emendation before at least attempting to make sense of the received Hebrew text.11 Third, Eslinger comments on an interesting literary detail at 6:14— “As the wagon came to the ¿eld of Joshua of Beth Shemesh, there it stopped, and there was a great stone.” He notes, “The reader, well aware that carts are without volition, will no doubt see the hand of Yahweh at the reins of the cart.”12 Hence, where the cart stops may be of signi¿cance, and thus Eslinger comments on the name “Joshua” in this context: The name of Joshua, the man in whose ¿eld the cart stops, recalls another more famous character who was chosen to lead Israel into the promised land when Moses was barred entry (cf. Num 20:12; Josh 1). Once again an allusion to the exodus story is used to indicate the signi¿cance of these events. In this particular example, the ark’s passage onto Israelite soil in the ¿eld of a certain Joshua recalls Israel’s own entry into the land under leadership of another Joshua. From the perspective of Israel’s history, the return of the Ark into Joshua’s ¿eld after the destruction of Israel’s polity in ch. 4 would seem a perfect portent for the renewal of that selfsame polity.13

One may deduce from this that the “exodus portion” of the ark’s tour is now complete, and the name “Joshua” symbolizes the ark’s “re-entry” into the promised land. 3. Peter Miscall In his “literary reading” of the entire book of 1 Samuel, Peter Miscall acknowledges the scholarly construct of a once independent Ark Narrative, but seeks rather to “deal with it as an integral part of the context.”14 10. Eslinger, Kingship of God in Crisis, 206. 11. This issue is discussed in the next chapter of this book, where the mouse problem in the narrative is addressed in detail and Eslinger’s position is given further consideration. 12. Eslinger, Kingship of God in Crisis, 214. 13. Ibid., 215. 14. P. D. Miscall, 1 Samuel: A Literary Reading (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), 26. 1

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Miscall’s strength, as has been noted15 is in presenting connections with other aspects of the narrative, both on a more local level and within the wider narrative framework of Genesis–Kings. As an example, consider one of his musings on 1 Sam 4. Chapter 4 has two main components: the battle and the subsequent report “in the city.” In terms of individuals, the second half of the chapter focuses on Eli and his family. Miscall comments at length on the wordplay involving GEN (“glory, heavy”), but the detail of Eli’s “old age” is also important, as it recalls the prophecy of the itinerant man of God in ch. 2, “there will not be an old man in your house…but not every man will be cut off…” Since at the end of ch. 4, there is a survivor in Eli’s house, this information takes on a new importance. The death of Eli’s daughter-in-law in the ¿nal moments of this chapter provide a deeper meaning to the identity of the messenger at the midway point: “a man of Benjamin.” In light of another “man of Benjamin,” the reader will meet in 1 Samuel, and other allusions to Benjamin’s mother Rachel in 1 Samuel,16 Miscall hints that there is a connection between the birth of Benjamin in Gen 35 and the birth of Ichabod here in 1 Sam 4: Not everyone in the house of Eli dies. Eli’s death is framed by stories about his children—two sons and a daughter die, but a grandson, Ichabod, is born. Ichabod brings ambiguity with him, or, better, he adds to the ambiguity attached to the messenger from the battle lines, who is a man of Benjamin. Benjamin’s birth is akin to Ichabod’s, since his mother Rachel dies giving him birth (Gen. 35:16–20). In Benjamin’s case, there is an equivocation on his name and an attempted clari¿cation. “As her life was departing (for she died), she called his name Ben-oni; but his father called his name Benjamin” (Gen. 35:18).17

4. Walter Brueggemann Notwithstanding Walter Brueggemann’s later treatment of the Ark Narrative in his book Ichabod Toward Home from the perspective of contemporary application,18 my attention here is restricted to his First and Second Samuel commentary in the Interpretation series since it 15. Polzin, Samuel and the Deuteronomist, 240; E. Theodore Mullen, Jr., Narrative History and Ethnic Boundaries: The Deuteronomistic Historian and the Creation of Israelite National Identity (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993). 16. Cf. D. Jobling, 1 Samuel (Berit Olam; Collegeville: Liturgical, 1998). 17. Ibid., 29. 18. W. Brueggemann, Ichabod Toward Home: The Journey of God’s Glory (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002). 1

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focuses on the essential elements of the story in its immediate context.19 As one might expect, the majority of Brueggemann’s focus in this commentary is on the various theological contours of the Ark Narrative. He pauses to acknowledge that 1 Sam 4:1b–7:1 “are commonly reckoned by scholars to be a coherent and distinctive narrative unit,” but then he moves on to other matters.20 “The task of interpretation,” Brueggemann says, “will be to make this working of Yahweh dramatically available, without siphoning off the inscrutable and odd action of Yahweh into more cogent or ‘reasonable’ forms. That is, the casting of the narrative does not invite us to an explanation of the action but to an awed silence before the one who is inexplicable, inscrutable, and ¿nally irresistible.”21 I will summarize Brueggemann’s contribution by selecting one of his main points on each of the three chapters of the Ark Narrative. First, like many other commentators Brueggemann reÀects at length on the allusions to Israel’s Egyptian experience and the allusions to the exodus model and memory in the text. Drawing on the work of Hermann Timm, there is an extended discussion on the various levels of Philistine perception and discourse in the ¿rst half of 1 Sam 4, and their understanding of the story and faith of Israel: “Even these uncircumcised outsiders can discern the strange power at work in the life of Israel, a strange power enormously dangerous to, and recognized as such by, the outsider. The narrative employs the perception of the Philistine to confess faith in Yahweh.”22 Second, Brueggemann remarks on a signi¿cant twist in the plot, as the captive ark severely damages the formidable Philistine nation. By any measure there is a certain oddness to Ark’s domination of the technologically superior Philistines, in that it runs directly counter to expectation— the reader along with both Israel and the Philistines are confounded: “Yahweh is not explained by the character of Israel but acts freely and against the conventions of both peoples.”23 It is curious, therefore, that Israel’s theological categories are used to understand the implications of “Dagon without hands,” with the irony that “Yahweh has God’s own hands and with those hands will judge and destroy in ways that astonish God’s people and terrorize God’s enemies”.24 The discom¿ture of Dagon 19. W. Brueggemann, First and Second Samuel (Louisville: John Knox, 1990). 20. Brueggemann, First and Second Samuel, 28. 21. Ibid., 29. 22. Ibid., 31; H. Timm, “Die Ladeerzählung (1 Sam. 4–6; 2 Sam. 6) und das Kerygma des deuteronomistischen Geschichtswerks,” EvT 29 (1966): 509–26. 23. Brueggemann, First and Second Samuel, 37. 24. Ibid., 38.

1

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caused by the ark’s presence causes a shift in Philistine priority, and one might say, national policy: “The narrative mocks the Philistines, because they can act only to save their city, no longer to control Israel.”25 While the ark is on tour through Philistine territory, the Philistines do not engage in offensive hostilities against Israel. There are no more appeals to Dagon as the ark continues from Ashdod to Gath to Ekron throughout Philistine soil—power vs. panic is probably an appropriate way to characterize ch. 5, and it represents a stunning reversal of ch. 4. Third, Brueggemann remarks on the theology of “the test” devised by the Philistine spiritual leaders. The return of the ark is necessary—as is the ritual act to compensate for the terrible miscalculation—but there is uncertainty as to how best to proceed. The guilt offering is important, and gold is not an inappropriate gift, providing yet another allusion to the exodus model. (Speaking of models, Brueggemann thankfully does not pause to speculate on what a model of a golden hemorrhoid would look like.26) But he does comment on the test conducted by the priests and diviners in 6:7–9: “There may be an element of cunning in the Philistine arrangement. If the cart does not head back to Israel of its own volition, led only by Yahweh’s power, the alleged and dreaded power of Yahweh may be a ruse, and the Philistines need not fear.”27 Hence they set “very long odds,” and though they may be frightened, “they still hope to see Yahweh exposed as a powerless god. Their strategy is to prevent Yahweh’s demonstration of sovereignty.”28 The analogies with Exodus persist, but in a sense, the Philistines act differently from Pharaoh in that they act in submission, a posture that is embodied as the “modest” ark procession marks the return from “exile.” Brueggemann notes that this restoration anticipates the return from “another exile” in Israel’s story.29 5. Yehoshua Gitay In his 1992 CBQ article “ReÀections on the Poetics of the Samuel Narrative: The Question of the Ark Narrative,” Yehoshua Gitay states that “[the] conclusion, almost a consensus among the critics, is that the ark narrative is a self-contained story,” but then proceeds to inquire 25. Ibid. 26. See, however, A. M. Maeir, “A New Interpretation of the Term !opalim (a\OS>) in the Light of Recent Archaeological Finds from Philistia,” JSOT 32 (2007): 23–40. 27. Brueggemann, First and Second Samuel, 41. 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid., 43.

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“whether it is possible to remove the ark material from its present place.”30 Gitay argues the Ark Narrative is inseparable from the rest of Samuel, because, “In short, the story of the Books of Samuel revolve around the ark.”31 To arrive at this conclusion, Gitay begins by reminding his readers of the “elliptic” nature of biblical narrative, that is, “a reference mentioned at a speci¿c place may remain undeveloped, only to reappear later in its full sense. The narrator trusts the audience’s familiarity with this literary technique.”32 Such an audience is not rufÀed by the deployment of different kinds of literary expressions; on the contrary, the audience may well expect a blending of various literary “types” and still deem the narrative to be uni¿ed. If the modern “distinction between myth and history is not shared by the peoples of antiquity,” then it stands to reason that what might appear as a splicing of sources might actually be an intentional ordering of material. To this end, Gitay spends a considerable amount of time discussing the relationship between “plot” and “forms of expression,” as well as de¿nitions of uni¿ed narratives based on primarily Aristotelian categories. He asks: Is there a plot (story) which unites the Samuel narrative? As a matter of fact, the Books of Samuel are arranged in such a way that each part derives logically from the previous one. The plot may be outlined as follows: 1 Samuel 1 introduces a new character, i.e., Samuel. The call of Samuel as God’s prophet is explained by the narrator as the result of the corruption of Eli’s sons. The house of Eli must be replaced. However, the fall Eli’s leadership is linked to the fall of the holy place, Shiloh, narrated in the story of the ark. Now, the question is whether Samuel will establish himself as the new leader and succeed in establishing the new cultic center (replacing Shiloh). In fact, he does not succeed. He goes from place to place, erecting a local altar only in his home, Ramah (7:16–17), while the ark itself lies neglected in Kiriath-jearim.33

And so the narrative continues. For Gitay, then, the Ark Narrative is an essential component of the entire plot, and “the function of story is to answer the question of how the house of Eli fell, and how Shiloh, the old sanctuary, ceased to be God’s residence.”34

30. Y. Gitay, “ReÀections on the Poetics of the Samuel Narrative: The Question of the Ark Narrative,” CBQ 54 (1992): 221–30. 31. Ibid., 225. 32. Ibid., 222. 33. Ibid., 224–25. 34. Ibid., 230.

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6. Robert Polzin In his three-part literary study of the Deuteronomic History, Robert Polzin adds considerable gains to the aesthetic side of the critical ledger. The second volume, Samuel and the Deuteronomist, has a high degree of interaction with scholarly work in the ¿eld of biblical studies, and his treatment of the Ark Narrative is no exception.35 In fact, he probably has the most to say—in terms of critique, of traditio-historical and sourcecritical research methods and results—about 1 Sam 4–6 than any other narrative stretch. Polzin’s discussion of the Ark Narrative occurs in two places in his book: his introduction (where he review past work, commencing with Rost, and laments what he perceives to be the excesses of excavative scholarship), and then in his commentary (where he is less concerned with matters of compositional history, and more concerned with “the care with which the ark narrative ¿ts into its present context”). It is this latter discussion that is of interest for the present study. Polzin’s question is: “What are the compositional relationships (compositional in the poetic not genetic sense) between these stories of the ark and their immediate and remote context in the Deuteronomic History? Do the earlier Ark Narratives really interrupt material about Samuel’s life and career, or vice versa? Or do they ¿t in with their immediate context in ways that make plausible suggestions of literary artistry and careful attention to detail?”36 Since Polzin’s major hermeneutical angle is the perspective of exile, he argues that the early chapters of 1 Samuel function as a parabolic overture to kingship in Israel. The Ark Narrative also is included is this broader context of exile, and hence the importance of a summary comment like this: The space between the capture of the ark in 5:1 and its return in 6:21 contains many of the Deuteronomist’s reÀections on the nature of leadership in Israel. Improper leadership lost Israel the ark, and only a special kind of care on the part of its present custodians, the Philistines, will return it to its proper place. The Philistine experience with the ark contains programmatic reÀections on Israel’s hoped-for recovery of the land—and of the ark that had led them in the ¿rst place. Key to understanding these reÀections continues to be the Deuteronomist’s employment of “the having of sons” as a metaphor for Israel’s possessing a monarchy.37

35. R. Polzin, Samuel and the Deuteronomist: A Literary Study of the Deuteronomic History. II. 1 Samuel (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993). 36. Ibid., 55. 37. Ibid., 66. 1

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Two points should suf¿ciently illustrate the kind of reading of the Ark Narrative that Polzin undertakes. First, consider his observations of the various kinds of “sensory perceptions” involved in ch. 4. His discussion of the preceding episode, ch. 3, drew attention to the gradual failing eyes of Eli. “In what way does this description of Eli’s weakening sight stand for Israel’s diminishing insight about kingship?” In response to this question, Polzin comments, If the parabolic prophecy of kingship’s coming destruction is described as uttered at a time when “the lamp of God had not yet gone out,” how may this matter of dimming insight have royal implications? What had Eli/Israel lost sight of? As D. N. Freedman has already suggested, the weakening [WZKN] of Eli’s sight in verse 2 may somehow be related to Eli’s failure to ‘weaken [KKN]’ his sons in verse 13.38

Hence, the reader is confronted with the memorable image of a blind Eli “anxiously staring” as he awaits the outcome of battle. Polzin reÀects: The paradoxical picture of a blind Eli keeping watch [K3FP] by the road is emblematic of the entire chapter. Emphasis on the diminution of sight and light, found throughout chapter 3, continues in chapter 4, but in a different fashion. The language here revolves more around sound than around sight. The Philistines do not see the ark coming into the Israelite camp; rather they hear the noise of shouting “when all Israel gave a mighty shout so that the earth resounded” (v. 5). “What does this great shouting mean?” (v. 6), they ask. When the Israelites are told the news of the ark’s capture, “all the city cried out” (v. 13). When the messenger brings tidings (v. 17), Eli dies (v. 18). When his daughter-in-law hears the news, she gives birth and also dies (v. 19). Both the aural emphasis of this chapter and the ¿gure of a blind Eli comment upon the events contained therein. Eli and the Israelites are blind to affairs, but so are the Philistines. Neither camp is said to understand, through any insightful sighting, what is happening to them, until chapter 5 when “the men of Ashdod saw how things were (5:6) and chapter 6 where emphasis on sight becomes ideologically signi¿cant.39

Second, with regard to the vocation of the man of Benjamin who delivers the bad news of Israel’s defeat to the city and a peering Eli, Polzin has an extended discussion of the messenger as one who brings “good news” (U)HEPK) . He notes that almost invariably when this root occurs in the Deuteronomic History, it is in the context of someone bringing news that is, ultimately, bene¿cial for the house of David. For instance, several other messengers bring “good news” (UIE), which

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38. Ibid., 54, citing McCarter, 1 Samuel, 98. 39. Ibid., 57.

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usually involves the demise of someone threatening the Davidic or Solomonic kingship (e.g. Saul, Absalom, and Adonijah); hence the root UIEcarries with it a larger thematic signi¿cance. The ¿gure of Eli— whom Polzin suggests has royal overtones—is intricately “tied into the coming account of kingship in the books of Samuel and beyond.”40 Immediately after receiving this “good news” of the ark’s captivity (which David will eventually ensconce in Jerusalem), Eli falls over and breaks his neck. Polzin concludes, If chapters 1 to 7 form an overture to the entire monarchic history, the picture in 4:18 of Eli falling backward off his throne to his death is this overture’s central event, the Deuteronomist’s view of kingship in a nutshell. Eli represents all the burden and doom that kingship brought Israel. He had ‘judged’ Israel for forty years; that is to say, in the fullness of time kingship in Israel would disappear.41

7. J. P. Fokkelman J. P. Fokkelman’s massive four-volume project covering the books of Samuel offers, as stated on the dust-jacket, “a full interpretation based on stylistic and structural analyses,” since “Everything that the text has to offer can only be understood and appreciated to the full, and its interpretation can only lay claim to full validity by means of an integral view.”42 It is toward such an “integral view” that Fokkelman devotes such lavish attention, and his volumes have become a great scholarly resource for the books of Samuel. From the outset, one should note, Fokkelman rejects the notion of an independent Ark Narrative, and in his schematic organization of the text, chs. 1–4 form “Act I,” while chs. 5–7 form “Act II.” He certainly argues for integral connections between the “Acts,” but his ¿rst quibble with the “hypothesis of an original Ark Narrative” is on such structural grounds. To delineate a succinct précis of the one hundred pages Fokkelman apportions to 1 Sam 4–6 would take forty days and forty nights, neither of which are at my disposal during this present dispensation; thus I will set a more modest target and draw attention to two of his observations with respect to ch. 4. The ¿rst observation pertains to 1 Sam 4:4. The elders of Israel request that the ark be brought on to the battle¿eld, “Let’s take for ourselves the ark of the covenant of the LORD from Shiloh! Let it come 40. Ibid., 62 41. Ibid., 67. 42. J. P. Fokkelman, Narrative Art and Poetry in the Books of Samuel. Vol. 4, Vow and Desire, 1 Sam. 1–12 (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1993).

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into our midst, and it will rescue us from the grip of our enemies!” In response, “the people sent to Shiloh, and brought from there the ark of the covenant of the LORD of hosts, who is enthroned on the cherubim.” According to Fokkelman, the signi¿cance of this lengthy “title” for the ark represents “a solemn moment and those concerned wish to give it its full importance, as part of the magical strategy, which must tempt God to decide the outcome.” His more interesting point, though, is that “The full formula covers the point of view or the focalization of Israel. The word ‘hosts’ reveals what they are hoping for: that a division of celestial beings will ¿ght on their side until the inevitable victory follows.”43 If Fokkelman is correct, and this title indeed reÀects the viewpoints of the Israelite camp, then surely there is a crushing irony in the ark being brought onto the battle¿eld as a prelude to defeat and “exile” of the ark itself. The elders say “let us take” (K[ TQ,), but in fact the ark “is taken” ([TOQ,). Second, Fokkelman has an extended discussion on Eli’s incremental journey toward blindness. Ever alert to hear the faintest of narrative vibrations, Fokkelman suggests that Eli—who is now totally blind in ch. 4, after various references to his diminishing eyesight previously in chs. 1–3—now has a heightened sense of hearing because of his blindness. This adds a certain poignancy to 1 Sam 3:11, “Then the LORD said to Samuel, ‘Look, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the two ears of anyone who hears of it tingle.’ ” When viewed in terms of the second half of ch. 4, there is a contrast between Eli’s internal perspective(s) and the various external reports that he hears, but cannot see; after all, not only is he “ninety-eight years old and his eyes were set, so that he could not see,” but he is also “an old man, and heavy.” This of course nicely exploits the semantic range of GEN, “heavy / glory.” As Fokkelman comments, “Even before we read this paragraph we realize that the literal ‘being heavy’ of Eli is in an ironic relation to God’s serious accusation that this family of priests fattens up [lit. makes heavy] its offspring at His expense.”44 Although Fokkelman does not mention this, there is inverse set of physiological movements: as Eli’s eyesight is gradually eaten away, the rest of him advances in corpulence. As the chapter draws to a close, the play on GEN, “heavy / glory,” continues with the poetic evocation of Eli’s daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas. Fokkelman interacts with the work of J. T. Willis, and notes that the repetition of her dying words and the “double use” of KOJ (“to go into exile”) reminds the reader of the double meaning of KOJ earlier, since

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43. Ibid., 203. 44. Ibid., 226.

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KOJ is deployed in 2:27 (“the choosing of Eli in the distant past”) and ch. 3 with respect to the call of Samuel, the “channel of God’s revelation to the nation (KOJ in 3:7 and 21).”45 In terms of Fokkelman’s efforts to read the Ark Narrative as part of the greater whole, he thus concludes: The “Ichabod” de¿nition—itself a telling one—of Israel’s condition under the Elides, increases in signi¿cance due to its closure position. This also has repercussions on the name when it returns. This is the case in 14:3, in a striking enumeration which ominously links Saul with an Elide priest; and that at a time when he has already clashed with the prophet and his son Jonathan outclasses him in initiative and leadership and even replaces him as actantial subject. At various times Jonathan is depicted in section II as a forerunner of David. The Saul–Ahijah combination of chapter fourteen utterly fails to comply with the vis-à-vis of 2:35b which has a priest acceptable to God always associate with the anointed. A while later, in 14:18, when king Saul wishes to consult God on the threshold of yet another battle against the Philistines, he asks the priest of “faulty” origins to fetch the ark, which “was with the Israelites.” This is another ominous similarity with the situation in 4:3–5, and this time too something strange happens. Saul does not complete what he has begun and breaks off the consultation, so that the ark disappears out of sight. Saul is responsible for nipping the consultation of God in the bud.46

8. Bruce Birch In his signi¿cant contribution to the New Interpreter’s Bible commentary, Bruce Birch provides an overview of past scholarship and provides his own assessment of the Ark Narrative within the context of his exposition and points for reÀection. After addressing issues raised by Rost, Miller and Roberts, and Polzin, Birch concedes that the Ark Narrative is likely to be composite in character. However, in dialogue with Polzin’s work in particular, Birch comments: Although 1 Samuel 4–6 may have had a separate literary pre-history, these chapters have been artfully incorporated into the context of 1 Samuel 1–7 and into the larger purposes of the Deuteronomistic History. To perceive these interconnections as skillfully created does not necessitate the suggestion of a single author (contra Polzin), but can be seen as a tribute to the skill of a historian who utilized a variety of materials to produce a telling of Israel’s story for the sake of a generation in exile.47 45. Ibid., 233–34; J. T. Willis, “An Anti-Elide Narrative Tradition from a Prophetic Circle at the Ramah Sanctuary,” JBL 90 (1971): 288–308. 46. Fokkelman, Vow and Desire, 242. 47. Birch, “The First and Second Books of Samuel,” 995. 1

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Birch concludes, The story of Israel’s early loss of the ark would have been of obvious interest to exiles who had lost the ark in the destruction of Jerusalem (with Polzin). Although we may see evidence of earlier source materials used by the historian and make observations about them, our primary emphasis must be on the story of Israel in this transformative period as it is now told in the full text before us.48

Thus, it is clear that Birch is more interested in ¿nal form and how 1 Sam 4–6 links with the rest of the narrative. Most intriguing for this present study are Birch’s connections between the Ark Narrative and the twin pillars of Israel’s exodus from Egypt and eventual exile to Babylon. Consider ¿rst his general remarks on the placement of the Ark Narrative: In the larger framework of the Deuteronomistic History the ark narrative may have a special signi¿cance for the community of exiles to whom that history was addressed. The exiles had also suffered defeat and lost the ark. They could not fail to identify with the plight of Israel when the ark was captured by the Philistines. This connection to the experience of exile seems explicit in the naming of Phinehas’ son by his dying wife in 4:21– 22, “The glory has gone into exile from Israel” (author’s trans. [KOJ]; the NRSV and the NIV use the less descriptive “departed”). The “glory” [GZEN] refers to God’s own being and is strikingly similar to the image in Ezek 10:18 for the departure of God’s glory from the Temple in the exile experience. Chapters 5–6 of the ark narrative, which emphasize the continued sovereignty of God, the humiliation of the enemy, and return to the land, would be especially hopeful for exiles who read this history, trusting that God was also continuing to be active on their behalf. For exiles who read 1 Samuel 4:1–6, the message is that God continues to be at work even in apparent defeat. For exiles, kingship has ended, but God’s sovereignty has not. In this larger deuteronomistic context, kingship has come and gone. First Samuel 4–6 may suggest that kingship had not really been needed. God’s sovereignty is suf¿ciently reliable.49

Numerous scholars, including some already mentioned over the course of this chapter, have drawn attention to Exodus imagery in the Ark Narrative. In terms of the ef¿cacy of such imagery, Birch is instructive at two points. First, with respect to 1 Sam 4, he discusses the signi¿cance of the Philistines drawing a parallel with Egypt, and thus revealing their acquaintance with the watershed moment of Israelite history. This is in stark contrast to the elders of Israel previously calling for the ark, under the supervision of Eli’s sons. The Philistines, however, are not infallible in their recollections, and Birch certainly does not miss the ideological

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48. Ibid., 996. 49. Ibid., 997.

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humor in the line contained in the Philistine reference to “these mighty gods” (KODKa\U\GDKa\KODK): “They are informed but not entirely accurate in their information. Nevertheless, it is the Philistines who alert the reader to exodus parallels and possibilities (a theme to which the Philistines return in 6:6).”50 Second, in terms of his discussion of 1 Sam 6, Birch continues to develop the notion that it is an intentional irony on the part of the writer that the Philistines are the ones who alert the reader to exodus allusions. Such allusions arguably intensify in 1 Sam 6, as the Philistine diviners warn their colleagues: “Why should you harden (ZGENW) your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh (K>USZa\UFP) hardened their hearts?” As Birch suggests, this imagery has a speci¿c application for an exilic context: Verses 5b–6 justify the Philistine plan by means of a remarkable appeal to the exodus tradition. The strategy is described as intended to “give glory to the God of Israel.” This development is a reversal of the departure of “glory” from Israel after the capture of the ark in 4:21–22. We are also reminded of Exod 14:4, 17, where God describes the exodus deliverance as “gaining glory” over Pharaoh and Egypt. In both instances, God’s glory is contrasted to the “hardening” of the pharaoh’s heart. This tradition is known to the Philistines in the ark story, and in v. 6 the priests and diviners argue against a “hardening” of Philistine hearts lest they meet the same fate as Pharaoh and Egypt. God had “made fools” ([OO>WK], hithpael) of the Egyptians (the same word is used in Exod 10:2), and they still had to let the Israelites go. The argument seems to be that delay in letting the ark go could only result in further harm and humiliation. The return of the ark may be understood as a new exodus event—a release from bondage and a return to the land of Israel. Perhaps in the light of the exile language in 4:21, exiles were also meant to take hope in this story told to them through the Deuteronomistic History. Release and return are possible through the power of the Lord.51

9. E. M. M. Eynikel “No publication treating the Ark Narrative begins without a reference to the 1926 Erlangen dissertation of L. Rost, who identi¿ed the Ark Narrative (1 Sam. 4:1b–7:1; 2 Sam. 6:1–20) as a separate story, the so-called Ladeerzählung.”52 So begins Erik Eynikel’s article, where he 50. Ibid., 1001. 51. Ibid., 1011. 52. E. M. M. Eynikel, “The Relation Between the Eli Narratives (1 Sam. 1–4) and the Ark Narrative (1 Sam. 1–6; 2 Sam. 6:1–19),” in Past, Present, Future: The Deuteronomistic History and the Prophets (ed. J. C. de Moor and H. F. van Rooy; 1

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interacts with a number of relevant studies and has copious references to a host of secondary literature around the Ark Narrative. It is notable that Eynikel’s study appears in a collection of articles on issues surrounding the Deuteronomistic History and more recent scholarly efforts to understand this material further. True to his opening words, Eynikel begins his study by tracing the lineaments of Rost’s theory of the Ark Narrative and various reactions in recent research. It is apparent that Eynikel is concerned, among other things, with methodological priorities and diachronic questions, that is, with the story of how the ¿nal form came to be; as he puts it, “the building stones used to construct this ¿nal text have their own redactional and literary history.”53 Thus, there is a nice mediation between sensitivity to the compositional history of the text (pace past scholarship) and the place of this narrative within the ¿nal form of the Former Prophets (pace more recent scholarship). The essence of Eynikel’s article is divided into two parts. In the ¿rst part, Eynikel provides an overview of arguments in favor of or against the existence of an independent Ark Narrative, and it is a handy summary of both the salient questions and the variety of scholarly responses. Such questions include: What are the arguments for the unity of 1 Sam 1–7? How does the Ark Narrative end (and what is the place of 2 Sam 6)? What are the best arguments for an independent Ark Narrative tradition that was later incorporated into its present context? Eynikel’s article features sustained interaction with, for example, the older studies of F. Schicklberger, J. T. Willis, and P. R. Davies, along with subsequent studies of J. Van Seters, K. Smelik, Fokkelman, and K. van der Toorn and C. Houtman.54 In the second part of his article, Eynikel provides his own assessment. He raises a number of provocative issues, ranging from questions of literary genre (“According to Campbell…the story…is OtSt 44; Leiden: Brill, 2000), 88, citing Rost, Die Überlieferung von der Thronnachfolge Davids (BWANT 3/6; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1926); Eng. trans., The Succession to the Throne of David (Shef¿eld: Almond, 1982). 53. Eynikel, “The Relation,” 106. 54. F. Schicklberger, Die Ladeerzählung des ersten Samuel-Buches. Eine literaturwissenschaftliche und theologiegeschichtliche Untersuchung (Forschung zur Bibel 7; Würzburg: Echter, 1973); Willis, “An Anti-Elide Narrative Tradition”; P. R. Davies, “The History of the Ark in the Books of Samuel,” JNSL 5 (1975): 9–18; Davies, “Ark or Ephod in I Sam. XIV. 18?,” JTS N.S. 26 (1977): 82–87; J. Van Seters, In Search of History: Historiography in the Ancient World and the Origins of Biblical History (New Haven: Yale University Press 1983); K. Smelik, Converting the Past: Studies in Ancient Israelite and Moabite Historiography (OtSt 27; Leiden: Brill, 1992); Fokkelman, Vow and Desire; K. van der Toorn and C. Houtman, “David and the Ark,” JBL 113 (1994): 209–31. 1

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intended to legitimize the new political situation, that came into existence with the establishment of the Davidic dynasty in Jerusalem”55) and tackling matters of text criticism and provenance. Eynikel also interacts at length with the work of Frank Spina and critiques the position of Y. Gitay.56 Among the various strengths of Eynikel’s study, the value for this present study is that it serves to illustrate the discernible shift that has taken place in recent analysis of the Ark Narrative. While his own conclusions are directed toward the history of composition, Eynikel’s study nonetheless serves to illustrate that the direction of recent scholarship has tended to move beyond the kinds of source-critical and redactional concerns that have occupied biblical scholars since Rost, and incline towards a more sophisticated literary appraisal of the place of the Ark Narrative in the ¿nal form of 1 Samuel and the larger Deuteronomistic History. 10. Graeme Auld Although his comments on 1 and 2 Samuel in his contribution to the recent Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible (edited by J. D. G. Dunn and J. W. Rogerson) are necessarily brief, Graeme Auld has two points of discussion on the Ark Narrative that merit attention here: the ¿rst pertaining to the literary artistry of the text, and the second comment relating to the “exilic” contours of the passage. First, Auld comments on the prefatory importance of the prophetic word spoken to Eli as a necessary background to the Ark Narrative: “The magnitude of the threat is suggested by the reaction of those who hear it (3:11). The wording anticipates warnings against Davidic Jerusalem by Jeremiah (19:3) and ‘his servants the prophets (2 Kgs 21:12). The hint at the later royal house is reinforced by talk of Eli’s ‘house’ (3:12).”57 There is a natural sense of movement, then, from the prophetic word directed against Eli’s house to the conÀict centered in the Ark Narrative: “The ¿rst three chapters focused on Israel from within and on the [in]adequacy of her leadership. Attention now turns to that aspect of the external context which will be most apparent in the books of Samuel: conÀict with Philistia—but, more importantly, where real power and autonomous action belong.”58 For 55. Citing Campbell, The Ark Narrative, 202. 56. Gitay, “ReÀections on the Poetics of the Samuel Narrative”; F. Spina, “A Prophet’s ‘Pregnant Pause’: Samuel’s Silence in the Ark Narrative (1 Sam. 4:1– 7:2),” HBT 13 (1991): 59–73. 57. Auld, “1 and 2 Samuel,” 216. 58. Ibid. 1

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Auld, the Ark Narrative is thus tightly integrated with the antecedent material, including of course the inveterate prophetic word directed toward the house of Eli. Auld’s entry is a good example, to my mind, of how a recent commentary directed toward the general reader seems to reÀect current scholarly approaches toward the Ark Narrative. As discussed above, this is certainly the case with respect to Auld’s comments on the literary integration of 1 Sam 4–6 within the wider text of 1 Samuel, and also seems to be the case with his brief concluding comments about “exile” and return. After the ark has been in Philistine territory for upwards of seven months, the Philistine diviners devise a test to determine a connection between the presence of the Ark and the appearance of a plague: “If milking cattle, just separated from their calves, drag the cart without guidance (and away from their young) toward Israelite territory, then it is Yahweh who caused the Philistine troubles.” Auld continues, “The alternative is equally interesting: if not Yahweh, then ‘chance’—or perhaps we should call it ‘fate,’ for in the books of Samuel, it always seems to be malign.”59 The curious return of the ark, as Auld puts it in his concluding summary of his discussion of the Ark Narrative, contains hints of a message to a community in exile: Within these opening chapters which cast a long shadow, Yahweh letting the ark be taken may be a foretaste of Yahweh letting his temple, or “house,” in Jerusalem be taken by the Babylonians. If so, then its return to Israel unaided should remind Israel of the source of valid initiatives in response to that later collapse. And yet, if we are to see particular signi¿cance in the loss of the ark immediately after the call of Samuel, it may be that once prophecy was established, the ark was dispensable. Certainly, the book of Jeremiah (3:14–18) invites its readers not to expect a postexilic ark.60

11. Barbara Green As both editor of and contributor to the “Interfaces” series, Barbara Green’s book King Saul’s Asking is primarily directed to students and the classroom. It is a remarkably creative work and interacts with a good deal of scholarship. Green particularly seeks to build on Polzin’s insights, and speci¿cally the provenance of exile for 1 Samuel within the larger Deuteronomistic History. Accordingly, Green views 1 Samuel as part of a long narrative that is designed as a response to various questions posed

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59. Ibid., 218. 60. Ibid.

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by a community in exile. Like Polzin, Green understands the asking for sons in the early narratives of 1 Samuel as the central image chosen by the author to introduce the story of Israel’s asking for a king: Insofar as we operate on the assumption or hypothesis that the asking of sons is like the asking for a king and have registered the insistence of that request from a number of voices, we have keyed to what I consider to be the book of 1 Samuel’s primary task: to propose a riddle for consideration in the sixth century: shall we try to reestablish royal rule after the exile in Babylon or not?61

King Saul himself embodies this notion of “riddle” since his name connotes “asking” and he is the king that Israel has “asked” for. In Green’s view, the Ark has a particular role to play in this book about exile, and to help explicate her views on “the ark in exile” she appropriates the work of Russian literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin.62 Of special relevance for Green’s study is Bakhtin’s notion of chronotope: A chronotope is the blending––or acknowledgment of the inseparability— of time and space. Not simply the same as setting (though including it), the chronotope also calls attention to the angle or viewpoint from which consciousness is portrayed. The most relevant chronotope here is exile, a concept that involves space away from home and time in the future as marked from the experience of the ark. Parabolically we are given a fastforward into the early sixth century where the relationality of God and Israel is wrenched from its accustomed place to dwell among foreigners.63

The narrative of the loss, foreign sojourn, and eventual return of the Ark thus contributes to the wider “riddle” of 1 Samuel, and serves (among other things) as a touchstone for assessing the leadership in Israel that bore signi¿cant responsibility for the stewardship of the Ark. In my view, Green is most helpful in discussing the character zone of Eli, especially with respect to the report of the messenger and Eli’s death/ obituary notice in 1 Sam 4. First, the memorable tableau of a blind Eli anxiously peering and in trepidation over the fate of the Ark is signi¿cant for Green because Eli has no capacity to perceive the arrival of a courier “with garments torn, and earth upon his head”: “The messenger is thus a picture of the news he is about to impart. Eli’s sightless watching cannot pick that up, so the marked messenger and the blind watchman 61. B. Green, King Saul’s Asking (Interfaces; Collegeville: Liturgical, 2003), 19–20. 62. M. M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays (ed. M. Holquist; Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981); cf. B. Green, Mikhail Bakhtin and Biblical Scholarship: An Introduction (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000). 63. Green, King Saul’s Asking, 22.

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are for readers. The narrator skillfully directs our attention again to the question of inept, failed leadership.”64 Of course, Eli has been steadily growing blind throughout the course of the narrative. His sight, if not his discernment, is keen enough to observe the moving lips of Hannah, but gradually the diminution of his sight is tracked (3:2) until it is totally gone (4:15). Again building on Polzin’s insight that this short scene captures something both of the collapse of the monarchy in Israel in the long term, it also unveils glimpses of the forthcoming story in the short run. Green notes: The messenger overlooks blind Eli, who does not see his embodied message. Failed leadership is once again underscored. Eli’s slowness or reluctance to construe the signi¿cance of what he hears in the reaction of the city gives us a chance to watch him closely. He calls the messenger “my son,” perhaps conventional for an old man to a young warrior; but in this case it recalls his address to the young Samuel in 3:16, to his own two in 2:24. That the messenger is a Benjaminite, unnamed, gives the careful-reading and resourceful rabbis of later centuries the space to identify him as the young Saul. In our riddling mode the runner’s identity is shrewdly observed. It helps us make the transition from the “old sons” of Eli, including the much-asked Samuel, to the new son Saul, whom we will be meeting shortly.65

A second point about Eli’s character zone relates to the aged priest’s reaction to the battle¿eld report in 1 Sam 4:18. As discussed earlier in this study, the report about the disaster of defeat, capture of the Ark, and death of Eli’s sons is delivered by “one bringing good news” (U)HEPK). While the messenger faithfully reports the news of the great slaughter among the troops and the fatalities of Hophni and Phineas, it seems to be the mention of the Ark that triggers Eli’s catastrophic plunge: “Then, just as he mentioned the Ark of God, Eli fell off his throne backwards, beside the city gate. He had a broken neck, and he died, for he was a very old man, and heavy (GEN). He had judged Israel for forty years.” For Green, the manner of Eli’s death (agreeing with Polzin that “Eli represents all the burden and doom that kingship brought Israel”) is most poignant, since Eli’s death functions as a mise-en-abyme in a narrative about falling kingship: the (backward) fall of Eli anticipates the (forward) fall of Saul.66 After the dramatic backward fall, the notice of Eli as a judge is most arresting for the reader:

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64. Ibid., 28. 65. Ibid., 29. 66. Ibid., 27.

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The Artistic Dimension We ¿nd out, for the ¿rst time, that Eli is not simply a priest, but also a judge, the ¿rst we have heard mentioned since the death of the notorious Samson (Judg 13–16), who fought Philistines intermittently, but on the whole ineffectively. The destructive events of Judg 17–21 are hence laid, if indirectly, at the feet of Eli, are implied to have occurred on his watch—the watch of a blind man. But attentive reading will not miss this ¿nal slur on Elide leadership.67

The authorial notice of Eli as a judge for forty years has, in general, provoked a somewhat standard response in critical commentaries. However, in terms of the larger narrative poetics, this notice has an important function. In Green’s view, both the death of Eli that includes the notice of his forty-year tenure as judge of Israel, and the birth of Ichabod that follows, “serve purposes far beyond their obvious content,” and are probably designed as a response toward the question: “With what sort of leadership will the new community resume its life in the land?”68 She concludes: The “one thing needful” is for a leader to shepherd well the bond between God and people. Insofar as the ark is a symbol of that relationship— makes manifest the commitment of YHWH to the people chosen and their responsive worship and culture—the leadership has not only failed but abused its task. The Elides bring the ark to the occasion of its exile and that catastrophe wipes them out, except for a new born.69

12. Antony F. Campbell, S.J. It is particularly ¿tting that the twelfth scholar in this survey is a distinguished savant of the Ark Narrative. By means of a monograph (1975), a JBL article (1979), and a recent commentary on 1 Samuel (2003), A. F. Campbell has made an extensive contribution to this area of biblical research over the past two decades. For convenience, I will limit my comments on Campbell’s work to his commentary, and assume that his other discussions are at least touched on in this FOTL volume. Three matters will be discussed here, all of which are to some degree interrelated: Campbell’s structure and outline of the narrative, his treatment of the textual issue at 1 Sam 6:19, and his views on the theological direction of the story as a whole. First, with respect to structure Campbell has a number of programmatic statements. He is concerned to establish the limits and extent of the text, and draws on earlier analyses

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67. Ibid., 29. 68. Ibid., 30, 24. 69. Ibid., 32.

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in his monograph and article. In the ¿nal form of the narrative, there is a tight integration of episodes, and importance of the opening sequence should not be underestimated: At the level of the larger narrative, this opening section takes what might have been an almost banal incident in the fortunes of Israel and transforms it into an episode of national importance. As a simple incident in the military and religious story of Israel, it would have meant no more than that the ark was carried into battle and lost, only to be recovered within the year.70

However, as Campbell continues, “The art of this text has been to take a potentially banal incident and make it a matter of key signi¿cance for the theological story of Israel.” It is the opening chapter that sets the tone for the whole, and establishes the key question: “Why has the LORD put us to rout today before the Philistines?” This question, as Campbell puts it, “is not allowed to be passed over as a rhetorical throwaway. It has fatal overtones. It is associated with statements of God’s exile from Israel. It cries out for exploration and explanation.”71 For Campbell, it is clear that the structure of the narrative contributes to the overall meaning. Consider, then, his broad outline of the narrative in its sequential unfolding: The Departure of the Ark from the National Scene (1 Sam 4:1b–7:1) I.

Departure of the ark from Israel: Israel’s loss of God’s favor (4:1b–22) A. Military loss (1b–11) 1. 1st report of battle: initial defeat of Israel (1b–2) 2. Account of hopes and fears raised (3–9) 3. 2nd report of battle: de¿nitive defeat of Israel (10–11) B. Signi¿cance of the loss (12–22) 1. As fatal: death of Eli (12–18) 2. As abandonment: naming of Ichabod (19–22) II. Reversal of the situation of defeat (5:1–12) A. Introduction: Philistines bring the ark to Ashdod (1) B. Demonstration of YHWH’s supremacy and disfavor (2–12) 1. Toward the Philistine god: in the temple of Dagon (2–5) 2. Toward the Philistine people: in the cities of the Philistines (6–12) III. Return of the ark to Israel: without Israel’s return to God’s favor (6:1–7:1) A. Return of the ark from Philistine territory (1–18) 1. Consultation of diviners by the Philistines (1–9) 2. Compliance with the diviners’ instructions (10–18) B. Departure of ark: no bestowal of God’s favor (6:19–7:1) 1. Disaster: sudden death associated with the ark (19a) 2. Consequences: departure of the ark to Kiriath-jearim (19b–7:1)72

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70. A. F. Campbell, 1 Samuel (FOTL 7; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 67. 71. Ibid., 70. 72. Ibid., 61.

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Second, Campbell’s response to the text-critical of 1 Sam 6:19 merits reÀection. The text itself is notoriously dif¿cult, and the MT is challenging to interpret: “He struck at the men of Beth-shemesh (\YHQ!D%%aW DRE) and Qere (a\U[ME) readings of the MT, see R. D. Bergen, 1, 2 Samuel (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1996), 98. Note also the study of Maeir, “A New Interpretation of the Term !opalim.” Maeir’s proposal that !opalim refers to the Philistines’ membra virile would certainly provide a measure of satirical enhancement to the overall storyline. 1

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MCK GXDCTWPSJ EGKT MWTKQW GXRK $\YVQP MCK GXRJICIGP CWXVQKL MCK GXZG\G- UGP CWXVQKL GKXL VCL PCWL MCK OGUQP VJL EYTCL CWXVJL CXPGHWJUCP OWGL MCK GXIGPGVQ UWIEWUKL SCPCVQW OGICNJ GXP VJ^ RQNGK And the hand of the LORD was a burden upon Azotus, and he brought up against them, and it burst out on them into the ships, and in the middle of their country mice grew up, and there was a great tumult of death in the city.

Miller and Roberts comment in general terms about this stretch of narrative: “The text of 1 Sam 5:6–12 appears to be quite corrupt. A comparison of MT, 4QSama, the LXX, and the other versions suggests all our extant texts are defective.”22 Speci¿cally on 1 Sam 5:6, they state: “A number of textual problems that are probably not capable of full resolution appear in vs. 6,” and further, “The LXX preserves a full text tradition in this verse. It is reÀected in Cross and Skehan’s translation in the NAB.”23 R. P. Gordon also comments on the text-critical problem: “While MT notes only an afÀiction of tumours at this point, the LXX, with its reference to mice, anticipates 6:4f., 11; NEB follows the Greek Pied Piper with its additional clause, ‘and their territory swarmed with rats.’ ”24 Bruce Birch provides both a summary and an assessment of the text-critical issue: “A plague of tumors breaks out among the people of Ashdod (v. 6). The Septuagint and the Vulgate include a longer version of v. 6, which most recent commentators and a number of recent translations have adopted as the preferred reading (the NIV includes it in a footnote). The addition to v. 6 might be translated: ‘Mice [or rats] swarmed up from their ships, and the mice [or rats] went into their land. Then there was a deathly panic in the city.’ ” Birch concludes, “This reference to mice or rats in the longer text makes sense of the symbolic golden offerings of tumors and mice sent back with the ark in 6:4–5, 11. They are offerings intended to ward off a plague in the cities associated with mice (or rats) swarming out of Philistine ports into the cities.”25 There is, however, no clear consensus among commentators about the appearance of mice in the LXX of 1 Sam 5:6. While scholars seem to 22. Miller and Roberts, The Hand of the Lord, 46–47. 23. Ibid., 47. Following the Greek (in some places), the NAB reads as follows: “Now the LORD dealt severely with the people of Ashdod. He ravaged and afÀicted the city and its vicinity with hemorrhoids; he brought upon the city a great and deadly plague of mice that swarmed in their ships and overran their ¿elds.” Cf. NRSV (which is closer to the Hebrew): “The hand of the LORD was heavy upon the people of Ashdod, and he terri¿ed and struck them with tumors, both in Ashdod and in its territory.” 24. Gordon, 1 & 2 Samuel: A Commentary, 99. 25. Birch, “The First and Second Books of Samuel,” 1006. 1

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agree that the people of Ashdod are smitten with a discom¿ture akin to hemorrhoids, it is the mice that prove rather more divisive.26 On the one hand, some commentators incline toward acceptance of rodents at this particular moment in the narrative. McCarter concurs with Miller and Roberts when stating “The textual problems that center on this verse are extensive and probably insoluble,” but he nonetheless catches the mice in his translation, and concludes: We have the alternatives of acknowledging an early reference to the mice or excluding them altogether from the account. The latter solution, though it might be plausible to assume that references to the mice were introduced secondarily under the inÀuence of their general association with plague, is untenable. The mice are attested by all witnesses in at least three places and cannot be excluded on textual grounds. So we are left with the necessity of assuming that LXX is correct in introducing the mice early.27

H. W. Hertzberg, in a not dissimilar vein, provides a classic defense of “early mice”: It is not wholly clear in what way the hand of the Lord lies heavy on the Philistines. There is a Àuctuation even in MT in the details of the sickness with which the Lord smites his enemies, between boils (literally ‘hills’) and sores on the anus, the second word probably being intended as an interpretation of the ¿rst. The translation ‘tumors’ is perhaps the most convenient rendering of an awkward Hebrew text. We are evidently to imagine something like a plague of boils, an epidemic which brings added shame to the Philistines because of the part of the body which is affected. We cannot leave on one side the reference, or rather the allusion, to which Thenius draws attention (when commenting on the Vulgate): ‘he smote them in the hinder parts’; such a tone suits the tenor of the passage, and is moreover suggested by Ps. 78.66, ‘he smote his enemies backward.’ The present form of the text, however, gives the impression that the other interpretation has been preferred (on grounds of decency). Moreover, LXX and Vulgate are certainly right here in preserving a verse which additionally records a plague of mice; this makes it easier to understand why the expiatory gifts described in ch. 6 should have included golden mice.28 26. Klein (1 Samuel, 50) provides a representative example of understanding this malady in terms of the bubonic plague: “The name of this plague derives from the buboes or swellings with which the victim is afÀicted. CHAL de¿nes a\OS>as boils or abscesses at the anus, or hesitantly, as buboes connected with the plague. Using the Kethib/Qere system, the Massoretes supplied the vowels for another word, a\U[M (= Kethib in 6:11, 17), which has been related to an Aramaic word meaning ‘strain at the stool.’ ” The phallic proposal of Maeir (“A New Interpretation of the Term !opalim”), though, deserves further consideration at this point. 27. McCarter, 1 Samuel, 119. 28. Hertzberg, 1 & 2 Samuel, 54–55. 1

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On the other hand, a number of commentators have eschewed the invitation to partake of early rats, opting for the MT’s delay of the ¿rst appearance of rodents until 1 Sam 6:4, or exterminating the pests altogether.29 H. P. Smith thinks, in general, that any reference to rodents represent a mouse trap of sorts, and is highly resistant to rats in the Ark Narrative. “It is evident,” in Smith’s judgment, “that we must choose one consistent recension—either adopting [the LXX] throughout or else striking out the mice altogether. In favour of the latter alternative is the general rule that the shorter text is more likely to be original; secondly, the text of [the MT] reads with perfect smoothness up to the point where the golden mice are ¿rst mentioned, and where they are mentioned they read like interpolations; and thirdly, the explicit assertion in 64 one plague was upon you all, could not have been made in this form if the author had known that two plagues had been sent.” “I conclude on these grounds,” says Smith, “that the mice, wherever they appear, are the result of a late redactional insertion.”30 Utilizing the resources of modern narratology, Lyle Eslinger is inclined to try to make sense of the received MT, while mentioning, “The introduction of the mice at this point has proved troublesome to scholars, who have offered various literary-critical 29. It should be noted that 1 Sam 6:4 has posed its own dif¿culties for commentators. Miller and Roberts (The Hand of the Lord, 54), for instance, reject the “¿ve rats” of 1 Sam 6:4: “In vs. 4 we omit whmšy !kœry zhb with LXX and 4QSama. This is a secondary insert based on 6:5, but in hopeless conÀict with 6:18. The story originally had ¿ve buboes and an inde¿nite number of rats.” A similar line is maintained by McCarter (1 Samuel, 129): “MT here adds [EK]\UEN>KYP[Z] ‘and ¿ve golden mice,’ omitted in LXX(B) and 4QSama. One could argue for expansion in MT or haplography in the other witnesses. The former seems preferable if only because ‘¿ve golden mice’ contradicts v 18, which indicates that there were golden mice to correspond to ‘all the Philistine cities…from forti¿ed cities to peasant villages.’ ” For a contrary position, see C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch (The Books of Samuel [trans. J. Martin; Commentary on the Old Testament; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1950], 64): “In the allusion to the representations of the ¿eld-mice, the words ‘that devastate the land’ are added, because in the description given of the plagues in ch. v. the devastation of the land by mice is not expressly mentioned. The introduction of this clause after aN\UEN>, when contrasted with the omission of any such explanation after aN\OS>, is a proof that the plague of mice had not been described before, and therefore that the references made to these in the Septuagint at ch. v. 3, 6, and ch. vi. 1, are nothing more than explanatory glosses.” 30. Smith, Books of Samuel, 41. Smith prefaces his remarks with his own summary: “The mention of mice here is consistently carried on by similar additions in v.10 (lacking in [Lagarde’s edition of the LXX] but con¿rmed by [Old Latin] and in 61. In 64.11.18 the mice appear also in [MT].” Cf. Pisano’s “¿ve observations,” in his Additions or Omissions in the Books of Samuel, 253–55. 1

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explanations.”31 Eslinger in turn proposes that the mice provide “a further reÀection of the Philistine priests’ human uncertainty about the causes and meanings of the plague.” He concludes, “The mice need no explicit introduction in the previous narrative; their introduction here, as the product of Philistine uncertainty, is another instance in a continuing series of situations where [the human actors are] not certain how to respond to Israel’s God’s intervention in human affairs.”32 Using a methodological approach similar to Eslinger, J. P. Fokkelman reserves comment on the rodent issue until his remarks on 6:4, when he says: “The cropping up of the mice has not been prepared for by the narrator and comes as a surprise, therefore, to the reader. An explanation of this, which is no more than a surmise, could be that the people of those days saw a ready connection between the outbreak of a squalid disease like the bubonic plague and the appearance of rats and mice. At the end of v. 5a the narrator closes the information gap.”33 4. Literary Comparisons The attempts of Fokkelman and Eslinger to make sense of the MT as it stands serve to illustrate my contention in this study that the MT and LXX have a different set of rhetorical priorities.34 In my view, the role of the mice encapsulates the somewhat unique shades of literary and theological interest of the MT and Greek traditions.35 To demonstrate these 31. Eslinger, Kingship of God in Crisis, 206. 32. Ibid. 33. Fokkelman, Vow and Desire, 266–67; cf. J. B. Geyer, “Mice and Rites in 1 Samuel V–VI,” VT 31 (1981): 295. On “gaps” in biblical narrative, see M. Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985). 34. Cf. W. Brueggemann, “Narrative Coherence and Theological Intentionality in 1 Samuel 18,” CBQ 55 (1993): 227. Brueggemann interacts with McCarter’s commentary, and notes: “In this study, I am interested in the full dramatic rhetoric of the Saul–David dispute, a rhetoric which is more evident in the MT. Conversely, McCarter is inclined to want a historical presentation without any ‘extra’ theological trimming, a presentation offered in the LXX. Either approach is plausible, but neither is made without an interest at work.” 35. Cf. Campbell, 1 Samuel, 71: “There are considerable differences between the MT and the LXXB in 1 Sam 5. The MT provides, as a rule, the more concise and more artistically constructed text, over against the expanded LXXB. While some of the differences may be due to scribal error, the major part seem more likely to stem from a different version of the tradition. Many versions of these stories apparently circulated in oral form, and the Hebrew text being translated for LXXB probably reÀected such versions. The mice, for example, appear in the LXXB at 5:6, but not in 1

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divergent interests, I would like to consider the “mice” issue from three common literary angles: plot, character, and point of view. First, in terms of plot, the accent falls on the organization of the respective narratives. The question here is: When does the reader ¿nd out about the mice? Second, in terms of character, the question is: What exactly do the mice do in each account? Third, in terms of point of view, the question is: How is the reader ¿rst acquainted with the mice in the respective Hebrew and Greek texts? To begin with plot, there is a palpably different organization of events in the MT and LXX. Here it is helpful to invoke the classic narratological distinction between the “fabula” and the “story”: the fabula is the basic set of events that happen, whereas the story is the particular way that the events are recounted.36 In the Ark Narrative, the issue is not “Are mice the MT until ch. 6; they appear to have been integral to the LXXB, rather than omitted from the MT (see, however, the discussion in McCarter, 1 Samuel, 118–20). It seems probable that in the written versions of stories—as reported stories or the base for performance—a key detail from a different version was included, as a reminder of another way of telling the story.” In a similar vein, note P. R. Ackroyd’s (The First Book of Samuel: Commentary [CB 9; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971], 55) comments on the NEB translation: “The text of this verse [1 Sam 5:6] is in some disorder. The Hebrew text lacks some essential words and N.E.B. supplements from Sept. We must note, however, that in the Hebrew there is no mention of rats until 6:4, and it is therefore possible that the longer text represents an attempt at reconciling two elements in the story—the plague tumours and the rats. Possibly there were two forms of the tale told about the Philistine misfortunes; in the ¿nal forms of the text, both Hebrew and Greek, these have been combined into one somewhat confused story. Such a combining of elements is often to be found in Old Testament and other stories; the popular handing down of traditions results in the growth of different forms which a later story-teller may think it best to bring together.” Cf. the conclusions of Barthélemy, ed., Critique textuelle de l’ancien Testament 1, 153–54. 36. S. D. Walters, “After Drinking,” in Crossing Boundaries and Linking Horizons: Studies in Honor of Michael C. Astour on His 80th Birthday (ed. G. D. Young, M. W. Chavalas, and R. E. Averbeck; Bethesda, Md.: CDL, 1997), 534. Walters notes: “…people usually tell a story to make a point, and …the same clutch of events can be reported in different ways—to make different points” (534). Walters further comments that each distinctive “story” (in this case LXX vs. MT) has its own characteristic nuances: “Each telling of the fabula is a story in its own right, to be considered in its own distinctiveness. The Greek Bible (Old Testament) often gives us a story which differs somewhat from the Hebrew (Masoretic) telling of the same fabula, and, in its various recensions and manuscripts, may further offer multiple tellings of the same fabula. Each of these manuscripts was somebody’s Bible, and was read to hear what the divine voice was saying. These diverse tellings belong to the history of interpretation and must be read for themselves and their own 1

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involved?” because they patently are involved in the fabula of both the MT and LXX. Rather, the issue is: In the story as it unfolds, when exactly does the reader ¿nd out about the mice? In the LXX, the reader is acquainted with mice as early as 1 Sam 5:6. The emphasis seems to be on economic destruction and the accompanying stress on the sociocultural infrastructure, as the very ships are swarming with noxious vermin. In the MT, however, there seems to be an intentional delay in divulging the pernicious activity of the mice. As will be suggested below, there are speci¿c literary and theological reasons for revealing the mice by means of analepsis, but the very fact that the Philistine divines divulge the reality of the mice suggests that indeed they have been present for a considerable time. The difference can be accounted for at the level of story rather than fabula. In other words, there seem to be different modulations of dramatic presentation at work in these two accounts. In the LXX, there is an incremental movement toward destruction and ruination of land and occupant, and the mice are at the forefront of this environmental disaster. In the MT, the effect of the analeptic delay is a more subtle movement toward the introduction of the mice by means of confession through the Philistine divines. For the Hebrew text, it is within the context of ritual that the reader is ¿nally overrun with mice, and the creatures in the ¿rst instance are objects of offering, and only secondarily are agents of trouble, as such. In the plot of the LXX, the mice are introduced as carriers; in the plot of the MT, the mice are introduced as carried. Second, in terms of literary characterization, the role of the mice seems different in each narrative tradition. E. M. Forster has made the classic distinction between “Àat” and “round” characters.37 A Àat character is static and one-dimensional, whereas a round character is far more developed, dynamic, and capable of surprise or transformation. Obviously the mice are Àat little characters, but in the LXX there is a repeated emphasis on the ubiquity of these creatures, as they travel throughout Philistine territory: they move from the ships and coastal areas in 1 Sam 5:6, and are present in the inland ¿elds at 6:1. In the LXX, the mice are carriers of double calamity: not only do they represent the external threat of devastation in ¿eld and ship, but also quite conceivably, they are responsible for the internal threat of hemorrhoids and distinctive meaning.” For the story and fabula distinctions, Walters is drawing on M. Bal, Narratology: An Introduction to the Theory of Narrative (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985). See also Walters, “Hannah and Anna.” 37. E. M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1927). 1

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physiological discom¿ture. Alternatively, the MT only divulges the mice through analeptic sequencing, and there is a certain ef¿cacy in this mode of presentation. By introducing the mice through a type of narrative Àashback of sorts, there is an emphasis on mice not as characters but rather as instruments of a theological test in the context of mantic divination. Hence, it is entirely appropriate that the Philistine priests introduce the mice that “ravage the land.” Moreover, in the LXX there is an extra group of divines. The MT has “priests” (a\QKN) and “diviners” (a\PVT), but the LXX has an additional clerical of¿ce: “priests” (KBGTGKL), “soothsayers” (OCPVGKL), and “enchanters” (GXRCQKFQWL).38 For both the MT and LXX, the priests show “a remarkable capacity for distancing themselves from their clients.”39 In the MT, it is the priests and diviners who introduce the mice, and such an introduction is part of the strategy for the indirect characterization of this group. In the LXX, the mice are Àat little characters who from the outset are overtly characterized as causing mischief, and obliquely the mice are implicated as instigators of “straining at the stool.” Third, in terms of point of view, there is a difference in how the reader is informed of the mice when comparing the MT and the LXX. In the LXX, the reader is informed early in the story about mice through the narrator in 1 Sam 5:6, and subsequently reminded about their wreaking havoc at 6:1. Thus the narrative perspective on the mice is that of a wide-angle camera lens that zooms in on the devastating results of the Lord’s “heavy hand,” as he “brings evil upon them” (contrast the MT’s “and he terri¿ed them”). There is a measure of consistency in the LXX tradition, as the mice are connected with “the withdrawal or diminution of the means of subsistence,” and “the devastation of the ¿elds.”40 By contrast, in the MT the reader is informed about the mice long after their implicit appearance by means of direct speech, through the utterance of the Philistine soothsayers. In fact, the reader is made aware of mice not in all their furry tomfoolery swarming from the ships and becoming pestilent on land, but rather as images of gold! Following a host of commentators, Bruce Birch comments at length on the preponderance of “exodus imagery” in the Ark Narrative; one could contend that the gold in the Ark Narrative evokes memories of the plunder of gold in Egypt. Now, in the Ark 38. McCarter (1 Samuel, 129) notes that “4QSama apparently adds a fourth,” and he concludes, “Such lists tend to expand, and the short MT should probably be retained despite the possibility of haplography (caused by homoioarkton or homoioteleuton) in the longer texts.” 39. Campbell, 1 Samuel, 79. 40. Keil and Delitzsch, II Samuel, 59. 1

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Narrative, exodus imagery is primarily imparted through direct speech rather than narration. So it is entirely consistent that the MT should divulge this exodus allusion through the “golden mice” discourse of the Philistine theologians. My point here is that the LXX frontloads the mice through narration, whereas the MT analeptically unveils the mice through direct speech. 5. Conclusion On balance, it is dif¿cult to account for a series of mechanical errors or scribal accidents that could plausibly account for the divergent texts that we have in front of us. Once this point is conceded—even for the sake of argument—then the only viable alternative is that the different stories are a result of conscious shaping. Indeed, literary analysis of the two stories reveals unique shades of emphasis that resist easy harmonizing in an elusive quest for a putative original, and I think that I have shown throughout that what we have here is a set of literary dynamics that operate—with some distinct accents and theatrical variations—within the Hebrew text and Greek versions of the Ark Narrative. By way of analogy, the book of Jeremiah offers a mild parallel. As is well-documented, there is a massive divergence between the MT and LXX versions of Jeremiah, such that one recent commentator refers to them as distinct “textual performances” with particular compositional strategies: “one might think of the LXX and MT of Jeremiah as two textual performances of Jeremiah at different points in time and within separate communities of faith. Both editions reÀect their own distinctive character and ¿nal theological message.”41 On a more modest scale, I am suggesting that there is value in hearing each of the Ark Narrative accounts on their own terms; at the very least, the LXX variations actually serve to highlight the theological interests and artistic sensibilities of the MT, and vice versa.42 If there is a certain intentionality that gives rises to the differences between the MT and LXX as we have them, then interpretive dividends will accrue when treating them as such.

41. L. Stulman, Jeremiah (AOTC; Nashville: Abingdon, 2005), 8. 42. Note the appraisal of J. Joosten, “Exegesis in the Septuagint Version of Hosea,” in Intertextuality in Ugarit and Israel (ed. J. C. de Moor; OTS 40; Leiden: Brill, 1998), 62–85: “Recent research into the Greek version tends to treat it less as a quarry for readings apt to improve the Masoretic text and more as a religious work in its own right” (62).

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Part III

FURTHER SOUNDINGS

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Chapter 6

JONATHAN SON OF ABIATHAR: THE FULFILLMENT OF A PROPHETIC WORD ABOUT THE DISSOLUTION OF A PRIESTLY LINE

Recent days have seen a vigorous debate surrounding the composition of the Deuteronomistic History. Yet even after a brief glance at Thomas Römer’s recent book—entitled The So-Called Deuteronomistic History: A Sociological, Historical, and Literary Introduction—one cannot help noticing the great artistry and compelling readability of the overall story that stretches from Joshua to Kings.1 Part of the allure of this history—as a legion of commentators have remarked—is the extraordinary cast of characters that populate this epic narrative. One such under-rated (yet intriguing) character is Jonathan son of Abiathar, and this character is the subject of the present chapter. In the two main episodes in which Jonathan appears—2 Sam 17 and 1 Kgs 1—this scion of the Elide line is used in a larger discussion about succession, which (as we will see in due course) is ironic, since he himself is banished into obscurity by the succession of a rival house. Through the character of Jonathan the reader is confronted with both literary issues of plot development, and thematic issues about the ful¿llment of the prophetic word at the heart of this narrative stretch. Let me begin, then, with the introduction of Jonathan son of Abiathar in 2 Sam 15. 1. T. Römer, The So-Called Deuteronomistic History: A Sociological, Historical, and Literary Introduction (London: T&T Clark International, 2005). In conceptual terms, I am assuming the de¿nitions and parameters outlined by Heller, Power, Politics, and Prophecy, and L. M. Wray Beal, The Deuteronomist’s Prophet: Narrative Control of Approval and Disapproval in the Story of Jehu (2 Kings 9 and 10) (LHBOTS 478; New York: T&T Clark International, 2007). My approach is similar to J. Sasson, “The Eyes of Eli: An Essay in Motif Accretion,” in Inspired Speech: Prophecy in the Ancient Near East. Essays in Honor of Herbert B. Huffmon (ed. Louis Stulman and John Kaltner; JSOTSup 378; London: T&T Clark International, 2004), 171–90.

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1. Lineage (2 Samuel 15:27) It is during the tense moments at the height of Absalom’s rebellion that Jonathan is ¿rst mentioned—almost in passing. In 2 Sam 15 David is hastily Àeeing from Jerusalem, along with a procession that includes the priestly leaders Zadok and Abiathar. After commanding that the ark be returned to Jerusalem,2 David further speaks at v. 27: Then the king said to Zadok the priest, “Are you a seer3? Turn back to the city in peace, with your son Ahimaaz and Jonathan son of Abiathar— your two sons with you. Look, I’ll wait at the fords of the wilderness until a word comes from you to report to me.” So Zadok and Abiathar returned the ark of God to Jerusalem, and stayed there.

While Zadok only makes his second appearance in the story after being introduced in 2 Sam 8:17, Abiathar is more familiar to the reader—not least because he is a member of the once prominent house of Eli. Although there have been some admirable attempts to reconstruct the pre-Samuel lineaments of the Elides, the cautious consensus of scholars is that the precise genealogical contours of this house are dif¿cult to trace and thus remain somewhat speculative.4 What is undeniable, though, is that the Elides are under a prophetic sentence. In 1 Sam 2 an itinerant man of God arrives in Shiloh and proclaims a word of doom directed toward Eli and his house: not only are Eli’s two sons—Hophni and Phinehas—scheduled to die on the same day, but the Elides (according to 2:36) will be succeeded by a rival: “Then everyone left in your family line will come and bow down before him [the faithful priest] for a piece of silver and a crust of bread and plead, ‘Appoint me to some priestly of¿ce so I can have food to eat.’ ” Evaluating the literary contribution of Eli and his sons to 1 Samuel in general, Graeme Auld explains 2. Why does David send the Ark back to Jerusalem? Anderson (2 Samuel, 204) posits, “in the present passage the ark functions somewhat like the Trojan horse, and its return serves essentially as a ‘cover story’ for Zadok and Abiathar’s intelligence activities.” 3. See the textual footnote in the NET version: “The Greek tradition understands the Hebrew word as an imperative (‘see’). Most Greek MSS have KFGVG(idete); the Lucianic recension has DNGRG(blepe). It could just as well be taken as a question: ‘Don’t you see what is happening?’ The present translation takes the word as a question, with the implication that Zadok is a priest and not a prophet (i.e., ‘seer’) and therefore unable to know what the future holds.” 4. See most recently Mark Leuchter, Josiah’s Reform and Jeremiah’s Scroll: Historical Calamity and Prophetic Response (HBM 6; Shef¿eld: Shef¿eld Phoenix, 2006).

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the importance of this account for informing the reader that houses and dynasties can indeed fall, and that leaders can be displaced by underlings.5 Despite the predicted demise of Eli’s sons and his own backward plunge that results in a broken neck, I should also mention that the house of Eli—in the person of Ahimelech—did side with David in the “collusion” at Nob. There is a convincing argument that Ahimelech and David work together to deceive Doeg the Edomite in 1 Sam 21, and for that virtually the entire house at Nob is put to the sword—with the exception of Ahimelech’s son Abiathar, the sole survivor, who in due course ends up in the camp of David with the ephod, a piece of “oracle software” that proves very handy for eluding Saul during the years of fugitive life in the wilderness.6 Even though their house has no future, ¿rst Ahimelech and later Abiathar (whose name means “remnant of my father”) act in a decidedly pro-David manner. Abiathar evidently remains with David and eventually resides in Jerusalem, where he is mentioned—alongside Zadok—in 2 Sam 8:17, and thus joins the procession of those Àeeing with David from the threat of Absalom. 2. Counterplots (2 Samuel 15:36) It is only now—through the words of the distraught King David—that the reader realizes Abiathar has a son. It may be that Abiathar’s son is genetically predisposed to Davidic loyalty, but either way, David assumes the loyalty and recruits the priestly sons for a mission of espionage. So, in the context of “this group sent back by David to wait in Jerusalem,” the ¿rst thing we therefore infer about Jonathan son of Abiathar is that he is from a house that will be replaced by another (much like an earlier Jonathan, incidentally, who also exhibits pro-David sentiments). Jonathan son of Abiathar is next mentioned a few lines later. David is informed of the defection of Ahithophel, and prays, O LORD, turn Ahithophel’s counsel into foolishness.” Notably, this prayer takes place at the spatial setting of the Mount of Olives, and when David arrives at the summit—the place, we are told, “where the people used to worship God”—behold, Hushai the Arkite is waiting for him. Seemingly an answer to prayer, Hushai is used to launch a counterplot and foil the

5. Auld, “1 and 2 Samuel,” 214. 6. P. T. Reis, “Collusion at Nob: a New Reading of 1 Samuel 21–22,” JSOT 61 (1994): 59–73; K. Bodner, David Observed: A King in the Eyes of His Court (HBM 5; Shef¿eld: Shef¿eld Phoenix, 2005), 25–37.

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counsel of Ahithophel. For assistance, David reveals to Hushai that there are allies in Jerusalem, as he discloses in 15:36, everything you hear from the king’s house report to Zadok and Abiathar the priests. Look, with them are their two sons, Ahimaaz of Zadok and Jonathan of Abiathar—so send to me by their hand every word that you hear.” Then Hushai, the friend of David, came to the city as Absalom was entering Jerusalem.

For a second time, then, the remnant of the house of Eli are used by David to deceive an opponent. The Elides proved loyal to David in 1 Sam 21–22 when David was under assault by Saul and his henchman Doeg the Edomite; now one anticipates the same kind of loyalty from Abiathar and Jonathan to David over against the logistics of Absalom and Ahithophel. 3. Spy Games (2 Samuel 17:15–21) As it turns out, the opportunity to display such loyalty happens rather quickly as ch. 17 unfolds: while David is enduring the cursing of Shimei the Benjaminite (who is dumping dirt on the royal procession from an elevated vantage point and hollering at David, calling him a “man of blood” and similar unaf¿rming epithets)—Ahithophel, at the same time, is counseling Absalom to pitch a tent on the roof and de¿le the concubines whom the king imprudently left behind to “guard” the palace. After Absalom follows this ruthless counsel, Ahithophel’s next piece of advice is to launch an immediate offensive against the king, led, so it would seem from the cohortative verbs, by Ahithophel himself. Notwithstanding the unanimity with which this counsel is acclaimed, Absalom inexplicably calls for a second opinion, and the covert operative Hushai the Arkite outmaneuvers his opponent with an impressive rhetorical rejoinder.7 Yet as the reader is reminded in 17:15, Absalom has more than just Hushai’s oratory working against him. The text reads: “Then Absalom and every man of Israel said, ‘The advice of Hushai the Arkite is better than the advice of Ahithophel!’ (because the LORD had given command to frustrate the good advice of Ahithophel in order to bring evil on Absalom).” Whether or not Hushai is aware of such “dual causality” (as von Rad would label it), Hushai does implement a proactive measure: to inform the allies immediately in 17:15–16:

7. Cf. J. Van Seters, The Biblical Saga of King David (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2009), 312–15.

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Hushai said to Zadok and Abiathar the priests, “Like this and this Ahithophel has advised Absalom and the elders of Israel, but like this and this I’ve advised. So now, send quickly and report to David, saying, ‘Don’t lodge the night in the fords of the wilderness, but certainly pass over, lest the king and all the people with him get swallowed up!’ ”

In the midst of this atmosphere of danger with layers of intrigue, the story is now poised for the reemergence of Jonathan son of Abiathar in 17:17: Now Jonathan and Ahimaaz were standing at En-rogel (and the maidservant would go and report to them, and they would go and report to King David—for they were not able to be seen entering the city).

The ¿rst point of interest in v. 17 is the spatial setting: Why are the two priestly offspring—Jonathan and Ahimaaz—lurking at En-rogel? Kyle McCarter explains the site is a “A spring southwest of the City of David in the Wadi Kidron.” Further, we also know that “it marked one point on the boundary of the tribal territories of Benjamin and Judah (Josh 15:7; 18:16).”8 It is clear that we are dealing with an important landmark of sorts, and something of an alternative, possibly, to the Gihon spring that we will see in 1 Kgs 1. En-rogel is usually translated “Fuller’s Fountain” by most commentators, but it is possible to translate more literally as “spring of the spy”—which has a certain aptness in our context of reconnaissance. For the present purposes, I will simply remark that En-rogel will become a spatial setting that has to do with presumptuous pretensions of royalty by older sons that are foiled, as will duly take place the next time that Jonathan son of Abiathar appears in the narrative. But here in 2 Sam 17 there is really no other reason to mention the name of En-rogel other than to endow it with a certain ambiance for a future episode. In 1 Kgs 1 David’s son Adonijah will become a “new Absalom,” and his feast at En-rogel intersects at the level of character zone with this episode. A second point to note in v. 17 is the particular verb forms: Jonathan and Ahimaaz are “standing” at En-rogel (plural participle), and is followed by a waw-consecutive perfect third person feminine singular form of OK, rendered by many translations as “and she would walk.” A. F. Campbell is surely correct in noting this verbal form reÀects a “frequentative usage,” and so functions to describe a kind of habitual or repeated action.9 The narrator is telling us, in other words, that a lowly

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8. McCarter, II Samuel, 388. Cf. Cogan, I Kings. 9. Campbell, 1 Samuel, 154.

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maid-servant is prepared to use her humble status as a cover for the royal intelligence network, part of the counterplot necessitated by the seditious nature of Absalom’s rebellion and the defection of Ahithophel. This is an important detail in the wider narrative design, as an unheralded minor character becomes a key ally, an anonymous risk-taker who supports the Àeeing king. Jonathan and Ahimaaz—although higher up the socio-economic ladder—are in the same genre as this maid-servant, as will be the anonymous the woman of Bahurim we will meet in a moment. Structurally, v. 17 plays a role in setting up the intrigue that follows: as I understand it, this little vignette functions as a miniature version of the forthcoming storyline, a storyline that unfolds in the rest of the episode, vv. 18–22, for it is while Jonathan and Ahimaaz are stationed at En-rogel that their furtive presence is detected: And a lad saw them, and reported to Absalom. Then the two of them went quickly, and came to the house of a man in Bahurim. He had a well in his courtyard, and they descended down there. And the woman took hold, and spread the covering over the mouth of the well, and scattered the grain over it, and nothing was known. Then the servants of Absalom came to the woman at the house, and they said, “Where are Ahimaaz and Jonathan?” The woman said to them, “They passed over the stream (ON\PL) of water.” They sought, but did not ¿nd, and so they returned to Jerusalem. After they left, they got up out of the well, and went and reported to King David. They said to David, “Arise and quickly pass over the waters, for like this Ahithophel has advised against you!” So David and all the people who were with him arose and passed over the Jordan until the morning light, until there was no one left who had not passed over the Jordan. (17:18–22)

In this scene one immediately notices the switch in spatial setting: somehow Jonathan and Ahimaaz are aware that they have been spotted by a pro-Absalom lad, and make haste to Bahurim (situated by most scholars near the slope of the Mount of Olives, northeast of Jerusalem). Bahurim ¿rst occurs in 2 Sam 3, the place where Palti—who had been given Michal as a wife by Saul (perhaps as revenge for wife-stealing?)— is separated from his wife by Abner in one of the sadder moments in the Deuteronomistic History: “her husband went with her, weeping as he went, and followed her as far as Bahurim. Then Abner said to him, ‘Go, return.’ So he returned.” Most poignantly, Bahurim is the hometown of the aforementioned Shimei—he of the scathing invectives in the previous chapter. One might plausibly infer that Bahurim is a pro-Saul electoral district, so to speak. It is not without irony, therefore, that Jonathan and Ahimaaz are protected by the deceptive actions of a woman. In 2 Sam 16 1

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Shimei seemed satis¿ed with the notion that Absalom is now usurping David’s kingdom, yet now—unbeknownst to him—an unidenti¿ed woman from his own birthplace is fouling it up. Consequently, I am tempted to render the proper noun “Bahurim” (from the root U[E) as “Choices,” and, as with En-rogel, see an apt piece of nomenclature in light of the events that take place there. A further point in need of analysis emerges here: namely, an allusion to Josh 2, the story of Rahab protecting the Israelite spies from the king of Jericho and his henchmen. This “hide and seek” allusion has long been noted by commentators. Even as long ago as 1976 John Van Seters pronounced that the “high degree of similarity points to direct literary dependence” of 2 Sam 17:17–21 on Josh 2. I assume that “high degree of similarity” includes a woman facilitating the escape of wanted men by hiding them under something innocuous so as not to attract notice, and then diverting the pursuers with a ruse in order to buy time for the hunted ones to make good their getaway across the Jordan river. There is considerable ef¿cacy in the allusions to the Rahab account here. At the very least, the allusion functions as a kind of theological foreshadowing: David will be successful just as in the struggle with Saul, even though it is conceivably against the odds and in the midst of great adversity. But not only is there an allusion to Rahab here in 2 Sam 17, but there is also another allusion, mentioned in passing by a number of scholars but in need of further discussion: I am referring to the events of 1 Sam 19, where Michal lets David down out of a window, uses “covers” and teraphim to make it look like a sleeping body, and spins a yarn in order to deceive the pursuers. There is a constellation of shared images, and even language, between the two scenes in 1 Sam 19 and 2 Sam 17, but the most striking evidence for a conscious allusion occurs in 17:20, when “…the servants of Absalom came to the woman at the house, and they said, ‘Where are Ahimaaz and Jonathan?’ The woman said to them, ‘They passed over the stream (ON\PL) of water’ ”—the only time such a term is used in the entire Hebrew Bible and, in all probability, not accidental in the least. What, then, would be the point of this intertextuality, a situation that calls to mind another episode in David’s life, when he needed to be “let down” (GU\) by a female collaborator who then proceeds to “cover up” and lie to the investigators? In general terms, one scholar intones that “intertextuality [such as this] can have an overt theological function, and can operate as ‘a preeminent illustration of the biblical notion that historical events exhibit patterned repetition, in a sense dramatically 1

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recur[ring] as a manifestation of providential design.”10 Such may be the case, but by bringing 2 Sam 17 into dialogue with 1 Sam 19 there are some speci¿c gains in terms of David’s current crisis: now the author is underscoring that external oppression cannot destroy the real dynasty, internal opposition will be subordinated to God’s sovereignty, and there are prospects of help and hope from a variety of (surprising) allies even when the future looks bleak. Exile, in other words, is not the end of the story—God’s chosen one(s) will be brought back across the Jordan, and God’s promise cannot be thwarted however dire the circumstances. Finally, there is a strange convergence between the characterizations of Michal and that of Jonathan son of Abiathar. Like Michal, the Elides are continually portrayed as acting in some respects against their own interests in favor of a Davidic advantage over a lethal adversary. Like Michal (who ultimately is consigned to barrenness at the end of 2 Sam 6), Jonathan is the heir of a house without a future. Despite their doomed status and ultimate sterility, both Michal and Jonathan (along with Ahimaaz) still come to the David’s aid at crucial times. 4. Feast, Interrupted (1 Kings 1:41–49) Jonathan’s next and ¿nal appearance in the narrative takes place during the memorable events surrounding the coronation of Solomon. To quote Thomas Römer, “In 1 Kgs 1, Solomon rises to the throne as the outcome of a Dallas-like intrigue led by Nathan and Bathsheba, whereas old David appears to be [an] invalid, without any capacity to control the events.”11 To be sure, David’s aged condition paves the way for Adonijah’s self-exaltation, “I will be king,” and his cause is assisted by such luminaries as Joab and Abiathar the priest. Adonijah is the son of Haggith (whose name means “feast-lady”), so naturally his next action is to host a “feast,” a party located, of all places, at En-rogel. This spatial setting will not feature again in the Deuteronomistic History, so clearly it causes the reader to reÀect back on 2 Sam 17, which happens to be the last time one of David’s sons was attempting a run at the throne. Simultaneously—while the son of the feast lady is feasting at En-rogel— Nathan and Bathsheba are inveigling the aged king on behalf of a younger son, Solomon—a series of movements that result (in vv. 38–40), in a coronation ceremony for Bathsheba’s offspring.

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10. R. Alter, The World of Biblical Literature (London: SPCK, 1992), 121. 11. Römer, The So-Called Deuteronomistic History, 9.

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Even though Solomon has been crowned amidst great pomp, Adonijah and his friends do not know it, and the party is in full swing. They are informed of this unexpected development by none other than Jonathan son of Abiathar—appearing for the ¿rst time without his usual sidekick Ahimaaz—and here is how it happens in vv. 41–42: And Adonijah together with those he summoned heard as they ¿nished eating. Then Joab heard the sound of the trumpet, and he said, “Why is there the sound of roaring from the city?” While he was yet speaking, behold, Jonathan son of Abiathar the priest came. Adonijah said, “Come, for you are a mighty man, and you are bearing good news.”

While Adonijah and his guests hear the seismic activity, it is “the battletrained ears of Joab” that distinguish the ominous sound of the shofar from the noise emanating out of the city. Historically, he has been the one to blast the trumpet—any other musician must be perceived as a bad moon rising. But Adonijah is happy to interrupt such dismal musings with an announcement of Jonathan’s arrival, whom he categorizes as a man of valor bearing “good news.” On the one hand, as Mordechai Cogan observes, Jonathan has the same role of sorts during the rebellion of Absalom—a bringer of news that was decisive for the pretender’s defeat.12 Though I doubt Adonijah would appreciate this piece of narrative trivia, the reader notices that for a second time Jonathan is situated in “Spy Spring” (that is, En-rogel) as a bearer of news. But on the other hand, this speci¿c verb “good news” (UIE) carries considerable signi¿cance within this stretch of the Former Prophets. As Robert Polzin has argued at length, the verb “to bring (good) news” almost invariably occurs in the Deuteronomistic History when the news is good for David or Solomon—as illustrated in death of Eli, Saul, and Absalom, where the verb occurs.13 Here in 1 Kgs 1 this news—to cut a long story short— cannot be good for Adonijah, and Jonathan’s effusive speech is about to crash the son of the feast-lady’s party, as we hear in vv. 43–49: And Jonathan answered and said, “Yes but, our lord King David has caused Solomon to reign. And the king has sent with him Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the Cherethites, and the Pelethites, and they have mounted him on the king’s mule. And Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet have anointed him king at Gihon, and they have ascended from there rejoicing, and the city is in a stir—that is the sound which you have heard. And what’s more, Solomon is sitting upon the royal throne. And what’s more, the servants of the king have come to

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12. Cogan, 1 Kings, 163. 13. Polzin, Samuel and the Deuteronomist, 61.

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The Artistic Dimension bless our lord King David, saying, ‘May your God make Solomon’s name better than your name, and his throne greater than your throne,’ and the king bowed down upon the bed. And what’s more, like this the king has spoken: ‘Blessed be the Lord God of Israel who today has given one to sit upon my throne with my own eyes seeing it.’ ” And all the ones summoned by Adonijah quaked, and arose, and each man went on his own way.

While there is an array of interesting details in this discourse, I will restrict my comments to three points about Jonathan’s speech, paying attention to the particular innovations in his words versus the narrator’s previous report. First, in v. 47 it is not the “royal of¿cials,” that is, “the servants of the king” who say “May your God make Solomon’s name better than your name, and his throne greater than your throne,” but rather one man, Benaiah. This detail needs to be highlighted, since Benaiah is the one whose actions grimly serve to make Solomon’s throne secure by liquidating such personnel as Joab and Shimei in 1 Kgs 2. It is hard to determine why Jonathan makes this claim, but regardless, Adonijah now thinks that all the royal of¿cials have called out in unison and this no doubt hastens his journey to the horns of the altar, where he ¿nds himself at the end of 1 Kgs 1. Second, there is a similar modi¿cation to the words of David. To be sure, the aged king gives plenty of instructions, but the words quoted by Jonathan—“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel who today has given one to sit upon my throne with my own eyes seeing it”—is not part of what is recorded earlier. Again, I have no formal reason as to why Jonathan attributes these words to the king, but structurally, it will have a creative function in the upcoming episodes: it anticipates Solomon’s own inventiveness with language as the story progresses, especially in 1 Kgs 2:23– 24, 31–33, and 44–45. Third, Jonathan’s claim is that David “bowed down on the bed.” This element is not reported by the narrator (which I suppose may reÀect the character’s visual perspective, assuming he was present in the royal bedchamber, or possibly we are to understand that it is reported to him by another character). Nonetheless, the words form a curious intersection with Gen 47—as there is similar language and posture when the aged Israel/Jacob himself bows in reverence—and the reader cannot help noticing that Jacob’s actions take place immediately before the episode where there is a reversal of Manasseh and Ephraim, that is, the elevation of a younger son over and against the culturally ensconced claims of the ¿rstborn. When Jonathan of Abiathar says these words to Adonijah, there is a host of narrative connections, and a parallel is drawn between the house of Eli and the hopes of Adonijah: dashed! 1

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At the conclusion of my analysis, there are a number of compelling reasons as to why the author would choose to have Jonathan son of Abiathar carry this “good news” to Adonijah (when presumably there were other options). Although a comparatively minor ¿gure, through Jonathan’s characterization a number of major themes of the narrative are refracted. Jonathan becomes a kind of signpost along the way, providing hermeneutical directions for reading the larger narrative of 1 Sam 1 to 1 Kgs 2. As I mentioned earlier, Jonathan becomes a touchstone in the larger discussion of succession since he himself is relegated into obscurity by the elevation of a rival house. It is both arresting and appropriate that Jonathan delivers the news about someone being supplanted by a rival, since his house has experienced an identical reality. The very fact that Jonathan (of a once powerful but later disgraced lineage) is the one who communicates this information sends a signal to the reader: Ichabod’s mother will not be the only one asking, “where is the glory?” Far from being a triumphant bit of Solomonic propaganda, Jonathan’s message in 1 Kgs 1:43–48 inserts a note of caution over Solomon’s forthcoming reign, just as it brings Adonijah’s presumptuous hopes to an abrupt halt. Assuming, with a number of scholars, that the destruction of Shiloh metaphorically presages the destruction of Jerusalem, then I would argue that Jonathan is con¿gured by the Deuteronomist to warn the reader that even the most impressive palace of Solomon can have all the durability of a house of cards. The dissolution of a priestly house thus anticipates the disaster that will soon engulf a royal house as the Deuteronomistic History draws to a conclusion.

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Chapter 7

HIGHWAY TO SHEOL: SEDUCTIVE SPEECH AND PROMISCUOUS PLACES IN PROVERBS 7

At a memorable point during his epic voyage, Odysseus puts wax in the ears of his crew and has himself bound to the mast of the ship in order to prevent their enticement through the voices of the Sirens, the infamous sea nymphs who would lure mariners to destruction with their enchanting songs (Odyssey, Book XII). The sage in Prov 7 has a purpose similar to that of Odysseus in that he does not want the young students to be morally shipwrecked, and join the “great heap of dead men’s bones lying all around, with the Àesh still rotting off them.” However, the method for preventing such enticement is quite different: rather than wax, the sage exposes his audience to all the subtle nuances of the seductress’ siren song. The objective of this study is to explore some of the literary techniques used in Prov 7, and to analyze several of the ways that the characters are crafted. Although it is notoriously dif¿cult to determine a date of composition, it has been suggested that Prov 1–9 represents the latest component of the book, and some have argued for a post-exilic or Hellenistic setting. I do not intend to dispute this or other claims, but instead to focus on several of the more effective components of dialogue and description that unfold in the chapter. This chapter of Proverbs is not narrative in the same way as Genesis or the Deuteronomistic History, but the delineation of both the young man and the seductress are of central interest to the sage, and I would argue that attending to the literary aspects of this account provides an angle of analysis that can make a useful contribution to the overall interpretation of the chapter. The structure of Prov 7:1–27 is three-fold: an introduction by the sage in vv. 1–5 counseling his students to live by wisdom, the narrative event and nocturnal encounter of vv. 6–23, followed by the conclusion in vv. 24–27.1 Although some commentators have contended that vv. 6–23 1. K. J. Dell, The Book of Proverbs in Social and Theological Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 45. For a contextual overview, see

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constitutes an interpolation, recent scholarship has made a reasonable case for the unity of the chapter by emphasizing the thematic connections and continuity between each of the three parts.2 Consequently, I will assume the unity of the chapter for the purposes of this study, especially the idea that the seductress is introduced in the ¿rst section and then developed in the main part of vv. 6–23. The introduction of vv. 1–5 is important, therefore, because it sets the context for the meeting between the young man and the seductress, and represents a development of vv. 1–5. As William McKane summarizes: The signi¿cance of this development would seem to me to be that it affords greater imaginative and descriptive scope than is allowed by the precise didactic formulation of the Instruction. Here the teacher does not assert his authority prosaically in imperatives, nor does he argue in motive clauses that his demands are reasonable and should be obeyed. Rather, he relies on his descriptive powers and his ability to reconstruct imaginatively the woman’s stratagems and seductive conversation, so that the warning is conveyed not by schematized instruction, but by introducing the young man into the ways of the world and bringing him to the woman’s house, in order to show him that it is a death trap and that only a fool will satisfy his desire at such a price.3

As elsewhere in the book of Proverbs, ch. 7 opens with the conventional “my son,” as the sage addresses his spiritual offspring, or student, in need of moral direction. “The narrator of this monitory tale,” notes Robert Alter, “is the mentor who in so many passages in Proverbs, whether narrative or aphoristic, addresses the untutored young man (the

H. C. Washington, “The Strange Woman (K\UNQ/KU]K;D) of Proverbs 1–9 and Post-Exilic Judaean Society,” in Second Temple Studies 2: Temple Community in the Persian Period (ed. T. C. Eskenazi and K. H. Richards; JSOTSup 175; Shef¿eld: JSOT, 1994), 217–42, reprinted in A Feminist Companion to Wisdom Literature (ed. A. Brenner; FCB 9; Shef¿eld: Shef¿eld Academic, 1995), 157–84. Cf. C. A. Newsom, “Woman and the Discourse of Patriarchal Wisdom: A Study of Proverbs 1–9,” in Gender and Difference in Ancient Israel (ed. P. L. Day; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), 142–60; H. R. Marbury, “The Strange Woman in Persian Yehud: A Reading of Proverbs 7,” in Approaching Yehud: New Approaches to the Study of the Persian Period (ed. J. L. Berquist; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007), 167–82; D. J. Estes, “What Makes the Strange Woman of Proverbs 1–9 Strange?,” in Ethical and Unethical in the Old Testament: God and Humans in Dialogue (ed. K. J. Dell; LHBOTS 528; New York: T&T Clark International, 2010), 151–69. 2. Note, for instance, the position of R. N. Whybray, Proverbs (NCBC; London: Marshall Pickering; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 110–12. 3. W. McKane, Proverbs: A New Approach (OTL; London: SCM, 1970), 332. 1

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‘lad’ or, more literally, ‘son’) in need of prudential instruction.”4 The call to treasure up (SF) the sage’s words and commands involves an internal assimilation of the tradition, with the consequence that the student will, in the most positive sense, live (K\[). Verse 2b also exhorts the student to keep the sage’s law as the “pupil of your eye” (\Q\>ZY\DN), with the noun ZY\D recurring later in the chapter with both a different nuance and a striking effect (7:9).5 There is a plea for proper intimacy as the sage implores, “Say to wisdom, ‘You are my sister,’ ” suggesting that a rival to the strange woman (about to be introduced) is being emphasized, with wisdom countering the strange woman’s “fatal seductiveness by emerging with the wholesome attractiveness of a bride or wife.”6 In v. 5, then, the student is told that wisdom and understanding will keep him from the “strange woman” (KU]KYD), also called “the foreigner” or “wayward wife” (K\UNQ).7 As mentioned above, I am assuming that the formal introduction of the seductress here is a segue to her role in vv. 6–23, and agree with C. H. Toy that the connection between vv. 1–5 and 6–23 is “natural and desirable.”8 Flattering speech (KT\O[KK\UPD) is the ¿rst attribute of this character to be recorded, signi¿cant because it is an indirect call from the sage to listen carefully to the character’s words in vv. 6–23: it is the quality of her speech that is the gateway to seduction. The ability to entice is grammatically enhanced by use of the Hiphil verb—“the strange one, who causes to be smooth her words”—demonstrating that this individual is highly skilled in the rhetorical craft.9 With

4. Alter, The Art of Biblical Poetry, 56. 5. M. V. Fox, Proverbs 1–9: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 18A; New York: Doubleday, 2000), 239. 6. McKane, Proverbs: A New Approach, 334. 7. For R. C. Van Leeuwen, “A ‘slick mouth’ is an identifying characteristic of the ‘strange woman’ (2:16; 5:3; 6:24; 7:21). It is probably a mistake to try to establish one, totally consistent identity for the ‘strange woman’ in the prologue. She is something of a composite picture, showing traits of the harlot, of the adulterous wife, and perhaps on occasion even of a literal foreigner, whose husband is a traveling merchant.” Van Leeuwen further notes, “the common feature in all the appearances of the strange woman is that she is sexually and spiritually out of bounds. This constitutes her ‘strangeness,’ her violation of the created order of marriage” (“The Book of Proverbs,” NIB 5:84). Cf. N. Kamano, Cosmology and Character: Qoheleth’s Pedagogy from a Rhetorical-Critical Perspective (BZAW 312; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2001), 174. 8. C. H. Toy, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Proverbs (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1899), 145. 9. Cf. B. K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs: Chapters 1–15 (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 362. S. Weeks (Instruction and Imagery in Proverbs 1–9 1

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this introductory platform of vv. 1–5, the sage sets the stage for the narrative event that follows, starting with vv. 6–9:

\WL\%H$/[%\.L \7LST YQ,\%LQYDG>% a\,DW 3EDUDHZ a\Q,% EKQ\ELD

EOHUV[@U>Q +13LOFDHT:9%UEH>R G> F\,+W \%HUGZ! a$\EU>%#YQ% KO SHD@ZKO \!O$Y\DL%

Indeed, through the window of my house through my lattice-work I looked down And I saw among the simple I perceived among the youth a lad lacking in mind Passing on the street, near her corner the way of her house he marches At twilight—the passing of the day at the pupil of night, and darkness

The story commences with the sage specifying his place of view, that is, the vantage point from where he views the actions and movements of the narrative.10 This opening line shares with the audience the sage’s visual perspective on the events, but there appears to be another utility for mentioning the window and lattice-work, as the language evokes a series of connections with other texts having a similar motif con¿guration. In a study of related occurrences, Robert O’Connell locates this passage in Proverbs within seven instances of the “woman and the window” type-scene.11 A common thread in these type-scenes, he notes, [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007], 80) compares the seductress with the robbers of ch. 1: “In neither case does the character deploy any weapon other than their words. The woman might be dressed attractively (7:10), but it is her speech and not her physical charms that she uses to attract the young man, cajoling him ‘with her great persuasiveness, with the smoothness of her lips’ (7:21).” Comparison between the “gang members” and the seductress is also noted by S. A. Adams, Wisdom in Transition: Act and Consequence in Second Temple Instructions (JSJSup 125; Leiden: Brill, 2008), 90–91. 10. Although my interest in this study is the MT, there is an intriguing LXX variant in 7:6–7a, “for from a window out of her house / she peeps into the streets / at whom she may observe of the foolish children” (NETS). Note the summary of L. G. Perdue, Proverbs (Interpretation; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2000), 135, “The Greek Septuagint and Syriac texts have the third-person form of the verbs in this discourse at Prov. 7:6–9, suggesting that the strange woman is the observer. By contrast, the Masoretic Text has the ¿rst-person form of the verbs, and is likely an indication that it is either the teacher or Woman Wisdom who is speaking.” Cf. R. J. Clifford, Proverbs: A Commentary (OTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1999), 87, “Most scholars rightly regard G as secondary, for it abruptly and without notice changes the narrative voice from the father, who has been talking in vv. 1–5, to the woman who entraps him.” 11. R. H. O’Connell, “Proverbs VII 16–17: A Case of Fatal Deception in a ‘Woman and the Window’ Type-Scene,” VT 41 (1991): 235–41. The type-scenes he lists are: Gen 26 (Abimelech looking down at Isaac “laughing” with Rebekah), 1

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is “sexual attraction, or its frustrated potential.”12 Even so, another theme shared by these texts is “deception and the threat of death,” which is a cogent aspect of this narrative event. O’Connell’s schema is helpful for considering issues of literary art in this passage, as it places the narrative within an intertextual matrix, allowing not only for comparisons among the associated texts but also providing a way of drawing attention to some of the unique literary components in Prov 7. Also, if this passage is part of a larger intertextual network, it signals the audience to observe certain patterns of action, in this case especially deception or possible death-threats embedded in the language. Numerous examples of this will be pointed out in due course. As the sage looks down from his window, he espies a group of young lads designated as “the simple” (\WS). This appellation characterizes the group as “open-minded,” with a moral label attached to them that provides an overt description with little ambiguity. Whybray comments that this term “denotes an inexperienced person prone to foolish and so disastrous behavior, but who is still open to persuasion or to the fruits of experience and so may acquire wisdom (cf. 1:22; 21:11).”13 This suggests that a member of this group occupies a certain liminal space: someone might be easily enticed, but might also be willing to listen to the instruction of wisdom. In this group—and here the sage’s focus zooms in for a close-up—is a particular lad whom the sage further de¿nes as lacking in judgment or naïve.14 Since the lad is now described as being devoid of understanding, he has a higher probability of acting contrary to the sage’s advice and the teaching of wisdom. Gale Yee notes that the phrase “lacking in mind” here is identical to 6:32, where the adulterer is typi¿ed with the same designation.15 At this early point, the connection with the Josh 2 (Rahab and the spies), Judg 5 (the mother of Sisera anxiously awaiting her son’s return), 1 Sam 19 (Michal facilitating the escape of David), 2 Sam 6 (Michal subsequently despising David), 2 Kgs 9 (Jezebel communicating with Jehu son of Nimshi), and the present scene in Prov 7. In the judgment of C. B. Ansberry (Be Wise, My Son, and Make My Heart Glad: An Exploration of the Courtly Nature of the Book of Proverbs [BZAW 422; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011], 52, “The speech of the Strange Woman is cast in a correctional type-scene, where the father looks down through his window to observe the youth’s encounter with the seductress.” 12. O’Connell, “Proverbs VII 16–17,” 237. For the Jezebel scene in 2 Kgs 9, he refers the reader to “the sexual imagery associated with eye make-up in Jer 4:30; Ezek 23:40.” 13. Whybray, Proverbs, 33. 14. D. J. Treier, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes (BTCB; Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2011), 42, “It can be a profound mistake to be so naïve, but this need not be fatal.” 15. G. A. Yee, “ ‘I Have Perfumed My Bed with Myrrh’: The Foreign Woman (iššâ zƗrâ) in Proverbs 1–9,” JSOT 43 (1989): 62. 1

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antecedent text in Prov 6 (where the adulterer pays a heavy price for his misdeeds) introduces an ominous portent about the consequences of following suit.16 By referring to the lad as lacking in judgment, a concrete moral evaluation is made, and before the young man performs any action in the narrative the sage has already provided a direct characterization of him that foreshadows a certain kind of disaster. Consequently, the sage’s audience has information in advance of the kind of decisions the character is likely to make as the narrative unfolds, and the types of dangers to which he is particularly susceptible. Having acquainted the audience with the young student, the sage then describes this lad’s actions and movements beginning in v. 8, as he is venturing close to the neighborhood of the seductress. Evidently this lad disassociates himself from his colleagues, but the motive behind this excursion is not altogether clear; perhaps the lad proceeds without an agenda, and that would be exactly the point. According to C. H. Toy, there is no premeditated intention to go to the woman’s house, but rather it is an aimless kind of wandering, albeit the kind of stroll that is discouraged by Ben Sira.17 Yet Johnny Miles senses an ambiguity in the lad’s peregrination: “Does a voyeuristic whim to glimpse the KU]KYD propel the sure steps of this naïve, innocent lad who, in the end, winds up in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or does an unrestrained sexual passion for the K\UNQ drive this fully willing and knowing participant to engage in an erotic tryst such that he, in effect, belies his unsophisticated façade?”18 It has been argued that wisdom texts such as Prov 7 emphasize the need to walk with circumspection, and here is a lad who is not suf¿ciently vigilant.19 From the young man’s perspective, his journey may begin innocuously enough, yet his steps are gradually leading toward “her house.” At the same time, the mention of her house is peculiar, because as a physical setting it never actually features in the seduction— or in the narrative proper—other than it being the ¿nal place where the young man travels after the seduction is accomplished. As part of the 16. Cf. Dell, The Book of Proverbs in Social and Theological Context, 44–45. 17. Toy, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Proverbs, 147. The relevant passage is Sir 9:7, “Do not look around in the streets of a city, or wander about in its deserted sections” (NRSV). 18. J. E. Miles, Wise King—Royal Fool: Semiotics, Satire and Proverbs 1–9 (JSOTSup 399; London: T&T Clark International, 2004), 76. 19. R. B. Y. Scott, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes (AB 18; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1965), 22–26. Cf. T. Longman III, Proverbs (BCOTWP; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006), 187, “…at the moment of ¿rst sighting, he seems to be minding his own business. He is simply walking along the path and crossing the street at the corner.”

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general setting, however, it is important because the seductress describes its contents with such exotic imagery to the lad, and he is persuaded to follow her there at the end of her discourse. If the proleptic introduction of the woman and her house hints of imminent danger, then such hints are enhanced with a remarkable delineation of atmosphere that recalibrates the narrative with a nocturnal temporal setting. Atmosphere, as is de¿ned here, relates to the mood, ambiance, or tone of a literary work, and often is closely connected with the setting.20 Commentators provide different solutions for what appears to be a temporal disjunction between the two half-lines, with “twilight” and “passing of the day” in v. 9a having “night” and “darkness” as a poetic counterpart in v. 9b.21 Another way of viewing this parallelism is that there are two genres of time here, the ¿rst being chronological and the second being typological: the ¿rst then refers to the actual time of the evening when the lad is traversing the streets, while the second represents the symbolic context for journey.22 So, while on one hand the day is gradually fading and moving into the evening hours, the typological context for the actions in the narrative on the other hand is under the dark and gloomy cover of night. The symbolic tone is mainly carried through the use of ZY\D, the same term used in 7:2 when the sage implores the student to keep his teaching as the apple (ZY\D) of his eye. At a minimum, the lad is perilously close to abandoning the sage’s teaching in the fast-approaching gloom of darkness. The nocturnal atmosphere generated through this line produces an ambiance of uncertainty, not least because shadowy darkness (KOSD) is compared with the way of the wicked elsewhere in Proverbs (cf. 4:19). Moreover, there is a mood of danger now overlaying the story, an overture to the menacing “threat of death/ deception lurking in the background” common to the type-scenes referred to by O’Connell.23 In general literary theory, twilight often 20. See Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms, 10–11. 21. E.g. McKane, Proverbs: A New Approach, 336. Interpreting the two halflines as parallel, Scott (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, 63) renders v. 9, “In the dusk when evening was coming on, When the time for sleep comes with the darkness”; and likewise the NJB, “at twilight when day is declining, at dead of night and in the dark.” Cf. the comments of Alter, The Art of Biblical Poetry, 57, “The seeming uncertainty…about the hour between the two halves of line 9 is a lovely instance of the artful use of movement in time and in intensity between versets. It is twilight when she accosts him, but already complete darkness—ishon, the same word used for ‘apple’ of the eye in line 2—is falling, that cover of obscurity under which she will offer him a night of sexual pleasures.” 22. On some categories of temporal settings, see M. A. Powell, What Is Narrative Criticism? (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 72–73. 23. O’Connell, “Proverbs VII 16–17,” 236–37.

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represents the transitory, uncertain moments when the day fades into darkness, and hence this type of imagery “has been connected with emotions ranging from mystery and excitement to melancholy and gloom.”24 The atmosphere of v. 9 not only draws symbolic attention to the lad’s journey, but immediately precedes the formal introduction of the seductress in vv. 10–13:

$WDU TOLK9 DLK1(KLZ! EOHWUFXQ!:KQ$]W\YL WUU BVRZ!D\KLK3:[%a>3 EURDWK13LO. OFDHZ! $/KT YQZ!$%KT \],[KZ! $OUPD7RZK \QS K]>HKH

And behold, a woman to meet him attire of a harlot, guarded of heart Wild is she, and rebellious in her house her feet do not abide Now in the street, now in the squares beside every corner she sets an ambush She seizes him, and kisses him she hardens her face and says to him

The young lad is introduced by the sage in vv. 7–9, and though he is described in a general way (by epithet and movement) a detailed sense of individualism has not emerged.25 On the contrary, v. 10 presents the introduction of the woman with a sense of immediacy and vividness, literally bursting on the scene through the use of the KQK particle. The ¿rst portion of information dispatched concerning her is that she has set out “to meet him,” which Toy notes is by design rather than a chance encounter or random collision.26 The sage then provides two details about her, one external and the other internal. First, she is dressed in “whorish attire,” a mode of clothing that points less to occupation and more to an intent.27 The fact that she is in disguise in many respects con¿rms the motif of concealment and deception evoked by the atmosphere of darkness, and implies a masquerading posture that anticipates a luring enticement.28 Second, she is given an internal description as guarded of heart/mind. Not only is her body disguised, but also she is wily-minded and therefore capable of crafty manipulation: disguised in appearance and disguised in heart. The lad is earlier described as lacking in mind, and is thus easy prey for the seductress who has come forth to meet him. The description of the seductress continues in vv. 11–12, and although 24. H. S. Daemmrich and I. Daemmrich, Themes and Motifs in Western Literature (Tübingen: Francke, 1987), 242. 25. The (intentional) anonymity of the characters is discussed by N. Aschkenasy, Woman at the Window: Biblical Tales of Oppression and Escape (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998), 30. 26. Toy, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Proverbs, 148. 27. Alter, The Art of Biblical Poetry, 55. 28. Daemmrich and Daemmrich, Themes and Motifs in Western Literature, 91–92. 1

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precise renderings are dif¿cult (I am opting for wild and rebellious), the emphasis seems to be on a certain shamelessness in speech and rebellious conduct against her husband. These adjectives set up the report on the places she frequents, and her propensity for rapid movement.29 For Miles, the frenetic motion is suspended only temporarily, and with a speci¿c intent: The brief moment…that she does stay still, she does so only to ‘lie in wait’ (EUD), to set up as it were an ‘ambush,’ a predatory quality shared in common with the a\DM[ (EUD, 1.11, 18) and made explicit in vv. 22–23. Such method to her madness elicits the perception of her as a stalker. While the darkness of night might well veil her midnight rendezvous, it cannot suppress her reputation.30

Earlier the lad was roaming the streets near her corner, most likely without realizing that she has set an ambush by the corner and is about to assail her target. The fateful rendezvous occurs in v. 13 as the two characters who have been separately introduced collide. The seductress ignites the action with a detonation of three verbs: she seizes, kisses, and emboldens her fact. There is a forcefulness in her action that seems to have an almost violent edge to it. Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes notes that this kind of action— where a woman is physical against a man—is rare in the Hebrew Bible, and that this scene resembles “the beginning of a rape scene.”31 Her physical actions precede her speech, demonstrating that these gestures are a requisite aspect of the seduction. There is another statement that points to an additional aspect of her performance, as she “makes bold her face” (K\QSK]>K), an action that conveys a sense of brazenness or impertinence. This facial expression may also indicate something of the quality of her speech that is about to unfold, that she cannot be trusted and may well utter untruths.32 The spatio-temporal setting of her words, one recalls, is “outside” under the blanket of darkness. This context for 29. Weeks (Instruction and Imagery in Proverbs 1–9, 144) comments that her movement “adds a new dimension to the description: she is not always a static danger, a trap to be avoided by staying away from her door (5:8, cf. 9:14), or at least out of range of her eyes (6:25), but can, rather, be a predator, actively seeking prey.” 30. Miles, Wise King—Royal Fool, 78. 31. A. Brenner and F. van Dijk-Hemmes, On Gendering Texts: Female and Male Voices in the Hebrew Bible (Leiden: Brill, 1993), 59. 32. D. A. Garrett (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs [NAC; Nashville: Broadman, 1993], 104) notes that this phrasing “indicates she is lying. The phrase is found only here and in Proverbs 21:29, where it refers to a straight-faced lie.” For Clifford (Proverbs: A Commentary, 88), the expression K\QSK]>K “perhaps means facing him without the veil customary for a married woman appearing in public.”

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her impending discourse reinforces the atmosphere of mistrust in a physical environment fraught with uncertainty and danger.33 The seductress is earlier de¿ned as being smooth of speech, and now after a considerable build-up, she speaks to the lad in vv. 14–17:

\O > a\PLO Y\[HE], \U G Q!\7LP/YLa$ DF PDZA\Q3 U[HYO \ILBU!>\7LG!EU a\',EU!P a\,U FPL:MDHW$EMX[@ \ELB. YPL\7LSQ $P1TLZ!a\OLK D@UPR

Communion offerings I have sacri¿ced today I have ful¿lled my vows Therefore I have come out to meet you eagerly to seek your face, and I have found you With ornaments I have ornamented my couch dark-hued covers of Egyptian thread I have perfumed my bed: myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon!

The seductress begins her direct speech by using religious language, with a summary of offerings and vows she has recently undertaken. Twice she uses the root aOY in her opening statement, potentially creating a picture of peace, friendship, and a lack of hostility: “It [aOY] signi¿es primarily wholeness, soundness, and so security, friendly, peaceful relations with the deity, or the payment of one’s obligations to the deity so as to secure his friendship.”34 Most commentators agree that the peace offering the woman refers to includes a remaining portion that provides a meal at the end.35 Without explicitly mentioning it, the seductress implies that a fresh meal awaits, and by not naming it as such, she allows the lad’s imagination free rein to contemplate the fare of this feast. From the outset she coats her discourse with an acutely pious veneer, perhaps to disarm and reassure the lad with comforting and domestic language about a religious obligation that is festive in nature.36 33. See Bal, Narratology, 93–99, for a discussion of the relationship between “place and space” and characterization. 34. Toy, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Proverbs, 151. Cf. N. Tan, The “Foreignness” of the Foreign Woman in Proverbs 1–9: A Study of the Origin and Development of a Biblical Motif (BZAW 381; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008), 98: “It seems likely that she has also already made the peace-offerings, given her apparent intention to have intercourse, and therefore render herself ritually unclean (cf. Lev 7:11–21). Thus it may be understood that she is saying little more than that she has a reason to celebrate.” 35. “We may wonder,” says M. Fox (Proverbs 1–9, 246) in response to heated scholarly discussion about menstruation and ritual (im)purity, “why this would matter to either party, since they are involved in a sin incomparably worse than violation of ritual purity. But people may be punctilious in ritual and taboo while shabby in ethics.” 36. R. E. Murphy (Proverbs [WBC 22; Nashville: Nelson, 1998], 44) asks: “is she employing some religious camouÀage in case the youth has any scruples?” 1

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Through these words, she is indirectly portraying herself as a devout woman. The banquet, whatever cultic notions it conjures up, is a convenient pretext and the ¿rst component of her alluring discourse: a night of complete sensual pleasures commencing with a luxurious and celebratory meal.37 After the announcement that she has ful¿lled her vows, the seductress has a more personal address to the young man, explaining how she has eagerly sought him. The description of the seductress in vv. 10–12 gives the impression that she would seek anyone (among the “simple”) available, whereas here she is explaining to the lad that he is the speci¿c object of her interest. In all probability the woman is exercising considerable license in this discourse, and counting on the lad’s lack of critical discernment. She implies that she has been searching diligently just for him, and her greeting has a sense of triumph. But the most luxurious images in her speech are reserved for her house in general and her bed in particular; in the next two verses (vv. 16 and 17), attention ef¿ciently turns more overtly to her house, the spatial setting where the seductress desires to lead the young man. Her house was introduced by the sage in v. 8, and it is implied by her in v. 14 as the place where the feast is awaiting. Focusing on a distinct piece of furniture within, she invites the lad’s imagination to incline toward her bed and its opulence. The emphasis is on the resplendence of this piece of furniture—no doubt carrying some suggestive overtones—and the reference to “Egyptian” fabric makes the tapestry appear foreign and exotic, imagery selected to provoke excitement in the mind of her hearer. In addition to the visual delights of the bedspread with its embroidery, the seductress also highlights the sensual appeal of her bedroom and the aromas of “myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.” Like the Egyptian bedcovering, many scholars point to the foreignness of each of these products. Alter mentions the geographical expanse contained in this boast: “We might note that she has reached out, as it were, over the length and breadth of the known commercial world to enhance the fragrance and softness of her bed, using ¿ne Egyptian linens from the South and spices from the East, including cinnamon, which might have been brought all the way from India.”38 Importing such commodities, one guesses, would not be cheap. For Bruce Waltke, these aromatic spices “had to be obtained from

37. McKane, Proverbs: A New Approach, 337. Note also the detailed study of K. van der Toorn, “Female Prostitution in Payment of Vows in Ancient Israel,” JBL 108 (1989): 193–205. 38. Alter, The Art of Biblical Poetry, 59. 1

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merchants who had traveled great distances, and they were prized and displayed as part of a king’s treasury (2 K. 20:13). Only kings and the very wealthy could afford to use them lavishly (Ps. 45:7–8[8–9]; Song 3:6–7). The merchant’s wife was willing to spend all this to gratify her fervid sexual passion.”39 This cosmopolitan Àavoring in her description affects both the atmosphere (giving her bedroom an urbane and sophisticated quality), while at the same time she presents herself as a wealthy and cultured woman of afÀuence. The overall depiction, therefore, is quite rightly viewed as a strong advertisement of the aesthetics of her house and divan.40 O’Connell, however, goes a step further, and with numerous references to ancient sources, points out that these spices and the linen also have an embalming purpose, preparing a body for burial.41 Thus, the imported colored linen and the spices, having this double-edged use, assume a more sinister role in this narrative; thus the adornments of the temptress’ bed take on “deceptive or ominous nuances.”42 When assessed in this light, the various items serve to enhance the atmosphere of danger that pervades the narrative, the temporal setting of which has already been placed in darkness and gloom. In all likelihood the young lad is impervious to the more ominous connections of the spices and linen with burial imagery, and instead hears their recital only as instruments of enjoyment. I am assuming that double entendre and the artistic dimension of the Hebrew Bible is not the highest priority at the moment for the young man. The wayward wife, it is probable, is also unaware of the doubleedged mortuary imagery she uses, but the ¿gurative effect on her characterization is that she is being portrayed as a virtual embalmer, with her luxurious bed of pleasure simultaneously presented as a sarcophagus awaiting an occupant. There is a new intensity in vv. 18–20:

UT%RKG>a\G,GRKZU!Q,KN O a\ELK D?% KV />WQ, $W\EH%Y\DLK \DH\.L T$[U PHUG%OK

$G\%[TO #V.KU$UF $W\EHDER\DV.HKa$\O

Come, let us drink full of caresses until morning let us rejoice in loving Indeed, the man is not at his house he has gone on a far journey A purse of silver he has taken in his hand at the new moon day, he will come to his house

39. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs: Chapters 1–15, 379. 40. Yee, “ ‘I Have Perfumed My Bed with Myrrh,’ ” 63, compares these fragrances with those used in the Song of Songs (see 3:16; 4:14; 5:1). 41. O’Connell, “Proverbs VII 16–17,” 238. 42. Ibid.

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To this point the seductress has employed vivid and picturesque language to instill in the young man’s mind the attractions of a meal and her couch, words that must cause him to envision her house as a most appealing habitation. The speech is getting long and has not been interrupted, and seems to have been building to the moment in v. 18 where “verbal foreplay” ceases and is replaced by a direct invitation to drink deeply of love.43 The stress so far has been on past preparations, but now there is an appeal to future events with verb choices that emphasize revelry and satiation, providing the lad with several options of physical ebullience. Nonetheless, it is quite conceivable that the young man could have one rather strong objection to this invitation: encountering the male proprietor of the well-decorated house, and the husband to this smooth-speaking seductress.44 Whether or not she senses the lad’s fear of getting caught, any objection is preemptively stiÀed with a loquacious explanation of her husband’s absence: not only has “the man” gone away on a long journey, but he has taken a bag of money with him. The man/husband—though implicit in the story—now makes his of¿cial appearance as a new character in the drama as introduced indirectly by the seductress. This nameless ¿gure has generated quite a bit of interest among scholars. It has been argued that the woman’s reference to “the man” is an offhand remark that signals some neglect or emotional estrangement between the husband and wife, but I am not sure that the woman can be altogether trusted in the matter. It is also suggested that the husband is a “rich merchant who is engaged in extensive business transactions,” an enterprise that has taken him on a protracted venture.45 Commentators also have different reactions to the money, and wonder why the seductress would raise it in her speech.

43. Miles, Wise King—Royal Fool, 81. On the invitation, Yee (“ ‘I Have Perfumed My Bed with Myrrh,’ ” 63) notes, “We recall that her invitation to ‘Come (lƟkâ)!’ is the same as the sinners in their speech in 1:11. Furthermore, we saw that the father enjoined his son to let the breasts of his wife ¿ll (rwh) him at all times. In her love (hb) he should be seduced, and not by that of the iššâ zƗrâ (5:19–20). The call of the iššâ zƗrâ in 7:19–20 is the same, but with a major difference. The love of the true wife will ¿ll her beloved at all times. The love of the iššâ zƗrâ is transitory. It lasts until morning, until the return of her cuckolded husband.” 44. Alter (The Art of Biblical Poetry, 59) notes that after the explicit sexual proposition undertaken by adopting familiar metaphors, this reassurance may be the result of her detecting a look of “fearful hesitation” in the youth. If this inference is plausible, it would show her Àexibility in approaching the seduction, adapting it to the individual purposes of the moment. 45. McKane, Proverbs: A New Approach, 338. 1

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Some argue that she makes a tacit appeal for the lad to assist with all the expenses she has incurred (i.e. the ¿rst stage of swindling her victim), while others view the reference to the bag of silver as part of her reassurance: the man has a good deal of cash on hand, and not only does he plan on being away for a long time, but he can afford to travel a long distance. The latter inference is supported by her reference to the full moon—not the easiest item to interpret—which seemingly points to the expected return of the husband a long time from now. The idea of tangled motives (both a sexual and ¿nancial plundering) is attractive, though in my view it is unlikely that this young man has any money; from his characterization so far, there is little chance he has started a mega-corporation from the ancient Near Eastern equivalent of his dormitory room, and hence there are better candidates to dupe than this lad. The seductress makes a compelling case that the husband has no chance of returning due to the distance traversed and the amount of money he has on hand, so he will not be back until the new moon. Accordingly, the wife is imploring the lad to seize the night, as this is an opportune moment and the time is right in so many ways. As the young man’s subsequent actions in vv. 21–23 illustrate, it has been a highly persuasive oration:

+[ BTOLEUR%:7-KL :1[\',7K \WS ITO[H% aDRW3LK \U[@DOH$K D$E\[EM ODU$Y. O\Z,DUV:PODVN>N: $GEH.[H[/S\!G> [3 BODU$3FLUKHP. D:K$YSQE\.L>G\DO^Z!

She turns him aside with her abundant learning by the smoothness of her lips she compels him He is walking after her suddenly like an ox to slaughter he goes like a stag heads into a trap Until an arrow splits his liver like a bird hurries to a snare he does not know that it is his life

Imagery, as de¿ned by M. H. Abrams, “is used to signify all the objects and qualities of sense perception referred to in a poem or other work of literature, whether by literal description, by allusion, or in the vehicles (the secondary references) of its similes and metaphors.”46 A fund of images is used in the seductive speech in vv. 14–20, appealing to a range of sensations in the listener’s imagination. Beginning with her aggressive touch—seizing the lad and kissing him—the adulteress evokes numerous tastes and aromas in persuading the lad to accompany her to the house. The use of such imagery was not lost on the medieval commentators: “Sa‘adia calls the passage a mašal and argues that the

1

46. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms, 86.

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narrative reports progressively worse actions and describes how the woman seduces the boy by appealing to all ¿ve senses.”47 The lad himself becomes the subject of some ¿gurative language in vv. 22–23: by agreeing to follow after her, he is likened to a creature walking unawares into a trap set by a hunter. There is a technical dif¿culty noted by scholars in v. 22, as O\ZDUVZPODVN>NZ is hard to interpret. Johnny Miles, however, proffers both a useful explanation and an intriguing theory: The uncertainty of the second simile results from the fact that the sense of the surface level of expression, which quite literally reads ‘like a fetter to the discipline of a fool,’ does not ¿t the animal imagery. As a result,” Miles summarizes, “many scholars choose the well-trod path of textual emendation. But the graphic contiguity of O\D (‘stag’) to O\ZD (‘fool’) invites the intuition of a deer or gazelle caught, tied to a stake and ready for killing, while simultaneously preserving intact textual integrity.48

The rather ingenious wordplay is only one aspect; as it turns out, the “stag” may also have a multivalent nuance, as Herbert R. Marbury views this reference as an inversion of a familiar image in the Song of Songs: Raising eightfold the specter of death, the instructor resorts again to reversals of the language of the Song of Songs. The lover in the Song is told twice to be as a ‘young stag’ (2:17; 8:14) high on a mountain. Similarly, in 7:22b the lover in Proverbs also is characterized as a stag, but unlike the Song this lover is ‘like a stag toward a trap.’ Not the symbol of a strong and virile lover. Rather, the stag is recast as a foolish, helpless animal being seduced to its death.49

By venturing in her neighborhood under the cover of darkness and listening to the words of the seductress, the lad becomes like an ox or a deer or a bird cluelessly marching into a baited snare: by a character initially described as smooth of speech, the lad is slowly lured to his destruction, akin to ancient mariners shipwrecked by a siren song. The sage concludes his address in vv. 24–27:

47. Fox, Proverbs 1–9, 241. 48. Miles, Wise King—Royal Fool, 83. Numerous emendations have been proposed; see Whybray, Proverbs, 117, where he mentions Driver’s proposal of “like a stag skipping into the noose.” Cf. Weeks, Instruction and Imagery in Proverbs 1–9, 217. 49. Marbury, “The Strange Woman in Persian Yehud,” 181. Marbury cites R. J. Weems, Battered Love: Marriage, Sex and Violence in the Hebrew Prophets (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 23–25.

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7. Highway to Sheol

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So now, my sons, listen to me attend to the sayings of my mouth Do not swerve your heart to her ways do not wander in her well-worn paths For many are the slain she has caused to fall and numerous are all her casualties Her house is the ways to Sheol going down to the bedrooms of death

With one eye ¿rmly on the world of Israelite culture, Ronald Clements argues: “Sexual promiscuity in biblical times, as so often since, was revealing itself as a problem which the legislative authority of the law could not easily control and on which the educational persuasiveness of wisdom was seen to provide a much needed support.” 50 If part of the aim of Prov 7 is to impart wisdom for dealing with temptation, then an intriguing character has been created for that end. The strange woman is ¿rst introduced as a ¿gure whose Àattering words are a danger zone to be avoided, and the quality of her speech—from powerful images to extemporaneous assuaging of fear—is an impressive achievement. In Alter’s opinion, there is an individuality that emerges through a “fusion of generality (the embodiments of moral types) and vivid concreteness. The woman here is the general type, seductress, but she also is made to speak and act with a persuasive distinctiveness of presence. In her mouth, the balanced parallel utterances of biblical verse take on a dramatic plausibility, an almost colloquial Àuency.”51 A principal reason why the seductress is an individualized and memorable character is her use of language, as she verbally constructs an enticing pleasure dome in the lad’s imagination. It may be, however, that many of her words and images are not entirely original. Daniel Grossberg suggests that her discourse features an exploitation of conventional love lyrics (such as those found in Song of Songs), giving the notion that the seductress uses intertextuality to suit her own subversive purposes in enticing the young man.52 This resonates with an insight of Claudia Camp, who argues that “the signi¿cance of the seduction is that it is carried out in language that separates deed from consequence.” On Prov 7, Camp notes:

50. R. E. Clements, “Proverbs,” in Dunn and Rogerson, eds., Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible, 444. 51. Alter, The Art of Biblical Poetry, 58. 52. D. Grossberg, “Two Kinds of Sexual Relationships in the Hebrew Bible,” HS 35 (1994): 1–25.

1

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The Artistic Dimension the woman does not seek to convince her prey that adultery is right, but only that they can get away with it because her husband is not home. Using language, she creates a false sense of security, seemingly insulating the perpetrator of wrongdoing from any negative outcome. Language here throws up a smoke screen, blinding its listeners to the effect of their actions upon themselves and society. In this manner, not only is morality threatened, but the use of language is perverted, its relationship to what the sages considered reality sundered, and the discourse of the sage, on which the intellectual endeavor depends, thus rendered suspect.53

Despite this sense of individuality and what Alter refers to as “persuasive distinctiveness of presence,” the seductress is still a rather Àat character when compared with other portraits of biblical ¿gures such as Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Jezebel and others. Applying the category of predictability outlined by Mieke Bal, the seductress displays some complication and is skilled in the arts of seduction, but there is a lack of depth or ambiguity required to transcend the conventional stereotype.54 To be sure, she is a dangerous character with a Àexible and probing mind, but ultimately is two-dimensional because there appears to be no capacity for surprising or unexpected actions. While there is considerable linguistic aptitude in appealing to the imagination (that is, the power to trigger a series of cognitive images) the ends are limited, predictable, and, as Camp maintains, perverted. Furthermore, the sphere for the seductress’ direct speech appears to be localized to one particular kind of environment, and at one certain time as well.55 Much more three-dimensional, in my view, is her house, initially mentioned as the lad’s steps inch closer to her domain, and then described by her as a kind of alternative temple, replete with ritual observance, sacri¿ces, burning incense, and the ¿nest of accoutrements. Despite her rhetorical architecture, the sage—observing all the while from the vantage point of his house—identi¿es her house as a portal to the bedchambers of Sheol. When the young man follows after her, the wisdom of the sage is eschewed, and one more statistic is added to the database of the slain.

53. C. V. Camp, “Woman Wisdom as Root Metaphor: A Theological Consideration,” in The Listening Heart: Essays in Wisdom and the Psalms in Honor of Roland E. Murphy, O. Carm. (ed. K. G. Hoglund, E. F. Huwiler, J. T. Glass, and R. W. Lee; JSOTSup 58; Shef¿eld: JSOT, 1987), 51–52. 54. Bal, Narratology, 82–85. 55. D. S. Bland, “Endangering the Reader’s Neck: Background Description in the Novel,” in The Theory of the Novel (ed. P. Stevick; New York: Free Press, 1967), 330. In Bland’s reckoning, a multi-dimensional character is often seen in more than one kind of environment, and at more than one particular temporal setting. 1

Part IV

THE WORLD OF CHRONICLES

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Chapter 8

THE ROYAL SKULL IN A TEMPLE OF DOOM: AN INTERPRETATION OF 1 CHRONICLES 10:10

Evoking an extraordinary breadth of different reactions ranging from sympathy to contempt, the story of King Saul has piqued the imagination of many interested readers. Just as the history of interpretation bears witness to the diversity of exegetical labels—ineffectual bungler or victim of supernatural capriciousness—so recent interpretive trends have pointed out that Saul’s story itself is not quite as monolithic as may have been supposed, but may in fact reveal several viewpoints represented in the Hebrew Bible. The majority of readers—it is fair to assume—default to the biography of Saul that is recounted in the Deuteronomistic History, the expansive narrative of 1 Samuel. As is well known, 1 Sam 9–31 relates the wild vicissitudes of Saul’s journey from Benjaminite farmer to the inaugural king of Israel, including prophetic rejections, familial betrayals, spiritual torment, and, climactically, a long journey to a ¿nal battle wherein Saul knows he will be killed. There are compelling reasons, therefore, to consult the rich and varied account of Saul’s traumatic life and times as captured in the Deuteronomistic History. Yet the Chronicler’s epic also includes attention to Saul, and after the long genealogical prelude of the initial nine chapters, the ¿rst formal narrative focuses attention on Saul. Although numerous episodes conceivably could have been selected—involving some sort of cultic error or lapse in judgment—the Chronicler chooses to usher the reader onto the slopes of battle for Saul’s last (unsuccessful) stand against his perennial Philistine foes. By all accounts the story of Saul’s demise on the slopes of Mount Gilboa is a riveting narrative, quite literally, since Saul gets decapitated and riveted to a Philistine temple in both 1 Sam 31 and 1 Chr 10. Yet, despite its truncated form, the portrait of Saul in Chronicles is an intriguing one, a characterization that differs at a number of key points from the antecedent material in the Deuteronomistic History.1 One of the 1. G. N. Knoppers, “Israel’s First King and ‘The Kingdom of YHWH in the Hands of the Sons of David’: The Place of the Saulide Monarchy in the Chronicler’s

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more graphic differences between Chronicles and the Deuteronomistic History—and this is my point of entry for the present study—concerns the fate of Saul’s skull, a variation that is quickly apparent when the two relevant texts are compared: They put his weapons in the house of Ashtoreth, but his corpse ($W