The Pentateuch and Its Readers 9783161608209, 9783161608216, 3161608208

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Forschungen zum Alten Testament Edited by

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

170

The Pentateuch and Its Readers Edited by

Joel S. Baden and Jeffrey Stackert

Mohr Siebeck

Joel S. Baden, born 1977; 2007 PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations (Hebrew Bible) from Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts); Professor of Hebrew Bible at Yale University. Jeffrey Stackert, born 1977; 2006 PhD in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies (Bible and Ancient Near East) from Brandeis University (Waltham, Massachusetts); Professor of Hebrew Bible at the University of Chicago.

ISBN 978-3-16-160820-9 / eISBN 978-3-16-160821-6 DOI 10.1628/978-3-16-160821-6 ISSN 0940-4155 / eISSN 2568-8359 (Forschungen zum Alten Testament) The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data are available at http://dnb.dnb.de. ©  2023 Mohr Siebeck Tübingen, Germany.  www.mohrsiebeck.com This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that permitted by copyright law) without the publisher’s written permission. This applies particularly to reproductions, translations and storage and processing in electronic systems. The book was typeset by Martin Fischer in Tübingen using Minion typeface, printed on nonaging paper by Gulde Druck in Tübingen, and bound by Buchbinderei Spinner in Ottersweier. Printed in Germany.

Preface In the academic world, a legacy can be built in a variety of ways: important publications; generative ideas and arguments; and a lineage of students. The honoree of this volume, Baruch J. Schwartz, has established his legacy in all three ways. From his dissertation and first book, The Holiness Legislation: Studies in the Priestly Code (1999), a work on the priestly writings that in its insights into the relationship of P and H was well ahead of its time, to his essay on the sources of the Sinai pericope, “The Priestly Account of the Theophany and Lawgiving at Sinai” (1996), which since its publication has formed the basis for virtually every discussion of that material, to his revolutionary reading of Ezekiel, in “Ezekiel’s Dim View of Israel’s Restoration” (2000), and beyond, Baruch’s publications have marked watershed moments in the field’s understanding of the biblical text. Those of us who have had the privilege of observing Baruch’s writing process can confirm what any reader can clearly see: Baruch writes with enormous care and craft, generating scholarly works that are as pleasurable to read as they are informative and inspiring. Each article is a jewel: crystal clear, multi-faceted, and of lasting value, rewarding anew each time it is read. Baruch, it sometimes seems, has produced no minor works. His scholarly oeuvre is practically a greatest hits collection in its entirety. In terms of ideas, Baruch has contributed significantly to multiple areas of biblical studies. As already noted, his work on Ezekiel has revolutionized the understanding of that book’s theology, and his work on the priestly source of the Pentateuch, both in its laws and its narratives, is fundamental for virtually everyone who works in those materials. It is no surprise, however, that Baruch’s most extensive contribution to the field has been in his work on the composition of the Pentateuch. Over the past few decades, Baruch has distinguished himself as the world’s foremost proponent of the Documentary Hypothesis for the composition of the Pentateuch. He has championed what has come to be known as the NeoDocumentarian approach, a theory that at one point may have been confined exclusively to Baruch’s own thinking, teaching, and writing, but that has, in the wake of his work, become the dominant model in North America for the Pentateuch’s literary history. Even when scholars and students may not have read Baruch’s writings on this topic directly, whenever one encounters a reference to the Documentary Hypothesis, or to P, J, E, and D, in contemporary scholarship, Baruch is there on the page. He is, without question, the father of an entire school of thought, and one of the true giants in pentateuchal studies.

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Preface

And though it may be the least obvious to the outside observer, the area in which Baruch has made the greatest contribution is – certainly for those of us who have been lucky enough to benefit from it – in his instruction of and dedication to his students. Baruch is not only a magnificent scholar in his own right; he is an extraordinarily generous one. Baruch has always displayed an uncommon devotion to developing young scholars – both those at his home institution, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and at many others around the world. He has invested his time, energy, and tenacity – himself – in so many of us, training us in the exacting practices that are the hallmark of his own scholarship. He has also offered unfailing and liberal support at every turn. It is no surprise, then, to observe the pride with which Baruch’s students – and even some colleagues – identify themselves as his pupils. Given who Baruch is, it is difficult to imagine a more fitting tribute to him than one that comes from his students, and that highlights the many ways that his work and pedagogical dedication has contributed to their own work over the many decades of his career. This volume is just such a tribute, filled with essays from those whom Baruch has taught, both formally and informally. As reflects Baruch’s own wide-ranging interests, this collection contains essays on the literary history of the Pentateuch, on the Priestly writings, on Ezekiel, on Jewish interpretation, and more. As we offer this volume to and for Baruch, we do so not as a gift, but as an expression of gratitude. We would not be where we are without him and his unflagging support, as we were starting out as scholars and in every season thereafter. Baruch has been a model of scholarship, of intellect, and of pedagogy, and will continue as such for the rest of our careers. We are thrilled and honored to be able to present this volume to our teacher, and our friend, Baruch Schwartz. Joel Baden and Jeffrey Stackert

Table of Contents Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . V Joel Baden and Jeffrey Stackert Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Joel Baden Despoiling the Egyptians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 David Ben-Gad HaCohen ‫ יִ ְ ׂש ָר ֵאל‬,‫ֹלהי‬ ַ ‫ ֵאל ֱא‬, ֹ‫לו‬-‫וַ ִ ּי ְק ָרא‬. And [Jacob] Named Himself, El (is) My God – Israel (Gen 33:20) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Liane Feldman Misplaced Places. Redaction and the Priestly Wilderness Itinerary . . . . . . . . 27 Ariel Seri-Levi The Yahwistic Account of the Theophany at Sinai. The Establishment of the Divine Presence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Dodani Orstav The Second Ascent of Moses for the Inscription of the Tablets. A Case of Literary Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Guy Darshan The Tent of Meeting in Samuel and Kings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Ariel Kopilovitz A Glimpse into Ancient Israel’s Priesthood. The Priestly School’s Writings of the Pre-Exilic Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 Itamar Kislev A Sanctuary without the Ark. The Cultic Shrine at Gibeon according to Chronicles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

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Table of Contents

Raanan Eichler 3s Verbs with Indefinite Subjects in the Tabernacle Pericopes of Exodus . . 191 Naphtali S. Meshel, Adiv Hadar, Yedidya Jesselsohn, Yael Leokumovich, Hananel Shapira, Omri Shareth, Doren G. Snoek, Julia Tuliakov, Daniel Zohar Cross-Reference and “Borgesian” Slippage in Leviticus 1–5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 Sarah Shectman “She Shall Be Burned with Fire”. Femininity and Intersectionality in the Bible’s Priestly Source . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Jeffrey Stackert Creation, Sanctuary, and the Priority of the Priestly Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255 Benjamin D. Sommer Tradition and Change in Priestly Law. On the Internal Coherence of the Priestly Worldview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269 Simeon Chavel Intergenerational Punishment: A New History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285 David Lambert What is Tôrâ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307 Tova Ganzel 4Q385 (Pseudo-Ezekiel) in the Context of Ezekiel’s Restoration . . . . . . . . . . 337 Mira Balberg Impurity without Danger. A Mishnaic Reading of the Priestly ḥattat . . . . . . 353 Eran Viezel The Author of the Book of Job in the Jewish Tradition. Throughout the Ages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381 List of Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407 Index of Ancient Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409 Index of Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437 Index of Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446

Introduction Joel Baden and Jeffrey Stackert The essays in this volume cluster around several, partially overlapping nodes, each of which showcases the influence of Baruch Schwartz. The first section’s essays address specific problems in pentateuchal source criticism, each in a documentary mode. In “Despoiling the Egyptians,” Joel Baden offers a new argument for assigning the despoiling texts in Exod 3:21–22, 11:2–3, and 12:35–36 to the Yahwistic source. Assigning this plot detail to J creates a story link with Exod 33:1–6; it also helps to clarify the contours of the fragmentary E material preserved around the plagues. David Ben-Gad HaCohen’s contribution, “‫ ישראל‬,‫ אל אלהי‬,‫ויקרא לו‬: And [Jacob] Named Himself, El (is) My God – Israel (Gen 33:20),” offers a creative reconstruction of the Jacob traditions in Gen 32–33, arguing for their ascriptions to the J and E sources and proposing a history of their composition and combination. In her essay, “Misplaced Places: Redaction and the Priestly Wilderness Itinerary,” Liane Feldman traces the complicated history of Israel’s wilderness travel in P and shows how its itinerary notices now found in Num 21–22 were relocated by the pentateuchal compiler from their original position in the Phineas story now found in Num 25. Rounding out this section are the essays by Ariel Seri-Levi and Dodani Orstav. Both take up the accounts of Israel at the mountain. Seri-Levi’s contribution, “The Yahwistic Account of the Theophany at Sinai: The Establishment of the Divine Presence,” traces the J account from Exod 19–34 and shows that its chief concern in this section is divine immanence. With this argument, Seri-Levi identifies a similarity between the J and P sources that sets them against E and D. In “The Second Ascent of Moses for the Inscription of the Tablets: A Case of Literary Development,” Orstav treats the E mountain account, giving special attention to Exod 34. He argues that in the original E story, the second set of tablets were delivered at the Tent of Meeting, not as part of a second mountain ascent. He then traces the development of this tradition in the formation of the compiled Pentateuch. The volume’s second section of essays treats issues of priesthood, cult, and Priestly texts. Guy Darshan, Ariel Kopilovitz, and Itamar Kislev each address questions of cult and priestly writing outside of the pentateuchal Priestly source. In “The Tent of Meeting in Samuel and Kings,” Darshan considers the possibility that the idea of the Tent of Meeting as a sanctuary was known beyond P. To do so, he examines its two appearances in Samuel and Kings (1 Sam 2:22;

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Joel Baden and Jeffrey Stackert

1 Kgs 8:10–11). Darshan concludes that both instances are secondary additions, albeit from different hands. Kopilovitz also treats the Former Prophets, arguing that the same authors may have been responsible for pentateuchal Priestly texts as well as some material incorporated into the Deuteronomistic History. In service of this claim, Kopilovitz offers a detailed analysis of 2 Kgs 11–12, the account of Jehoash’s enthronement and temple renovations, and highlights there distinctive ideology and legal details otherwise known only from P. Kislev sets his sights on Chronicles. His study, “A Sanctuary without the Ark: The Cultic Shrine at Gibeon according to Chronicles,” observes the Chronicler’s attempt to legitimate Solomon’s sacrificial activity at Gibeon by underscoring Gibeon’s validity as a cult site. This legitimation effort, Kislev suggests, also created an ancient precedent for the circumstances of the Second Temple, which was understood to be a locus of divine presence but existed without the First Temple’s ark. The essays of Raanan Eichler and Naphtali S. Meshel, Adiv Hadar, Yedidya Jesselsohn, Yael Leokumovich, Hananel Shapira, Omri Shareth, Doren G. Snoek, Julia Tuliakov, and Daniel Zohar address stylistic features in P. In “3s Verbs with Indefinite Subjects in the Tabernacle Pericopes of Exodus,” Eichler argues that the use of the third person singular verbal form with indefinite subject is common in P and shows its import for understanding the content and transmission history of the Tabernacle instructions and their implementation narrative. Meshel, Hadar, Jesselsohn, Leokumovich, Shapira, Shareth, Snoek, Tuliakov, and Zohar do not address issues of grammatical style but styles of logical and chronological organization in P’s law and narration. Specifically, they identify in “CrossReference and ‘Borgesian’ Slippage in Leviticus 1–5” cross-referencing as a basic feature of P’s laws on sacrifice and purity and what they term the “elephant-inthe-car effect,” namely, a slippage or confusion between the temporalities and organizing logic of a social world of cultic-legal practice beyond P’s narrative and the sequence of P’s narrative presentation itself. Sarah Shectman, Jeffrey Stackert, and Benjamin D. Sommer each address specific issues in pentateuchal Priestly thought. In her essay, “‘She Shall Be Burned with Fire’: Femininity and Intersectionality in the Bible’s Priestly Source,” Shectman explores the complex interplay between gender and power in the laws governing women in priestly families in Lev 21. She shows that these laws have implications for social hierarchies beyond priestly families, for both women and for men. Stackert’s essay, “Creation, Sanctuary, and the Priority of the Priestly Story,” argues against the well-endorsed view that there is a fundamental link between creation an sanctuary building in P and that the latter is the completion of the former. Stackert shows that a basic discontinuity between creation and sanctuary building is assumed in P’s plot and that this discontinuity undergirds P’s pure/impure and sacred/profane dichotomies. Sommer’s study, “Tradition and Change in Priestly Law: On the Internal Coherence of the Priestly Worldview,” offers a more global assessment of P. It argues two main points: first, that P

Introduction

3

conceives of its law as dynamic and thus subject to change over time; and second, that P’s religious thought, with its thorough internal coherence, can ultimately be labeled a systematic theology. The third section of contributions includes two insightful essays that treat major religious ideas in the Hebrew Bible. Simeon Chavel’s “Intergenerational Punishment: A New History” traces the development of the idea that Yahweh punishes one generation for the faults of its precedessor(s) across its biblical manifestations. Chavel details the remarkable transition in perceptions of this notion – from one established on principles of divine patience and mercy and grounded in notions of the family to one derided as unfair to individuals to one unrecognizable and thus set aside altogether. In “What is Tôrâ?,” David Lambert works to understand tôrâ both in its various biblical usages and as a larger idea, especially in the early reception of pentateuchal materials in late biblical texts. He argues that, whatever its development over time, tôrâ did not lose its spoken valence – a sense well-captured in its rendering as “instruction.” Among other things, this understanding helps to explain the dynamism of pentateuchal texts for early interpreters, who harnessed these texts’ “iconic value” to imagine (and reimagine) the speech acts to which they testified. The volume’s final section, which focuses on biblical reception, comprises three essays and treats examples of biblical interpretation ranging from the Second Temple period to the modern era. Tova Ganzel’s contribution, “4Q385 (Pseudo-Ezekiel) in the Context of Ezekiel’s Restoration,” focuses on the revision of Ezek 37 in 4Q385. Ganzel argues that the 4Q385 authors reoriented what Schwartz termed Ezekiel’s “dim view of restoration” in a consolatory message that highlights when and how restoration would be accomplished. In “Impurity without Danger: A Mishnaic Reading of the Priestly ḥattat,” Mira Balberg considers how the rabbis transformed P’s ḥattat offering and the attendant notions of sin and impurity to which it is directed in P. Showing that the rabbis appreciated many of the same problems that modern interpreters identify in P, she argues that Mishnah Shevu’ot offers explanations for the various dualities related to the Priestly hattat: impurity and sin, sanctuary and persons, and individual and collective. In the volume’s final essay, “The Author of the Book of Job in the Jewish Tradition Throughout the Ages,” Eran Viezel examines the claim, found in the famous list of biblical authors in b. B. Bat. 14b–15a, that Moses wrote the book of Job. He shows that, whether endorsing the baraita’s view, rejecting it, or setting its claim aside, interpreters across the centuries paid special attention to this Mosaic ascription. This is likely because the ascription of Job to Moses was hardly self-evident. Yet instead of challenging the list in b. B. Bat., most interpreters sought to buttress its claim regarding Job.

Despoiling the Egyptians Joel Baden In Exodus, three references are made to the despoiling of the Egyptians: Exod 3:21–22 ‫ ושאלה אשה משכנתה ומגרת ביתה כלי‬:‫ונתתי את חן העם הזה בעיני מצרים והיה כי תלכון לא תלכו ריקם‬ :‫כסף וכלי זהב ושמלת ושמתם על בניכם ועל בנתיכם ונצלם את מצרים‬ I will dispose the Egyptians favorably toward this people, such that when you go you will not go empty-handed. Each woman will request from her neighbor and from the woman living in her house for objects of silver and objects of gold and clothing. You will place them on your sons and your daughters, and you will thus strip the Egyptians. Exod 11:2–3 ‫חן העם‬-‫ ויתן יהוה את‬:‫כסף וכלי זחב‬-‫נא באזני הים וישאלו איש מאת רעהו ואשה מאת רעותה כלי‬-‫דבר‬ ‫בעיני מצרים‬ Tell the people that each man should ask his neighbor, and each woman her neighbor, for objects of silver and objects of gold. Exod 12:35–36 ‫חן העם בעיני מצרים‬-‫ ויהוה נתן את‬:‫כסף וכלי זהב ושמלת‬-‫ישראל עשו כדבר משה וישאלו ממצרים כלי‬-‫ובני‬ :‫מצרים‬-‫ וינצלו את‬1]‫[וישאלום‬ The Israelites had done as Moses instructed: they had asked the Egyptians for objects of silver and objects of gold and clothing. Yahweh had disposed the Egyptians favorably toward the people, and they had stripped the Egyptians.2

These passages are almost identical in their wording. The language of requesting (‫)שאל‬, the references to silver and gold (‫כסף וכלי זהב‬-‫)כלי‬, and the disposing the Egyptians favorably toward the people (‫חן העם בעיני מצרים‬-‫ )נתן את‬are common 1  The hiphil form of ‫ שאל‬here is awkward, and rare. The only other place the hiphil form of ‫ שאל‬appears is 1 Sam 1:28. It is most likely that this is a case of vertical dittography, especially as the previous verse has the sequence ‫ וישאלו ממצרים‬and this verse has the sequence ‫מצרים‬ ‫וישאלום‬. In that case the hiphil form here would be a secondary attempt to make sense of the consonantal text. 2  For the purposes of this study, the precise valence of the scenario, or of the word ‫נצל‬, “strip,” is of no particular relevance. See the detailed, if probably futile, attempt to pin down a specific meaning for the term by Th. C. Vriezen, “A Reinterpretation of Exodus 3,21–22 and Related Texts,” Jaarbericht Ex Oriente Lux 20 (1967–68): 389–401.

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to all three. Other aspects are common to two out of the three passages: the specific reference to the women (‫אשה‬, 3:22 and 11:2), the language of stripping (‫נצל‬, 3:22 and 12:36), and the role of Moses (‫דבר‬, 11:2 and 12:35). Where the three differ, it is in their timeframes: Exod 3:21–22 predicts the despoiling (“I will dispose,” ‫)ונתתי‬, 11:2–3 narrates the despoiling, or at least part of it (“Yahweh disposed,” ‫ויתן‬ ‫)יהוה‬, and 12:35–36 refers back to the despoiling as something that has already happened (“Yahweh had disposed,” ‫)ויהוה נתן‬. In other words, this difference is really no difference at all, but the natural progression of the story. It hardly requires any effort to make the case that all three of these passages should be read together, and that whatever else we say, they can hardly come from multiple different pentateuchal sources. Of course, no one ever has made that claim. For the vast majority of documentary critics of the past century-plus, the despoiling of the Egyptians has been happily assigned to E.3 The consistent rationale given for this assignment is that the reference in 3:22 to “neighbors” (‫ )משכנתה ומגרת ביתה‬is sensible only within the narrative world of E. In J, they correctly point out, the Israelites live isolated in Goshen (see Gen 45:10; 46:28–29, 34; 47:1, 4, 6b; 50:8; Exod 8:18; 9:26).4 How, then, could there be any Egyptian neighbors from whom they could make such a request? This argument, however, rests on fairly unsteady ground. The word for “neighbor” here, ‫שכנה‬, appears only one other time in the Bible, in Ruth 4:17; similarly, the phrase ‫ גר הבית‬occurs only one other time in the Bible, in Job 19:15. There may not be any particularly strong reason to think that the words do not 3 See, e. g., Julius Wellhausen, Die Composition des Hexateuchs (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1963), 70; Benjamin W. Bacon, The Triple Tradition of the Exodus (Hartford: Student Publishing Co., 1894), 18; J. Estlin Carpenter and G. Harford-Battersby, The Hexateuch According to the Revised Version (New York: Longmans, Green Co., 1900), 2:84, 95–96; H. Holzinger, Exodus, KHAT II (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1900), 8–9, 31, 34; Bruno Baentsch, Exodus, Leviticus, Numeri (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1903), 26–27, 85, 104; A. H. McNeile, The Book of Exodus, 2nd ed. (London: Methuen, 1917), 20–21, 60–61, 74; Edgar Brightman, The Sources of the Hexateuch (New York: Abingdon, 1918), 149, 151–52; S. R. Driver, The Book of Exodus (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1918), 26, 84–85, 99–100. And myself included: Joel Baden, The Composition of the Pentateuch: Renewing the Documentary Hypothesis, AYBRL (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 122–23. 4  The one exception to the consistent attribution of Goshen to the J narrative is in 47:27, a P text: “Thus Israel settled in the land of Egypt, in the region of Goshen.” There is good reason to believe that the mention of Goshen here is spurious. This verse is the direct continuation in P of 47:11, which narrates Joseph settling his family “in the land of Egypt, in the choicest part of the land, in the region of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded.” Pharaoh’s command, to settle Israel in the choicest part of the land, is found in turn in 47:6a; the identification of that part of the land as Rameses conforms to P’s departure notice in Exod 12:37. In principle, we should expect 47:27 to read “Thus Israel settled in the land of Egypt, in the region of Rameses,” in line with the rest of P’s story. It is also possible that there was no specifying phrase here originally, and it read, simply, “Thus Israel settled in the land of Egypt,” and the words “in the land of Goshen” were added by a reader familiar with the canonical account.

Despoiling the Egyptians

7

mean what they have always been taken to mean; this is, however, quite a lot of analytical weight being placed on two exceptionally rare terms. In other words, this is a relatively skimpy foundation on which to base the assignment of these three passages to E. There is, however, seemingly equally little basis for attributing these passages to J.5 Propp “tentatively assign[s] all three texts to J, noting the explicit prediction of Israel’s departure with ‘much property’ in Gen 15:14 (J?).”6 But, as he admits, “this is not much to go on.” This is especially the case since, to my knowledge, the attribution of Gen 15:14 to J – which Propp himself marks with a doubtful question mark – is not held by any other contemporary pentateuchal critic, whether of the documentary persuasion or otherwise.7 It seems safe to say that there are relatively few strong or explicit indicators in these passages as to which source they might be assigned to. In such cases, what are our options? The most natural procedure would be to look then at the context in which these passages are found: most importantly, what comes before each passage, either immediately or in whichever source we putatively assign the passages to? Here again, however, we run into some analytical difficulties, at least in the history of scholarship. In Exod 3, the immediately preceding verses, 3:19–20, predict Pharaoh’s refusal to let the Israelites go, and Yahweh’s need to smite Egypt with the plagues. For some scholars, these verses are also from E – thus we would have a continuous E section here.8 For some others, these verses are basically E, though they have been amplified by RJE.9 What is common to all of these earlier documentary analyses is the division of the plagues narrative, to which these verses allude, into three sources, J, E, and P, rather than two, as has become standard since Moshe 5  This is the distinctly minority position in the historical of scholarship. See, e. g., W. H. Addis, Documents of the Hexateuch (London: David Nutt, 1892), 1:112, 125–26; Martin Noth, Exodus, OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962), 93–94; George W. Coats, “Despoiling the Egyptians,” VT 18 (1968): 450–57; William H. C. Propp, Exodus 1–18, AB 2 (New York: Doubleday, 1998), 194. 6 Propp, Exodus 1–18, 194. Much of Propp’s source analysis in this part of Exodus is idiosyncratic, resulting in some almost ironic situations: of Exod 11:2–3 and 12:35–36 he says that they “seem more like insertions into Elohistic material” (ibid.). In this sense, Propp has simply reversed the older position: finding these verses to be disruptive in their contexts, and those contexts being E, these passages are therefore given to J. 7  The literary-historical analysis of Genesis 15 is much debated. It is my opinion that virtually the entire chapter belongs to E, with the exception of precisely the part to which Propp refers: 15:13aβ–14, the prediction of the enslavement in Egypt through the mention of their leaving with “great wealth,” which, in its combination of concepts and terms from multiple pentateuchal sources, fits all the criteria for being a post-compilation addition to the text. For further detail, see my article, “From Joseph to Moses: The Narratives of Exodus 1–2,” VT 62 (2012): 133–58, at 150 n. 51. 8  See, e. g., Holzinger, Exodus, 8–9. 9 So Carpenter and Harford-Battersby, Hexateuch, 2:84; McNeile, Exodus, 20.

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Greenberg’s Understanding Exodus.10 When there is no plagues narrative in E, it becomes far more difficult to see the proleptic reference to the plagues as E. If, rather, the non-priestly plagues narrative is entirely J, then these verses must be as well.11 When 3:19–20 are correctly assigned to J, rather than E, then we may ask how the despoiling in 3:21–22 would connect with what precedes it in either of the two sources. What precedes in J we have just determined: it would follow directly on 3:19–20. If it were from E, however, it would come immediately after the previous E verses: the declaration of the divine name in 3:14–15.12 Neither is impossible; one is superior. There is a story being told here about what will happen when Moses comes to Egypt. The E story, if we were to take it as such, would have Moses coming to the Israelites and proclaiming that the god of their fathers sent him to them, revealing the divine name, and then declaring that Yahweh will dispose the Egyptians favorably toward the Israelites and the Israelites will despoil them (3:13–15, 21–22). It’s a story of sorts, but a rather strange one. The J story, by contrast, and far more sensibly, would have Moses going to the Israelites with Yahweh’s message, then going to the king of Egypt with the message, then Pharaoh refusing to listen, then the plagues, then Pharaoh allowing the Israelites to go, and then – and only then – the despoiling of the Egyptians, as the Israelites are on their way out of town (3:16–22). Let us look at the other two despoiling passages in the same way. Unfortunately, the immediate context of the passage in Exod 11 is also controverted. In 11:1, Yahweh tells Moses that he will be bringing one further plague upon the Egyptians, after which Pharaoh will let the people go, once and for all. Again, for those who thought that there was an E plagues narrative, this could sensibly 10  Moshe Greenberg, Understanding Exodus, 2nd ed. (Eugene: Cascade, 2013), 147–54. See also the analysis of Erhard Blum, Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch, BZAW 189 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990), 242–56. 11  In support of the attribution of Exod 3:19–20 to J, one may note a number of linguistic and thematic elements. These include in 3:19 the combination of ‫ נתן‬and ‫ הלך‬with the meaning “allow to leave,” found elsewhere in the Pentateuch only in Num 22:13 (where we find the same irregular infinitival form ‫ ;)להלך‬the phrase “strong hand,” ‫יד חזקה‬, with reference to Yahweh’s might in the Exodus events, as in Exod 6:1. In 3:20 we find a play on the word ‫שלח‬, “send” – Yahweh sends out his hand, and the king of Egypt will in turn send out Israel – a term that is perhaps the central theme of the J plagues narrative (especially in the repeated phrase ‫שלח עמי‬ ‫ויעבדני‬, “let my people go that they may worship me,” and its variants: Exod 7:16, 26; 8:4, 16, 24– 25; 9:1, 13; 10:3, 7); the verb ‫נכה‬, “strike,” is also used throughout the J plagues cycle, from Moses and Aaron striking water or the ground (7:17, 20, 25; 8:12–13) to Yahweh striking the Egyptians with pestilence (9:15) to the killing of the firstborn (12:29); and the term ‫בקרב‬, “in the midst of,” referring to Yahweh’s acts or location, is the thematic key to the entire J Exodus and wilderness narrative: Exod 8:18; 10:1; 17:7; 33:3, 5; 34:9; Num 11:4, 20–21; 14:11, 14, 42. 12  A rough source division of the relevant portions of Exodus 3 results in three main blocks: 3:7–8 J; 3:9–15 E; 3:16–20 J. These can be distinguished by both duplication (7:7//7:9, e. g.) and contradiction (3:10//3:16, e. g.), as well as by different characterizations of the rescue of the Israelites (3:8//3:10, e. g.) and how Moses is to present himself to them (3:15//3:16, e. g.).

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be assigned to E; if we no longer think so, however, this is a more tenuous conclusion. The other major reason for thinking that this verse should be E – or at least not J – is that it seems to uncomfortably interrupt the continuity of 10:29 to 11:4: in 10:29, Moses says “you will not see my face again,” which implies that there can be no return to Pharaoh for further communication. 11:4, then, when read continuously, is not a message delivered later, but a continuation of the same speech from 10:29, with the ‫ ויאמר‬functioning, as it often does, to indicate a shift in topic within a single speech.13 But if 11:1 interposed between these two speeches of Moses to Pharaoh, then there would seem to be a departure and return, at least implicitly: nowhere else in the J plagues account does Moses receive a message from Yahweh while still in Pharaoh’s presence. Thus there is a reasonable case to be made that 11:1 is not J. On the other hand, however, this verse is utterly suffused with J concepts and language. The word ‫ נגע‬is used in P and D to refer specifically to skin afflictions (Lev 13–14, passim; Deut 24:8), or to physical assault (Deut 17:8; 21:5), and does not appear in E, but is used to refer to a plague more generally in J, in Gen 12:17. The use of the hiphil of ‫ בוא‬to describe the bringing of a plague occurs elsewhere in J (Exod 10:4). The idea that the plagues strike both Pharaoh and his people or his nation is familiar from J (Exod 10:6). The word ‫ שלח‬for the sending out of the people is typically J (see n. 11 above). Indeed, the entire phrase ‫כן ישלח אתכם‬-‫ אחרי‬is verbatim from, of all places, Exodus 3:20. The adverbial use of ‫ כלה‬appears elsewhere in the entire Bible only in J, in Gen 18:21. And the use of ‫גרש‬, “drive out,” hearkens back to Yahweh’s proleptic statement to Moses in J in Exod 6:1. Indeed, there is practically no aspect of this verse that is not purely J in content, concept, and style; when taken all together, it would be remarkable if another author, even a later editorial hand, were capable of producing such a consistently and uniformly J assemblage of words, phrases, and ideas. The most likely explanation, then, is that this verse is indeed from J – but may well be from a later layer of J.14 We can put forth a reasonable explanation as to why it would have been added it here. When Moses speaks to Pharaoh, at the end of chapter 10 and continuing in 11:4, he announces the last plague, that of the death of the firstborn. In the entire J cycle, however, this is the only time when Moses announces a plague without any preceding communication from Yahweh 13  Bacon, Triple Tradition, 48, wonderfully exclaims, “The supposition that xi. 1–3 was originally intended to interrupt the absolutely necessary connection of xi. 4–8 with x. 28 f. involves absurdities greater than which it is almost impossible to conceive.” 14 Here we have a fairly good example of the type of evidence required to suggest a secondary insertion within a source, rather than to the already compiled text: concepts and language that conform entirely to one source, with no clear influence from any other. For contrast, see the discussion of Exod 10:1–3 in the following note; for a more thorough example, see my article, “Source Stratification, Secondary Additions, and the Documentary Hypothesis in the Book of Numbers: The Case of Numbers 17,” in Torah and the Book of Numbers, ed. Christian Frevel, Thomas Pola, and Aaron Schart, FAT II/62 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 233–47.

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whatsoever. In fact, in almost every other case, J does not even narrate Moses’s declaration of the coming plague, but rather embeds it in Yahweh’s instructions to Moses; that Moses delivers the message is simply presumed.15 In other words, reading Moses’s speech without 11:1 it would be possible to think that Moses took the decision to bring this last plague entirely on his own authority. One can imagine that for someone, even someone in the J scribal circle, this was too much initiative to ascribe to Moses, and inserted this verse – still a J verse, but a secondary one – to mitigate the ostensible theological difficulty. This still leaves us with the question of how the despoiling in 11:2–3 fits into its potential contexts. Without any E plagues story, there is a significant gap between the previous E verse and this one. Indeed, we would have to go all the way back to 4:18 to find the immediately preceding E text: Jethro sending Moses back to visit his kinsmen in Egypt.16 As there is certainly some E material missing here in almost any analysis, one could well speculate that the despoiling passage here followed originally on something else. There is another problem as well, though, which we will encounter again soon: there is no E material that follows on this, either. Aside from the other despoiling notice in 12:35–36, E will not rear its head again in the narrative until the departure of the Israelites in Exod 13:18b–19.17 The potential E sequence would thus look like this:

 Cf. Exod 7:14–18; 26–29; 8:16–19; 9:1–5, 13–19. The ostensible exception to this rule is Exod 10:3–6, in which it seems that, while Yahweh did instruct Moses to go to Pharaoh in 10:1, Moses (with Aaron) was responsible for announcing what the plague would actually be. This difficulty is resolved when it is recognized that 10:1b–3a (through ‫ )ויאמר אליו‬is a secondary addition, as is evident from the mixture of J-like language (‫כבד‬, ‫ )בקרב‬with P concepts (Yahweh hardening Pharaoh’s heart, the purpose of the plagues being for Yahweh to show off his power) and even D language (‫אתת‬, signs). The required adjustment for reading original J, then, is simply to read Yahweh’s speech as continuing from “Go to Pharaoh” in 10:1a directly into “Thus says Yahweh” in 10:3, with an assumed original ‫ואמרת אליו‬, “and say to him,” having been replaced by ‫ויאמרו‬ ‫אליו‬. So already Carpenter and Harford-Battersby, Hexateuch, 2:94. 16  The identification and role of Jethro as Moses’s father-in-law is a consistent and unique element of E. See Exod 3:1 (where the phrase “the priest of Midian” should probably be seen as secondary) and the whole of Exodus 18. 17 This passage is identifiable as E on two grounds. In Exod 13:18b, the notion that Israel went out of Egypt ‫חמשים‬, generally understood as “armed” (NJPS) or “prepared for battle” (NRSV ), does not agree particularly well with the preceding passage (13:17–18a), in which there is an effort to have the Israelites avoid armed conflict, and which is most likely to be attributed to J; moreover, in E the Israelites do, quite soon hereafter, engage in armed conflict against the Amalekites (Exod 17:8–16), and later on against the Amorites (Num 21:21–32). In 13:19, we have explicit and nearly verbatim reference back to Gen 50:25, which despite ardent efforts by some scholars to argue otherwise (cf., e. g., Jan Christian Gertz, “The Transition between the Books of Genesis and Exodus,” in A Farewell to the Yahwist?, ed. Thomas B. Dozeman and Konrad Schmid; SBLSym 34 [Atlanta: SBL, 2006], 73–87, at 79–82) is from E. Of course, should one disagree, and consider Exod 13:18b–19 to be entirely secondary – a not totally untenable position, in my opinion – then the gap is even larger, and the next E verse would be Exod 15:20–21, the song of Miriam, and the same difficulties would present themselves. 15

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Exod 4:18 Moses went to his father-in-law Jethro and said to him, “Let me go back to my kinsmen in Egypt and see how they are faring.” Jethro said to Moses, “Go in peace.” Exod 11:2–3 Tell the people that each man should ask his neighbor, and each woman her neighbor, for objects of silver and objects of gold. Exod 12:35–36 The Israelites had done as Moses instructed: they had asked the Egyptians for objects of silver and objects of gold and clothing. Yahweh had disposed the Egyptians favorably toward the people, and they had stripped the Egyptians. Exod 13:18b–19 The Israelites went up arrayed from the land of Egypt. Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for he had made the sons of Israel swear an oath: “God will be sure to take notice of you; then you will bring up my bones from there with you.”

We are thus dealing not with just a gap in E – we would have to reckon with a situation in which fragments of E, that is, the despoiling notices, were inserted into the compiled text to fill out the narrative, while the rest of the E story, to which the compiler must have had access if he could grab these bits and pieces, was left on the cutting room floor. This is a redactional procedure that occurs nowhere else. That said, the despoiling here in chapter 11 does not fit perfectly into J’s narrative either. The timing is generally right: Moses has gone to the Israelites, gone to Pharaoh, the plagues have happened, Pharaoh has refused, and here we are, precisely where the proleptic reference in Exodus 3 said it should happen. But the interruption of Moses’s speech from 10:29 to 11:4 is even more pronounced now: not only does Yahweh communicate with Moses in 11:1, but Moses receives instructions for what to tell the Israelites while he is still arguing with Pharaoh. Moreover, there is the interruption of the third-person narration of 11:3. We will return to this passage shortly. Turning to the third passage, in 12:35–36: here, at least, we can be relatively confident about context. The entirety of 12:29–34 is unadulterated J: the death of the firstborn (in nearly verbatim fulfillment of 11:4–7), Pharaoh’s release of the Israelites, the encouragement of the Egyptians, and the hurried taking of the unleavened dough are all J, as even the older source critics largely agree.18 The difficulty of assigning 12:35–36 to E has already been mentioned above: it would continue, in theory, only from 11:2–3, and we would have nothing but despoiling between Moses’s departure for Egypt and the Israelites’ departure from Egypt. 18  See, e. g., Addis, Documents, 1:126; and Carpenter and Harford-Battersby, Hexateuch, 2:97; Driver, Exodus, 98–99.

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One may point out, of course, that if the despoiling was in fact a fragment of E, and the compiler was looking for the right place to put this E passage about the despoiling, it was done perfectly. When J has the Israelites departing, and is describing what they are taking with them – their dough, their kneading bowls wrapped in their cloaks – that is just the place to put the reference to the other things they are taking with them: the silver, gold, and clothing that they took from the Egyptians. It is, however, equally true that this is the most natural place, for all the same reasons, for J to mention the goods that the Israelites had taken from the Egyptians. As is so often the case, the argument that a secondary insertion is perfectly suited to its narrative context can be turned around to argue, on the same grounds, that it is not a secondary insertion at all but an original part of that context.19 Indeed, one of the most striking aspects of all three despoiling passages is that they all occur in the midst of J contexts. This is true even of 11:2–3, regardless of how we understand 11:1. In all three cases, the references to the despoiling are relatively easily read as part of the J narrative; to assign them to E requires not only seeing them as loose fragments from a redactional standpoint, but as almost stand-alone moments in a story that we otherwise do not have preserved at all. In order to make sense of them as E, we have to reconstruct an entire E narrative, which is a level of speculation with which we should be uncomfortable. If they are from J, by contrast, we face no such problems. In fact, with the exception of 11:2–3 – and perhaps the rather light weight of the reference to neighbors in chapter 3 – there is nothing particularly problematic about reading the despoiling as being simply J. We may now return to Exod 11:2–3. These verses are decidedly the most challenging of the passages, regardless of which source they are assigned to. They don’t fit well in E, they don’t fit particularly well in J, and, given how they interrupt their context, they don’t even really work that well from the perspective of the compiler, who does not typically create such unpleasant narrative situations. The question, then, is why would anyone, author, compiler, or otherwise, think to put these verses here? The most plausible option: these verses are a later insertion, composed for the purpose of actually narrating the despoiling, which is otherwise referred to only proleptically, in Exod 3, or analeptically, in Exod 12.20 One could well imagine that a reader, knowing that the Israelites were supposed to despoil the Egyptians, and knowing that they at some point before Exod 12 did in fact despoil the Egyptians, wondered: so where is the actual narrating of the despoiling of the Egyptians? Looking for a reasonable place, they decided this was it: 19  Exod 12:35–36 is seen as “an editorial addition founded on 3:22 and 11:3” by Carpenter and Harford-Battersby, 2:97. 20  My thanks to Simi Chavel, as so often, for suggesting this solution.

Despoiling the Egyptians

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almost just where Exod 3 suggests it should happen, after the plagues had all but finished. And where else could it go? The J narrative rushes headlong from Moses departing from Pharaoh’s presence at the end of chapter 11 directly into Moses speaking to the Israelites in 12:21, and the people bowing in 12:27, right into the death of the firstborn in 12:29. The placement of the despoiling in 11:2–3 may not be perfect, but the options were limited. We have, elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, a wonderful example of another insertion like this, one seemingly meant to provide the actual narration of an event otherwise referred to only analeptically.21 1 Samuel 28 contains the story of Saul consulting the ghost of Samuel, and begins, logically enough, by telling us that Samuel had died (28:3). Samuel’s death is, of course, a necessary precondition for this episode to take place, so it is sensible for the announcement of that death to be delayed until it was worth saying. But was Samuel not important enough for us to have learned of his death when it actually happened, not just in retrospect? Evidently someone thought so, because there it is, back in 1 Sam 25:1, tucked neatly – or, as it turns out, exceptionally awkwardly – between the end of David’s encounter with Saul in the cave at En-Gedi in 1 Sam 24 and David’s arrival at Nabal’s estate in 1 Sam 25:2. The verse is patently spurious, but the explanation for its existence, if not its precise placement, is relatively obvious. It says in 28:3 that Samuel had died. That had to happen somewhere: this is where. The same phenomenon is at work with the despoiling of the Egyptians in Exod 11:2–3. Here too, the analeptic reference, in 12:35–36, gives us the requisite information at exactly the time that it is most relevant: when the Israelites are leaving Egypt, and the text describes what they are taking with them – that’s when we need to know that they had done this already. The “real-time” narration of the event itself is actually disruptive in its literary context. And, of course, while it is sensible enough to have one of the two – either the real-time narration or the analeptic reference – having both is thoroughly unnecessary. Once we learn in 11:2–3 that the despoiling took place, why would we need to be reminded of it again later, and in such repetitive terms? It could have just said “and they also 21 Again, thanks to Simi Chavel for this. Most scholarship has taken this the other way, reading the notice in 28:3 as a potentially later resumption of the original statement in 25:1. It seems likely, if not always explicit, that this is due to a general tendency among scholars to presume that analepsis and prolepsis are somehow “later” developments in narrative, rather than being entirely legitimate mechanisms for authors to introduce new information at the point in the story when it makes most sense. In this case, one might point to the analysis of A. Graeme Auld, I & II Samuel, OTL (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2011), 293, as representative: “The passing of Samuel is clearly relevant to what follows in 1 Sam 28; however, that may simply explain the repetition of the notice there. The proposal advanced in this commentary is that this [i. e., 25:1] is the primary location of the notice. It is here that a simple narrative past tense (wayyiqtol) is used to describe the great man’s passing: wymt šmw’l, ‘And Samuel died.’ By contrast, 1 Sam 28:3 resumes a previous report: wšmw’l mt, ‘Now Samuel, he had died.’” Assumptions about grammatical priority override even recognized narrative logic.

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took the gold and silver that they had stripped from the Egyptians.” All of this leads to the strong suspicion, if not in fact necessary conclusion, that the passage in 11:2–3 is a later insertion into the text. To bolster that possibility, we might notice that these two verses have some strange stylistic mixing going on. Obviously there are parallels with the other two despoiling passages, though there are also some unique differences: there is no mention of clothing here, for example. All three use the word ‫ישאלו‬, “request,” but Exod 3:22 and 12:35 say ‫משכנתה‬, “from his neighbor” and ‫ממצרים‬, “from the Egyptians,” respectively, while Exod 11:2 says ‫מאת רעהו‬, “from his companion,” and, even more strangely, ‫מאת רעותה‬, “from her (female) companion.”22 There is also one feature here that is uniquely E: the phrase ‫האיש משה‬, which appears in Exod 32:1 and 23, and also in Num 12:3, all E. And, even more problematically, there is P style, too: the indirect command construction ‫ דבר‬+ jussive, here ‫דבר … וישאלו‬, “tell the Israelites … to request,” is found elsewhere in the Pentateuch only in P.23 Thus while there is certainly plenty of J language here, it is not unmixed. And if these verses are based primarily on the other two despoiling passages, then it makes sense that they should be most similar to those – but, it turns out, not completely.24 One last observation about Exod 11:2–3. Two of the changes we see here, with respect to the other two despoiling passages, are explainable. I pointed out that ‫ שכנה‬and ‫ גר הבית‬in Exod 3:22 are rare phrases; here they are replaced with the much more common ‫רעהו‬, as if to clarify what the more obscure words meant; a distant gloss of sorts. And the disappearance of the clothing may well be a recognition on the part of this author that while there would be a role later in the canonical story at least for gold and silver, the clothing was ostensibly a narrative dead end, and could thus be jettisoned. These are, of course, only speculative possibilities, but it is nice to be able to at least suggest some reason for why things look the way they do, even if we might not ever be able to prove it. To sum up the analysis thus far: Exod 3:21–22 and 12:35–36, I am arguing, are original, perfectly fine parts of the J narrative, just where they belong and where they ever were; Exod 11:2–3, by contrast, is a secondary insertion that attempted to fill what was felt to be a narrative gap between prolepsis and analepsis. Now we can ask: so what? What problems did we solve, and what ramifications do we then have to consider? The main problem solved here is the one already mentioned repeatedly: the strangeness of these thematically connected, indeed nearly identical, purportedly E verses floating in the middle of the J sea. We also take care of the difficulty 22 It may also be pointed out, somewhat surprisingly, that the construction ‫מאת‬, “from,” while found regularly throughout J and P, is not attested a single time anywhere in E. 23  Exod 6:11; 14:2, 15; 25:2; Lev 22:2; Num 19:2. 24  See the observation of Vriezen, “Reinterpretation,” 391: “It is evident that a closer affinity exists between 3:21 f. and 12:35 f. than between either one of these passages and 11:2 f.”

Despoiling the Egyptians

15

that these ostensibly E verses have a lot of J-like language in them. In purely analytical terms, those are the big payoffs. It might not seem like much, but it is cleaner, and cleaner analysis makes for more convincing analysis. And though it’s true that the question of the “neighbor” remains, I am reminded often of the guiding principle articulated by Simi Chavel in conversation with me, and that I try to keep in mind when doing this sort of work: does the proposal solve more problems than it creates, or vice versa? I am convinced that assigning these verses to J solves more problems than it creates. Which is to say, it is progress – if not the unachievable goal of utter perfection. The ramifications of putting the despoiling of the Egyptians into J are actually quite satisyfing, and potentially significant. There is a reasonable question to be asked as to what the narrative payoff of the despoiling of the Egyptians is meant to be. What is supposed to happen with all this stuff that Israel has taken? When it was in E, we could say that it was destined for the golden calf.25 From a different compositional perspective, we could say that all of it is deuteronomistic somehow, and is meant to illustrate the law in Deut 15:13, which says that if you set a slave free, he should not go out empty-handed.26 But if we put it in J, then where does all this material go? There is no calf in J, and there is no deuteronomic, or any, law to illustrate.27 Where it connects is actually where it probably fits best: in Exod 33:1–6, where the question of whether the Israelites are or should be wearing their finery, ‫עדים‬, is at stake.28 What is this finery? Where did the slaves get anything nice enough to be called finery? In J, they could barely grab their dough before they hastily departed. This is where: in the despoiling of the Egyptians. Moreover, the category of finery can cover the gold, the silver, and the clothing. Not so the Tabernacle, which requires only gold and silver; or the calf, which requires only gold. (Or the law in Deuteronomy, which actually requires meat, grain, and wine.) To cinch this connection is the use in Exod 33:6 of the verb ‫נצל‬, which is used to refer to the removal of anything that could be remotely considered finery only here and in the despoiling passages. And with this, the irony is thick: after doing 25  As Baentsch, Exodus-Leviticus-Numeri, 26–27; so too the medieval Jewish commentator Rashbam. 26  See Blum, Studien, 33. Given the circumstances of Israel’s departure and the forced means by which the Egyptians hand over their valuables, however, it is rather difficult to make the narrative here and the law in Deuteronomy match particularly well. This is more a rabbinic-style interpretation – indeed, it is found in the medieval commentators Bahya and Hizquni – than it is a strong critical one. See also Greenberg, Understanding Exodus, 70–71. 27 We may set aside arguments such as that made by Julius Morgenstern, “The Despoiling of the Egyptians,” JBL 68 (1949): 1–28, who proposes at great length that the items taken were intended for wedding garments for the Israelite daughters. Such interpretations create a world that is effectively not present in the text. 28  On this passage, see my article, “On Exodus 33,1–11,” ZAW 124 (2012): 329–40.

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Yahweh’s bidding and removing these items from the Egyptians, the Israelites, having now proved themselves to be intransigent and rude, are forced to remove them from themselves. The ‫ נצל‬clause even comes at the end of each passage, sharpening the parallelism.29 One payoff, therefore, of assigning the despoiling to J is that it helps explain why there is any despoiling in the first place – it roots it in a broader narrative context. Another payoff has nothing to do with J at all, but rather with E. I have already mentioned the oddity of the two loose fragments of Exod 11:2–3 and 12:35–36 in the midst of a long section of text that is otherwise exclusively J and P. Again, by the standard argument, there is no E other than these two two-line bits anywhere between Exodus 4:18 and 13:18. If these were E, we would need to postulate some larger E story, now missing, into which they once fit. If they are not E, however, we might consider, at least for the sake of the exercise, the possibility that there is in fact virtually no story here to postulate. The E story from the call of Moses on, as we have it, runs as follows: Moses is tending Jethro’s flock, happens across Horeb, God calls him, introduces himself, says he’s noticed the Israelites are in trouble, and has decided to send Moses (Exod 3:1–6*, 9–10). Moses expresses doubt; God assuages it. Moses expresses a concern; God assuages it (Exod 3:11–15). Moses goes back to Jethro, asks permission to go back to Egypt, and receives it (Exod 4:18). The next words from E, as noted above, are that Israel went up from Egypt ‫חמשים‬, “armed, prepared for battle,” and that Moses took Joseph’s bones with him (Exod 13:18b–19). It is, as already noted, hard to believe that there is not a gap in the E story here. But the presence of a gap does not mean that we should necessarily look for verses in between 4:18 and 13:18 to fill it. That is the analytical equivalent of robbing Peter to pay Paul. After all: unless one could find verses that were not only plausibly E, but that actually filled the entire gap, one would still be left with a gap. If there is going to be one, it does little good to make it smaller: the problem still remains. Better, I argue, to have a clean gap, rather than a smattering of leftover textual dribs and drabs. A clean gap can be explained in all sorts of ways that do not require attributing either unusual redactional techniques or intentions to a compiler. We need not suppose that the compiler, faced with three plagues stories, could fit in only two, and chose not to keep the one from E. If there is a clean gap, we could, in theory, say that it was a material issue: a page missing from a scroll, or even just a damaged top or bottom of a page. At the same time, a clean gap leaves us with options for reconstructing what was once in there. How maximal, or how minimal, can we be about it? 29  One might go so far as to argue that there is something to the fact that Yahweh commands the despoiling of the Egyptians just as he is about to destroy them with the plague of the firstborn and commands the self-despoiling of the Israelites just as he threatens to destroy them and has to think about what to do with them. I might not go so far, but one might.

Despoiling the Egyptians

17

The maximal view would be that there was an entire, fully-developed plagues narrative here, something akin in size to what we have in J and P, or, in theory, maybe even bigger. The problem with such a maximalist reconstruction is that there is nothing in the rest of E that would make us think that we were missing anything massive. There are no unexplained cross-references, for example. So, for example, in P we have Num 3:13, with its reference to the death of the firstborn, or Num 8:17. In J, similarly, we have Num 14:22, with its reference to the signs that Yahweh did back in Egypt. In E, by contrast, when we get memories of, or references to, how the Israelites left Egypt, they are always rather vague. Exodus 18 mentions the time in Egypt, but the most detailed description we get is “what Yahweh did to Pharaoh and the Egyptians” (18:8). So too in Exod 19:4, “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians” – here and in chapter 18 using the verb ‫עשה‬, literally the least descriptive verb possible. When Moses tells Israel’s story in his message to the king of Edom in Num 20:14–16, he says even less. Are these allusions to a plagues story? The only reason to think so, it would seem, is because J and P have plagues. But that is the same as having no reason at all. A maximal reconstruction of the gap in E has almost nothing internal to the source to go on. A minimal reconstruction, on the other hand, can be quite minimal indeed. What is the least that we can say is missing from E between Exod 4:18 and 13:18? Moses arriving in Egypt, probably. Moses speaking to the Israelites and having the back and forth about Yahweh’s name, as anticipated in Exod 3:13–15? Not necessarily; at least, no one has ever missed this in the canonical text, so we need not require that it have been in E either. Surely some communication, however; but not necessarily more than “Moses told the Israelites what Yahweh said.” And depending on how much weight we want to give to those brief mentions of “what Yahweh did to the Egyptians” in Exod 18 and 19, then something else. How much? As little as a verse or two, in theory. And then we can be at 13:18. It is certainly not the size of the canonical story, nor is it the size of either J or P, but there is no reason it has to be. We might, as a parallel, think of the P Joseph story, consisting in its entirety of perhaps three and a half verses between Gen 37 and 45, as compared with the multiple chapters of J and E. This is, of course, speculation: but it is not wild speculating, and, importantly, it is constraining ourselves to the minimum that the text calls for, which seems like a reasonable place from which to start. This essay is written in honor of Baruch Schwartz, who taught me, and so many of us, what good pentateuchal criticism looks like: not to simply accept what previous generations of scholarship have said about the biblical text, but to question everything, over and over again; to read the sources as narratives, as stories that build from passage to passage to create entire worlds; and, above all, to delight in the ever-unfolding insights that new analyses bring to light.

‫ יִ ְ ׂש ָר ֵאל‬,‫ֹלהי‬ ַ ‫ ֵאל ֱא‬, ֹ‫לו‬-‫וַ ִ ּי ְק ָרא‬ And [Jacob] Named Himself, El (is) My God – Israel (Gen 33:20)* David Ben-Gad HaCohen 1. Introduction I owe my interest in Torah criticism to Baruch Schwartz, or just Baruch/Berny, as he is known in our neighborhood. In a neighbor’s house he ran a weekly meeting, studying the Torah using source criticism. The idea of Torah criticism was quite revolutionary for our Orthodox neighborhood. I joined the group to find out for myself how to confront this method of study. It happened that the group studied Jacob’s journey from Beer-sheba (Gen 28:10–22). Scholars are far from consensus on separating the text according to its sources by context or by God’s names.1 A main obstacle in the separation is vv. 20–21, which have both “Elohim” and “YHWH” as God’s personal name, in Jacob’s unbreakable vow.2 Baruch suggested a groundbreaking reconstruction of the text and demonstrated a clear separation of the chapter into two cohesive and logical sources, J and E.3 Recently, studying Jacob’s return to Canaan, it was Baruch’s old observation that helped me in solving the textual problems of the episode. It is with deep appreciation that I submit this article in honor of my mentor and dear friend Baruch J. Schwartz.

* This translation, different from any other, is based on my vocalization of the letter ‫ה‬. Needless to say, all consonants in the Hebrew text remain with no change. 1  Compare, e. g., Benjamin Wisner Bacon, The Genesis of Genesis (Hartford: Student Publishing, 1893), 161–62; Richard Elliott Friedman, The Bible with Sources Revealed (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2003), 77. 2 Friedman states, “This is one of only three occurrences in the Torah in which the name of God appears in a source other than J prior to the revelation of the name to Moses in Exodus” (Bible with Sources Revealed, 77). 3  See Baruch J. Schwartz, “Did Jacob Meet Yhwh by the Stairway to Heaven in Beth-El?,” https://www.thetorah.com/article/did-jacob-meet-yhwh-by-the-stairway-to-heaven-in-beth-el. Accessed August 21, 2022.

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2. Return to Canaan The episode of Jacob’s entering the land of Canaan (Gen 32:2–33:20) is played on two separate stages. One stage is the Jabbok ford (22:23b), the junction of the Wadi az-Zarqa/Jabbok River with the international road going south to Mt. Seir (32:14:bβ).4 The other stage is the area of the twin cities Mahanaim and Penuel,5 which are about 15 km west as the crow flies. There is no inner logic in the story that makes Jacob cross the Jabbok ford with his family at night (32:23), wrestle the man/angel near Penuel at dawn (32:31–32), and be back with his family in time to meet his brother at the Jabbok ford (33:1–3). Geographical criticism shows that the episode is woven from strings, coming from two different accounts.6 One account takes place at the ford of Jabbok. The other is located at Mahanaim and Penuel.7 The ford of Jabbok is mentioned as part of Jacob’s preparation to encounter his brother Esau (32:23–24).8 Therefore, all elements of the episode that are connected somehow to Esau belong to the same account: sending messengers (32:4–7); splitting Jacob’s people and his animals into two camps (8–9); asking “YHWH” for deliverance (10–13); sending presents to Esau (14b–22); taking the family across the ford of the Jabbok (23–25a); the meeting with Esau (33:1–15); and the brothers’ separation, as each goes his own way (16–17). The account of Mahanaim is significantly shorter. It includes only encountering the angels of Elohim (32:2–3) and “seeing” Elohim face-to-face at Penuel,

4  Three sites that are mentioned in our episode have been identified with archaeological sites on the banks of Wadi az-Zarqa. The twin cities Mahanaim (32:3b) and Penuel (32:32a) are identified with Tulul adh-Dhahab, and Succoth (Gen 33:17) is identified with Tell Deir ‘Alla. Thus, Wadi az-Zarqa is identified with the biblical Jabbok. The ancient international road ran approximately on the same route used today by Jordan route 35, known as the “King’s Highway” (after Num 20:17, 21:22). The modern road followed the Roman road which in turn replaced the biblical road. This is so especially for the ford area, where there is only one good spot for crossing the river. For a map with site identifications, see David Ben-Gad HaCohen: “If Jacob is Returning to Canaan, Why Send Messengers to Esau in Seir?” https://www.thetorah.com/ article/if-jacob-is-returning-to-canaan-why-send-messengers-to-esau-in-seir. Accessed August 21, 2022. 5  On Mahanaim and Penuel, see Diana V. Edelman, “Mahanaim,” ABD 4:471–72; J. C. Slayton, “Penuel,” ABD 5:223; Burton MacDonald, East of the Jordan: Territories and Sites of the Hebrew Scriptures, ASOR 6 (Boston: American Schools of Oriental Research, 2000), 140–42, 148–49. 6  On geographical criticism, see David Ben-Gad HaCohen, “Biblical Criticism from a Geographer’s Perspective: ‘Transjordan’ as a Test Case,” in The Formation of the Pentateuch, ed. Jan C. Gertz et al., FAT 111 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 687–709, esp. 687–88. 7 In another place I have examined the same episode using source criticism and arrived at the same conclusions. See David Ben-Gad HaCohen, “Jacob’s Journey to Mahanaim and Penuel in J and E,” https://www.thetorah.com/article/jacobs-journey-to-mahanaim-and-penuel-in-jand-e. Accessed August 21, 2022. 8 Crossing of the river gives Jacob a better defense position.

And [Jacob] Named Himself, El (is) My God – Israel (Gen 33:20)

21

next to Mahanaim (32:31–33).9 This account uses the proper divine name Elohim and therefore should be assigned to E. The account at the ford of the Jabbok has elements that clearly assign it to J: Jacob prays to “YHWH” (32:10); the prayer (v. 13) invokes “YHWH’s” promise to Jacob to make his descendants as numerous as sand (28:13–14); the term used for maidservant is ‫( שפחה‬32:6, 23; 33:1–2, 6), as is standard for J, while E prefers the term ‫;אמה‬10 Jacob’s reference to the presents he sent to Esau as ‫ברכתי‬, “my blessing” (33:11), invokes the J story of Jacob stealing Esau’s blessing.11 Our discussion has so far ignored the episode of the man that wrestled with Jacob at night (32:25–31).

3. Where Did the Man Wrestle Jacob? As part of his preparation to meet Esau, Jacob takes his family across the Jabbok ford (32:23–24). Somehow Jacob stays alone (32:25a),12 and there he is attacked by a man who wrestles with him (25b). By its geographical connection that struggle takes place at the Jabbok ford. But, at dawn, at the end of the struggle, Jacob passes Penuel (32:32a), 15 km away from the Jabbok ford. Thus, on geographical grounds alone, we see that the tale of the wrestling comes from two separate strands. A textual examination, too, points to two separate tales. In one Jacob has the upper hand, and he forces the man to bless him. In the other tale, the man has the advantage, he wrenches Jacob’s hip at the thigh (32:26aβ–26b) and Jacob limps away happy that he survives at all (32:31b). Moreover, every tale should explain one specific point. The wrestling with the man explains two separate points:13 1) How and why Jacob (and thus his descendants) was named Israel (32:29), and 2) Why the children of Israel do not eat the thigh muscle (32:33).

 9  On its lower part, before it enters the Jordan valley, the Jabbok Stream (Wadi az-Zarqa) forms a deep loop to the north immediately followed by another deep loop to the south. On the land at the center of each loop stands a site that goes back to biblical times; see Thomas Pola et al., “A Preliminary Report of the Tulul adh-Dhahab (Wadi az-Zarqa) Survey and Excavation seasons 2005–2011,” Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 57 (2013): 81–96. Biblical archaeologists have long identified these two sites with the biblical cities of Mahanaim and Penuel (above n. 6). Being at the river, between the two cities, one may claim to be at both Mahanaim and Penuel at the same time. 10  The J story of Hagar’s escape from Sarai (Gen 16:1–14) uses the noun ,6–5 ,3–16:1( ‫שפחה‬ 8). The parallel story in E – sending Hagar away to the wilderness (21:9–21) – uses the noun ‫( אמה‬21:10, 13). 11 See Friedman, Bible with Sources Revealed, 86. 12  Jacob stays alone either as he caused his family to cross while he himself stayed on the former side to face Esau alone, or because he returned to that side after taking his family across. 13 I owe this important observation to Baruch Schwartz.

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All the above point to the fact that the tale of wrestling with the man comes from two separate sources. In separating the text to its sources, the clause “and a man wrestled with him” (32:25bα) belongs to both J and E. J: Gen 32:23 That same night he arose, and taking his two wives, his two maidservants, and his eleven children, he crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 24 After taking them across the stream, he sent across all his possessions.  25 Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn. 26 When he saw that he had not prevailed against him // 27 Then he said, “Let me go, for dawn is breaking.” But he answered, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” 30 // And he blessed him there. E: Gen 32:2 Jacob went on his way, and angels of God encountered him. 3 When he saw them, Jacob said, “This is God’s camp.” So he named that place Mahanaim. 14  And he spent the night there. // 25 // And a man wrestled with him. // 26// and he wrenched his hip at its socket, so that the socket of Jacob’s hip was dislocated as he wrestled with him. 31 So Jacob named the place Peniel, meaning, “I have seen a divine being face to face, yet my life has been preserved.” 32 The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping on his hip. 33 That is why the children of Israel to this day do not eat the sinew that is on the socket of the hip, since Jacob’s hip socket was wrenched at the thigh muscle. To which of these stories should we assign verses 28–30 with the new name of Jacob?

4. Israel The name Israel is welded from two words: the divine personal name “El” and the verb “to rule” (‫ר‬.‫ר‬.‫ )ש‬in the third person singular yiqtol, meaning “El” will rule. A Judahite writer would certainly choose a name like Israiah, or Israiahu, emphasizing the proper divine name that he was used to:“YHWH.” Thus, the name Israel comes from the northern kingdom and should be assigned to E. Yet, our tale does not offer this proper explanation of the name Israel. As a substitute, the tale explains the name as “you have striven with God/s and with people.” This alternative explanation uses an unprecedented form of the verb “to rule” (‫ר‬.‫ר‬.‫)ש‬14 and switches the divine personal name “El” to its generic meaning, “god.”15 This is a polemic against the regular meaning of Israel and therefore cannot be assigned to E, and should be understood as part of J’s text. In addition, the tale of Jacob limping away connects the weak Jacob with Penuel (32:32). Thus, the

 This meaning of the verb appears again only in Hos 12:4–5, which reflects Gen 32:30. writer did such a terrific job that, except for biblical scholars, everyone accepts his alternative explanation as the true one. 14

15 This

And [Jacob] Named Himself, El (is) My God – Israel (Gen 33:20)

23

strong Jacob and his renaming Israel is connected with the ford of Jabbok and the tale of J. We have the renaming of Jacob as Israel in both J (32:29) and in P (35:10).16 It is peculiar that changing the name of Jacob to Israel, which originated in the northern kingdom, does not appear in E, the text that comes from the north. It is my contention that the renaming of Jacob does appear in E too, but is hidden. The story of E goes as follows: Jacob sees the angels of “Elohim” and responds by naming the place Mahanaim (32:2–3). There is no other reaction to that meeting, and Jacob goes to sleep (32:14a).17 At night he was attacked, got injured, and escaped to Penuel (32:26, 31–33). At this point the compiled text switches to J. The text returns to E only in verse 33:20: ‫וַ ַ ּי ֶ ּצב ׁ ָשם ִמזְ ֵּב ַח וַ ִ ּי ְק ָרא לוֹ ֵאל אלהי יִ ְ ׂש ָר ֵאל‬ He set up an altar there, and called it El-elohe-yisrael (MT)

“El” in the verse may be either a personal divine name or a common noun, simply denoting “god.” As “god is the god of Israel” is meaningless, we have to accept “El” as the divine personal name.18 The Hebrew verb that is used here for setting the altar is ‫ויצב‬, from ‫ב‬.‫צ‬.‫י‬. Usually, the Torah uses the verbs ‫ה‬.‫נ‬.‫( ב‬to build) or ‫ה‬.‫ש‬.‫( ע‬to make) for setting up an altar. Rarely do biblical texts use the verb ‫מ‬.‫ו‬.‫ק‬ (to erect; 2 Sam 24:18; 1 Kgs 16:32; 1 Chr 21:18) and only in our verse do we have the verb ‫ב‬.‫צ‬.‫י‬. This particular verb certainly is used here to invoke the erecting of the ‫( מצבה‬pillar) at Bethel (Gen 28:18). The divine personal name “El” and the connection with the pillar at Bethel put our verse (33:20) in E. From the location of the verse in the sequence of E, we understand that the altar was set up a little west of Penuel: [32:32] The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping on his hip. [33] That is why the children of Israel to this day do not eat the thigh muscle that is on the socket of the hip, since Jacob’s hip socket was wrenched at the thigh muscle [33:20] He set up an altar there […]

The preposition ‫ לו‬may refer either to the object that it attached to – the altar – or the subject of the sentence – Jacob. In the former case, the preposition ‫ לו‬should be translated “it,” and the meaning of the verse is that Jacob named the altar “El is the God of Israel.”19 Such a name for the altar is unacceptable as it refers to Israel as a known name, while it is unknown yet in E.  This verse is assigned to P by all critics. half verse interrupts Jacob’s preparations to meet Esau. It is situated after splitting up his camp (and sending each part to a different direction), after Jacob’s prayer (32:10–13) and before sending presents to Esau (32:14b–22a). Going to sleep should come after the preparations, and indeed, that is precisely where it comes in J (32:22b). 18  The traditional exegetes explain “El” as referring to “Yhwh,” but grammatically this is impossible, as the Lord is not mentioned in the verse. Thus, “El” may not refer to Him. 19  This strange name forced the traditional commentators to refer the preposition to the Lord. 16

17 This

24

David Ben-Gad HaCohen

In the latter scenario, the preposition ‫ לו‬refers to Jacob and should be translated “himself.” In this case, the verse comes to tell us that Jacob named himself Israel (El will rule), declaring “El” as his God.20

5. Reconstructing the Story in E The story of E, as we have it so far is as follows: Jacob sees the angels of Elohim and goes to sleep. At night he is attacked, gets injured and escapes toward Penuel. As the sun rises, Jacob passes Penuel, sets up an altar, announcing “El” as his God and naming himself Israel. There are serious questions concerning this story: Why is Jacob attacked at night? Why does Jacob announce that “El” is his God and changes his name? Why did the compiler of the Torah move the altar from Penuel to Shechem? The third question is easy to answer. Knowing the traditional sensitivity for an altar in the Jordan valley (Jos 22:9–20), the compiler had to move Jacob’s altar from Penuel to the next station that is not in or next to the Jordan valley.21 As for answering the first two questions, we have to return to the last scene of the composed tale of Jacob at Bethel: the vow (28:20–21).22 It was previously considered impossible to assign the vow to any source as it contains two personal divine names, “Elohim” (28:20) and “YHWH” (28:21). It is Baruch Schwartz’s revolutionary observation that makes it possible: “On purely linguistic and logical grounds, Jacob could not have said ‘if God is with me …, then Yhwh will be my God;’ this sentence is as meaningless as ‘If the CEO of the company gives me the raise she promised, then Ms. Banks will be my CEO.’” Surely, there is a fault in the MT. The original text probably was either: “if YHWH is with me … then YHWH will be my God,” or: “if Elohim is with me …, then Elohim will be my God.” If the former version is correct, we have to assign Jacob’s vow (vv. 20–21) to J. But, if the latter is correct, the vow should be assigned to E. Reading “YHWH” is a more attractive alternative than “Elohim,” since “Elohim will be my Elohim” is an awkward tautology. But Jacob’s declaration, “El is my God” (33:20, according to my reading), makes it possible to reconstruct the vow

20 Karel van der Toorn had already suggested that the Jacob traditions were connected with El. See Karel van der Toorn, Family Religion in Babylonia, Syria and Israel: Continuity and Change in the Forms of Religious Life, SHCANE 7 (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 300; cf. Douglas J. Becker, El Elohe Israel? An Inquiry into the Alleged Canaanite Background of Early Israelite Religion, M. A. Thesis, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 2010, 149–54. 21  It makes sense that the sensitivity is based on the old tradition of Jacob’s altar to “El” at Penuel. 22  For the separation of Genesis 28 into its sources, see Schwartz, “Did Jacob Meet.”

And [Jacob] Named Himself, El (is) My God – Israel (Gen 33:20)

25

as “if Elohim is with me …, then El will be my God.”23 The fulfilment of the vow is “El is my God” (33:20). Now we may understand why Jacob was attacked by the man: Jacob was encountered by angels of Elohim at Mahanaim. This encounter did not invoke in him the memory of the angels of Elohim on the ladder in Bethel. He did not respond to the scene but instead went to sleep. He was attacked at night and escaped to Penuel. That incident invokes the old vow; he set up an altar, renames himself Israel, and in doing so he declares “El” to be his God.

6. The History of a Story We have enough dots to connect to draw the development of two traditions into one compiled tale and to the episode as it is now in the MT. First act: The northern storytellers had an old story telling about Jacob’s dream at Bethel, his vow to “El,” and its fulfilment by renaming himself Israel at Penuel. In Judea there was a tradition about Jacob meeting with Esau at the ford of Jabbok. There was no real connection between the two tales. Yet, both are played along the river of Jabbok. There could be another incidental link between the tales: the story of E mentioned the toponym Mahanaim, while the Judahite story had Jacob splitting his people and animals into two camps, in Hebrew mahanaim. Second act: a Judahite storyteller was exposed to the northern tradition at Mahanaim and Penuel. That Judahite, a stricter Yahwist, would have had a longtime problem with the national name Israel, which uses the divine personal name “El.” As he had in his arsenal a story that was played on the same stage, he took the wrestling scene from the northern tradition, added it to the meeting at the Jabbok with a switch, giving Jacob the upper hand and suggesting an alternative explanation for the name Israel. Third act: The story of Jacob at Mahanaim and Penuel became an episode in the written document E, and the tale of Jacob at the ford of Jabbok became an episode in the written document J. Fourth act: The compiler of the Torah had on his desk two stories that both were played out along the stream of the Jabbok, both of which included Mahanaim in the story, and both of which had a man wrestling with Jacob at night. Naturally, the compiler wove them into one story, ignoring the fact that although they were played out on the same stage the episodes were played at opposite corners of the stage. The compiler did see a problem with the altar for 23  The observation that it was El whom Jacob refers to in his vow is supported by Gen 35:1, 3, 7 and 48:3; all belong to E. This reconstruction assigns 28:20–21 to E. The assignment of the rest of the verses in the chapter should stay as Baruch Schwartz put them.

26

David Ben-Gad HaCohen

“El” at Penuel and moved it to Shechem. But he did not see a problem with the personal name of the deity “El” and left it untouched in the compiled text, as is attested in Deut 32:8–9.24 Thus, Gen 28:21 and 33:20 were left as is: “El will be my God” and “El is my God,” respectively. Fifth act: A stricter Yhwhist copyist changed “El” (28:21) to “Yhwh” and changed the vowel under the letter ‫( ה‬33:20), causing us to read “El (is) the God of ” instead of the original “El is my God.”

24  Based on the translation of this verse in the Septuagint and a fragment from Qumran, we know that the Urtext stated that when “El Elyon” created the world he gave one people to each of his sons, and “Yhwh” received Jacob as his share. See Thomas Römer, “L’Ancien Testament est-il monothéiste?” in Le Christianisme est-il un monothéisme?, ed. Gilles Emery and Pierre Gisel, Lieux théologiques 36 (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 2001), 72–92; Nicholas Wyatt, “The Seventy Sons of Athirat, the Nations of the World, Deuteronomy 32:6b, 8–9 and the Myth of the Divine Election,” in Reflection and Refraction. Studies in Biblical Historiography in Honor of A. Graeme Auld, ed. Robert Rezetko, Timothy H. Lim, and W. Brian Aucker, VTSup 113 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 547–56.

Misplaced Places Redaction and the Priestly Wilderness Itinerary Liane Feldman Over the course of the book of Numbers, the Israelites make their way from the wilderness of Sinai to the very edge of their promised land, from the foot of Mount Sinai to the Steppes of Moab. The priestly itinerary notices in this book are relatively easily disentangled from the nonpriestly itinerary notices, in part because the priestly authors make use of a formulaic notice: “they set out …. and then they set up camp” (‫)ויסעו…ויחנו‬.1 While the process of identifying the priestly itinerary notices is often (though not always) straightforward, their arrangement and relationship to the broader plot of the priestly narrative is not always so clear. In one case in particular, that of the priestly itinerary notices in Num 21–22, the movements of the Israelites in the wilderness stand in direct contradiction to the location of the people in the story of the Midianite woman and the zealotry of Phineas found in Num 25. This point is often overlooked, in part because many scholars understand this priestly story in Num 25:6–19 to be a priestly redaction or reinterpretation of the nonpriestly story of the sin of Baal-Peor.2 The approach I take in this essay is to see P as an independent source, and not as a redactional layer on top of the nonpriestly pentateuchal materials. This follows the neo-documentary approach to the study of the priestly source articulated and advanced by Baruch Schwartz and his students.3  One of the most detailed treatments of the itinerary notices in the book of Numbers, and those in P more specifically is found in Angela R. Roskop, The Wilderness Itineraries: Genre, Geography, and the Growth of Torah (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2011). For discussion on the form of priestly itineraries specifically, see pp. 169–85. Further discussions of priestly wilderness itineraries can be found in Jerome T. Walsh, “From Egypt to Moab: A Source Critical Analysis of the Wilderness Itinerary,” CBQ 39 (1977): 20–33; Graham I. Davies, “The Wilderness Itineraries and the Composition of the Pentateuch,” VT 33 (1983): 1–14; Thomas B. Dozeman, “The Priestly Wilderness Itineraries and the Composition of the Pentateuch,” in The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research, ed. Thomas B. Dozeman, Konrad Schmid, and Baruch Schwartz, FAT 78 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 257–88. 2 See, for example, Baruch A. Levine, Numbers 21–36: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 4B (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 285–86. 3  For their discussions of P as an independent source, see Baruch J. Schwartz, “The Priestly Account of the Theophany on Sinai,” in Texts, Temples and Traditions: A Tribute to Menahem Haran, ed. Michael V. Fox et al. (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1996), 103–45, esp. 105–109; Joel S. Baden, The Composition of the Pentateuch: Renewing the Documentary Hypothesis, 1

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In this essay, I will analyze the P narrative from the death of Aaron to the Midianite War (Num 20–31*). In most cases, I will address P in its broadest form, including later priestly supplements and additions. That being said, where it is necessary and relevant, I will distinguish between possible layers of P, though this is not the primary aim of this essay. In my analysis, I will focus on narrative discrepancies caused by the priestly itinerary notices in Num 21–22. I will suggest that the priestly itinerary notices now found in Num 21–22 were relocated by the redactor(s)4 of the Pentateuch from their original place withAYBRL (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 177–92. For a more recent discussion and an argument for the parallel development of an independent priestly strand alongside nonpriestly materials in the Pentateuch, albeit it one in which priestly texts are aware of nonpriestly ones, see David M. Carr, The Formation of Genesis 1–11: Biblical and Other Precursors (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 252–60. 4  For the duration of this essay, I am using the term redactor(s) to refer to the person or people responsible for combining the priestly and nonpriestly materials in the Pentateuch. In this way my approach differs slightly from that of Schwartz and Baden, who advocate for a minimalist approach that hypothesizes a single figure mechanically combining these sources, which they call a “compiler.” For this argument, see Baden, Composition, 214–29. My own understanding of the process of the creation of the Pentateuch, and the person or people involved in that process, advocates for more complexity and scribal autonomy in the process. As we know from recent work that has been done on both Hellenistic and Roman scribal practices, scribes rarely, if ever, worked alone. For discussions of the oral transmission and memorization in the production of composite literature such as the Pentateuch, see David M. Carr, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), esp. 159–61. For an excellent discussion of the physicality of writing and text production in the Hellenistic era and a compelling refutation of the idea that single scribes would have worked with multiple scrolls simultaneously, including an example of allusion to Num 25:11–13 in Ben Sira, see Lindsey Arielle Askin, “What Did Ben Sira’s Bible and Desk Look Like?,” in Ancient Readers and Their Scriptures: Engaging the Hebrew Bible in Early Judaism and Christianity, ed. Garrick Allen and John Anthony Dunne, Ancient Judaism and Eary Christianity 107 (Leiden/ Boston: Brill, 2018), 3–26. While many of these studies have focused on the late second temple period, the redaction of the Pentateuch is dated by most scholars to the 5th or 4th centuries, well before most evidence for scribal practices. That being said, scholars have made compelling arguments that the plurality of pentateuchal text forms preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls attests to an acceptance of diversity and fluidity in compositional practices. (See, most recently, Molly M. Zahn, “The Relevance of Moses Traditions in the Second Temple Period,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Pentateuch, ed. Joel S. Baden and Jeffrey Stackert [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021], 78–94, here 79–80.) Zahn’s argument for textual plurality is focused on the late Second Temple period as well, assuming the typical dating of many of the pentateuchal scrolls to the 2nd and 1st centuries bce. In light of these studies and numerous others like them, it seems to me more plausible to consider that the process of pentateuchal redaction was not a singular event managed by a singular individual scribe. It is possible, as Zahn suggests, that an initial “proto-Pentateuch” was produced by combining independent sources, but the resulting text would not have been solidly fixed from that historical moment forward (Zahn, “The Relevance of Moses Traditions,” 84). Textual diversity for pentateuchal materials is attested even from the Persian period, and this type of material evidence must be taken seriously in possible reconstructions of compositional processes. Instead of a single redactor model, I prefer to imagine one or more redactors who were responsible for the combination of priestly and nonpriestly sources into a single Pentateuch, and that those involved would have had considerable oppor-

29

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in the story of the zealotry of Phineas in Num 25. I will argue that when the priestly and non-priestly strands of the Pentateuch were combined, elements of the two non-priestly stories (J and E) demanded that the redactor(s) divide up and relocate these priestly itinerary notices to an earlier point in the canonical story, and in the process of doing so the redactor(s) created an entirely new plot point in the story in Num 25 that was not present in any of the three independent sources.

1. Tracing the Priestly Path Through the Wilderness For the majority of the priestly narrative, the Israelites are in the wilderness of Sinai near Mount Sinai. From their arrival there in Exod 19:1 (‫)באו מדבר סיני‬, the Israelites remain in this one location until Num 10:11–12, when Yahweh finally gives them the signal to depart: In the second year, on the 20th day of the second month, the cloud lifted from the dwelling place of the ‘edut, and the Israelites set out on their travels from the wilderness of Sinai. The cloud settled down in the wilderness of Paran.

‫ויהי בשנה השנית בחדש השני בעשרים‬ ‫בחדש נעלה הענן מעל משכן העדת׃ ויסעו‬ ‫בני־ישראל למסעיהם ממדבר סיני וישכן‬ ‫הענן במדבר פארן׃‬

From this point forward in the priestly narrative, the Israelites are regularly on the move. From the wilderness of Paran, they journey to Kadesh (Num 13:26), and from Kadesh to Mount Hor (Num 20:22). From Mount Hor, they travel to Obot (Num 21:10), and from Obot to Iyye Abarim (Num 21:11). Finally, from Iyye Abarim, they head to the Steppes of Moab (Num 22:1), where they remain for the remainder of the story, just across the river from Jericho and poised to enter and conquer the promised land.5

tunity to rearrange, adapt, or adjust parts of the stories they sought to combine. This process may not have happened only once, or only at one point in time, though further study would be necessary to make a strong argument on this point. At the very least, this kind of compositional model is more congruent with what we know of scribal practices and textual production in post-exilic Judea. 5  See Table 1 for a listing of the post-Sinai priestly itinerary notices. Compare this with the chart offered by Roskop, which is largely similar, though lacks the notices in Num 12:16, 13:26, and 22:1 (Roskop, Wilderness Itineraries, 178.) The major differences between my list and Roskop’s lie in Num 12:16 and 22:1. Num 13:26 is less of an itinerary notice than a statement by the narrator that locates the Israelites in the wilderness of Paran at a given point in the story. The remaining two notices will be discussed below.

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Table 1: Priestly Itinerary Notices in the Wilderness Location

Notice

Wilderness of Sin → Wilderness of Sinai

Citation

‫( ויסעו כל עדת בני ישראל ממדבר סן למסעיהם על פי‬Exod 17:1; ‫ בחדש השלישי לצאת בני־ישראל מארץ מצרים‬:‫ יהוה‬19:1, 2aβ) ‫ביום הזה באו מדבר סיני׃ ויחנו במדבר‬

Wilderness of Sinai → Wilderness of Paran

‫( ויסעו בני־ישראל למסעיהם ממדבר סיני וישכן הענן‬Num 10:12) ‫במדבר פארן‬

Wilderness of Sinai6 → Wilderness of Paran

‫( ואחר נסעו העם ממדבר סיני ויחנו במדבר פארן‬Num 12:16)

Wilderness of Paran Wilderness of Zin Wilderness of Zin → Mount Hor

‫( ויבאו אל־משה ואל־אהרן ואל־כל־עדת בני־ישראל‬Num 13:26) ‫אל־מדבר פארן‬ ‫( ויבאו בני־ישראל כל־העדה מדבר־צן בחדש הראשון‬Num 20:1a)

7

Mount Hor → Obot Obot → Iyye Abarim Iyye Abarim → Steppes of Moab

‫( ויבאו בני־ישראל כל־העדה הר ההר‬Num 20:22) ‫( ויסעו בני ישראל ויחנו באבת‬Num 21:10) ‫( ויסעו מאבת ויחנו בעיי העברים במדבר אשר על־פני‬Num 21:11) ‫מואב ממזרח השמש‬ ‫( ויסעו בני ישראל ויחנו בערבות מואב מעבר לירדן‬Num 22:1) ‫ירחו‬

For the most part, these itinerary notices are relatively straightforward and follow the typical ‫ ויסעו…ויחנו‬formula expected in priestly itinerary notices.8 However, not all of these itinerary notices conform to this expected formula. The majority of those cases that do not conform to the formula are best explained by their broader narrative contexts. For example, in Num 10:12, the departure from Sinai, the focus is on the movement of Yahweh in his cloud that directs the journey of the Israelites, and thus instead of ‫ויחנו‬, the narrator uses ‫ וישכן‬to refer to the cloud’s encampment, with the implication that the Israelites will follow suit.9 In the case of Num 13:26, this is not a typical itinerary notice, but is instead a notice in the midst of a longer story that the spies have returned to the Israelite 6  See the argument below for the change from the canonical text of Hazerot. It is also possible that instead of ‫העם‬, the text would have read ‫בני ישראל‬, but this is more speculative and not necessary. P also uses the term ‫ העם‬in a number of places. See, for example, Exod 12:27; 13:3; 36:5–6; Lev 4:3; 9:7, 15, 22–24; 10:3; 16:24; Num 13:32. 7 See the argument below for this change from the canonical text of Kadesh. 8  For a discussion of this formula and its possible Mesopotamian military origins, see Roskop, Wilderness Itineraries, 137–152. See also George W. Coats, “The Wilderness Itinerary,” CBQ 34 (1972): 135–52, at 136; Graham I. Davies, “The Wilderness Itineraries: A Comparative Study,” TynBul 25 (1973): 46–81, at 57–59. 9 For a more detailed form of this argument see ibid., 217.

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camp in the wilderness of Paran.10 Because it is not a typical itinerary notice – only a small subset of the Israelites have traveled – it makes sense that it does not follow the standard formula for priestly itinerary notices. There is one case, however, where this breakdown in priestly itinerary formula is more pronounced and deserves further discussion. In Num 20:1, the itinerary formula breaks down entirely, and a complication to an otherwise straightforward description of the Israelites’ movements is introduced. It is worth remembering that the last non-lawgiving event in the story was that of the spies entering the land and returning to the entire community in the wilderness of Paran with a bad report of the land (Num 13–14*). Yahweh became angry and implemented a two-part punishment: the spies themselves, with the exception of Joshua and Caleb, would die of the plague immediately (Num 14:36–38). The remainder of the Israelites would be condemned to wander in the wilderness for 40 years, until the entire current generation died out (Num 14:29–35). The next notice we encounter of the Israelites moving is in Num 20:1. Rather than saying the Israelites set out from Paran and set up camp at Zin, the narrator instead relates that the entire Israelite community (‫ )כל העדה‬entered the wilderness of Zin and settled at Kadesh. In all ways except the use of the phrase ‫ כל העדה‬this itinerary notice looks wholly nonpriestly. And yet, the only prior mention of the wilderness of Zin is in the priestly narrative, in Num 13:21, when the narrator describes the spies starting their expedition at the extreme southern border of the land, in the wilderness of Zin. This movement, after the condemned spies have died and after a series of rebellions and revolts against the Israelite leadership (Exod 16; Num 16–17), is the first time the “children” (Num 14:33) wander in the wilderness, from one area (Paran) to another (Zin). The use of ‫ ויבאו‬here may indicate a kind of wandering, and not a disciplined or militaristically planned movement as is typical in P.11 The narrator then informs us that the Israelites settle down, at least temporarily, in Kadesh. This clause presents two immediate problems: 1) the use of ‫וישב העם‬ 10  Here there is a detail added that the Israelite encampment is at Kadesh. Locating Kadesh in the wilderness of Paran raises a number of issues for the itinerary notices in Numbers. Every other mention of Kadesh in Numbers and following situates it in the wilderness of Zin (Num 20:1, 14, 16, 22; 27:14; 33:36–37; Deut 32:51). 11  Coats sees the use of ‫ בוא‬as simply a stylistic alternative for ‫( חנה‬Coats, “The Wilderness Itinerary,” 137). Roskop, on the other hand, argues that this verb is not “characteristic of the itinerary genre” (Roskop, Wilderness Itineraries, 108). Using Akkadian comparanda, she argues that the use of this verb distances the Israelites’ travel from a militaristic purpose (ibid., 108– 110). In the context of P’s story, this makes perfect sense. At this stage in the story, the Israelites are not engaged in any kind of military battle, nor are they forming up for future war. They are wandering in the wilderness, condemned to 40 years with the absence of battle and conquest. It is precisely at this point in the story that the militaristic structure of the priestly camp breaks down because one of its primary purposes has been temporarily suspended. For a discussion of the Israelite marching order and its militaristic origins, see Liane M. Marquis, “The Composition of Numbers 32: A New Proposal,” VT 63 (2013): 408–32, at 412–13.

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in the latter part of this verse stands out as nonpriestly language, and 2) according to P, the Israelites were already in Kadesh when they were in the Wilderness of Paran (Num 13:26). This latter problem is the more significant of the two, even while the language itself raises initial suspicion of the priestly origins of the clause. The nonpriestly story in Num 20 is clearly oriented around the Israelites at Kadesh. One of the first elements of the nonpriestly (E) story is the death of Miriam, and her burial “there” (Num 20:1b). Immediately after her burial, the Israelites are sending out messengers to the king of Edom from Kadesh, requesting permission to pass through Edomite territory. “There” in the nonpriestly account is clearly Kadesh, which suggests that the phrase ‫ וישב העם בקדש‬belongs to the nonpriestly story and is not a part of the priestly story.12 The question, then, is where the priestly story occurs: no specific location is given in the story. Instead, the narrator simply relates that the Israelites entered the wilderness of Zin in the first month. Immediately, they complain about lack of water (Num 20:2). One of the features of the P narrative is that the wilderness is conceived of as an uninhabitable place, an undeveloped place. In these priestly stories in Numbers, the events that take place in the wilderness are not attached to specific towns or cities in that wilderness.13 So too here. The Israelites ventured into the wilderness of Zin, and immediately began complaining. This story does not require a specific location, even as the location is named in later priestly stories as Meribah, after the incident that occurs there.14 In Num 20:22, however, there is an itinerary notice that sees the Israelites leaving Kadesh and arriving at Mount Hor. If the clause ‫ וישב העם בקדש‬in Num 20:1 belongs to the nonpriestly (E) story, then this creates a problem. How can the Israelites leave Kadesh in P when they were never there to begin with? There are two possibilities here. The first is that a redactor changed the location in 20:22 from Midbar Zin to Kadesh to bring it in line with the nonpriestly story of going around Edom. This means that the original priestly text would have read ‫ויסעו ממדבר צן ויבאו…הר ההר‬. Changing location names in itinerary notices is something that happens with some frequency in order to harmonize two different strands of the text.15 The other possibility here is that the phrase ‫ויסעו‬ ‫ מקדש‬belongs entirely to the nonpriestly (E) story and is continued by ‫לסבב את‬ ‫ ארץ אדום‬in Num 21:4.16 While ‫ ויסעו‬is often understood as stereotypical priestly  See the discussion in Levine, Numbers 1–20, 487.  In the Sinai story, for example, the Israelites camp “in the wilderness of Sinai” and in the spies story they settle simply “in the wilderness of Paran.” 14 Contra Baden, who argues that the P story in Num 20:1–13 occurs in Kadesh (Joel S. Baden, J, E, and the Redaction of the Pentateuch, FAT 68 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009], 175; Baden, Composition, 175–77). 15  See the discussion of this phenomenon in Baden, Composition, 220–21. 16  For this argument, see Joel S. Baden, “The Narratives of Numbers 20–21,” CBQ 76 (2014): 634–52, esp. 650. 12 13

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33

language, it is in fact used with some frequency in nonpriestly stories as well.17 The advantage of this second option is that it would leave the P text with only ‫ויבאו בני ישראל כל העדה הר ההר‬. This phrase, while seemingly nontypical of priestly travel notices, serves an important purpose in this story. Beginning with the return of the spies in Num 13:26, the priestly narrator has used the verb ‫ בוא‬to describe the Israelites’ movements. As I suggested above, this is almost certainly because at this point in the story, the Israelites are no longer on a military mission, but are rather condemned to wilderness wandering. The militaristic formula of ‫ ויסעו…ויחנו‬would no longer apply. Indeed, that formula only resumes after the death of Aaron as the Israelites resume their course toward Canaan (Num 21:10). Finally, there are remaining aspects of this priestly itinerary to discuss. The first is redactional, and the second narratological. The case of Num 12:16 presents something of a problem. The Israelites are said to set out from Hazerot and end up in the wilderness of Paran. There are two issues here: 1) in P the Israelites were never in Hazerot, and 2) they have already arrived in the wilderness of Paran according to Num 10:12. The first problem can be attributed to a redactional change when priestly and nonpriestly stories were combined. In the J story at the end of Num 11, the Israelites travel to Hazerot (11:35). The E story in Num 12 takes place in an unnamed location, but read canonically after Num 11, it happens in Hazerot. The next scene in the priestly story begins in the wilderness of Paran (Num 13:3). The redactor of the Pentateuch is then faced with the issue of getting the Israelites back to the wilderness of Paran. There was already a priestly itinerary notice available in Num 12:16. All the redactor would need to do is substitute Hazerot for the original location in the notice. This raises a second question: in the independent priestly source, if the Israelites were already in Paran, why then would there need to be a second notice about their presence in Paran in Num 12:16?18 In between these two itinerary notices is a long list recounting the order of the Israelite march in great detail (Num 10:11–28). Immediately following that list in the priestly narrative is this second itinerary notice, phrased slightly differently than others: …‫ואחר נסעו העם מ‬ (“After the people had departed from …”). This phrasing serves perfectly as a kind of resumptive repetition after the list-like aside of the marching order. Indeed, the use of ‫ אחר‬to mark this resumption is not unique in P; it also occurs in a similar position in Lev 16:2, which serves to reorient the reader to the story’s chronology after a long list-like interlude of purity laws.19 In short: this notice 17 See

Gen 12:9; 13:11; 20:1; 35:5, 21; 46:1; Exod 14:19; 15:22; Num 10:33; 14:25.

18 Levine argues that this verse is a postscript added by P to reconcile conflicting itinerary no-

tices (Levine, Numbers 1–20, 333.) Similarly, see Timothy Ashley, The Book of Numbers, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 228. For the perspective that it is entirely editorial, see Martin Noth, Numbers: A Commentary, OTL (Nashville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1969), 97. 19  For a discussion of this reading of Lev 16:2, see Liane M. Feldman, The Story of Sacrifice: Ritual and Narrative in the Priestly Source, FAT 141 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020), 155–61.

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almost certainly originally repeated the itinerary of Num 10:12 to get the reader back into the movements of the story: ‫ואחר נסעו העם ממדבר סיני ויחנו במדבר פראן‬, “after the people had set out from the wilderness of Sinai, and settled in the wilderness of Paran …” Finally, and briefly, from a narratological perspective, it is worth noting that the final three itinerary notices in this list (Num 21:10, 11; 22:1) are back-to-back in the priestly narrative. There are no other elements of the priestly story between these movements; instead, the narrator offers a quick summary of the Israelites’ movements through the wilderness to get them from Aaron’s death on Mount Hor to the Steppes of Moab, where the remainder of the priestly pentateuchal story takes place.

2. Out of Place in the Wilderness The Death of Aaron and the Zealotry of Phineas The final three priestly itinerary notices in Num 21:10, 11, and 22:1 appear to be relatively straightforward. They record the Israelites moving from one place to the next, and eventually settling in the Steppes of Moab, their final destination in the Pentateuch. These itinerary notices are not as straightforward as they seem, however. Following these itinerary notices in the priestly narrative is the story of the Midianite woman and the zealotry of Phineas in Num 25.20 This story begins in v. 6 with the narrator’s statement: But one of the Israelite men came and brought a Midianite woman into his family in plain sight of Moses and the entire Israelite community while they were weeping at the entrance to the Meeting Tent!

‫והנה איש מבני ישראל בא ויקרב אל־אחיו‬ ‫את־המדינית לעיני משה ולעיני כל־עדת‬ ‫בני־ישראל והמה בכים פתח אהל מועד׃‬

In the priestly narrative, this episode should ostensibly be happening in the Steppes of Moab, since the Israelites have traveled there in three stages. Yet, if this is the case, the way the narrator has set the scene makes little sense: an Israelite man goes and brings a Midianite woman home while Moses and the Israelite community are weeping at the entrance to the Meeting Tent. Why are Moses and the Israelite community weeping in the Steppes of Moab?21 20 The composite history of this chapter has been much debated, and more recently has been used to discuss the issue of whether P is an independent source or a redactional layer. For an overview of the history of scholarship on this chapter as it relates to P and an argument for Num 25:6–13 as part of an independent priestly source, see Itamar Kislev, “P, Source or Redaction: The Case of Numbers 25,” in The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research, ed. Thomas B. Dozeman, Konrad Schmid, and Baruch Schwartz, FAT 78 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 387–400, esp. 389–90. 21  The notice of weeping in v. 6 has traditionally led numerous scholars to suggest that the

Misplaced Places

35

Weeping (‫ )בכים‬is relatively uncommon in the priestly narrative. It happens only four times: Abraham weeps at the death of Sarah (Gen 23:2); the Israelites are permitted to weep for the deaths of Nadav and Avihu (Lev 10:6); the Israelite community weeps for the death of Aaron (Num 20:29); and the Israelites again weep for the death of Moses (Deut 34:8). It is the third instance of weeping, at the death of Aaron, that is most proximate to the narrator’s statement in Num 25:6. But the problem remains that the Israelites have travelled some distance and are no longer gathered at the Meeting Tent at Mount Hor. Rather, they are now in the Steppes of Moab according to Num 22:1. There are at least two possible explanations for this discrepancy. The first is that Num 25:6 marks a flashback in the story. The Israelites have traveled to the Steppes of Moab, and the narrator only then chooses to relate this event that happened back at Mount Hor. The second explanation is that the itinerary notices themselves were out of place in an independent P narrative. In this case, the scene immediately prior to this in P is Aaron’s death in Num 20:29, which ends with the Israelite community weeping at the entrance to the Meeting Tent. There are a number of elements of the story in Num 25 that suggest it is best to understand it as a direct continuation of the story of Aaron’s death on Mount Hor. The first element is the explicit nature of the location in nearly all the priestly scenes for the remainder of the book of Numbers. Beginning in Num 26:3, the narrator situates the census-taking in the Steppes of Moab. Again, the soldiers are described as returning to the Steppes of Moab in Num 31:12, after their battle with the Midianites. In Num 32, the Reubenites and the Gadites request to stay in the Transjordan and do so in reference to specific cities in and around the Steppes of Moab (Num 32:3; 34–38). In Num 33:50, Moses speaks to the Israelites from the Steppes of Moab, and in Num 35:1, Yahweh gives Moses further instructions in the same place. Finally, in Num 36:13, the narrator concludes a long section of instructions with a notice that “these are the commandments and the procedures that Yahweh commanded the Israelites through Moses in the steppes of Moab at the Jordan near Jericho.” The story in Num 25 is conspicuous in the absence of an explicit geographical notice. Yet, it opens with a contextual note that ties it to the location of an earlier scene: “while Moses and the Israelites were weeping at the entrance to the Meeting Tent …” (v. 6). This reference to the weeping and mourning of the Israelites situates this story as chronologically and geographically adjacent to beginning to the priestly story has been lost. See, for example, August Dillmann, Die Bücher Numeri, Deuteronomium und Josua, KHAT (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1886), 167; Bruno Baentsch, Exodus-Leviticus-Numeri, HAT I/2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1903), 623. More recently Kislev has built on this position, but rather than suggesting that the story has lost its beginning he instead suggests that it belongs earlier in the P narrative, prior to Aaron’s death (Kislev, “Numbers 25,” 398–99). As I will argue more below, Kislev’s impulse to place this story earlier in the P narrative is correct, though ultimately I find his solution unsatisfying.

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the death of Aaron. In other words, this episode has to happen at the base of Mount Hor. The second element worth noting here is one of proximity. The scene described in Num 25 makes sense only if the Israelites are at Mount Hor, which seems to be understood as bordering Midianite territory.22 Put simply: in order for the Israelite man to bring home a Midianite woman, there need to be Midianite women nearby. This would not be the case in the Steppes of Moab, but would be more possible at Mount Hor, which is envisioned to be to the south of Moab and Edom. It is certainly possible that the narrator could choose to flash back to this moment after recounting the Israelites’ journey away from the area, though it would break an emerging pattern in the stories of rebellion in the wilderness in P. The transgressions of the Israelites in the wilderness are met with an outbreak of the plague, which is then followed by the community breaking down camp and moving to another location. For example, in the wake of the spies episode in Num 13–14, there is a series of successive challenges and uprisings among the Israelites (Exod 16; Num 16–17).23 The death of the spies themselves (save Caleb and Joshua) and the condemnation to wander in the wilderness triggers an outcry from the people on two levels: 1) they will starve to death if they are in the wilderness that long (Exod 16), and 2) if they do not die of starvation, they will die because of the failed leadership of Moses (Num 16–17). This series of successive complaints results in the death of Korah and his 250 followers (Num 16:35), and then culminates in the outbreak of yet another plague claiming the lives of 14,700 Israelites (Num 17:12–14). In the aftermath of this, after a series of brief instructions from Yahweh, the Israelites move into to the wilderness of Zin, leaving behind those killed in the plague (Num 20:1). Perhaps the quintessential example of this narrative pattern of plague followed immediately by travel, however, is the first mass-casualty plague in P – the one in Egypt. In the immediate aftermath of the death of the Egyptian firstborn, the Israelites pack up and march away from both slavery and the fallen firstborn corpses scattered around Egypt.24 Given this pattern of plague/departure, a reader might expect the same Num 25: there is a plague that breaks out in response to this man’s transgression, killing 24,000 people. One might expect the Israelites to depart after the plague, leaving behind the corpses of those killed in the wilderness. This would follow exactly what Yahweh predicted in Num 14:33 (that the corpses of the Israelites 22  For a discussion of arguments about the location of Mount Hor, including the possibility that the site is simply an imaginary and nonspecific mountainous region, see Roskop, Wilderness Itineraries, 274–75. See also Jacob Milgrom, Numbers, The JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia: JPS, 1990), 169; Ashley, The Book of Numbers, 394–395. 23 For the inclusion of Exodus 16 in this series of events, see Joel S. Baden, “The Original Place of the Priestly Manna Story in Exodus 16,” ZAW 122 (2010): 491–504; Joel S. Baden, “The Structure and Substance of Numbers 15,” VT 63 (2013): 351–67. 24 Levine already made a connection between the plague in Num 17 and the one in Egypt, based on their shared use of the term ‫( נגף‬Levine, Numbers 1–20, 421).

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37

would fall in the wilderness) and would parallel the actions of the Israelites in the case of the previous outbreak of plague. Yet it in the current form of the story the movements from Mount Hor to the Steppes of Moab are linked to the death of Aaron, not the outbreak of plague. One would then need to read the Midianite episode in Num 25 as a flashback provided by the narrator once the Israelites had reached the safety of the Steppes of Moab. Yet this has two negative effects on the story: 1) it breaks the pattern of rebellion-plague-movement begun in Egypt, and 2) it blunts some of the reason for the seriousness of the response to the Israelite man’s transgression. When read immediately after the death of Aaron, Phineas’s actions and Yahweh’s response to them begin to make more sense.25 One of Aaron’s final acts as high priest was to put a stop to the plague that broke out following the rebellion against his authority and killed 14,700 Israelites (Num 17:33–35). Aaron travels, along with the Israelites, from Kadesh to Mount Hor so that he can die on that mountain. Just before this, Eleazar becomes high priest through Yahweh’s command to transfer the high priestly clothing (Num 20:28). Phineas is now next in line to the high priesthood. The first thing Phineas sees in the wake of Aaron’s death is an Israelite brazenly committing a severe transgression. He acts swiftly and aggressively, killing both the Israelite man and the Midianite woman. Yahweh rewards Phineas’s actions, claiming that he has stopped the progression of yet another plague (Num 25:10–11). Because of this, he grants Phineas a perpetual covenant of hereditary priesthood (25:12–13). The high priesthood passed from Aaron to Eleazar by Yahweh’s decree on Mount Hor, and now Phineas’s actions have secured the hereditary high priesthood for his line of descendants.26 Grandfather and grandson have now both stopped Yahweh’s anger (manifested as plague) among the Israelites. The story of Phineas in Num 25  It is worth noting here that this kind of attention to literary shaping is something that is rather typical of the P narrative. Indeed, one example of this in Num 25 is highlighted by Kislev, who makes a strong case that the author(s) of this story are highly attuned to both literary style and wordplay. In this case, he suggests that the hapax legomenon ‫ קבה‬in 25:8 is meant as both a euphemism for female genitalia and a play on the word ‫( קבתה‬her belly) in the same verse. In Kislev’s words, this “makes it possible to determine the precise nature of the couple’s sin: Phineas stabs the Midianite woman through her genitalia as a punishment – ‘measure for measure’ – for the act of forbidden sexual relations” (Kislev, “Numbers 25,” 391–92). Similarly, see Milgrom, Numbers, 215; Sarah Shectman, Women in the Pentateuch: A Feminist and SourceCritical Analysis, Hebrew Bible Monographs (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2009), 160–61. 26  Indeed, numerous scholars have understood the function of the story of Phineas to be the legitimization of his priesthood. See, for example, Noth, Numbers, 130–31; Reinhard Achenbach, Die Vollendung der Tora: Studien zur Redationsgeschichte des Numeribuches im Kontext von Hextateuch und Pentateuch, BZABR 3 (Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz Verlag, 2003), 440–42; Itamar Kislev, "P as Source or Redaction: The Case of Numbers 25, ” in The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research, eds. Thomas B. Dozeman, et al. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 395; Kislev, “Numbers 25,” 395. For a recent treatment of the Phineas episode and its reception history from the perspective of legitimization of priesthood, see Yonatan S. Miller, “Phinehas’ Priestly Zeal and the Violence of Contested Identities,” JSQ 26 (2019): 117–45.

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25 is ultimately the story of the permanent establishment of the high priestly line through a demonstration of fidelity to Yahweh. Juxtaposed with Aaron’s death and Eleazar’s investiture, the actions of Phineas and Yahweh’s resulting promise solidifies the authority of the priests as leaders of the Israelites – a decisive and final response to the uprising of Korah and his followers, and the Israelites after them, in Num 16–17. The presence of the itinerary notices in Num 21:10, 11, and 22:1 interrupt this otherwise tight sequence of events in the priestly story.27 The narrative continuity between Num 20:29 and 25:6 is apparent: The entire community saw that Aaron had died, ‫ויראו כל־העדה כי גוע אהרן ויבכו את־אהרן‬ and the entire house of Israel mourned Aaron for ‫שלשים יום כל בית ישראל והנה איש מבני‬ thirty days. Then one of the Israelite men came ‫ישראל בא ויקרב אל־אחיו את־המדינית‬ and brought a Midianite woman into his family ‫לעיני משה ולעיני כל־עדת בני־ישראל והמה‬ in plain sight of Moses and the entire Israelite ‫בכים פתח אהל מועד‬ community while they were weeping at the entrance to the Meeting Tent!

One stylistic element of this story also supports the argument that these two verses were likely part of a single episode – the use of ‫ והנה‬at the beginning of Num 25:6. In this episode, the use of ‫ והנה‬marks a change in focus from the gathered mourning Israelites at the entrance to the Meeting Tent to the Israelite camp and specifically to the Israelite man’s tent. It stands out as a distinctive part of the priestly narrative style. The priestly narrator uses ‫ והנה‬to flag a moment of sudden perception, usually of some kind of change in state.28 For example, in the lead up to the flood in Gen 6:12:  In between the conclusion of the Korah revolt and the death of Aaron are two chapters of priestly instruction from Yahweh, one concerning the place of the Levites and another concerning the laws and practices around corpse impurity. These two speeches interrupt an artful sequence of events in the story. It is well-established that the instructions in Num 18 are a later priestly addition. For this argument, see Jeffrey Stackert, Rewriting the Torah: Literary Revision in Deuteronomy and the Holiness Legislation, FAT 52 (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 165–208. The laws surrounding corpse impurity in Num 19 are a more complicated case. Many scholars also see these as a later priestly addition. (See, for example, Israel Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2007), 92–94; Milgrom, Numbers, 437–38.) This position is anything but certain, however. There are few lexical or stylistic markers in Num 19 to indicate that it might belong to a later layer of P. Indeed, its presence at this point in the story may be precisely because this is the point at which the Israelites, with a Tabernacle to be concerned about, first encounter mass casualties and have to deal with the issue of corpse impurity. For the argument using Lev 17 as an example of a case when laws are given in P at the time that they are needed, see Feldman, Story of Sacrifice, 171–73. If Num 19 is a part of an original priestly stratum, then its intervention between the plague and the Israelites’ departure is due to necessity: the Israelites need to know that corpses will render them, and by extension Yahweh’s sanctuary, impure. If it is a later priestly addition, then one can see why it would have been added at this point in the story, even if it interrupts the narrative sequence. 28  Gen 1:31; 6:12; Exod 16:10, 14; 34:30; 39:43; Lev 10:16; 13:5–6, 8, 10, 13, 17, 20–21, 25–26, 30–32, 34, 36, 39, 43, 53, 55–56; 14:3, 37, 39, 44, 48; Num 17:7, 12, 23. 27

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God looked at the earth, and – ah! – it was corrupt because all flesh had corrupted its ways on the earth.

39 ‫‏וירא אלהים את־הארץ והנה נשחתה כי־‬ ‫השחית כל־בשר את־דרכו על־הארץ׃‬

In this case, the change of state is a negative one. The priestly narrator also uses this in instances of positive changes of state: it appears twice in Exod 16, once with the Israelites turning to see the sudden appearance of Yahweh’s cloud, and again for the revelation of the manna beneath the morning dew (16:10, 14); it also appears in Exod 34:30 when the Israelites react to Moses’s shining face after his audience with Yahweh, and once more in 39:43 when he sees they have completed the work of building the components of Yahweh’s dwelling-place. There are a number of uses of ‫ והנה‬that parallel the one in Num 25:6 quite well. One of these is found in Lev 10:16. In Lev 10, this ‫ והנה‬marks the moment when, in the midst of otherwise standard activities in and around the Meeting Tent, Moses notices that something has gone very wrong (or at least he thinks it has).29 Moses’s anger is kindled in that moment, and he lashes out at those he perceives as responsible for the wrong (in that case, Aaron and his sons). This moment in Num 25:6 functions similarly. The ‫ והנה‬serves as a narrative signal for the reader to be on high alert: something is about to interrupt the status quo. And so it does: the Israelite mourning is suddenly interrupted by this transgression in plain view, and like Moses before him, Phineas lashes out in anger. The use of ‫ והנה‬at the beginning of Num 25:6 is one of the strongest indications that this passage should be read as following the death of Aaron in Num 20. This is the only case in the canonically-ordered priestly narrative where ‫והנה‬ is used to introduce a new story; everywhere else it appears in the middle of a scene that is already unfolding in order to mark a change of some kind in that scene. If we understand Num 25* as a continuation of the story of Aaron’s death, then the same applies here: this narrative device appears mid-story to mark the shift from communal mourning to priestly outrage.30 This does not entirely preclude the possibility that Num 25 should be understood as a narrative flashback, of course, but to understand this scene as a flashback would push against the established conventions of priestly storytelling.

29  For a more in-depth discussion of this scene and the use of ‫ והנה‬in that scene, see Feldman, Story of Sacrifice, 116–17. 30 Admittedly, this point could also be used to support the argument that the beginning of this story has been lost or edited out. However, those who have argued for this position often suggest that the beginning of the story contained larger-scale sexual transgressions on the part of the Israelites (see the discussion in Kislev, “Numbers 25,” 394 n. 31). If this were the case, then ‫ והנה‬would not introduce a change in state in this story as it does in every other case in P. Instead, it would simply be marking one specific case among many. While this use of ‫ והנה‬as a literary zooming-in is attested elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, it is not reflective of the way the priestly narrator tends to use it.

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Why Rearrange the Itineraries? If I mean to propose that the priestly itinerary notices in Num 21:10, 11; 22:1 are out of place, then the most important question that needs to be answered is, why? Why would a redactor or redactors rearrange the wilderness itinerary and move the Israelites away from Mount Hor earlier in the story? And why, if these three itinerary notices were originally consecutive in P, are they separated into two different traveling events in the canonical text? The answer to these questions can be found in the nonpriestly stories in Num 21–25.31 Table 2: Chart of Events in Num 21–25 Location

Event

Verses

Source

Mount Hor

Death of Aaron

20:22b–29

P

Hormah/Negev

Battle with Canaanite king of Arad

21:1–3

J

Mount Hor → Sea of Reeds →  around Edom

travel

21:4

P, J, E

while traveling (around Edom)

Complaints, Bronze Serpent

21:5–9

E

→ Obot → Iyye Abarim

travel

21:10–11

P

→  Wadi Zered → Arnon (near Amorites)

travel; giving the people water at Beer

21:12–18

E

Midbar →  Mattanah → Nahaliel → Bamot → valley of Moab near P ­ isgah

travel

21:19–20

J

valley of Moab (presumably near Amorites)

Battle with Sihon and Ammorites

21:21–32

E

Bashan

Battle with Bashan

21:33–35

E or Redactional Insertion

→  Steppes of Moab

travel

22:1

P

Steppes of Moab

Balak and Balaam story

22:2–24:25

J

Shittim

whoring with Moabite 25:1–2, 4 women

J

-----

Israelite man and Midianite woman

P

31 See

25:6–15

Table 2 for a visual representation of the events in Num 20:22–25:15.

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41

Following the death of Aaron, the Israelites encounter the king of Arad and engage in battle with the Canaanites at Hormah (Num 21:1–3).32 While the specific location of Hormah remains disputed, it is clear enough from the text that it is situated in or near the Negev. In a verse that contains fragments of itinerary notices from no less than three sources, the Israelites are said to depart from Mount Hor, go around the Sea of Reeds, and skirt the land of Edom (21:4).33 Following this departure, the people become impatient and begin to complain in the nonpriestly sources (Num 21:4b–9). Moses deals with the complaints, and the journey continues in v. 10 with the Israelites arriving at Obot and quickly moving on to Iyye Abarim in v. 11. The notice in v. 11 clearly situates the people on the eastern border of Moab. What follows these two typical priestly itinerary notices are several nonpriestly (J) itinerary notices that move the Israelites from the border of Moab to the border between the Moabites and Amorites. The E story picks up here with Moses requesting that Sihon, king of the Amorites, allow the Israelites to pass through his territory and into Canaan. This request is rejected (21:23), and the Israelites respond by conquering the Amorites and taking their territory (21:24–25). From here, the Israelites carry on and conquer neighboring Bashan and take its territory (21:35).34 At the end of this series of battles, the Israelites are imagined to be somewhere north of Moab, though their exact locations differ in each source. At this point, in the E story, all the territory of Sihon has been conquered, including the entirety of Moab, and the Israelites stop at the southern edge of Ammonite territory.35 Recognizing the itinerary notices in 21:10–11 as out of place as I argued above, at this point in the P story the Israelites remain at Mount Hor (21:4). In J, they are found in the valley of Moab, somewhere near Pisgah (21:19–20). A characteristically priestly itinerary notice in Num 22:1 moves the Israelites into the Steppes of Moab.36 What follows is the J story of Balak and Balaam, which takes place in the Steppes of Moab (Num 22:2–24:25).37 A key plot point in this story is that the sizeable Israelite encampment is visible to Balak and it frightens him (22:2–6). In order for this to make sense in the canonical version 32  For a discussion of the problems presented by this section, see Levine, Numbers 21–36, 83–85, 125–26. 33 For this argument, see Baden, “Numbers 20–21,” 648–50. 34 This passage is likely a later redactional insertion to harmonize this account with the one in Deut 3, and as such may not have been present when the priestly and nonpriestly materials were combined. (With thanks to Joel Baden and Jeffrey Stackert for this observation.) 35  For the conquest of Moab in E, see the repeated mentions of Heshbon along with the song in Num 21:26–30. 36 If Num 21:33–35 were already added to the nonpriestly materials at this point, then the Israelites are north in Bashan. Either way, the current placement of the P and J itinerary notices has the Israelites moving through Moab to its Steppes in the canonical story. 37  For a discussion of the Balak and Balaam story as belonging to the J source, see Joel S. Baden, “Situating Balaam,” forthcoming; Jacqueline E. Vayntrub, Beyond Orality: Biblical Poetry on Its Own Terms (New York: Routledge, 2019), 105–110.

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of the Pentateuch, the Israelites must be in the Steppes of Moab at this moment, not far away at the edge of Ammonite territory. If Balak cannot see the Israelites, then the story does not make logical sense. To put it simply, then, the P itinerary notices needed to be moved to conform to the demands of the nonpriestly stories. Once the Israelites begins to move in 21:4 in the nonpriestly stories, they must also move in the priestly one. What is likely a single three-part move in an independent P narrative must be split into two itinerary notices to fit the needs of the different E and J stories that are combined in the canonical text. The first part of the P itinerary which moves the Israelites to Obot and then to Iyye Abarim (21:10–11), must come where it does canonically because in the nonpriestly (E) text has the Israelites entering Moab in 21:12. But once the Israelites move from Moab into Bashan at the end of chapter 21, they need to be brought back to the steppes of Moab, where the Balak and Balaam episode unfolds in J. Indeed, Balaam sees the Israelites from the top of Pisgah (23:14), a site that is canonically equated with the steppes of Moab. The priestly itinerary notice in 22:1 accomplishes this at the necessary point in the story. But this raises another question: why would a redactor choose to move the itinerary notices, rather than simply placing the nonpriestly stories after the Phineas event in Num 25, which takes place at Mount Hor? The answer to this, I think, is relatively straightforward: the plague. The nonpriestly stories in Num 21:12–24:25 are almost entirely about waging battles and winning, and more specifically the Balak and Balaam story in Num 22–24 references the sheer size of the Israelites as cause for fear (22:3). This reference to the sheer magnitude of the Israelite forces makes less sense in the wake of both the snakebite-casualty event in Num 21:5–9 and a plague that wipes out tens of thousands of them. Indeed, one can also look at this another way: the logical follow-up to the plague in Num 25 is the census in Num 26, which takes stock of how many soldiers are available for battle. If the story in Num 25, along with its census in Num 26 followed immediately on that of Aaron’s death in Num 20, the Israelites would find themselves in the Steppes of Moab (which is where the census takes place according to 26:3) before that area was conquered in the nonpriestly (E) story. Additionally, if the nonpriestly stories of battle were placed after this event, one might wonder why a census is taken in the middle of a battle sequence. Why fight the Amorites and Bashan, then take a census only prior to a battle with the Midianites? As it stands, the plague in Num 25 offers a good reason for a recount of the people in the middle of these three battles in the canonical version of Numbers. There is one other factor to consider here: the priestly story of the Israelite man and the Midianite woman is not the only story in Num 25. It is preceded by two nonpriestly accounts of related transgressions in Num 25:1–5.38 In vv. 1–2, the 38  For a summary of the discussions of the breakdown of these stories, see Kislev, “Numbers 25,” 387–89. For more detailed analysis of source divisions, see August Dillmann, Die Bücher

Misplaced Places

43

narrator relates that the Israelites defiled themselves by sleeping with Moabite women. In v. 3, the narrator relates that the Israelites affiliated themselves with Baal-Peor. In both cases, the result is death for the offending Israelites. In v. 4, part of the story of the Moabite transgression, Yahweh tells Moses to have all the transgressors killed. In v. 5, part of the story of Baal-Peor, Moses tells the Israelite leaders to kill those who affiliated themselves with Baal-Peor. In both these cases, the Israelites are found engaging inappropriately with foreigners. This is the same general motif as the one found in the priestly story of the Israelite man and the Midianite woman. The main difference in the case of the priestly story is that it is presented as a single individual transgressing, rather than a large portion of the Israelite population.39 From the perspective of a redactor, these three stories would have looked largely similar: Israelites inappropriately engaging with foreigners in the wilderness. There is a logic to combining these three stories into a single scene in the canonical version in which Israelites are misbehaving left and right. The issue with the canonical version, of course, is one of geography. Midian and Moab are not near each other and, as multiple scholars have noted over the years, it is rather improbable that one set of Israelites is fraternizing with Moabite woman while another Israelite brings home a Midianite in the same place. Nevertheless, combining these three stories makes reasonable sense: rather than having three separate instances of the Israelites transgressing in this specific way in the wilderness, there is only one, and it happens in the aftermath of their conquests of the Amorites and Bashan, after they have been in close contact with foreigners and begun to take over foreign lands. This means that the unfortunate but one-off behavior of an individual in P becomes part of a larger narrative about the danger of foreign influences on the Israelites in the canonical text. Separating the story of the Israelite man and Midianite woman from the death of Aaron allows the redactor(s) to use it in service of this broader point, a point that would have been undermined if this priestly event had already happened in the canonical story. It is also worth noting that while nearly all the stories in this section of the book of Numbers contain some form of geographical notice, the priestly story in Numeri, Deuteronomium und Josua, KHAT 13 Lfg (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1886), 167–68; George B. Gray, Numbers, ICC (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1903), 380–81; Noth, Numbers, 197–98; Horst Seebass, Numeri 22:2–36:13, BKAT (Neukirchener: Neukirchener Verlag, 2007), 126. For an alternative view that sees only a nonpriestly Baal-Peor story and a priestly Phineas story, see Josebert Fleurant, “Phinehas Murdered Moses’ Wife: An Analysis of Numbers 25,” JSOT 35 (2011): 285–94. 39 This discrepancy has long been noted and scholars have often tried to explain the singular Midianite woman as a stand-in for either a broader trend of sexual transgression or a representation of an attempt to condemn Moses’s marriage to a Midianite woman. See, for example, Milgrom, Numbers, 477; Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), 203; Erhard Blum, Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch, BZAW 189 (Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1990), 115–16.

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Num 25:6–15 does not. The only nod to geography in this case is in the reference in v. 6 to the Israelites weeping at the entrance to the Meeting Tent. In a canonical context, however, this notice is vague enough that it could have occurred anywhere. Indeed, it makes perfect sense for it to have occurred after the events narrated in the nonpriestly texts in Num 25:1–5: Moses has just instructed that large portions of the Israelites be killed. It is entirely logical to think that the Israelites would be mourning their deaths, and from a canonical perspective this is precisely what they must be doing. The mourning for Aaron in P is transformed into mourning for apostate Israelites in the canonical Pentateuch.40 This has been something of a complicated and multi-faceted argument. Before moving on to the next logical question – where these itinerary notices would have been in an independent priestly source – I want to take a moment to briefly summarize and recap what I have argued here. I have suggested that in the independent priestly source, prior to its combination with nonpriestly materials, the story of the Israelite man and Midianite woman in Num 25:6–15 immediately followed on the story of the death of Aaron in Num 20:22b–29. The priestly itinerary notices that are now found in Num 21:10, 11, and 22:1 originally came sometime after this story, but have been relocated by the redactor(s) responsible for combining the priestly and nonpriestly materials into a canonical Pentateuch. These itinerary notices were moved in order to fit the demands of the nonpriestly plots. In these sources, the Israelites engage in multiple battles on their way to their final location in the Pentateuch (the Steppes of Moab). In the aftermath of these successful battles, the Israelites are caught behaving inappropriately with foreigners, whether it is sleeping with Moabite women (J) or turning toward foreign gods (E). The priestly story of the Israelite man and the Midianite woman in P fits well with the motif of these two nonpriestly stories, and so a redactor chose to combine the three of them into a single canonical event. This forced the redactor(s) to separate the Phineas episode from the death of Aaron in the priestly account. When the redactor(s) moved the priestly itinerary notices from their original place after the Phineas episode, they divided what was a three-part itinerary sequence into two separate travel events. The first of these has the Israelites moving from Hor to Iyye Abarim via Obot (Num 21:10–11). This is be40  Kislev offers an alternate explanation for the weeping in this verse while also suggesting that it indicates the story belongs chronologically earlier than its place in Num 25. For Kislev, this story must have happened while Aaron was alive because there is no priest alluded to in the story; no priest is present with Moses and Joshua and the community at the Tent – something that never happens elsewhere in P (see Kislev, “Numbers 25,” 398–99). While Kislev is correct to point out this discrepancy, the solution I offer here also addresses this issue. The Israelite community is mourning at the entrance to the Meeting Tent, and Eleazar (the now-high priest) is not mentioned as being among them. This may well be because a high priest is not permitted to mourn for anyone, not even an immediate family member like his father (Lev 21:10–11). If this is the case and this event happens during the mourning period for Aaron’s death, it is entirely logical that Eleazar would be absent: he is prohibited from mourning his father.

Misplaced Places

45

cause the events in J require the Israelites to be near the Amorites, where they stop to engage in battles there and at Bashan. The second part of the priestly itinerary appears later in Num 22:1 in order to move the Israelites from the lands bordering Ammon and Bashan to the Steppes of Moab for the events of the story of Balak and Balaam.

3. Finding the Right Place Recognizing that these priestly itinerary notices were almost certainly moved by a redactor at the stage of combining priestly and nonpriestly texts, the question remaining to address is the position of these itinerary notices in the independent priestly narrative prior to its combination with nonpriestly texts. In short: when in the story did the Israelites actually leave Mount Hor? And when did they get to the steppes of Moab? The latter question is somewhat easier to answer. By Num 26:3 – Yahweh’s command to take a census – the narrator relates that “On the Steppes of Moab on the Jordan opposite Jericho, Moses and Eleazar the priest said to them …” Therefore, we know that at this point in the P story, the Israelites have already made their way to the Steppes of Moab. Indeed, the remainder of the events in P are based in this location; they do not move again (with the notable exception of the soldiers making their way to Midian for the war in Num 31).41 If the Israelites are at Mount Hor in Num 25:6 and the Steppes of Moab in Num 26:3, when do they travel? It must occur at some point in the story related in Num 25. There are a number of events that happen in quick succession in this chapter, and it is worth outlining them: 1.  The Israelite man brings the Midianite woman to his tent (Num 25:6) 2.  Phineas kills them both (25:7–8a) 3.  The plague against the Israelites is stopped (25:8b–9) 4.  Yahweh praises Phineas and establishes a perpetual priesthood (25:10–13) 5.  The Israelite man and Midianite woman are named (25:14–15) 6.  Yahweh commands Moses to attack the Midianites, reminding him what they caused the Israelite man to do (25:16–18)42 7.  “After the plague …” (Num 25:19)  Num 26:63; 33:48–50; 35:1; 36:13; Deut 34:8.  These verses show indications of redactional activity as they conflate the priestly and nonpriestly stories here, combining Moab, Midian, and Baal-Peor. Numerous scholars have argued that they are wholly redactional, usually as a means of explaining why the Israelites will later go to war with the Midianities in Num 31. See Gray, Numbers, 387; Leonard E. Elliot-Binns, The Book of Numbers, Westminster Commentaries (London: Methuen, 1927), 179; Noth, Numbers, 199; Kislev, “Numbers 25,” 396–97. There is no reason, however, to attribute the entirety of these verses to a redactor, even if they do contain redactional activity. There is only one (repeated) clause that presents the problem: ‫על דבר פעור‬. This clause parallels the subsequent ‫על דבר כזבי‬ in the same verse. The parallel syntax and consecutive placement of these two phrases suggests 41 42

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A number of these sections are logically connected in a way that precludes imagining the entire Israelite camp packing up and departing among them. The first three events are all part of one single episode and should be read continuously. What follows is a short speech that marks Yahweh’s response to these events and praise for Phineas. There is no indication in the story that this happens at a later time. Indeed, Yahweh’s closing remarks in v. 13 claim that Phineas effected purification on behalf of the Israelites, which ties this speech closely to the cessation of the plague in vv. 8b–9.43 The narrator’s naming of the guilty parties in vv. 14–15 appears to be a kind of coda to this story. Indeed, it is at this point in the story that we learn the offense was even greater than we already thought: the offender was one of the Israelite tribal leaders.44 What remains are two unequal segments, the second of which is simpler to address. The final verse of Num 25 in the MT reads only ‫ויהי אחרי המגפה‬. This temporal clause is left hanging at the end of this chapter but serves nicely to offer the rationale for Yahweh’s command to take a census in Num 26.45 In the LXX, this clause (Καὶ ἐγένετο μετὰ τὴν πληγὴν) is found at the head of Num 26:1, and not in Num 25:19. As Jacob Milgrom noted, the masoretic notation at the end of this clause (‫ )פ‬suggests that they understood there to be a break in the text at this point. Milgrom hypothesizes, following Philo, that this section was originally followed by the account of the war in Midian in Num 31 and that the census was a later interpolation.46 While this is possible, it does not necessarily help sort out editorial intervention in v. 18a, adding Peor to tie the conclusion of a priestly story together with the nonpriestly (E) Peor story in vv. 2, 5. See already Gray, Numbers, 387. It is worth noting that there is no mention of Moabites at all in these two verses, and were a redactor aiming to add verses to tie all three stories together, one might expect the inclusion of that strand as well. The second occurrence of ‫על דבר פעור‬, at the end of v. 18, is almost certainly a scribal error, likely due to vertical dittography. It is syntactically awkward as well as factually inaccurate: according to this story the plague did not occur because of the Peor matter, but rather because of the Midianite woman. For this argument, see already Levine, Numbers 21–36, 291. Therefore, removing the two instances of ‫ על דבר פעור‬results in a coherent conclusion to this story that is consistent with P. For an attribution of these verses to P (without discussion of the ‫פעור‬ additions), see Baden, Composition, 176. 43 Indeed, Kislev (following earlier scholars) argues that vv. 6–13 represent the entirety of the original P story here (Kislev, “Numbers 25,” 396 and for earlier scholars concluding the same, see 396 n. 35). 44  Some scholars have argued that these verses are a secondary addition, largely because they are “quite irrelevant to an understanding of the events” of the story (ibid., 396). While this is certainly possible, it is not strictly necessary. Other stories in P offer the names of the protagonists, often at an awkward moment in the story. One example of this is in the story of the blasphemer in Lev 24:11. Here, prior to the offender being placed in custody, his name and tribal affiliation are given. For a discussion of the motif of identifying the criminal in priestly stories, see Simeon Chavel, Oracular Law and Priestly Historiography in the Torah, FAT II/71 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 35–48. 45  See already Bruno Baentsch, Exodus, Leviticus, Numeri, HKAT (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1903), 627. 46 Milgrom, Numbers, 218.

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the question of when the Israelites traveled from Mount Hor to the Steppes of Moab. If the episode of the Midianite war originally followed on this clause, then the Israelites must have already been in the Steppes of Moab at this point.47 If we follow the LXX and read this with Num 26:1, the Israelites are still in the Steppes of Moab. In short: no matter how we understand this clause in relationship to the rest of P, it requires the Israelites to be in the Steppes of Moab. This leaves two possibilities: 1) the Israelites departed Mount Hor after Yahweh’s speech to Phineas and the narrator’s giving of the names of the offenders (v. 15), or 2) the Israelites departed Mount Hor after Yahweh commanded them to attack the Midianites (v. 18). Table 3: Options for Itinerary Notices Option 1

Option 2

Yahweh praises Phineas (25:10–13)

Yahweh praises Phineas (25:10–13)

Narrator relates the names of the offenders (25:14–15)

Narrator relates the names of the offenders (25:14–15)

Israelites depart Mount Hor and travel to the Steppes of Moab (21:10, 11; 22:1)

Yahweh commands the Israelites to attack the Midianites (25:16–18*)

Yahweh commands the Israelites to attack the Midianites (25:16–18*)

Israelites depart Mount Hor and travel to the Steppes of Moab (21:10, 11; 22:1)

Census in the Steppes of Moab (Num 26)

Census in the Steppes of Moab (Num 26)

Neither of these options is a perfect fit at first glance. In Option 1, the Israelites depart Mount Hor, leaving the region of Midian, and only once they reach the Steppes of Moab does Yahweh command that they return to attack the Midianites. In Option 2, the Israelites are at Mount Hor when Yahweh commands them to attack the Midianites, but they depart immediately without doing so. The question raised by Yahweh’s command and its delayed fulfillment is precisely the issue that Philo responded to by placing Num 31 adjacent to Num 25.48 Yahweh’s command to attack the Midianites is repeated again in Num 31:2, with an added notice to Moses that once this is completed he will die. The repetition of this command logically suggests that some time has passed since the first command. There are several points in P in which Yahweh repeats commands that he has already given. The most notable of these is in Exod 40, when Yahweh repeats and supplements commands he gave Moses nearly a year earlier at Mount Sinai.49 In this case, certain commands that Yahweh gave Moses were not 47 According to Num 31:12, the soldiers return from war to the Israelite camp, which is set up at the Steppes of Moab across from Jericho. 48  Mos. 1:305–18. 49  For a more detailed discussion of this phenomenon in P, see Feldman, The Story of Sacrifice, 30–38.

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immediately carried out. When the time came for those tasks be done, Yahweh repeated himself but did so in a way that made reference to the current moment as well. Something similar may well be at play in the case of the Midianite war. If Yahweh commanded the Israelites to attack Midian in Num 25:16–18 and again in Num 31:2, it is reasonable to conclude, given narrative patterns in P, that some time has elapsed between the two events. And this is almost certainly the case: there are a census and several episodes of lawgiving between these two passages.50 But was there also travel in this inter-command period? Did the Israelites depart Mount Hor before or after Yahweh commanded them to attack the Midianites? To preempt my conclusion here: this is exceedingly difficult to determine with any level of certainty. That being said, there are a few factors that suggest to me that the Israelites departed Mount Hor prior to Yahweh’s command to attack the Midianites. The first of these is the way the community responds in the aftermath of an outbreak of plague. The one other time that this occurred in the P story was in the sequence of complaints in Exod 16, Num 16–17. A plague breaks out after a community-wide rebellion, and Aaron puts an end to it in Num 17:6–15. What follows this is a patently secondary priestly insertion of laws about the Levites in Num 18, and then laws concerning the handling of corpses and their transmission of impurity in Num 19. This is the first time in P when the Israelites are faced with both Yahweh’s tabernacle to maintain and a large number of corpses to deal with. Whether it is original or secondary, the inclusion of laws about corpse impurity makes sense at this point in the story.51 Immediately following these instructions is the notice of the Israelites’ movement into the wilderness of Zin. Faced with 14,700 corpses in the wilderness of Paran and the information that corpses are a potent source of severe impurity, Yahweh signals departure, and the Israelites move to a new corpse-free location. It is possible that the same pattern would be followed in the case of this second plague at Mount Hor. Faced with 24,000 corpses at Mount Hor, we might expect the Israelites to move out as soon as possible. Indeed, it is possible that Yahweh himself would have little inclination – or perhaps ability – to stay in a place so contaminated with the impurity generated

50  It is worth noting, of course, that the majority of the episodes of lawgiving (Num 27–30) are considered secondary priestly additions by the vast majority of scholars. (For a broad overview, see Knohl, Sanctuary of Silence, 105–106. For an argument that Num 28–29 are among the latest supplements to P, see Christophe Nihan, “Israel’s Festival Calendars in Leviticus 23, Numbers 28–29 and the Formation of ‘Priestly’ Literature,” in The Books of Leviticus and Numbers, ed. Thomas Römer, BETL 215 [Leuven: Peeters, 2008], 177–231.) Even given that the majority of these instructions are likely secondary, the completion of a census is something that would take time and interrupt the immediate movement between command and fulfillment. 51  For the issue of whether this chapter is P or a later priestly supplement, see Nathan MacDonald, “The Hermeneutics and Genesis of the Red Cow Ritual,” HTR 105 (2012): 351–71, at 353–54; Achenbach, Vollendung, 347–69. See also n. 29 above.

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49

by corpses.52 And this leads to the second factor that suggests that the Israelites moved immediately after the plague: Yahweh does not like to remain in impure places. The entire existence of the tabernacle and sacrificial systems themselves are testament to this fact.53 While corpse impurity generated by a single corpse may not have such a significant effect on the tabernacle when it comes in the course of normal life, the sheer quantity of corpses may force immediate movement. The fact that more corpses are about to be generated through the Midianite war may also be relevant. If 24,000 Israelite corpses fell at Mount Hor, and how many thousands more corpses (this time Midianites) will soon fall in the war, why would Yahweh station himself anywhere near such high levels of impurity? The impurity laws in Lev 11–15 make it apparent that impurities from any human beings affect Yahweh, not only those generated by Israelites.54 There is no reason to think that a Midianite corpse creates less impurity than an Israelite one in the priestly system. The Israelite camp, and its centerpiece of Yahweh’s Dwelling Place, must be set up at some distance from the site of war.55 52  For a discussion of the issue of impurity as it relates to corpses in P, see Jacob Milgrom, “The Paradox of the Red Cow (Num. XIX),” VT 31 (1981): 62–72; MacDonald, “Hermeneutics.” It is broadly accepted among scholars that if enough impurity accumulates in the sanctuary, then Yahweh will be forced to leave. This would create significant problems for the Israelites on the ground. For this argument, see Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 3 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), 258–61; Saul Olyan, Rites and Rank: Hierarchy in Biblical Representations of Cult (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 16; Christophe Nihan, From Priestly Torah to Pentateuch: A Study in the Composition of the Book of Leviticus, FAT II/25 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 195; MacDonald, “Hermeneutics,” 363. For a refutation of this perspective, see Jeffrey Stackert, “Political Allegory in the Priestly Source: The Destruction of Jerusalem, the Exile and Their Alternatives,” in The Fall of Jerusalem and the Rise of the Torah, ed. Peter Dubovsky, Dominik Markl, and Jean-Pierre Sonnet, FAT 107 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 211–26, at 216–19. 53  For the classic articulation of this hypothesis, see Jacob Milgrom, “Israel’s Sanctuary: The Priestly Picture of Dorian Gray,” RB 83 (1976): 390–99, esp. 392–93. 54  For a discussion of this principle in P, see Feldman, Story of Sacrifice, 181–83. 55 The one notable exception to this, of course, is the fact that Yahweh and the disassembled tabernacle are a part of the military marching order – positioned right in the middle of the Israelites (Marquis, “Composition,” 412–13). This clearly presupposes that Yahweh is present in the midst of Israelite battle. Indeed, if one were to argue that priestly materials continue into the book of Joshua, there are instances in which the priestly marching order described in Numbers are replicated, and Yahweh is described as being present in the middle of the Israelites, such as in Josh 6 or 8. The major difference between the case of the Midianite war and that of other potential wars in P is the status of the tabernacle itself. For the duration of the Midianite war, the tabernacle is not dismantled; it is set up in the Steppes of Moab where the majority of the Israelite community has set up camp. In the case of the potential future wars, the tabernacle is dismantled, covered, and being carried by the Levites. As Milgrom (following R. Judah in b. Yoma 54a) has argued, once the tabernacle has been dismantled and covered, it loses its potent holiness (Milgrom, Numbers, 30). If this is the case, and it seems as though it certainly is, otherwise the Levites would not be able to carry the dismantled furniture without risking death, then the impurity generated by corpses would not be “magnetically” attracted to the dismantled tabernacle in the same way because it is not projecting holiness in the same way it does when it is assembled. While this does not stop impurity from corpses from affecting Yahweh himself,

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There is one final factor worth considering, and it again appeals to patterns in P’s narrative. There is one other instance in P in the Pentateuch in which the Israelites discuss going to war, and that is in Num 32. In this story, two of the tribes (the Reubenites and the Gadites) make a special request of Moses. They would like to stay in the Transjordan and receive their allotted portions of land there instead of in Canaan with the rest of the Israelites (32:5). Moses agrees, but only under the condition that they assist the rest of the tribes in their efforts to conquer Canaan (32:21–22). The Reubenites and Gadites agree, but before the story moves on, they rebuild a number of cities so that they have somewhere to leave behind their women, children, and other movable property (32:17, 24).56 There is a similar fear expressed in the spies story itself. When the community hears the spies’ report, one of their first voiced complaints is, “Why is Yahweh bringing us to this land to be cut down by a sword? Our wives and our children will be abducted! Wouldn’t it be better for us to return to Egypt?” (Num 14:3). This concern for women and children near battle seems to be a persistent thread in P, and the movement of the Israelites away from Midian prior to the command to attack the Midianites would fit well with this pattern. Moving the women and children well away from Midian preempts a possible objection of the Israelites to engaging in this war. With their families in a safe location, the soldiers can and do return to attack the Midianites. These three factors – the movement of the community after plague, Yahweh’s aversion to impurity, and the concern for the safety of non-fighting Israelites – suggest that the most likely time for the Israelites to depart Mount Hor could have been in the immediate aftermath of the plague’s cessation. Yahweh’s short speech about Phineas delays the departure slightly, but only by a matter of minutes at most. This speech also provides the context for Phineas’s actions and justification for the continual leadership of Aaron’s descendants, thus preempting any future complaints against the priestly leaders similar to those raised by Korah and his followers in Num 16. Once the Israelites have safely reached the Steppes of Moab, then Yahweh gives his command to attack the Midianites, which in turn sets off the census activity in Num 26. This would mean that the three itinerary notices that I have suggested are out of place – Num 21:10, 11; 22:1 – would most likely have come between Num 25:15 and 25:16 in an independent priestly narrative. After the death of 24,000 Israelites in a plague caused by one man’s mistimed misadventures with a Midianite woman, the Israelites traveled from Mount Hor to Obot (21:10), Obot to Iyye Abarim (21:11), and Iyye Abarim to the Steppes of the epitome of “holy” as Schwartz has argued (Baruch J. Schwartz, “Israel’s Holiness: The Torah Traditions,” in Purity and Holiness: The Heritage of Leviticus, ed. M. J. H. M. Poorthuis and Joshua Schwartz, Jewish and Christian Perspectives 2 [Leiden: Brill, 2000], 47–59, at 47–48), it mitigates the contamination to some degree and allows Yahweh to avoid the contamination by leaving the area, which is precisely what happens in the conquest campaign in Joshua. 56  For a detailed source division of this chapter, see Marquis, “Composition.”

Misplaced Places

51

Moab (22:1), where Yahweh then commanded a Midianite war that prompted a census-taking event to reestablish the size of the Israelite forces (Num 26).

4. Conclusions In this essay, I have argued that three priestly verses are out of place in the canonical version of the Pentateuch: Num 21:10, 11; and 22:1. They were relocated by the redactor(s) of the Pentateuch when combining priestly and nonpriestly strands because the nonpriestly stories demanded the Israelites be adjacent to Moab sooner than in the priestly story. In the course of this argument, I have suggested that there are a number of narrative patterns and literary devices in P that are worth identifying as a part of the narratological profile of this source. Considering how a narrator tells their story can shed light on broader implications of that story. Deviations from those styles can be seen as a highly marked moment, as in the case of the priestly itinerary notices that do not follow the ‫ויסע…ויחנו‬ formula. In another case, I argued that there is distinctive use of ‫ והנה‬in P to mark a sudden change in perceived state, typically for the worse. While this is an expected use of the presentative particle, its specific contextual use in P is distinctive and reveals something of the priestly style of storytelling. A final example of this was the narrative patterning in this source. The fact that plagues are followed by departures from the scene may seem self-evident. But the interposition of the instructions and laws around corpse impurity in Num 19 suggest that this departure has everything to do with maintaining Yahweh’s continued presence among the community, and not with the Israelites’ desire to flee the plague. In addition to these arguments about narrative patterning and narrational style, I have attempted to show in this essay that the redactor(s) of the Pentateuch could and did rearrange the chronology of events in sources in order to fit the newly constructed pentateuchal chronology. More than any other source, it seems, there is evidence that the redactor(s) felt compelled to rearrange P in ways that fundamentally changed its plot. As Joel Baden has argued, the priestly manna story in Exod 16 was originally found after Num 15 in an independent P but relocated because of nonpriestly (J) narrative demands.57 There are a number of other examples of shorter segments of P being relocated.58 To this list, I now add the itinerary notices in Num 21:10, 11; 22:1. In the process of moving these itinerary notices, the redactor(s) of the Pentateuch cleverly created a new plot 57 Baden,

“Priestly Manna Story,” 501–502.  Apart from the manna story, the other two instances of this kind of relocation are in the notice of Lot’s rescue from destruction of the cities of the plain (Gen 19:29) and the notice of the birth of Jacob’s children (Gen 35:22–26). For a more detailed discussion of these cases, see Baden, Composition, 223. 58

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point that exists in none of the independent sources. The combination of the stories of the Moabite women (J), Baal-Peor (E), and the Midianite woman (P) in Numbers 25 has the Israelites mourning the deaths of the apostate members of their community prior to the incident with the Midianite woman (v. 6). The combination of these stories also makes the episode of the Israelite leader with the Midianite woman the third in a series of events. An event that originally provoked Yahweh’s wrath in part because of its disrespectful timing in P (in the immediate aftermath of Aaron’s death), has been recast canonically as a kind of last straw for the deity when faced with his disloyal people. This is not a case of the redactor(s) following a simplistic or mechanical process in the combination of these sources. The relocation of these itinerary notices and the combination of the three stories in Num 25 offers evidence of a thoughtful and literarily-minded redactor who understands the implications of rearranging a story’s plot points. This type of intervention and intentional reordering of the story demonstrates that the redactor(s) of the Pentateuch have a strong awareness of the intricacies of the plots of the individual stories as well as that of the new composite story they are actively creating.

The Yahwistic Account of the Theophany at Sinai The Establishment of the Divine Presence* Ariel Seri-Levi To Baruch my teacher, with deep gratitude ‫( מה אהבתי תורתך כל היום היא שיחתי‬Ps 119:97)

The Pentateuch and rabbinic literature in its wake both recognize YHWH’s revelation to his people on Mount Sinai/Horeb after the Exodus as a formative event in Israelite history. As such, it has drawn the attention and kindled the imagination of commentators and scholars throughout the generations.1 In modern critical scholarship, its exegesis rests first and foremost on an analysis of the text’s formation and composition: not only does the account in Exodus exhibit discrepancies with the parallel in Deuteronomy but the former itself also exhibits inconsistencies and plot non sequiturs. Many scholars thus maintain that it is not a single narrative.2

* This article is a revised and expanded version of a chapter of my doctoral dissertation, supervised by Profs. Baruch J. Schwartz and Moshe Halbertal and submitted to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2020. My thanks go to both for their personal and professional support and guidance. My further studies and completion of the article were made possible by the financial support and intellectual stimulation I received from the Center for the Study of Conversion and Inter-Religious Encounters at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev during my postdoctoral fellowship (2021/2022). I am also grateful to Dr. Or Amir, Dr. Rachel Frish, Dr. Tafat Hacohen-Bick, Dr. Omer Michaelis, and Prof. Daniella Talmon-Heller for reading drafts of the article and offering their constructive comments; Liraz Ella for our havruta relating to the Yahwistic source, which prompted some of the ideas presented herein; Dodani Orstav for enlightening dialogues on the subject; and Liat Keren for translating the Hebrew text. 1  The central place the revelation at Sinai holds in Jewish tradition is due primarily to the fact that it includes the giving of the Torah – an aspect I shall not address herein for reasons I hope will become clear below. For the Sinai revelation in rabbinic tradition, see, for example, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Theology of Ancient Judaism (New York: Soncino, 1965), vol. 2 [Hebrew]; Yochanan David Silman, The Voice Heard at Sinai: Once or Ongoing? (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1999) [Hebrew]. 2 For a survey of the literature and recent discussions, see, for example, Thomas B. Dozeman, Exodus, Eerdmans Critical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 411–57; Wolfgang Oswald, “Lawgiving at the Mountain of God (Exodus 19–24),” in The Book of Exodus: Composition, Reception, and Interpretation, ed. Thomas B. Dozeman, Craig A. Evans, and Joel N. Lohr, VTSup 164 (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 169–92.

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Two articles published by Baruch Schwartz in the 1990s have proved seminal for understanding the revelation narratives.3 These present a detailed and wellsupported argument for four full, independent narratives, each belonging to one of the four pentateuchal sources – the Yahwistic, Elohistic, Priestly (all three in Exodus), and Deuteronomic (Deuteronomy).4 These studies and those following in their wake signaled the emergence of a new scholarly approach that has become known as the Neo-Documentary Hypothesis. Continuing to be developed by Schwartz and his students, it is now regarded as a central stream within pentateuchal studies.5 In this article, I hope to contribute to the exegesis of the Sinai/Horeb units, the pentateuchal composition and sources, the representation of YHWH, and religious biblical thought in general. I shall focus on the account in the Yahwistic source, which has been relatively neglected by scholars.6 While the revelation is linked to the delivery of divine laws in the three other sources, J contains no law code. The questions must thus be asked: What purpose does this theophany serve? And what role does it play in molding divine-human relations according to J? These issues are addressed below via an analysis of the pericope in J in light 3 Baruch

J. Schwartz, “The Priestly Account of the Theophany and Lawgiving at Sinai,” in Texts, Temples, and Traditions: A Tribute to Menahem Haran, ed. Michael V. Fox et al. (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1996), 103–34; idem, “What Really Happened at Mount Sinai?,” BRev 13 (1997): 20–30, 46. See also Menahem Haran, The Biblical Collection: Its Consolidation to the End of the Second Temple Times and Changes of Form to the End of the Middle Ages (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2003), 2:129 n. 46 [Hebrew]. 4  For analyses of the revelatory and prophetic concepts reflected in each source, based largely on Baruch Schwartz’s source analysis, see Jeffrey Stackert, A Prophet Like Moses: Prophecy, Law, and Israelite Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), esp. 75–82; Benjamin D. Sommer, Revelation and Authority: Sinai in Jewish Scripture and Tradition, AYBRL (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), esp. 45–72; Anne K. Knafl, Forming God: Divine Anthropomorphism in the Pentateuch, Siphrut 12 (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2014), esp. 76–109. 5  See, for example, Baruch J. Schwartz, “The Documentary Hypothesis,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Pentateuch, ed. Joel S. Baden and Jeffrey Stackert (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021), 165–87; Joel S. Baden, The Composition of the Pentateuch: Renewing the Documentary Hypothesis, AYBRL (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012); Stackert, A Prophet Like Moses, 19–26. For a survey of the principal schools in the field today, see Reinhard G. Kratz, “The Pentateuch in Current Research: Consensus and Debate,” in The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research, ed. Thomas B. Dozeman, Konrad Schmid, and Baruch J. Schwartz, FAT 78 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 31–61. 6 In the face of the extensive literature on the theology of the Priestly and Deuteronomic sources, the challenge of distinguishing J from E has discouraged many scholars from examining the religious ideas embedded in these two sources. In this respect, no difference exists between the old nomenclature “JE” and the more recent “non-P.” The paucity of studies of the Yahwistic source in the context of the Sinai/Horeb narratives is due in particular to the fact that it contains no legal code (see below). By definition, very few scholars exploring the concept of the law have demonstrated any great interest in J: see, for example, the limited attention devoted to it in Sommer, Revelation and Authority, 61–64; Stackert, A Prophet Like Moses, 191. For a rare systematic analysis of anthropomorphism in all four sources, including specific treatment of J, see Knafl, Forming God. For the Sinai episode in J, see also Shuvi Hoffman, “J’s Unique Approach to Law and Narrative” (M. A. thesis, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2007) [Hebrew].

The Yahwistic Account of the Theophany at Sinai

55

of this source’s panoramic plot perspective and concept of God. The findings suggest that J believes that in descending to Sinai YHWH became fully and permanently present among his people. As I hope to demonstrate below, the theological, psychological, and plot tension that lies at the heart of J lies between degrees of divine presence rather than immanence vs. transcendence. Prior to the revelation on Sinai, YHWH accompanied the Israelites, supplying their needs by means of messengers and the pillars of cloud and fire rather than being present with them constantly and without restraint. In the wake of their cry, he descends to Mount Sinai to be in their midst, repeatedly cautioning them of the dangers of over-intimacy and almost reneging on his decision. Ultimately, however, he accedes to Moses’s plea and promises to dwell among them uncompromisingly. This reading of the incident highlights its importance as a formative event in the J narrative, impacting diverse fundamental pentateuchal issues and biblical religious thought.

1. Narrative In order to analyze the Yahwistic account of the Sinai episode, I shall first present the verses in Exodus 19–34 that belong to it, isolating them from the other sources.7 These are: 19:9b–13, 14* (‫)[*וילך] משה אל העם ויקדש את העם ויכבסו שמלתם‬ –16* (up to ‫)בהית הבקר‬, 20–25; 24:1–2, 9–11* (up to ‫ ;)את האלהים‬33:1–6* (up to ‫את‬ ‫)עדים‬, 12–23; 34:2* (from ‫)היה נכון‬, 3, 4* (‫וישכם משה בבקר ויעל אל הר סיני כאשר צוה‬ ‫)יהוה אתו‬, 5* (from ‫–)ויתיצב עמו‬16, 27, 28* (‫)ויכתב את דברי הברית‬.8 ‫‏ ויאמר יהוה אל משה לך אל העם וקדשתם היום ומחר וכבסו שמלתם‬10 ‫‏ ויגד משה את דברי העם אל יהוה‬19:9* ‫ והגבלת את העם סביב‬12 ‫ והיו נכנים ליום השלישי כי ביום השלישי ירד יהוה לעיני כל העם על הר סיני ‏‬11‫‏‬ ‫‏ לא תגע בו יד כי סקול יסקל או ירה‬13 ‫לאמר השמרו לכם עלות בהר ונגע בקצהו כל הנגע בהר מות יומת‬ ‫‏ [וילך] משה × אל העם ויקדש את העם‬14* × ‫יירה אם בהמה אם איש לא יחיה במשך היבל המה יעלו בהר‬ ‫‏ ויהי ביום השלישי בהית‬16* ‫ ויאמר אל העם היו נכנים לשלשת ימים אל תגשו אל אשה‬15 ‫ויכבסו שמלתם ‏‬ ‫‏ ויאמר יהוה‬21 ‫‏ וירד יהוה על הר סיני אל ראש ההר ויקרא יהוה למשה אל ראש ההר ויעל משה‬20 × ‫הבקר‬ ‫‏ וגם הכהנים הנגשים אל יהוה יתקדשו פן‬22 ‫אל משה רד העד בעם פן יהרסו אל יהוה לראות ונפל ממנו רב‬ ‫‏ ויאמר משה אל יהוה לא יוכל העם לעלת אל הר סיני כי אתה העדתה בנו לאמר הגבל‬23 ‫יפרץ בהם יהוה‬ 7  The translations herein follow the NJPS with modifications. On occasion, I have preferred the NRSV, also drawing on Jeffrey H. Tigay, “Exodus,” in Jewish Study Bible, 2nd ed., ed. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 95–192, here 178–81 for Exodus 33. The remainder of the changes are mine. Many derive from the need to render J’s original sequence, all the existing translations obviously relating to the canonical text – i. e., the narrative composed of the various sources. 8  The × signifies a place in which other sources were integrated into the text, disrupting the Yahwistic sequence in the canonical Pentateuch. The curved brackets () indicate a text that while not Yahwistic also does not belong to one of the other sources (being a post-compilation addition or scribal error). The square brackets [] denote the proposed reconstructed Yahwistic text, which differs from the extant reading. Three dots … identify a place in which the Yahwistic account itself has not been preserved.

‫‪Ariel Seri-Levi‬‬

‫‪56‬‬

‫‪ 24‬ויאמר אליו יהוה לך רד ועלית אתה ואהרן עמך והכהנים והעם אל יהרסו לעלת אל‬ ‫את ההר וקדשתו ‏‬ ‫‪ 25‬וירד משה אל העם ויאמר אלהם × ‪24:1‬‏ ואל משה אמר עלה אל יהוה אתה ואהרן נדב‬ ‫יהוה פן יפרץ בם ‏‬ ‫ואביהוא ושבעים מזקני ישראל והשתחויתם מרחק ‏‪ 2‬ונגש משה לבדו אל יהוה והם לא יגשו והעם לא יעלו‬ ‫עמו ‪X 9‬‏ ויעל משה ואהרן נדב ואביהוא ושבעים מזקני ישראל ‪10‬‏ ויראו את אלהי ישראל ותחת רגליו כמעשה‬ ‫לבנת הספיר וכעצם השמים לטהר * ‏‪ 11‬ואל אצילי בני ישראל לא שלח ידו ויחזו את האלהים × ‪ … 33:1‬‏וידבר‬ ‫יהוה אל משה לך עלה מזה אתה והעם אשר העלית מארץ מצרים אל הארץ אשר נשבעתי לאברהם ליצחק‬ ‫וליעקב לאמר לזרעך אתננה ‪2‬‏ ושלחתי לפניך מלאך וגרשתי את הכנעני האמרי והחתי והפרזי החוי והיבוסי‬ ‫* ‏‪ ) ( 3‬כי לא אעלה בקרבך כי עם קשה ערף אתה פן אכלך בדרך ‪4‬‏ וישמע העם את הדבר הרע הזה ויתאבלו‬ ‫ולא שתו איש עדיו [מ]עליו ‪5‬‏ ויאמר יהוה אל משה אמר אל בני ישראל אתם עם קשה ערף רגע אחד אעלה‬ ‫‪ 12‬ויאמר‬ ‫בקרבך וכליתיך ועתה הורד עדיך מעליך ואדעה מה אעשה לך * ‏‪ 6‬ויתנצלו בני ישראל את עדים × ‏‬ ‫משה אל יהוה ראה אתה אמר אלי העל את העם הזה ואתה לא הודעתני את אשר תשלח עמי ואתה אמרת‬ ‫ידעתיך בשם וגם מצאת חן בעיני ‪13‬‏ ועתה אם נא מצאתי חן בעיניך הודעני נא את דרכך ואדעך למען אמצא‬ ‫‪ 15‬ויאמר אליו אם אין פניך הלכים אל תעלנו‬ ‫‪ 14‬ויאמר פני ילכו והנחתי לך ‏‬ ‫חן בעיניך וראה כי עמך הגוי הזה ‏‬ ‫‪ 16‬ובמה יודע אפוא כי מצאתי חן בעיניך אני ועמך הלוא בלכתך עמנו ונפלינו אני ועמך מכל העם אשר‬ ‫מזה ‏‬ ‫על פני האדמה ‪17‬‏ ויאמר יהוה אל משה גם את הדבר הזה אשר דברת אעשה כי מצאת חן בעיני ואדעך בשם‬ ‫‪ 18‬ויאמר הראני נא את כבדך ‪19‬‏ ויאמר אני אעביר כל טובי על פניך וקראתי בשם יהוה לפניך וחנתי את אשר‬ ‫‏‬ ‫‪ 20‬ויאמר לא תוכל לראת את פני כי לא יראני האדם וחי ‪21‬‏ ויאמר יהוה הנה מקום‬ ‫אחן ורחמתי את אשר ארחם ‏‬ ‫אתי ונצבת על הצור ‪22‬‏ והיה בעבר כבדי ושמתיך בנקרת הצור ושכתי כפי עליך עד עברי ‪23‬‏ והסרתי את כפי‬ ‫וראית את אחרי ופני לא יראו × *‪34:2‬‏ היה נכון לבקר ועלית בבקר אל הר סיני ונצבת לי שם על ראש ההר‬ ‫‪3‬‏ ואיש לא יעלה עמך וגם איש אל ירא בכל ההר גם הצאן והבקר אל ירעו אל מול ההר ההוא × *‪4‬‏ וישכם‬ ‫משה בבקר ויעל אל הר סיני כאשר צוה יהוה אתו × *‪5‬‏ ויתיצב עמו שם ויקרא בשם יהוה ‏‪ 6‬ויעבר יהוה על‬ ‫פניו ויקרא יהוה יהוה אל רחום וחנון ארך אפים ורב חסד ואמת ‪7‬‏ נצר חסד לאלפים נשא עון ופשע וחטאה‬ ‫ונקה לא ינקה פקד עון אבות על בנים ועל בני בנים על שלשים ועל רבעים ‏‪ 8‬וימהר משה ויקד ארצה וישתחו‬ ‫‏‪ 9‬ויאמר אם נא מצאתי חן בעיניך אדני ילך נא אדני בקרבנו כי עם קשה ערף הוא וסלחת לעוננו ולחטאתנו‬ ‫ונחלתנו ‪10‬‏ ויאמר הנה אנכי כרת ברית נגד כל עמך אעשה נפלאת אשר לא נבראו בכל הארץ ובכל הגוים‬ ‫וראה כל העם אשר אתה בקרבו את מעשה יהוה כי נורא הוא אשר אני עשה עמך ‪11‬‏ שמר לך את אשר אנכי‬ ‫מצוך היום הנני גרש מפניך את האמרי והכנעני והחתי והפרזי והחוי והיבוסי ‪12‬‏ השמר לך פן תכרת ברית‬ ‫ליושב הארץ אשר אתה בא עליה פן יהיה למוקש בקרבך ‪13‬‏ כי את מזבחתם תתצון ואת מצבתם תשברון ואת‬ ‫‪ 15‬פן תכרת ברית ליושב הארץ‬ ‫אשריו תכרתון ‪14‬‏ כי לא תשתחוה לאל אחר כי יהוה קנא שמו אל קנא הוא ‏‬ ‫וזנו אחרי אלהיהם וזבחו לאלהיהם וקרא לך ואכלת מזבחו ‪16‬‏ ולקחת מבנתיו לבניך וזנו בנתיו אחרי אלהיהן‬ ‫והזנו את בניך אחרי אלהיהן ‪X 27‬‏ ויאמר יהוה אל משה כתב לך את הדברים האלה כי על פי הדברים האלה‬ ‫כרתי אתך ברית ואת ישראל × *‪28‬‏ ויכתב × את דברי הברית‪.‬‬ ‫‪* Then Moses reported the people’s words to YHWH, 10 and YHWH said to Moses, “Go‬‬ ‫‪to the people and warn them to stay pure today and tomorrow. Let them wash their clothes.‬‬ ‫‪11‬‬ ‫‪Let them be ready for the third day; for on the third day YHWH will come down, in the‬‬ ‫‪sight of all the people, on Mount Sinai. 12 You shall set bounds for the people round about,‬‬ ‫‪saying, ‘Beware of going up the mountain or touching the border of it. Whoever touches‬‬ ‫‪the mountain shall be put to death: 13 no hand shall touch it; he shall either be stoned or‬‬ ‫‪shot; beast or man, he shall not live.’ When the ram’s horn sounds a long blast, they may‬‬ ‫× ”‪go up on the mountain.‬‬ ‫‪14‬‬ ‫‪* Moses [went] × to the people and warned the people to stay pure, and they washed‬‬ ‫‪their clothes. 15 And he said to the people, “Be ready for the third day: do not go near a‬‬ ‫”‪woman.‬‬ ‫‪16‬‬ ‫‪* On the third day, as morning dawned, × 20 YHWH came down upon Mount Sinai,‬‬ ‫‪on the top of the mountain. YHWH called Moses to the top of the mountain and Moses‬‬ ‫‪went up. 21 YHWH said to Moses, “Go down, warn the people not to break through to‬‬ ‫‪YHWH to gaze, lest many of them perish. 22 The priests who come near YHWH must also‬‬ ‫‪19:9‬‬

The Yahwistic Account of the Theophany at Sinai

57

purify themselves lest YHWH break out against them.” 23 But Moses said to YHWH, “The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai, for you warned us saying, ‘Set bounds about the mountain and sanctify it.’” 24 So YHWH said to him, “Go down, and come back together with Aaron and the priests; but let not the people break through to come up to YHWH, lest he break out against them,” 25 and Moses went down to the people and spoke to them; X 24:1 But to Moses he had said, “Come up to YHWH, with Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy elders of Israel, and bow low from afar. 2 Moses alone shall come near YHWH; but the others shall not come near, nor shall the people come up with him.” × 9 So Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel ascended; 10 and they saw the God of Israel: under his feet there was the likeness of a pavement of sapphire, like the very sky for purity. 11* Yet he did not raise his hand against the leaders of the Israelites – they beheld God. × … 33:1 Then YHWH said to Moses, “Set out from here, you and the people that you have brought up from the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘To your offspring will I give it.’ 2 I will send an angel before you and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, 3* ( ) for I will not go in your midst, since you are a stiffnecked people, lest I destroy you on the way.” 4 When the people heard this harsh word, they went into mourning, but none took [off ] their finery. 5 So YHWH said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘You are a stiffnecked people. If I were to go in your midst for one moment I would destroy you. Now, then, leave off your finery and I will consider what to do to you.’” 6 So the Israelites stripped themselves of their finery. × 12 Moses said to YHWH, “See, you say to me, ‘Lead this people forward,’ but you have not made known to me whom you will send with me. Further, you have said, ‘I have singled you out by name, and you have, indeed, gained my favor.’ 13 Now, if I have truly gained your favor, pray let me know your ways, that I may know you and continue in your favor, considering that this nation is your own people.” 14 And he said, “I personally {lit.: my face} will go and will deliver you to safety.” 15 And he said to him, “Unless you personally {lit.: your face} go, do not make us leave this place. 16 For how shall it be known that I have gained your favor – I and your people – unless you go with us, so that we may be distinguished – I and your people – from every people on the face of the earth?” 17 And YHWH said to Moses, “I will do the very thing that you have asked; for you have truly gained my favor and I have singled you out by name.” 18 He said, “Oh, let me behold your presence!” 19 And he answered, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and I will proclaim before you the name YHWH; but I shall grant grace to whom I will and shall be merciful to whom I will.” 20 Then he said, “You cannot see my face, for no man can see me and live.” 21 So YHWH said, “See, there is a place near me. Station yourself on the rock 22 and, as my presence passes by, I will put you in a cleft of the rock and shield you with my hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will take my hand away and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen. × 34:2* Be ready by morning, and in the morning come up to Mount Sinai and present yourself there to me, on the top of the mountain. 3 No one else shall come up with you, and no one else shall be seen anywhere on the mountain; neither shall the flocks or herds graze at the foot of this mountain.” × 4 * So Moses rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai as YHWH had commanded him, × 5* stood with him there, and called on the name of YHWH. 6 Then YHWH passed before him and proclaimed: “YHWH! YHWH is a compassionate and gracious God, patient, abounding in steadfast faithfulness, 7 extending kindness to the thousandth

58

Ariel Seri-Levi

generation, bearing iniquity, transgression, and sin; yet he does not absolve them but visits the iniquity of the parents upon their children and children’s children, upon the third and fourth generations.” 8 Moses hastened to bow low to the ground in homage 9 and said, “If I have gained your favor, my lord, I pray, let my lord go in our midst, even though this is a stiffnecked people. Pardon our iniquity and our sin and take us for your own!” 10 So he said: “I hereby make a covenant. Before all your people I will work such wonders as have not been wrought on all the earth or in any nation; and all the people among whom you live shall see how awesome are YHWH’s deeds which I will perform for you. 11 Mark well what I command you this day. I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 12 Beware of making a covenant with the inhabitants of the land against which you are advancing, lest they be a snare in your midst. 13 No, you must tear down their altars, smash their pillars, and cut down their sacred posts; 14 for you must not worship any other god, because YHWH’s very name is jealous – he is a jealous god. 15 You must not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, for they will lust after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and invite you, and you will eat of their sacrifices. 16 And when you take wives from among their daughters for your sons, their daughters will lust after their gods and will cause your sons to lust after their gods.” ( ) 27 Then YHWH said to Moses: “Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I make a covenant with you and with Israel.” × 28* And he wrote down × the words of the covenant.

This reconstruction is based on Schwartz’s analysis, with minor modifications. The innovations proposed here-in in the identification of J (and thus its distinction from E) relate to Exod 19:14, 18. I believe the phrase ‫ וירד משה מן ההר‬in v. 14 belongs to E rather than J: at this point, Moses has ascended the mountain only in E (v. 3), descending in order to deliver God’s words to the people (v. 7) and going back up to pass on their answer to YHWH (8b). Now, he must return again, since according to E only he knows that YHWH is going to reveal himself (9a) because his prophetic status in the people’s eyes rests on the divine selfdisclosure. He thus has to be among the Israelites rather than on the mountain when it begins (v. 16*) and lead the bewildered people from the camp to the mount (v. 17). In the wake of YHWH’s declaration (9a) that he will descend to the mountain it is thus necessary for him to go down. The clause ‫וירד משה מן ההר‬ in v. 14 thus fits the Elohistic sequence. For reasons that will become clear below, in J in contrast, the people know that the revelation is coming and prepare for it (vv. 10–13). Rather than receiving the announcement on the mountain, however, Moses ascends for the first time only after YHWH has come down and called him (v. 20). In v. 14, Moses has nowhere to go down from, his job being to go to the people in response to the divine command – ‫( לך אל העם וקדשתם‬v. 10). After YHWH finishes speaking, Moses thus does what is required of him, J reporting this fact in the same formulation, presumably employing the same verb as in the instructions (‫ הלך‬qal): ‫משה‬ ]‫[וילך‬ ‫אל העם ויקדש את העם‬. At this point in the plot, after YHWH’s proclamation that he is going to reveal himself, the compiler had before him two similar accounts:

The Yahwistic Account of the Theophany at Sinai

59

‫( וירד משה מן ההר‬E) and ‫משה אל העם‬ ]‫( [וילך‬J). He combined these into a single sentence: ‫וירד משה מן ההר אל העם‬. The reconstructed verb ‫ וילך‬was omitted because the phrase ‫ וירד משה מן ההר‬is a more detailed report that already refers to Moses’s leaving. With respect to v. 18, apart from the notation “Mount Sinai” – which can be readily understood (see below), certainly much more easily than the difficulties arising from the converse as we shall see immediately – no reason appears to exist to assign it to J. On the contrary, solid considerations suggest that the majority of this verse belongs to E, none forming part of J. Firstly, 18bβ is Elohistic, the LXX καὶ ἐξέστη πᾶς ὁ λαὸς σφόδρα “and the people trembled greatly” being better than the MT ‫ויחרד כל ההר מאד‬.9 Secondly, 18aβ ‫“ מפני אשר ירד עליו יהוה באש‬for YHWH had come down upon it in fire,” which recounts YHWH’s descent on the mountain in v. 20 – i. e. before it has happened! – does not appear to belong to J but rather to E or, more plausibly, a later insertion.10 The remainder of v. 18 now requires attention. The phrase ‫והר סיני עשן כלו ויעל‬ ‫ עשנו כעשן הכבשן‬is traditionally attributed to J, read ‫ויהי ביום השלישי בהית הבקר והר‬ ‫סיני עשן כלו ויעל עשנו כעשן הכבשן וירד יהוה על הר סיני אל ראש ההר‬. Here, it disrupts the narrative sequence, however: the qatal ‫עשן‬ ׁ signifies that the mountain had begun smoking before the morning of the third day, YHWH only descending when it covered the whole mountain. This makes neither syntactic nor narrative sense. Not only does J say nothing about what happened in the interval11 but there is no reason for the mountain to smoke prior to YHWH’s manifestation. Most importantly, the whole Yahwistic Sinai narrative assumes that the mountain remains unshrouded, YHWH not being hidden. With the exception of Exod 19:18 (if attributed to J), it never associates the mount with fire, cloud, or smoke. If, as argued above, the words ‫ מפני אשר ירד יהוה עליו באש‬are not Yahwistic, J makes no reference to fire at Sinai. Moreover, the narrative flows smoothly if the theophany was unaccompanied by cloud or smoke: a) Moses keeps the people from approaching the mountain too closely, threatening them with violent re 9 See Jeffrey Stackert, “On the Relation Between Textual Criticism and Source Criticism in the Pentateuch,” in Historical Settings, Intertextuality, and Biblical Theology: Essays in Honor of Marvin A. Sweeney, ed. Paul Kim, Tyler Mayfield, and Hye-Kyung Park, FAT (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2022), forthcoming. 10  Samuel Boyd and Humphrey Hardy, “Hebrew Adverbialization, Aramaic Language Contact, and mpny ʾšr in Exodus 19:18,” in Semitic Languages in Contact, ed. Aaron Michael Butts (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 33–51, point out the lateness of the phrase ‫ מפני אשר‬and suggest that it is a “later scribal harmonization” between J and E. However, they do not elucidate the need for any harmonization here or the way in which the scribe sought to reconcile his sources. The linguistic evidence being difficult to ignore, Jeffrey Stackert thus proposes that rather than a redactional insertion for harmonistic purposes the phrase is “an interlinear commentary remark that subsequently migrated into the text” (personal communication). In summary, 18aβ is either E or a later insertion – but not J. 11  Cf. Exod 10:13*, 14*; 14:21*, 24; Num 11:31–32 – in which the Yahwist explicitly recounts YHWH’s actions during the night, only revealed in the morning.

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sponse (Exod 19:12–13, 23), because this is the only way in which he can restrain them from doing so; if they get too close, they will see YHWH (Exod 19:21) because he is not hidden; b) those permitted to ascend indeed observe YHWH in person (Exod 24:10–11); if he so wished, he could extend his hand and maul them (ibid); c) Unlike E (Exod 20:21) and P (Exod 24:18a), Moses does not need to be sheltered by fog or cloud in order to approach YHWH; d) YHWH must thus use his hand to prevent Moses from seeing his face (Exod 33:20–23). No hint therefore exists in J that the Sinai theophany included smoke, numerous reasons suggesting that it did not. If v. 18 is omitted, the Yahwistic sequence flows much more evenly, the implementation according with the intention: the command “and YHWH said to Moses, ‘Go to the people and warn them to stay pure. Let them wash their clothes. Let them be ready for the third day; for on the third day YHWH will come down, in the sight of all the people, on Mount Sinai” (vv. 10–11) is obeyed: “Moses [went] to the people and warned them to stay pure and they washed their clothes. And he said to the people, ‘Be ready for the third day: you should not go near a woman.’ On the third day, as morning dawned, YHWH came down upon Mount Sinai” (vv. 14*–16*, 20). When v. 18 is assigned to E, it very likely read ‫“ וההר‬and the mountain,” this notation occurring on numerous occasions in the Elohistic verses in Exodus 19 (vv. 2, 3, 14, 16, 17) – J also reading “the mountain” throughout this chapter (vv. 12, 12, 13, 20, 20, 23) as synonymous with “Mount Sinai” (vv. 11, 20, 23). Both J and E, then, frequently use “the mountain” for the place YHWH has appeared. Only J refers to it as “Mount Sinai.” While E occasionally calls it ‫“ הר האלהים‬the mount of God” (Exod 3:1; 4:27; 18:5; 24:13), it does only once in our chapter according to the LXX (Exod 19:3) and never according to the MT. Any reader of the canonical text, from the moment the sources were compiled through to today, thus understands “the mountain” on which YHWH decends as Mount Sinai. A scribe may easily have inadvertently changed “the mountain” in Exod 19:18 to “Mount Sinai” – none also feeling any need to correct this mistake. If not a later insertion, the phrase ‫ מפני אשר ירד יהוה עליו באש‬may also be attributed to E, as at this point in its plotline YHWH had already descended onto the mountain (v. 16). This minor but necessary alteration (“the mountain” for “Mount Sinai”) and adoption of the LXX text at the end of the verse – E evinces a smooth sequence: ‫ויאמר יהוה אל משה הנה אנכי בא אליך בעב הענן בעבור ישמע העם בדברי עמך וגם בך יאמינו לעולם‬ ‫ויוצא‬ ‫וירד משה מן ההר ויהי קלת וברקים וענן כבד על ההר וקל שפר חזק מאד ויחרד כל העם אשר במחנה‬ ‫משה את העם לקראת האלהים מן המחנה ויתיצבו בתחתית ההר (והר סיני) [וההר] עשן כלו (מפני אשר‬ ‫ירד יהוה עליו באש) ויעל עשנו כעשן הכבשן ויחרד כל העם מאד ויהי קול השופר הולך וחזק מאד משה‬ ‫ידבר והאלהים יעננו בקול‬ And YHWH said to Moses, “I am going to come to you in a thick cloud in order that the people may hear when I speak with you and so trust you ever after.” So Moses went down from the mountain. Then there was thunder and lightning, a dense cloud upon the

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mountain, and a very loud blast of the horn; and all the people who were in the camp trembled. Moses led the people out of the camp toward God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Now (Mount Sinai) [the mountain] was all in smoke – (for YHWH had come down upon it in fire) – the smoke rose like the smoke of a kiln; and all the people trembled greatly. The blare of the horn grew louder and louder; as Moses spoke, God answered him in thunder.

YHWH announces his intention of “coming” to Moses in the cloud, the people having no knowledge of this decision. Moses descends from the mountain and the revelation commences. The people, who are in the camp, do not understand what is happening, seeing/hearing voices, lightning, and a “dense cloud upon the mountain.” The narrator depicts the scene from their viewpoint, only Moses and the readers realizing that the cloud embodies YHWH’s presence on the mount. Moses leads the bewildered Israelites from the camp to the foot of the mountain. In the meantime, the cloud has dispersed, leaving the mountain shrouded in smoke. The people thus become even more dazed: “all the people trembled greatly.” The theophany thus begins with voices and marvelous scenes, startling the people. As they approach the mountain, this sense of awe heightens further. In parallel, the voices also get noisier (“blare of the horn grew louder and louder”), only Moses not being alarmed and engaging in a dialogue with YHWH in his frightful appearance, until the Israelites eventually withdraw to a distance and plead with Moses to speak to YHWH on their behalf (Exod 20:18–19). E also identifies the cause of their dread – namely, “the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking” (Exod 20:18), only reporting in 19:18 that the mount “was all in smoke.” This indicates that Exod 19:18 almost certainly relates to the event to which the people react. It must thus belong to E.12 The final piece of evidence in support of the view that v. 18 belongs to E is the Deuteronomic account of the theophany at Horeb. Its paraphrase of E indicates that v. 18 forms part of the Elohistic source: ‫ותקרבון ותעמדון תחת ההר‬ ‫“ וההר בער באש עד לב השמים חשך ענן וערפל‬You came forward and stood at the foot of the mountain. The mountain was ablaze with flames to the very skies, dark with densest clouds” (Deut 4:11). This verse also supports the proposal that E originally had ‫“ וההר‬and the mountain” at the beginning of Exod 19:18. D adapted the Elohistic depiction, imagining YHWH’s fire coming from heaven and burning on the mountain rather than YHWH decending in the cloud but retaining the original structural and visual character: note the proximity between the Deuteronomic ‫ותקרבון ותעמדון תחת ההר וההר בער באש עד לב השמים חשך‬ 12  No reason exists to see the smoking mountain in Exod 20:18 as secondary except for attributing Exod 19:18a to J – which makes this argument circular; in contrast, the argument for attributing Exod 19:18a to E does not depend solely or primarily on Exod 20:18, and therefore is not circular. Cf also Gen 15:17 (E), in which YHWH appears as ‫“ תנור עשן ולפיד אש‬smoking oven, and a flaming torch” (the root ‫ עשן‬never appears in J).

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‫( ענן וערפל‬Deut 4:11) and ‫ויתיצבו בתחתית ההר [וההר] עשן כלו ויעל עשנו כעשן הכבשן‬ (Exod 19:17b–18). Given the dependence of the Deuteronomic on the Elohistic account, this proximity cannot be explained if Exod 19:18a does not belong to E. Apart from one short passage, so it appears, the narrative seems to have been preserved in its entirety, exhibiting a coherent sequence.13 We may now begin to exegete the story and identify the purpose of YHWH’s theophany on Sinai and its influence on his relationship with his people in J.

2. Presence Three of the four accounts of the revelation at Sinai/Horeb either explicitly or implicitly state their agenda.14 E describes a spectacular and intimidating public theophany on the mountain of God, in the wake of which Moses alone receives the commandments – which he then delivers to the people as the ordinances governing the covenant with YHWH.15 Although the general outlines of the report in D closely correspond to E, in D YHWH gives the Decalogue to the people right away while Moses passes on the other laws YHWH gives him on Horeb only just before his death, in the land of Moab.16 P, in contrast, relates that YHWH’s glory descended on Mount Sinai, Moses also being given the detailed instructions for the building of the tabernacle here; the laws are delivered to him later from the tabernacle, when YHWH had began dwelling in it.17 Classical pentateuchal studies assume that the divine revelation on the mount forms the vehicle for the laws in all the sources.18 The brief law code in Exod 34:17– 13  For the laws in Exod 34:17–28, see the section “Presence” below. For the missing section in J, see the section “Distancing” below. For Exod 33:2–3, see the section “Dittography” below. For Exod 33:4–5, see Joel S. Baden, “On Exodus 33,1–11,” ZAW 124 (2012): 329–40, at 333–36. The opening ostensibly appears to be missing, it not being clear what the “words of the people” are that Moses delivers to YHWH in Exod 19:9b: see the section “Descent” below. 14 In addition to the inconsistencies between E, D, and P with regard to the circumstances in which the laws were given, the most prominent divergence between them pertains to the content of the statutes. For the biblical legal codes, their content, and framework, see Simeon Chavel, “Biblical Law,” in The Literature of the Hebrew Bible: Introductions and Studies, ed. Zipora Talshir (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2011), 1:227–72 [Hebrew]. 15  See Exod 19:2b–9a, 14* (only ‫)וירד משה מן ההר‬, 16* (from ‫ – )ויהי קלת וברקים‬19; 20:1–23:33; 24:3–8, 11bβ–15a, 18b; 31:18*; 32:1–25, 30–35; 33:6* (from ‫ – )מהר חורב‬11; 34:1, 4, 5*, 28*. For the revised description of the beginning of the revelation in light of the attribution of vv. 14* and 18 to E, see above. For the source division of Exod 34, see Dodani Orstav’s contribution to this volume. 16  Deuteronomy 4–5: see Haran, Biblical Collection, 2:158–64; Stackert, A Prophet Like Moses, 126–35. 17 See Exod 19:1–2a; 24:15b–18a; 25:1–31:18*; Exod 34:29*–Num 10:28. See Schwartz, “The Priestly Account.” For the continuation of the Priestly narrative in the wake of the erection of the tabernacle, see Liane M. Feldman, The Story of Sacrifice: Ritual and Narrative in the Priestly Source, FAT 141 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020). 18 Although P describes the giving of the laws in detail, this is not necessarily the purpose of the divine revelation. YHWH delivers the instructions relating to the tabernacle to Moses

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63

26, traditionally ascribed to J, turns out to be an editorial addition, however, J never apparently including a legal code.19 The reason for YHWH’s self-disclosure on Sinai in this source is thus obscure. The Yahwistic version of the divine revelation on Sinai seems not to have been preserved in its entirety, its fragmentary nature impeding its exegesis.20 The full intention of the Sinai episode can nonetheless be deduced from the extended plot sequence in J. Analysis of the Yahwistic pericope as reconstructed by Neo-Documentarian scholars clearly evinces that it pertains to YHWH’s presence among the Israelites.21 The last statement in J prior to the Sinai event is the Israelites’ query in Exod 17:7: “Is YHWH present among us or not?” Despite YHWH’s announcement at the height of the Sinai event that he will not go in their midst (Exod 33:3), he ultimately accedes to Moses’s plea: “Let my lord go in our midst” (Exod 34:9). Following the revelation on Mount Sinai – and only then – does J note YHWH’s presence “among” his people (Num 11:20; 14:14). What purpose did the Sinai revelation originally serve? Was YHWH present among his people before then? Why does he announce during the narrative that he is not going to be in their midst? Does the incident affect his immanence? In the following section, I build on the recognition that in J Mount Sinai is directly rather than the ordinances. His presence among the people thus prompts his glory to descend upon Mount Sinai. As we shall see below, this reading of P has implications for understanding the Yahwistic account. 19  See Shimon Bar-On (Gesundheit), “The Festival Calendars in Exodus xxiii 14–19 and xxxiv 18–26,” VT 48 (1998): 161–95; Chavel, “Biblical Law,” 265–68; Hoffman, “J’s Unique Approach.” 20  Schwartz, “What Really Happened,” 27–28; Sommer, Revelation and Authority, 61. 21 According to Joel Baden, the revelation was intended to prove to the people that YHWH was indeed in their midst, countering their doubt as expressed in Exod 17:7. YHWH’s decision not to walk among them (Exod 33:1–3) – of which he ultimately repents in response to Moses’s entreaties – Baden argues, derives from the Israelites’ conduct prior to the revelation at Sinai: “It was to be no more than an appearance of the deity before the people, proving his presence – ironically, just before leaving them. It is Moses’s plea that changed the expected course of events” (Baden, Composition, 78). On this reading, YHWH’s self-disclosure on Mount Sinai ultimately had no significant effect upon his dwelling among the Israelites; if anything, it had an adverse impact, YHWH intending to appear to them and then abandoning them. Moses’s intercession meant that nothing changed, however, YHWH remaining among the people as he had from the beginning. Although Baden’s insights – that the Yahwistic sequence indicates that the Sinai revelation is related to YHWH’s immanence and that the people’s question in Exod 17:7 leads to the Sinai episode in J – lie at the heart of the analysis below, the latter draws a different conclusion with regard to the original purpose of the Sinai revelation and its influence upon the divine presence among the Israelites according to J. While this article was in the final stages of publication, Dr. Yoshi Farjun drew my attention to Schwartz’s comment: “The purpose of YHWH’s descent onto Mount Sinai [in J] appears to have been to join his people and lead them to their destination”: Baruch J. Schwartz, “The Origin of the Law’s Authority: ‘Grundnorm’ and its Meaning in the Pentateuchal Traditions,” Shnaton Ha-Mishpat Ha-Ivri 21 (2000): 241–65, at 257 [Hebrew]. Although not constituting a comprehensive analysis of the J narrative presented herein, this contains the seeds of the central idea set forth in the current contribution. I may have picked up the insight either from this early paper or from one of his classes or in conversation with him.

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associated with YHWH’s presence among the people, proposing new answers to all these questions. Firstly, however, we must note some of the basic premises regarding YHWH’s self-embodiment.

3. Manifestation The discussion of YHWH’s immanence prior to the Sinai revelation rests first and foremost on the fact that, as studies of the divine body in the Hebrew Bible and ancient Near Eastern literature have demonstrated, divine presence and absence are not binary opposites.22 In contrast to human beings, whose existence in time and place means that they cannot be at different points at the same time, gods can be simultaneously in different places. Deities also manifest themselves in various degrees of power and scope. An example of both occurs in the Yahwistic account of the theophany to Abraham and the destruction of Sodom.23 While the text states that YHWH appears to Abraham (Gen 18:1), Abraham sees three personages (v. 2). They speak with him all together or one at a time, the speaker being identified as YHWH in the latter case (v. 13). While in a certain sense the three figures together constitute a divine manifestation, one of them is a “fullscale manifestation” of YHWH – or at the very least a more extensive form than the other two. When his guests leave, “The men went on from there to Sodom, while Abraham remained standing before YHWH” (v. 22). Thenceforth, Abraham speaks with YHWH, only the human figures continuing on to Sodom – now being identified as ‫( מלאכים‬literally “messengers,” usually translated “angels”) (Gen 19:1, 15). This designation thus appears not to have suited the earlier passage, one of the three “men” being YHWH rather than an angel. Lot, in contrast, was visited by two angels, YHWH staying behind to talk to Abraham. While there, however, he was also – albeit to a lesser degree – with Lot. Concerned over the situation in Sodom, YHWH declares: “I will go down to see …” (Gen 18:21). Although not wishing to raze the city on reports he received from far away, he does not undertake the fact-finding mission himself but makes use of messengers. The same is true of the destruction itself: the angels inform Lot, “For we are about to destroy this place; because the outcry against them before YHWH has become so great that YHWH has sent us to destroy it” (Gen 19:13). 22  Benjamin D. Sommer, The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), esp. 12–57; Esther J. Hamori, “When Gods Were Men:” The Embodied God in Biblical and Near Eastern Literature, BZAW 384 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008); Mark S. Smith, Where the Gods Are: Spatial Dimensions of Anthropomorphism in the Biblical World, AYBRL (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016). 23 Cf. Rashbam’s commentary on Gen 18:1, 13, 16, 26. For a discussion and the literature, see Hamori, When Gods Were Men, 5–13, 65–77; Sommer, Bodies of God, 40–41.

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Lot thus tells his sons-in-law: “YHWH is about to destroy the city” (v. 14). The angels are not YHWH’s agents in the sense of a human being who acts in the name of the king is his envoy. In the early biblical literature, they are depicted as small-scale manifestations of YHWH rather than distinct personages.24 They thus never speak with YHWH nor are identified by name.25

4. Descent We may now address the question of YHWH’s presence among the Israelites according to J in terms of a tension between degrees of manifestation. When the people leave Egypt in the Yahwistic version, YHWH is their constant companion, revealing some of his aspects: “YHWH went before them in a pillar of cloud by day, to guide them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light, that they might travel day and night” (Exod 13:21).26 Rather than natural phenomena created by YHWH, the cloud and pillar are manifestations of his own being. He does not send them but goes ‫“ בהם‬in them.”27 J appears to believe that YHWH’s non-anthropomorphic appearances necessarily represent angelic manifestation alone. It is thus the angel of YHWH in the burning bush rather than YHWH (Exod 3:2). Later, however, YHWH instructs Moses to tell the Israelites: “YHWH, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has appeared to me” (Exod 3:16). Here, YHWH assumes the guise of an angel, who manifests himself in the burning bush. In similar fashion, in describing the people’s deliverance J states that YHWH went in the pillars of cloud and fire, becoming visible to and startling the Egyptians thereby (Exod 14:24). The text subsequently links the cloud with the angel, however (Exod 14:19–20). According to 24  See Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology, trans. D. M. G. Stalker (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1963), 1:287; James L. Kugel, The God of Old: Inside the Lost World of the Bible (New York: Free, 2003), 5–36; Sommer, Bodies of God, 38–44. 25 In his commentary on Gen 32:30 (following and expanding on Gen. Rab. 78:5), Rashi places this explanation in the mouth of the divine being who refuses to tell Jacob his name (Yisrael Isser Zvi Herczeg et al., The Torah: With Rashi’s Commentary Translated, Annotated, and Elucidated [New York: Mesorah Publications, 1994–99], 1:372): “We have no fixed names; our names change – it is all according to the command of the task of the mission upon which we are sent” (cf. also his commentary on Judg 13:18). Sarna similarly observes: “In the preexilic period all angels remain anonymous” (Nahum Sarna, Genesis, JPS Torah Commentary [Philadelphia: JPS, 1989], 228). 26  For the following discussion, cf. Knafl, Forming God, 173–76. 27  Cf. Exod 3:2: “An angel of YHWH appeared to him in a blazing fire out of a bush.” Kugel observes: “Perhaps the bush itself serves as the ‘angel’ here” (God of Old, 33); Sommer: “YHWH’s small manifestation appeared to him as [or: in the form of ] a flame of fire from the midst of the bush” (Bodies of God, 42). For the use of the preposition ‫ב‬- to signify “as,” cf. Exod 6:3: ‫“ וארא אל אברהם אל יצחק ואל יעקב באל שדי‬I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai.” For a definition and further examples, see GKC § 119i.

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J, prior to the Sinai revelation YHWH was thus present on earth to a limited extent, either in the form of an angel or in the pillars of cloud and fire, guiding the people and even fighting on their behalf when necessary but not dwelling either fully or constantly in their midst.28 We might have expected that such close divine attendance would afford the Israelites a feeling of safety and security. It quickly becomes apparent that they desire more, however. When they complain to Moses at Massah and Meribah that they have no water, Moses regards this not just as a personal affront but also as a test of YHWH: “Moses replied to them, ‘Why do you quarrel with me? [And] why do you try YHWH?’” (Exod 17:2).29 The narrator also explicitly interprets the act in this way: “The place was named Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarreled and because they tried YHWH” (Exod 17:7).30 Here, we further learn, however, that the Israelites did not merely ask for water but also cast doubt on YHWH’s presence among them: ‫“ היש יהוה בקרבנו אם אין‬Is YHWH present among us or not?” (ibid). This inquiry draws the Yahwistic narrative thread straight through to the revelation at Sinai, forming the key to its exegesis.31 This is clearly evident when J is read without the passages belonging to the other strands of the composite story. The sentence immediately following the query in Exod 17:7 in J is unintelligible in the canonical sequence: “Then Moses reported the people’s words to YHWH” (Exod 19:9b), the reference to the “people’s words” being obscure.32 When the 28  See the YHWH/angel interchange in the Yahwistic account of the Sea: Exod 14:14, 21*, 24, 25, 27. For the source division, see Baden, Composition, 193–213. 29  The waw conjunctive (‫ )ומה‬does not appear in the MT but occurs in the majority of textual witnesses: see BHS; cf. Exod 17:7; Gen 20:9; Num 23:8; et al. While cases also exist of ‫מה … מה‬ without the waw conjunctive (cf. Hos 6:4), they are in the minority. 30  For the story as belonging to J in its entirety, see Joel S. Baden, J, E, and the Redaction of the Pentateuch, FAT 68 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 175–77. Others attribute part of it to E on the strength of the reference to Horeb: see, for example, Propp, Exodus 1–18, AB (New York: Doubleday, 2006), 603–4. Baden appears to be correct in this regard, J also being able to denote a place by the name of Horeb (which, contra E, is not where YHWH revealed himself ). Even more importantly, the text does not need nor can be divided into two stories. The story as a whole also suits J linguistically and substantively. At the same time, however, not only the beginning but all of v. 1 should perhaps be assigned to P, including the phrase ‫ולא היה שם מים‬ ‫“ לעם לשתות‬the people had no water to drink.” Hereby, a full plot and linguistic correspondence emerges between Num 33:14b–15 and Exod 17:1 + 19:1–2a, P intimating that at Rephidim the people simply had no water, thus continuing on into the Sinai Desert. The redundancy between Exod 17:1bβ and Exod 17:3aα (‫“ ויצמא שם העם למים‬the people thirsted there for water”) is also thereby resolved. 31  For the significance of the query for understanding the Sinai incident, see Baden, Composition, 77 – although his conclusions differ from those drawn herein: see n. 18 above. For a discussion of whether the Israelites actually asked it, see below. 32  In the canonical account, Exod 19:9b duplicates Exod 19:8b (“And Moses brought back the people’s words to YHWH”). While the first phrase follows the people’s statements which Moses passes on to YHWH (8a), the second comes after YHWH’s utterance (9a), the Israelites not having added anything further and Moses already having delivered the earlier information

The Yahwistic Account of the Theophany at Sinai

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Yahwistic sequence is read on its own, however, it clearly alludes to their question in Exod 17:7, YHWH’s declaration to Moses that he intends to come down to Sinai and reveal himself to the Israelites being his response.33 to YHWH. For the solution that arises from the documentary analysis, see below. For others, see the following note. 33 A brief survey of the other proposals for resolving the difficulty would be a useful methodological tool. Some scholars regard Exod 19:9b as a simple scribal error (dittography): see, for example, Samuel R. Driver, The Book of Exodus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953 [1911]), 172. The deletion of 9b also makes the beginning of v. 10 – “And YHWH said to Moses” – redundant, however, making it unnecessary to repeat this opening statement verbatim from v. 8. As far back as the nineteenth century, Bacon suggested that 9b is an example of dittography, v. 10 thus being an addition intended to bridge the duplication and the continuation: Benjamin W. Bacon, The Triple Tradition of Exodus (Hartford: Student Publishing Co., 1894), 101. It should come as no surprise that what earlier scholars considered scribal errors their modern counterparts perceive as editorial additions. Dozeman, for example, observes: “repetitions are resumptive and their function is to bracket insertions. The repetition may be an editorial device to isolate the announcement of theophany in v. 9. The repetition also provides transition to the preparation for theophany in 19:10–13” – the latter also being secondary in his opinion (Exodus, 450). He thus notes that Moses delivers the people’s words to YHWH twice, YHWH likewise twice declaring that he will reveal himself to the people, each reference opening with the words “YHWH said to Moses.” According to this methodology – and that prevalent today – it is both obvious and necessary to perceive this as stratification rather than a blending of two sources. Those who read the text as it stands without seeking to delete passages on the premise that they are scribal errors (such as many early scholars) or editorial additions (as per modern scholarship) are, of course, the traditional commentators. Rashi, for example, in his commentary on Exod 19:9, fills in the people’s words (according to Mekh. Behodesh [Yitro] 2) in line with YHWH’s response in the subsequent verses: “I heard from them a response to this matter, that they want to hear [directly] from you, [for] one who hears from the mouth of the messenger cannot be compared to one who hears from the mouth of the king [himself ]. [They said,] It is our wish to see our king!” (Herczeg, The Torah, 2:224–25). Rashi of course treats the canonical text, in which the people’s words must be a response to Yhwh’s announcement in 9a. According to the analysis presented herein, however, the second report of their delivery to YHWH relates to the question in Exod 17:7. At the same time, Rashi’s intuition corresponds to the documentarian analysis, not just because in many cases the latter accounts for the text without deleting any material but also because, even when resting on the midrash and filling in details not found in the biblical source, Rashi assigns the plot sequence a central role. His methodology is thus similar to that of the Documentary Hypothesis: if Moses passes on the people’s words to YHWH and YHWH responds that he will soon reveal himself on the mountain, the two must be causally linked. The two applications differ, of course: when the plot sequence is broken, Rashi reconstructs it via the midrash, which fills in extra-biblical details. In this case, the Israelites ask to see as well as hear YHWH. Source critics, on the other hand, seek the earlier/later passages belonging to the same source that maintain the sequence – here, the people’s words in Exod 17:7. For Rashi’s methodology, see Sarah Kamin, Rashi’s Exegetical Categorization in Respect to the Distinction Between Peshat and Derash (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1986), esp. 57–110, 209–62 [Hebrew]; Mordechai Z. Cohen, The Rule of Peshat: Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture and their Christian and Muslim Contexts, 900–1270 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020), 95–105. For plot difficulties as responsible for the emergence of the Neo-Documentary Hypothesis, see Schwartz, “The Documentary Hypothesis,” 163–65; Joel S. Baden, “Why is the Pentateuch Unreadable? Or, Why Are We Doing This Anyway?,” in

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Did the Israelites in fact ask “Is YHWH present among us or not?” The question is formulated as an adverbial clause that ostensibly explains how the people tested Yhwh rather than a direct quotation of their words, uttered at this point (or anywhere) in the story. While syntactically necessary, this reading is not without difficulties. Etiological comments linking the account given with a toponym do not commonly add such important information. If the details are not new but form part of the narrator’s interpretation of the people’s complaint, this is not what we would expect. Although it is possible to understand why Moses (Exod 17:2b) and the narrator (7a–bα) perceive the objection that they have no water as a test of YHWH, it is more difficult to believe that the narrator re-phrased their reproach in the form of such a direct and weighty question regarding his presence in their midst. The structure of the name-midrash is also unusually convoluted.34 All these factors suggest that rather than being an aside within the conclusion, the inquiry “Is YHWH present among us or not?” constitutes an integral part of the sequence.35 With respect to the syntactical problem, J may originally have read ‫( ויאמרו‬wayyiqtol) rather than ‫( לאמר‬construct infinitive). If so, the transformation of the question from an independent sentence in the form of a direct citation and as part of the plot sequence into a narratorial subordinate sentence is likely to have occurred at the hands of the compiler, the interruption of the Yahwistic narrative not only leaving the sentence following the break (Exod 19:9b) but also the sentence preceding it hanging in the air – that is, the Israelites’ question, which is left unanswered.36 According to this conjecture, the compiler resolved the sequential problem by means of a minor grammatical change, reThe Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Academic Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America, ed. Jan C. Gertz et al., FAT 111 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 241–51. 34  When it follows rather than precedes the name itself, the explanation of the latter generally comprises a single clause opening with ‫( כי‬Gen 26:20), ‫( כי אמר‬Gen 29:32), ‫( ויאמר כי‬Gen 26:20), ‫( על‬Num 13:24), or ‫( לאמר‬Gen 30:24), no further subordinate clause explaining the explanation. Not only have I not found a similar example of a complex sentence but the question “Is YHWH present among us or not?” suits only the element ‫ על נסתם את יהוה‬, not ‫( על ריב בני ישראל‬the people’s quarrel being with Moses rather than YHWH, in line with Exod 17:2). The syntactical form of two objects, only one of which adds information, is also unusual, both elements normally being elaborated (Judg 9:24) or neither (1 Sam 5:7; Exod 11:1) – or the details relate to both sets (Deut 30:7). The exceptional nature of Exod 17:7 suggests that the final clause, which contains the Israelites’ query, does not form part of the etiological formulation that brings the story to a close. 35  See Baden, Composition, 275–76 n. 124. Baden correctly argues that this sentence was uttered by the Israelites, thus not forming part of the narrator’s explanation of the event – despite the syntactical difficulties attendant upon this exegesis. Offering several solutions, he concludes: “Even if neither of these possibilities is accepted, the question of 17:7 still stands as the conceptual basis for the succeeding Sinai theophany in J” (ibid). This statement also applies to the theory proposed below. 36  Rashi also solves this difficulty as per his wont, via a midrash: see the proverb he adduces in his commentary on Exod 17:8 in explanation of why Amalek’s attack against Israel is a response to the Israelites’ doubts regarding YHWH’s presence in their midst.

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placing the original wayyiqtol with the construct infinitive.37 While this speculation cannot be proven, even without it the sequence between the present question and the Yahwistic Sinai account stands out. When the etiological explanation linking the toponym with the event (Exod 17:7aαa) is understood as forming part of the narrator’s comment rather than the plot sequence, the story line become even clearer. When the Israelites ask YHWH for water (2a), Moses chastises them (2b). In response to their complaint (v. 3), he turns to YHWH (v. 4). YHWH does not reprimand the people, however, instead suddenly popping up on a rock and bringing forth water for them (vv. 5–6).38 This circumstance, in which YHWH’s presence in the midst of the people is in 37 For a concise formulation of the minimalist role the pentateuchal compiler plays according to the Neo-Documentarian Hypothesis, see the introduction of The Oxford Handbook of the Pentateuch, ed. Joel S. Baden and Jeffrey Stackert (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021), 13–14. For a detailed case study, see Baruch J. Schwartz, “How the Compiler of the Pentateuch Worked: The Composition of Genesis 37,” in The Book of Genesis: Composition, Reception, and Interpretation, ed. Craig A. Evans et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 263–78. For a different approach, see Jonathan Grossman, “The Sale of Joseph: From Diachronic Analysis to Narrative Design,” in Studies in Bible and Exegesis 11 (2020), 69–98 [Hebrew]. Dodani Orstav (personal communication) believes it highly unlikely that the compiler introduced here even this minor change: “While the Pentateuch contains several examples of textual alterations made by the compiler, proportionately these are very few, and they occurred only in cases of what we may call ‘constraints.’ The textual, and frequently also syntactical problems, were not regarded by him as warranting intervention or emendation, and hence we find such problems in many places throughout the canonical text.” In his view, if the sentence in front of the compiler indeed contained the word ‫ויאמרו‬, he could have inserted it in the opening of the Sinai account at the beginning of Exodus 19 – either after v. 2 or between the two halves of v. 8. “The fact that the compiler did not choose either of these options, but preferred to leave the sentence in its canonical setting, indicates that he did not deal with its original formulation [according to my reading, namely, with ‫]ויאמרו‬. It is implausible that rather than simply and logically combining the material, the compiler ripped the sentence from its natural continuation, while changing a word within it in order to make it work in its context-less location. The common-sense conclusion is that the Yahwistic account at his disposal already contained the altered word, thereby enabling him to incorporate it simply as a clause in the previous sentence. A copying error, therefore, may have occurred in J prior to the merging of the sources, whereas the compiler himself operated in accordance with his customary convention of not interfering with the original text.” 38 On the premise that this passage belongs to J (see n. 27 above), YHWH’s appearance has something of a surprise about it: immediately following, in the Sinai episode, J proceeds to detail the risks of direct divine revelation and the constraints under which this view should be placed. Knafl (Forming God, 174–175) maintains that YHWH does in fact make himself visible outside the cloud here, in a private self-disclosure to Moses. As we saw above, however, J does not always explicitly distinguish between YHWH and his angel, even when treating direct revelation. In light of this indiscriminate usage, the Israelites’ query following the event, and the Sinai revelation as understood below, YHWH may well appear in the story of Massah and Meribah in the cloud: see Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Exodus, trans. Israel Abrahams (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1967), 202. This reading is also enabled by the verb ‫ עמד‬in Exod 17:6, which elsewhere denotes YHWH’s appearance in the pillar of cloud or angelic guise (Exod 14:19; 33:9– 10; Num 12:5; 14:14; 22:24, 26; Deut 31:15). The cloud’s normal role is to point out a place. In the context of the plot, it is unlikely that YHWH reveals himself directly precisely at this juncture.

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doubt, leads the Israelites to ask bluntly: “Is YHWH present among us or not?” (7bβ). Moses passes this question straight on to YHWH (19:9b). This time, too, YHWH provides the Israelites’ needs rather than rebuking them (vv. 10–11). We might have thought that the people’s inquiry was irrelevant, YHWH having accompanied them in the pillars of cloud and fire and provided all their needs.39 This assumes a binary distinction between presence and absence, however – which, as we have seen, J does not make.40 On the contrary, it is precisely the partial divine embodiment that creates doubts regarding his immanence. The Israelites’ distress and confusion become clear in this light: rather than exhibiting qualms or astonishment about their question YHWH accedes to the request implicit in it – not to suffice with the limited presence he has bestowed upon them up until this point, in the form of an angel or the pillars and cloud and fire, but to descend upon the mountain in order to be with them fully and constantly.41 We may thus adduce that according to J the purpose of the revelation – or, more precisely, YHWH’s descent upon Mount Sinai – was to allow YHWH to become permanently present among his people.42

5. Distancing Although YHWH accedes to the people’s request, the situation quickly deteriorates, and a twist occurs in the tale.43 YHWH’s decision to heighten his presence among his people is prompted by the doubt they cast on his desire to 39  Thus Rashi to Exod 17:8, for example, and Baden, Composition, 77–78 (alternatively, we could understand it as relating to YHWH’s capacity to supply victuals: see, for example, Rashbam to Exod 17:7; Knafl, Forming God, 175). 40 Moreover, in light of the proposal presented above – namely, that the people’s question did not originally form part of the explanation of the names Massah and Meribah – this question does not constitute a test of YHWH, as there is no indication of any negative judgment on it by YHWH, Moses, or the narrator. 41  This view prominently contrasts with the Elohistic view that YHWH continued to dwell above even after the revelation at Horeb, only visiting the earth for ritual purposes (“In every place where you [MT: I] cause my name to be mentioned I will come to you and bless you” [Exod 20:24]) or prophecy (“And when Moses entered the Tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the Tent, while he spoke with Moses [Exod 33:9]): see Knafl, Forming God, 177–78; Jeffrey H. Tigay, “The Presence of God and the Coherence of Exodus 20:22–26,” in Sefer Moshe: The Moshe Weinfeld Jubilee Volume: Studies in the Bible and the Ancient Near East, Qumran, and Post-Biblical Judaism, ed. Chaim Cohen et al. (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2004), 195–211; Simeon Chavel, “A Kingdom of Priests and its Earthen Altars in Exodus 19–24,” VT 65 (2015): 169–222. 42 Support for this exegesis is found in the fact that J is not the only biblical source to recount that following the Exodus YHWH appeared before the people on Mount Sinai in order to become constantly present in their midst. P also does so. Although this does not make the interpretation suggested here necessary, of course, at the very least it makes it reasonable. 43  The revelation account and establishment of the relationship according to the four sources contains an acute crisis close to the climax: see Schwartz, “Priestly Account,” 129; Simeon

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be close to them. His self-disclosure on Mount Sinai must thus occur in front of them all. YHWH is very ambivalent about this, however: understanding them well, he is concerned that they will not be satisfied with seeing him from a distance and thus seek to approach the mountain in order to get a better view. He also knows his own character and sensitivity to over-direct and close proximity, which causes his anger to erupt out uncontrollably. He therefore gives them a series of instructions and sets conditions (Exod 19:10–13). These not completely calming his nerves, as it were, however, he repeats the caution not to come too close in order to avoid his wrath breaking out (Exod 19:21–24). While the constraints apply to the majority of the Israelites, a group of “priests” (Exod 19:22, 24) are summoned to ascend the mountain and enter YHWH’s presence (Exod 24:1–11*).44 Despite their proximity and sight, YHWH does not touch these men (v. 11).45 In contrast to his manifestations to this point in the cloud and pillar, he now assumes human form.46 While no specific danger exists in seeing the pillars of cloud and fire, these only being partial modes of revelation, his clearly anthropomorphic appearance at Sinai is a full-scale manifestation, sight of which from close up is very dangerous.47 YHWH makes an effort to limit both the number of people who see him and the scope of their vision, including Moses’s.48 Chavel, Oracular Law and Priestly Historiography in the Torah, FAT II/71 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 81–83. 44  Contra the vocalization (and LXX), Exod 19:24 should be read: ‫לך רד ועלית אתה ואהרן עמך‬ ‫– אל יהרסו לעלת אל יהוה פן יפרץ בם‬ ‫ והעם‬.‫“ והכהנים‬Go down, and you, Aaron, and the priests ascend. But do not let the people break through to come up to YHWH, lest he break out against them.” See Exod 19:22; 24:1. Although Propp (Exodus 19–40, 166) raises this possibility, he does not mandate it. 45 Schwartz, “What Really Happened,” 27; Simeon Chavel, “The Face of God and the Etiquette of Eye-Contact: Visitation, Pilgrimage, and Prophetic Vision in Ancient Israelite and Early Jewish Imagination,” JSQ 19 (2012): 1–55, at 43–44. 46  As Smith (Where the Gods Are, 25–27) notes, this appears to be a human-like body of vast proportions, the elders watching from below and seeing mostly his feet (Exod 24:10). Such measurements are also indicated later on. When Moses asks to see YHWH (Exod 33:18), the latter tells him that he will place him in a cleft of a rock and cover him with his hand so that he does not see his face (v. 24). His hand is thus bigger than Moses. 47  Cf. Knafl, Forming God, 78–82. For the dangers attendant upon close contact with YHWH, see below. 48  All these motifs in the Yahwistic account of the Sinai revelation – YHWH on the peak of the mountain (sitting on his throne?), the purification in preparation for seeing him, the marking of the sacred place, and the hierarchical constraints – belong prominently to the ancient Near Eastern temple-establishment pattern: see, for example, Mark S. Smith, with contributions by Elizabeth M. Bloch-Smith, The Pilgrimage Pattern in Exodus, JSOTSup 239 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 108; Dozeman, Exodus, 417–18. Although scholars have observed this fact, few recognize the distinction between J and E, which is particularly prominent with respect to Exod 24. While both elements in the latter passage are related to the temple/cultus, they should be discussed separately. For the Elohistic component in Exod 24, see Chavel, “A Kingdom of Priests.”

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It is difficult to ascertain precisely what happened, according to J, after the notables saw YHWH.49 For whatever reason, and completely contrary to expectation, however, YHWH clearly announces to Moses that he will not dwell among the Israelites as they enter Canaan (Exod 33:1–3). What caused this change of heart? If the descent to Sinai in the eyes of the all people was intended to shift from a partial presence in the form of an angel or the pillars and cloud and fire to full intimacy, something must have happened after his coming down that made him change his mind.50 A passage dealing with the Israelites’ transgression thus appears to have disappeared from J here.51 In light of YHWH’s numerous warnings to the Israelites not to get too close to the mountain in order to see him, the proposal that the missing section in J related to the people’s refusal to heed the divine cautions and began approaching makes sense.52 If so, it can be understood as forming the reason for YHWH’s change of mind – despite the fact that his decision to dwell with his people original prompted him to descend on Mount Sinai.53 49  Baden (Composition, 77–78) suggests that the following Yahwistic passage relates to YHWH’s declaration that he will not walk in the midst of the people (Exod 33:1–3), nothing being missing in the Yahwistic sequence. For other views, see below. 50 According to the canonical version as inferred from all the sources, this appears to be part of the aftermath of the golden calf incident. A close analysis, however, reveals two separate strands: the sin of the calf and its punishment are a direct continuation of the account of the covenant and the giving of the ordinances in E, concluding with YHWH’s delivery of the two tablets to Moses to replace those he had broken. This is distinct from J’s detailed discussion of the question of divine immanence and the constraints on seeing YHWH, which duplicates and contradicts it. See also Dodani Orstav’s contribution in this volume. 51  Haran, Biblical Collection, 2:129 n. 46; Schwartz, “What Really Happened,” 27. In light of the strange location of Exod 32:26–29 in the Elohistic sequence in the incident of the golden calf, some have proposed ascribing it to J: see Menahem Haran, Temples and Temple Service in Ancient Israel (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1985), 66–67 n. 11. Despite its out-of-placeness, I am not convinced that it should be assigned specifically to J. Even if it should be, it appears out of place at this point in the story. Regardless of this issue, no need exists to reach a conclusive decision regarding this important but complex issue at this point. For the purposes of the present discussion, I shall thus not assume that it forms part of the Yahwistic story line. If this turns out to be an erroneous presupposition, it does not affect the principal argument. 52 Chavel, Oracular Law, 82–83. As Chavel observes, the theme of the human attempt to get too close to YHWH, against his will, also occurs in the Garden of Eden and the Tower of Babel. See also Israel Knohl, Biblical Beliefs (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2007), 28–39 [Hebrew]. 53  Here, too, we find affinities with the Yahwistic accounts of the Garden of Eden and the Tower of Babel. There, YHWH expels Adam and Eve (Gen 3:22–23) and scatters humankind across the face of the earth (Gen 11:6–8) in order that they might not become like or approach him. Here, YHWH again cautions the people against coming too close, this time, however, by distancing himself and retreating on high (Exod 33:1–3). The source-division emendment proposed above (n. 9) evinces that J does not depict the revelation directly or visually. Even when it relates that some of the people – the notables (Exod 24:1–11*) and Moses (Exod 33*–34*) – were permitted to gaze upon YHWH, J does not describe what he looked like. What, then, did the Israelites witness when YHWH descended onto Mount Sinai? How did they know that he had descended? It is possible that no sign was visible, the Israelites only becoming aware of his presence because of Moses’s preparatory instructions and

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This does not mean that YHWH will not accompany the Israelites to Canaan at all. Such a move would have ended their relationship and violated his oath to the patriarchs. Rather than telling Moses that henceforth the people would have to rely on their own resources to conquer the land, he merely repents of his decision that he himself will dwell in their midst, declaring that he will escort them and fight on their behalf as he has done to this point – but by means of an angel rather than in his glory and own person (Exod 33:1–3). In order to properly analyze this passage, however, we must address a textual difficulty that impinges on our understanding of his statements at this juncture.

6. Dittography The discussion to this point evinces that J presumes that the alternative to YHWH’s full presence in the people’s midst is not complete abandonment but a partial immanence on a par with their pre-Sinai experience. No contradiction thus exists between his proclamation that he will not accompany them and his assurance that he will send an angel before them. On the contrary, these are two sides of same coin. The traditionally scholarly consensus, however, has been that the reference to the angel in Exod 33:2 was not part of the original account: inserted later, it is connected in some way with the description of the angel in Exod 23:20–23, being prompted by theological motives.54 This is evident from the syntactical and substantive seam between vv. 2 and 3: ‫ וידבר יהוה אל משה לך עלה מזה אתה והעם אשר העלית מארץ מצרים אל הארץ אשר נשבעתי לאברהם‬1‫‏‬ ‫‏ ושלחתי לפניך מלאך וגרשתי את הכנעני האמרי והחתי והפרזי החוי‬2 ‫ליצחק וליעקב לאמר לזרעך אתננה‬ ‫ אל ארץ זבת חלב ודבש כי לא אעלה בקרבך כי עם קשה ערף אתה פן אכלך בדרך‬3‫והיבוסי ‏‬ Then YHWH said to Moses, “Set out from here, you and the people that you have brought up from the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘To your offspring will I give it.’ 2 I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the 1

YHWH’s summoning of Moses to ascend to the top of the mountain. The scene of the people gathered together at the foot of the mountain having spent days preparing and sanctifying themselves and cautioned against ascending while Moses and a small group go up creates a sharp tension. In and of itself the descent is a response to the Israelites’ uncertainty regarding the divine presence in their midst. J’s decision not to recount anything about YHWH’s appearance not only serves as a striking literary device but also gives expression to a theological perspective. This may exemplify the fact that the classification of the Yahwistic source as an “anthropomorphist” – and the placement of the pentateuchal documents along an axis from “anthropomorphic” to “abstract” in general – contributes little to a deep understanding of the religious views reflected in the sources and the differences they exhibit. 54  For a selection of examples, see Driver, Exodus, 357; Erhard Blum, Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990), 58–59; Alexander Rofé, The Belief in Angels in the Bible and in Early Israel (Jerusalem: Makor, 1979), 238, 225 n. 75 [Hebrew]; Baden, “Exodus 33,1–11,” 331–33.

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Jebusites, 3 to a land flowing with milk and honey, for I will not go in your midst, since you are a stiffnecked people, lest I destroy you on the way.”

While the consecution is undeniable, a much more reasonable and parsimonious solution than adducing theological polemics, editorial strata, or verse shifting can be adduced. If, identifying the seam between the contiguous elements in the text, we suspect that one of them is not original, the possibility that the second is an addition is no less likely than vice versa. When the phrase “to a land flowing with milk and honey” is omitted, a much smoother reading emerges: ‫‏וידבר יהוה אל משה לך עלה מזה אתה והעם אשר העלית מארץ מצרים אל הארץ אשר נשבעתי לאברהם‬ ‫ליצחק וליעקב לאמר לזרעך אתננה‏ ושלחתי לפניך מלאך וגרשתי את הכנעני האמרי והחתי והפרזי החוי‬ ‫והיבוסי כי לא אעלה בקרבך כי עם קשה ערף אתה פן אכלך בדרך‬ Then YHWH said to Moses, “Set out from here, you and the people that you have brought up from the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘To your offspring will I give it.’ I will send an angel before you and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, for I will not go in your midst, since you are a stiffnecked people, lest I destroy you on the way.”

Unlike all the other elements in the passage, including the reference to the angel, the notation that Canaan is a land “flowing with milk and honey” is obscure. While it is clear why YHWH recalls his promise to the patriarchs at this point – it is the only reason he is not completely forsaking the Israelites despite despairing of them – why, at this moment of crisis, when YHWH threatens to distance himself from them as far as possible and only accompany them from afar because he pledged to do so, is the bountiful nature of the land relevant? Contra the conventional theory regarding the reference to the angel, the insertion of the phrase “to a land flowing with milk and honey” is neither a profound nor tortuous theological explanation. It is merely a scribal copying error. When the scribe reached the passage recalling the promise to the fathers and the other nations currently inhabiting the land, he immediately thought of the words ‫“ אל ארץ זבת חלב ודבש‬to a land flowing with milk and honey” – which appear in close proximity to the pledge to the patriarchs and/or the list of nations in no less than 11 other verses, the majority in the Pentateuch.55 Distracted, he began copying one verse, his mind then wandering to another verse, a very similar verse (Exod 3:17), before returning to the task of copying the scroll before him. The process may well have occurred as follows:56 55  Exod 3:8, 17; 13:5; Deut 6:3; 11:9; 26:15; 27:3; 31:20; Josh 5:6; Jer 11:5; 32:22. For the oath to the forefathers in J, see Joel S. Baden, The Promise to the Patriarchs (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 112–19. For the history of research and the contemporary scholarly debate regarding the references to the promise in the Pentateuch, see ibid, 26–56. 56  For homeoteleuton as containing numerous and diverse cases of textual phenomena that occur due to correspondences between passages, see Leeor Gottlieb, “Repetition Due to Homeoteleuton,” Textus 21 (2002): 21–43; idem, “Repetition Due to Detected Omission,” Textus

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These verses are sufficiently similar as to cause confusion. The first parts of both (1A, 1B) employ the root ‫עלה‬, the word ‫ארץ‬, identify Egypt as the place from which the people are to go up, and refer to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The second halves (2A, 2B) exhibit even closer affinities, recalling the same six nations with only a minor variation in order, the final three names at the end being completely identical.57 The copyist would naturally have continued on auto pilot from the second part of the text (1B) to the third unit of the other (2C), similar passage imprinted on his memory: “to a land flowing with milk and honey.” He would then have returned from his scroll to the one he was copying and proceeded from the point at which he had stopped on the original text before him (1C) – having already added the extraneous words (2C) without realizing. While this remains a conjecture, it is less speculative than the theory that v. 2 was deliberately inserted.

27 (2018): 22–43. The case before us here most closely resembles the phenomenon known in Talmud Studies as ashgara, in the specific sense of a copyist unconsciously shifting from the text before him to another similar textual sequence or expression with which he is familiar. To the best of my knowledge, this term has no precise translation in English; Jastrow renders it “current phraseology.” For a number of instances (following Cassuto), see Alexander Rofé, “The Ashgarah in the Hebrew Bible and the Text of Joshua 23:16,” Beit Mikra 62 (2017): 109–14 [Hebrew]. My thanks go to Dr. Leeor Gottlieb for discussing this issue with me and helping me formulate and clarify my conclusions. 57 The absence of the waw conjunctive before ‫( החוי‬1B) is irrelevant, not being reflected in the majority of textual witnesses: see BHS.

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7. Covenant No reason thus exists to delete the reference to the angel in J: the sentence fits and is demanded in its context, according with the substantive and syntactical sequence (v. 2). Only the words “to a land flowing with milk and honey” (the beginning of v. 3) were added in error. In contrast, Exod 23:20–21 – which represents the angel’s visit to the people as they journey to Canaan as deliberate and planned rather than a restrictive device – exhibits sharp disparities with YHWH’s speech in Exod 33:1–3, in which the angel protects the people from YHWH’s uncontrollable anger. These are indeed antithetical formulae. The other text belongs to E and underscores the correspondences between YHWH and the angel: “Pay heed to him and obey him. Do not defy him, for he will not pardon your offenses, since my name is in him” (Exod 23:21).58 In E’s view, the idea that YHWH came down from heaven forever and now dwells among his people permanently is inconceivable. J, on the other hand, stresses precisely the difference between the full, constant divine presence “among” the Israelites and making do with the angel due to the force of circumstances.59 The people naturally mourn on hearing YHWH’s declaration that he is only going to send an angel with them rather than accompany them himself (Exod 33:4).60 They had expected him to dwell among them fully, preparing themselves for this event.61 As per his wont, however, J presents YHWH’s categorical proclamations as a platform for negotiation (vv. 12–23 [vv. 7–11 belong to E]).62 Moses contends that YHWH has never told him that he intended to send someone else with him. Nor, in light of the personal familiarity and intimacy

58  See Yochanan Muffs, Love and Joy: Law, Language and Religion in Ancient Israel (New York: JTS, 1992), 14. The contrast is not merely between two specific passages, however, but between the divergent theological approaches espoused by J and E with regard to YHWH’s immanence. 59 The two passages thus contain both a duplication – two statements regarding the same matter without any clear reason; and a contradiction – Moses is surprised by YHWH’s announcement with respect to the angel, charging that the deity had never revealed this information to him (Exod 33:12). Two sources thus exist here, each being logical and demanded by the narrative context and the source’s theological outlook, no reconciliation being necessary. 60  For vv. 4–5, see Baden, “Exodus 33,1–11,” 333–36. 61 Significantly, Moses never claims that up until this point YHWH had abided among the people in this dialogue. Nor do YHWH or the narrator, either here or elsewhere in J, assert that this had been the case prior to the Sinai revelation. J notes YHWH’s presence in the Israelites’ midst only following the Sinai revelation. 62  See, for example, Gen 4:10–15; 18:20–32; Num 14:11–25. For the phenomenon itself, see Muffs, Love and Joy, 9–48. A close, detailed examination of this pericope demands a separate discussion. Here, I shall suffice with some issues critical for understanding the story line as a whole, focusing on the theme of immanence.

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between them, would such an act be proper (v. 12).63 Only the going of YHWH’s “face” (vv. 14–15) – that is, YHWH himself – will properly express Moses’s and the people’s special status in YHWH’s eyes: “For how shall it be known that I have gained your favor – I and your people – unless you go with us, so that we may be distinguished – I and your people – from every people on the face of the earth?” (Exod 33:16).64 Moses is not afraid of military defeat, YHWH having promised that he would send an angel before the people who would expel all the inhabitants of the land. The tension lying at the heart of J, which led to YHWH’s revelation and reaches its peak in his dialogue with Moses, is thus not between presence and absence but between partial immanence, guidance on the way, military aid, and the provision of material needs on the one hand, and YHWH’s full, direct, and constant dwelling in their midst on the other hand. Only the latter constitutes the complete and proper expression of the intimacy and closeness between YHWH and his people. Acceding to Moses’s request, YHWH manifests himself to him in name, body, and attributes (Exod 34:5*–7). Moses falls on his face and bows down, asking forgiveness and again imploring him to walk in the midst of Israel despite their stiffneckedness (vv. 8–9). The covenant YHWH makes with Moses and the Israelites (vv. 10–15) guarantees that henceforth he will dwell with them – he (and 63 Muff ’s analysis of the text (Love and Joy, 14–16) reveals Moses’s manipulative behavior in using YHWH’s presence as a weapon for bringing the two sides into a close relationship. Moses’s argument that YHWH knows him “by name” (Exod 33:12), which YHWH affirms (v. 17), leads to a divine revelation that includes calling YHWH by name (v. 19). All these factors stand in sharp contrast to the angels, who are anonymous (see n. 22 above) and embody an unmediated presence. The link between YHWH’s “face” and “name” and the warning that seeing the former brings death (Exod 33:20) may explain why J notes that the notables observed “the God of Israel” or “God” (Exod 24:10–11), refraining from employing the designation YHWH. E, in contrast, highlights the fact that YHWH’s name rests within his angel (‫[ כי שמי בקרבו‬Exod 23:21]) – who must therefore be heeded precisely as though he were YHWH himself (Exod 23:21–22). 64  For the contrast between ‫ פנים‬and the angel, see Isa 63:8b–9, as reconstructed following the LXX: ‫ באהבתו ובחמלתו הוא גאלם וינטלם וינשאם‬,‫ פניו הושיעם‬,‫ לא ִצר ומלאך‬.‫ויהי להם למושיע בכל צרתם‬ ‫“ כל ימי עולם‬and he became their savior in all their distress. It was no messenger or angel but his face that saved them; in his love and in his pity he himself redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old” (NRSV with minor changes). See Shalom M. Paul, Isaiah 40–66, Mikra Leyisra’el (Tel Aviv/Jerusalem: Am Oved and Magnes, 2008), 2:521–22 [Hebrew]. Like our passage, this prophecy also presents the divine presence in the form of YHWH’s face rather than a messenger as reflecting YHWH’s particularly emotional sensitivity towards his people. This concept is also expressed in Deut 4:36:‫ותחת כי אהב את אבתיך ויבחר בזרעו אחריו ויוצאך‬ ‫“ בפניו בכחו הגדל ממצרים‬And because he loved your fathers, he chose their heirs after them; he himself [lit.: by his face], in his great might, led you out of Egypt.” The compound ‫ הלך‬+ ‫פנים‬ denotes a leader walking at the head of his troops (cf. 2 Sam 17:11: ‫“ ופניך הלכים בקרב‬and that you yourself [lit.: your face] march into battle”; LXX: ἐν μέσῳ αὐτῶν = ‫“ בקרבם‬in their midst”; cf. Rashi on Exod 33:15). For the royal context of the “face of YHWH” and approaching the king’s face as a form of intimacy and hierarchy, see Chavel, “The Face of God.” For Exod 33:14–15, see ibid, 42–43 n. 130. The compound ‫ פנים‬+ ‫ הלך‬is unlikely to signify two contrary meanings (“go from you” vs. “come with us”) in consecutive sentences, however.

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not an angel) driving out all the native inhabitants of Canaan (11b). Because he commits to always being in their midst as a sign of their stature in his eyes and his choice of them over all the other nations of the world (Exod 33:16), he also demands that they, too, signal their choice of him and his status in their eyes by refraining from worshipping other gods and shunning anything that could lead them to do so (Exod 34:12–15). From now on, according to J, YHWH will dwell among his people (Num 11:20; 14:11, 14).65

8. Danger The Yahwistic account of the Sinai episode appears to be the most detailed and explicit biblical discussion of the danger associated with proximity to and vision of YHWH. Painfully aware of the limits of his self-control, the Yahwistic deity shifts between wanting and fearing closeness. While he desires to descend upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people (Exod 19:11), he restricts access thereto, repeatedly demanding that anyone trying to get too close be forcibly removed (vv. 12–13) because he is liable to have a paroxysm of rage and hurt them (vv. 21– 24). The narrator also sees fit to note that YHWH does not harm those permitted to ascend the mountain and see part of his body (Exod 24:10–11bα). Finally, the revelation to Moses is severely restricted (Exod 33:20–23; 34:3), the Yahwistic context making it clear that these conditions are also intended to protect Moses from divine violence: “for man may not see me and live” (Exod 33:20) – that is, because I, YHWH, will break out and kill him.66 65 The Yahwistic narrative sequence indicates that YHWH is concretely present in the Ark of the Covenant, this being mentioned in J first after the making of the Sinai covenant (Num 10:33– 36). When this moves, Moses encourages it: “Advance, YHWH!” (v. 35); when it halts, he says: “Return, YHWH” (v. 36). Following the spies’ sin, Moses warns the people against stubbornly insisting on going to fight, arguing that YHWH is not with them and they will thus be defeated Num 14:42). They refuse to heed him despite the fact that the Ark stays in the camp (v. 44) and are indeed routed (v. 45). Although many scholars read these verses in this sense, no one (to the best of my knowledge) has addressed their significance for understanding the Yahwistic plot and theological outlook: the Ark represents YHWH’s full manifestation – a practical expression of his agreement to walk in their midst. Recognition of this also has implications for the Ark narratives in Samuel, which depict YHWH’s lethal outbursts in the wake of contact with/gazing upon it (1 Sam 6:13–21; 2 Sam 6:2–8) – like J’s repeated cautions against YHWH’s impulsive eruptions (for the dangers attendant upon proximity to YHWH, see also the next section). According to the view reflected in J and the Ark narratives, the Ark carries YHWH’s presence in greater measure than the angel. Closeness to it thus also poses greater risk: while no Israelite dies after seeing an angel, myriads do so after gazing on the Ark at Beth Shemesh. I hope to address this issue in a separate article. For an up-to-date discussion of various scholarly opinions regarding the Ark’s function, see Raanan Eichler, The Ark and the Cherubim, FAT 146 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2021), 135–59. See also Liraz Ella’s MA thesis on the Ark in the pentateuchal sources currently being written at the Hebrew University under the supervision of Baruch Schwartz. 66  To date, I am not aware of any study that adopts this exegesis. It nonetheless appears to be demanded by the Yahwistic framework, having ramifications for the motif of seeing YHWH and

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YHWH’s fear of losing control is so great that he prefers not to walk among his people lest he destroy them (Exod 33:1–3). The continuation of the Yahwistic account evinces that this apprehension is justified.67 When the people begin their wanderings in the wilderness, YHWH’s response to their distrust and disobedience is constrained. Despite rebelling against him in the story of the manna, he does not strike them, sufficing with a verbal reprimand (Exod 16:28–29).68 As we saw above, at Massah and Meribah he likewise recognizes their distress, not chastising them for their complaints. In contrast, the Yahwistic narratives regarding Taberah and Kibroth-hattaavah following the embodiment of YHWH’s presence at Mount Sinai, YHWH’s irritation over the people’s lack of trust grows and his patience runs out.69 The incident of Taberah is depicted very concisely: the people complain to YHWH and his anger burns against them, the fire consuming the edges of the camp (Num 11:1–3). In the following episode, the divine response is even harsher and more impulsive: YHWH reacts to the people’s longings for Egypt and meat to eat by planning a deluge of flesh: “You shall eat not one day, not two … but a whole month, until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you” (vv. 19–20). Rather than keeping his word, however, he immediately strikes them as they commence eating (v. 33).70 J directly links YHWH’s response with his presence among them: “For you have rejected YHWH who is among you, by whining before him and saying, ‘Oh, why did we ever leave Egypt!’” (v. 20). Just as the Israelites had longed for him to be close to them, so now they want nothing to do with him. YHWH’s reactions to the Israelites’ mistrust become more and more explosive, climaxing in the Yahwistic account of the spies.71 The Israelites not bethe dangers thereof in the Hebrew Bible. For a comprehensive discussion and bibliography, see Chavel, “The Face of God.” For this passage, see ibid, 40–42. 67  See Baden, Composition, 79–80; Ariel Seri-Levi, “Divine Anger and its Appeasement in the Pentateuch and its Sources” (PhD diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2020), 103–16 [Hebrew]. 68  For the sources in Exod 16, see Joel S. Baden, “The Original Place of the Priestly Manna Story in Exodus 16,” ZAW 122 (2010): 491–504. 69 For the sources in Num 11, see Baden, Composition, 82–102. 70  According to Jacob Licht, “Many died instantly, after the first mouthful. There is no contradiction here … for the majority remained alive and could eat flesh if they wished” (Jacob Licht, A Commentary on the Book of Numbers 11–21 [Jerusalem: Magnes, 1991], 33 [Hebrew]). Following O. Sforno, Jacob Milgrom suggests that YHWH smote only the riffraff responsible for the complaining, the rest of the people continuing to eat (Jacob Milgrom, Numbers [Philadelphia: JPS, 2003], 92). No textual support for this exists, however. The notation “The meat was still between their teeth, not yet chewed” (Exod 11:33) sharply contrasts with YHWH’s original intention to make them eat “until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you” (Num 11:20), thus explicitly indicating that YHWH violated his own intention. 71  While woven in the canonical text into the Priestly story of the spies, the Yahwistic account is clearly distinguishable from it. See, e. g., George B. Gray, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Numbers, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1903), 134–38.

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lieving in him despite the signs he has done “in their midst” (Num 14:11), YHWH seeks to wipe them off the face of the earth, saving only Moses (v. 12).72 He turns out to have been right in warning them of the consequences of getting too close.73 Moses nevertheless succeeds in changing his mind on the grounds that wiping them out would be interpreted as a weakness precisely due to his too-great immanence (vv. 13–16). Moses urges YHWH to fulfill his word, given at Sinai (Exod 33:6–7; Num 14:17–18). YHWH’s previous caution, however, evinces that his declaration of intent to destroy the people is not an abstract threat. Were it not for Moses’s intercession, YHWH would have annihilated them.74 This change of pattern of response embodies the metamorphosis in YHWH-Israel’s relations according to the Yahwistic account.

9. Conclusion The Yahwistic narrative of the Sinai revelation relates to the establishment of YHWH’s immanence among his people in full and constant form. From the Exodus through to Sinai, he had accompanied them in the guise of an angel or the pillars and cloud and fire – that is, partially rather than completely. In response to the Israelites’ query whether he is in their midst – and despite not originally intending to do so – YHWH decides to descend on the mountain in front of their eyes so that they will know that henceforth he will always be totally with them. He nonetheless imposes strict constraints upon access to the mount and vision of himself. A short time later, for reasons not appearing in the extent text, but 72 The

theme of YHWH’s dwelling among the people in J, and the plot background of the Sinai episode (as well as the pre-Sinai episodes in J), are necessary for understanding the threat of destruction in the spies narrative. If it is ignored, this scene is context-less. Some scholars, who do not recognize the Yahwistic sequence, thus regard it as a later addition. For a recent discussion of this view and earlier literature, see Gili Kugler, When God Wanted to Destroy the Chosen People: Biblical Traditions and Theology on the Move, BZAW 515 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2019), 46–52. For a detailed exegesis of the spies narrative as part of J, see Seri-Levi, “Divine Anger,” 83–124. 73  Thus Moses, who persuaded YHWH to dwell among the Israelites despite the dangers attendant upon such intimacy, is the one who must now deal with the fallout (Num 14:13–19). It is also clear why YHWH requires Moses’s intervention, he himself already having declared his lack of self-control. 74  Paradoxically, Moses appeals to the same closeness in order to influence YHWH’s decision (Num 14:13–16), arguing that when the Egyptians and Canaanites – who had heard that he dwelled among Israel and revealed himself to them – realized that he had eliminated them they would regard this as proof of his inability to bring them to the land as he had promised. Although Moses softens and disguises his criticism of YHWH by presenting it as a hypothetical charge brought by the native inhabitants of the land, its contents are clear and trenchant: the total destruction of all the people with whom YHWH had had such a close relationship could only be interpreted as a display of weakness. YHWH immanence in J thus constitutes both a source of danger and the means for neutralizing the latter.

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perhaps because the people had sought to get too close to him, YHWH repents of this determination. Fearing that if he dwells among them their stiff-neckedness will cause him to wipe them out, he prefers to send an angel to accompany them to the Promised Land. The Israelites mourn over this resolve, Moses going so far as to entreat YHWH to accompany them himself as a sign of his and their special relationship with him. YHWH eventually accedes to this request, committing himself to dwell among them in person and fulfilling his word. What does the Yahwistic account of the Sinai narrative tell us with respect to the composition of the Pentateuch and the Documentary Hypothesis? First, the above discussion demonstrates the essential differences between J and E from both a literary and theological perspective; it also underscores J’s plot and theological unity.75 Contra J, which concludes the Sinai revelation pericope with YHWH’s full and constant immanence, E – followed by D – espouses what might be called a theology of distancing, according to which YHWH is not permanently present on earth, but dwells in heaven. These two sources relate to the revelation at Horeb as an exceptional event, repeatedly stressing that even after it – and in a certain sense even as it is occurring – YHWH remains transcendent.76 At the same time, the above analysis clearly evinces close affinities between J and P, both of which adopt a theology of presence. Both give very similar accounts of the way in which YHWH establishes his dwelling among the people at Sinai – possibly even being two literary versions of a single oral tradition. The unexpected, complex, and suspense-filled Yahwistic plot and detailed, schematic, and predetermined Priestly outline ultimately lead to identical results: both speak of YHWH’s descent on Mount Sinai (vs. Horeb) in the eyes of the people as intended to establish his full and constant dwelling among them.77 Both 75  One of the most significant achievements of the Neo-Documentarian Hypothesis is its fundamental and systematic distinction between J and E: see Baden, J, E, and the Redaction and the literature cited in n. 6 above. 76  See Exod 20:22 (“You yourselves saw that I spoke to you from the very heavens”); Deut 4:36. For a discussion of Elohistic theology, see the references in n. 38 above. D’s outlook has been studied extensively: see, for example, Sommer, Bodies of God, 62–68 and the bibliography cited therein. Place still exists for a discussion of the importance of the Elohistic concept of YHWH for understanding Deuteronomic theology, however: see Seri-Levi, “Divine Anger,” 163–71, 182–92. 77  This is also true of other places in the Pentateuch. P, for example, recounts that humanity was created in order that a YHWH-like creature would be fruitful and spread across the world (Gen 1:26–28), this purpose being realized (Gen 5:3–32; 10:32). According to J, however, the human likeness to YHWH is unplanned and unwelcome (Gen 3:4–5, 22–24), YHWH eventually being forced to scatter humanity (Gen 11:6–9): see Ariel Seri-Levi, “Women, Men, and God in the Creation Stories: A Theological Debate between the Sources of the Pentateuch,” Judaism, Sovereignty and Human Rights 4 (2018): 130–51 [Hebrew]. A second example occurs following the spies’ transgression. While according to P YHWH announces that the present generation will not enter the land (Num 14:26–35), in J he declares that he will wipe all the

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also address the hierarchy of divine immanence and the preparations YHWH demands in anticipation of his manifestation, warning of the dangers attendant upon approaching him too closely.78 It is thus fitting to conclude with a quote from Schwartz’s classic article on the Sinai revelation in the Priestly source, with a one-word change: “The overall structure of the Yahwistic narrative is aimed at describing the gradual arrival of the immanent Presence of God to dwell upon earth in the midst of the Israelites.”79

people out immediately, only reaching the same conclusion as that described in P after Moses’s lengthy, impassioned intercession (Num 14:11–25). 78  Both also assign a central place to the Ark as associated with YHWH’s presence: see n. 62 above. 79  Schwartz, “The Priestly Account,” 122.

The Second Ascent of Moses for the Inscription of the Tablets A Case of Literary Development* Dodani Orstav For Baruch, who taught me what being critical really means )‫ טו‬,‫ודרשת וחקרת ושאלת היטב והנה אמת נכון הדבר (דברים יג‬

The pentateuchal section that relates the events following the Exodus from Egypt deserves serious examination, because of the legal material that appears in its narrative sequence. In fact, this section carries out one of the Torah’s primary goals: the validation of Israelite norms by presenting them as part of a dramatic plot about the divine revelation on the mountain in the desert to Moses and all the people of Israel.1 The account of the mountain revelation is concluded in Exod 34 before the construction of the Tabernacle, the continued reception of the laws, and the return to the desert journey. According to the canonical narrative, the main event in this chapter is yet another ascent of Mount Sinai made by Moses for a divine revelation. Moses, indeed, ascended and descended the mountain several times * This article began with thoughts and insights that occurred to me after participating in Baruch Schwartz’s 5764 M. A. seminar in the Bible Department at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, entitled “The Yahwistic Source and the Elohistic Source.” This seminar exposed me, for the first time, to a deep understanding of the Documentary Hypothesis in general, and to its renewed formulation in particular. I extend my deepest gratitude to Professor Schwartz for introducing me to the world of biblical thoughts and beliefs, and to the fascinating field of this scholarly tradition. I would very much like to thank my mother, Judith Orstav, for her devoted assistance in the translation of the Hebrew version, to Gili Kugler for her good advice and help with formatting the footnotes, and to Ariel Seri-Levi for his encouragement and insightful discussions on this subject among others. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to Jeffrey Stackert and Joel S. Baden for their months of patience until this paper was completed. 1  For a remarkable discussion on this subject, focusing on the Priestly account, see Baruch J. Schwartz, “The Priestly Account of the Theophany and Lawgiving at Sinai,” in Texts, Temples, and Traditions: A Tribute to Menahem Haran, ed. Michael V. Fox et al. (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1996), 103–34 (and see references there). For a more general discussion, concerning all non-Deuteronomic sources, see idem, “What Really Happened at Mount Sinai?,” Bible Review 13 (1997): 20–30, 46. For the different legal approaches of the documents, see idem, “The Question of the Commandments’ Validity: ‘The Basic Norm’ in the Torah Traditions,” Annual of the Institution for Research in Jewish Law 20 (2000): 241–65 [Hebrew].

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after the Israelites had encamped at its foot but this ascent is the second one to deal with the inscription of the tablets, since the first tablets were shattered by Moses in response to the golden calf episode.2 This ascent (henceforth “the second ascent”) is in fact the last one, and as such it presents the final theophany on the mountain and thus has a major role in understanding the whole revelation episode which began in Exod 19. However, any attempt to read the chapter in its canonical form will come up against several problems, resulting in confusion about its messages and literary function. The grand finale of the mountain theophany, therefore, remains somewhat obscure, leaving the reader perplexed. The following study will deal with Exod 34 by presenting its narrative problems, analysing the chapter to suggest solutions, and then re-examining it to establish a full and comprehensive explanation of its contents and how it reached its current form.

1. The Problems in the Narrative of Exodus 34 The main difficulties in this chapter can be seen by the following questions regarding its plot: a. What is the purpose of the theophany? In God’s instructions the purpose is to rewrite “the words that were on the first tablets” (v. 1) because the tablets had been shattered by Moses after he witnessed the golden calf festival (32:19). But after Moses’s ascent God presented another purpose: “I hereby make a covenant” (v. 10, and cf. v. 27–28); this is quite unclear due to the fact that a covenant with the Israelites had already been made by God (24:4–8). Although the tablets had been shattered, there was no hint that the covenant itself had been cancelled nor that there was a need for its renewal, either in the golden calf story or in this chapter. Furthermore, these two purposes cannot be seen as identical, because the first tablets were not part of the covenant story (24:4–8) but were given after it had already been made, as a memento (31:18). In short, the purpose of the theophany in this chapter is puzzling and not coherent with the story preceding it. 2  To emphasize and clarify this point: in canonical Exodus, during the Israelites’ encampment at the foot of the mountain in the desert (Exod 18:1–Num 10:10), Moses ascends the mountain no fewer than eight times (as detailed in Exod 19–34) in an intense plot that was created through the combination of the three non-Deuteronomic sources. Focusing only on those revelations that left Moses with some sort of tangible memento of his encounter with God, it is apparent that the canonical story comprises two ascents: one in which Moses received from God “the two tablets of the testimony” (Exod 31:18) and a second one on which the “the terms of the covenant, the Ten Commandments” were written. Thus, in this article, the phrase “the second ascent” refers to the story of the additional revelation that took place on the mountain for the purpose of writing the divine words again. Note that the basis for any biblical translations in this article is The JPS TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1985). In some cases, other translations were used, in order to achieve a more accurate meaning within the context.

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b. Why were the laws given to Moses again? As Moses had already received all the laws previously (21–23:19) and even transmitted them to the Israelites and written them down (24:3–4), there is simply no reason for giving the laws again. Yet no explanation is given for this, either by the narrator or by God Himself. Even if it is assumed that the renewal of the covenant (inexplicable in itself, as argued above) required a repeated proclamation of the laws, it is still not clear why only some of them were given again, and not even in the exact wording of the original ones. c. What was written at the end of this theophany? In accordance with the first two questions, it can be noticed that there is an ambiguity in this story as to the content of the words that were written. This content is described as “the terms of the covenant, the Ten Commandments” (v. 28), but as shown above the two are not the same thing. In the preceding story the covenant is identified with the full corpus of the laws, not just the Ten Commandments. Moreover, if the quoted phrase is read as referring to the precepts which were presented in this chapter (v. 12–26) then it is odd, since these precepts do not seem to divide into ten. d. Who wrote this content? Before the theophany God said: “I will inscribe upon the tablets …” (v. 1), but in the theophany itself God said to Moses: “Write down these commandments” (v. 27). So, at the conclusion of the theophany, when the text reads “and he wrote down on the tablets” the question arises: who is this he who did the writing? e. What was the memento with which Moses descended from the mountain? Here the text seems very clear, as it explicitly implies that Moses came down from the mountain bearing “two tablets of the Testimony”3 (v. 29). But this phrase is perplexing, because it refers to two different objects which were mentioned previously in the story: the tablets (24:12; 32:16, 19; 34:1, 4, 28) and the Testimony (25:16, 21, 22; 26:34; 27:21; 30:6, 26, 36; 31:7). These are not two different names for the same object, since Moses was twice informed that he would receive something from God: on one occasion the tablets (24:12), and on another the Testimony (25:16).4 Only in two places prior to Exod 34 is there a use of the amalgamated phrase “two tablets of the Testimony”: in 31:18 and in 32:15, and in all three cases the context is a progress point in the narrative: the giving of the memento to Moses or his descent with it. f. Approaching the theophany, from where did God descend and to where? After God’s instructions, and after all of Moses’s preparations, the event itself began with the words “YHWH descended in the cloud” (v. 5), yet this beginning is somewhat strange, because throughout the whole mountain pericope (Exod 19– 34) it is quite clear that God is situated on the mountain. Moses always ascends 3  The JPS translation uses the word ‘Pact’, supposedly in accordance with what appears in Deut 9:9, 11, 15. Yet the term here is ‫לֻ חֹת ָה ֵע ֻדת‬, where ‘ēdût means testimony, not pact. 4  See Schwartz, “Priestly Account,” 118–19, 126–27.

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the mountain to meet God, and God is always there. Thus, the report of God’s descent in the cloud doesn’t seem to make sense in the context of the narrative: isn’t He already on the mountain? g. Who presented himself to whom? In His orders to Moses God said, “Come up to Mount Sinai and present yourself (‫ )ונצבת‬there to Me” (v. 2), but it is written that in the event itself, YHWH was the one who “came down in a cloud” and then “stood (‫ )ויתיצב‬with him there” (v. 5). It is unclear why what happened is not in accordance with God’s instructions. h. Why is it recounted that Moses’s face radiated after this descent? The story tells that Moses came down from the mountain after talking to God without knowing that “the skin of his face was radiant” (v. 29), and that because of this Aaron and all the Israelites “were afraid to come near him” (v. 30). Therefore, a solution in the form of a veil was introduced, for the times that Moses was not meeting with God or transmitting to the Israelites what He had commanded (v. 34–35). If this radiance was a direct result of being exposed to the divine glory, why did it not happen to Moses after all previous meetings with God on the mountain?5 Or, if it did happen, why was there no report of it, and why is a procedure to deal with the resulting public fear described only now? i. Where was God located at the time of the routine theophany? At the end of the chapter, when the solution of the veil is presented, it is said: “Whenever Moses went in before YHWH to speak with Him, he would leave the veil off until he came out.” From this it is quite clear that God is located inside the tent, and Moses enters it to communicate with Him. But in the previous chapter the description of the prophecy routine is very different: “And when Moses entered the Tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the Tent, while He spoke with Moses” (33:9). Therefore, it cannot be determined where God is located at the times of theophany – outside the tent or inside it. All these problems demonstrate that Exod 34 cannot be understood as a whole in its canonical form, and that there is a need for explanations in order to enable an intelligible reading of its content.

2. The Classical Approach to The Problems of Exod 34 Already in the nineteenth century scholars pointed out the disunity of this chapter, proposing that it was composed of several sources.6 The broad con5 Cf. Schwartz, “Priestly Account,” 119: “One rightly asks why the radiance was not noticed on the seven previous occasions, and why only this time, when an entirely different reaction is appropriate, did the people suddenly find it necessary to deal with it.”  6  For a brief survey of the problems in this chapter and the way they were dealt with throughout the history of scholarship see Brevard S. Childs, Exodus, OTL (London: SCM, 1974), 601– 607.

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sensus was that most of the chapter belonged to J, except the ending, vv. 29–35, which was identified as a Priestly passage.7 This narrative was perceived to be a brief and condensed Yahwistic parallel to the stories of Moses’s ascent of the mountain for the divine revelation and the reception of the precepts, as had previously been recorded in E and P.8 And since in this Yahwistic passage Moses had been commanded to inscribe God’s words (v. 27), and indeed did so (v. 28), it seemed obvious that the tablets (mentioned in vv. 1, 4, 28) were an inseparable part of it. This led scholars to the conclusion that the few references in this chapter to the first tablets that had been shattered (v. 1b, and the word ‫כראשנים‬ in v. 1a and v. 4) could not be part of J, because the event is told as if it is happening for the first time, and there is no indication whatsoever that the covenant is being renewed or that the laws had already been given.9 Therefore, these words were attributed to E,10 even though, in and of themselves, they did not seem to belong to any continuous narrative. Alternatively, they were identified as an interpolation that was added in order to integrate J’s plot with E’s account of the shattered tablets.11 The general conclusion, in light of this analysis, was that each of the documents told in its own way the story of Moses’s ascent of the mountain for a fundamental revelation, but E told of yet another ascent – a second one – because the shattering of the first tablets required that God’s words be reinscribed on another set of tablets. This narrative, so it was asserted, was excluded when it was combined with J, probably because it was seen to be superfluous, and ultimately only a few bits and pieces of this second-tablet story remained, which is how the complex, canonical version came into its present form.12  7 Samuel

R. Driver, The Book of Exodus, CBC (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911), xviii–xix.  8  Driver, Exodus, 251–352: E: Exod 24:12*, 13–15a, 18b; 31: 18*; 32:1–8, 15*, 16; P: Exod 24:15b–18a; 25:1–31:17, 18*. It should be noted that in P the precepts that were given on the mountain are only the instructions for building the Tabernacle and connected material, as all other precepts would be given there. See Schwartz, “Priestly Account,” 115, 118–19, 128.  9  See Driver, Exodus, 347, 364. 10  See Driver, Exodus, 363–66. 11  George F. Moore, The Literature of the Old Testament (London: Williams and Norgate, 1913), 50. 12  Even if it is accepted that there are no E materials in the chapter, the notion that there must have been an Elohistic narrative concerning the second tablets cannot be dismissed, because it could not have ended without mentioning replacements for the shattered ones. Almost all classical scholars were of the opinion that the segment from E containing Moses’s second ascent was eliminated entirely, or almost entirely, when the canonical Torah was composed. The contemporary position among most source-critical scholars is that the E narrative of the second tablet story is almost complete, yet short and concise; See Joel S. Baden, J, E, and the Redaction of the Pentateuch, FAT 68 (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 166–70; idem, The Composition of the Pentateuch: Renewing the Documentary Hypothesis, AYBRL (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 117; Jeffrey Stackert, A Prophet Like Moses: Prophecy, Law, and Israelite Religion (New York: Oxford University Press), 84.

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However, this proposed reconstruction of the documents and their integration process raises several problems that prevent accepting it as it is. Firstly, it is difficult to adopt the argument that the original story in E about a second ascent was abandoned so completely that only fragments remained. This is because in practically every composite biblical story all the plotlines were preserved in their entirety, being interwoven, whether they were quite similar or exceedingly different;13 whether they were compatible, or in undeniable conflict.14 This was the compiler’s standard method throughout the Torah, and there is nothing here to suggest he acted differently in this case. Secondly, the assumed redaction of the chapter is both incoherent and selfcontradictory. On the one hand, the combination of the sources is described as a result of a redactional effort to harmonize the single story of the tablets in J with the two stories of the tablets in E, by presenting the J narrative as part of the second tablet story. On the other hand, the redactorial activity was seen as tampering with scriptural unity, that is, as being responsible for several fundamental contradictions in the canonical text. How could a harmonizing redactor be responsible for such a disrupted result? A significant example of this approach is evident in the attempts to explain v. 28b: “and he wrote down on the tablets the terms of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.”15 If the sentence is perceived as belonging to J, a dissonance is created by the fact that the preceding text where God presented His precepts

13 An example for two similar stories that have been integrated can be seen in the Noah story (Gen 6–9). See Baruch J. Schwartz, “The Flood Narrative in the Torah and the Question of Where History Begins,” in Shai le-Sara Japhet: Studies in the Bible, Its Exegesis and Its Language, ed. Moshe Bar Asher et al. (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2007), 139–54 [Hebrew]. An example of the integration of two dissimilar stories (presumably because the compiler saw them as containing different details of the same event) can be seen in the narrative about the people’s complaints (J) and the story about the appointment of the seventy elders in the Tent of Meeting (E), which are interwoven in the canonical Num 11; see Stackert, Prophet Like Moses, 91. In all cases, the narratives remain in their entirety; they are merely integrated, without taking into consideration the contradictions created by having done so. 14 A sharp example of two different stories that were integrated without any effort from the compiler to reconcile the contradictions that was created by the integration is the beginning of the Joseph stories (Gen 37). The question of who took Joseph down to Egypt cannot be answered by the canonical text. See Baden, Composition, 1–12, 34–44. 15  See problem c in the list above.

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is not divided into ten segments.16 If it is attributed to E, the meaning of “the words of the covenant” written on the tablets is confusing: the tablets should be identical to the previous ones (as declared by God in v. 1), yet the first set did not contain any terms of the covenant but rather “the teachings and commandments” that God had written for Moses to instruct the Israelites (Exod 24:12). And if v. 28b is a result of the work of a redactor (either by combining different sources or by the insertion of a harmonistic phrase), it is this very act that created a dissonance in the chapter, as it attributes the writing of the words on the tablets to Moses, in contrast to what is written in v. 1.17 It can be concluded that the explanations given for the problems of this chapter not only fail to resolve them but also create new problems, and most importantly, they do not provide a sufficient understanding of how the canonical chapter was compiled from its sources. This example illustrates the fate of classical documentary scholarship. Even though much of the analysis is correct, well-founded, and mostly precise – as will be demonstrated below – a number of small errors, attributable to faulty assumptions, led to imprecisions impossible to overlook, which made the overall analysis flawed. The existence of many such cases throughout the critical literature on the Torah not only resulted in many unconvincing readings but also provided certain scholars (particularly those working in the last five decades) with the ammunition to argue that the entire Documentary Hypothesis was unsubstantiated, and even baseless. A more precise critical study will aspire to identify and preserve the correct analyses, to reveal the erroneous assumptions and correct the mistaken conclusions drawn from them – even if they are few – to offer tighter solutions that include a full picture of the sources and their accurate meaning, and to provide a comprehensive explanation of how the canonical text was formed. Only then will it be possible to determine whether in light of this process the Documentary Hypothesis is strengthened or weakened.

 Julius Wellhausen, for instance (and likewise Bäntsch), proposed the following division: 14a, 17, 18a, 19a, 22a, 22b, 25a, 25b, 26a, 26b; however, many other proposals were also advanced, none of which is sufficiently persuasive. All attempts to divide the passage into ten are artificial, and it is difficult to imagine that these proposals would have been made had the phrase “the Ten Commandments” (v. 28) not existed. See Julius Wellhausen, Die Composition des Hexateuchs und der historichen Bücher des Alten Testaments, 3rd ed. (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1899), 333–34; Driver, Exodus, 365; Charles A. Briggs, “The Little Book of the Covenant,” The Hebrew Student 2 (1883): 264–72 (and see references there). 17 Driver (Exodus, 363–64) noted this contradiction in the canonical version: “The great difficulty is that one thing is commanded, and another done.” However, he did not consider it dissonant with the way he perceived the compiler as actively striving to harmonize the text. Later (p. 365) he adds: “It is however open to question whether ‘the ten words’ are an original part of the text of v. 28: they may be a harmonizing addition, intended (in spite of the inconsistency which it involves) to identify the ‘words’ written upon the tables with the Decalogue of Ex. xx.” Yet it is inconceivable to ascribe to the compiler an addition of a harmonizing phrase that does everything but harmonize. 16

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Therefore, in order to devise a solution to the problems of Exod 34 presented above, one must determine which verses create internal discrepancies, attempt to construct sequences out of those verses that are logically connected and complementary, analyse these formulated sequences and finally, based on this analysis, come to conclusions. All this must be accomplished with minimal reliance on assumptions while consciously presenting and validating those upon which the arguments do rest. Accordingly, this study will analyse Exod 34 by following the order of the verses in the canonical text, taking into account all the points raised so far.

3. A Source Analysis of Exodus 34 Verse 1: The very beginning of the chapter demonstrates how a critical assumption led scholars to see complexity where it does not exist. The verse corresponds precisely with the preceding story in E about Moses receiving the tablets from God (the Elohistic part of Exod 31:18)18 and shattering them (32:19). The verse is connected to this previous story by mentioning the two tablets using the very same formulation, by using the word ‫כראשנים‬, by referring to the content inscribed in the first tablets, and by telling of the intended reinscribing. In fact, this connection is so compelling that one would need to provide exceedingly strong evidence to propose that it is not part of the same plotline. This notwithstanding, most of the classical critical scholars asserted that this is the beginning of the J narrative. This reading, as mentioned above, creates just as many problems as it solves because it leaves verse fragments (“like the first” and “that were on the first tablets which you shattered”) without any context and without any satisfactory explanation for how they arrived in their current locations. The only reason for dividing this verse into a J sentence and E fragments is the assumption that the J narrative had to have been parallel to E; therefore, if God’s words were written in J, clearly they would also have been written on two tablets like in E. This assumption became the unquestioned basis for analysing the chapter, and even though it led to problematic results these readings remained regnant, and the explanation given about their assumptions was considered to be sufficiently persuasive. Over the course of the twentieth century, efforts to resolve the problems caused by such solutions led to a depiction involving ever more convoluted layers, strata, and additions.19 By contrast, the possibility of 18  Driver, Exodus, 346; J. E. Carpenter and G. Harford-Battersby, The Hexateuch According to the Revised Version (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1900), II:130; Alan H. McNeile, The Book of Exodus, 2nd ed., WC (London: Methuen, 1917), 203. All of these scholars recognize the verse as being composite, but divide it very roughly: the first half to P and second half to E, with the assumption that P contained the phrase “two tablets of the testimony.” For a finer and more accurate division of this verse see below (n. 47). 19  Martin Noth, Exodus, OTL (London: SCM, 1962), 258–67; Gerhard Von Rad, The Problem

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reading this verse as an original sentence that belongs entirely to the narrative sequence of E matches its contents and deserves to be examined as part of the overarching context. Verse 2: This verse seems to be the natural continuation of the first verse, primarily because of the conjunctive waw (‫ )ו‬it begins with. However, its content belies this impression, for in fact, the most significant detail in the verse – the phrase ‫הר‬ ‫סיני‬ – is alien to E.20 Therefore, it appears that v. 2, whose theme is a preparation for an intimate revelation of God to Moses, is the continuation of a different segment, probably the dialogue between God and Moses from chapter 33, which deals with the same theme and belongs to J.21 The next part of this verse (“and present yourself there to Me”) is difficult to ascribe to a particular source, both because its content is consonant with both openings of J and E, and because the root ‫ יצב‬which is identified with the theophany of God in E is also found in J’s plots. On the other hand, the ending ‫ על ראש ההר‬seems to belong to J in light of its similarity to Exod 19:20,22 which is part of J’s plotline.23 Along with the first five words in Exod 19:16, which also belong to J,24 there seems to be a literary and conceptual match: Exod 19:16*, 20: ‫ וירד יהוה על הר סיני אל ראש ההר ויקרא‬25× ‫ויהי ביום השלישי בהית הבקר‬ ‫יהוה למשה אל ראש ההר‬ Exod 34:2: ‫ ראש ההר‬-‫ הר סיני ונצבת לי שם על‬-‫והיה נכון לבקר ועלית בבקר אל‬ of the Hexateuch and Other Essays (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), 16 (in notes referring to Alt, who proposed that the whole of Exod 34 is secondary). See also Childs, Exodus, 605–606. 20 The contention that the original word in this verse was ‫ ההר‬and a later compiler changed it to ‫הר סיני‬, well-known from P and J, in order to achieve harmony, has no supporting evidence. The major problem with such a contention is that there is no sufficient reason to presume editorial interference since the mountain’s identification is in no doubt within the chapter, and in far more ambiguous cases, no active interference on the part of the compiler can be found. In this case, not only is there no extraordinary problem in the verses that needs to be solved, but there is no problem whatsoever. For this very reason, there is also no justification for assuming that explanatory comments in the margins made their way into the text (as a gloss), because there would have been no purpose for such comments to have been written in the first place. 21  Several scholars argued that the J parts in Exod 33–34 are out of order, and proposed reconstructions of their original sequence. See Driver, Exodus, xxviii. 22 The other occurrences of the phrase ‫ על ראש ההר‬are found in J (Num 14:40, 44) or in P (Exod 24:17, Num 20:28). 23 See Schwartz, “What Really Happened,” 25; Baden, Composition, 77. 24 The rest of Exod 19:16, together with the next three verses, are part of the E narrative, so the continuation of J appears in v. 20. For a discussion of Exod 19 and its division into sources, and especially the compelling attribution of v. 18 to E, see Ariel Seri-Levi’s contribution in this volume. 25  The × sign represents a place where the compiler inserted text from other documents.

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Thus, this verse’s enveloping framework belongs to J, while the phrase ‫ונצבת לי‬ ‫ שם‬remains, in the meantime, unidentified. Verse 3: Here too, the conjunctive waw at the beginning makes it necessary to determine whether there is a connection between this verse and the preceding one. But in contrast to the former instance, here the contents do support the argument for continuity, as the prohibitions about ascending the mountain are the details of the command that began in the previous verse. From a conceptual perspective, the restriction on ascending the mountain is a major motif in J, as expressed at the beginning of the Mount Sinai narrative in that document.26 The demonstrative pronoun in ‫ ההר ההוא‬refers back to the antecedent ‫הר סיני‬, which appears in the command given in v. 2, thus proving that the entire third verse is a continuation of the previous one. Verse 4: In this verse, Moses fulfils the divine commandments he was given. He carves the two stone tablets so that they are exactly like the first ones, as recounted in v. 1, and he rises in the morning and goes up to Mount Sinai, as instructed in v. 2. At the conclusion of the verse, it is told that Moses took the two stone tablets in his hands.27 Thus, this verse is complex: the segments referring to the tablets (“So Moses carved two tablets of stone, like the first” and “taking the two stone tablets with him”) belong to E, since they refer to the story of the first tablets mentioned in this document; and the depiction of the ascent in the morning to Mount Sinai belongs to J, since it continues the previous two verses and is connected to the ideas of the Yahwistic narrative in chapter 19. Verse 5: This verse begins with the words ‫וירד יהוה בענן‬. The description of this descent fits in with the description of God’s behaviour before a revelation in E.28  Exod 19:12–13, 21, 23–24; 24:1–2.  This repetition should not be considered problematic, as noted by ibn Ezra: “It is Hebrew style to speak thus and say, and took in his hand two tables of stone. The verse does not say, and took in his hand the two tables. Our verse is similar to Then the Lord caused to rain upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord (Gen. 19:24). Scripture does not say, ‘from Himself.’ We similarly find Scripture using the phrase the children of Israel five times in one verse. It is elegant to write thus” (trans. H. Norman Strickman and Arthur M. Silver [New York: Menorah Pub, 1988–2004]). The appearance of the phrase “two tablets of stone” twice does not indicate that each belongs to a different document. 28 The descent of the cloud is also mentioned elsewhere in E: in Exod 33:9; Num 11:17, 25; 12:5; Deut 31:15 (LXX). On the preference of the LXX version in the last example (which includes the words “God descended in a cloud”) over the MT, see Alexander Rofé, “Textual Criticism in the Light of Historical-Literary Criticism: Deuteronomy 31:14–15,” Eretz-Israel 16 (1982): 171–76 [Hebrew]. In P, the verb used to describe the cloud is never ‫ירד‬, but rather ‫כסה‬ or ‫שכן‬: Exod 16:10; 24:15: 40:34–38; Num 9:15–22; 10:11–12, 34; 17:7; In J, there is the pillar of cloud that moves ahead of the camp (Exod 13:21–22; 14:19–20, 24; Num 14:14) and no mention is made of any sort of descent. 26 27

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The following words, in contrast, are more difficult to attribute to a source. The phrase ‫ ויתיצב עמו שם‬describes the fulfilment of the command given in v. 2, ‫ונצבת‬ ‫לי שם‬. As mentioned above, the root ‫ יצב‬is repeated many times in E within the context of divine revelation, but also exists in J, so as in v. 2, this sentence may be part of one of two possible plotlines, E or J. Yet both formulation and concept are foreign to the Elohistic source. In E the word ‫ עם‬never occurs in the description of the theophany or in the instructions to Moses towards it, and the presenting of oneself always describes the prophet and not God.29 Furthermore, if the component of presenting oneself was part of E’s sequence, the result would create an inconsistency in the plotline: in v. 2 God commands Moses to present himself on Mount Sinai, while in v. 5 the text recounts that God descends in a cloud and presents Himself to Moses. Even if one suggests that the sentence oddly shifts to speak about Moses, a problem arises from the fact that in E Moses’s presenting of himself always occurs before God descends in the cloud to the location of the theophany, not after.30 On the other hand, reading this sentence as part of J, while disconnecting it from the first words that belong to E (‫וירד יהוה בענן‬, as mentioned above) and linking it to the previous sentence from the Yahwistic document (from v. 4: “and early in the morning Moses went up on Mount Sinai, as YHWH had commanded him”) fits this narrative perfectly. The idea that Moses should present himself to God can be found in the previous chapter, as part of J’s detailed dialogue between God and Moses (33:12–23), where Moses is called upon to do exactly this.31 There, God instructs Moses to present himself (33:21), and here, as has been shown, Moses presents himself and calls God by His name. A careful reading of the previous stories reveals that the motif of the command to present oneself in the morning appears only in J: in the stories about the plague of blood (Exod 7:15), the plague of the wild beasts (8:16), and the plague of pestilence (9:13). In the latter two cases, even the word ‫ השכם‬occurs:32 Exod 34:4–5: ‫וישכם משה בבקר ויעל אל הר סיני כאשר צוה ה׳ אתו… ויתיצב עמו שם‬ Exod 8:16, 9:13: ‫ויאמר ה׳ אל משה השכם בבקר והתיצב לפני פרעה‬

This evidence leads to the conclusion that the commandment concerning Moses’s presenting himself in v. 2 and his fulfilment of the command in v. 4 both belong to J.

29

 Exod 33:9; Num 11:16–17; 12:4–5; Deut 31:14–15.

30 Ibid. 31 See

James P. Hyatt, Commentary on Exodus (London: Oliphants, 1971), 312–18.  The combination of rising in the morning and ascending the mountain also appears in Num 14:40, which also belongs to J. Indeed, in E rising occurs in the narrative about the covenant in Horeb; however, the verse relates that Moses rose and set up an altar below the mountain, and only afterwards did God command him to ascend the mountain (Exod 24:4, 12). 32

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Verses 6–9: In these verses, God reveals Himself to Moses, proclaims His name, and lists His divine traits. Moses responds by immediately bowing low to the ground in recognition and addressing God with his request. There is no connection between the events just described and God’s words in v. 1, that is, the reinscription of God’s words on the tablets. In contrast, they have a direct connection to the dialogue between Moses and God, mentioned above (33:12–23). There, God informs Moses, “I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim before you the name YHWH” (33:19), and here this indeed comes to pass. Moses’s words after he bows (34:9) continue this dialogue, both in terms of the language and the contents of his request. In Exod 33 God said to Moses, “For how shall it be known that Your people have gained Your favour unless You go with us” (33:16), and here Moses responds, “If I have gained Your favour, O Lord, pray, let the Lord go in our midst” (34:9). The lack of a plot connection to E and the direct connection to the Yahwistic story in chapter 33 attest to the fact that this sequence of verses belongs to J. Verses 10–16: These verses comprise a lengthy, unified sequence detailing God’s words about the covenant that He is making with the Israelites. This act expresses God’s acquiescence to Moses’s request, or in other words, expresses His willingness to stay completely present among the Israelites. This presence will cause extraordinarily powerful events to transpire, that will make God’s greatness clear to the surrounding nations (v. 10), including driving out all the nations of Canaan (v. 11). However, God’s mighty presence in the midst of the Israelites is also fraught with danger, because this power may be turned against them if they happen to worship other gods (v. 14). Therefore, not only are the Israelites commanded to thoroughly demolish all the cultic sites where idol worship took place (v. 13), but also to take extra precautions to avoid rousing God’s jealousy. They were therefore forbidden to contract covenants or intermarry with these nations, so that no social opportunities would arise that might lead them to participate in idolatry (vv. 12, 15–16). The entire passage is conceptually unified, linguistically continuous, and not at all related to the E narrative about the second transcription of the tablets. In fact, the opposite is true. The attention paid to the making of the covenant between God and His nation is superfluous in E, which already reported a covenant that was founded (24:4–8, 11bβ). In E, the first tablets were given only after the covenant had been established (24:12–15a, 18b; 31:18*) and therefore, their shattering (32:19) did not nullify the covenant; nor was there any need to establish it anew. The story about the founding of the covenant in chapter 34 (and the prohibition against covenanting with the nations of Canaan) is, therefore, a separate story that does not belong to E. On the other hand, it fits in and makes perfect sense as part of the Yahwistic narrative: Moses’s request of God to

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be completely present among the Israelites and God’s acquiescence necessitates the contracting of a covenant to the benefit of all the parties involved. Verses 17–26: This section has been given the moniker “The Little Book of the Covenant,” and many scholars have addressed the question of its origin and its context.33 There is doubtless a direct literary connection between this grouping of verses and the Book of the Covenant in E which, since Goethe’s proposal,34 led to the classical scholarly stance that its original kernel (also named “The Ten Ritual Commandments”) is the most ancient historical foundation upon which E’s Book of the Covenant (Exod 20:20–23:19) was later based. Recently, however, Gesundheit has shown the opposite: “The Little Book of the Covenant” (principally, its core, the festival calendar in vv. 18–26) is actually a later reworking of the Book of the Covenant.35 Adopting a broader perspective, one may conclude that the editorial work performed on the legal sequence was not conducted on the integrated Torah, since if that were the case, the editing would not have skipped over the Book of the Covenant itself. This is solid proof that this revision was not made on a document which included E (such as the supposed JE36), but was made solely on J. Thus, the Yahwistic sequence in this part underwent an edit, and this edit may have very well included the addition of “The Little Book of the Covenant” as a later stratum interpolated into the original scriptures which did not include laws at all.37 Only later did the unified document reach the compiler who integrated it with the other three sources. Therefore, notwithstanding the possible complexity of these verses, this should not harm the conclusion that they were included in the integrated Torah as part of J. Verse 27: This verse contains God’s command to Moses, “Write down these words,” the words that would be the basis for the making of the covenant with  See Briggs, “The Little Book of Covenant,” 264–72.  Johann W. Goethe, “Zwo wichtige bisher unerörterte biblische Fragen,” in idem, Der junge Goethe 1757–1775, ed. G. Sauder, Sämtliche Werke nach Epochen seines Schaffens, Münchner Ausgabe (München: C. Hanser, 1985–98), 1.2: 434–40. For a discussion on this paper and its impact see Bernard M. Levinson, “Goethe’s Analysis of Exodus 34 and Its Influence on Wellhausen: The Pfropfung of the Documentary Hypothesis,” ZAW 114 (2002): 212–23. 35  For a full discussion on how this passage rests on its parallel in E’s Book of the Covenant (Exod 14–19), see Shimon Gesundheit, Three Times a Year: Studies on Festival Legislation in the Pentateuch, FAT 82 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 12–43. 36  For a compelling argument that the JE never existed as an independent document see Baden, J, E, and the Redaction. 37  Indeed, it seems that J did not originally include any legal component in its plotline, since nowhere else in that document is there a narrative about lawgiving or even any reference to laws. J imprints obligatory norms of life upon the people of Israel only by presenting sample cases. See Shuvi Hoffman, “J’s Unique Approach to Law and Narrative” (M. A. thesis, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2007), 64–119 [Hebrew]. 33 34

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Moses and the nation of Israel. Its continuation concludes God’s speech in the sequence that began above in v. 6, and relates both to the covenant mentioned in v. 10 and to the instruction to keep the precepts (v. 11). Thus, this verse successfully brings to a close God’s message in vv. 10–16, and therefore it also belongs to J. As pointed out above, this conclusion is correct whether “The Little Book of the Covenant” (vv. 17–26) is a later addition to this document or not. Verse 28: In contrast to the J sequence mentioned above, the temporal phrase “forty days and forty nights” is familiar from E (Exod 31:18b), and joins the other references in this chapter to the story of the giving of the first tablets. Many classical scholars attribute this phrase to J, based on the assumption that the documents must have told different versions of the same story, and therefore have similarities and parallels.38 The possibility that the identical linguistic and conceptual characteristics were present because both segments belonged to the same document, containing a complex plot with a repeated motif which does not appear at all in the other document, was virtually unimaginable. Simultaneously, this assumption was also used to explain why E was almost entirely excluded when the stories were integrated, and thus scholars were not disturbed by the fact that the sporadic Elohistic segments which were identified in the verses did not construct a continuous sequence. Without relying on this assumption about parallel versions, but rather examining the links existing in the texts, it may be concluded that the phrase “forty days and forty nights” is, in fact, part of the E narrative. While the following words, “he ate no bread and drank no water,” are not familiar from the story of the first tablets, there are clues elsewhere in those biblical texts which have an affinity to this story, indicating that this account belongs to E. First, the D story of Moses’s receiving the tablets at Horeb appears in the book of Deuteronomy, and exhibits the unmistakable influence of E alone, without any traces of the narratives of J or P.39 In the D storyline both the length of time Moses was on the mountain, forty days and forty nights, and the fact 38  Driver claims (Exodus, 252, 364, 374, leaning on previous scholars) that all the J narrative in this chapter was originally located between Exod 19:20–25 and Exod 24:1–2, 9–11, that is, as part of the J story of Moses’s single ascent to receive the tablets. According to this approach, “there was no room for it” (!) being part of the E sequence (Exod 20:22–23:33, 24:3–8), and so, it was preserved by the compiler and was combined after the story of the divine forgiveness following the sin of the golden calf. Therefore, in its current location, it creates the impression of being a story about the renewal of the covenant told in the context of Moses’s second ascent of the mountain. This reconstruction does solve the gap which exists between Exod 19:25 and 24:1, but it does not explain what happened to the supposed original E narrative of a second covenant, with which J was incorporated. 39 See Menahem Haran, The Biblical Collection: Its Consolidation to the End of the Second Temple Times and Changes of Form to the End of the Middle Ages (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2003), 2:157, 197–200 and passim [Hebrew]. A few earlier scholars were also aware of this; see, for example, William E. Addis, The Documents of the Hexateuch (London: Nutt, 1892), I:lvi–lvii. For a thorough treatment, see Baden, J, E, and the Redaction, 99–195.

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that he neither ate bread nor drank water are mentioned together (Deut 9:9, 18). Indeed, in contrast to the story that appears in Exodus, the abstinence from bread and water appears twice in D – both before the receiving of the first tablets and before the reinscription of the second ones. In any case, this attests to E as the source for this motif. The second clue is found in the story of God’s revelation to Elijah in the desert (1 Kgs 19:4–18), where Moses’s story on the mountain serves as background. According to this narrative, by eating a cake baked on the hot stones and drinking a jar of water which the angel gave him, Elijah walked “forty days and forty nights as far as the mountain of God at Horeb” (v. 8). The story’s clear link to E can be noticed by the use of the word Horeb to name the location of the revelation, as well as by the depiction of the same time period.40 The assertion that with the strength of this meal Elijah walked for forty days and forty nights means that during that period of time Elijah neither ate nor drank. This strengthens the argument that abstaining from eating and drinking is also a motif present in E.41 Thus, the first half of v. 28, suffused with Elohistic signs, clearly belongs to E. The second half of v. 28, on the other hand, is complex. The word ‫ ויכתב‬in its canonical context seems to be referring to Moses, and therefore, the text matches the J narrative in which Moses is the one who is expected to write the words of the covenant (v. 27). Many scholars have noted the dissonance between these words and the Elohistic part in v. 1–4, wherein God explicitly stated that He would be the one to write the words on the tablets, and thus concluded that they must belong to J. However, since God is mentioned in the first part of the verse, even though He is not the subject of the sentence, it is possible to read the verb ‫ ויכתב‬as referring to Him. This reading makes it possible to propose that the story about the writing on the tablets is indeed from E, while the writing of the words of the covenant is part of a different sentence, from J, in which Moses is the writer, in accordance to the command from the previous verse (v. 27). The second half of v. 28 would then be divided as follows: E: ‫ויכתב על הלחת את עשרת הדברים‬ J: ‫ויכתב את דברי הברית‬ The integrated canonical verse: ‫ויכתב על הלחת את דברי הברית עשרת הדברים‬

Throughout the Torah, it is possible to find multiple examples of the compiler’s integration of two different sentences that required him to delete only the 40  It is no surprise that the cycle of Elijah stories, which for the most part transpires in the northern kingdom and whose origins are there, makes use of concepts and motifs that can be found in the northern E document. 41 There may very well be no influence or direct connection between the cycle of the Elijah stories and E, and that the motifs mentioned above are part of the overarching northern tradition that nourished both the author of E and the composer(s) of the Elijah stories. However, this does not undermine the conclusion that these motifs were manifest in E and therefore belong to it.

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common, identical words.42 The unique situation here, as shown above, is that the shared word ‫ ויכתב‬relates to a different subject in each of the sources – God in E and Moses in J.43 The result of this amalgamation in the canonical text is a sentence that refers to Moses, and so, many scholars were uncomfortable accepting that there might be an Elohistic component in it as well. The division proposed above offers an appropriate ending for both documents: in E, God Himself reinscribes the writing that was on the shattered tablets; in J, a link is created between the “words” (]‫ )הדברים [האלה‬and the “covenant” (‫ )ברית‬that were mentioned by God in v. 27 by the term “the words of the covenant” (‫)דברי הברית‬, which Moses had written according to God’s command. However, this solution also raises problems. The phrase ‫ דברי הברית‬exists in the Pentateuch only in D (Deut 28:69; 29:8)44 and is alien to J. For this reason, many perceive it to be a late editorial addition, and Haran even thinks that it must have been “a foreign interpolation” from “a Deuteronomistic hand.”45 However, the use of this phrase in a specific document, and its transformation into an idiomatic phrase, does not mean that it could not have appeared sporadically or even only once in another document. The question of whether a specific phrase belongs to a document must be determined by its compatibility with the plotline, and in this case the compatibility is clear, as shown above. It is not surprising that a story that began with the proclamation of the covenant (v. 10) and continued with the command to inscribe the words that were to be the basis of the covenant (v. 27) would end with their actual inscription. Even if it could be argued that the phrase underwent some sort of an edit (for instance, the expansion of the single word ‫)הדברים‬, a proposition for which there is no real evidence, it still reflects word(s) that were part of an independent sentence from J. This sentence was combined by the compiler with the independent sentence from E to create one integrated verse. 42  An example from the Sinai pericope can be found in Exod 31:18. This verse is a composite of two sentences, one from E and one from P. The words “He gave to Moses” appeared in both original sentences (in reference to the tablets in E, and in reference to the testimony in P), and so the compiler copied them only once, forming the hybrid term “tablets of the Testimony.” Similar examples can be found in Num 32, which is a combined passage of P and J: in verse 2 (the words “and said to Moses”), in v. 6 (“Moses replied”), in v. 16 (“and said”) and in v. 20 (“Moses said to them”). This phenomenon can also be seen in Deuteronomy’s last chapters, which combine all four documents: in 32:25 (the word “charged” appeared both in the D sentence and in the E sentence), and in 34:1 (the words “Moses went up” were both in P and in E); and in many other places in the Pentateuch where two sentences containing the same words were combined. 43 This can be proved by reconstructing J’s sequence of vv. 27–28: “[27] And YHWH said to Moses: Write down these commandments, for in accordance with these commandments I make a covenant with you and with Israel. [28*] And he wrote the words of the covenant.” 44  The two words appear separately in the same verse in Deut 4:13. Outside the Pentateuch the phrase can be found also in Kings (2 Kgs 23:2–3), in Jeremiah (11:2–3, 6, 8; 34:18) and in Chronicles (2 Chr 34:30–31). 45  See Haran, Biblical Collection, 2:183 n. 82.

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The phrase ‫ עשרת הדברים‬raises another problem. It is difficult to discover any sort of obvious division in the chapter into ten sentences, commandments, or parts; therefore, it is unclear what this phrase might be referring to. Goethe, as noted above (note 34), suggested that perhaps the difficulty stems from the reworking of this segment, which originally contained ten ritual commandments (as opposed to the ten ethical commandments that appear in Exod 20:2–13). However, methodologically speaking, this is reverse logic: nothing in the verses comprising “The Little Book of the Covenant” suggests ten words, and the only reason the notion of ten words initially came up was the because of the existence of this phrase.46 This led to the hypothesis that there had originally been some sort of schema involving ten words, but the editorial process made it impossible to identify them. While this proposition cannot be definitively dismissed, it fails to offer any real supporting evidence, and it is no better than any other hypothetical suggestion. On the other hand, a support can be found for a suggestion according to which the phrase actually is part of E. Also here, a comparison with D is instructive, as the combination appears there twice (just as the phrase “forty days and forty nights” does): both in the story of the first tablets (Deut 4:13) and in the story of the second tablets (Deut 10:4). As in the previous case, the evidence from D indicates that the origin of the phrase is the Elohist document, which functioned for D as a basis and an inspiration. However, even if the phrase did not exist in its form in E, at the very least it reflects the word ‫דברים‬, which is original in that document, for at the beginning of the story God explicitly states ‫וכתבתי על הלחת‬ ‫( את הדברים אשר היו על הלחת הראשנים אשר שברת‬34:1). From all this, it is quite clear that even if one of these problematic phrases – ‫ עשרת הדברים‬or ‫דברי הברית‬ – was originally a different phrase, it does not harm the conclusion that this verse was composed of two different sentences, derived from two different documents, J and E. Verse 29: Here, just as in the previous verse, a significant lack of unity can be discerned. The most obvious contradiction occurs between the two tablets (‫)שני לחת‬, which are mentioned only in E, and the testimony (‫)העדת‬, which is unique to P. The beginning of the verse is certainly not Elohistic, for the name Mount Sinai (‫ )הר סיני‬appears, and therefore presumably it joins the word ‫העדת‬ as part of P. In contrast, the words ‫ ביד משה‬are difficult to place, because from a plot perspective in both documents Moses held an object in his hands: the testimony in P and the two tablets in E, and, therefore the words ‫( ביד משה‬or a similar formulation) may have existed in both documents. The first half of the 46  While Goethe withdrew his assertion later, his original proposition and the work of those who built on it continued to shape the field for many years, mainly because of its decisive impact on Wellhausen’s thinking. See Levinson, “Goethe’s Analysis.”

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verse concludes with the words ‫ברדתו מן ההר‬, and also in this case it is a segment that at first glance could belong to either the plot of P, J or E. However, while these words may be a temporal phrase relating to ‫ושני (ה)לחת ביד משה‬, they do not sit well either with the Elohistic sequence or with the Yahwistic sequence in the previous verse. There the story told about the writing of the words (by God according to E or by Moses according to J), while here the descent is referred to as an event that has already happened. In other words, if this phrase belongs to J or E, there is a gap in the account because the descent itself is not narrated. On the other hand, the phrase fits in well with P. The previous segment from P appears two chapters earlier, in Exodus 32:15, in a verse that like the current one is part of E’s sequence, but contains both terms – ‫ הר סיני‬and ‫העדת‬ – belonging to P. In terms of its contents, that verse indeed recounts Moses’s descent from the mountain (after receiving the first tablets), and therefore there seems to be a fusion of two reports of the descent, one belonging to P and the other one to E. A comparison with the formulation found in D (“I started down the mountain, a mountain ablaze with fire, the two Tablets of the Covenant in my two hands,” Deut 9:15) demonstrates that the Elohistic document, which the Deuteronomic author had before him, did not include those priestly words. Thus, the two different sentences that the compiler integrated into the current form of Exod 32:15 can be reconstructed as follows: P: E: The integrated canonical text:

‫וירד משה מהר סיני והעדת בידו‬ ‫ויפן וירד משה מן ההר ושני {ה}לחת בידו‬ 47 ‫ויפן וירד משה מן ההר ושני לחת העדת בידו‬

Thus, in this verse, there is the Priestly recounting of the descent from Mount Sinai, and therefore the Priestly segment in Exod 34:29 seems to be its logical and smooth continuation and functions as the beginning of the next Priestly narrative. This suggests the following division of the verse: P: ‫ויהי ברדת משה מהר סיני והעדת בידו ברדתו מן ההר‬ E: ‫ושני הלחת ביד משה‬ The integrated canonical text: ‫ויהי ברדת משה מהר סיני ושני לחת העדת ביד משה ברדתו מן ההר‬

The second half of the verse, on the other hand, does not contain any sign of complexity. The sentence is unified, formulated in the pluperfect as background for the upcoming narrative. In terms of its contents, it could belong to either one of the two documents, and so the sourcing of this segment will have to wait until after the analysis of the following verses. 47  Exod 31:18 was created in a similar fashion (and see note 18 above): P: ‫ויתן אל משה ככלתו לדבר אתו בהר סיני עדת‬ E: ‫ויתן אל משה שני {ה}לחת לחת אבן כתבים באצבע אלהים‬ The integrated canonical text: ‫ויתן אל משה ככלתו לדבר אתו בהר סיני שני לחת העדת לחת אבן כתבים באצבע אלהים‬

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Verses 30–35: These verses contain a brief and sequential recounting of what happened after Moses returned from his encounter with God. Since the skin on Moses’s face was radiating, the Israelites feared to approach him. Therefore, after transmitting God’s words to them, Moses covered his face with a veil. Henceforth, he removed the veil only when he met with God in the Tabernacle in order to receive commandments and when he would transmit them later to the Israelites outside. This description of Moses’s repetitive routine (described in v. 34) clearly shows that the whole segment is of Priestly origin, since it is found exclusively in P.48 The vocabulary, the style, and the formulation also attest to these verses’ belonging to P, seen in the mentioning of Aaron (vv. 30–31); the designated title ‫( הנשאים בעדה‬v. 31); the sentence ‫( ויצום את כל אשר דבר יהוה‬v. 32);49 the name ‫( הר סיני‬v. 32); and the phrase ‫( ודבר אל בני ישראל‬v. 34).50 Furthermore, this passage does not make sense as the continuation of a story in which Moses already encountered God, as indeed occurred in E and in J, for otherwise it is not clear why only this time Moses’s face radiated and not beforehand. Hence, this passage cannot be anything other than the ending of the story of Moses’s one and only encounter with God, exactly as is told in the Priestly narrative.51 In light of all this analysis, it is now possible to divide Exod 34 into its three sources, and thereby to examine the original source material that comprises the canonical story of the second ascent.

4. Source Division of Exodus 3452 ‫] ויאמר יהוה אל משה פסל לך שני לחת אבנים כראשנים וכתבתי על הלחת את הדברים אשר היו על הלחת‬1[ ‫ואיש‬ ]3[ :‫] והיה נכון לבקר ועלית בבקר אל הר סיני ונצבת לי שם על ראש ההר‬2[ :‫הראשנים אשר שברת‬ ‫ויפסל שני לחת‬ ]4[ :‫לא יעלה עמך וגם איש אל ירא בכל ההר גם הצאן והבקר אל ירעו אל מול ההר ההוא‬ ‫וירד‬ ]5[ :‫אבנים כראשנים וישכם משה בבקר ויעל אל הר סיני כאשר צוה יהוה אתו ויקח בידו שני לחת אבנים‬ ‫] ויעבר יהוה על פניו ויקרא יהוה יהוה אל רחום וחנון ארך‬6[ :‫יהוה בענן ויתיצב עמו שם ויקרא בשם יהוה‬ ‫] נצר חסד לאלפים נשא עון ופשע וחטאה ונקה לא ינקה פקד עון אבות על בנים‬7[ :‫אפים ורב חסד ואמת‬ ‫ויאמר אם נא מצאתי חן‬ ]9[ :‫] וימהר משה ויקד ארצה וישתחו‬8[ :‫ועל בני בנים על שלשים ועל רבעים‬ 48 Indeed, in E this routine is described in Exod 33:7–11, wherein Moses goes to the Tent of Meeting in order to speak directly with God. However, these encounters occur to receive temporary directives, not commandments, since all the laws had been transmitted in their entirety in the Horeb theophany. See Schwartz, “Priestly Account,” 125. 49  A similar formulation may also be found (in the first person) in D. This, of course, does not detract from the identification made here. 50  Exod 6:9; 14:2; 16:10, and many others (although it also occurs once in E: Exod 19:6, and once in D: Deut 4:45). For a discussion on this section as part of P see Menahem Haran, “‫כי קרן‬ ‫עור פני משה‬,” in Studies in Bible Dedicated to the Memory of U. Cassuto on the 100th Anniversary of His Birth, ed. Samuel A. Loewenstamm (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1987), 127–36 [Hebrew]. 51  See Schwartz, “Priestly Account,” 119–21. 52  J – normal text; E – underlined text; P – italicized text. The curly brackets { } wrap text that possibly was in the original document but was omitted by the compiler when interweaving the text.

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‫בעיניך אדני ילך נא אדני בקרבנו כי עם קשה ערף הוא וסלחת לעוננו ולחטאתנו ונחלתנו‪ ]10[ :‬ויאמר הנה‬ ‫אנכי כרת ברית נגד כל עמך אעשה נפלאת אשר לא נבראו בכל הארץ ובכל הגוים וראה כל העם אשר אתה‬ ‫בקרבו את מעשה יהוה כי נורא הוא אשר אני עשה עמך‪ ]11[ :‬שמר לך את אשר אנכי מצוך היום הנני גרש‬ ‫מפניך את האמרי והכנעני והחתי והפרזי והחוי והיבוסי‪ ]12[ :‬השמר לך פן תכרת ברית ליושב הארץ אשר‬ ‫אתה בא עליה פן יהיה למוקש בקרבך‪ ]13[ :‬כי את מזבחתם תתצון ואת מצבתם תשברון ואת אשריו תכרתון‪:‬‬ ‫[‪ ]14‬כי לא תשתחוה לאל אחר כי יהוה קנא שמו אל קנא הוא‪ ]15[ :‬פן תכרת ברית ליושב הארץ וזנו אחרי‬ ‫אלהיהם וזבחו לאלהיהם וקרא לך ואכלת מזבחו‪ ]16[ :‬ולקחת מבנתיו לבניך וזנו בנתיו אחרי אלהיהן והזנו‬ ‫את בניך אחרי אלהיהן‪ ]17[ :‬אלהי מסכה לא תעשה לך‪ ]18[ :‬את חג המצות תשמר שבעת ימים תאכל מצות‬ ‫אשר צויתך למועד חדש האביב כי בחדש האביב יצאת ממצרים‪ ]19[ :‬כל פטר רחם לי וכל מקנך תזכר פטר‬ ‫שור ושה‪ ]20[ :‬ופטר חמור תפדה בשה ואם לא תפדה וערפתו כל בכור בניך תפדה ולא יראו פני ריקם‪:‬‬ ‫[‪ ]21‬ששת ימים תעבד וביום השביעי תשבת בחריש ובקציר תשבת‪ ]22[ :‬וחג שבעת תעשה לך בכורי קציר‬ ‫חטים וחג האסיף תקופת השנה‪ ]23[ :‬שלש פעמים בשנה יראה כל זכורך את פני האדן יהוה אלהי ישראל‪:‬‬ ‫[‪ ]24‬כי אוריש גוים מפניך והרחבתי את גבלך ולא יחמד איש את ארצך בעלתך לראות את פני יהוה אלהיך‬ ‫שלש פעמים בשנה‪ ]25[ :‬לא תשחט על חמץ דם זבחי ולא ילין לבקר זבח חג הפסח‪ ]26[ :‬ראשית בכורי‬ ‫אדמתך תביא בית יהוה אלהיך לא תבשל גדי בחלב אמו‪ ]27[ :‬ויאמר יהוה אל משה כתב לך את הדברים‬ ‫האלה כי על פי הדברים האלה כרתי אתך ברית ואת ישראל‪ ]28[ :‬ויהי שם עם יהוה ארבעים יום וארבעים‬ ‫לילה לחם לא אכל ומים לא שתה‬ ‫ויכתב‬ ‫ ‬ ‫ויכתב ‬ ‫ ‬ ‫על הלחת‬ ‫ ‬ ‫את עשרת הדברים‪:‬‬ ‫את דברי הברית ‬ ‫ ‬ ‫ [‪ ]29‬ויהי ברדת משה מהר סיני‬ ‫והעדת‬ ‫ ‬ ‫ושני הלחת‬ ‫ ‬ ‫{בידו}‬ ‫ ‬ ‫ביד משה‬ ‫ ‬ ‫ברדתו מן ההר‬ ‫ ‬ ‫ומשה לא ידע כי קרן עור פניו בדברו אתו‪ ]30[ :‬וירא אהרן וכל בני ישראל את משה והנה קרן עור פניו‬ ‫וייראו מגשת אליו‪ ]31[ :‬ויקרא אלהם משה וישבו אליו אהרן וכל הנשאים בעדה וידבר משה אלהם‪]32[ :‬‬ ‫ואחרי כן נגשו כל בני יׂשראל ויצום את כל אשר דבר יהוה אתו בהר סיני‪ ]33[ :‬ויכל משה מדבר אתם ויתן‬ ‫על פניו מסוה‪ ]34[ :‬ובבא משה לפני יהוה לדבר אתו יסיר את המסוה עד צאתו ויצא ודבר אל בני ישראל‬ ‫את אשר יצוה‪ ]35[ :‬וראו בני ישראל את פני משה כי קרן עור פני משה והשיב משה את המסוה על פניו עד‬ ‫באו לדבר אתו‪:‬‬ ‫‪[1] YHWH said to Moses: “Carve two tablets of stone like the first, and I will inscribe upon‬‬ ‫‪the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you shattered. [2] Be ready by‬‬ ‫‪morning, and in the morning come up to Mount Sinai and present yourself there to Me,‬‬ ‫‪on the top of the mountain. [3] No one else shall come up with you, and no one else shall‬‬ ‫‪be seen anywhere on the mountain; neither shall the flocks and the herds graze at the foot‬‬ ‫‪of this mountain.” [4] So Moses carved two tablets of stone, like the first, and early in the‬‬ ‫‪morning he went up on Mount Sinai, as YHWH had commanded him, and took the two‬‬ ‫‪stone tablets with him. [5] YHWH came down in a cloud; He stood with him there, and‬‬ ‫!‪proclaimed the name YHWH. [6] YHWH passed before him and proclaimed: “YHWH‬‬ ‫‪YHWH! A God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in kindness and‬‬ ‫‪faithfulness, [7] extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity,‬‬ ‫‪transgression, and sin; yet He does not remit all punishment, but visits the iniquity of par‬‬‫]‪ents upon children and children’s children, upon the third and fourth generations.” [8‬‬ ‫‪Moses hastened to bow low to the ground in homage, [9] and said, “If I have gained Your‬‬ ‫‪favour, O Lord, pray, let YHWH go in our midst, even though this is a stiffnecked people.‬‬ ‫‪Pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for Your own!” [10] He said: I hereby make‬‬ ‫‪a covenant. Before all your people I will work such wonders as have not been wrought on‬‬

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all the earth or in any nation; and all the people who are with you shall see how awesome are YHWH’s deeds which I will perform for you. [11] Mark well what I command you this day. I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. [12] Beware of making a covenant with the inhabitants of the land against which you are advancing, lest they be a snare in your midst. [13] No, you must tear down their altars, smash their pillars, and cut down their sacred posts; [14] for you must not worship any other god, because YHWH, whose name is Impassioned, is an impassioned God. [15] You must not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, for they will lust after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and invite you, and you will eat of their sacrifices. [16] And when you take wives from among their daughters for your sons, their daughters will lust after their gods and will cause your sons to lust after their gods. [17] You shall not make molten gods for yourselves. [18] You shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread – eating unleavened bread for seven days, as I have commanded you – at the set time of the month of Abib, for in the month of Abib you went forth from Egypt. [19] Every first issue of the womb is Mine, from all your livestock that drop a male as firstling, whether cattle or sheep. [20] But the firstling of an ass you shall redeem with a sheep; if you do not redeem it, you must break its neck. And you must redeem every first-born among your sons. None shall appear before Me empty-handed. [21] Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall cease from labor; you shall cease from labor even at plowing time and harvest time. [22] You shall observe the Feast of Weeks, of the first fruits of the wheat harvest; and the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year. [23] Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Sovereign YHWH, the God of Israel. [24] I will drive out nations from your path and enlarge your territory; no one will covet your land when you go up to appear before YHWH your God three times a year. [25] You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with anything leavened; and the sacrifice of the Feast of Passover shall not be left lying until morning. [26] The choice first fruits of your soil you shall bring to the house of YHWH your God. You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk. [27] And YHWH said to Moses: Write down these commandments, for in accordance with these commandments I make a covenant with you and with Israel. [28] And he was there with YHWH forty days and forty nights; he ate no bread and drank no water; and he wrote down and He wrote down on the tablets the terms of the covenant, the Ten Commandments while the two tablets were in Moses’s hand

[29] And when Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the Testimony {in his hand} as he descended the mountain,

Moses was not aware that the skin of his face was radiant, since he had spoken with Him. [30] Aaron and all the Israelites saw that the skin of Moses’s face was radiant; and they shrank from coming near him. [31] But Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the chieftains in the assembly returned to him, and Moses spoke to them. [32] Afterward all the Israelites came near, and he instructed them concerning all that YHWH had imparted to him on Mount Sinai. [33] And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face. [34] Whenever Moses went in before YHWH to speak with Him, he would leave the veil off until he came out; and when he came out and told the Israelites what he had been commanded,

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[35] the Israelites would see how radiant the skin of Moses’s face was. Moses would then put the veil back over his face until he went in to speak with Him.

The division above is quite similar to the divisions which had already been proposed in classical scholarship,53 but there are also a number of slight, yet significant, differences. Firstly, in this proposal not even one word is attributed to the compiler, nor to any other hypothetical editor who preceded him, as adaptations or interpolations. Each of the words is attributed to one of the nonDeuteronomic documents. Secondly, each of the texts from every one of the documents form a complete, smooth and self-sufficient narrative sequence. That is to say, there are no hanging passages or sentence fragments that were combined according to the newly formulated framing context. Rather, they are parts of original, sequential and coherent texts. This means that the compiler did nothing but interweave the documents based on the written sequences in his possession, and he did this without adding or deleting even one word, while preserving their original order. The only actions that can be discerned as interventions occurred in two verses (vv. 28–29), and both for the same reason: the integration of two similar sentences, one from each document, into a single one. The only words or letters that were omitted from the final formulation were those that were identical in both sentences,54 since there was no reason to write them twice, and in fact there was no syntactical way to do so. Apart from these two verses, all the other words were copied untouched and in their original order, creating the interwoven form of the canonical text.

5. The Content of the Narrative of the Second Tablets in and of Itself The minor differences between the division proposed above and those proposed by classical critical scholars can lead to profound differences in the overall picture presented by any one of the documents and subsequently to the conclusions drawn from them. Therefore, in order to understand the precise significance of the second ascent story and the way it was introduced to the canonical text, there is a need to begin with the examination of the story of the

53  For a summarized presentation of the classical division and their differences, see Driver, Exodus, xxviii–xxix, 363–76. For a discussion on the development of criticism on Exod 34, see Childs, Exodus, 601–607 (and see references there). 54  As can be seen in the division above, the reference is to the words ‫ ויכתב‬and ‫ את‬in v. 28; to the definite article he’, the conjunctive waw, and the word ‫ בידו‬in v. 29. According to this suggestion, the latter was omitted probably because the compiler saw it as an abbreviated version of the words ‫ ביד משה‬from E.

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second tablets on its own, that is to say, to read the isolated E narrative, as can be drawn from the analysis of Exod 34 above:55 ‫] ויאמר יהוה אל משה פסל לך שני לחת אבנים כראשנים וכתבתי על הלחת את הדברים אשר היו על הלחת‬1[ ‫וירד יהוה‬ ]5[ :‫ויפסל שני לחת אבנים כראשנים × ויקח בידו שני לחת אבנים‬ × [4] :‫הראשנים אשר שברת‬ ‫ויהי שם עם יהוה ארבעים יום וארבעים לילה לחם לא אכל ומים לא שתה ויכתב על הלחת את‬ × [28] ‫בענן‬ ‫[ × ושני {ה}לחת × ביד משה‬29] :‫× עשרת הדברים‬ [1] YHWH said to Moses: “Carve two tablets of stone like the first, and I will inscribe upon the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you shattered. × [4] So Moses carved two tablets of stone, like the first, × and took the two stone tablets with him. [5] YHWH came down in a cloud; × [28] And he was there with YHWH forty days and forty nights; he ate no bread and drank no water; and He wrote down on the tablets × the Ten Commandments, × [29] while the two tablets × were in Moses’s hand.

As can be seen, the parts of E in this chapter are neither document fragments nor remnants left over in an edited text. Rather, they comprise a sequential text that present a smooth, consistent and complete story of the second tablets. This account is brief and concise, and a close reading reveals the following findings: – Nowhere does E mention that Moses was commanded to ascend the mountain in Horeb a second time. There is a divine command, but it only instructs Moses to carve two tablets like the first ones (34:1). – Nowhere does E mention that Moses ascended the mountain. The segment that recounts his ascent in 34:4 belongs to J, as presented above. – Nowhere does E mention that Moses was actually on the mountain. The only reference to his location is general: “And he was there with YHWH forty days and forty nights” (34:28). – Nowhere does E mention that Moses descended the mountain. The account of the descent in verse 29, as shown above, belongs only to P. These facts become even more distinctive when comparing this story to the previous theophany accounts in E, in which the mountain is explicitly mentioned at every stage: – In the account depicting the preparations for God’s revelation in Horeb, the text specifically records that Moses ascended Mount Horeb (19:3). – The following part of this story specifically recounts that Moses descended the mountain (19:14a).56 55  The × sign represents a place where the compiler inserted text from other documents. The curly brackets { } wrap text which possibly was in the original document but was omitted by the compiler when interweaving the text. 56  The account of Moses’s descent cannot be part of J’s sequence. There is no evidence whatsoever that the conversation between God and Moses in Exod 19:9b–13 took place on the mountain, since J’s plot never even records Moses’s ascent, and provides no reason for Moses to do so. In fact, the opposite can be concluded. In the previous portion of J’s narrative sequence (Exod 17:1–7), God is described as being in the same place as the people, telling Moses that He will stand on the rock in Horeb (the area, not the mountain), the very same rock from where

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– In the story of the receiving of the first tablets, God explicitly commands Moses to go up to the mountain (24:12). – A few verses later, the text specifically relates that Moses ascended the mountain (24:15a). – Shortly thereafter, the text relates that Moses’s sojourn of forty days and forty nights took place on the mountain (24:18b). – During this period of time, the Israelites wondered why Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain (32:1). – Afterwards, the text recounts that God explicitly commanded Moses to descend the mountain (32:7). – Following this, the text relates that Moses indeed descended the mountain (32:15a).57

the water came out right before the eyes of the elders of Israel (v. 6). The aforementioned dialogue in chapter 19 is the direct continuation of this story, both temporally and geographically, and in it God commands Moses to go to the people (19:10) without specifying that he needs to descend from somewhere. In E, on the other hand, Moses goes up to the mountain as part of the preparations for the foundational revelation in which he will play the role of mediator (19:3). In vv. 7–8, which also belong to E, Moses transmits God’s words to the elders of the people and brings back their response to God. So, whether in this episode Moses descended and re-ascended or whether he stayed in the same location, it is clear that his conversation in v. 9 with God takes place on the mountain. Therefore, it makes sense that in 19:14 the account of the descent from the mountain is part of E, whereas the report on Moses’s coming to the people is part of J, and in accordance with v. 10 it can be reconstructed as ‫וילך משה אל העם‬, “and Moses went to the people.” When the compiler fused these two sentences, he excluded the verb ‫ וילך‬from J, which he took to be a more general and less accurate parallel to E’s more precise formulation, the verb ‫וירד‬, and therefore superfluous. In this manner, the composite canonical verse in which Moses descended the mountain to the people came to be. Thus, Exod 19:14 may be divided as follows: E: ‫וירד משה מן ההר‬ J: ‫{וילך} משה אל העם ויקדש את העם ויכבסו שמלתם‬ The integrated canonical text: ‫וירד משה מן ההר אל העם ויקדש את העם ויכבסו שמלתם‬ I would like to thank Ariel Seri-Levi for his important and enlightening observation on the meaning and the division of this verse. For an analysis of this verse in its immediate context and as part of the J account in the Sinai pericope, see Seri-Levi’s contribution in this volume. 57  Evidence for an independent E sentence in this verse can be found in the existence of the Elohistic term ‫“( שני לחת‬two tablets”) and the word ‫“( ויפן‬he turned”) like the report in D: ‫ואפן‬ ‫( וארד מן ההר… ושני לוחת הברית על שתי ידי‬Deut 9:15). Thus, this verse cannot be explained as a Priestly sentence to which was added the term “two tablets” to create harmonization with other parts of the story, because then there would have been no explanation for the existence of the first word ‫ויפן‬. In fact, this word on its own is sufficient proof that this verse is a composite of two independent sentences, one from E and one from P, that reported the descent of Moses from the mountain with a sacred object in his hand: P: ‫וירד משה {מהר סיני} והעדת בידו‬ E: ‫ויפן וירד משה מן ההר ושני לחת בידו‬ The integrated canonical text: ‫ויפן וירד משה מן ההר ושני לחת העדת בידו‬

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It is hard to view all this evidence as coincidence. If, in the previous theophanies, the mountain is consistently mentioned, the absolute silence regarding it in the account of the second tablets – both in the divine command and in the narrator’s words – seems to lead to the inevitable conclusion: the event of the second tablets in E did not occur on the on the mountain at all! Another corroborating factor may be found by comparing the verbs used to describe God’s arrival at the site of the revelation. In the decalogue account, in which Moses ascended the mountain, God said, “I will come to you in a thick cloud” (19:9), and in the continuation, Moses is actually the one who approaches the thick cloud (20:18), the very same thick cloud that had been described earlier as being on the mountain (19:16*)58 and as being where God is to be found. In contrast, in the account of the second tablets, where there is no mention of Moses’s ascent of the mountain, it is written, “God descended in a cloud” (34:5). In other words, when Moses ascends the mountain, God comes; but when Moses does not ascend the mountain, God descends to him.59

6. The Location of the Story of the Second Tablets So where is this there where God descended and Moses spent forty days and forty nights while the words were being rewritten on the tablets (34:5*, 28)? An answer to this question may be found by examining what took place in E before this account. Exod 33 is mainly from J;60 however, within it there is a segment that has long been recognized as alien to its context: the description of Moses’s 58  This verse belongs to E, except for the first five words, which belong to J. See Schwartz, “What Really Happened at Mount Sinai?,” 24–25, 27–28. 59 For other suggestions of the E narrative in Exodus 34 in a neo-documentarian approach, see Baden, Composition, 117–8; Stackert, Prophet Like Moses, 84. Both their suggestions are much closer to the suggestion presented here, yet like the classical critics they lean on the assumption that also E reported Moses ascending the mountain. Although this assumption is somewhat plausible, there is no textual evidence for it, because in this chapter, both the verse that reports Moses’s ascent (v. 4) and the verse that reports Moses’s descent (v. 29) are composite verses that include materials from other documents, and therefore there is no certainty that such reports existed also in E. Moreover, this assumption is responsible for discrepancies and problems. Both Baden and Stackert suggest that the E part of v. 4 was “He chiseled two stone tablets like the first ones, and he ascended the mountain, just as YHWH commanded him”, although even according to their own proposals there is no mention that God ordered Moses to ascend the mountain, and there is no explanation why the words “just as YHWH commanded him” come after the report on Moses’s ascent and not before it. The final words of Stackert’s suggestion, “Then Moses descended from the mountain” (the E part of v. 29), cannot be accepted simply because they do not reflect what is written in the Hebrew text. This verse does not tell of Moses’s descent, but rather refers to what occurred when Moses was already descending. In other words, it is a temporal clause (“And as Moses came down from the mountain …”), which leans on a previous report of Moses’s descent, as can be found in the P narrative (Exod 32:15). See discussion in the full analysis of Exod 34 above. 60  Driver, Exodus, 357–63.

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prophecy routine in the Tent of Meeting outside the camp, a segment that was unanimously identified as part of E.61 The purpose of the Tent of Meeting in E, as is widely known, is to function as Moses’s portable site of prophecy after the departure from the Mountain of God in Horeb. Therefore, many scholars have assumed that this passage was torn from another plot context, in which the Israelites had already begun their continued journey in the desert, and was inserted into its canonical place either by mistake for editorial reasons.62 Since there is no place in the entire E strand that records that the Israelites continued to wander after encamping at Horeb, it has been suggested that the original context of this segment was lost (perhaps, together with additional segments), and that in any case, the account of the second tablets happened prior to it.63 However, there is no reason not to entertain the possibility that this segment, recounting the prophecy routine, is indeed in its proper place, and that it functions not only as a general introduction to the way in which prophecy transpired during the journey in the desert but also as fulfilling an important role in the Elohistic plot. As part of this examination, there is a need to find where the report of the departure from Horeb might have been originally located in E. Several suggestions have been made, all ranging from between the time immediately after the second tablets were received until either before or after the narrative about the appointment of the seventy elders (the Elohistic parts in Num 1164). Yet it is possible that this report was located in a completely different place. Several clues in the text may suggest that it was originally found earlier in E’s plotline – after the account of the golden calf and before the account of the prophecy routine in the Tent of Meeting – but it was nowhere to be found in the version that reached the compiler.65  Driver, Exodus, 350–58.  For a recent discussion on the subject see Stackert, Prophet Like Moses, 83–91. 63  See Baruch J. Schwartz, “The Visit of Jethro: A Case of Chronological Displacement? The Source-Critical Solution,” Mishneh Todah: Studies in Deuteronomy and Its Cultural Environment in Honor of Jeffrey H. Tigay, ed. Nili Sacher Fox, David A. Glatt-Gilad, and Michael J. Williams (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2009), 38 n. 29; Joel S. Baden, “On Exodus 33:1–11,” ZAW (2012): 329–40, at 337–38; John I. Durham, Exodus, WBC 3 (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1987), 440–42; Childs, Exodus, 584–85. 64  For a thorough source analysis of Numbers 11 see Baden, Composition, 82–102. See also Stackert, Prophet Like Moses, 89–107; Benjamin D. Sommer, “Reflecting on Moses: The Redaction of Numbers 11,” JBL 118 (1999): 601–24. 65  The notion that the compiler of the Torah excluded this segment because it did not fit in with the narratives in the other documents does not hold up to criticism. Many segments from the documents throughout the Torah cause contradictions in the narrative, and most, if not all, were preserved verbatim. This can be concluded from the impressive continuity usually found in every one of the documents, which attests to the fact that the Torah’s compiler did not initiate the exclusion of any written segment he had, no matter which document it belonged to. In some very rare instances, segments were taken out of their contexts, but this was in order to maintain the chronological flow, not to harmonize a contradiction. 61 62

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First, after the story of the golden calf (Exod 32:1–29), the text recounts what happened the next day, when Moses went up to God to atone for the sin of the Israelites. At the end of their dialogue God commanded him to go and guide the people to the land of Canaan, even though according to the canonical text it would still be quite some time before they continued their journey in the desert. This segment is identified as Elohistic since it refers directly to the story of the sin of the calf, which was told only in E. These instructions indicate that the next meaningful event that is supposed to take place in the Elohistic narrative is, indeed, the Israelites’ departure from Mount Horeb. Evidence for the existence of a narrative in which the Israelites set off on the desert journey immediately after Moses’s placation of God following the golden calf episode can be found in D (Deut 10:10–11), and it may suggest that it also existed in the original E document. Another clue may be found in the first six verses of chapter 33. This sequence reports God’s declaration to Moses that He would not be in the midst of the Israelites when they continue to the land of Canaan and the Israelites’ reaction to this news. This part of the narrative clearly belongs to J, where the question of God’s presence in the midst of the people is of central concern.66 The last words in this sequence, ‫מהר חורב‬, cannot be part of the Yahwistic account because the term “Mount Horeb” never occurs in J,67 and mainly because, in terms of content and syntax, v. 6 has no meaning with them. The preceding words in this verse, ‫ויתנצלו בני ישׂ ראל את עדים‬, are comprehensible in terms of the Israelites’ mourning God’s impending removal of Himself from among them. But the reference to a mountain, and especially the use of the formative letter ‫מ‬, do not create a connection that makes any sense.68 The separation of these words from the canonical sequence to which they belong allows the proposal that they are remnants of the account of the Israelites’ setting off on their journey, an account that could have been long and detailed (and therefore impossible to completely reconstruct), or brief and condensed, such as ‫{ואחר נסעו העם} מהר חורב‬, or even just {‫מהר חורב }ויסעו‬.69 66  For a survey of the problems in Exod 33:1–6 and the attempts to divide them into their sources, see Durham, Exodus, 435. Contra to its conclusion “that any precise divisions of Exod 33:1–6 into component sources is, without more information than we have, impossible,” Baden has shown the unity and the continuity of vv. 1–6 (except the last two words) and attributes the passage to J, see Baden, “On Exodus 33,1–11.” For an in-depth look at J’s Sinaitic narrative with an emphasis on God’s presence in the midst of the Israelites, see Ariel Seri-Levi’s contribution in this volume. 67  In J Horeb does appear, apparently only once (Exod 17:6), not as the name of the mountain, but as the name of a certain place in the desert. See note 56 above. 68 On scholarly attempts to emend ‫מהר חורב‬, see Baden, “Exodus 33:1–11,” 337 n. 26. 69  This idea was already suggested by Procksch, but without fully discussing its implications for E; see Otto Procksch, Das nordhebräische Sagenbuch, die Elohimquelle das ubersetzt und untersucht (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1906), 97. Baden mentions this suggestion (Baden, “Exodus 33:1–11,” 336–39), but rejects it in favour of an explanation that perceives the words “From Mount Horeb” as the beginning of the following passage (the prophecy routine in the Tent of

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From all this, it is now clear why the account of the second tablets lacks a record of Moses’s ascent or descent, and why there is no mention of Moses’s actually being on the mountain. According to E, this theophany did not take place on the mountain at all, but rather “there” (Exod 34:28), and apparently this word does not refer to the mountain, as the canonical reading suggests, but to nowhere other than the Tent of Meeting itself. Not only does the context point to this reading, but the contents as well: throughout all the Horeb pericope of E, it is very clear that God is on the mountain, as is mentioned in the beginning of the theophany story (19:3), in the proclamation of the commandments (20:18), in the recounting of the first tablets (24:12), and in the calf episode (32:30).70 Thus, as part of this continuous narrative, the sentence, “YHWH came down in a cloud” (34:5), simply cannot imply that God descended to the mountain, as according to this story He is already there.71 Moreover, the report, “YHWH came down in a cloud,” is precisely how E depicts God’s mode of action towards a revelation in the Tent of Meeting (Exod 33:9; Num 11:17, 25; 12:5; Deut 31:1572), and it suggests this was the case also here, in the story of the second tablets. The fact that the Tent itself is not mentioned as the target of the descent should not weaken this conclusion, as it is absent also in the description of God’s descent to Moses in the story of the appointment of the elders: “YHWH came down in a cloud and spoke to him” (Num 11:25). Thus, in the Elohistic story of the reinscription of the second tablets, the usual reading of the sentence “YHWH came down in a cloud” (34:4), as describing God’s descent to the mountain cannot be valid. Indeed, this sentence must be part of a different story with a different context, that is, of a story from the time of the desert journey, where God’s descent had to be to the Tent of Meeting.73 Meeting in vv. 7–11), functioning as a temporal description, meaning “From Mount Horeb on.” While this proposal is plausible, and seemingly it is preferable to suggesting that it is a part of a sentence (or a passage) that was lost, there is still no other complete parallel example of such a syntactic structure, and it is not even clear whether such a structure is possible. Furthermore, Baden himself admitted that he was not going to get involved in discussing the location and context of vv. 7–11 (ibid, 339 n. 34), when in fact, an answer to this question could help understand the original meaning of these words. 70 According to Ariel Seri-Levi (as mentioned above in n. 24), Exod 19:18 is also part of the E narrative. If so, this verse also indicates that God is on the mountain, as it reports that He had already descended (pluperfect) to it. 71  See question f in section 1 above. 72  See n. 28. 73  In principle there is another possible explanation according to which the Tent of Meeting was already in use at Horeb, and not only after the departure. The notion of the Tent of Meeting being in use before the Israelites set off on their wanderings also exists in P, as can be seen in the lengthy sequence extending from Exod 35 to Num 10:10. However, in contrast to the Priestly narrative, in E there was no need for the Tent of Meeting while the Israelites were encamped at the foot of the mountain because at this point in time, God could still speak to Moses directly from the mountain at any time. On this, see Baden, “Exodus 33:1–11,” 337–38. This is also expressed in the Elohistic narrative recounting Jethro’s advice to Moses about managing the

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7. The Account of the Second Tablets in its Elohistic Context Following this suggested reading, the entire Elohistic account of Mount Horeb can now be examined to understand how the second tablet story fits into the narrative sequence of this document. According to the Elohistic narrative, read on its own, God revealed Himself to the people who stood at the foot of the mountain (19:16*, 17–19)74 and proclaimed the commandments (20:1–15). But the people, who from the very beginning had been afraid of the divine theophany (19:16b), asked Moses to play the role of intermediary, so that he alone would receive God’s edict and only afterwards transmit it to the people (20:16). Therefore, Moses calmed the people and explained that God’s reason for the public revelation was to accustom them to prophecy75 and to instil in them the fear of God so they would not sin (20:17). Immediately afterwards, Moses approached the thick cloud alone for a private revelation, leaving the people standing at a distance (20:18). In this revelation, after demanding exclusivity and referring to the appropriate rituals of worship (20:19–23), God gave Moses all the laws incumbent upon the people (21:1– 23:33). Thereafter, Moses returned to the people and told them all that he had received from God, and the people in response committed to obeying (24:3). Then Moses wrote all of God’s words (24:4), so that the public covenant could be made (24:4–8, 11*76), after which God called to Moses, commanding him to ascend the mountain to receive the stone tablets upon which the commandments would be inscribed (24:12). Moses, indeed, ascended the mountain (24:13–15a), people (Exod 18). This is the first story in the E narrative that took place after the Israelites had encamped at Horeb. It should be noted that Moses’s ability to give divine answers for the people who come “to inquire of God” (v. 15) by making “known the laws and teachings of God” (v. 16) without the Tent of Meeting is possible because of their presence at the foot of the mountain (v. 5). According to E the mountain in Horeb is where God dwells, and being near it enables unmediated access to Him. Only after the departure from Horeb does it become necessary to establish an alternative mobile site for the prophetic encounter. On the significance of this account, and on the fact that it is indeed situated in its appropriate place in the Elohistic narrative sequence, see Schwartz, “The Visit of Jethro,” 29–48. On the sharp distinction between the Priestly and non-Priestly conceptions of the Tent of Meeting, see Menahem Haran, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985), 260–75. In any case, as far as the present discussion goes, there is no reason to void the conclusion that the Tent of Meeting was constructed before the events pertaining to the second tablets, and that these events themselves happened in the Tent. 74  The first five words in v. 16 belong to J. Following them, E opens with the words “there was thunder, and lightning, and a dense cloud upon the mountain” and continues without a break until the end of v. 19. See n. 24 above. 75 See Moshe Greenberg, “‫ נסה‬in Exodus 20:20 and the Purpose of the Sinaitic Theophany,” JBL 79 (1960): 273–76. 76  The last words in Exod 24:11, “they ate and drank,” belong to the Elohistic sequence, and they signal the conclusion of the depiction of the covenantal process. A similar example of a covenant concluded with eating and drinking can be found in Gen 26:26–31.

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stayed there for forty days and forty nights (24:18b), and as promised, was given the inscribed stone tablets that God had prepared beforehand (31:18*).77 However, during this time, the episode of the golden calf took place (32:1–6). God, having told Moses about this, revealed His plan to annihilate the Israelites in response (32:7–10), but Moses appealed to Him, and consequently God revoked his intention. However, when Moses, with the tablets in his hands (32:15*– 17),78 descended the mountain, he saw what was happening (32:19a), and in a burst of anger shattered the tablets (32:19b), destroyed the golden calf (32:20), and rebuked Aaron (32:21), who gave the excuse that he had been forced to do it by the masses (32:22–24). The next day Moses returned to God to atone for the transgression (32:30–31), demonstrating his solidarity with the Israelites (32:32), but God refused to grant atonement and demanded the sinners be punished (32:33). God then returned to Moses his role as the nation’s leader together with a promise that His angel would go before them, and that the sinners would be punished at the appropriate time (32:34). Immediately following this, one would expect to read that Moses and the Israelites indeed decamped from the Mountain of God and began their journey in the desert, or, in other words, that they left Horeb. As proposed in the reconstruction above, it seems that all that remains of this account are the final words in Exod 33:6, ‫מהר חורב‬. Immediately following these words, there is, as would be expected, a depiction of the prophecy routine in the Tent of Meeting (33:7–11), for only at this stage, after the departure from the mountain in Horeb, is there a need for such an institution. The first narrative that occurs after the depiction of this routine is that of the second tablets (34:1, 4*, 5*, 28*, 29*, as reconstructed above), and immediately following it are two more stories about the Tent of Meeting: the appointment of the seventy elders (Num 11:11–12, 14–17, 24b–30) and the story of Miriam’s leprosy (Num 12). Observing the account of the second tablets within the context of the Elohistic sequence illustrates that it was, in fact, the very first prophecy to occur in the Tent of Meeting. And so, this account has another function in E, one that had not been previously identified – the description of the foundational event that inaugurated the Tent of Meeting as a prophecy centre. As mentioned above, the Tent of Meeting was established as a portable replacement for the Mount in Horeb to enable the occasional prophecy – to allow for communication with God during the time of the desert journey and afterwards. And so, it is apparent that this institution was first used to reconstruct the original event that was ultimately ruined when Moses shattered the first tablets. The second tablets, the substitute for the first tablets which were inscribed and received on the mountain, apparently were given in the Tent of Meeting, the substitute for the mountain. And indeed, what better founding event could there be to consecrate  As mentioned above (n. 47), this verse is composed of Priestly and Elohistic sentences. mentioned above (p. 100), the first half of v. 15 is composed of Priestly and Elohistic sentences. 77

78 As

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the Tent of Meeting – the replacement for the mountain – other than reconstructing the original mountain event itself ? Therefore, God commanded Moses to carve new stone tablets like the first ones (34:1), and after Moses did so (34:4*), God descended in a cloud (34:5*) in accordance with the routine which had just been introduced (33:9). Then, while Moses stayed there – in the Tent of Meeting – for forty days and forty nights, God wrote His words on the tablets (34:28*) while Moses was holding them (34:29*). Particular attention should be paid to the first and last details: the fact that Moses himself carved the second tablets, and the fact that he held them while God wrote the words on them. Both these details differ from the first account, where the tablets were the handiwork of God (32:16) and had been inscribed before Moses received them (31:18*). These differences, together with the different locale of each event, comprise a story whose purpose is to present the giving of the second tablets as a grounded event in contrast to the original – one that transpired here on the face of the earth, not in the clouds above. Taking an even broader view, it can be noticed that the full story of the second tablets also resembles the story of the theophany on the mountain in Horeb (19:16*, 17–19; 20:1–23:33; 24:3). Both stories tell of an event in which Moses went out from among the Israelites to meet God in the cloud, while the people stood and watched from a distance.79 But most importantly, both stories have in fact a similar purpose. As stated earlier, the purpose of the first theophany on the Mountain in Horeb was to accustom the Israelites to the ways of prophecy and impress upon them the obligation to obey the instructions that they would receive from God. Similarly, the purpose of the first revelation in the Tent of Meeting is to lend credence to this institution of prophecy, and to establish it as an authority for all inquiries addressed to God.80 Finally, from a literary perspective, this story conveys the Israelites’ realization that the tablets they own are not the divine tablets received in God’s dwelling on  The fact that the event took place in front of all the Israelites is supported by the depiction of the prophecy routine in the Tent of Meeting (Exod 33:7–11), wherein it explicitly states that every time Moses went to the Tent of Meeting to prophesy, “all the people would rise and stand, each at the entrance of his tent, and gaze after Moses until he had entered the Tent … all the people saw the pillar of cloud poised at the entrance of the Tent.” This is in accordance with the story of the theophany at Mount Horeb: “So the people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick cloud where God was” (Exod 20:18). 80  In terms of functionality, this Elohistic narrative seems to parallel the Priestly account of the dedication of the Tabernacle before the entire community that appears in Lev 8–9. Of course, the contents of the stories are entirely different in keeping with the overall differences between the documents: in P the dedication of the Tabernacle is a ritual affair and the central figures are Aaron the priest and his sons, whom Moses consecrates; in E, the consecration of the Tent of Meeting is prophetic and Moses alone is the main character. In both accounts, God descends to the Tent, but in the Priestly story it is a one-time descent made in order to dwell there permanently, while in E each descent is only for a temporary stay, for the purpose of Moses’s prophecy. See Schwartz, “Priestly Account,” 125. 79

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the mountain, but rather their man-made replacements received in the earthly tent, and as such it is both a constant reminder of the people’s sin and a testament to the veracity of the prophecy that transpires there, in the Tent of Meeting.

8. How did the Account of the Second Tablets Become the Account of the Second Ascent? It turns out that if it is not assumed that the segment recounting the prophecy routine (33:7–11) is out of context, it actually fits well into the Elohistic sequence and serves there as a vital component, essential to understanding the story of the second tablets and its meaning.81 However, precisely because of this it is unclear why the compiler combined the account of the second tablets from E with the account of the ascent of the mountain from J. This story – along with the segment of the erection of the Tent of Meeting preceding it – could have been included in the section on the departure from Mount Horeb and the beginning of the desert journey: at the end of the preparations (in Num 9, between v. 14 and v. 15) or slightly thereafter (before Num 11). Even if the compiler felt he needed to include the account before the Priestly stories of the Tabernacle (Exod 35–Num 10), it is still surprising that he did not do so immediately after Moses’s descent from Mount Sinai (at the end of Exod 34). These options were all open to the compiler, which raises the question why he chose none of them but rather decided to create what became the canonical account, where the story of the second tablets is presented as part of yet another mountain story – an idea he did not draw from any one of the three 81  Stackert (Prophet Like Moses, 84–88) pointed out that the E story in Exod 34 does not mention any command to Moses to ascend the mountain, nor are there any actual reports of his ascent or descent. Yet because of the common assumption that such reports must have existed in the original E document, Stackert concluded that the compiler omitted them while integrating this story with the J narrative. The option that all of these reports do not appear in the text simply because they were not part of the Elohistic narrative was never considered. However, Stackert’s conclusion led him to suggest that originally the prophecy routine segment in Exod 33:7–11 came after the second tablet story, but was displaced by the compiler to precede it. According to Stackert, the indication for this is that in the canonical sequence the supposed mountain story of E in Exod 34 interrupts the sequence of the Tent passages (Exod 33:7–11; Num 11*–12*), and the reason for the compiler to initiate such a displacement is due to its clash with the Tabernacle story of P, which started immediately after it. Both this reason and this indication do not have sufficient grounds. The reason for this supposed displacement is not at all in accordance with the considerations of the compiler in his regular work (as mentioned by Stackert himself ), because contradictions and clashes of ideas are blatantly present in almost every combined passage in the Pentateuch. The indication collapses when it is acknowledged that the story of the second tablets is, in fact, part of the Tent sequence, since it actually takes place there in the context of the desert journey, as suggested above. This suggestion, therefore, does not only fit the textual and contextual evidence, but also cancels the need for speculation on the compiler’s actions in order to explain the current canonical text.

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documents from which he composed the narrative. An answer to this question can be found by considering the fourth document – D. D’s reliance on E, well-known among critical scholars,82 can be seen in its vocabulary, terminology, the narrative content (often quoting E precisely), and in its overall concept.83 But despite this reliance, the two are profoundly different, and the many changes that can be found in D often reflect the fundamentally diverse theology in these documents. Therefore, a comparison of the tablet stories in E and in D can expose their different worldviews and how they were formed. The account of the first and second tablets in D appears in Deut 9:8–21, 25– 29; 10:1–5, 10–11. The resemblance of this story to that of E is readily apparent, but there are a few clear differences, the most conspicuous of which is that in D Moses did ascend the mountain again to receive the second tablets (Deut 10:1–5). So, in contrast to the conclusion reached above, it seems that this account attests to the fact that also the Elohistic source on which D leaned included a similar account about receiving the second tablets up on the mountain. However, a careful reading can reveal that, in fact, the opposite is true. In D’s account the mountain is mentioned consistently: in God’s command to Moses to ascend the mountain (Deut 9:1) and in Moses’s own depictions of his ascent (v. 3) and descent (v. 5). This is in contrast to E, where – as has been shown – none of these details was mentioned at all. The accumulated evidence, therefore, indicates that this plot element in D is not drawn from E, but rather is unique and original. The Deuteronomic author apparently included this change as part of his process of rewriting the original Elohistic source he possessed, and his motivation for this can be traced in light of other alterations in this story. The existence of a second ascent is not the only unique change in this D plot. One of the known differences between the two accounts of the second tablets is that D introduces the detail of a wooden ark into which the tablets are to be placed, and which is nowhere to be found in E.84 Like the mountain, the ark is mentioned in every phase of D’s account: in God’s instructions (Deut 10:1, 2) and in Moses’s report – first, regarding his constructing it (v. 3) and later regarding  See n. 39 above.  In fact, the general narrative scope of D is derived directly from the final passages of Moses’s life in E, where Moses assembled the Israelites and read them the divine song (Deut 31:14–24, 25*, 28, 30; 32:1–44). The Deuteronomic author constructed the entire D document as a revision of this specific Elohistic episode. For a full discussion on this topic, see Baruch J. Schwartz, “The Song and the Torah in Deuteronomy 31 and the Four Accounts of the Last Days of Moses,” Beit Mikra 67 (2022): 129–71 [Hebrew]. 84 Despite this, many scholars, even recent ones, suggested that E did tell of the ark, but that the passages concerning it were omitted by the compiler because they seemed superfluous due to the detailed descriptions of the ark in P; see, for example, Haran, Biblical Collection, 2:130 n. 48. Not only does this claim have no textual grounds, but according to this rationale E’s Tent of Meeting should also have been omitted, as well as other elements in the Elohistic narrative that somewhat parallel P. The fact that the Tent episodes in E were kept intact severely weakens this suggestion. 82 83

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his placing the tablets inside it (v. 5). The ark is also mentioned immediately afterwards, in the context of the Levites who carried it (v. 8), and again towards the end of the document, when Moses gives the Levites the Book of the Torah that he has just written and commands them to place it beside the ark (31:9, 25– 26). This detail, of course, was not added without a reason. The ark is of great importance in Deuteronomic thought, because one of D’s main purposes is to explain how the Book of the Torah came to be in the Temple, and identify it as the document discovered during the Temple maintenance undertaken in King Josiah’s reign. It seems that the account of the tablets in D also takes part in this purpose. The fact that the ark contained the tablets inscribed by God grants it a unique dimension of sanctity, and so too to the book that was placed beside it. However, the above analysis of E’s account of the second tablets suggests that there is another reason for the presence of the ark in the Deuteronomic narrative, which may sharpen one of the primary distinctions between D and E. According to D, the theophany for lawgiving took place during a one-time event on the mountain in Horeb, and since then no more laws were ever given in any way. That is why all the laws could be written in the Book of the Torah, as a signed and sealed code. This is completely different from the concept of constant prophecy that the Elohistic narrative presents. In E, Moses received the laws from God on the mountain, but afterwards – at the beginning of the desert journey – a prophecy institution was established through which God could transmit additional instructions and teachings in the future, either to Moses himself or to any other prophet after him. Yet this option of an ongoing reception of law by prophecy threatens the idea of a single lawgiving event and is exactly the reason why in D there is not a hint of a tent.85 In E, the supreme authority is the prophet; while in D it is the written words in the Book of the Torah. In E, the law is dynamic, in that it has the potential for broadening, developing, and perhaps even changing; while in D, the law is static, in that it must be obeyed to the letter, as is evident in various expressions throughout the document.86 The concept of prophecy in E makes any sort of written document for posterity redundant, while the concept of the book in D cannot tolerate even the theoretical option of new lawgiving prophecies, and thus invalidates it.87 85 Stackert suggests that E is an anti-prophecy document and that one of its primary goals is to reject the practice in the Israelite society. See Stackert, Prophet Like Moses, 92–107. While this conclusion is debatable, it is enough to recognize that the author of D could have understood E as a document that enables prophecy in some way to explain why he could not accept many of its prophetic features, such as the Tent of Meeting and its stories. 86 For example: “Therefore impress these My words upon your very heart: bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead, and teach them to your children – reciting them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up; and inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (Deut 11:18–20). 87  While E records that Moses wrote God’s words in the Book of the Covenant (Exod 24:4) in

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This invalidation is reflected D’s perception of a true prophet, inferred from its description of false prophets: if false prophets are those who “make you stray from the path that YHWH your God commanded you to follow” (Deut 13:6), then true prophets must therefore be those who instruct to follow exclusively the one and only set of laws, the path that God had originally commanded to take. Only with this reading can it be understood how Deut 13:2–6 expresses and expands the idea of the chapter’s opening verse: “Be careful to observe only that which I enjoin upon you: neither add to it nor take away from it” (13:1, and cf. 4:2), a concept which does not manifest itself in any other document.88 Crucially for D, this refutes the notion that prophecy could make any sort of change to the Israelite norms. Yet it still has to be asked why prophets even exist in D. It seems that the purpose of the law of the prophet (Deut 18:15–22) is to provide an answer to this question. According to this passage, prophets are sent in every generation because of the Israelites’ original request – in the theophany in the mountain of Horeb – not to come into direct communication with God due to their fear of dying (Deut 18:16). This idea is taken from the E narrative of the Horeb theophany (Exod 20:15–18), but in D, the prophet’s role is not to transmit laws, but to deliver God’s words, that is, to provide general guidance within the framework of the Book of the Torah. Thus, while D does recognize and cannot deny the existence of prophets, with the law of the prophet their purpose is defined as only to instruct and remind the Israelites to live according to the Book of the Torah and to warn them when they do not do so.89 D differs from E in its approach to prophecy not only for a theological reason but also, and mainly, for a programmatic one. The main purpose of D was to present the laws of the comprehensive cultic and legal reform that took place during King Josiah’s reign, and provide them with legitimacy and justification. Therefore, it was crucial to advance the notion that the laws Moses received at Horeb were eternal, still valid when allegedly rediscovered centuries after they had been written. A concept of authoritative prophecy, like that which appears order to read them to the people (v. 7), the text never relates that this book was used for anything later on, nor does it say that it was preserved for the future. From the context, it may be assumed that the book was used only once at the ceremony of the covenant. The book was not even necessary to promulgate the laws, since Moses had given them orally to the Israelites the day before (v. 3). According to Menahem Haran (Biblical Collection, 2:135) the story is an explanation for the origin of the sacred legal book that was put “beside God in his temple.” This fact may have been the initial inspiration for the Deuteronomic author for his own composition. 88  For a discussion on this warning and its contribution to understanding the formation and nature of D, see Haran, Biblical Collection, 2:86–90. 89 Stackert argues that the fact that E does not have laws relating to prophecy is evidence for its rejection of this practice. However, it seems that the opposite is true: the laws in D which concern prophecy are meant to regulate it, while the absence of prophecy laws in E indicates that according to this document there was no need for any restrictions on this phenomenon. See Stackert, Prophet Like Moses, 126–69.

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in E, does not fit in with this programme because it might suggest that the laws written in the Book of the Torah reflect Moses’s time and may have been changed or updated by prophets throughout the years. Therefore, the conclusion at Josiah’s time could have been that there was nothing wrong with the familiar contemporary norms, which were of course different from the laws in the book that had just been presented as the one which was found in the Temple. The account of placing the Book of the Torah beside God’s Ark of the Covenant, and the warning that one must not add nor detract from what is written in it, were designed to sanctify the book as it was written, obligate the people to adopt its unalterable laws in their entirety, and invalidate any other norms. Thus, all the prevailing norms during Josiah’s reign before the finding of the Book of Torah – even if they only slightly differed from what was written in the discovered document – would be seen as improper derivations. It seems that the notion of cult centralization, which is foundational to D, is also related to this purpose. E reflects a pre-centralized concept, that indeed was present in the north, in which the Tent of Meeting represents the prophecy site(s), where people could go to appeal to God via the prophet. D, of course, cannot accept this concept, and it seems that the idea of centralization in one temple is a significant expression of an effort to cancel the prophecy practice. This connection between centralization and the negation of prophecy can be found in Deut 17:8–13. In its function, the law in this section seems to parallel two passages of E: the story of forming the legal structure of the Israelite society (Exod 18:13–26) and the description of the prophecy routine in the Tent of Meeting (Exod 33:7–11), as all the passages describe how to act when a practical question is raised by the people.90 In the two E passages, the answer is received through an oracular practice,91 while in the law from D there is no mention of any sort of prophecy whatsoever. The emphasis on the one and only place, as the usual allusion (here mentioned twice!) to the Temple in Jerusalem, is because of the figures of authority in charge there. Indeed, according to the Deuteronomic law the appellant must ascend to the Temple and appeal to “the Levitical priests and the magistrate” (17:9), and not to any prophet. The Levitical priests in D are the very people who received “this Book of the Torah” to place beside “the Ark of the 90  “If a case is too baffling for you to decide, be it a controversy over homicide, civil law, or assault – matters of dispute in your courts …” (Deut 17:8); “When they have a dispute” (Exod 18:16); “and whoever sought YHWH” (33:7). 91 This can be seen in Moses’s description of the procedure: “The people come to me to inquire of God … and I make known the laws and teachings of God” (Exod 18:15–16); in Jethro’s words: “You represent the people before God: you bring the disputes before God, and enjoin upon them the laws and the teachings, and make known to them the way they are to go and the practices they are to follow” (v. 19–20); and in the presentation of the prophecy routine: “and whoever sought YHWH … the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the Tent, while He spoke with Moses … YHWH would speak to Moses face to face, as one man speaks to another. And he would then return to the camp” (33:7, 9, 11).

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Covenant of YHWH”, after they were commanded to read it before the Israelites once every seven years (Deut 31:9–13, 25–26). This indicates that the appellant would receive a legal ruling according to the Book of the Torah, and not based on a revelation of divine prophecy. Hence, in the law of Deut 17:8–13 prophecy is not only absent, but completely rejected. Another aspect of this difference between the documents can be seen by comparing the depiction of the appellant and his purpose in each of the passages. In E it is “whoever sought YHWH” (Exod 33:7), or, as Moses explains to Jethro, the people who come “to inquire of God,” ‫( לדרש אלהים‬Exod 18:15); whereas in D only the word ‫( ודרשת‬Deut 17:9) is used, without designating the object of the request. This use in the current context is quite cunning. While this word can have blatantly prophetic connotations, without the word ‫ אלהים‬it can also denote any type of request addressed to anyone, not necessarily for a divine message via a prophet. Indeed, D appropriates an Elohistic word, using it to transform the source of authority from the ongoing prophecies to the one written book. All of this may very well explain the colossal difference between the account of the tablets in D and in E. In the Elohistic narrative, presented above, the account of the second tablets took place not on the mountain, where the first tablets were received, but in the Tent of Meeting, and this event was in effect the consecration of the Tent of Meeting as an institution of prophecy. When the Deuteronomic author wrote his story under the influence of this account, he could not accept the plot verbatim, for the institution of prophecy undermines the very concept of a single, unified, eternal Book of the Torah, whose promulgation was the very raison d’être of his work. However, since he adopted the story of the calf and the subsequent shattering of the tablets (Deut 9:12–17), he also had to adopt the account of the second tablets. But since he rejected the notion of institutional prophecy, and as a result established the principle that a lawgiving theophany occurred as a one-time event in Horeb, he had no choice but to bother Moses to ascend the mountain once again so that God would write His words on the new tablets there, and not in the Tent of Meeting. A theological necessity stemming from programmatic goals led to the creation of a story about another ascent made by Moses for a foundational revelation. Thus, the account of the second tablets in the Tent of Meeting was transformed by the Deuteronomic author into the account of the second ascent.92

92 The solution of doubling an event in the narrative so it fits the worldview of the document can be seen in another component in D – the covenant. Since D holds the idea of a covenant that was made just before the entrance to Canaan, but could not deny the tradition of a covenant made in Horeb, it presented the concept of two covenants: one when the commandments were given in Horeb, and another in Moab, when Moses transmitted all the laws to the Israelites after the years of wandering. See Schwartz, “Question of the Commandments’ Validity,” 264– 65. Another minor example of doubling by the Deuteronomic author can be found in the calf

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9. The Birth of a Canonical Narrative The account of the Israelites’ wandering in the desert is composed of collections of stories that underwent developments until they reached their current form in the canonical Torah. The biblical evidence indicates that the ancient traditions were not aware of any foundational theophany taking place during the time of the wandering in the desert. There is no mention of such an event in any of the Psalms,93 in the historical passages of the Prophets (e. g., in Josh 24 or 1 Sam 12:8), or even in passages within the Torah itself, including its itinerary of all of the Israelites’ journeys (Num 33:1–37) or in the historical manifesto Mikra Bikkurim (Deut 26:3–10). The fact that the only place the theophany is mentioned outside the Pentateuch is in the historical review in the book of Ezra and Nehemiah (Neh 9:13–15) – a book written during the period of the return to Zion – supports even more so the understanding that a foundational theophany in the desert became a prominent tradition only at a relatively late period.94 This tradition, once created, told of Moses’s single ascent to the mountain for a foundational revelation,95 and it was this proto-narrative that made its way into the written documents. In each document it was told differently, according to its own worldview and theology. When the Deuteronomic author began to write D as a reworking of E, he revised the contents to reflect his worldview, and thus he transformed the story of the second tablets into one that happened at the only place possible from his perspective – the mountain in Horeb. Thus was created the narrative telling of two foundational ascents, as appears in Deut 9–10. The case of P indicates that even in a period later than the publication of D,96 the narrative about one foundational ascent, and not two, was still current. This realization strengthens the argument that D did not influence the contents of P, and

story: what was told as a single event in E (Exod 32:7–20), is described as two events in D (Deut 9:8–29). See Driver, Exodus, 347. 93 This is blatantly obvious in the historical Psalms (Ps 78; 81; 105; 106; 135; 136), wherein the desert wandering is mentioned without any reference to a theophany on the mountain taking place during that period of time. 94 David Frankel, “Judaism Without Sinai?,” The Torah.com, online version: https://www.t​h​ e​t​o​r​ah ​ .com/article/judaism-without-sinai, accessed Aug 16, 2022. 95  As mentioned in the analysis above, E and J both recount more than one ascent by Moses; however, in both documents only one of the ascents (the last one) included a personal revelation which resulted in Moses’s descent from the mountain with a divine memento. This is true, of course, also for P, as in its whole Sinaitic pericope there is only one ascent, leaving just D as the sole document that tells of two such ascents. 96  Even if P’s roots are in the First Temple Period, presumably around King Hezekiah’s reign in the eighth century bce, approximately a century before Josiah’s reform, it continued to be developed even during the Babylonian exile and the return to Zion, hence much after the promulgation of D. See Haran, Temples and Temple-Service, 146–48.

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that neither one was dependent on the other.97 In other words, even though D was part of the first canonical document that circulated among a broader crosssection of the Israelites,98 its contents were not necessarily known, assimilated, or reflected in all levels of society. However, D’s decisive influence did not occur immediately following its promulgation, but rather in a later period, after the formation of all four documents. When the compiler, during his work interweaving the documents into one continuous text, reached the point at which the account of the giving of the first tablets begins (the current Exod 24:12), he had several options to integrate the narratives in which Moses ascends and descends the mountain. Presumably he could have chosen any one of them; however, because he possessed a fourth document explicitly telling a narrative of two ascents, he understood the other three documents as also telling of two ascents, each presenting a partial story. More specifically, the compiler read E’s account of the second tablets as an incomplete report of an event that transpired on the mountain, as presented in D. Therefore, he chose not to integrate the documents as one comprehensive event, and not as multiple ascents and descents that are followed by the story of the second tablets in the tent before or after the Israelites set off on their wandering. Rather, he chose to integrate the documents as recounting two ascents, and in both Moses descends with written tablets. In order to accomplish this, he worked in two stages. Firstly, he combined the account of the single ascent in E99 with the account of the single ascent in P, forming one ascent story from both of them. Then, he combined the account of the second tablets belonging to E (which took place there, in the Tent of Meeting, but was understood as a partial version of a second ascent story), with the account of the single ascent of J, forming another ascent story, which is the canonical Exod 34. Thus, the three narrative accounts, each presenting a single ascent to receive a sacred memento, were combined into a lengthy sequence containing two ascents, each of whose purpose was the inscription of God’s words on the tablets – all in accordance with the general framework of D’s narrative. From the moment it was created, this version became canonical, making the account of the second ascent of the mountain for the reinscribing of the new tablets one of the most foundational stories in biblical literature.

97 This, in contradistinction to the classical assumption of critical scholarship that perceived each document as canonical, and therefore well-known to all, from the moment it was written. Such an approach led to the assumption that each author was familiar with the earlier documents and responded to them. 98  On beginning of the canonical text collection in Israelite history, see Haran, Biblical Collection, 2:185–91. 99  See n. 95 above.

The Tent of Meeting in Samuel and Kings* Guy Darshan The term “Tent of Meeting” (‫)אהל מועד‬ – which is primarily associated with the P stratum – appears also in Israel’s early traditions outside of the Priestly milieu. In the non-P traditions, however, it is conceived differently from the Priestly conception of the term in the Pentateuch. The Priestly Tent of Meeting is a Tabernacle (‫)משכן‬, a place where the Divine presence rests, and the repository of all the cultic and holy vessels. The Tabernacle served as a central site for the nation’s sacrificial rites and a place where the deity could convene with Moses. As the honoree of this volume demonstrated, the Tabernacle also held a central role in the Priestly narrative: In essence, everything in P leads up to the tabernacle story, and everything that follows continues it, so that P as a whole, from Creation until the death of Moses (and perhaps beyond, if P once extended into the time of the Conquest), is the legend of the divine abode.1

The non-Priestly tradition of the Pentateuch recognizes a completely different Tent of Meeting. While the term is identical, its description, characteristics, and role are completely different.2 The narrative in Exod 33:7–11, for example, describes the Tent of Meeting as “outside the camp, far from the camp” (Exod 33:7), in contrast to the Priestly Tent of Meeting, which is situated within the * This research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (grant No. 793/19). I am grateful to the editors of this volume, Joel Baden and Jeffrey Stackert, as well as to my research assistant, Anat Alcalay, for their invaluable comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this article. 1 Baruch J. Schwartz, “Response to Why Does the Torah Devote So Much Text to the Tabernacle?,” https://www.thetorah.com/article/why-does-the-torah-devote-so-much-text-tothe-tabernacle, accessed August 21, 2022. Cf. idem, “The Priestly Account of the Theophany and Lawgiving at Sinai,” in Texts, Temples, and Traditions: A Tribute to Menahem Haran, ed. Michael V. Fox et al. (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1996), 103–34, esp. 134. 2  See, for example, Yehezkel Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel: From Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile, trans. and abridg. Moshe Greenberg (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960), 182–84; Menahem Haran, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel: An Inquiry into the Character of Cult Phenomena and the Historical Setting of the Priestly School (Oxford: Clarendon, 1978; repr., Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1985), 260–75; Alexander Rofé, Introduction to the Composition of the Pentateuch (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999), 22; Israel Knohl, “Two Aspects of the ‘Tent of Meeting,’” in Tehillah le-Moshe: Biblical and Judaic Studies in Honor of Moshe Greenberg, ed. Mordechai Cogan, Barry L. Eichler, and Jeffrey H. Tigay (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1997), 73–80.

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camp (e. g., Num 2:2). In the non-P Tent of Meeting, the pillar of cloud descends, and YHWH speaks with Moses outside the entrance to his tent (Exod 33:9– 11), as opposed to the meeting that takes place in the Priestly Tent of Meeting “from between the two cherubim which are on the ark of the testimony” (Exod 25:22). Joshua is permanently situated in the non-P Tent (Exod 33:11), whereas the Priestly sources prohibit non-Levites from entering the Tent (Num 18:6–7). The non-Priestly Tent does not house any ritual items and does not serve as a Tabernacle for the Lord and His service; it is an oraculum, or a prophetic tent, where divine revelations occur for “everyone who sought YHWH” (Exod 33:7). Further details regarding the prophetic tent tradition are found in other places in the Pentateuch as well, such as in the story of placing God’s spirit upon the seventy elders of Israel (Num 11:16–17, 24–29), the story of Miriam and Aaron doubting the singularity of Moses’s prophecy, protesting – “Has YHWH indeed spoken only through Moses? Has He not spoken through us also?” (Num 12:2–15), and the story of transferring the leadership from Moses to Joshua (Deut 31:14–15).3 Thus, the Tent of Meeting serves as a Tabernacle, where all the holy vessels and the ark are stored, only in the Priestly narrative, or in later sources, which were influenced by the Priestly narrative after the reception of the Torah during the Second Temple period.4 Therefore, the two occurrences of the “Tent of Meeting” in Samuel (1 Sam 2:22) and Kings (1 Kgs 8:4), where it is described, as in the pentateuchal Priestly narrative, as a roaming Tabernacle, are surprising, and demand an explanation. The honoree of this volume asked me many years ago whether the latter text – the story of bringing the ark and the Tent of Meeting to Solomon’s Temple (1 Kgs 8:4) – shows that the concept of the Tent of Meeting as a Tabernacle was known beyond the Priestly circles. I now offer my detailed response. These two texts are usually discussed separately in the scholarly literature, but a discussion of both together, as I demonstrate below, offers a better understanding of the textual and literary phenomena they reflect, where one text elucidates the other. An inclusive view of the two cases can also teach of the processes that took place in the writings of the Former Prophets during the Second Temple period, after the Torah was consolidated and became authoritative. The conclusions that arise from this study may be a first step toward future research on materials in the Former Prophets that are similar to the pentateuchal sources, especially in the book of Joshua.5 3 For Deut 31:15, read according to the LXX version. See Alexander Rofé, “Textual Criticism in the Light of Historical-Literary Criticism: Deuteronomy 31:14–15,” ErIsr 16 (Harry M. Orlinsky Vol.; 1982): 171–76 [Hebrew]. 4 See 1 Chr 6:17; 9:21; 23:32; 2 Chr 1:3, 6, 13; 5:5. Cf. Jaeyoung Jeon, “The Priestly Tent of Meeting in Chronicles: Pro-Priestly or Anti-Priestly?,” JHebS 18 (2018): Article 7, https://doi. org/10.5508/jhs.2018.v18.a7, accessed August 21, 2022. 5  Cf. Baruch J. Schwartz, “The Pentateuchal Sources and the Former Prophets: A Neo-Documentarian’s Perspective,” in The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Academic Cultures

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1. The Story of Eli’s Sons (1 Sam 2:22) The only mention of the term “Tent of Meeting” in the book of Samuel is found in the story of Eli’s sons. The mention of the Tent of Meeting in this verse raises several difficulties, and in addition it is mentioned only in the MT while going missing from the Septuagint version and the Samuel scroll from Qumran: MT: ‫ועלי זקן מאד ושמע את כל אשר יעשון בניו לכל ישראל ואת אשר ישכבון את הנשים הצבאות פתח‬ ‫אהל מועד‬ Now Eli was very old. He heard all that his sons were doing to all Israel, and how they lay with the women who served at the entrance to the tent of meeting. 4QSama: ‫ישרא ֯ל‬ ֯ ‫ועלי זקן מאד בן תשעים שנה [ושמונה שנים] וישמע[ את ]אשר [עו]שים בניו לבני‬ Now Eli, who was very old, ninety[-eight] years old, heard what his sons were doing to the sons of Israel. LXX: Καὶ Ἠλεὶ πρεσβύτης σφόδρα, καὶ ἤκουσεν ἃ ἐποίουν οἱ υἱοὶ αὐτοῦ τοῖς υἱοῖς Ἰσραήλ· And Eli was a very old man, and he heard what his sons were doing to the sons of Israel.

Many scholars have suggested that the shorter version in the Septuagint reflects the earlier version.6 They base their argument on several central considerations. First, the unit that precedes this verse gives a detailed account of the sin of Eli’s sons, acting in a violent manner during ritual worship, but does not mention any other sins of theirs. Their sin is described as seizing their portion of the sacrifice before it was cooked: “Before they burned the fat, the priest’s servant would come and say to the man who sacrificed, ‘Give meat for roasting to the priest, for he will not take boiled meat from you, but raw’” (1 Sam 2:15), as opposed to the norm that was customary in Shiloh (1 Sam 2:13–14). The report of their sin with “the women who served at the entrance to the Tabernacle of meeting” (1 Sam 2:22) appears only in retrospect, in the description of the rumor that reached of Europe, Israel, and North America, ed. Jan C. Gertz et al., FAT 111 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 783–93. 6  See, for example, Julius Wellhausen, Der Text der Bücher Samuelis (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1871), 46; Samuel R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel: with an Introduction on Hebrew Palaeography and the Ancient Versions, and Facsimiles of Inscriptions (Oxford: Clarendon, 1890), 26; Henry P. Smith, Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Books of Samuel, ICC (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1899), 20; P. Kyle McCarter Jr., I Samuel: A New Translation with Introduction, Notes & Commentary, AB 8 (Garden City: Doubleday, 1980), 81; Rofé, “Textual Criticism,” 174. For another approach, see Edward L. Greenstein, “Recovering ‘the Women who Served at the Entrance,’” in Studies in Historical Geography and Biblical Historiography: Presented to Zecharia Kallai, ed. Gershon Galil and Moshe Weinfeld, VTSup 81 (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 165–73. Since this text was known to Josephus (Ant. 5.339), Greenstein argued that it was deliberately deleted, rather than being inserted at a later stage.

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Eli (and appears, as noted above, only in the MT). Second, the mention of the Tent of Meeting in this story is very unusual. Elsewhere in the story of Eli and his sons, the place of worship in Shiloh is called “the house (‫ )בית‬of YHWH,” (1 Sam 1:7; 3:15) and “the Temple (‫ )היכל‬of YHWH” (1:9; 3:3), meaning a structure with doorposts (‫מזוזת‬, 1:9 [read as plural with the LXX]), doors (‫דלתות‬, 3:15), and a gate (‫שער‬, 4:18), with no indication that the Temple in Shiloh was constructed as or included a tent.7 The attestation of 4QSama, which does not include a reference to Eli’s sons’ new sin, also provides support for this version. Although the Qumran version underwent a different type of expansion (an explicit mention of Eli’s age, “ninety[-eight] years old,” following 1 Sam 4:15), it does not refer to the sexual sins of Eli’s sons. It thus seems that in this place the scroll version developed from an earlier version than the MT. Most scholars propose that the words ‫ואת אשר ישכבון את הנשים הצבאות פתח אהל‬ ‫“( מועד‬and how they lay with the women who served at the entrance to the tent of meeting”), which do not appear in the Septuagint or the scroll, were added at a later stage and are based on the verse ‫ויעש את הכיור נחשת ואת כנו נחשת במראת‬ ‫“( הצבאת אשר צבאו פתח אהל מועד‬He made the basin of bronze with its stand of bronze, from the mirrors of the women who served at the entrance to the tent of meeting,” Exod 38:8 [LXX 38:26]).8 The affinity between this verse and the one in Samuel is clear, as both end almost identically. This assumption coheres with other texts that were added in later stages and were formulated by imitating the pentateuchal style, especially that of P, which constitutes a significant part of the Pentateuch.9 Recently, Domenico Lo Sardo challenged this assumption and suggested that the text in Exod 38:8 is based on the MT version of Samuel and not vice versa, even if 1 Sam 2:22 was added in a relatively late stage.10 Although one significant piece of evidence (see below) may support this suggestion, the theory that a scribe decided to add details to the pentateuchal description of the  7  See, for example, Wellhausen, Bücher Samuelis, 46; Driver, Books of Samuel, 26; Susan Ackerman, “Mirrors, Drums, and Trees,” in Congress Volume Helsinki 2010, ed. Martti Nissinen, VTSup 148 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 537–67, esp. 537. The Mishnah (m. Zebaḥ. 14:6; cf. b. Zebaḥ. 118a) reconciles this contradiction. See Akiva Males, “Reconstructing the Destruction of the Tabernacle of Shiloh,” JBQ 44 (2016): 7–12, esp. 9–10.  8 See, for example, Wellhausen, Bücher Samuelis, 46; Driver, Books of Samuel, 26; Alexander Rofé, “The Nomistic Correction in Biblical Manuscripts and Its Occurrence in ‘4QSama,’” RevQ 14 (1989): 247–54, esp. 250–51. Cf. A. Graeme Auld, I & II Samuel: A Commentary, OTL (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2011), 49.  9 For this phenomenon, see Rofé, “Textual Criticism”; Rofé, “Nomistic Correction”; Guy Darshan, “The Quasi-Priestly Additions in MT 1 Kings 6–8 in Light of ‘Rewritten Bible’ Compositions from Qumran,” in The Textual History of the Bible from the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Biblical Manuscripts of the Vienna Papyrus Collection, ed. Ruth A. Clements et al., STDJ 137 (Leiden: Brill, 2022), 219–40. 10  See Domenico Lo Sardo, “The Tent of Meeting and the Women’s Mirrors in 1 Sam 2:22 and Exod 38:8: A Text-Critical Inquiry of the MT, LXX, Qumran Texts and the Vetus Latina,” Textus 29 (2020): 168–92.

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bronze basin based on the sin of Eli’s sons sleeping with the women at the Tent of Meeting is unconvincing. The style of the plus in Samuel is quite unusual within the Former Prophets in general and within Samuel in particular, while it is very appropriate to the style of the Priestly material in the Pentateuch. Thus, for example, the expression ‫“( פתח אהל מועד‬at the entrance to the tent of meeting”), which appears in 1 Sam 2:22, is attested numerous times in the Priestly material in Exodus–Joshua,11 but does not appear after Joshua except in this verse in Samuel. The verb ‫ צב״א‬in the sense of “serving in some capacity,” parallel to the word-pair ‫“( לעבד עבֹדה‬be on duty”), which is also its meaning in Exod 38:8 and 1 Sam 2:22, appears only in the Priestly material (Num 4:23; 8:24).12 Apart from these cases in the Priestly material, this verb is used in a military sense (“fight against,” Isa 29:7–8; Zech 14:12 [qal]; 2 Kgs 25:19; Jer 52:25 [hiphil]).13 If the form of the verse is Priestly, it is difficult to claim that the first appearance of the verse was in Samuel, and only later found its way to the Torah. Nevertheless, the verse in Exodus also raises several difficulties in itself: (1) Our attention is first drawn to the fact that in the MT manuscripts, the verse in Exod 38:8 is singled out between two line breaks (parashah setumah division signs). (2) Second, by the bare mention of the Tent of Meeting in Exod 38:8, it is implied that the Tent already exists and the women have already served there; whereas according to the wider context of the narrative, this institution has not yet been completed.14 (3) In addition, the description of the construction of the Tabernacle vessels is usually parallel to the description of the commands of their construction, both in order and formulation. So, for example, the description of the building of the altar and courtyard in Exod 38 almost completely repeats the command in Exod 27, following the same order. The command to construct the bronze basin (which stands between the construction of the altar and the courtyard in Exod 38), on the other hand, does not appear in Exod 27. Instead, it is found in Exod 30 (vv. 17–21), separated from the rest of the commands of pre See Exod 29:4, 11, 32, 42; 38:30; 40:12; Lev 1:3, 5; 3:2; 4:4, 7, 18; 8:3, 4, 31, 33, 35; 10:7; 12:6; 14:11, 23; 17:5, 6, 9, 21; Num 3:25; 4:25; 6:10, 13, 18; 10:3; 11:10; 16:18, 19, 27; 17:15; 20:6; 25:6; 27:2. Cf. Josh 19:51. 12 See HALOT, 994. See also Samuel R. Driver, The Book of Exodus: In the Revised Version with Introduction and Notes (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1911), 390–91; idem, Books of Samuel, 33; Hans W. Hertzberg, I and II Samuel: A Commentary, OTL (London: SCM Press, 1964), 36; Jacob Milgrom, “The Term ‫עבדה‬,” in Studies in Cultic Theology and Terminology, SJLA 36 (Leiden: Brill, 1983), 18–46, esp. 31; Greenstein, “Recovering the Women,” 165. Cf. also Laura Quick, “Through a Glass, Darkly: Reflections on the Translation and Interpretation of Exodus 38:8,” CBQ 81 (2019): 595–612, esp. 600–604. 13 Cf. also Num 31:42 which belongs to a late and unique Priestly stratum. For this chapter, see, for example, Ariel Kopilovitz, “The Legislation of War: A Study of the Story of the Israelite War against Midian (Numbers 31),” Shnaton 23 (2014): 17–53 [Hebrew]. 14  The Tent of Meeting will be completed only at the end of Exodus (40:17). See Driver, Exodus, 391; William H. C. Propp, Exodus 19–40: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 2A (New York: Doubleday, 2006), 667; Ackerman, “Mirrors,” 538. 11

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paring the vessels for the Tabernacle, and only after the command to pay the halfshekel (Exod 30:11–16). Furthermore, in contrast to most of the other Tabernacle vessels, the command and the execution differ in many details. The command is longer, more detailed and includes a reference to the priests, which is absent from the execution. Furthermore, the command does not refer to the mirrors from which the basin was to be constructed; this detail appears only in the execution (38:8). This is not the place to discuss all the details of the Tabernacle account and the different versions found in these chapters,15 but even this information suffices to give the impression that the verse in Exod 38:8 does not belong there, even though it resembles the Priestly style that characterizes these chapters. In light of all the above, it is reasonable to suppose that the notice of the bronze basin in Exodus belongs to a later Priestly stratum in the Tabernacle section.16 However, as noted above, the similar verse in 1 Sam 2 is also anomalous and missing from some of the versions. We might then ask whether this tradition about the “(the mirrors of the) women who served at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting” is an independent, “roaming text,” which entered each of the books independently during one of their stages of development. Similar phenomena of “roaming texts” are found in other places in the Hebrew Bible and can be identified by their anomaly within the places they appear – in each version in a different location, and sometimes in completely different books.17 Yet, in contrast to other cases of “roaming texts,” the verses in Exod 38:8 and 1 Sam 2:22 are not identical or sufficiently similar. In addition, as the terminology of these verses is Priestly, in its style Exod 38:8 coheres well with its pentateuchal section, while 1 Sam 2:22 stands out in its context. Furthermore, the topic of the bronze basin is broadly developed in Exodus, whereas the Tent of Meeting is anomalous in Samuel. It thus seems that the difficult verse in Exod 38:8 developed within the pentateuchal Priestly milieu, while its puzzling character, and its isolation within the pericope (as reflected in the spacings of the parashot setumot which border  For various recent approaches to the textual differences between MT and LXX in these chapters, see, for example, Martha L. Wade, Consistency of Translation Techniques in the Tabernacle Accounts of Exodus in the Old Greek, SCS 49 (Atlanta: SBL, 2003); Daniel M. Gurtner, Exodus: A Commentary on the Greek Text of Codex Vaticanus, Septuagint Commentary Series (Leiden: Brill, 2013), esp. 471–88; Domenico Lo Sardo, Post-Priestly Additions and Rewritings in Exodus 35–40: An Analysis of MT, LXX, and Vetus Latina, FAT II/119 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020). 16  See, e. g., August Dillmann, Die Bücher Exodus und Leviticus, KHAT 12 (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1880), 402; Driver, Exodus, 391. 17 For this phenomenon, see Emanuel Tov, “Some Sequence Differences between the MT and LXX and Their Ramifications for the Literary Criticism of the Bible,” in The Greek and Hebrew Bible: Collected Essays on the Septuagint, VTSup 72 (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 411–18; Alexander Rofé, Introduction to the Literature of the Hebrew Bible, JBS 9 (Jerusalem: Simor, 2009), 346–50, esp. n. 48; Guy Darshan, “The Long Additions in LXX 1 Kgs 2 (3 Kgdms 35a–k; 46a–l) and Their Importance for the Question of the Literary History of 1 Kgs 1–11,” Tarbiz 75 (2006): 5–50, esp. 39–41 [Hebrew]. 15

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it), led to quite early midrashic interpretations.18 As is often seen in rabbinic literature, a difficult text, which seems to conceal a fuller story, serves as a springboard for creative midrashic exegesis.19 Indeed, the verse in Exod 38:8 is difficult to understand, and its form as we have it today may be corrupt.20 The word ‫ מראות‬is usually interpreted as “mirrors,” though in this sense it is unique in the Bible.21 The root ‫צב״א‬, as noted above, is used, regarding the Levites, in parallel to the root ‫“( עב״ד‬to work, serve”) and in the sense “to be on duty” (Num 4:23; 8:24). This verse is therefore frequently interpreted as speaking of the “mirrors” that served the women who fulfilled some sort of role at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.22 However, it is difficult to understand what the women were doing there, or why the Tent of Meeting is mentioned when it had not yet been constructed. This led the ancient translations and the Sages to broaden the puzzling notice in Exod 38:8. The more literal translations, such as Onkelos, added to the verse a clear mention of the women and tried to explain what they were doing there: ‫במחזית נשיא דאתין לצלאה‬ ‫“( בתרע משכן זמנא‬from the mirrors of the women who would come to pray at the gate of the tent of meeting”).23 Freer translations, as well as rabbinic homiletics, tried to deal apologetically with the notions of beautification and the arousal of lust that are associated with the mention of the women and the mirrors. So, for example, Pseudo-Jonathan related that the bronze basin was made ‫מן אספקלירי‬ ‫דנחשא נשיא צניעתא ובעידן דאתיין לצלאה בתרע משכן זימנא הואן קיימן על קרבן ארמותהין‬ ‫“( ומשבחן ומודן ותייבן לגובריהון וילדן בנין צדיקין בזמן דמידכן מן סואבות דימהון‬from the bronze mirrors of the chaste women. And at the time when they would come to pray at the gate of the tent of meeting, they would stand by their elevation 18 For

a similar midrashic interpretation reflected in a section division in the middle of the verse, see Shemaryahu Talmon, “Pisqah Be’emṣa‛ Pasuq and 11QPsa,” Textus 5 (1966): 11–21. Cf. also Julio Trebolle Barrera, “Division Markers as Empirical Evidence for the Editorial Growth of Biblical Books,” in Empirical Models Challenging Biblical Criticism, ed. Raymond F. Person and Robert Rezetko, AIL 25 (Atlanta: SBL, 2016), 165–216. 19  Cf. David Stern, Midrash and Theory: Ancient Jewish Exegesis and Contemporary Literary Studies (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1996), 8. 20 See, for example, the following suggestions: Jonathan Kaplan, “Two Samaritan Amulets,” IEJ 17 (1967): 158–62, esp. 162; Wilfred G. E. Watson, “More on Shared Consonants,” Bib 52 (1971): 44–50, esp. 46–47; and the idiosyncratic interpretation of Sarah Shectman, Women in the Pentateuch: A Feminist and Source-Critical Analysis, Hebrew Bible Monographs 23 (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2009), 155–57. 21  In other occurrences the meaning is “apparition, vision” (e. g., Gen 46:2; Num 12:6; 1 Sam 3:15; Ezek 1:1; 8:3; 40:2; 43:3). See, e. g., BDB, 909; HALOT, 630–631. See also Quick, “Through a Glass.” While recognizing that this interpretation is exceptional, she adduces comparative evidence from across the eastern Mediterranean supporting the meaning “mirrors.” 22 For the meaning of ‫צב״א‬, see n. 12 above. 23  See also the Vulgate, which explains that the women “watched at the door of the tabernacle” (quae excubabant in ostio tabernaculi). Cf. Ackerman, “Mirrors.” The Greek version probably misread or interpreted ‫ הצבאות אשר צבאו‬as :‫ הצמות אשר צמו‬τῶν νηστευσασῶν αἳ ἐνήστευσαν παρὰ τὰς θύρας … (“of the fasting women who fasted by the doors …”). See Driver, Exodus, 391.

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offering and would praise and give thanks, then return to their husbands. So they bore righteous children at the time when they were purified from the uncleanness of their blood”).24 It is therefore possible that the inserted verse in 1 Sam 2:22, which adds the extra sin of the sons of Eli with the women who were at the Tent of Meeting, is an earlier midrashic exegesis that developed on the basis of the verse in Exodus and the narrative in Samuel 2, both as an attempt to explain the obscure verse in Exod 38:8,25 and as a theodicy within the narrative context of the chapter that tries to justify the harsh punishment of Eli’s sons and the termination of this entire priestly branch (1 Sam 2:27–36).26 In any case, the textual witnesses clearly show that this sentence was added in one of the phases of the development of Samuel, after the textual transmission had already split into the branches of the Septuagint and the Qumran scroll on the one hand, and protoMasoretic texts on the other.

2. Solomon Brings the Tent of Meeting to the Temple (1 Kgs 8:4) Another mention of the “Tent of Meeting” outside of the Priestly material in the Pentateuch (and Joshua) is found in the story of Solomon bringing the ark to the Temple. According to 1 Kgs 8:4, the ark was brought to the Temple together with the Tent of Meeting and all the holy vessels that were in the Tent, in terminology similar to that used in the Priestly account in the Torah: ‫ויעלו את ארון ה׳ ואת אהל‬ ‫“( מועד ואת כל כלי הקדש אשר באהל‬Then they brought up the ark of YHWH, the tent of meeting, and all the holy vessels that were in the tent”). Like the previous case in Samuel, here too the significant textual differences between the MT and the Septuagint in this chapter show that the text underwent various stages of development. However, in contrast to the previous case, here the text which speaks of the Tent of Meeting is found in all the main textual witnesses. How can this be explained? Does the mention of the Tent of Meeting belong to an earlier stratum of the account of the ark transferring, or is the entire unit influenced by Priestly materials (and we should therefore not place too much importance on the LXX version, as it may reflect a later adaptation of the MT)? The first option is supported by Richard Elliott Friedman, for example, who describes, using complex 24  For surveys of rabbinic interpretations of this verse, see Rachel Adelman, “A Copper Laver Made from Women’s Mirrors,” https://thetorah.com/article/a-copper-laver-made-f​r​o​m​-​w​o​m​ en​s​-​m​i​r​r​ors, accessed August 21, 2022. See also Dalia Marx, “Women and Priests: Encounters and Dangers as Reflected in I Samuel 2:22,” lectio difficilior (1/2011), http://www.lectio.unibe. ch/11_1/marx_dalia_2011.1.html, accessed August 21, 2022. 25 Cf. also the link between ‫( במראת הצבאת‬Exod 38:8) and ‫( הנשים הצבאות‬1 Sam 2:22), which might be explained as a midrashic etymology through the Aramaic )‫“( מרת(א‬mistress”). 26  For this explanation of theodicy, cf. Alexander Rofé, The Religion of Israel and the Text of the Hebrew Bible: Corrections in the Biblical Texts in Light of the History of the Religion of Israel (Jerusalem: Carmel, 2018), 51–52, 89–90 [Hebrew].

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mathematical calculations, the special place prepared for the Tent of Meeting in Solomon’s Temple.27 Friedman views the notice regarding the Tent of Meeting as an integral part of the ancient story of bringing the ark to the Temple, and perhaps even a reliable reflection of a memory or some ancient tradition. The other approach is supported by Menahem Haran, who notes that this unit in the beginning of 1 Kgs 8 contains a series of Priestly texts, though he does not use the evidence of the Septuagint for identifying the Priestly(-style) additions.28 The following analysis, using the textual witnesses and literary-historical considerations, shows that the text in Kings, which relates the Temple’s construction, inspired different authors over different time periods to add slight additions in the Priestly style, probably over two stages of the textual transmission. One stage can be examined through the differences between the main textual witnesses of 1 Kgs 8. The evidence suggests the insertion of short additions in the Priestly style that entered the text at a later stage, after the separation of the proto-Masoretic and pre-LXX texts (section 2.1, below). At this stage similar additions were inserted also in 1 Kings 6. These Priestly-like additions have not been mentioned by scholars, such as Haran, who did not give much attention to the LXX evidence (section 2.2., below). A different, probably earlier stage, which occurred before the separation of the central textual witnesses of Kings, can be examined through a series of literary-historical considerations (section 2.3, below). The text that mentions the Tent of Meeting in 1 Kgs 8:4, which stands at the center of our discussion, entered at this stage as well. I will present the meaning and intention of the P-like texts in the following survey. 2.1 A Late Stage of Quasi-P Additions: LXX and MT 1 Kgs 8:1–5 A comparison between the textual witnesses of 1 Kgs 8:1–5 shows that the Septuagint preserves a shorter version of this story than the MT (with the exception of the first verse). In the following table the pluses are indicated in italics:

27  See Richard E. Friedman, “The Tabernacle in the Temple,” BA 43 (1980): 241–48; idem, The Exile and Biblical Narrative: The Formation of the Deuteronomistic and Priestly Works, HSM 22 (Chico: Scholars Press, 1981), 48–53; idem, “Tabernacle,” ABD 6:292–300. See, however, the criticism of this theory by Victor Avigdor Hurowitz, “The Form and Fate of the Tabernacle: Reflections on a Recent Proposal,” JQR 86 (1995): 127–51. 28 Haran, Temples and Temple-Service, 140–41 and n. 11. In this book he attributes the Priestly(-like) material in 1 Kings 8 to the Priestly writers of the Pentateuch: “The priestly writers begin with creation of the world and end with the conquest of the land. Their last utterances are recognizable in a few notes inserted into the description of Solomon’s consecration of the Temple (1 Kgs, beginning of chap. 8).” Cf. his later Hebrew book where he slightly updates his description: The Biblical Collection: Its Consolidation to the End of the Second Temple Times and Changes of Form to the End of the Middle Ages (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute and Magnes, 2003), 2:194–95 n. 11, 298–99 n. 62 [Hebrew].

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LXX

LXX Vorlage

1 Καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ συντελέσαι Σαλωμων τοῦ οἰκοδομῆσαι τὸν οἶκον κυρίου καὶ τὸν οἶκον ἑαυτοῦ μετὰ εἴκοσι ἔτη τότε ἐξεκκλησίασεν ὁ βασιλεὺς Σαλωμων πάντας τοὺς πρεσβυτέρους Ισραηλ ἐν Σιων τοῦ ἀνενεγκεῖν τὴν κιβωτὸν διαθήκης κυρίου ἐκ πόλεως Δαυιδ αὕτη ἐστὶν Σιων

‫ ויהי ככלות שלמה לבנות את‬1 ‫בית ה׳ ואת ביתו מקץ עשרים שנה‬ ‫אז יקהל המלך שלמה את כל‬ ‫זקני ישראל ציון‬

2 ἐν μηνὶ Αθανιν. 3 καὶ ἦραν οἱ ἱερεῖς τὴν κιβωτὸν 4 καὶ τὸ σκήνωμα τοῦ μαρτυρίου καὶ πάντα τὰ σκεύη τὰ ἅγια τὰ ἐν τῷ σκηνώματι τοῦ μαρτυρίου, 5 καὶ ὁ βασιλεὺς καὶ πᾶς Ισραηλ ἔμπροσθεν τῆς κιβωτοῦ θύοντες πρόβατα καὶ βόας ἀναρίθμητα.29

MT

‫     להעלות את ארון‬ ‫ברית ה׳ מעיר דוד היא ציון‬

‫ בירח האתנים‬2 ‫ וישאו הכהנים את הארון‬3

1 ‫ָאז יַ ְק ֵהל ׁ ְשֹלמֹה ֶאת זִ ְקנֵ י יְִׂשְָראֵל‬ ‫אֶת ָּכָל ָראֵׁשֵי הַַּמַּטֹות נְִׂשִיאֵי‬ ‫הָאָבֹות לִבְנֵי יְִׂשְָראֵל אֶל הֶַּמֶלְֶך‬ ‫ְׁשְֹלמֹה יְרּוָׁשָלָ‍ִם לְ ַה ֲעלוֹ ת ֶאת ֲארוֹ ן‬ ‫ְּב ִרית ה׳ ֵמ ִעיר ָ ּדוִ ד ִהיא ִצ ּיוֹ ן‬

‫ וִַּיִָּקָהֲלּו אֶל הֶַּמֶלְֶך ְׁשְֹלמֹה ָּכָל‬2 ‫אִיׁש יְִׂשְָראֵל ְּביֶ ַרח ָה ֵא ָתנִ ים ֶּבֶחָג‬ ‫הּוא הַחֹדֶׁש הְַּׁשְבִיעִי‬ ‫ וַָּיָבֹאּו ֹּכֹל זִקְנֵי יְִׂשְָראֵל‬3    ‫וַ ִ ּי ְ ׂשאוּ ַה ֹּכ ֲהנִ ים ֶאת ָה ָארוֹ ן‬

‫ ואת אהל מועד ואת כל כלי‬4 ‫הקדש אשר באהל מועד‬

‫ וַַּיַעֲלּו אֶת אֲרֹון ה׳‬4 ‫וְ ֶאת א ֶֹהל מוֹ ֵעד וְ ֶאת ָּכל ְּכלֵ י‬ ‫ַה ֹּק ֶד ׁש ֲא ׁ ֶשר ָּבא ֶֹהל וַַּיַעֲלּו אֹתָם‬ ‫הַ ֹֹּכהֲנִים וְהַלְוִ ִּיִם‬

‫ והמלך וכל ישראל‬5 ‫      לפני הארון‬ ‫מזבחים צאן ובקר אשר לא‬ ‫יספרו ולא ימנו מרב‬

‫וְ ַה ּ ֶמלֶ ְך ְׁשְֹלמֹה וְ כָ ל עֲדַת יִ ְ ׂש ָר ֵאל‬ ‫הַּנֹועָדִים עָלָיו אִּתֹו לִ ְפנֵ י ָה ָארוֹ ן‬ ּ‫ְמזַ ְּב ִחים צֹאן וּ ָב ָקר ֲא ׁ ֶשר ֹלא יִ ָּס ְפרו‬ ‫וְ ֹלא יִ ּ ָמנוּ ֵמרֹב‬

The LX X contains a long plus in the first part of v. 1, which Charles F. Burney posited to be an addition by the Greek translator.30 However, the obviously Hebrew character of some expressions in this half-verse points to a Hebrew Vorlage.31 This half-verse may also reflect a better reading omitted by a later scribe who was uncomfortable with the idea that Solomon brought the ark into the Temple only after he had finished building his palace, thirteen years after he completed the Temple (twenty years in total). The MT in 1 Kgs 8 gives the impression that the ark was brought into the Temple immediately after its com29 There is no need to reconstruct here a different text against the MT. ἀναρίθμητα (“countless”) translates here the biblical idiom ‫“( אשר לא יספרו ולא ימנו מרב‬so many […] that they could not be counted or numbered”). Cf. 1 Kgs 3:8. 30  Charles F. Burney, Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Kings (Oxford: Clarendon, 1903), 104. 31  See, for example, the expressions Καὶ ἐγένετο, which reflects the Hebrew ‫ויהי‬, and ἐν τῷ συντελέσαι, which reflects ‫ככלות‬. 2 Chr 8:1 was probably based on a similar Hebrew verse.

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133

pletion (1 Kgs 7:51), although reading 1 Kgs 7:1–12 in its current position may support the LX X chronology. In the next verses, the MT includes a broader text than the LX X . It seems that also in this case the MT reflects a later stage in the text’s development; if we remove the marked expansions from the MT, we are left with a logical and natural sequence that appears to preserve the relatively ancient account of bringing the ark from the city of David to Solomon’s Temple in the month of Ethanim. As in MT 1 Sam 2:22, the additional stratum in 1 Kings 8 contains linguistic elements characteristic of the Priestly strata of the Pentateuch. In a previous study, I called these elements “quasi-Priestly” additions, as they imitate the style of the legal sections of the Torah (of which P constitutes a major component), but they do not constitute part of the pentateuchal P story.32 In MT 1 Kgs 8:1, the words ‫את כל‬ ‫“( ראשי המטות נשיאי האבות‬and all the heads of the tribes, the leaders of the ancestral houses of the Israelites”) were added to describe the audience.33 The terms ‫“( מטות‬tribes”), ‫“( ראשי מטות‬heads of the tribes”), and ‫“( נשיא‬leader, prince”) are all typical of P but rare in other biblical texts. The second verse originally included only the ancient local name of the month Ethanim as the date of this event.34 The additional stratum in the MT clarifies this for later readers: ‫“( הוא החֹדש השביעי‬which is the seventh month”). This phrase not only simplifies the ancient date but also adds new content, identifying the transfer of the ark into the Temple and the festival celebrating this event (1 Kgs 8:65) with the Sukkot festival of the seventh month, mentioned in the Priestly texts. Only the Priestly schools (Lev 23:33–44 [H]; Num 29:12–39 [P]) give a fixed date for the festival of the seventh month, while the other non-P sources, including Deuteronomy, do not. The verses in Exodus provide an undefined date: ‫“( בצאת השנה באספך את מעשיך מן השדה‬at the end of the year, when you gather in from the field the fruit of your labor,” Exod 23:16), or ‫“( תקופת השנה‬at the turn of the year,” Exod 34:22), as does Deut 16:13: ‫“( באספך מגרנך ומיקבך‬when you have gathered in the produce from your threshing floor and your winepress”).35

32 Darshan, “Quasi-Priestly Additions.” For a different view cf. Haran, Temples and TempleService, 140–41 and n. 11. 33 For the same expression, see Num 30:2. Cf. ‫המטות לבני ישראל‬/‫“( ראשי אבות ל‬the heads of the ancestral houses of the Israelite tribes”; Num 32:28; Josh 14:1; 19:51; 21:1), ‫( ראשי (ה)אבות‬e. g., Exod 6:25; Num 31:26; 36:1), ‫“( נשיאי מטות‬leaders of the tribes”; Num 1:16; 7:2), ‫נשיא בית אב‬ (“head of the ancestral house”; Num 3:24, 30, 35; 25:14). 34  See also KAI 37:1, 2, 41:4. Cf. y. Roš. Haš. 6a. For the question whether the name Ethanim is Semitic or Hurrian see Robert R. Stieglitz, “The Phoenician-Punic Menology,” in Boundaries of the Ancient Near Eastern World: A Tribute to Cyrus H. Gordon, ed. Meir Lubetski et al., JSOTSup 273 (Sheffield: Sheffield University Press, 1998), 211–21, esp. 213. 35  Cf. already Abraham Geiger, Urschrift und Übersetzungen der Bibel in ihrer Abhängigkeit von der inneren Entwicklung des Judenthums (Breslau: Julius Hainauer, 1857), 70 – although he attributes this change to the influence of Chronicles. See also John Gray, I & II Kings: A Com-

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According to the LXX form of the text of v. 3, “the priests carried the ark.” The author of the plus in the MT, who is familiar with the Priestly texts, repeats this information in v. 4 while rewriting it and adds “and the Levites.” It seems that the interpolator may have sought to emphasize that it was the Levites who carried the ark, in accordance with the Priestly regulation (Num 3–4, 7:4–9, 18:1–7).36 The LX X of v. 5 also represents a smoother text than the MT. Instead of the shorter version ‫“( וכל ישראל‬and all Israel”), MT uses the redundant ‫וכל עדת ישראל‬ ‫“( הנועדים עליו אתו‬the congregation of Israel who had assembled before him with him”). The terms ‫ עדה‬and ‫ נועדים‬are also characteristic of Priestly terminology (cf. especially Num 14:35; 16:11).37 Alongside this analysis, it is worth noting that 1 Kgs 8:4 mentions the Tent of Meeting, which stands at the focus of this study, even in the short version found in the LXX. I will discuss this issue after analyzing another text in the Temple account (1 Kgs 6–8) that is missing from the LX X: 1 Kgs 6:11–14. 2.2 A Late Stage of Quasi-P Additions: LXX and MT 1 Kgs 6:11–14 This is a relatively larger unit (three verses plus one extra, which serves as a resumptive repetition, or Wiederaufnahme) and not a series of short additions as in the previous case. However, it seems that this unit was produced by the same hand that added the pluses in 1 Kgs 8:1–5, since both cases show a familiarity with the terminology of the pentateuchal Priestly strata, and the texts in both cases are absent from the Septuagint. As I mentioned in another study,38 the description of Solomon’s construction of the Temple is interrupted in MT by YHWH addressing Solomon regarding the Temple (1 Kgs 6:11–13). The text

mentary, OTL (London: SCM, 1964), 192–94; Steven L. McKenzie, “1 Kings 8: A Sample Study into the Texts of Kings Used by the Chronicler and Translated by the Old Greek,” BIOSCS 19 (1986): 15–34, esp. 27–28. 36  A Deuteronomistic scribe would thus not have bothered to differentiate between the categories of Levites and priests, as Deuteronomy does not distinguish between priests and Levites (see Deut 18). See, in general, Samuel R. Driver, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Deuteronomy, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1895), 219; Haran, Temples and Temple-Service, 58–131. Cf. also the parallel text in Chronicles, where the Levites are the ones holding the ark (2 Chr 5:4). 37  The phrase ‫ הנועדים עליו אתו‬is probably a doublet. Although the compound ‫ על‬+ ‫ נועד‬is more common, it usually signifies “gather together against” with a negative connotation (Num 14:35; 16:1; 27:3; Josh 11:5). Since this meaning does not fit our text, it seems that the word ‫אתו‬ was added in order to correct the meaning of the phrase. Cf. the parallel text in 2 Chr 5:6, which only contains ‫“( הנועדים עליו‬who had assembled before him”). For ‫עדה‬, see, e. g., Avi Hurvitz, “Linguistic Observations on the Biblical Usage of the Priestly Term ‘eda,” Tarbiz 40 (1971): 261–67 [Hebrew]. 38  See Guy Darshan, “As Solomon Builds the Temple, God Warns ‘Follow My Laws’ in MT Not LXX,” https://thetorah.com/article/as-solomon-builds-the-temple-god-warns-follow-mylaws-in-mt-not-lxx, accessed August 21, 2022.

The Tent of Meeting in Samuel and Kings

135

then returns to Solomon completing the construction of the Temple, with a resumptive repetition noted in italics (v. 14, cf. v. 9), as can be seen here: ‫ היציע) על כל הבית‬:‫ ויבן את היצוע (קרי‬10 ‫ ויבן את הבית ויכלהו ויספן את הבית גבים ושדרת בארזים‬9 ‫חמש אמות קומתו ויאחז את הבית בעצי ארזים‬ ‫ הבית הזה אשר אתה בנה אם תלך בחקתי ואת משפטי תעשה ושמרת‬12 ‫ ויהי דבר ה׳ אל שלמה לאמר‬11 ‫ ושכנתי בתוך בני ישראל‬13 ‫את כל מצותי ללכת בהם והקמתי את דברי אתך אשר דברתי אל דוד אביך‬ ‫ ויבן שלמה את הבית ויכלהו‬14 ‫ולא אעזב את עמי ישראל‬ ‫ ויבן את קירות הבית מביתה בצלעות ארזים מקרקע הבית עד קירות הספן צפה עץ מבית ויצף את קרקע‬15 ‫הבית בצלעות ברושים‬ 9 So he built the house, and finished it; he roofed the house with beams and planks of cedar. 10 He built the structure against the whole house, each story five cubits high, and it was joined to the house with timbers of cedar. 11 Now the word of Yhwh came to Solomon, 12 “Concerning this house that you are building, if you will walk in my statutes, obey my ordinances, and keep all my commandments by walking in them, then I will establish my promise with you, which I made to your father David. 13 I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not forsake my people Israel.” 14 So Solomon built the house, and finished it. 15 He built the walls of the house on the inside with boards of cedar; from the floor of the house to the rafters of the ceiling, he covered them on the inside with wood; and he covered the floor of the house with boards of cypress.

Verse 15, which depicts the overlay of the structure with boards of cedar, clearly follows more naturally after 6:1–10, which detail the construction of the Temple. Since no plausible reason exists for the deletion of vv. 11–14 by the LXX translator,39 nor can we reconstruct a “scribal error” in its Hebrew Vorlage, it is much more reasonable to assume that 1 Kgs 6:11–14 was added to the Hebrew text at a later stage of its development, which is the reason why these verses are absent from the LX X .40 This thesis is supported by a number of considerations. First, these verses clearly do not constitute a coherent narrative unit. The circumstances in which they were uttered are not clear, nor is there any indication of Solomon’s response. Second, 1 Kgs 9:2 relates that God “appeared to Solomon a second time as He had appeared to him at Gibeon,” referring to the revelation described in 1 Kgs 3:4–15. This text seems to be unfamiliar with any divine speech given to Solomon in 1 Kgs 6.

39  As suggested by J. Rawson Lumby, The First Book of the Kings, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1890), 58–59; David W. Gooding, “Temple Specifications: A Dispute in Logical Arrangement between the MT and the LXX,” VT 17 (1967): 143–72, esp. 158–59. 40  See, for example, Burney, Books of Kings, 68; James A. Montgomery, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Kings, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1951; repr. 1976), 147; Gary N. Knoppers, Two Nations Under God: The Deuteronomistic History of Solomon and the Dual Monarchies, HSM 52–53 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993–1994), 1:96–97.

136

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While some scholars view the unit as Deuteronomistic,41 the terminology is characteristic neither of Kings nor of Deuteronomistic works. In fact, it recalls the Priestly document in the Pentateuch and the terminology of the H strata and Ezekiel.42 Both the idiom ‫ בחקתי‬+ ‫“( ללכת‬walk + in My statutes”) and the term ‫“( משפטי‬My ordinances”) in v. 12 are prominent H expressions.43 The concluding verse of the speech, ‫“( ושכנתי בתוך בני ישראל‬I will dwell among the children of Israel,” v. 13), reflects the key Priestly principle of God’s physical dwelling among the Israelites via His presence in the Temple (see especially ‫ועשו לי מקדש ושכנתי‬ ‫בתוכם‬, “And have them make me a sanctuary, so that I may dwell among them,” Exod 25:8, cf. 29:46).44 As is well known, the Deuteronomistic stratum in Kings promotes precisely the opposite idea, insisting that it is God’s “name” that resides in the Temple rather than God Himself. According to the Deuteronomistic view, ‫“( השמים ושמי השמים לא יכלכלוך‬Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you”; 1 Kgs 8:27).45 The passage in 1 Kgs 6 thus appears to have been written by a scribe closely familiar with P and H concepts and terminology. In addition, the second part of v. 12 (“Then I will establish My promise with you, which I made to your father David”) betrays the author’s knowledge of God’s words to David through Nathan (2 Sam 7).46

41 See, for example, Gray, I & II Kings, 157–158; Frank M. Cross, “The Themes in the Books of Kings and the Structure of the Deuteronomistic History,” in Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), 274–89, esp. 287; Gwilym H. Jones, 1 and 2 Kings, NBC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984), 1:167; Simon J. DeVries, I Kings, WBC 12 (Waco: Word, 1985), 95. 42  Cf. Burney, Books of Kings, 68–69; Montgomery, Book of Kings, 147; Steven L. McKenzie, The Trouble with Kings: The Composition of the Book of Kings in the Deuteronomistic History, VTSup 42 (Leiden: Brill, 1991), 138. 43 See especially ‫ בחקתי‬+ ‫“( ללכת‬walk + in My statutes”); see Lev 26:3; Ezek 5:6, 7; 11:20; 18:9, 17; 20:13, 16, 19, 21. Cf. Lev 18:4. For ,‫משפטי‬ ַ see Lev 18:4, 5, 26; 19:37; 20:22; 25:18; 26:15, 43; 18:1, 12; Ezek 5:6, 7; 8:9; 11:20; 18:17; 20:11, 13, 16, 19, 21, 24; 36:27; 37:3, 4; 44:24. 44  See, for example, Exod 29:45, 46; Lev 15:31; 16:16; 26:11; Num 5:3; 16:3; 35:34. Cf. Ezek 43:9. See Gerhard von Rad, “Deuteronomy’s ‘Name’ Theology and the Priestly Document’s ‘Kabod’ Theology,” in Studies in Deuteronomy, SBT 9 (London: SCM, 1953), 37–49; Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 22 (Garden City: Doubleday, 1983), 51. 45  See, for instance, Deut 12:5, 11, 21; 14:24; 1 Kgs 9:3, and the list of expressions in Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972; repr., Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1992, 2014), 191, 324. Cf. von Rad, “Deuteronomy’s ‘Name’ Theology,” 38–39. 46 The expression ‫ דבר‬+ ‫“( להקים‬establish + promise”) is more prevalent in the Deuteronomistic literature, signifying the fulfillment of a prophecy or God’s word. See, for example, Deut 9:5; 1 Kgs 2:4; 8:20; 12:15; cf. also Jer 29:10; 33:14; Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, 15, 129, 350. In Priestly texts, the idiom ‫ ברית‬+ ‫“( להקים‬establish + covenant”) is more common. See Gen 6:18; 9:9, 11, 17; 17:7, 19, 21; Exod 6:4; Lev 26:9. Cf. Ezek 16:60, 62. For the meaning of the Priestly idiom in its context, see Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 23–27: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 3B (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 343–46.

The Tent of Meeting in Samuel and Kings

137

Apart from the attempt to tie the Solomonic Temple to the pentateuchal Tabernacle, similar to the addition in 1 Kgs 8:1–5, it seems that the scribe who added God’s words within the description of the construction of the Temple sought to convey another message. The divine words added in 1 Kgs 6 adduce a vital condition, in accordance with Lev 26:1–13. This passage makes the Temple’s permanency conditional even before its construction had begun. The author, obviously writing during the post-Destruction period, sought to justify the events by addressing a warning found in Scripture itself.47 This is why the scribe inserted God’s words to Solomon in vv. 11–13, linking them to the context via v. 14, which serves as a Wiederaufnahme that rewrites the first part of v. 9: “When he finished building the House.” This condition fits here nicely, given the following verses that deal with the construction of the holy of holies “in the innermost part of the House …” (1 Kgs 6:19), where the ark of the covenant and cherubim would rest, presenting the Divine presence. 2.3 An Early Stage of Quasi-P Additions: 1 Kgs 8:4, 10–11 The cases discussed above were a group of texts written in the Priestly style (including H) that are absent from the Septuagint and are therefore clearly later additions. Nonetheless, in the account of the construction of Solomon’s Temple and bringing the ark to Jerusalem, there are, as noted above, texts that appear to have a Priestly style and are documented in all the textual witnesses. This is the case in 1 Kgs 8:4, which recounts that besides the ark, which was brought to Jerusalem, the Tent of Meeting and all the holy vessels were brought as well: “and the Tabernacle of meeting, and all the holy vessels that were in the Tabernacle.” The rabbinic literature (b. Soṭah 9a), as well as some modern exegetes, suggest that the Tent of Meeting was brought to Solomon’s Temple and placed in a defined place within it.48 However, other than the sole verse in Samuel, which is a later addition as demonstrated above, there is no previous mention in the Samuel or Kings accounts of the ark being placed in the Tent of Meeting, as is the case in the Pentateuch. Quite the opposite is true: the account in 2 Sam 6, which tells of the ark being moved to the city of David (whence Solomon was said to bring it to the Temple), recounts that David put up a temporary tent for the ark that he brought to Jerusalem: “They brought the ark of YHWH, and set it in its place, inside the tent that David had pitched for it …” (2 Sam 6:17; cf. 7:2, 6). Furthermore, the style of v. 1 Kgs 8:4 attests that it, too, was formulated with an 47 For a different explanation of this text, see Victor (Avigdor) Hurowitz, “Temple Building in the Bible in Light of Mesopotamian and North-West Semitic Writings” (Ph.D. diss., The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1983), 150 [Hebrew]. Cf. idem, I Have Built You an Exalted House: Temple Building in the Bible in the Light of Mesopotamian and North-West Semitic Writings, JSOTSup 115 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1992), 128, 159–60, 236. 48  See n. 27 above.

138

Guy Darshan

awareness of the Priestly style of the Pentateuch. The expression ‫“( כלי הקדש‬the holy vessels”), which appears here, is found elsewhere only in the pentateuchal Priestly texts, and even then only in the relatively later strata of the Priestly materials (Num 3:31; 4:15; 18:3; 31:6), or in Chronicles, which was influenced by the same materials (1 Chr 9:29; 2 Chr 5:5). The ancient story of bringing the ark to Solomon’s Temple – without the words that are absent from the Septuagint version and without v. 4, which also includes explicitly Priestly terminology – would have been similar to the pattern of the ark stories in Samuel (bringing the ark to the home of Obed-edom [2 Sam 6:1–11], and from there to the city of David [2 Sam 6:12–19]), and would also complete them: Basic Outline of Ark-Transferring Stories

1 Kgs 8:1–5* (cf. LXX)

2 Sam 6:12–19

2 Sam 6:1–5

The King (and the people) brings the ark to/from the city of David

‫… אז יקהל שלמה את‬1 ‫זקני ישראל ירושלם‬ ‫להעלות את ארון ברית‬ ‫ה׳ מעיר דוד היא ציון‬

‫… וילך דוד ויעל‬12 ‫את ארון האלהים מבית‬ ‫עבד אדם עיר דוד‬ ‫בשמחה‬

‫ ויסף עוד דוד את כל‬1 ‫בחור בישראל שלשים‬ ‫ ויקם וילך דוד‬2 ‫אלף‬ ‫וכל העם אשר אתו‬ ‫מבעלי יהודה להעלות‬ …‫משם את ארון האלהים‬

‫ ויהי כי צעדו‬13 ‫נשאי ארון ה׳ ששה‬ ‫ ודוד וכל‬15…‫צעדים‬ ‫בית ישראל מעלים את‬ …‫ארון ה׳‬

‫ וירכבו את ארון‬3 ‫האלהים אל עגלה חדשה‬ ‫ וישאהו‬4…‫וישאהו‬ ‫מבית אבינדב אשר‬ ‫בגבעה עם ארון האלהים‬ ‫ואחיו הלך לפני הארון‬

Carrying the ark

(and the tent)

The king (and Israel) celebrates before the ark/God

49 LXX

‫ בירח האתנים‬2 ‫ וישאו הכהנים את‬3 ‫הארון‬

‫ ואת אהל מועד ואת‬4( ‫כל כלי הקדש אשר‬ )49‫באֹהל‬ ‫ והמלך וכל ישראל‬5 ‫לפני הארון מזבחים‬ ‫צאן ובקר אשר לא‬ ‫יספרו ולא ימנו מרב‬

‫ ויבאו את ארון ה׳‬17 ‫ויצגו אתו במקומו‬ ‫בתוך האהל אשר נטה‬ ‫לו דוד‬ ‫ויעל דוד עלות לפני‬ 19 …‫ ושלמים‬,‫ה׳‬ ‫ויחלק לכל העם לכל‬ ‫המון ישראל למאיש‬ ‫ועד אשה לאיש חלת‬ ‫לחם אחת ואשפר אחד‬ …‫ואשישה אחת‬

adds τοῦ μαρτυρίου, which reflects ‫אשר באהל מועד‬.

‫ ודוד וכל בית ישראל‬5 ‫משחקים לפני ה׳ בכל‬ ‫עצי ברושים ובכנרות‬ ‫ובנבלים ובתפים‬ ‫ובמנענעים ובצלצלים‬

The King (and the people) brings the ark to/from the city of David

Carrying the ark

The Tent of Meeting in Samuel and Kings

139

12 … So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom to the city of David with rejoicing;

1 David again gathered all the chosen men of Israel, thirty thousand. 2 David and all the people with him set out and went from Baale-judah, to bring up from there the ark of God …

13 and when those who bore the ark of YHWH had gone six paces … 15 So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of YHWH …

3 They carried the ark of God on a new cart … 4 and brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill with the ark of God; and Ahio went in front of the ark.

1 … then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel in Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the covenant of YHWH out of the city of David, which is Zion, 2 in the month Ethanim. 3 And the priests carried the ark

(the tent)

(4 and the tent of meeting, and all the holy vessels that were in the tent);

The king (and Israel) celebrates before the ark/God

5 and the King and all of Israel were before the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and oxen that they could not be counted or numbered.

17 They brought in the ark of YHWH, and set it in its place, inside the tent that David had pitched for it; and David offered burnt offerings and offerings of well-being before YHWH … 19 and distributed food among all the people, the whole multitude of Israel, both men and women, to each a cake of bread, a portion of meat, and a cake of raisins …

5 David and all the house of Israel were dancing before YHWH with all their might, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals.

140

Guy Darshan

Two central issues emerge from the comparison of 1 Kgs 8 to the other stories of the transfer of the ark. The first is the date of the transfer, which is mentioned only in the Kings account (1 Kgs 8:2), and the second is the mention of the tent (8:4). The use of the ancient name of “the month of Ethanim” shows that this information is part of the earlier tradition regarding the date when the ark was brought to the city of David. It was only at a later stage that this event was identified with the festival of Sukkot. This detail was unique to the ancient account of the ark in Kings. The second unusual detail is the notice of the Tent of Meeting being transferred in addition to the ark. Here the situation is different: the account of the ark’s removal from the house of Obed-edom indicated that it was placed in a temporary tent, and not in the Tent of Meeting, which traveled through the desert and entered the land of Canaan. It seems that a later author, who related the story of transferring the ark to the city of David, identified the temporary tent, which is mentioned in the David stories concerning the ark (2 Sam 6:17), with the Tent of Meeting from the Torah, and added the mention of the Tent of Meeting in v. 4. By doing this, he also created a continuum between the Tabernacle and the Temple, thereby making Solomon’s Temple the continuation of the Tabernacle mentioned in the Torah. These words in v. 4, which were formed, as noted above, in the Priestly style, were probably added before the branch of the Septuagint broke off, and therefore appear in all the main textual witnesses. The Solomon account has several other verses that can be identified as belonging to the same author who was influenced by the Priestly style and wished to present Solomon’s Temple as the continuation of the desert-era Tabernacle. The continuation of this chapter includes a relatively lengthy text recounting the events after the ark was brought into the Temple (1 Kgs 8:10–11). Most commentaries and studies on Kings analyze this section only briefly and do not offer a convincing explanation for the presence of such a P-like text in the book of Kings.50 A comparison of this text with the parallel depiction of the bringing of the ark into the Tabernacle at the end of Exodus (40:34–35) indicates that these texts surely depend on one another. While one may suggest that the Priestly description in the Pentateuch (usually regarded as a late work) had been influenced by the description of Solomon’s Temple, the distinctive Priestly expressions in this unit, which are quite rare in Kings, indicate that the latter was influenced by the Priestly account, rather than vice versa. Thus, the expression ‫“( כבוד ה׳‬the 50 Most of the scholars who recognize the Priestly style at the beginning of 1 Kgs 8 ignore vv. 10–11. See especially Julius Wellhausen, Die Composition des Hexateuchs und der historischen Bucher des Alten Testament (Berlin: Reimer, 1889), 268–69; Burney, Books of Kings, 109; Montgomery, Book of Kings, 189; McKenzie, Trouble with Kings. Cf., however, Ernst Würthwein, Die Bücher der Könige 1: Könige 1–16, ATD 11/1 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1985), 88; Gray, I & II Kings, 195; Mordechai Cogan, 1 Kings: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 10 (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 280–81.

The Tent of Meeting in Samuel and Kings

141

glory of YHWH”), for example, which signifies the divine presence, is a distinctively Priestly expression that occurs frequently in P and in Ezekiel, but only once in Kings – in our passage.51 In addition, this description of the divine presence’s entry into the Temple has no further mention in Kings; in fact, Solomon’s prayer (1 Kgs 8:22–53) repeatedly refers to God’s “dwelling place in the heavens,” in seeming direct contradiction to the notion of God’s presence in the Temple. The parallel passage in Exodus, on the other hand, fits nicely into the P sequence. Leviticus 1:1 picks up directly from Moses’s inability to enter the Tabernacle because of the divine presence (Exod 40:35). YHWH calls to him from within the Tabernacle and gives him a series of ritual laws. Following the priests’ ordination, the divine presence appears to all the people (Lev 9:23). In the Priestly account this scene parallels and continues the story of the divine presence which dwelt on Mount Sinai for six days, and on the seventh day called Moses and instructed him to build the Tabernacle (Exod 24:15b–18a; 25:1 ff.):52 1 Kgs 8:10–11

Exod 40:34–35; Lev 1:1

‫ ויהי בצאת הכהנים מן הקדש‬10 ‫והענן מלא את בית ה׳‬

‫ ויכס הענן את אהל מועד‬34 ‫וכבוד ה׳ מלא את המשכן‬

‫ ולא יכלו הכהנים לעמד לשרת‬11 ‫מפני הענן כי מלא כבוד ה׳ את‬ ‫בית ה׳‬

‫ ולא יכל משה לבוא אל אהל‬35 ‫מועד כי שכן עליו הענן וכבוד‬ …‫ה׳ מלא את המשכן‬ ‫ ויקרא אל משה‬1 :1

‫וידבר ה׳ אליו מאהל מועד‬ ‫בני ישראל‬-‫ דבר אל‬2 ‫לאמר‬ …‫ואמרת אלהם‬ 10 And when the priests came out of the holy place, the cloud filled the House of YHWH

34 Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of YHWH filled the tabernacle.

Exod 24:15b–18a; 25:1 ff. ‫ ויכס הענן את ההר‬15b ‫ וישכן כבוד ה׳ על הר סיני‬16 ‫ויכסהו הענן ששת ימים‬

‫ויקרא אל משה ביום השביעי‬ ‫ ומראה כבוד ה׳‬17 ‫מתוך הענן‬ ‫כאש אכלת בראש ההר לעיני בני‬ ‫ישראל‬ ‫ ויבא משה בתוך הענן ויעל‬18a ‫אל ההר‬ .‫ וידבר ה׳ אל משה לאמר‬1:25 ‫ דבר אל בני ישראל ויקחו לי‬2 …‫תרומה‬ 15b and the cloud covered the mountain. 16 The glory of YHWH ­settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days;

51 See Exod 16:7, 10; 24:16, 17; 40:34, 35; Lev 9:6, 23; Num 14:10, 21; 16:19; 17:7; 20:6; Ezek 1:28; 3:12, 23; 10:4, 18; 11:23; 43:4, 5; 44:4; cf. von Rad, “Deuteronomy’s ‘Name’ Theology,” 37– 49; Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20, 51. 52  For the Priestly account here, see the honoree’s analysis: Schwartz, “Theophany and Lawgiving,” 115. I added to his analysis Exod 24:15b as part of the Priestly account, as confirmed by the comparison to Exod 40:34.

142 11 so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud; for the glory of YHWH filled the house of YHWH.

Guy Darshan

35 Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled upon it, and the glory of YHWH filled the tabernacle.… 1: 1 YHWH summoned Moses

and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying: 2 Speak to the people of ­Israel and say to them …

on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the cloud. 17 Now the appearance of the glory of YHWH was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel. 18a Moses entered the cloud, and went up on the mountain. 1 YHWH said to Moses: 2 Tell the Israelites to take for me an offering …

Besides 1 Kgs 8:4, 10–11, this Temple unit (1 Kgs 6–8) drew a few additional short phrases from the Priestly terminology of the Tabernacle chapters.53 All these quasi-Priestly phrases were intended to fuse the account of the building of the Temple with pentateuchal traditions, making the Solomonic Temple a direct continuation of the Priestly Tabernacle.

3. Conclusions The survey presented here indicates that all mentions of the Tent of Meeting in Samuel and Kings are later additions, which entered the text during one of the later transmission stages, after the stories in the Torah were accepted and became authoritative within the community. The text of 1 Sam 2:22 entered as a sort of midrashic development of the text of the Tabernacle story (Exod 38:8) at a late stage, intended to serve as a theodicy for the harsh punishment given to the house of Eli; it is therefore absent from the Septuagint and 4QSama accounts. In contrast, the text of 1 Kgs 8:4 entered at a relatively early stage and is therefore documented in all the principal manuscripts of Kings. This text entered together with a small group of P-type additions (such as 1 Kgs 8:10–11), which were designed to connect the Torah account to that of Solomon’s Temple 53 Such as the term ‫“( קדש הקדשים‬the holy of holies”), which appears three times in 1 Kings (6:16; 7:50; 8:6); all cases seem redundant in their current location. See Darshan, “QuasiPriestly Additions.”

The Tent of Meeting in Samuel and Kings

143

and create a continuum between the two. Priestly-style additions entered Kings only in the Temple account (1 Kgs 6–8); thus it seems that the unique character of this unit attracted scribes to insert, over time, additions such as these in the style of the Torah texts (especially P) in order to create a continuity between the Divine presence residing within the Tabernacle in the desert and its relocation to the Temple in Jerusalem. Given the fact that both these verses in Samuel and Kings are later additions that are based on the Priestly account in the Torah, it seems that in ancient Israel only the Priestly school used the term “Tent of Meeting” to denote a magnificent tent that escorted the nation in its wanderings. Outside of the Priestly school, the term “Tent of Meeting” was used in a different sense, as a prophetic tent. Among the ancient traditions are some that refer to the ark residing in a tent, though these traditions regard the temporary tent that David erected for that purpose (2 Sam 6:17; 7:2) or the simple tent that served the ark during its wanderings (2 Sam 7:6).54 It is possible that all these ideas and similar traditions (cf. Ps 78:60) developed over time into the Priestly account of the “Tent of Meeting,” which served as a Tabernacle and a portable Temple in the desert.55 However, this issue goes beyond the scope of the current study as it diverts the discussion from the reflection of P in the later strata of the biblical historiography to the sources of inspiration for the Priestly works, a topic that deserves further development in another setting.

54 Cf.

von Rad, “Deuteronomy’s ‘Name’ Theology,” 43–44.  Although the date of Ps 78 is debated, the reference to Shiloh and Adam (the city, cf. Josh 3:16) in vs. 60 appears to be based upon an early tradition. Cf. for example, John Day, “PreDeuteronomic Allusions to the Covenant in Hosea and Psalm LXXVIII,” VT 36 (1986): 1–12; Mark Leuchter, “The Reference to Shiloh in Psalm 78,” HUCA (2006): 1–31. 55

A Glimpse into Ancient Israel’s Priesthood The Priestly School’s Writings of the Pre-Exilic Period Ariel Kopilovitz To Baruch, Whose office, home, mind and heart are always open

1. Introduction and Methodological Remarks The question of what sources were used by the Deuteronomist while composing the Deuteronomistic History (DtrH) has occupied the modern study of the Hebrew Bible in the last decades. Scholars have long recognized that the Deuteronomist used various independent oral traditions and literary materials such as royal chronicles and annals, literary materials that stem from wisdom and prophetic circles, and lists that originated in the temple. The tight literary and ideological connections between DtrH and the Deuteronomic pentateuchal document (D) are also widely recognized and need not be stressed here. But are there literary or ideological connections between DtrH and the other, non-D, pentateuchal traditions? In other words, is it possible that the literary schools whose writings appear in the Pentateuch also created narratives that eventually found their way into DtrH? In nineteenth and early twentieth-century scholarship, when the Documentary Hypothesis was widely accepted, many scholars assumed that the pentateuchal documents also extend into the Former Prophets, and numerous attempts were made to identify them.1 These attempts were mostly unsuccessful, mainly due to the scholarly assumption that the writings of the pentateuchal schools in the Former Prophets must be the direct continuation of their writings in the 1  See, e. g., Carl Heinrich Cornill, “Ein Elohistischer Bericht über die Entstehung des Israelitischen Königthums in I Samuelis 1–15 Aufgezeigt,” Zeitschrift für Kirchliche Wissenschaft und Kirchliches Leben 6 (1885): 113–41; Immanuel Benzinger, Jahvist und Elohist in den Königsbüchern, BWAT 2 (Berlin: Kohlhammer, 1921); Rudolf Smend, “JE in den geschichtlichen Büchern des AT,” ZAW 39 (1921): 181–217. In more recent scholarship this view was also held by Menahem Haran, The Biblical Collection: Its Consolidation to the End of the Second Temple Times and Changes of Form to the End of the Middle Ages (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute and Magnes, 2003), 2:189–95 [Hebrew].

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Pentateuch. Scholars looked for narrative continuity and thematic connections between units to determine literary affinities between pentateuchal and Former Prophets texts; these affinities, unfortunately, often did not exist.2 Furthermore, since the studies of Martin Noth and Gerhard von Rad it has been recognized that the Deuteronomistic school did not endeavor to use all the literary materials it possessed; rather, it often ignored events that were not compatible with its ideology or historiographical purposes.3 Therefore, narrative continuity of the type so prominent in the pentateuchal documents cannot be the primary – much less the decisive – criterion when evaluating the literary connections between DtrH’s sources and the pentateuchal traditions. Moreover, Noth’s findings regarding DtrH’s character and aims established an influential theory that the Pentateuch and the Former Prophets are to be held apart in terms of their compositional history. In current scholarship, however, the separation between the Pentateuch and the Former Prophets has softened. Scholars have suggested much closer relationships between DtrH and the Pentateuch and even maintained that major text blocks in the Pentateuch were linked together by a Deuteronomistic redaction layer.4 But what about the texts in the Former Prophets? Do they, in turn, show any relationship to the pentateuchal texts? Nowadays it is common to discuss the materials available to the Deuteronomist in isolation from the literary materials found in the Pentateuch. In other words, the literary schools whose writings now appear in the Pentateuch related only to Israel’s ancient history (and law) and to events that occurred prior to Israel’s entrance into the promised land. On the other hand, the literary materials that were used by the Deuteronomist were 2  The critique the Documentary Hypothesis received in the last decades, especially among European scholarship, caused this line of inquiry to be almost totally abandoned in current research. However, Baruch Schwartz has raised several compelling arguments for reconsideration of this possibility, at least among neo-documentarians. See his “The Pentateuchal Sources and the Former Prophets: A Neo-Documentarian’s Perspective,” in The Formation of the Pentateuch, ed. Jan C. Gertz et al., FAT 111 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 783–93. 3  Martin Noth, Das Buch Josua, HAT 1/7 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1938); Martin Noth, The Deuteronomistic History, trans. J. Doull et al., JSOTSup 15 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1981); Gerhard von Rad, The Problem of the Hexateuch and other Essays, trans. E. W. Trueman Dicken (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1966). For a critique and reevaluation of Martin Noth’s theory see Thomas C. Römer, “The Current Discussion and the So-Called Deuteronomistic History: Literary Criticism and Theological Consequences,” Humanities 46 (2015): 43–66; idem, “Deuteronomistic History,” EBR 6:648–53. 4  See, e. g., the studies of John Van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975); Hans Heinrich Schmid, Der Sogenannte Jahwist: Beobachtungen und Fragen zur Pentateuchforschung (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1976); Erhard Blum, Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch, BZAW 189 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990). For a survey of scholarship on this issue see Konrad Schmid, “The Emergence and Disappearance of the Separation between the Pentateuch and the Deuteronomistic History in Biblical Studies,” in Pentateuch, Hexateuch, or Enneateuch? Identifying Literary Works in Genesis through Kings, ed. Thomas B. Dozeman et al., AIIL 8 (Atlanta: SBL, 2011), 11–24; idem, “Introduction,” in The Formation of the Pentateuch, ed. Jan C. Gertz et al., FAT 111 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 779–82.

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created by other literary schools that related exclusively to the period following Moses’s death. In this article I will propose a different way to evaluate the literary connections between DtrH and the pentateuchal traditions. It should be stressed at the very beginning that I am not claiming that the pentateuchal documents extend into the Former Prophets. The following discussion will take into consideration the possibility that some of the different literary schools that created the pentateuchal traditions may have also created other genres relating to different periods and did not necessarily intend that all their writings would combine to create a single continuous narrative (or document). These writings were intended to manifest their authors’ approaches to events that occurred in the pre-exilic period, and they were eventually taken by the Deuteronomist and incorporated into his work. Since narrative continuity cannot serve as the only valid criteria to prove a literary connection between pentateuchal and Former Prophets texts, it is necessary to define a different methodological framework that will allow us to determine these connections. I propose to examine the following four criteria to determine these literary ties: (1) commonalities of language, idioms, and style specific to a single pentateuchal literary school; (2) the appearance of legal conceptions unique to one of the pentateuchal literary schools; (3) the appearance of theological, ideological, narratological, or historical views unique to one of the pentateuchal literary schools; and (4) the treating of issues in which a specific pentateuchal literary school might have had a special interest. The identification of a literary connection may lead to an investigation of the relationship between a literary school’s writings in the Pentateuch and its writings in the Former Prophets. One possibility is that they share the same ideology and are perhaps even familiar with each other. A different, equally plausible possibility is that despite affinities in style and perceptions (indicating the primary literary connection), some of their ideologies diverge, either as a result of unfamiliarity with each other or of polemic within the school. In the latter case it will be necessary to determine which text was prior and the background for the polemic. As a test case I will apply the abovementioned methodology on a specific text, the story regarding Jehoash’s enthronement and his renovations of the temple (2 Kgs 11–12, hereafter “the Jehoash narrative”). The first phase of investigation will show that this narrative contains numerous priestly features, indicating that it was created by the very school which also created the pentateuchal priestly document (P). The second phase of investigation will maintain that, despite the literary connections between this narrative and P, there are several discrepancies indicating the early character of this narrative to the extent that it could be defined as a pre-P priestly literary tradition. Its identification may shed new light on our understanding of the Priestly school’s ideology and beliefs and the divergent texts this school has created.

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2. The Jehoash Narrative: Themes and Literary Composition 2 Kings 11–12 relate the events in the life of King Jehoash from his early childhood to his untimely death. They begin with a description of his rescue from death and being hidden in the temple in the days of Athaliah. They continue with the description of the revolt organized by Jehoiada the priest during which Athaliah was killed, Jehoash enthroned, and Judah purged from the Baal cult. They conclude with the renovations Jehoash conducted in the temple and several additional historical reports, such as the Aramean attack on Jerusalem and the assassination of the king. These two chapters are quite distinct from those preceding them, which deal with Jehu’s revolt and its aftermath. While Jehu’s narrative is dramatically described, involves numerous protagonists, and occurs in numerous geographical scenes, Jehoash’s occurs mainly in the temple and its surroundings and involves much less prominent figures. Moreover, the opening of 2 Kgs 11, using the past perfect tense (‫)ועתליה אם אחזיהו ראתה‬, serves as a Wiederaufnahme referring back to the report of Ahaziah’s death (2 Kgs 9:27–28) and is not the direct continuation of Jehu’s story cycle. This fact may indicate the independent character of 2 Kgs 11–12 in relation to the narratives currently surrounding them.5 A further indication of their independence may lie in the way they introduce some of their protagonists. Jehosheba is mentioned in 11:2, but only from 2 Chr 22:11 do we learn that she is Jehoiada’s wife. Likewise, Jehoiada is mentioned in 2 Kgs 11:4 without any accompanying description of his origin or position in the temple, and the fact that he was the high priest appears only in v. 9.6 This may indicate that the present narrative may have been part of a longer one in which the priest and his wife were previously introduced. And finally, the mentioning of Jehoash’s 23rd year (2 Kgs 12:7) is one of the few instances in the book of Kings in which a specific date is noted. This chronological note probably derives from either a royal or a temple chronicle.7 This chronicle was written by an author who was aware of, or at least purports to be, the exact date of the special temple renovations it describes, and perhaps even witnessed them himself.

5 See

also Trevor Raymond Hobbs, 2 Kings, WBC 13 (Waco: Word, 1985), 135.  It seems that this caused some of the LXX versions to add the words ὁ ἱερεὺς, the priest, after Jehoiada’s first mention in v. 4. Patricia Dutcher-Walls, Narrative Art, Political Rhetoric: The Case of Athaliah and Joash, JSOTSup 209 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1996), 32, suggests that Jehoiada’s first mention is a narrative tool that increases suspense and forces the reader to depend more on the narrator for information. 7 See Mordechai Cogan and Hayim Tadmor, 2 Kings, AB 11 (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 138. According to Nadav Na’aman, “Royal Inscriptions and the Histories of Joash and Ahaz, Kings of Judah,” VT 48 (1998): 339–49, the dating of the temple repairs in 2 Kgs 12:7, 22:3, 23:3 indicates that the author consulted some source in which the date was specified. Nadav Na’aman claims that the author of 2 Kgs 12:5–17 wrote this text on the basis of an original building inscription. 6

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It seems then that 2 Kgs 11–12 form a long, unified, and coherent narrative reporting the events of Jehoash’s reign. There is no doubt that during its compilation into DtrH the Deuteronomist edited it and added several frequent and well-known Deuteronomistic formulas (such as the typical introductory, synchronistic, and concluding regnal formulas in 12:1–2, 20 and the evaluation of the king’s righteousness according to his approach to the bamot in 12:3–4). Nevertheless, the independence and coherence of the core narrative allow us to move forward to investigate its literary origin. While discussing the possibility that the Former Prophets contain priestly materials, scholars acknowledged the priestly character of several narratives (especially those relating to the apportionment of the land and the establishment of the Tabernacle in Shiloh in the book of Joshua).8 In addition to the texts in Joshua, Julius Wellhausen claimed that several narratives in the Former Prophets (such as 1 Kgs 6–7; 2 Kgs 12:5–17; 16:10–18; 22–23) focus mainly on the temple and priesthood, and that this thematic criterion indicates their priestly origin.9 Regarding the Jehoash narrative, since the second half of the nineteenth century scholars have pointed to the two references to Athaliah’s death (2 Kgs 11:16, 20), the sudden appearance of the people of the land in v. 13, and what at first sight seems to be a disruption of the sequence of events in v. 18 (the destruction of the Baal temple, while Jehoash is still waiting in the temple). On these grounds they divided the chapter into two literary strands: the first (2 Kgs 11:1–12, 18b–20) was seen to reflect a priestly and official account of Athaliah’s downfall that highlights the priests’ and officials’ role and uses the long form ‫( עתליהו‬vv. 2, 20). The second (vv. 13–18a) was said to reflect a more popular perspective on the events that highlights the role of the “people of the land” (‫עם‬ ‫ )הארץ‬and uses the shorter form ‫( עתליה‬vv. 13–14).10 However, in current scholarship, the division suggested above is considered far from satisfactory. To begin with, the “popular” account can hardly stand by itself. It lacks a coherent beginning and is completely depended on the preceding verses regarding the major protagonists’ background and the reason for their  8 See, e. g., Norbert Lohfink, “The Priestly Narrative and History,” in Theology of the Pentateuch: Themes of the Priestly Narrative and Deuteronomy, trans. Linda M. Mahoney (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994), 136–72; Ernst Axel Knauf, Josua, ZBK 6 (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 2008), 20.  9  Julius Wellhausen, Die Composition des Hexateuchs und der historischen Bücher des Alten Testaments (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1963), 292–93. 10 See already Bernhard Stade, “Miscellen 10,” ZAW 5 (1885): 284–87; John Gray, I & II Kings (London: SCM, 1964), 515–27. Christoph Levin, Der Sturz der Königin Atalja: Ein Kapitel zur Geschichte Judas im 9. Jahrhundert v. Chr., SBS 105 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1982), 23– 24, argued for an early narrative (vv. 1–2, 3b, 5–6, 8a, 12b, 13a, 14b, 16, 17b, 19b, 20a) that underwent three successive post-exilic redactions. The word ‫ רצין‬in v. 14 was considered a secondary interpolation attempting to connect the popular strand which mentioned only the “people” (‫ )העם‬with the runners mentioned earlier in the priestly strand. See John Gray, Kings, 520.

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gathering in the temple. Furthermore, in the “priestly” account, the people play a prominent part (v. 19) while in the “popular” account Jehoida the priest is prominent. Likewise, the short form ‫ עתליה‬also appears in the “priestly” account (v. 1, 3), not to mention that -yah/-yahu variants in personal names endings are common. Thus, in the Jehoash narrative the queen’s name cannot serve as a valid criterion for differentiating between literary strands. Finally, the mentioning of Athaliah’s death in v. 20 may be understood as a short concluding summary notice and not an independent report of her execution. It seems then that 2 Kgs 11 is a self-contained narrative whose evidently priestly characteristics are not confined to a certain literary strand. It depicts the actions of priests, soldiers, and the people of the land in restoring the House of David to its throne.11 In addition to the priestly characteristics in 2 Kgs 11, many commentators noted the focus of 12:5–17 on the temple renovations and their differences in style in relation to the textual units surrounding them (the introduction and conclusion formulas to Jehoash’s reign, vv. 1–4, 20–22, and the Aramean attack and the bribe paid to prevent it, vv. 18–19). Therefore, they considered vv. 5–17 to stem from priestly authors.12 However, here as well, despite the differences in style, there are no apparent contradictions between the different units in 2 Kgs 12 and, as noted by many scholars, there are compelling arguments to see 2 Kgs 11–12 as a thematically unified account of Jehoash’s days.13 Although scholars usually acknowledge some priestly features appearing in the Jehoash narrative (and in other narratives in the Former Prophets as well), their nature and origin are still a matter of debate. Some suggest that the source from which these narratives were drawn may have been temple chronicles that were stored in the temple archives or libraries. These narratives would most probably have been written by priests and served as part of DtrH’s building blocks.14 Others maintain that the Jehoash narrative is part of the work of the Deuterono11  See, e. g., Hobbs, 2 Kings, 136; Burke O. Long, 2 Kings, FOTL 10 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 147; Stephen L. McKenzie, 1 Kings 16–2 Kings 16, IECOT (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 2019), 440–41. 12 See, e. g., Gray, Kings, 526. 13 See, e. g., Hans-Detlef Hoffmann, Reform und Reformen: Untersuchungen zu einem Grundthema der deuteronomistischen Geschichtsschreibung (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1980), 111; Dutcher-Walls, Narrative Art, 24–25. 14 See, e. g., Wellhausen, Composition, 293–97; Charles Fox Burney, Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Book of Kings (Oxford: Clarendon, 1903), 77–78; S. R. Driver, An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1914), 186–89; Robert H. Pfeiffer, Introduction to the Old Testament (New York: Harper & Bros, 1948), 401–402; Gray, Kings, 526, 582–83; Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972), 183; Nadav Na’aman, “The Temple Library of Jerusalem and the Composition of the Book of Kings,” in Congress Volume Leiden 2004, ed. André Lemaire, VTSup 109 (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 129–52. One of the most elaborated discussions of this issue is Meir Paran, Forms of the Priestly Style in the Pentateuch: Patterns, Linguistic Uses, Syntactic Structures (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1989) [Hebrew], who depicted these narratives as “temple chronicles” (309) dealing with the cultic reality of the first temple period.

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mist and consider priestly terminology to reflect the author’s familiarity with some of the professional language of the priesthood.15 And some have understood the priestly-looking passages in the Former Prophets to be brief, localized priestly interpolations,16 which were part of a late priestly redaction of DtrH, subsequent to its original composition.17 Whichever way, based on their evaluation of the nature and scope of the priestly materials in the Former Prophets, most scholars have ruled out the possibility that these priestly-looking narratives had any connection to the priestly school responsible for the creation of P. It seems that there is a justification for a new evaluation of the priestly features in the Jehoash narrative. This evaluation will allow us to determine whether these priestly features are confined to mere thematic dealings with the temple and its happenings, or whether this narrative contains additional characteristics that indicate a much deeper literary connection to the Priestly writings in the Pentateuch.

3. Priestly Language, Idioms and Style The broadest and most complete manifestation of priestly language and style is found of course in the Priestly writings in the Pentateuch. However, priestly language appears not only in P but also in Ezekiel, whose priestly background is well established.18 Therefore, words, idioms, and unique style in the Jehoash narrative that appear mainly in P and Ezekiel may indicate its priestly origin. In this regard, the occurrence of these unique words and idioms also in other texts which mainly relate to the temple or the cultic sphere may serve as an additional affirmation of their priestly character. …‫ויצום לאמר זה הדבר אשר תעשון…ויעשו…ככל אשר צוה יהוידע‬, “He instructed them: This is what you must do … They did … just as Jehoiada ordered” (2 Kgs 11:5, 9): The form and structure of Jehoiada’s orders to the commanders (‫זה הדבר‬ ‫ אשר‬+ verb) and the report on their full implementation (verb + ‫)ככל אשר צוה‬ 15 See,

e. g. McKenzie, Kings, 454–55. e. g., Haran, Biblical Collection, 2:194–95, 298–99. 17  See, e. g., Martin Noth, Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Studien: Die sammelnden und bearbeitenden Geschichtswerke im Alten Testament (Tübingen: M. Niemeyer, 1957), 182–90; Ernst Würthwein, 1 Könige 17–2 Könige 25, ATD 11(2) (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984), 354–57; Thomas C. Römer, “The Problem of the Hexateuch,” in The Formation of the Pentateuch, ed. Jan C. Gertz et al., FAT 111 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 813–27. 18  See, e. g., Avi Hurvitz, A Linguistic Study of the Relationship between the Priestly Source and the Book of Ezekiel:A New Approach to an old Problem (Paris: J. Gabalda, 1982); Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 23–27, AB 3C (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 235–63; Risa Levitt-Kohn, A New Heart and a New Soul: Ezekiel, the Exile, and the Torah, JSOTSup 358 (London: Sheffield Academic, 2002); Michael A. Lyons, From Law to Prophecy: Ezekiel’s Use of the Holiness Code (New York: T & T Clark, 2009). 16 Thus,

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are unique to P (e. g., Exod 29:1; 35:4; Lev 8:4–5; Num 2:34). They also occur in 2 Kgs 16:11, 16, a literary unit which has been identified by many as containing priestly elements.19 ‫שבת‬, Sabbath (2 Kgs 11:5, 7, 9): In most of its biblical occurrences the word Sabbath designates the seventh day of the week in which a “cessation” of labor is required. However, in P, ‫ שבת‬has a wider range of meanings and in addition to the seventh day, it might denote a certain festival (in which a cessation of work is demanded as well), a week, or an entire year. Thus, Lev 23:15 orders to count off, starting the day after the offering of the sheaf of elevation, “seven complete weeks” (‫)שבע שבתות תמימת תהיינה‬. Likewise, Lev 25:8 orders to “count off seven weeks of years” (‫)שבע שבתת שנים‬.20 It is unlikely that the guards’ duty in the Jehoash narrative lasted only one day during the week or that the changing of the shifts, with all the trouble it involved, was scheduled to occur on the Sabbath. Therefore, it seems that the Jehoash narrative uses the term ‫ שבת‬to mean an entire week, a sense otherwise attested only in P. Thus, from Jehoiada’s orders we may learn that the royal guard was divided into three parts: each week, one part was on duty (‫באי השבת‬, those entering the week’s shift, not necessarily on Saturday) and was positioned in three different posts within the palace compound, while the other two were off duty (‫יצאי השבת‬, those leaving the week’s shift).21 To protect Jehoash during the coup, Jehoiada assigned special tasks to members of the guard who were currently off duty and ordered them to take positions in the temple’s entrance.22 ‫שלשית‬, third (2 Kgs 11:5–6): this term appears twenty-four times in the Bible. Six of its occurrences are in this chapter and its parallel in 2 Chr 23:4–5. Out of its eighteen remaining occurrences, three appear in P and eight in Ezekiel. An additional occurrence is in 1 Kgs 6:6, which is part of a narrative dealing with Solomon’s temple and containing numerous phrases relating to the cultic sphere.23 In this context it should be noted that although they were probably

19 See Paran, Priestly Style, 325. Paran also points to the formula ‫ על‬+ noun + ‫ סביב‬which, although appearing in non-priestly texts, is very frequent in P (Exod 28:33–34; 29:16, 20; 39:25– 26; Lev 1:5, 11; 3:2, 8, 13; 7:2; 8:15; Num 3:26). 20  A possible understanding of Lev 23:15–16; 25:8 is that both cases refer to a counting of consecutive sabbath days or sabbatical years (i. e., counting seven items). However, since in both cases the overall sum of counted items is mentioned as well (fifty days / forty-nine years), it seems that the specific units were counted as well and the ‫ שבת‬in these cases refers to groups containing seven components. See further Lev 16:31; 23:32; 25:2, 4; BDB, 992 [s. v. ‫]שבת‬. 21 For this 1:2 ratio in royal tasks see 1 Kgs 5:28: “one month in the Lebanon and two months at home.” 22  See McKenzie, Kings, 436; Gnana Robinson, “Is 2 Kings XI 6 a Gloss?,” VT 27 (1977): 56–61. 23  See Num 15:6, 7; 28:14; Ezek 5:2, 12; 21:19; 46:14. The other occurrences appear in 2 Sam 18:2; Zach 13:9 and Neh 10:33.

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known also among non-priestly circles, other terms denoting parts of the whole such as half, quarter, fifth, and sixth appear mostly in priestly texts.24 ‫( כתף הבית‬2 Kgs 11:11): the primary meaning of ‫ כתף‬is shoulder (Exod 28:12; Judg 16:3; 1 Sam 17:6), and, in a related use, it refers to the shoulder pieces of the ephod (Exod 28:7, 12, 25). However, since the story relates to the “shoulder of the house” it is clear that this meaning does not fit the present context. In the priestly writings, the term ‫ כתף‬appears in two additional meanings: as part of geographical descriptions of mountain slopes;25 or as parts of the description of architectural features of the Temple or the Tabernacle.26 It seems that 2 Kgs 11:11 applies this last specific meaning in its description of the guards deploying within the temple’s main entrance. By positioning themselves from one side of the entrance to the other, the guards could protect Jehoash who was within the temple, and prevent Athaliah from breaking in. ‫( הימנית…השמאלית‬2 Kgs 11:11): the nouns ‫ ימין‬and ‫( שמאל‬right and left) are frequent in the Hebrew Bible. However, the adjectives ‫ ימני‬and ‫( שמאלי‬right and left hand or side) appear only in priestly texts27 or texts relating to the Temple compound.28 In this regard it is worth mentioning a further spatial note appearing in the Jehoash narrative. 2 Kings 12:12 mentions that Jehoiada placed a chest “at the right side of the altar as one entered the House of the Lord” (‫אצל‬ ‫)המזבח מימין בבוא איש בית יהוה‬. Such a description, which refers not only to the absolute directions but also to the assumed point of view, appears only two additional times in the Bible, both in cultic related texts.29 ‫נזר‬, crown (2 Kgs 11:12): This term appears twenty five times in the Bible. Apart from the present context and its parallel in 2 Chr 23:11, seventeen out its remaining occurrences are in P.30

24 See ‫מחצית‬: Exod 30:13, 15, 23; 38:26; Lev 6:13; Num 31:29, 30, 42, 47 (the term ‫ חצי‬appears in non-priestly texts); ‫רביעית‬: Exod 29:40; Lev 23:13; Num 15:4, 5; 28:5, 7, 14; 1 Kgs 6:33; Ezek 48:20 (outside of the priestly writings, the term ‫ רבע‬appears only in 1 Sam 9:8; 2 Kgs 6:25); ‫חמישית‬: Lev 5:16, 24; 22:14; 27:13, 15, 19, 27, 31; Num 5:7; ‫שישית‬: Ezek 4:11; 45:13; 46:14. 25  See Num 34:11; Ezek 25:9 (the meaning of Deut 33:12 is uncertain). This meaning is frequent in Josh 15:8, 10, 11; 18:12, 13, 16, 18, 19, that are widely recognized as part of a priestly stratum in the book of Joshua. 26 See Exod 27:14, 15; 38:14, 15; Ezek 40:18, 40, 41, 44; 41:2, 26; 46:19; 47:1, 2. This meaning also appears in 1 Kgs 6:8; 7:34, 39, which deal with Solomon’s temple. See also Robert D. Haak, “The ‘Shoulder’ of the Temple,” VT 33 (1983): 271–78, who maintained that the ‫ ָּכ ֵתף‬refers to a portion of an entrance or gate which extends from the edge of the opening outward until the next corner. 27  Exod 29:20; Lev 8:23–24; 14:14, 15, 16, 17, 25, 26 27, 28; Ezek 4:6; 47:1–2. 28  1 Kgs 6:8; 7:21, 39; 2 Chr 3:17; 4:10 29  2 Kgs 23:8 relates to Josiah’s cultic reform and Ezek 10:3 relates to the cherubim the prophet saw in the temple. 30  See e. g. Exod 29:6; 39:30; Lev 8:9; 21:12; Num 6:4. Note that the synonym ‫ עטרה‬does not appear in the priestly writings at all, indicating the priestly authors’ preference for ‫ נזר‬over ‫עטרה‬.

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‫חצצרות‬, trumpets (2 Kgs 11:14): the trumpets are mentioned in the Pentateuch only in P.31 It seems that unlike the shofar that was made of horn and was used by the people on various occasions, the silver-made trumpets were used by the priests alone and only in cultic circumstances.32 -‫( אל מבית ל‬2 Kgs 11:15): The frequent meaning of ‫ בית‬is well-known. However, the metaphorical terms ‫ביתה‬, inwards, ‫מבית‬, inside (as opposite of ‫ )מחוץ‬and the exact term appearing in the Jehoash narrative ‫מבית ל‬-, within, beyond, appear almost exclusively in priestly texts or texts related to the temple.33 ‫צלמיו‬, his images (2 Kgs 11:18): the word ‫צלם‬, which in our case relates to the images of Baal, appears only 17 times in the Bible. Most of its occurrences are in P, where it relates to the fact the God created man “in our image, after our likeness” (‫בצלמנו כדמותנו‬, Gen 1:26–27) or to the resemblance between human beings and their offspring (Gen 5:3).34 ‫כסף הקדשים‬, sanctified silver (2 Kgs 12:5): the word ‫ קדש‬appear dozens of times in priestly texts, but it does have several occurrences in non-priestly writings. The plural form ‫קדשים‬, however, occurs almost exclusively in priestly texts.35 ‫( חזק בדק‬2 Kgs 12:6–9, 13): The word ‫בדק‬, crack or fracture, relates here to damages to the temple’s compound and appears in this meaning also in 2 Kgs 22:5. However, the exact phrase ‫לחזק בדק‬, to strengthen or repair a fracture, appears only in the Jehoash narrative and in Ezek 27:9, 27. ‫( ספות כסף‬2 Kgs 12:14): ‫ סף‬as referring to a bowl or a goblet appears only five additional times in the Bible.36 Two of them are in P (Exod 12:22), another two are in texts relating to the temple’s vessels used in the cult (1 Kgs 7:50; Jer 52:19), and the last one is in a post-exilic text (Zech 12:2). ‫( מזרקות‬2 Kgs 12:14): ‫ מזרק‬was probably a vessel for tossing liquid. It is mentioned in P as part of the vessels related to the bronze altar (Exod 27:3; 38:3; Num 4:14) and in the chieftains’ donations,37 while almost all its other occurrences are in lists relating to the cultic instruments.38  See Num 10:2, 8, 9, 10: 31:6. Except for their two occurrences in 2 Kgs 11–12, they occur only in Hos 5:8; Ps 98:6 and post-exilic writings. 32  See Jacob Milgrom, Numbers, JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia: JPS, 1990), 72–75. 33 See Exod 26:33; 28:26; 39:19; Lev 16:2, 12, 15; Num 18:7; 1 Kgs 7:8, 25, 31; Ezek 44:17. The only exception is 2 Sam 5:9, which also relates to one of David’s building projects. 34 See further Gen 9:6; Num 33:52; Ezek 7:20; 16:17; 23:14. The remaining 4 occurrences appear in 1 Sam 6:5, 11, which relates to what happened to the ark in the Philistines’ land; Amos 5:26, whose originality is debated; and Ps 39:7; 73:20. 35  See e. g. Exod 28:38; Lev 21:22; 22:3, 6; Num 18:19; Ezek 20:40; 22:26; 36:38. See also in the Jehoash narrative, 2 Kgs 12:19. The only exceptions to this rule are Deut 12:26; 1 Kgs 7:51 (which deals with Solomon’s temple); 15:15 (which deals with king Asa’s actions in the temple); and several second temple writings. 36 See BDB 706 [s. v. ‫ סף‬I]; HALOT 2:762 [s. v. ‫ סף‬I]. 37  See Num 7:13, 19, 25, 31, 37, 43, 49, 55, 61, 67, 73, 79, 84, 85. 38  See 1 Kgs 7:40, 45, 50; 2 Kgs 25:15; Jer 52:18; Zech 9:15; 14:20; Neh 7:69; 1 Chr 28:17; 2 Chr 4:8, 11, 22). The only exception is Amos 6:6. 31

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In addition to the abovementioned terms that are prevalent in P, one should also regard the following phrases. These do not appear exclusively in priestly texts but their use by priestly authors indicates their prevalence among this literary school and adds to our conclusion that the Jehoash narrative has a priestly origin: ‫זרע הממלכה‬, “royal seed” (2 Kgs 11:1): This phrase relates to all the descendants of the royal family who are considered to be legitimate heirs of the throne. Alongside its occurrences in several non-priestly texts (1 Kgs 11:14; 2 Kgs 25:25; Jer 41:1; Dan 1:3) it also appears in this exact meaning in Ezek 17:13.39 ‫( שדרות‬2 Kgs 11:8, 15): Most commentators agreed that this term relates to a row of certain objects.40 It appears only four times in the Bible: three times in this chapter and its parallel in 2 Chr 23:14 and one time in 1 Kgs 6:9, which deals with Solomon’s temple. ‫( מזמרות‬2 Kgs 12:14): the meaning of this instrument is uncertain. Nevertheless, it appears only five times in the Bible, all of them relating to one of the temple’s cultic vessels.41

4. Priestly Legal Conceptions A further indication of the priestly origin of the Jehoash narrative is the appearance of unique priestly legal conceptions or the implementation of norms that otherwise are known only in P. ‫( שמרי משמרת‬2 Kgs 11:5–7): This term appears in Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic literature, where it usually relates to the keeping of God’s orders.42 However, its occurrences in P, in connection with the Tabernacle, mean “guard duty” that was meant to prevent unauthorized people (‫ )זר‬from entering the holy precincts even at the cost of their lives (‫והזר הקרב יומת‬, Num 3:28).43 This specific meaning corresponds to its occurrences in 2 Kgs 11, where Jehoiada orders the commanders to set guarding posts at the temple’s gates and around the king. In this regard it is worth mentioning the resemblance between the priestly order 39 See

also the Akkadian parallel zēr šarrutim, CAD Z:95.  Some claimed that it relates to a rank of soldiers in line. See e. g. BDB, 690 [s. v. ‫ ;]סדר‬Gray, Kings, 517; Cogan and Tadmor, 2 Kings, 127; and Akkadian sidirtu, row of soldiers prepared for battle, CAD S:233. Others maintained that it relates here to a row of columns in the temple precincts. See, e. g., 1 Kgs 6:9; Albert Šanda, Die Bucher der Könige (Munster: Aschendorff, 1912), 2:129. 41 See 1 Kgs 7:50; 2 Kgs 25:14; Jer 52:18; 2 Chr 4:22. The medieval commentators suggested that it refers to a musical instrument (see, e. g., Rashi), while others maintain that it relates to a tool for trimming the wicks of lamps (see, e. g., McKenzie, Kings, 459). 42  See e. g. Deut 11:1; 1 Kgs 2:3; Paran, Priestly Style, 315. 43  See e. g., Num 3:28; 8:26; Jacob Milgrom, Studies in Levitical Terminology, I (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), 12–15. 40

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to kill trespassers and Jehoiada’s order ‫והבא אל השדרות יומת‬, “whoever breaks through the ranks shall be killed” (2 Kgs 11:8).44 Jehoiada’s order to take Athaliah out of the temple reflects his concern that “she will not be put to death in the House of the Lord” (2 Kgs 11:15). This detail reflects the priestly concern for the temple’s purity and the different measures taken by P to ban impure persons (especially by corpse contamination) from entering the Tabernacle (Lev 12:4; 13:45–46; Num 5:1–4; 19:20). It seems that the positioning of the runners ‫מכתף הבית הימנית עד כתף הבית השמאלית‬, at the temple’s entrance, also relates to this issue. Jehoiada orders these runners to kill anyone approaching the ranks, meaning to kill him outside the temple’s precincts before he enters it. Admittedly, the notion that bloodshed in the temple should be avoided is not exclusively priestly. It appears also in non-priestly texts, such as in the order to take the murderer away from God’s altar to be put to death (Exod 21:14).45 Nevertheless, the Jehoash narrative presents this issue as the high priest’s interest (“For the priest said: Let her not …”), while the rest of the characters are less concerned with this matter. Another indication of priestly legal perceptions may lie in the mention of the “priests guarding the threshold” (2 Kgs 12:10). The task of these priests was to prevent the unauthorized Israelites from approaching too close to the altar area. Thus, the Israelites attending the temple could not deposit their donations in the chest situated by the altar and needed the threshold guards to do that for them. This is quite consistent with the priestly regulations that do not allow the Israelites to approach the altar and that situate the priests as the guards (‫שמרים‬ ‫ )משמרת המקדש‬of the Tabernacle eastern side, meaning its entrance (Num 3:38). This issue leads to a further priestly legal perception evident in the Jehoash narrative. According to 2 Kgs 12:10, Jehoiada placed the chest “at the right side of the altar as one entered the House of the Lord.” This verse has vexed the commentators, who noted that the altar stood at the center of the temple’s court and not at its entrance. Modern critics have either adopted the problematic version of the LXX to read ‫ מצבה‬instead of ‫מזבח‬,46 or assumed the existence of two sep44  See also Burke O. Long, “Sacred Geography as Narrative Structure in 2 Kings 11,” in Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish and Near Eastern Ritual, Law and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom, ed. David P. Wright, David Noel Freedman, and Avi Hurvitz (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1995), 231–38. This understanding may lead to an emendation proposal for ‫ושמרתם את משמרת הבית מסח‬, which has vexed commentators, to read ‫ושמרתם את משמרת‬ ‫הבית מזר‬, “you shall keep guard over the House from strangers (i. e., the unauthorized).” 45 See also Adoniah’s and Joab’s expectation that their presence in the temple would save their lives (1 Kgs 1:50–51; 2:28–31). 46  Most of the LXX versions read the obscure ιαμιβιν. Several versions (such as A) read αμμασβη, which led scholars to the conclusion that the LXX vorlage read ‫( מצבה‬see, e. g., Stade, “Miscellen 10,” 289–90; Šanda, Könige II, 141–42). For a critique of this proposal see already William McKane, “A Note on 2 Kings 12:10 (Evv 12:9),” ZAW 71 (1959): 260–65. On the basis of 2 Chr 24:8, August Klostermann, Die Bücher Samuelis und der Könige (Nordlingen: C. H. Beck, 1887), 434 proposed to read ‫המזוזה‬, the doorpost.

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arate altars, one at the court’s center and the other at its entrance.47 However, it seems that none of these proposals is necessary. A close examination of 2 Kgs 12:10 reveals that both the altar and the chest that stood next to it were at the court’s center. The words ‫מימין בבוא איש בית יהוה‬, “at the right side of the altar as one entered the House of the Lord,” mean that the chest stood at the right side of the altar from the perspective of those entering the temple, and do not indicate that they actually stood at its entrance. A support for this understanding may be found in the fact that those who deposited the silver in the chest were the priestly guards of the threshold and not the depositors themselves. Had the chest been located at the court’s entrance, any person passing by could have deposited the silver in the chest by himself. The fact that the Israelites needed the priestly threshold guards to do this for them indicates that the chest stood in a place to which Israel had no access. Thus, both the livestock and silver brought to the temple were handled in the Israelites’ eyesight but beyond their physical reach. If this understanding is correct, it reflects the priestly legal norm according to which the altar stood at the Tabernacle’s court, but since it was defined as ‫“ קדש קדשים‬most holy” (Exod 40:10), Israelites were not allowed to approach it (needless to say touch it). After laying their hands upon the head of the offering and slaughtering it, Israelites needed the priests to dash the blood against the altar sides and to lay the sacrifice parts upon the altar (Lev 1:4–9; 3:1–5; 4:27–31). ‫( כסף עובר איש‬2 Kgs 12:5): This phrase refers to silver brought as sacred contributions to the temple. The phrasing of MT (lit. “silver of a passing person”) is quite unusual. It seems, however, that the medieval commentators were correct in understanding this shortened form to refer to silver given by ‫כל העבר על הפקדים‬ (Exod 30:13), meaning silver paid during the census.48 The danger caused by the census is mentioned in both Priestly and non-Priestly writings (see 2 Sam 24); however, the option to avoid this danger by paying silver as ransom is mentioned only in P (Exod 30:16).49 ‫( כסף נפשות ערכו‬2 Kgs 12:5): The word ‫ערך‬, valuation, is frequent in priestly texts.50 Furthermore, the combination of ‫ערך‬, ‫כסף‬, and ‫ נפש‬appears only in priestly texts, and only P mentions silver at the value of a person as a payment given to the Tabernacle. It seems that here as well, the “silver of persons, his valuation” refers to the reality reflected in the priestly law dealing with vows of per See, e. g., McKenzie, Kings, 456.  See Rashi and Radak. Šanda, Könige, 2:139 has pointed to Gen 23:16 (‫ )שקל כסף עבר לסחר‬and argued that this term refers to ingots that had been officially weighed and stamped. Mordechai Cogan and Hayim Tadmor, 2 Kings, 137 understood this term to refer to some kind of an entrance levy. McKenzie, Kings, 447, following LXXL, read here ‫ ;כסף ערך איש‬however, since this kind of contribution is stated in the subsequent words, ‫כסף נפשות ערכו‬, MT should be preferred. 49  It seems that the Chronicler’s depiction of this silver as ‫( משאת משה עבד האלהים‬2 Chr 24:6, 9) reflects the same understanding and hints at the opening of P’s census law: ‫כי תשא את ראש בני‬ ‫( ישראל לפקדיהם‬Exod 30:12). 50  See, e. g., Lev 5:15, 18, 25; 27:3, 5, 6; Num 18:16. 47 48

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sons or animals to God and their payment ‫בערכך נפשת‬, “according to the valuation of persons” (Lev 27:2).51 ‫( אשם…חטאות‬2 Kgs 12:17): The non-priestly traditions mention mainly two types of sacrifices: ‫עלה‬, burnt offering, and ‫שלמים‬, sacrifice of well-being or ‫זבח‬, sacrifice.52 The priestly traditions, however, are aware of a much wider range of sacrifices, and in addition to the above-mentioned sacrifices, they alone mention sacrifices as ‫חטאת‬, purification offering and ‫אשם‬, reparation offering.53

5. Priestly Theological and Ideological Views A further indication for the priestly origin of the Jehoash narrative may lie in its inclusion of priestly theological and ideological views which are otherwise mentioned only in P. As noted by Long, 2 Kgs 11 differentiates between two notions of space: within the holy temple associated with God and life the scion of David survives, while outside this protective realm (associated with impurity and death) the idolatrous Athaliah rules. Jehoiada, who plans the coup, acts entirely from within the boundaries of the holy space. The preparations for the coup define an ideological map which separates the legitimate from the illegitimate. The temple, its sanctified priest, and the Levite-like cordon of guardians protecting from encroachments mark out the inviolate zone of power from which politicoreligious actions gain authority. On the other hand, the palace wherein Athaliah rules is outside the bounds of the temple, beyond sacral space, and thus she is without religiously sanctioned political authority.54 There is no doubt that nonpriestly authors could also acknowledge the temple’s holiness and uniqueness. However, a comparison to non-priestly narratives which deal with the legitimation of kings will highlight the differences in emphasis. While the legitimacy of Solomon, Jeroboam and Jehu is emphasized through the prophetic acknowledgment of their right to rule (2 Sam 12:25; 1 Kgs 1:11–27; 11:29–39; 19:16; 51 An ostracon dated to the end of the seventh century bce mentions silver payment ‫לערכך‬. According to Esther Eshel, “A Late Iron Age Ostracon Featuring the Term ‫לערכך‬,” IEJ 53 (2003): 151–63, the ostracon documents the transmission of monetary equivalents for human beings or their vows to a temple. She further suggests, in light of 2 Kgs 12, that the two individuals mentioned as the silver recipients were a scribe (‫ )דעויהו הספר‬and a priest (‫)מחסיהו‬. In any case, this ostracon is evidence for the practice of silver payment according to ‫ ערכך‬valuations already during the pre-exilic period. 52 See e. g. Exod 20:21; 32:6; Deut 12:13–14, 27; 1 Sam 13:9. 53 For ‫ אשם‬see e. g. Lev 7:1, 5; 14:21; Num 5:8; Ezek 40:39; 42:13; 44:29. The only exception is the mice brought by the Philistines in 1 Sam 6:3, 4, 8. I hope to examine this narrative in a separate paper. For ‫ חטאת‬see e. g. Exod 29:36; Lev 6:18; Num 28:22; Ezek 43:25; 45:22. 54  Long, “Sacred Geography,” demonstrates how the killing of Athaliah, the renewal of the covenant with the people, and the destruction of the Baal cult extend the realms of the holy space from the temple to the palace and the entire land.

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2 Kgs 9:1–13), the Jehoash narrative does this exclusively through emphasizing Jehoash’s close ties with the temple and the priesthood. A further priestly theological perception may be found in the slaying of Mattan, the priest of Baal, “in front of the altars” (2 Kgs 11:18). This description resembles that of 2 Kgs 23:20, where Josiah slays the priests of the bamot on the altars. Perhaps the proximity between “[they] tore down your altars and put your prophets to the sword” (1 Kgs 19:14) also hints at these kind of actions. A similar though not identical description also appears in several priestly texts. Lev 26:30 mentions that Israel’s corpses would fall in front of their idols. Likewise, Ezekiel predicts that Israel’s corpses would fall in front of their idols and altars (Ezek 6:4–5, 13) and describes the killing of some twenty-five people who bow to the sun in front of the altar (Ezek 8:16–9:7). Despite the slight differences between these texts, they all refer to a symbolic execution of an idolater in front of his idols or cultic utensils, thus emphasizing the idols’ inability to save their worshippers in times of need.

6. Issues in Which Priestly Authors Might Have Had a Special Interest The final criterion that may emphasize the priestly character of the Jehoash narrative has been partially discussed by scholars who maintain that 2 Kgs 11– 12 focus thematically on the temple and its happenings. In addition to their significant findings, I would like to add several arguments to highlight the great interest priestly authors might have had in Jehoash’s reign. Unlike Jehu’s revolt, which was encouraged by the prophetic circles (2 Kgs 9–10), prophets are completely absent in the Jehoash narrative.55 In fact, this is the first time that the priesthood is openly active in Judah’s politics. Throughout almost the whole of 2 Kgs 11 Jehoash is a passive character, while Jehoiada has a dominant role in the revolution against Athaliah and crowning the young king. He has the power to “send for,” “take,” “bring,” and command the officers, runners, and Carians (who are usually associated with the house of the king), and they obey wordlessly.56 The covenant with the officers is depicted with the term ‫( כרת ברית ל‬as opposed to ‫)כרת ברית עם‬, indicating Jehoiada’s superior status and role as the covenant grantor, determining the terms for the queen’s guards who are about to betray her.57 The temple under Jehoiada’s supervision serves as the very place where loyalty to Judah’s royal house is kept by hiding 55 It seems that this fact concerned the author of 2 Chr 24:19–22, who added a prophetic rebuke of the king’s conducts. 56  See Dutcher-Walls, Narrative Art, 31–35. 57  For ‫ כרת ברית ל‬see Deut 7:2; Josh 9:6; 1 Sam 11:1–2; 2 Sam 5:3.

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and maintaining both the last surviving Davidide and the royal insignia (2 Kgs 11:10). This no doubt earned Jehoiada a position of considerable influence at the royal court and Jehoash is said to abide by Jehoiada’s orders “all his life” (2 Kgs 12:3).58 Furthermore, according to 2 Chr 22:11, Jehosheba, king Ahaziahu’s sister, was also Jehoiada’s wife. This indicates that another figure active in this story is related to the priestly circles and reveals the close ties between the priesthood and the royal court. This priestly dominance may account for the special interest Jehoash showed in temple affairs, but at the same time may explain why priests would be so interested in reporting this golden age in the relationship between the priesthood and the king’s court. Jehoash’s enthronement led to Judah’s purification from the Baal cult. The Baal temple, which probably enjoyed royal patronage during Athaliah’s reign, was ruined, and Mattan, the priest of Baal, was killed. It is difficult to reconstruct the exact historical background lying behind these descriptions. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the decline of the Baal cult restored the status of both YHWH’s Temple and the Jerusalem priesthood.59 Therefore, priestly interest in reporting these events (from their priestly point of view) should not surprise us. In addition, 2 Kgs 11–12 refer to the establishment of two significant temple institutions. The first is the setting of guards (‫ )פקדת‬over the temple (2 Kgs 11:18). The immediate task of these guards was probably to prevent Athaliah’s supporters from entering the temple and harming the newly enthroned king. However, from Jer 29:26 it appears that this was not only an ad hoc mission but also a permanent system of guard duty still credited to Jehoiada in Jeremiah’s days, and another priestly writer, Ezekiel, anticipates its restoration (Ezek 44:11). The second is the royal order to deposit the silver brought to the temple in a chest at the temple’s entrance and not to give it directly to the priests, as was customary in Jehoash’s first 23 years of reign. The grammar of 2 Kgs 12:9 and 11 indicates that this was not only an ad hoc royal order but rather a permanent system which continued to be in effect until the days of Josiah (2 Kgs 22:3–7) and maybe even in the second temple period (Matt 27:6).60 It seems highly reasonable that a

58 According to 2 Chr 24:3, 16 Jehoiada was responsible for choosing the king’s wives and eventually was buried in the City of David together with the kings. See also Cogan and Tadmor, 2 Kings, 140, who suggest that Jehoiada may have been Jehoash’s guardian, perhaps even regent in Judah. 59 See also Hanoch Reviv, “On the Days of Athaliah and Joash,” Beit Mikra 16 (1971): 541–48 [Hebrew]. 60  See Jacob Liver, “Jehoiada,” EncMiq 3:521–22 [Hebrew]; Oded Lipschits, “On Cash-Boxes and Finding or Not Finding Books: Jehoash’s and Josiah’s Decisions to Repair the Temple,” in Essays on Ancient Israel in Its Near Eastern Context: A Tribute to Nadav Naaman, ed. Yairah Amit et al. (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2006), 239–54, has shown that 2 Kgs 12 actually focuses on the chest and the establishment of the system of collecting silver in the temple and not on the temple repairs.

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priestly author aware of these temple institutions would be interested in relating the circumstances under which they were established. And finally, 2 Kgs 12:19 refers to a significant payment of gold from the temple treasuries. It is well known that ancient Near Eastern temples kept a careful record of their inventory and documented payments issued from it. Therefore, it seems highly reasonable that priests would find interest in reporting the events that led to the emptying of the temple resources.61 Despite these numerous literary connections between the Jehoash narrative and P, several scholars have maintained that the 2 Kgs 12 account of the temple repairs is decidedly critical of the priesthood. They claim that the blame for the lack of repair to the temple after Jehoash’s original order is laid upon the priests’ shoulders. Furthermore, unlike the supervisors who act with complete honesty (‫כי באמנה הם עשים‬, 2 Kgs 12:16), the priests are to be trusted only as long as the royal scribe is present to count the silver gathered in a chest stationed in the open where it could be seen. For these reasons, it was maintained that the Jehoash narrative could not be of priestly origin but was rather created by the royal court.62 However, a royal origin for this scroll is no more convincing, since the king does not come out of the story any better. Jehoash’s refusal to confront Hazael may show a lack of faith, and his payment of a bribe nullifies his major accomplishment, at least financially. The gold stored in the temple cannot be reckoned only in monetary terms. Since it was a holy estate given to God by the royal family, it was a sign of the king’s status, prosperity, piety, and favor with God. The depletion of the temple treasuries thus leaves a hollow impression of Jehoash’s reign as a whole.63 In addition, Jehoash’s violent end may serve as another indication that the opinion of the story’s authors was not completely positive toward him. Furthermore, upon closer inspection, not all the above-mentioned details must reflect a negative evaluation of the priesthood. The joint counting of the silver by both royal and priestly representatives need not convey distrust of the priests. It may have been a regular administrative procedure reflecting the shared  See Walter Brueggemann, 1 & 2 Kings (Macon: Smyth & Helwys, 2000), 424.  See e. g. Šanda, Könige II, 149; James A. Montgomery and Henry Snyder Gehman, The Book of Kings, ICC (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1952), 426; Hobbs, 2 Kings, 148. McKenzie, Kings, 454. 63  See Long, 2 Kings, 159–160; McKenzie, Kings, 453; Iain Provan, 1 & 2 Kings, NIBC 7 (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1995), 224. The meaning of the word ‫ אז‬connecting the Jehoash story with Hazael’s campaign to Jerusalem is a matter of debate. Isaac Rabinowitz, “’Az Followed by Imperfect Verb-Form in Preterite Contexts: A Redactional Device in Biblical Hebrew,” VT 34 (1984): 53–62, maintained that Hazael’s campaign preceded the Temple repairs and considered the word ‫ אז‬to be a redactional device aiming to explain why there was not enough silver in the temple’s treasury for these repairs. However, according to Na’aman, “Royal Inscriptions,” ‫ אז‬is a general temporal marker used by the author of Kings to combine together two different units. Thus, it does not necessarily indicate that these events occurred in Jehoash’s 23rd year and may indicate that the temple treasuries were emptied only after the temple repairs. 61 62

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responsibility of these two sectors in the orderly administration of the temple, as is attested in many ancient Near Eastern writings.64 Admittedly, the priests are depicted as responsible for the lack of repair to the temple. However, 2 Kgs 12:5– 6 indicate that for 23 years the priests did take care of the temple maintenance, so the event mentioned in v. 7 may be a one-time mishap that does not reflect a long period of neglect. The list of items in v. 14 not to be made with the silver may indicate the priests’ former use of it: they did not take it for themselves but rather used it to manufacture vessels for the temple. This suggests that the narrative does not intend to create a contrast between the workers’ honesty and the priests’ dishonesty.65 Furthermore, the priests completely cooperate with the measures taken to deal with this problem: Jehoiada himself creates the chest to which silver would be deposited, and the threshold guard priests are charged with depositing the silver in it. Thus, the critique of the priests’ conduct in Jehoash’s 23rd year may be an original part of a priestly text which also reflects the priests’ capacity for self-criticism and insists that disorders in the temple, even those created by the priests themselves, will be corrected.66 Another explanation may be that this depiction is the result of a (Deuteronomistic) reworking of this priestly text during its incorporation into DtrH. We may conclude that in addition to its obvious attention to the temple, the Jehoash narrative contains many other priestly characteristics as well. These are not confined only to sporadic priestly pen strokes or priestly language. The entire narrative consists of numerous priestly terms and idioms, relates to legal norms whose meaning can be understood only in light of the Priestly writings in the Pentateuch, reveals priestly ideology, and deals with several matters in which priestly authors might have had a special interest. This broad spectrum of priestly characteristics indicates not only its general priestly origin as a temple chronicle, but also its close literary ties with P. It seems that this narrative was created among the very same priestly scribal school whose major work now appears in the Pentateuch.

64 See Victor Hurowitz, “Another Fiscal Practice in the Ancient Near East: 2 Kings 12:5–17 and a Letter to Esarhaddon (LAS 277),” JNES 45 (1986): 289–94; Nadav Na’aman, “Notes on the Temple ‘Restorations’ of Jehoash and Josiah,” VT 63 (2013): 640–51. 65 See Long, 2 Kings, 159 who shows that the livelihood of the priests was secured through the silver of the purification and reparation offerings and not through the other silver contributions. 66  See Gray, Kings, 510–11. A further example of the Priestly school’s ability of self-criticism may lie in the report of the trespass and death of Nadab and Abihu and the measures taken afterward to avoid further harm to the temple and its personnel (Lev 10).

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7. The Jehoash Narrative and the Priestly Writings in the Pentateuch Despite the multiple priestly characteristics appearing in the Jehoash narrative which indicate its priestly origin, it still deviates from P’s norms and style in several ways. Admittedly, while discussing “deviations” from P’s norms, I point to discrepancies between the priestly regulations in the Pentateuch which deals with the Tabernacle, and the norms reflected in the Jehoash narrative which deals with the Jerusalem temple. This apparent difference, however, does not necessarily indicate that consistency in legal norms and style should not be assumed. It should be remembered that the priestly narrative about Israel’s happenings in the wilderness has no historical basis. It is a literary fiction created by priests who insisted that the Israelite cult was established already in Sinai. Nevertheless, when creating this literary fiction, the priestly authors probably used norms and customs they knew and considered binding. In other words, the authors of P retrojected the cultic reality they knew from the Jerusalem temple, back into the wilderness period and their Tabernacle descriptions. Therefore, it seems that despite the Tabernacle / temple differences, discrepancies in cultic norms and style between priestly texts are not obvious and their appearance deserves consideration. According to 2 Kgs 11:3, Jehoash was hiding for six years in the house of God with his aunt, Jehosheba, who was also Jehoiada’s wife (2 Chr 22:11). This indicates that the child was concealed in the lodging of the high priest within the temple precincts.67 However, unlike the non-priestly depiction of Eli and Samuel lodging in the temple (1 Sam 3:3), P locates the priests’ residence at the Tabernacle entrance (‫פתח אהל מועד‬, Lev 8:33–35; Num 3:38) and never mention priests sleeping or dwelling within it. As a matter of fact, the regular impurities associated with normal family life (such as menstrual and impurity following sexual intercourse) make dwelling in the temple almost unthinkable from a priestly perspective.68 2 Kings 11:4 does not hesitate to mention the entrance of the ‫כרי‬, foreign mercenaries, into the temple.69 This entrance is unthinkable according to the priestly regulations in the Pentateuch, which forbid strangers (‫ )זר‬from entering the Tabernacle (Num 3:10) and allow only priests and Levites to approach the 67 See Montgomery and Gehman, Kings, 419; Hobbs, 2 Kings, 138; Cogan and Tadmor, 2 Kings, 126; McKenzie, Kings, 434. 68 In recognition of the impurity that may be caused during sleep, the Rabbis took several measures to prevent the High Priest from sleeping on the eve of the atonement day (m. Yoma 1:4, 6–7). The Rabbis assume that at the end of that day the High Priest returns to his home wearing his ordinary clothes and does not remain to dwell in the temple (m. Yoma 7:4) 69  Most of the commentators identified these foreign mercenaries as Carians. See, e. g., Montgomery and Gehman, Kings, 419; Gray, Kings, 516.

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sacred compound. Thus, despite its priestly character, the Jehoash narrative does not apply the priestly norm in this case, which probably caused the Chronicler to omit all references to these foreigners and to replace them with the Levites (2 Chr 23:6). Moreover, the foreign mercenaries were not the only unauthorized persons who actually entered the Temple. According to 2 Kgs 11:4 the king himself entered the house of the Lord, and his standing there is even described as ‫כמשפט‬, according to the custom (11:14).70 It seems that this report reflects its authors’ awareness of the king’s special position during special occasions held in the temple. However, P does not grant the ‫ נשיא‬any entrance privileges in comparison to Israel, and certainly does not refer to a certain place reserved for the king or chieftain within the Tabernacle. Ezekiel too emphasizes that the most inner point the ‫ נשיא‬may reach is the inner court threshold, and not beyond (Ezek 44:3; 46:2). It seems that here as well the discrepancy between the Jehoash narrative and the priestly norms has led the Chronicler to revise his version of the events and to report the king’s standing ‫במבוא‬, in the court’s entrance (2 Chr 23:13), and not in the temple’s inner precincts. According to 2 Kgs 11:10, during Athaliah’s reign, David’s spear and quivers (‫חנית‬, ‫ )שלטים‬were kept in the temple. In 2 Kgs 12:10 Jehoiada places a chest for collecting silver donations at the right side of the altar, meaning inside the temple’s court and in proximity to the altar. These items, however, are mentioned neither in P nor in the chapters dealing with Solomon’s temple (1 Kgs 6–7). In other words, the Jehoash narrative mentions the high priest placing in the holy precincts several instruments that were not sanctified with the anointing oil. Likewise, the keeping of a weapon in the temple is mentioned in a non-priestly narrative (1 Sam 21:10) but is unacceptable according to P, which forbids the entrance of unauthorized people or materials into the Tabernacle.71 It seems that this discrepancy between the priestly legislation and the Jehoash narrative has led the Chronicler to maintain that the chest was not placed inside the temple but rather ‫בשער בית יהוה חוצה‬, “outside of the gate of the House of the Lord” (2 Chr 24:8). 2 Kgs 11:14 describes the “people of the land” blowing the trumpets. According to Num 10:1–10 the trumpets shall be blown by Aaron’s sons, the priests, on several occasions: to summon the community; to set the divisions in motion, and in times of war. During festivals, new moon days and joyous occasions, the trumpets blowing should accompany the sacrifices of burnt offerings and sacrifices of well-being (Num 10:10). Indeed, in several such joyous occasions such as coronations, and dedications of temple and city walls the trumpets were blown 70  Although it also appears in non-priestly writings, most of the occurrences of this term are in P. See e. g. Lev 5:10; 9:16; Num 15:24; 29:18, 21, 24, 27, 30, 37. 71 See also Ben-Zion Luria, “In the Days of Joash, King of Judah,” Beit Mikra 18 (1973): 11–20 [Hebrew].

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by the priests.72 Thus, the blowing of the trumpets in the temple, during an event explicitly anticipated by the priestly law (without mentioning any accompanying sacrifices), by the people of the land who were not priests, stands in sharp contrast to the priestly legislation. Additional discrepancy between the Jehoash narrative and P may be found in the silver paid as ransom after census (2 Kgs 12:5). According to P, the ransom was paid ‫בפקד אתם‬, “on being enrolled” (Exod 30:12). Any person at the eligible age had to present himself before those conducting the census (not necessarily at the Tabernacle). He was counted and registered by them and moved from the group that has not been counted to the group already counted, ‫עבר על הפקדים‬.73 While moving from one group to the other he paid his ransom (Exod 30:13–14). Those conducting the census, in turn, had to deliver the silver so it could be assigned to the service of the Tent of Meeting (Exod 30:16). However, according to 2 Kgs 12:5, the silver was brought to the temple not by the officers who conducted the census but rather by the Israelites who were counted during it. Moreover, it seems that the silver was not paid immediately after the census but rather a while after it, on the first occasion a visit to the temple was possible.74 It seems then that although both 2 Kgs 12 and Exod 30:11–16 share the same priestly legal conception that the danger caused by census can be avoided through the payment of ransom, the Jehoash narrative does not apply the priestly norm but rather presents a different set of procedures. The term ‫ מכרו‬in 2 Kgs 12:6 has vexed commentators. Some have proposed that it derives from ‫ נכ״ר‬and means an acquaintance.75 However, since it is unlikely that priests would receive donations only from their acquaintances, many exegetes justly maintained that it derives from ‫מכ״ר‬, to mean a client or a benefactor, which may relate to private dealings executed directly by the priests, or through “temple-tellers” (see Matt 21:12).76 Either way, it appears that 2 Kgs 12:6  See e. g., Ez 3:10; Neh 12:35, 41; 1 Chr 15:24, 28; 2 Chr 7:6.  ‫ ּ ְפ ֻק ִדים‬in this case is a passive participle. See William H. Propp, Exodus 19–40, AB 2B (New York: Doubleday, 2006), 477. 74 It is worth mentioning that Num 31:48–54, which also relates to census, does not apply the priestly rule appearing in Exod 30:11–16. For a discussion of the relationship between this paragraph and the priestly writings see Ariel Kopilovitz, “The Legislation of War: A Study of the Story of the Israelite War against Midian (Numbers 31),” Shnaton – An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies 23 (2014): 17–53 [Hebrew]. 75  See, e. g., NAB; NJPS; Cogan and Tadmor, 2 Kings, 137. 76  See e. g., Gray, Kings, 586 (mentioning Ugaritic lists of temple personnel which include mkrm, probably temple officials who helped priests to fix market values for offerings); Long, 2 Kings, 156; McKenzie, Kings, 448. Another proposal is to read ֹ‫מכְ רו‬, ִ lit. “his sale” (Montgomery and Gehman, Kings, 429) or to understand MT ֹ‫ ַמ ָּכרו‬as relating to the act of selling and not to a certain person (Logan S. Wright, “MKR in 2 Kings XII 5–17 and Deuteronomy XVIII 8,” VT 39 [1989]: 438–48). However, since the formula “‫ ”…איש מאת‬usually relates to mutual actions between two persons (see Exod 11:2; Jer 23:30) and ‫ מאת‬is almost always coupled with persons (BDB, 86 [s. v. ‫)]את‬, this proposal seems less likely. 72 73

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either assumes that until Jehoash’s order on the 23rd year of his reign the priests were allowed to receive personal gifts from individuals they knew or presumes the existence of some temple personnel otherwise unmentioned in the Hebrew Bible. If indeed ‫ מכרו‬here refers to temple business assessors, another discrepancy with the priestly legislation emerges. According to Lev 27, the priests themselves are in position to determine the fair market value of either human beings (27:8), impure animals (27:11–12), or real estate (27:14) dedicated to the temple. In this light, 2 Kgs 12 mentions temple officials which according to P are not needed at all. 2 Kings 12:17 mentions ‫“ כסף אשם וכסף חטאות‬silver of purification and reparation offerings,” indicating that these two offerings were also paid in silver and not only through sacrificial animals. According to Milgrom, this corresponds both to the priestly legislation in Lev 5:15, 18, 25, which assumes that the reparation offering (asham) is commutable to currency, and to the mention of the golden mice and tumors paid by the Philistines as asham in 1 Sam 6:3–18. These three biblical attestations suggest that in first temple days, asham offerors had the option of donating its monetary equivalent.77 However, 1 Sam 6:3–18 reflects what Israelite authors thought Philistine cultic customs are, not Israelite. The valuation of the ram in the priestly legislation by no means implies that the offeror could pay silver instead of bringing the ram itself. Lev 7:1–7 specifies the reparation offering regulations, which include its slaughtering, the dashing of its blood around the altar, the burning of the suet and the internal organs, and an order for the priests to eat it in a holy place (‫)במקום קדוש יאכל‬. Likewise, Lev 7:35–37 mentions the asham together with the rest of the sacrifices which are burnt on the altar. This indicates that the actual sacrifice of the ram is meant here, and its valuation was only meant to ensure that its worth matches that of the desecrated sancta. Moreover, even if we accept Milgrom’s argument regarding the reparation offering, 2 Kgs 12:17 still mentions the monetary payment of ‫חטאת‬, purification offering. This offering, according to Milgrom himself, was meant to purge the sanctuary of the pollution caused by the accumulation of sin, and the sacrifice’s blood in this case is used as a kind of detergent.78 Therefore, ‫חטאת‬, by its very essence, can be brought only through sacrificial animals and not through their monetary equivalent. We may conclude then that 2 Kgs 12 is the only biblical attestation of an Israelite cultic practice of monetary payments of sacrifices, and stands in sharp contradiction to the priestly cultic legislation which does not allow it.79 77 See

Milgrom, Cult and Conscience, 13–15; idem, Leviticus 1–16, 326. Jacob Milgrom, “Sin-Offering or Purification-Offering?,” VT 21 (1971): 237–39. 79 According to Wright, “MKR,” reparation and purification offerings were never commutable to silver in ancient Israel and only animals could be offered. 2 Kgs 12:17 deals with priests selling portions of the animal they owned (after officiating in its sacrifice) but could not possibly eat in its entirety before spoilage, to their fellow priests. However, this kind of transaction has no support in the biblical text and is based on an interpretation of ‫מכרו‬, ‫ מכריכם‬which is disputed. 78 See

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The last example does not explicitly contradict the priestly norms appearing in the Pentateuch, but it still reflects a deviation from P’s regular style and jargon. 2 Kings 11:15 mentions ‫ ּ ְפ ֻק ֵדי החיל‬who are the chiefs of hundreds (‫)שרי המאות‬. However, the term ‫פקוד‬, a passive participle of ‫פק״ד‬, has a different meaning in P, where it relates to those who were counted during a census and not to those in charge of the count.80 If we take into consideration the ketib version of 2 Kgs 12:12 ‫הפקדים‬, instead of the qere ‫ה ּ ֻמ ְפ ָק ִדים‬,ַ then we can point to another example of a passive participle of ‫ פק״ד‬that relates to the administrators who are in charge (in this case, in charge of the temple repairs) and not to those under their command. Thus, the use of the passive participle ‫ פקוד‬in 2 Kgs 11–12 is distinctive in comparison to its regular use in P and is attested only twice more in Num 31:14, 48.81

8. The Character and Provenance of the Jehoash Narrative How can these discrepancies between the priestly Jehoash narrative and the Priestly writings in the Pentateuch be explained? One possible solution might be that the Jehoash narrative is later than P and maybe even aims at revising its legal norms. This proposal may tally with the assumption that priestly-looking passages in the Former Prophets (such as 2 Kgs 11–12) are part of a very late priestly editorial layer. As mentioned above, according to this view, these priestly redactors worked in the late post-exilic period, after DtrH’s completion,82 and maybe even after the compilation of the Pentateuch, which at that stage already included P.83 Thus, the deviations of the Jehoash narrative from the priestly norms and style which preceded it may reflect its priestly authors’ intentions and their religious and historical circumstances.  See, e. g., Exod 30:13; Num 1:46; 2:9; 4:46.  See further Kopilovitz, “The Legislation of War,” where I suggest that the unique form ‫ ּ ְפ ֻק ִדים‬not in a passive sense is an ancient priestly form attested only in these two (pre-)priestly narratives. During the composition of P, this term received a different meaning, currently frequent in P. 82  See, e. g., Noth, Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Studien, 182–90. 83  See, e. g., Haran, Biblical Collection, 2:189–95. Haran maintained that P’s interventions in DtrH are scarce, secondary and late. Beside the priestly materials in the second half of Joshua, he considered priestly characteristics in the rest of the Former Prophets to be very late priestly pen strokes (mainly adding words, phrases and at the most a few sentences). Levin, Sturz, maintained that the story about Athaliah underwent a priestly redaction around 350– 300 bce. Würthwein, Könige, 354 considered vv. 5–13 and 14–17 to be two separate post-DtrH additions. Volkmar Fritz, 1 & 2 Kings, trans. Anselm Hagedorn (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 304, maintained that during the first temple period the maintenance of the temple was the responsibility of the king. The Jehoash narrative, which places this responsibility on the priests, thus reflects second temple period reality in which, in the absence of kings, priests had to find solutions for the upkeep of the temple. Thus, the Jehoash narrative legitimized second temple procedures through their connection to royal decrees during the first temple. 80 81

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However, the foregoing investigation of the priestly characteristics in the Jehoash narrative revealed that they are numerous and are not confined to brief pen strokes or to the adding of only several words or sentences. Rather, they appear throughout the narrative in a way that indicates that it was entirely created by priestly authors and not only redacted by them in retrospect. Furthermore, several exilic and post-exilic biblical writings indicate that a post-exilic setting for the Jehoash narrative is less likely. Ezekiel mentions the entrance of foreigners (‫ )בני נכר‬into the temple and their appointment as temple guards as one of the causes for the temple’s desecration (Ezek 44:7–9). Likewise, in his description of the guard securing the young king, the Chronicler replaced the foreign mercenaries (‫ )כרי‬with the Levites and emphasized Jehoiada’s instruction that “no one enter the House of the Lord except the priests and the ministering Levites” (2 Chr 23:6). This indicates that during the exilic and post-exilic periods foreigners’ entrance to the temple was considered taboo. It is thus unlikely that a narrative allowing it would be created in that period. A further indication may be found in the description of the priestly threshold guards (2 Kgs 12:10). As discussed earlier, their mention is compatible with P’s regulations. According to P, the priests camped along the Tabernacle’s east side and guarded its entrance while the Levites camped along the Tabernacle’s three remaining sides (Num 3:23–38). However, in exilic and post-exilic biblical writings we may detect a shift in this guard duty. Ezekiel depicts the Levites alone as ‫שמרי משמרת הבית‬, “in charge of the Temple’s guarding duties” (Ezek 44:14), while for the Zadokite priests he assigns different tasks (44:15–31). Likewise, according to the Chronicler, the temple’s guard duty was assigned exclusively to the Levites and not to the priests: the Levite gatekeepers were on the four sides of the temple, east, west, north, and south (1 Chr 9:24; 26:12–19), and not only on three as in P. The Chronicler emphasizes that the Levites are ‫השוערים על שערי בית‬ ‫יהוה‬, “the gatekeepers in charge of the Temple’s gates” (2 Chr 23:18–19), not the priestly threshold guards (‫ )הכהנים שמרי הסף‬mentioned in the Jehoash narrative. The Priestly threshold guards are replaced by Levites (‫ )הלוים שמרי הסף‬also in the Chronicler’s version of Josiah’s reign (compare 2 Kgs 22:4 with 2 Chr 34:9).84 It seems that in exilic and post-exilic biblical writings the temple guarding duties were assigned exclusively to the Levites. Therefore, it is unlikely that a narrative depicting the priests as the temple guards would be created in that period. A third indication for the improbability of a post-exilic setting for the Jehoash narrative may be found in the description of the “people of the land” blowing the trumpets (2 Kgs 11:14). Almost all second temple period biblical narratives relating to the trumpets clearly state that it was the priests, and no one else, who 84

 I thank my colleague, Dr. Itzhak Amar, for bringing this point to my attention.

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blew them.85 This indicate that during that period, the trumpets were considered an instrument used exclusively by the priests. It seems that here as well, it is unlikely that a narrative depicting individuals other than the priests blowing the trumpets would be created in that period. The other differences found in the Chronicler’s version of the Jehoash narrative (such as the king’s standing at the temple’s entrance and not in it, the positioning of the chest outside the temple, and the omission of the silver of reparation and purification offerings) may support this conclusion. They all indicate the Chronicler’s efforts to align the Jehoash narrative in the book of Kings with the cultic reality of the second temple period. Therefore, it is unlikely that the Jehoash narrative was created by second temple priestly scribes or editors. There are further elements in the Jehoash narrative that make its post-exilic provenance unlikely. 2 Chronicles 24:17–27 evaluates Jehoash negatively and accuses him of both idolatry and the killing of Jehoiada’s sons. This second temple approach toward Jehoash (probably intended to justify his defeat by the Arameans and untimely death) is unattested in the book of Kings. 2 Kings 12:3 maintains that Jehoash did what was right in the eyes of YHWH ‫“ כל ימיו‬all his days” and does not anticipate any change in this tendency after Jehoiada’s passing.86 Likewise, 2 Kgs 14:3 states that Jehoash’s son also did what was right in the eyes of YHWH, ‫ככל אשר עשה יואש אביו עשה‬, “just as his father Jehoash had done,” reflecting the same positive evaluation of the king. To this one may add the neutral notice of Jehoash’s burial “with his ancestors in the city of David” in 2 Kgs 12:22 against the Chronicler’s insistence that Jehoash was indeed buried in the city of David but not in the tombs of the kings (2 Chr 24:25). It seems that post-exilic trends created a shift in attitude toward Jehoash from positive to negative; therefore the sympathetic description of Jehoash in the book of Kings is less likely to be post-exilic. The Chronicler indeed mentions Jehoiada in the two chapters relating to the happenings of Jehoash and even refers to him as ‫הראש‬, meaning ‫כהן הראש‬, the high priest (2 Chr 24:6). However, neither the Chronicler nor other post-exilic biblical writings mention Jehoiada in their list of high priests (1 Chr 5:29–41; Ezra 7:1–5; Neh 11:11). This may result from the fact that, according to the Chronicler, Jehoiada’s son, Zechariah, was killed on Jehoash’s orders and his line in the high priesthood was probably replaced (2 Chr 24:25). In any case, it seems that in the second Temple period Jehoiada was not considered important enough to be mentioned in the genealogical lists. This makes it less likely that a narrative 85 See e. g., Ez 3:10; Neh: 12:35, 41; 1 Chr 15:24, 28; 16:6, 42; 2 Chr 5:12–13; 7:6; 13:12, 14; 29:26, 27, 28. The only exceptions are 1 Chr 13:8; 2 Chr 15:14; 20:28 where the identity of those blowing the trumpets is not specified. 86 LXX reads here πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας, all the days, meaning only as long as Jehoiada was alive to instruct him, thus harmonizing the contradicting versions of Kings and Chronicles.

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emphasizing his dominant role in Judah’s cult and politics would be created in that time. A further element that suggests the pre-exilic character of the Jehoash narrative is its author’s awareness of several issues relevant mostly to first Temple realia. He knows of several gates to the temple and palace compound and the specific use of each gate (runners, horses, etc.). He also knows of the different guarding posts around and within the palace and the practice of changing shifts once a week. And finally, he knows his way around the temple mount topography, acknowledging that Jehoash’s movement from the temple to the palace was “downward” (‫וירידו‬, 2 Kgs 11:19). These may emphasize the author’s perspective and acquaintance with the city and the temple structure in the pre-exilic period. It seems then that the Jehoash narrative is a pre-exilic priestly narrative. It was created by members of a priestly literary school that was associated with the Jerusalem temple.87 These priestly scribes were active for many generations and composed narratives on scrolls in which they referred to first temple period events they considered significant. The scrolls they created emphasized the priestly evaluation of the events. They were not necessarily meant to become part of a long, consecutive first temple-period history or to serve as the direct continuation of other priestly scrolls which related to the period preceding Moses’s death. After their composition, the scrolls were kept in the temple’s library or archive, and some of them were eventually used by the Deuteronomist, redacted by him, and found their way into DtrH. The differences between the Jehoash narrative and P may be explained in two different ways. The first may define the Jehoash narrative as a pre-P or proto-P priestly text. As priests and members of a priestly literary school, the authors of the Jehoash narrative (and other priestly narratives relating to first temple events) were trained to use the priestly jargon and style. Moreover, they were influenced by the core ideas and theology of the Priestly school that eventually were manifested in this school’s major literary masterpiece: the Priestly writings in the Pentateuch. This Priestly background may account for the many resemblances between the priestly Former Prophets narratives and the writings of P. Nevertheless, since these narratives were created before the final consolidation and crystallization of the Priestly writings in the Pentateuch, they do not completely reflect P’s legal norms and contain unique features that deviate from P’s ordinary style. Another explanation may be that the priestly narratives in the Former Prophets did not necessarily precede the priestly writings in the Pentateuch but rather were created more or less in the same period. The differences between 87  Haran, Biblical Collection, 2:27, maintained that the pentateuchal “sources” were not produced by a single author or even a group of authors but rather by literary schools that were active for many generations.

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these priestly texts are thus a result of the fact that the priestly school was broad and diverse, and inevitably produced diverse expressions of its theology and ideology. Thus, the legal and theological views of H are not identical to those of P, and they both differ from some of the legal and theological views found in Ezekiel. Nevertheless, the priestly character of all these texts is not disputed and it testifies to the variety of opinions that existed among the priestly school during the long period in which it operated. Likewise, the Jehoash narrative (and probably other priestly narratives in the Former Prophets as well) is a unique manifestation of views held by members of the priestly school, which were not necessarily identical with other priestly views that coexisted with them.

9. Conclusions In this study I investigated the unique features appearing in the Jehoash narrative in 2 Kgs 11–12, and their relationship to the Priestly writings in the Pentateuch. This investigation revealed that the Jehoash Narrative contains many priestly legal and ideological details which are otherwise known only from P. It also uses many unique priestly terms, reflects priestly style, and relates to issues in which priestly authors might have had a special interest. These features appear throughout the entire narrative and demonstrate its priestly origin. Despite these many affinities with the priestly perceptions and style, the Jehoash narrative also contains several deviations from the priestly norms and style known from P. In an attempt to explain this anomaly, I proposed that the Jehoash narrative (and probably other narratives as well) was a pre-exilic priestly scroll which related to First Temple period events and emphasized its priestly authors’ evaluation of their significance. This scroll was then used by the Deuteronomist, who redacted it and inserted it into his historical composition. In addition to its contribution to our understanding of the Deuteronomistic History and the various sources used during its composition, the findings of this study may contribute to our understanding of ancient Israel’s scribal schools. Narratives in the Former Prophets shown to be connected to the pentateuchal traditions expand the scope of texts manifesting a certain school’s ideology. Thus, they may offer a new understanding of the cultural and ideological background of these literary schools. More precisely, the Jehoash narrative offers a glimpse into ancient Israel’s priesthood during the First Temple period. Thus, the description of Jehoiada’s family living in the temple may reflect ancient Israelite priestly realia (also known from ancient Near Eastern sources) that was eventually reformed by the authors of P. Likewise, the existence of the royal insignia in the temple may reflect a period in which the royal court’s dominance in the ordinary running of the temple was significant and influenced the priestly writings of that time. This

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is further manifested through the royal prerogative to have the king’s foreign mercenaries enter the temple, to decide when and how the temple would be renovated, to introduce new silver collecting methods, and even through the king’s entrance and designated position in the temple. And finally, the mention of a different method for collecting census ransom, purification and reparation offerings paid in silver, and maybe even the presence of business accessors in the temple, may improve our understanding of developmental processes in the temple’s economy, and their manifestations in the writings of different priestly scribes. In conclusion, Israel’s ancient priestly scribal school was active during a long period and created a wide variety of texts. The priestly authors did not necessarily mean them to become one continuous narrative. Some of them related to the period beginning with the world’s creation and ending with Moses’s death, while others related to numerous first temple events that were much closer to the authors’ present. Nevertheless, the evaluation of Former Prophets narratives as divergent literary manifestations of the same literary schools reflected in the pentateuchal traditions may shed new light on ancient Israel’s ideological plurality and the developmental processes these ideologies underwent.

A Sanctuary without the Ark The Cultic Shrine at Gibeon according to Chronicles* Itamar Kislev That the prime method for discovering and understanding the Chronicler’s viewpoint lies in the comparison of the chronistic account to his sources is a matter of scholarly consensus.1 Accordingly, consideration of the changes introduced by the Chronicler to these sources at times has the ability to reveal his perspective on the events of his day; namely, even though the Chronicler’s account mainly addresses the period of the monarchy, his account can on occasion reflect his own era (probably the late fourth century bce).2 Comparison of the single reference in 1 Kgs (3:4–15) to the three amplified references in Chronicles (1 Chr 16:39, 21:29; 2 Chr 1:3–13) is first of all suggestive of the importance of the cultic site at Gibeon for the Chronicler. Moreover, whereas Kings, which terms this cultic site ‫( הבמה הגדולה‬1 Kgs 3:4), provides little detail, Chronicles furnishes additional information: that the tabernacle of Moses and the altar of the burnt offering fashioned by Bezalel stood at this site (1 Chr 16:39, 21:29; 2 Chr 1:3, 5); also that this site already functioned in David’s day (1 Chr 16:39–42; 21:29). This longer, more detailed, developed treatment raises the question of the significance of this perceptible chronistic activity.

* This paper is in honor of Professor Baruch Schwartz, whose sensitivity to the biblical text and ability to build impressive syntheses and consistent theory, embodied in his numerous, varied studies, illumine the path of biblical scholars. 1  E. g., Isac L. Seeligmann, “The Beginnings of Midrash in the Books of Chronicles,” Tarbiz 49 (1979): 14–32, at 14 [Hebrew]; Sara Japhet, The Ideology of the Book of Chronicles and Its Place in Biblical Thought, BEATAJ 9 (Frankfurt am Main: P. Lang, 1989), 8; William Johnstone, 1 and 2 Chronicles, vol. 1: 1 Chronicles 1–2 Chronicles 9: Israel’s Place among the Nations, JSOTSup 253 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1997), 21; Louis C. Jonker, Defining All-Israel in Chronicles, FAT 106 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 7. 2 See, e. g., Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels, 7th ed. (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1905), 206; Louis C. Jonker, Defining All-Israel, 11–13. For a reflection of the Chronicler’s period in his account of the temple, see, e. g., John van Seters, “The Chronicler’s Account of Solomon’s Temple-building: A Continuity Theme,” in The Chronicler as Historian, ed. M. Patrick Graham, Kenneth G. Hoglund, and Steven L. McKenzie, JSOTSup 238 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1997), 283–300. For dating Chronicles, see, e. g. Sara Japhet, I & II Chronicles: A Commentary, OTL (London: SCM, 1993), 23–28.

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Some scholars conjecture that it is somehow related to the Gibeon site in the Chronicler’s day,3 but this viewpoint is not supported by the archaeological findings and remains highly conjectural.4 Others propose that the author sought to establish the continuity of the cult from Moses in the wilderness to the temple of Solomon.5 For this purpose, however, it is unnecessary to compose new passages; it suffices to portray the shrine at Gibeon as the Chronicler did in the rewritten story of Solomon at Gibeon. Scholarly suggestions link Gibeon and the tribe of Benjamin,6 a tribe that surely has a significant place in Chronicles,7 but do not explain the absence of attribution of the site to that tribe in the three passages relating to Gibeon as a cultic place. Recently Jaeyoung Jeon explained the developed chronistic treatment of this site as a “sophisticated way … to emphasize relative superiority of the new Davidic cult over the old Mosaic cult.”8 This suggestion is difficult to accept: rather than develop references to the Mosaic tabernacle, the Chronicler could have reduced its status by avoidance or scant reference. Based on the premise that the Chronicler at times shaped his text to reflect contemporary circumstances, I propose that the Chronicler fashioned his portrayal of the site at Gibeon as an archetype for the temple in his day. The temple and its service are indisputably of central importance for the Chronicler.9 This is reflected, for example, in the many chapters the Chronicler devoted to the detailed description of David’s preparations for building the temple and the organization of its personnel (1 Chr 22–29). As scholars have noted, elements of these chapters reflect the Second Temple and its cult.10  3  See e. g., Richard J. Coggins, The First and Second Books of the Chronicles: Commentary, CBC (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 148; Jonker, Defining All-Israel, 209–10.  4  Archaeologists indeed debate whether the site was occupied during the sixth century bce, but there is agreement that there was no significant activity at the site from the late sixth to first centuries bce; see Ephraim Stern, Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, vol. 2: The Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian Periods, 732–332 bce (Doubleday: New York, 2001), 433; Oded Lipschits, The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2005), 243–45; Avraham Faust, Judah in the Neo-Babylonian Period: The Archaeology of Desolation, ABS 18 (Atlanta: SBL, 2012), 214–15, 219–22.  5  See e. g., Johnstone, 1 Chronicles 1–2 Chronicles 9, 299–300.  6  See Jonker, Defining All-Israel, 207–15. Benjamin D. Giffone, who articulates the function of the tribe of Benjamin in Chronicles, suggests that the Chronicler avoids mentioning Benjaminite cultic sites in order to portray this tribe as always worshipping in Jerusalem and therefore refers to the site at Gibeon “only until 2 Chr 1:13”; see Benjamin D. Giffone, ‘Sit at my right hand’: The Chronicler’s Portrait of the Tribe of Benjamin in the Social Context of Yehud, LHB/ OTS 628 (London: T&T Clark, 2016), 209–10.  7  See e. g. Giffone, ‘Sit at my right hand.’  8 Jaeyoung Jeon, “The Priestly Tent of Meeting in Chronicles: Pro-Priestly or Anti-Priestly?” JHebS 18 (2018): 1–15, at 14.  9 E. g., Hugh G. M. Williamson, “The Temple in the Books of Chronicles,” in Templum amicitiae: Essays on the Second Temple Presented to Ernst Bammel, ed. William Horbury, JSNTSup 48 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1991), 15–31; Roddy L. Braun, 1 Chronicles, WBC (Waco: Word Books, 1986), xxv–xxxii. 10  See e. g., Braun, 1 Chronicles, 228; Peter B. Dirksen, 1 Chronicles, HCOT (Leuven: Peeters,

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In order to understand the chronistic treatment of the cultic site at Gibeon, I first note a difference between the First and Second Temples: the ark, which had a substantial role in the First Temple, was not present in the Second.11 Given that in some Israelite temples and traditions the ark represented or symbolized the divine presence, its absence from the Second Temple could both potentially be conceived as detrimental to the sanctuary’s status and even affect its identification as the “house of YHWH,” raising the question of whether the Second Temple was a locus of the divine presence.12 To exemplify the tradition that links the ark and the divine presence, I cite the short hymn of the ark in Num 10:35–36, in which the setting out and halting of the ark was understood as that of YHWH himself: “When the ark was to set out, Moses would say: Advance, O YHWH” (cf. Ps 132:8; 2 Chr 6:41).13 Similarly, when the Israelites brought the ark to the battle with the Philistines at Aphek, the latter did not say that the ark had come but rather “God has come to the camp” (1 Sam 4:7).14 Also, when Solomon brought the ark into his new temple, “the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord” (1 Kgs 8:11 KJV ).15 This concept is articulated in the priestly writings in the Pentateuch as well; for example, “When Moses went into the Tent of Meeting to speak with him, he would hear the Voice addressing him from above the cover that was on top of the Ark of the Pact between the two cherubim; thus he spoke to him” (Num 7:89; see also Exod 25:22, Lev 16:2).16 This concept underlies the use of the phrase ‫“ בית יהוה‬the house 2005), 277. Although noted sporadically in the footnotes, the question of whether some units or verses in Chronicles discussed in this study are original or secondary in the book of Chronicles is not crucial with respect to the topic in question. Even if all the passages relating to this subject are secondary, someone close to the Chronicler’s time addressed this topic and inserted interpolations into Chronicles. 11  There is agreement that the Second Temple functioned without an ark, based both on the general silence of the ancient sources in this regard and the few sources that explicitly state that there was no ark there (e. g., 2 Macc 2:4–8; m. Yoma 5:2). Jer 3:16 is discussed briefly below. Regarding the ark’s disappearance, we know neither the date nor the circumstances. For a survey of opinions, see John Day, “Whatever Happened to the Ark of the Covenant?” in Temple and Worship in Biblical Israel, ed. John Day (London: T&T Clark, 2005), 250–70. 12  Inter alia the rabbis comment on the lower status of the Second Temple by stating that it had no ark, no shekhinah, and no divine spirit (probably, of prophecy) (b. Yoma 21b). 13  Unless otherwise noted, the translations of biblical verses are based on NJPS, with revisions by the author. 14  See, e. g., Jacob Milgrom, Numbers: The Traditional Hebrew Text with the New JPS Translation, JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia: JPS, 1990), 373–75. Actually the ark and the divine presence are linked throughout the entire story of the wandering of the ark (1 Sam 4–6, 2 Sam 6). 15  In the parallel passage in 2 Chr 5:11–14 there are some differences that blur the connection between the ark and the glory of YHWH. I address these changes in Itamar Kislev, “The Role of the Altar in the Book of Chronicles,” JHebS 20 (2020): 1–15, at 4–6. 16  For a survey of the linkage between the ark and the divine presence, see, e. g., Menahem Haran, “The Ark and the Cherubim: Their Symbolic Significance in Biblical Ritual,” IEJ 9 (1959): 30–38, 89–94; Raanan Eichler, “The Ark and the Cherubim” (Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University, 2015), 123–25; Jaeyoung Jeon, “Priestly Tent,” 12–13.

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of YHWH” as the main designation for a Yahwistic temple in the Hebrew Bible (e. g., Exod 23:19; 1 Sam 3:15; 1 Kgs 3:1; Isa 2:2). Accordingly, the absence of the ark from the Second Temple posed a challenge. In attesting to the troubling absence of the ark in the eyes of the people, Jer 3:16– 17 tries to cancel the importance of the ark: “In those days – declares YHWH – men shall no longer speak of the Ark of the Covenant of YHWH, nor shall it come to mind. They shall not mention it, or miss it, or make another. At that time, they shall call Jerusalem ‘Throne of YHWH.”’ Whether early or late, it seems that this statement reflects a time at which the ark was already absent and wrestles with that unusual situation by substituting the city for the ark.17 This essay suggests that the Chronicler’s elaboration of the image of the shrine at Gibeon constitutes his response to the issue of a temple that functioned without the ark in his day and the concomitant question of whether this temple had a divine presence. By legitimating the sanctuary at Gibeon, which had no ark, the Chronicler creates a precedent for the situation in the Second Temple. As undertaken here, the extensive analysis of the passages in which this site appears in Chronicles aims both to explain the Chronicler’s viewpoint – namely, that a temple could legitimately function without an ark – and to illustrate how the Chronicler transformed the cultic site at Gibeon into an effective, convincing model for the Second Temple.

1. Solomon’s Visit to Gibeon (2 Chr 1:2–13) Comparison of the brief account of Solomon’s visit to Gibeon and the divine revelation he experienced there, found in both 1 Kgs 3:4–15 and 2 Chr 1:2–13, serves as a good starting point for eliciting the Chronicler’s view.18 In this instance, the majority of the differences between the versions are situated at the beginning of the story, which establishes, and defines, the cultic status of the site at Gibeon. In its current form, the verse in Kings that leads into the story 17  For the dating of this statement, see, e. g., Menahem Haran, “The Disappearance of the Ark,” IEJ 13 (1963): 46–58, at 51; Wilhelm Rudolph, Jeremia, 3rd ed., HAT 1/12 (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1968), 26–27. See also Reinhard Achenbach, “The Empty Throne and the Empty Sanctuary: From Aniconism to the Invisibility of God in Second Temple Theology,” in Ritual Innovation in the Hebrew Bible and Early Judaism, ed. Nathan MacDonald, BZAW 468 (Berlin/ Boston: de Gruyter, 2016), 35–53, who, in addition to the discussion of Jer 3:16–17, points to a tendency toward abstraction of the divine presence in the Second Temple period as a way of coping with the absent ark. 18 Adam C. Welch (The Work of the Chronicler: Its Purpose and Its Date [London: Oxford University Press, 1939], 33–35) assigns the current story in 2 Chr 1:2–13 to a second hand. However, he provides no evidence from the passage itself and no suggestions as to what appeared here in the Chronicler’s original text; rather, he bases himself on a general consideration of other passages in Chronicles that mention the site at Gibeon.

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of Solomon’s visit to Gibeon portrays his making of an offering at the ‫ במות‬as Solomon’s sole error and frames Solomon’s visit to Gibeon, called ‫הבמה הגדולה‬ (1 Kgs 3:4), as a sin: “And Solomon, though he loved YHWH and followed the practices of his father David, also sacrificed and offered at the ‫( ”במות‬1 Kgs 3:3).19 The Chronicler, however, provides a different assessment of this cultic site. It seems that the Chronicler’s admiration for Solomon motivates him to lend a more sympathetic cast to his account, one that does not assign blame to Solomon for misdeeds.20 By recounting that the tabernacle of Moses stood in Gibeon and that Solomon offered his sacrifices on its altar (2 Chr 1:3, 5), the Chronicler justifies Solomon’s deed.21 But, given that in the same passage the Chronicler himself notes the existence of another functioning cultic site – ‫אבל ארון האלהים העלה דויד מקרית יערים בהכין‬ ‫“ לו דויד כי נטה־לו אהל בירושלם‬But David had brought the ark of God up from Kiriath-jearim to the place that David had prepared for it; for he had pitched a tent for it in Jerusalem” (2 Chr 1:4) – it appears that the Chronicler claims that, at the beginning of Solomon’s reign, two legitimate cultic sites functioned concurrently. Indeed, according to the Chronicler, these sites already functioned in tandem in David’s day, and his account provides many details of the ongoing cultic activities at each (see 1 Chr 16:4–6, 37–42, discussed below). As this violates the cult centralization law, this makes his justification of Solomon’s deed and the legitimization of the cultic site at Gibeon problematic.22 Further exacerbating this problem is the fact that, as was the case for other challenges to his world view, the Chronicler had at his disposal several alternatives to overcome this challenge. He could have simply deleted Solomon’s visit to Gibeon, just as he omits other details not attuned to his conceptions (e. g., the 19 It is accepted that v. 3 is part of the Dtr redaction of the chapter and serves to introduce the story of Solomon’s visit to Gibeon; see, e. g., Mordechai Cogan, 1 Kings: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 10 (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 189–90. It seems that v. 2 is a late attempt to clear Solomon of having violated the cult centralization law, whereas v. 3 admits that this is Solomon’s sin; see Charles F. Burney, Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Kings (Oxford: Clarendon, 1903), 28. 20 On the Chronicler’s idealization of Solomon, see Roddy L. Braun, “Solomonic Apologetic in Chronicles,” JBL 92 (1973): 503–16; Japhet, Ideology of Chronicles, 478–80. 21  The replacing of the verse that condemns Solomon for sacrificing at a ‫( במה‬1 Kgs 3:3) with the developed description of the tabernacle at Gibeon demonstrates the Chronicler’s ambition to justify Solomon’s deed, as many scholars have noted; e. g., Wellhausen, Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels, 177–78; Edward L. Curtis and Albert A. Madsen, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Books of Chronicles, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1910), 315–16; Ralph W. Klein, 2 Chronicles, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012), 19. 22  On the Chronicler’s adoption of the cult centralization law, see Gary N. Knoppers, “The Relationship of the Deuteronomistic History to Chronicles: Was the Chronicler a Deuteronomist?” in Congress Volume Helsinki 2010, ed. Martti Nissinen, VTSup 148 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 307–41, at 310–12; Benjamin D. Giffone, “According to Which ‘Law of Moses’? Cult Centralization in Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles,” VT 67 (2017): 432–47, at 441–45.

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story of David and Bathsheba).23 Alternatively, he could have relocated the account of the divine revelation to Solomon from Gibeon to the city of David in front of the ark,24 or at least left the sacrifices, which seem extraneous to its main message, out of the story.25 Nevertheless, the Chronicler preferred to legitimate the cultic site at Gibeon, thereby creating the problem of two contemporaneous lawful cult sites.26 In order to resolve this problem, some scholars rightly suggest that the Chronicler differentiated between the cult conducted at the tent of the ark in Jerusalem, which consisted only of praise and hymns, and the cult at Gibeon, the sole venue where the regular sacrificial cult was carried out. This view is supported by the Chronicler’s omission of the sacrificial offerings made by Solomon in front of the ark right after the visit to Gibeon as recounted in Kings (compare 2 Chr 1:13 to 1 Kgs 3:15).27 Thus, the account of the offering of sacrifices in front of the ark after it was brought to the city of David (1 Chr 16:1 = 2 Sam 6:17), and several other cases, should therefore be understood, according to the Chronicler, as reflecting exceptional, one-time events.28 This solution, however, is clumsy. Its awkward nature and the availability of other options to avoid violation of the cult centralization law strongly suggest that the Chronicler deliberately invented and underscored the existence of a legitimate cultic site at Gibeon, even when the ark was in Jerusalem. Moreover, we must note the ostensibly superfluous comment inserted into the story of Solomon’s visit to Gibeon, that the ark was then in Jerusalem (v. 4), 23  See, e. g., Braun, 1 Chronicles, xxiii; Ralph W. Klein, 1 Chronicles, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006), 37. 24  Like the relocation of the burial site of Jehoram king of Judah. According to 2 Kgs 8:24 he “was buried with his fathers in the city of David,” whereas according to 2 Chr 21:20 he “was buried in the city of David, but not in the tombs of the kings.” 25 As he did in 2 Chr 1:13, regarding the sacrifices offered in front of the ark mentioned in 1 Kgs 3:15; see below. 26  Although some scholars argue for the reliability of the tradition of the presence of the tabernacle at Gibeon (see, e. g., James M. Street, The Significance of the Ark Narrative: Literary Formation and Artistry in the Book of Chronicles [New York: Peter Lang, 2009], 28–29), this seems unlikely. On the one hand, the existence of the tabernacle of Moses is itself a fabrication; on the other hand, the Chronicler’s wish to justify Solomon here is obvious; see n. 21 above. 27  See, e. g., Wilhelm Rudolph, Chronikbücher, HAT 1/21 (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1953), 121. This chronistic omission is a weighty counterargument to Jaeyoung Jeon’s view that the Chronicler considered David’s tent more important than the site at Gibeon (“The Priestly Tent of Meeting in Chronicles,” 2–8). 28 Martin Noth, The Chronicler’s History, trans. Hugh G.  M. Williamson, JSOTSup 50 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1987), 159 n. 33; Rudolph, Chronikbücher, 121; Gary N. Knoppers, 1 Chronicles 10–29, AB 12 (New York: Doubleday, 2004), 660; contra Saul Zalewski, Solomon’s Ascension to the Throne (Jerusalem: Marcus, 1981), 343 [Hebrew]. Other exceptional cases of the making of sacrificial offerings as one-time events related to their ceremonial contexts include the procession of bringing the ark to Jerusalem (1 Chr 15:26) and the enthronement of Solomon (1 Chr 29:21). The case of David’s offering sacrifices at Ornan’s threshing floor (1 Chr 21:26) is explained by the Chronicler himself, as discussed below.

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which directs the reader’s attention to the concurrent existence of two legitimate cult sites at that time.29 As the inserted reference to the ark between the verses describing the site at Gibeon actually interrupts the sequence that treats the tabernacle at Gibeon, it would be difficult for the reader to overlook the absence of the ark from the Gibeon sanctuary. I also note the substantial effort devoted by the Chronicler to creating parity between the shrine at Gibeon and the tent of the ark in the city of David. This is evidenced by the Chronicler’s use of similar construct-state phrases for both cultic sites, Jerusalem and Gibeon. In v. 3 we find the expression ‫אהל מועד האלהים‬, “God’s tent of meeting”; in v. 4 ‫ארון האלהים‬, “God’s ark.” Furthermore, the ark in Jerusalem was in a tent, ‫( אהל‬v. 4), similar to the tent of meeting at Gibeon. Another indicator of this thrust is the use in v. 5 of the verb ‫דרש‬, “to resort to,” with respect to the altar at Gibeon;30 in 1 Chr 13:3, 15:13 the same verb is used in relation to the ark.31 The interpolation of v. 4, which treats the ark, between vv. 3 and 5, both of which treat the cultic site at Gibeon, further demonstrates the importance of this comparison for the Chronicler.32 This suggests that the Chronicler deliberately aimed to direct the reader, on recognizing the similar treatment, to view the Jerusalem and Gibeon sites as equal. By so doing, the Chronicler bolsters the position of the Gibeon site, since this is the new, invented notion, whereas the status of the Jerusalem site needs no such reinforcement.33 Comparison of the chronistic version of Solomon’s visit to Gibeon to its source in Kings reveals the introduction of additional changes by the Chronicler to strengthen the legitimate status of the site. In addition to the details found in 1 Kgs 3:4 that recounted the sacrificing of a thousand burnt offerings on the altar at Gibeon, the Chronicler added the information that these offerings were sacrificed on the legitimate altar, namely, the bronze altar of the tent of meeting (2 Chr 1:6), although this notion is already found in vv. 3 and 5. Another chronistic change in this vein occurs at the beginning of the story. In Kings, there is no  Actually, already in 1 Chr 16 the Chronicler describes the cultic activities at these sites, creating the problem of two coexisting cultic sites. I treat this passage below. 30 This verb may relate syntactically to either the altar or to YHWH (see McKenzie, 1–2 Chronicles, 229); note, however, that the syntactical subject of the verse is the altar. 31 Hugh G. M. Williamson, 1 and 2 Chronicles, New Century Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 194. 32  See Zalewski, Solomon’s Ascension, 347–48, who emphasizes the particular use of the phrase ‫ אהל מועד‬to create a parallel to the tent of David in front of the ark. Although some argue that the interruption of the sequence by v. 4 suggests that this verse is secondary (see Coggins, First and Second Books, 148), this conclusion is not inevitable. This interruption’s purposeful nature, with its carefully chosen phrases, as noted, and the repeated juxtaposition of these sites (1 Chr 16:37–41; 21:28–30) probably indicate deliberate literary activity by the Chronicler himself. 33  Sara Japhet and in her wake Thomas Willi identify a chronistic tendency to juxtapose Gibeon and Jerusalem in 1 Chr 8:29–32 as well; see Japhet, I & II Chronicles, 196; Thomas Willi, Chronik, BKAT 24/1/4 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2009), 273. 29

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mention of any sort of entourage accompanying Solomon while going to Gibeon (1 Kgs 3:4), whereas in Chronicles all the leaders of the people accompanied him (2 Chr 1:2–3).34 The Chronicler, however, does not simply legitimate the site at Gibeon by introducing the idea that the tabernacle was situated there (2 Chr 1:3, 5), but also underscores that this cultic site embodies the divine presence, first of all, by stating that God revealed himself to Solomon there (2 Chr 1:7–12). Note that in Kings the revelation to Solomon takes place in a dream (1 Kgs 3:5, 15), whereas in Chronicles Solomon receives a direct divine revelation (2 Chr 1:7). This shift reveals the Chronicler’s intention: to make this cultic site a locus of the divine presence.35 Apart from that, the passage contains additional markers of the divine presence at Gibeon. The use of the construction ‫אהל מועד האלהים‬, “God’s tent of meeting,” in v. 3 indicates a locus for a human-divine meeting,36 and ‫משכן יהוה‬, “tabernacle of YHWH,” in v. 5 means God’s abode.37 Although not decisive in and of itself, another indicator of the divine presence at Gibeon is the expression ‫לפני יהוה‬, “before YHWH,” found in v. 6.38 Thus, the Chronicler’s retelling of the story of Solomon’s visit to Gibeon has a twofold thrust: it not only legitimates the shrine at Gibeon and Solomon’s act of offering sacrifices there, but also emphasizes the divine presence at that site. 34 See

Welch, Work of the Chronicler, 34; Jonker, Defining All-Israel, 212.  See Willi, Chronik (1/4), 273. Several scholars, observing this difference, offer other explanations. Some think that the Chronicler wanted to enhance Solomon’s status; see, e. g., Johnstone, 1 Chronicles 1–2 Chronicles 9, 301. Others suggest that this represents a critique of the legitimacy of dreams as a source of revelation; see Coggins, 1 & 2 Chronicles, 148. Others attribute no importance to this difference; e. g., Steven L. McKenzie, 1–2 Chronicles, AOTC (Nashville: Abingdon, 2004), 229. Because, as shown below, the thrust to locate a divine presence at Gibeon is evident in this unit, this grounds the explanation in that conception preferable for understanding the replacement of a dream revelation by a direct one. 36  On the meaning of the expression ‫ אהל מועד‬and as reflecting a divine presence, see, e. g., Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, AB 3 (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 139–43. Perhaps the triple appearance of the expression ‫“ אהל מועד‬tent of meeting” here (2 Chr 1:3, 6, 13) was aimed at the encounter between Solomon and God (vv. 7–12); see Zalewski, Solomon’s Ascension, 346–47, who explains the triple appearance of ‫ אהל מועד‬here differently. 37  On the meaning of ‫ משכן‬as God’s dwelling, see, e. g., Diether Kellermann, “‫ משכן‬miškān,” TDOT 9:58–64; Michael B. Hundley, “Tabernacle or Tent of Meeting? The Dual Nature of the Sacred Tent in the Priestly Texts,” in Current Issues in Priestly and Related Literature: The Legacy of Jacob Milgrom and Beyond, ed. Roy E. Gane and Ada Taggar-Cohen, SBL Resources for Biblical Study 82 (Atlanta: SBL, 2015), 3–18, at 9–11. 38 Although the phrase ‫ לפני יהוה‬has other meanings that do not refer directly to the divine presence, nevertheless, in cultic contexts it usually implies a divine presence; see Mervyn D. Fowler, “The Meaning of lipnê YHWH in the Old Testament,” ZAW 99 (1987): 384–90. The occurrences of this phrase in Deuteronomy may indicate a divine presence (see Ian Wilson, Out of the Midst of the Fire: Divine Presence in Deuteronomy, SBLDS 151 [Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995], 131–217), but also a slight blurring of its original meaning, referring only to cultic activity in a temple. 35

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In addition, by constructing equality between the tent of the ark in Jerusalem and the tent of meeting at Gibeon, it demonstrates that the presence of an ark is not a necessary condition for the full, active functioning of a temple. This comprehensive rewriting activity cannot be explained simply as an attempt to justify Solomon’s sacrificing at Gibeon. I suggest that this considerable effort to accentuate the presence of the tabernacle and the deity at Gibeon without the ark, to elevate the status of, and legitimate, this cult site was motivated by the Chronicler’s desire to legitimate the Second Temple in which the cult was conducted without an ark, by creating a precedent that such a sanctuary could serve as a locus for the divine presence.39 Additional backing for this contention is provided in the discussion of other chronistic passages that treat the site at Gibeon (1 Chr 16:39–42; 21:29–30).

2. David’s Organization of the Cult at Gibeon (1 Chr 16:39–42) The Chronicler also refers to the contemporaneous functioning of these two cultic sites at the end of his version of the story of the transfer of the ark to the city of David.40 There a developed chronistic account has been inserted into a passage copied from the end of the story as found in Samuel (2 Sam 6:17– 19a=1 Chr 16:1–3 and 2 Sam 6:19b–20a=1 Chr 16:43).41 The intervening verses treat the Chronicler’s two legitimate cult sites: the tent of the ark in Jerusalem (vv. 4–7, 37–38) and the tabernacle at Gibeon (vv. 39–42).42 Here the Chronicler, who refers to both sites together, first tackles the site in the city of David to which David brought the ark. The Chronicler adds to his account details of the service conducted in front of the ark by the priests and Levites whom David appointed, not a sacrificial service but one of praise and hymns (vv. 4–7, 37–38). Note that the additional comments by the Chronicler  For a succinct, similar treatment, see Joachim Becker, 2 Chronik, NEB 20 (Würzburg: Echter Verlag, 1988), 5. Benjamin D. Giffone is probably correct in claiming that the Chronicler portraits the sanctuary at Gibeon according to the law in Lev 17 (“Cult Centralization,” 442–44), but this claim does not explain the special emphasis on this site. 40 There is no scholarly agreement regarding the chapter’s original form; see e. g., Welch, The Work of the Chronicler, 30; Noth, The Chronicler’s History, 35; Saul Zalewski, “Now rise up, O Lord, and go to your resting-place”: A Literary Study of the Ark Narrative in the Book of Chronicles (Beer Sheva: Ben-Gurion University Press, 2008), 116–230 [Hebrew]. 41 The Chronicler ignores the verses treating the argument between David and his wife Michal at the end of the story in Samuel (2 Sam 6:20b–23), just as he ignores other inconvenient passages regarding David (see Zalewski, Ark Narrative, 169). 42  In vv. 8–36 the Chronicler inserts a long psalm made up of sections from the book of Psalms; see e. g., Williamson, 1 and 2 Chronicles, 128. For a survey of the scholarly literature on this psalm and its function in this context, see John W. Kleinig, The Lord’s Song: The Basis, Function and Significance of Choral Music in Chronicles, JSOTSup 156 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1993), 133–36. 39

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regarding the founding of the cultic service in front of the ark are apposite to the narrative context: the bringing of the ark to the city of David. This, however, did not suffice for the Chronicler, who, notwithstanding the different context, treats the sanctuary at Gibeon too, for which he describes a sacrificial cult alongside one of praise and hymns founded by David (vv. 39–42).43 Once again, the association created between the sanctuaries by the Chronicler sparks the reader’s awareness that the shrine at Gibeon functioned without the ark. In this case the importance of the cultic site at Gibeon for the Chronicler is revealed inter alia by emphasizing that the main cultic rite – sacrificial worship – continued to be conducted at Gibeon: However, Zadok the priest and his fellow priests [he left] before the Tabernacle of YHWH at the shrine which was in Gibeon; to sacrifice burnt offerings to YHWH on the altar of the burnt offering regularly, morning and evening (1 Chr 16:39–40).

Thus, according to Chronicles, although the ark was brought to Jerusalem and a form of cultic activity was initiated there, the shrine at Gibeon nevertheless remained the principal cultic site. Moreover, in addition to the basic similarity between them – David organized the service at both, which includes priests and Levites (vv. 4–6, 37–38 [in the city of David], 39, 41–42 [at Gibeon]) – the Chronicler also constructs literary parallels between the cultic sites. Thus, the Chronicler uses the preposition ‫לפני‬ “in front of ” in relation to the service at both sites: ‫לפני הארון‬, “in front of the ark” (vv. 4, 6, 37); ‫לפני משכן יהוה‬, “in front of the tabernacle of YHWH” (v. 39). He also states with regard to both sites that singers and gatekeepers served there (vv. 37– 38, 41–42). In both descriptions the Chronicler uses the same terms and words: ‫תמיד‬, “regularly” (vv. 6, 37, 40); ‫אחיו‬, “his brothers” (vv. 37, 39); ‫להודות ליהוה‬, “to give praise to YHWH” (vv. 4, 7, 41); finally, the phrase ‫כי לעולם חסדו‬, “For His steadfast love is eternal,” which appears in the psalm the Chronicler compiled and inserted into his account as being sung before the ark (v. 34),44 occurs also in the account of the service of the singers at Gibeon (v. 41).45 All these parallels reflect the Chronicler’s efforts to create parity between the status of the shrine at Gibeon and the ark in Jerusalem.46 43  Some scholars understand this passage as recounting that it was David who erected the tabernacle at Gibeon after bringing the ark to Jerusalem; see, e. g., Johnstone, 1 Chronicles 1–2 Chronicles 9, 196. Aside from not fitting the sense of the narrative, this interpretation has no basis in Chronicles, which attributes to David only the organization of the cult there. 44  Although not explicitly stated, the accepted view is that the Chronicler meant that the psalm in vv. 8–36 was sung by the Levites in front of the ark; see, e. g., Adele Berlin, “Psalms in the Book of Chronicles,” in Shai le-Sara Japhet: Studies in the Bible, Its Exegesis and Its Language, ed. Moshe Bar-Asher et al. (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2007), 21*–36* at 30*. 45  See Knoppers, 1 Chronicles 10–29, 659. 46  See Thomas Willi, Chronik, BKAT 24/2/2 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2015), 123, 135; and Zalewski, Ark Narrative, 227–29, who comment on some of the similarities the Chronicler creates between the sites. Note also that descendants of Jeduthun served as

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Another detail prominently appended by the Chronicler to the account is the conducting of the regular daily worship at Gibeon in accord with the Torah: ‫ולכל‬ ‫הכתוב בתורת יהוה אשר צוה על ישראל‬, “in accordance with all that is written in the Law of YHWH with which He charged Israel” (v. 40). This again underscores both the legitimacy and importance of the cult at that site for the Chronicler and his efforts to portray the Gibeon sanctuary in that light. In addition, by noting that the tabernacle of YHWH (‫ )משכן יהוה‬was at Gibeon (v. 39), the Chronicler, as we saw for the account of Solomon’s visit to Gibeon in 2 Chr 1, indicates that Gibeon was a locus of the divine presence.47 Moreover, as described in this passage, the cult is in line with that of the Second Temple. As scholars note, the appointment in this chronistic account of the Levites as singers and gatekeepers to accompany the sacrificial cult mirrors the functions of these groups in the Second Temple, and the ascription to David of their appointment bestows a flavor of antiquity on these institutions.48 Given this clear tendency, it is reasonable to assume that it also prompted a description of another cultic element in this chapter as well: the portrayal of the shrine at Gibeon as a site at which the tabernacle legitimately functioned without the ark and the regular sacrificial worship was conducted. Motivated by an attempt to legitimize the Second Temple and its functioning on all levels, not just the institutions of singers and gatekeepers, but also the absence of the ark, the Chronicler constructed his portrayal of the circumstances at the Gibeon shrine in David’s day to mirror the Second Temple.

3. The reference to the sanctuary at Gibeon in 1 Chr 21:29–30 The tabernacle at Gibeon is also mentioned in a third passage in Chronicles: the story regarding the altar built by David at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite recounted in 1 Chr 21:1–22:1 (based on 2 Sam 24). In its conclusion the Chronicler adds a new passage (21:26b–22:1). Verses 29–30, which are devoted to the cultic site at Gibeon, contain the Chronicler’s explanation as to why David offered sacrifices on the altar at the threshing floor of Ornan and not in the tabernacle at Gibeon:49 gatekeepers at both cult sites (vv. 38, 42); however, the text of v. 38 is probably corrupt; see Japhet, I & II Chronicles, 320; Klein, 1 Chronicles, 350–51. 47  Noting that the Chronicler twice omits the phrase ‫ לפני יהוה‬in the description of bringing the ark to Jerusalem (1 Chr 15:27, 29), which appears in his source in Samuel (2 Sam 6:14, 16), scholars offer a variety of explanations; see e. g., Rudolph, Chronikbücher, 119; Zalewski, Ark Narrative, 170–73. We can ask whether this omission indicates the Chronicler’s tendency to blur the existence of the divine presence in relation to the ark, while underscoring it in relation to Gibeon. 48  See e. g., Williamson, 1 and 2 Chronicles, 73; Knoppers, 1 Chronicles 10–29, 659–61. 49  Because 22:1 is clearly the direct continuation of 21:28, the intervening verses, which deal

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‫ומשכן יהוה אשר עשה משה במדבר ומזבח העולה בעת ההיא בבמה בגבעון ולא יכל דויד ללכת לפניו לדרש‬ ‫אלהים כי נבעת מפני חרב מלאך יהוה‬ The tabernacle of YHWH, which Moses had made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt offering were at that time in the ‫ במה‬at Gibeon; but David was unable to go to it to worship God, because he was terrified by the sword of the angel of YHWH.

As the Chronicler himself declares in 1 Chr 16:39–42, Gibeon was the sole legitimate place for offering sacrifices at that time. His solution is to create an excuse for David – his fear of the angel – which meant that he had no choice but to sacrifice there,50 thereby preserving the status of the Gibeon shrine as the sole legitimate sacrificial site. But this did not suffice for the Chronicler. Here the description of the sanctuary at Gibeon is more developed than in 1 Chr 16:39. The additional information that this tabernacle of YHWH was built by Moses in the wilderness (v. 29) functions to bestow antiquity and authority on the site at Gibeon. Furthermore, the chronistic formulations of David’s statement in 22:1, ‫זה הוא‬ ‫בית יהוה האלהים וזה מזבח לעלה לישראל‬, “Here shall be the house of the Lord God and here the altar of burnt offering for Israel,” regarding the future temple in Jerusalem and the description of the cult site at Gibeon in 21:29 display literary parallels. Both verses mention a sanctuary and an altar, in that order; both sanctuaries appear in construct-state expressions, in which the dependent word is YHWH;51 and both contain the expression ‫מזבח העלה‬, “the altar of burnt offering.” The immediate meaning of David’s statement is, therefore, that the future temple will replace Moses’s tabernacle at Gibeon. On this basis, the reader can conclude that the temple and the Gibeon cultic site share the same status and, that the ark, not mentioned here, is not crucial to the functioning of a legitimate temple. As compared to the other chronistic Gibeon pericopae, this passage contains a new element: the creation of equivalency between the tabernacle at Gibeon and the future temple. It is possible that this is what motivated the Chronicler to insert the exceptional apologetic excuse for David’s actions. Similar to the other Gibeon passages, the Chronicler also takes care to imply that Gibeon is a locus of the divine presence, here by the use of the phrases ‫לדרש‬ with the sanctuary at Gibeon (vv. 29–30), should accordingly be viewed either as parenthetical or as an interpolation. See e. g., Curtis and Madsen, Chronicles, 254; Welch, Work of the Chronicler, 31–32; Knoppers, 1 Chronicles 10–29, 759–60. The appearance of typical chronistic terms and expressions in vv. 29–30 (Japhet, I & II Chronicles, 388–90; Dirksen, 1 Chronicles, 263), and the affinity to the chronistic tendency to mention the site at Gibeon apropos other cultic sites as shown above, make a chronistic attribution of these verses more likely, as some scholars note; see Rudolph, Chronikbücher, 148; Pancratius C. Beentjes, Tradition and Transformation in the Book of Chronicles, SSN 52 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 56. 50  See Rudolph, Chronikbücher, 148; Japhet, I & II Chronicles, 390. 51  In 21:29 ‫ יהוה‬is the only dependent word, whereas in 22:1 ‫ יהוה אלהים‬is the dependent phrase.

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‫אלהים‬, “to resort to God” (v. 30),52 and, as noted above, ‫משכן יהוה‬, “the tabernacle of YHWH” (v. 29). These three unique, expanded chronistic references to the shrine at Gibeon, which mention the tent of meeting or the tabernacle, indicate the importance and legitimacy of this site for the Chronicler, and its function as a locus of the divine presence. The specification, in two of the three cases, of the fact that the ark was in the city of David reveals that the Chronicler wanted the reader to notice that the cultic site at Gibeon functioned legitimately without the ark. This impressively comprehensive effort cannot be explained merely as a local solution for a literary problem. It rather appears to be an attempt to cope with a contemporary existential challenge. The generation of a new difficulty – the simultaneous existence of two legitimate cultic sites as a byproduct of the legitimization of the shrine at Gibeon – reinforces the supposition that the motivation of the Chronicler is not just interpretive. As a crucial issue, we would expect to find some treatment of the absence of the ark in Chronicles. The suggestion put forth here is that the heightened, sympathetic chronistic attitude displayed toward the shrine at Gibeon is the chronistic way of coping with the absent ark in the contemporary temple.

4. 2 Chr 5:5 as a Building Block in the Chronistic Image of the Cultic Site at Gibeon Another verse that contributed to the creation of the chronistic picture of the shrine at Gibeon, 2 Chr 5:5, must be discussed here: ‫ויעלו את־הארון ואת־אהל מועד ואת־כל־כלי הקדש אשר באהל העלו אתם הכהנים הלוים‬ They brought up the Ark and the Tent of Meeting and all the holy vessels that were in the Tent – the Levite priests brought them up.53

This reference to ‫ אהל מועד‬has an exact parallel in 1 Kgs 8:4, but this is its sole mention there, and it is clearly an interpolation into the 1 Kings narrative of the bringing of the ark from the city of David to the temple, as demonstrated by the fact that the story deals solely with the ark (1 Kgs 8:1, 3, 5–9 = 2 Chr 5:2, 4, 6–10).54 52  As mentioned above, the Chronicler uses the verb ‫ דרש‬in relation to the ark (1 Chr 13:3; 15:13) and the altar at Gibeon (2 Chr 1:5) as well. 53  The slight differences between that verse and the parallel in Kings in the MT, as well as the other differences found in the various textual witnesses, are not pertinent to the discussion here; see BHS. 54  See Immanuel Benzinger, Die Bücher der Könige, KHC 9 (Leipzig: Mohr Siebeck, 1899), 57; Japhet, I & II Chronicles, 575–76; Cogan, 1 Kings, 291. The original text had only ‫ויעלו את ארון‬ ‫ יהוה‬as in Kings, or ‫ ויעלו את הארון‬as in Chronicles. The second half of the verse serves as a kind of a resumptive repetition.

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The purpose of this interpolation is to convey the message that the tent of meeting and the holy vessels were brought from the city of David together with the ark. There are no clues as to when, or from where, these items were brought to the city of David;55 presumably the glossator thought that this addition would contribute to a perception of Solomon’s temple as the continuation of the tent of meeting, as also deriving its strength from the ancient tabernacle of Moses. In this way the glossator constructs continuity, creating a lucid history of the divine presence in Israel, one allegedly without gaps.56 Having noticed this valuable information, the Chronicler apparently tried to understand its underpinnings. In the absence of additional information, the Chronicler, in line with his goals, drew a link between this verse and Solomon’s sacrificing at Gibeon (1 Kgs 3:4–15). The Chronicler located the tabernacle there and thus “provided” some missing details.57 It appears likely that, in order to sanction the temple of his day, the Chronicler took the notion of the existence of the tent of meeting in Solomon’s day from this peculiar verse, employing it to create a precedent for a legitimate sanctuary without an ark but with a divine presence. Copying the verse as is from the book of Kings, the Chronicler obviously interpreted it differently. Its plain meaning is that the tabernacle was in the city of David before Solomon brought it to the temple. The Chronicler artificially reinterpreted ‫ ויעלו‬and ‫“( העלו‬brought up”) in this verse as relating separately to the ark, on the one hand, and the tent of meeting and the holy vessels, on the other;58 namely, the ark was brought from the city of David, whereas the tent of meeting and the holy vessels were brought from Gibeon.59 A simpler solution would have been to take the plain meaning of the gloss and state that the tabernacle was in 55 It is hard to know whether the author of this interpolation in 1 Kgs 8:4 took into account the comments that connect the priestly tent of meeting and the sanctuary at Shiloh (Josh 18:1; 1 Sam 2:22) which meant to convey that the tent of meeting was moved from Shiloh to the city of David. 56  See Johnstone, 1 Chronicles 1–2 Chronicles 9, 334; Victor (Avigdor) Hurowitz, I Have Built You an Exalted House: Temple Building in the Bible in Light of Mesopotamian and Northwest Semitic Writings, JSOTSup 115 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1992), 264–66. Hurowitz (265 n. 1) convincingly overturns Richard E. Friedman’s unfounded hypothesis that following our verse the tabernacle was placed in the Holy of Holies of the Solomonic Temple, under the wings of the cherubim; see Richard E. Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible (New York: Summit, 1987), 183. 57  It is not impossible that the Chronicler was inspired by the verses in Josh 9, which connect the Gibeonites and the Israelite sanctuary (vv. 23, 27), considering that the existing sanctuary in Joshua’s day was the tabernacle. 58  This discrepancy proves that this interpolation is not chronistic; cf. Sara Japhet, I & II Chronicles, 576. 59  See David Kimḥi ad loc.; cf. Becker, 2 Chronik, 23. Jeon endeavors to argue that the tent of meeting here is the tent that David erected for the ark in the city of David (“Priestly Tent of Meeting,” 2–6). This view is difficult to accept, as there is no clear use of the phrase ‫אהל מועד‬ in sole relation to David’s tent. Moreover, the only likely occurrence of this phrase in relation to David’s tent is the quite ambiguous case in 1 Chr 6:17 (Eng. 32), which probably includes a

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the city of David together with the ark, thereby preventing the coexistence of two cultic sites. The Chronicler preferred, however, to pursue a different path, situating the tent of meeting at Gibeon and creating a “new” legitimate cultic site concurrent with the one in Jerusalem. In any event, this verse most likely made an invaluable contribution to the Chronicler’s production of the new image of the Gibeon cultic site and sparked and augmented the Chronicler’s creation of the concept of this site as a precedent for the Second Temple.60

5. Other references to ‫ אהל מועד‬or ‫ משכן‬in Chronicles Additional references to ‫ אהל מועד‬or ‫ משכן‬found throughout Chronicles shed further light on the Chronicler’s attitude toward the Gibeon shrine, and their discussion completes the picture. 1. The phrase ‫ משכן אהל מועד‬occurs in the introduction to the genealogies of the three head singers in 1 Chr 6 (vv. 18–32 [Eng. 33–47]): ‫ואלה אשר העמיד דויד על ידי שיר בית יהוה ממנוח הארון ויהיו משרתים לפני משכן אהל מועד בשיר עד‬ ‫בנות שלמה את בית יהוה בירושלם ויעמדו כמשפטם על עבודתם‬ These were appointed by David to be in charge of song in the House of YHWH from the time the Ark came to rest. They served at the Tabernacle of the Tent of Meeting with song until Solomon built the House of YHWH in Jerusalem and they carried out their duties as prescribed for them (vv. 16–17 [Eng. 31–32])

Although it is clear from these verses that David was the founder of the holy service of the singers and that this took place after the ark was brought to the city of David, at which site they served is less so. Verse 16 (Eng. 31) calls this place ‫בית יהוה‬, “the House of YHWH,” a designation which usually refers to the Solomonic temple, but of course during David’s reign that had not yet been built.61 In v. 17 (Eng. 32) the site is designated ‫משכן אהל מועד‬, “the Tabernacle of the Tent of Meeting.”62 Note that, according to 1 Chr 16, David appointed one head singer to reference to Moses’s tent at Gibeon; see Japhet, I & II Chronicles, 576. On the chronistic use of diverse phrases for the different cultic sites, see below. 60 It is possible that 1 Chr 17:5 (= 2 Sam 7:6) also contributes to the notion of the continuity of the tabernacle’s existence, as it mentions ‫“ אהל‬tent” and ‫“ משכן‬tabernacle”: ‫כי לא ישבתי בבית‬ ‫מן־היום אשר העליתי את־ישראל עד היום הזה ואהיה מאהל אל אהל וממשכן‬, “From the day that I brought out Israel to this day, I have not dwelt in a house, but have [gone] from tent to tent and from one Tabernacle [to another].” Note, however, that in the context of the verse it is the ark which is mentioned, and therefore this verse does not directly support the existence of a tabernacle without an ark or of the tabernacle itself. 61 See Gary N. Knoppers, 1 Chronicles 1–9, AB 12 (New York: Doubleday, 2003), 422, who does not determine whether this phrase relates to the tent of the ark in the city of David or the tabernacle at Gibeon. 62  The LXX has a strange phrase here: σκηνῆς οἴκου μαρτυρίου, which may reflect ‫משכן בית‬ ‫העדות‬, but this Greek phrase does not seem to be a literal translation of such a Vorlage.

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serve in front of the ark in the city of David and two at Gibeon; all are mentioned in the passage that follows the heading in 1 Chr 6:16–17 (Eng. 31–32). Given the use of similar phrases, terms, and names, the conceptual resemblance between the passage in 1 Chr 6:16–32 (Eng. 31–47) and the details relating to the singers in the story of the bringing up of the ark (1 Chr 15:16–21; 16:5, 7, 37–38, 41–42), treating them as contradictory traditions seems unfounded.63 Assuming that the Chronicler paid attention to the terms he used for the holy places, and that the verses are not corrupt, it is preferable to suggest that the Chronicler intentionally uses the same terms for the various sites – the tent of the ark in Jerusalem, and the tent of meeting at Gibeon. Consequently, he probably applies the terms ‫בית‬ ‫יהוה‬, “the House of YHWH,” in v. 16 (Eng. 31) and ‫משכן אהל מועד‬, “the Tabernacle of the Tent of Meeting,” in v. 17 (Eng. 32) to both sites. Although the presumed historical context of the unit is David’s day, it is clear that all the orders of worship described in the chapter are intended for the temple. As noted above, the Chronicler seeks to convince the reader that the praxis of the temple service in his day, namely the Second Temple period, was founded by David and already performed in the First Temple.64 Accordingly the terms are also applied to both temples, hence the use of ‫בית יהוה‬. 2. The peculiar, ambiguous phrase ‫משכן בית האלהים‬, “the tabernacle of the house of God,” found only in 1 Chr 6:33 (Eng. 48), embodies the Chronicler’s intention to link the tabernacle and the temple. In the context of the chapter this expression relates to the same sanctuary/ies as that/those referred to in vv. 16–17 (Eng. 31–32) and similarly connects the phrases ‫ משכן‬and ‫בית האלהים‬. Accordingly, the unique expression “the tabernacle of the house of God” refers to all legitimate shrines through the ages, namely the tabernacle of Moses, the tent of the ark, and the First and Second Temples, and implies that they share equal status and legitimacy.65 3. In the lists of priests and Levites in 1 Chr 9 various epithets for the holy place(s) appear: ‫בית האלהים‬, “the House of God” (v. 11, 13, 26, 27); ‫אהל‬, “the tent” (v. 19); ‫אהל מועד‬, “the tent of meeting” (v. 21); ‫בית יהוה‬, “the House of YHWH” (v. 23); and ‫בית האהל‬, “the house of the tent” (v. 23).66 Their joint occurrence in 63  Scholars attempt to understand these passages as not contradictory; see e. g., Joachim Becker, 1 Chronik, NEB 18 (Würzburg: Echter Verlag, 1986), 35; Knoppers, 1 Chronicles 1–9, 422. Martin Noth attributes the entire passage in vv. 16–33 (Eng. 31–48) to a second hand (Chronicler’s History, 40). 64  Williamson, 1 and 2 Chronicles, 73. 65  See Japhet, I & II Chronicles, 158, who determines that the phrase ‫ משכן בית האלהים‬makes ‫“ משכן‬a general noun, defining that ‘the abode (miškan) of the Lord’ could be either a tent or a house.” 66  The construction ‫ לבית יהוה לבית האהל‬is admittedly strange, but even the baseless emendation in BHS ‫ לעמת האהל‬still preserves the term ‫ אהל‬in relation to the temple. Other phrases can be added to the discussion: ‫מחנות בני לוי‬, “the Levite camps” (v. 18); ‫מחנה יהוה‬, “the camp of YHWH” (v. 19). The first may attribute the gatekeepers to the Levites (see Japhet, I & II

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189

one literary unit suggests that all these epithets designate the temple. Although the diverse terminology used here in relation to the temple perhaps derives from the variety of sources on which the Chronicler relies, the lack of any attempt to create even an impression of unity in this regard may point to the Chronicler’s intention to show that all these terms are equal and well matched to the temple.67 4. A similar phenomenon is attested in 1 Chr 23:32 in the context of David’s preparations for building the temple:68 ‫ושמרו את־משמרת אהל מועד ואת משמרת הקדש ומשמרת בני אהרן אחיהם לעבדת בית יהוה‬ Thus they would keep watch over the Tent of Meeting over the holy things and over the Aaronites their kinsmen for the service of the House of YHWH.

Here again the expressions ‫ אהל מועד‬and ‫ בית יהוה‬are applied to the same site: the Jerusalem temple.69 5. Another instance is found in Hezekiah’s reported statement: ‫כי מעלו אבתינו‬ ‫ועשו הרע בעיני יהוה ויעזבהו ויסבו פניהם ממשכן יהוה‬, “For our fathers trespassed and did what displeased YHWH our God; they forsook Him and turned their faces away from the tabernacle of YHWH” (2 Chr 29:6). Here the temple is called ‫משכן יהוה‬.70 Sara Japhet has correctly observed that the Chronicler intentionally creates a “typological equation among three historical contexts”: Moses’s, David’s (and the First Temple), and the Chronicler’s day. According to Japhet, the Chronicler deliberately creates hybrid expressions such as ‫משכן בית האלהים‬, “the tabernacle of the house of God,” and ‫בית האהל‬, “the house of the tent,” with the purpose of “fully equating the two components, ‘the house’ and ‘the tent’, thus creating a continuity between the two institutions.”71 In Chronicles this continuity is manifested not just in the use of certain terms and phrases, but also by the emphatically repeated notion that the tabernacle legitimately functioned at Gibeon until the inauguration of the temple. I suggest, however, that the Chronicler’s use Chronicles, 214), and the latter may refer to the tabernacle in the wilderness (see ibid., 216), but cf. 2 Chr 31:2. Accordingly these phrases do not indicate the temple, the tent of the ark, or the shrine at Gibeon. 67  Becker, 1 Chronik, 49, wonders to which cultic site the noun ‫ אהל‬refers to in this chapter. Knoppers, 1 Chronicles 1–9, 505–6, following Friedman (n. 56 above), thinks that “the tent of meeting had become a constituent part of the temple.” Japhet, I & II Chronicles, 214–215, notes “the identification of ‘tent’ with ‘house of God.’” 68  Some scholars consider 1 Chr 23–27 secondary; e. g., Noth, The Chronicler’s History, 31–32. 69  Coggins suggests that this tradition displays no knowledge of the tradition that the tent of meeting was at Gibeon (First and Second Books, 120); Rudolph proposes an indiscriminate use of the terms (Chronikbücher, 158), but in light of the general chronistic tendency to deliberately use different terms for the temple, such assumptions are unnecessary. 70  Japhet (I & II Chronicles, 918) draws attention to the chronicler’s use here of diverse designations for the temple: the house of YHWH (v. 5 ‫ ;)בית יהוה‬the tabernacle of YHWH (v. 6 ‫משכן‬ ‫( אולם ;)יהוה‬v. 7); ‫( קדש‬vv. 5, 7). 71  Japhet, I & II Chronicles, 216.

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of these emphases and equivalencies extends beyond the notion of continuity and also encompasses the legitimacy of a temple without an ark; thus, a cultic site such as the one at Gibeon can be called ‫ בית יהוה‬just as the temple can be designated ‫ אהל‬and ‫משכן‬. This ambiguity and conflation places all the legitimate cultic sites in Israel, including the Second Temple, on the same footing; they are all loci of the divine presence and can therefore be legitimately designated ‫בית‬ ‫יהוה‬.

6. Conclusion In his effort to justify Solomon’s act of offering sacrifices at Gibeon (2 Chr 1:3– 6), the Chronicler situates the tabernacle of Moses there. However, the notion that Solomon’s sacrificial offerings at Gibeon were conducted at the tabernacle of Moses did not suffice for the Chronicler; on his own initiative he develops and adds two additional cases in which this shrine is explicitly portrayed as a legitimate cultic site. Given the concurrent presence of the ark in the city of David as a cult site (1 Chr 16:1–38) and the Chronicler’s tendency to describe the history of Israel in accord with pentateuchal law, the supposition that two legitimate cultic sites coexisted in the time of David and Solomon is astonishing. Nevertheless, the Chronicler makes no attempt to conceal that Solomon offered sacrifices at Gibeon; on the contrary, he underscores this site and amplifies its importance. Therefore his effort to justify Solomon’s deed does not fully explain the chronistic creation of a picture of the contemporaneous existence of two cultic sites. The considerable energy devoted by the Chronicler to legitimating the site at Gibeon and portraying it as equal to the tent of the ark and even to Solomon’s temple, together with the repeated emphasis that there was some sort of divine presence at Gibeon even without the ark, highlight the exceptional importance of the sanctuary at Gibeon for the Chronicler. Inasmuch as the Chronicler on many occasions sought in his book to anchor the contemporary temple praxis in the time of David and the First Temple, it is reasonable to assume that he made a similar effort to create a precedent that bestowed legitimacy on the Second Temple itself, which functioned without an ark. The elaborate chronistic portrayal of the shrine at Gibeon can therefore probably be understood as part of the Chronicler’s strategy: to use the shrine at Gibeon as a model and precedent for the Second Temple. By presenting a legitimate cult site that somehow was also a locus of the divine presence even without an ark, he could validate the Second Temple where the cult was conducted under similar conditions.72

72  On the altar as a substitute for the ark in drawing the divine presence to the temple according to the Chronicler, see Kislev, “Role of the Altar.”

3s Verbs with Indefinite Subjects in the Tabernacle Pericopes of Exodus Raanan Eichler 1. Introduction What would happen if an ordinary grammatical construction in the Bible fell out of use in post-biblical Hebrew and was forgotten? The intended meaning of the passages in which it occurred would often be unreachable for readers lacking sophisticated philological tools, including all readers before the Middle Ages. It stands to reason that there would then be confused efforts to find some meaning – any meaning – for each of these passages, without regard for grammatical anomalies or stylistic awkwardness. In cases where there chanced to be an alternative way to understand the text as it was, some readers would have done so. Perhaps more often, the text would have been “corrected” by its tradents, most readily with changes in vocalization, but also with small changes in the letters. I contend that we can see these dynamics at work with the third-person singular indefinite subject. Biblical Hebrew has various methods to express an indefinite subject.1 One method is to use an active third-person plural (3pl) verb, as in ‫( בעת ההיא יִקְְראּו לירושלם כסא יהוה‬Jer 3:17). This method became yet more common in post-biblical Hebrew,2 and it is still used in Hebrew today.3 It also has a counterpart in English: “At that time they will call Jerusalem YHWH’s throne.” Another method in Biblical Hebrew is to use an active third-person singular (3s) verb,4 as in ‫( על כן קָָרא שמה בבל‬Gen 11:9). This method, however fell out of use. It began to decline already in Qumran Hebrew;5 Mishnaic Hebrew tended 1  GKC, § 144d–k; Chaim Rabin, “The Ancient Versions and the Indefinite Subject,” Textus 2 (1962): 60–76, at 61; Chaim Rabin, “Stylistic Variation and the Indefinite Person in the Bible,” in Studies in the Bible and the Hebrew Language Presented to Meir Wallenstein, ed. Chaim Rabin et al. (Jerusalem: Kiryat Sefer, 1979), 256–68, at 257–58 [Hebrew]; Chaim Rabin, Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Jerusalem: Academon, 1995/96), 36–40 [Hebrew]; Joüon, § 155b–i. 2  Rabin, Biblical Hebrew Syntax, 40; Elisha Qimron, A Grammar of the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Jerusalem: Yad Yizhak Ben-Zvi, 2018), 398–99. 3 See Orah Malul, “The Use of the Passive and the Use of the Indefinite in Written Hebrew and Spoken Hebrew,” Hed Ha’Ulpan HeḤadash 83 (2001): 72–80 [Hebrew]. 4  The verb is almost always masculine. It is feminine only when the subject clearly must be female. Two such instances have been identified (Num 26:59; 1 Kgs 1:6). 5  Qimron, Grammar, 398; Takimitsu Muraoka, A Syntax of Qumran Hebrew (Leuven: Peeters, 2020), 289.

192

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to avoid it;6 the medieval Jewish commentators saw its occurrences in the Bible as problems requiring a solution;7 and it is not used in contemporary Hebrew.8 It has no counterpart in English: “Thus one called it Babel” differs in shade of meaning. The least bad way to translate such constructions into English, the way that is ordinarily chosen, in fact, is to use the passive: “Thus it was called Babel.” Now, readers who are not familiar with this kind of indefinite subject may try to find a definite subject for the verb from elsewhere in the text; and there will always be such a subject if one only searches far enough. Alternatively, a change in vocalization will often suffice to transform the verb from active to passive, and other possibilities can usually be opened up with the change or addition of a single letter. The 3s indefinite subject is quite common in the Bible. It is recognized in the standard reference grammars,9 and Chaim Rabin lists 126 instances of it across seventeen of the Bible’s twenty-four books.10 No one denies that this construction is real; no one argues that all of Rabin’s 126 instances are bogus. Despite scant recognition in current scholarship, its existence as a normal element of Biblical Hebrew is fact. Logically, therefore, whenever any difficult biblical text can be explained merely by assuming that a 3s verb in it expresses an indefinite subject, this explanation should be preferred over any that require ad hoc assumptions. I have argued in a recent study that a historically troublesome section in the priestly law of women’s vows (Num 30) can be explained exactly so.11 The present paper, like the aforementioned one, has benefited greatly from the published work of my teacher and Doktorvater, Baruch Schwartz, and by his incisive input in conversation. In it, I will attempt to identify forty-eight instances of the 3s indefinite subject in what is perhaps the most characteristically priestly section of the Pentateuch: the tabernacle pericopes of Exodus (Exod 25–31; 35– 40). Besides clarifying the passages that contain these instances, I hope thereby to show that the 3s indefinite subject is far more common in the Bible than was recognized even by Rabin, whose list does not include any of the herein-alleged instances. While many of them were recognized, at least as possibilities, by  6 Abba Bendavid, Biblical Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1971), 2:491 [Hebrew]. It was occasionally used in Mishnaic Hebrew immediately after 3pl and other indefinite forms (ibid.; Moshe Z. Segal, Grammar of the Language of the Mishnah [Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1935/6], 65–66 [Hebrew]; Moshe Azar, The Syntax of Mishnaic Hebrew [Jerusalem: Academy of the Hebrew Language, 1995], 66 [Hebrew]).  7  They are said to have explained it as an ellipsis of the participle, e. g., ]‫;על כן קרא [הקורא‬ see GKC, § 144e; Joüon, § 155e. Their understanding was inaccurate and hindered their ability to recognize the construction in many of its occurrences, as I hope to show in a future paper.  8 Personal experience. Note that it is not mentioned by Malul (“Use”).  9 GKC, § 144d; Joüon, § 155e. See also IBHS, § 4.4.2. 10  Rabin, “Ancient Versions,” 62–67. 11 Raanan Eichler, “A Sin is Borne: Clearing up the Law of Women’s Vows (Numbers 30),” VT 71 (2021): 317–28.

3s Verbs with Indefinite Subjects in the Tabernacle Pericopes of Exodus

193

William Propp in his commentary on Exodus, Propp, too, is prone to considering the construction “troublesome” and “unusual” and wanting to “dispose of ” its occurrences.12 Moreover, by providing a picture – very partial, to be sure – of when and how the priestly source uses this particular grammatical construction, I hope to make a small contribution to our understanding of the priestly literary style, which Prof. Schwartz has done so much to advance. Structurally, the tabernacle pericopes of Exodus are usually understood to consist of two main parts: the divine instructions regarding the tabernacle (Exod 25–31), and the execution of those instructions (Exod 35–40).13 Most passages in the first part have a very similarly worded counterpart in the second, and vice versa. Analysis of any passage in these pericopes should begin with a citation of its parallel, when one exists.14

12 William H. C. Propp, Exodus 19–40: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 2A (New York: Doubleday, 2006), 326–27, 333. 13 Exod 40 is really a third, fourth, and fifth part: the divine instructions regarding the erection of the tabernacle (vv. 1–16); the execution of those instructions (vv. 17–33); and the denouement (vv. 34–38). 14  The editions used herein for the various textual witnesses and other primary sources are as follows. Masoretic Text (quoted): Leningrad Codex as reproduced in the HMT-W4 module in Accordance Bible Software; Masoretic Text (variants): Benjamin Kennicott, Vetus Testamentum Hebraicum: Cum Variis Lectionibus (Oxford: Clarendon, 1776–1780); Giovanni B. de Rossi, Variae Lectiones Veteris Testamenti (Parma, 1784–1788); Christian D. Ginsburg, Pentateuchus (London: British and Foreign Bible Society, 1908) [Hebrew]; Samaritan Pentateuch (letters): Abraham Tal and Moshe Florentin, The Pentateuch: The Samaritan Version and the Masoretic Version (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 2010) [Hebrew]; Samaritan Pentateuch (vocalization): Ze’ev Ben-Ḥayyim, The Words of the Pentateuch, vol. 4 of The Literary and Oral Tradition of Hebrew and Aramaic amongst the Samaritans (Jerusalem: Academy of the Hebrew Language, 1977) [Hebrew]; biblical Judean Desert scrolls: Donald W. Parry and Andrew C. Skinner, Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Library Texts (online); Septuagint: John W. Wevers, Exodus, vol. 2/1 in Septuaginta: Vetus Testamentum Graecum Auctoritate Academiae Scientarum Gottingensis editum (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991); Peshitta: M. D. Koster, Exodus in The Old Testament in Syriac: According to the Peshiṭta Version, vol. 1 fasc. 1 (Leiden: Brill, 1977); Vulgate: Robert Weber and Roger Gryson, Biblia Sacra Iuxta Vulgatam, 5th rev. ed., tagged digital version in Accordance Bible Software (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2007); Targum Onqelos: Alexander Sperber, The Pentateuch according to Targum Onkelos, vol. 1 of 4 in The Bible in Aramaic: Based on Old Manuscripts and Printed Texts (Leiden: Brill, 1959); Bernard Grossfeld, The Targum Onqelos to Exodus: Translated, with Apparatus and Notes, The Aramaic Bible 7 (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1988); Targum Neofiti: Alejandro Díez Macho, Neophyti 1: Targum Palestinense, MS de la Biblioteca Vaticana (Madrid: Conseju Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1968–79); other Jewish Targumim: Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon at cal.huc.edu; Samaritan Targum: Abraham Tal, The Samaritan Targum of the Pentateuch: A Critical Edition, Texts and Studies in the Hebrew Language and Related Subjects 4–6 (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 1980–83) [Hebrew]; medieval Jewish commentators: Mikra’ot Gedolot ‘Haketer’ at mgketer.org, accessed September 7, 2022; later traditional Jewish commentators: mg.alhatorah.org, accessed August 21, 2022.

194

Raanan Eichler

2. Explicit Instances in the Instruction Pericopes The instruction pericopes consist of seven speeches by YHWH to Moses. The first speech (Exod 25:1–30:10) is far longer than the other six (30:11–16, 17–21, 22–33, 34–38; 31:1–11, 12–17) combined, and it contains instructions regarding almost all of the tabernacle’s elements. 1–2. Exod 25:37, in the instructions regarding the lampstand, reads: ‫שבעה וְהֶעֱלָה את נרתיה וְהֵאִיר על עבר פניה׃‬ ֑ ‫ועשית את נרתיה‬

The second half of the verse, which contains the two verbs of interest, lacks a parallel in the execution pericopes (the first half is paralleled in Exod 37:23a). The two italicized verbs are both hiphil (active) third-person masculine singular. The verse seems to mean that the lampstand’s lamps should be made in such a way that, when they are “raised” (‫)וְ ֶה ֱעלָ ה‬ – namely, kindled – they will be made to shine (‫ )וְ ֵה ִאיר‬in a certain direction. We will later be told that this “raising” is to be done regularly by Aaron (Exod 30:8aα; Num 8:2–3; implied in Exod 27:20– 21; Lev 24:1–4), and once, when the tabernacle is first erected, by Moses (Exod 40:4b, 25). However, the subject of the italicized verbs cannot be Aaron, because he will not be mentioned in the tabernacle pericopes until considerably later (Exod 27:21); nor can it be Moses, because he is the addressee (Exod 25:1) and would take a second-person verb. It certainly cannot be Bezalel, who is first mentioned only much later (Exod 31:2). Finally, it cannot be the lampstand, which is feminine, or its lamps, which are plural. The subject of the verbs must therefore be indefinite: the verse does not specify who is to raise the lamps and cause them to shine; it says only that these actions are to be done. This seems to have been understood by Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, which supplies, after the first verb, the noncommittal subject ‫כהנא דמתמני‬, “the appointed priest,”15 and by some medieval commentators16 and modern scholars.17 The relevant segment of the verse may thus be translated into English as “when the lamps are kindled, they shall be made to shine.” The Samaritan Pentateuch has ‫והעלית‬, “and you shall raise,” instead of ‫וְ ֶה ֱעלָ ה‬, and ‫והאירו‬, “and they shall shine,” instead of ‫וְ ֵה ִאיר‬, making the subject of the first verb Moses, the addressee, and the subject of the second verb the lamps 15 For

this targumic maneuver, see Rabin, “Ancient Versions,” 75–76. b. Meir and Hezekiah b. Manoah ad loc. 17 Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Exodus, trans. Israel Abrahams (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1967), 344; Cornelis Houtman, Exodus III, HCOT (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 2000), 413– 14; Propp, Exodus 19–40, 311 (“one shall raise […] and illumine”), 404. See also Meir Paran, Forms of the Priestly Style in the Pentateuch: Patterns, Linguistic Usages, Syntactic Structures (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1989), 173 [Hebrew]. 16 Samuel

3s Verbs with Indefinite Subjects in the Tabernacle Pericopes of Exodus

195

themselves. These readings are reflected also in the Septuagint, the Peshitta, the Vulgate, Targum Onqelos, and Targum Neofiti. Presumably, these readings are secondary and were a product of the desire to make the verse comprehensible after the third-person singular indefinite subject fell out of use. 3. Exod 25:39, two verses later and near the end of the instructions regarding the lampstand, reads: ‫ככר זהב טהור יַעֲׂשֶה אתה את כל הכלים האלה׃‬

The verse’s parallel in the execution pericopes is Exod 37:24: ‫ככר זהב טהור ָע ָ ׂשה אתה ואת כל כליה׃‬

It is obvious that the italicized verb’s subject must be personal, but there is no definite personal entity that is eligible to be the subject, for the same reasons as above. Here, too, then, the subject must be indefinite, as understood by some.18 Although we have already been told that Moses is responsible for manufacturing the lampstand (Exod 25:1, 31, 37a), and we would tend to assume that the same is true for its ancillary objects, our verse does not state who is to make these items. The verse may thus be translated into English as “It, and all these utensils, shall be made from a talent of pure gold.” A few masoretic manuscripts have ‫ת ֲע ֶ ׂשה‬,ַ ּ “you shall make,” instead of ‫יַ ֲע ֶ ׂשה‬. This reading agrees with that found in the Samaritan Pentateuch, ‫תעשה‬, vocalized tēšši, and it is reflected also in the Septuagint19 and the Peshitta.20 Here, too, the variant is presumably secondary and was meant to make the verse more understandable. Indeed, the variant is specified as a masoretic sevirin.21 The Vulgate, Targum Onqelos, Targum Neofiti, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan appear to agree with the majority masoretic reading. 4. Exod 26:31, at the beginning of the instructions regarding the veil that separates the tabernacle into two parts, reads: ‫ועשית פרכת תכלת וארגמן ותולעת שני ושש משזר מעשה חשב יַעֲׂשֶה אתה כרבים׃‬

The verse’s parallel in the execution pericopes is Exod 36:35: ‫ויעש את הפרכת תכלת וארגמן ותולעת שני ושש משזר מעשה חשב ָע ָ ׂשה אתה כרבים׃‬

The subject of the italicized verb must be indefinite, for the same reasons as above.22 In the present case, we have been told at the beginning of this very verse 18 Works

cited in Houtman, Exodus, 414; Propp, Exodus 19–40, 311 (“one shall make”). however, the verb is found at the end of the previous verse. 20 This variant is preferred by Paran, Forms, 173. 21  Minhat Shai ad loc. 22 See Cassuto, Exodus, 359; works cited in Houtman, Exodus, 440; Propp, Exodus 19–40, 312 (“one shall make”). 19 Where,

196

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that Moses is responsible for manufacturing the veil, but the verse’s second half declines to repeat this information. The relevant segment of the verse may be translated into English as “it shall be made.” A few masoretic manuscripts and a Cairo Genizah fragment23 have ‫ת ֲע ֶ ׂשה‬,ַ ּ “you shall make,” instead of ‫יַ ֲע ֶ ׂשה‬. This reading is reflected also in the Septuagint, the Peshitta, and a marginal gloss in Targum Neofiti, and it, too, is a masoretic sevirin.24 The Samaritan Pentateuch reads ‫יעשו‬, “they shall make,” keeping the subject indefinite but using the third-person masculine plural, which remained a familiar method in Hebrew to express such a subject. Both variants are presumably secondary, as above. The Vulgate, Targum Onqelos, Targum Neofiti, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan appear to agree with the majority masoretic reading. 5. Exod 27:8, at the end of the instructions regarding the main altar, reads: ‫אתו כאשר הְֶראָה אתך בהר כן יעשו׃‬ ֑ ‫נבוב לחת תעשה‬

The second half of the verse, which contains the verb of interest, lacks a parallel in the execution pericopes (the first half is paralleled in Exod 38:7b). Certainly, the reader is expected to understand that the one who showed Moses something on the mountain is YHWH (Exod 24:18–25:1). However, YHWH, who is the speaker (Exod 25:1) and is not named in proximity to the verse, cannot be the grammatical subject of the third-person verb. YHWH would be the grammatical subject if the text were ‫( כאשר הראיתי אתך בהר‬as in Exod 25:9) or ‫כאשר הראה ה׳ אתך‬ ‫בהר‬. Thus, the subject is again indefinite, and the verb is equivalent to the passive verbs ‫ ָמ ְר ֶאה‬and ‫ית‬ ָ ‫ ָה ְר ֵא‬in similar verses (Exod 25:40 and 26:30 respectively).25 In other words, the verse does not say who showed Moses, but we know Who it was anyway.26 The relevant segment of the verse may be translated into English as “as you were shown on the mountain.” The Septuagint and the Vulgate use passive forms in place of ‫ה ְר ָאה‬,ֶ possibly reflecting the vocalization ‫ ָה ְר ָאה‬and the understanding of the word as being in the hophal (passive) stem.27 The Peshitta, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, and the Samaritan Targum use first-person verbs, possibly reflecting ‫ הראיתיך‬instead of 23 BHS

ad loc.  Minhat Shai ad loc. 25  See Cassuto, Exodus, 364; works cited in Houtman, Exodus, 451; Propp, Exodus, 424. Israel Knohl sees these three verses as exemplifying P’s tendency to depersonalize God in the time of Moses, and he ascribes the contrasting verse Exod 25:9 to H (The Sanctuary of Silence: A Study of the Priestly Strata in the Pentateuch [Jerusalem: Magnes, 1992], 122 and n. 6 [Hebrew]). 26 A similar instance, in which the grammatical subject is indefinite, but the logical subject is easily understood to be YHWH, is found in the declaration of the man of God from Judah (1 Kgs 13:9): ‫“ ;כי כן צִּוָה אתי בדבר יהוה לאמר לא תאכל לחם ולא תשתה מים ולא תשוב בדרך אשר הלכת‬I was commanded by the word of YHWH.” See Joseph ibn Kaspi ad loc.; Rabin, “Ancient Versions,” 64. 27  Meir Paran seems to mistakenly read the Masoretic Text in this way (Forms, 194 n. 48). 24

3s Verbs with Indefinite Subjects in the Tabernacle Pericopes of Exodus

197

‫ה ְר ָאה א ְֹת ָך‬.ֶ 28 Whether these are actual variants or merely less literal translations, we see a flight from the third-person singular that was presumably impelled by the desire to make the verse comprehensible after this method of expressing an indefinite subject fell out of use. The Samaritan Pentateuch, with ‫הראה‬, vocalized arˈr, and Targum Onqelos agree with the masoretic letters and pointing.

3. Explicit Instances in the Execution Pericopes The execution pericopes contain three sections describing the manufacture of the tabernacle’s various physical elements.29 All three are characterized by long series of third-person, personal, manufacturing verbs. The second of these sections (37:1–38:20), which deals with the tabernacle’s furniture, anointing oil, and courtyard, mentions Bezalel at its beginning, and all of its manufacturing verbs are masculine singular.30 The subject of these verbs is most easily understood as Bezalel.31 The third section (38:21–39:31), which deals with the priests’ vestments but prefaces the description of their manufacture with a reckoning of the precious materials collected for the tabernacle, mentions Bezalel and Oholiab at its beginning, and its manufacturing verbs are a mixture of masculine singular and masculine/common plural.32 This section can be understood such that the subject of its singular verbs is Bezalel, and the subject of its plural verbs is Bezalel and Oholiab. Some have understood the subject of the plural verbs here as “all the skilled workers,”33 but that group is not mentioned in the section or anywhere near it. It is the first section of the three (Exod 36:8–38), which deals with the structural elements of the tabernacle proper, that is most problematic with regard to the subject of its manufacturing verbs. It begins with a mention of ‫כל חכם לב‬ 28  In Targum Neofiti, the verb is omitted entirely, evidently a scribal error. A marginal gloss, ‫חיזוות‬, is inserted here in editions of the targum. Itai Kagan notes that the gloss is actually from two rows below in the manuscript and avers that it is unrelated (personal communication, August 2021). 29  The structure of the pericopes is radically different in the Septuagint. 30  In both the Masoretic Text and the Samaritan Pentateuch; likewise, the extant verbs in 4QpaleoExodm. 31  However, the verbs of this section that are extant in 4QReworked Pentateuchc are all plural. Qimron seems to infer from this that the singular verbs in this section of the biblical text were meant to express an indefinite subject, or at least that the author of the scroll understood them that way (Elisha Qimron, “Improvements to the Editions of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” Eretz-Israel 26 [1999]; 142–46, at 143 [Hebrew]; idem, Grammar, 399; idem, The Hebrew Compositions from Qumran: A Combined Edition, 3 vols. [Tel Aviv, 2020], 3:120 [Hebrew]). 32  In both the Masoretic Text and the Samaritan Pentateuch (with differences in both directions). The verbs of this section that are extant in 4QReworked Pentateuchc are all plural, including one that is singular in the Masoretic Text (39:8): see Qimron, Hebrew, 3:120. 33  John I. Durham, Exodus, WBC 3 (Waco: Word, 1987), 492; Houtman, Exodus, 471.

‫‪Raanan Eichler‬‬

‫‪198‬‬

‫‪, “all those who were skilled among the workers,” as the subject of‬בעשי המלאכה‬ ‫‪, after which its manufacturing verbs are‬וַ ַ ּי ֲעשׂ וּ ‪an initial masculine plural verb,‬‬ ‫‪consistently masculine singular.‬‬ ‫‪6–41. Exod 36:8–38, the first of the three sections, reads:‬‬ ‫‏ס ‪8‬וַ ַ ּי ֲעשׂ וּ כל חכם לב בעשי המלאכה את המשכן עשר יריעת שש משזר ותכלת וארגמן ותולעת‬ ‫שני כרבים מעשה חשב עָׂשָה אתם׃ ‪9‬ארך היריעה האחת שמנה ועשרים באמה ורחב ארבע באמה‬ ‫היריעה האחת מדה אחת לכל היריעת׃‏ ‪10‬וַיְחַּבֵר את חמש היריעת אחת אל אחת וחמש יריעת חִּבַר‬ ‫אחת אל אחת׃‏ ‪11‬וַּיַעַׂש ללאת תכלת על שפת היריעה האחת מקצה במחברת כן עָׂשָה בשפת היריעה‬ ‫הקיצונה במחברת השנית׃‏ ‪12‬חמשים ללאת עָׂשָה ביריעה האחת וחמשים ללאת עָׂשָה בקצה היריעה‬ ‫אשר במחברת השנית מקבילת הללאת אחת אל אחת׃‏ ‪13‬וַּיַעַׂש חמשים קרסי זהב וַיְחַּבֵר את הירעת‬ ‫אחת אל אחת בקרסים ויהי המשכן אחד׃ ס‬ ‫‏‪14‬וַּיַעַׂש יריעת עזים לאהל על המשכן עשתי עשרה יריעת עָׂשָה אתם׃ ‪15‬ארך היריעה האחת‬ ‫שלשים באמה וארבע אמות רחב היריעה האחת מדה אחת לעשתי עשרה יריעת׃ ‪16‬וַיְחַּבֵר את‬ ‫חמש היריעת לבד ואת שש היריעת לבד׃ ‪17‬וַּיַעַׂש ללאת חמשים על שפת היריעה הקיצנה במחברת‬ ‫וחמשים ללאת עָׂשָה על שפת היריעה החברת השנית׃ ‪18‬וַּיַעַׂש קרסי נחשת חמשים לחבר את האהל‬ ‫להית אחד׃ ‪19‬וַּיַעַׂש מכסה לאהל ערת אלים מאדמים ומכסה ערת תחשים מלמעלה׃ ס‬ ‫‪20‬וַּיַעַׂש את הקרשים למשכן עצי שטים עמדים׃ ‪21‬עשר אמת ארך הקרש ואמה וחצי האמה רחב‬ ‫הקרש האחד׃ ‪22‬שתי ידת לקרש האחד משלבת אחת אל אחת כן עָׂשָה לכל קרשי המשכן׃ ‪23‬וַּיַעַׂש‬ ‫את הקרשים למשכן עשרים קרשים לפאת נגב תימנה׃ ‪24‬וארבעים אדני כסף עָׂשָה תחת עשרים‬ ‫הקרשים שני אדנים תחת הקרש האחד לשתי ידתיו ושני אדנים תחת הקרש האחד לשתי ידתיו׃‬ ‫‪25‬ולצלע המשכן השנית לפאת צפון עָׂשָה עשרים קרשים׃ ‪26‬וארבעים אדניהם כסף שני אדנים‬ ‫תחת הקרש האחד ושני אדנים תחת הקרש האחד׃ ‪27‬ולירכתי המשכן ימה עָׂשָה ששה קרשים׃‬ ‫‪28‬ושני קרשים עָׂשָה למקצעת המשכן בירכתים׃ ‪29‬והיו תואמם מלמטה ויחדו יהיו תמים אל ראשו‬ ‫אל הטבעת האחת כן עָׂשָה לשניהם לשני המקצעת׃ ‪30‬והיו שמנה קרשים ואדניהם כסף ששה‬ ‫עשר אדנים שני אדנים שני אדנים תחת הקרש האחד׃ ‪31‬וַּיַעַׂש בריחי עצי שטים חמשה לקרשי‬ ‫צלע המשכן האחת׃ ‪32‬וחמשה בריחם לקרשי צלע המשכן השנית וחמשה בריחם לקרשי המשכן‬ ‫לירכתים ימה׃ ‪33‬וַּיַעַׂש את הבריח התיכן לברח בתוך הקרשים מן הקצה אל הקצה׃ ‪34‬ואת הקרשים‬ ‫צִּפָה זהב ואת טבעתם עָׂשָה זהב בתים לבריחם וַיְצַף את הבריחם זהב׃ ‪35‬וַּיַעַׂש את הפרכת תכלת‬ ‫וארגמן ותולעת שני ושש משזר מעשה חשב עָׂשָה אתה כרבים׃ ‪36‬וַּיַעַׂש לה ארבעה עמודי שטים‬ ‫וַיְצַּפֵם זהב וויהם זהב וַּיִצֹק להם ארבעה אדני כסף׃ ‪37‬וַּיַעַׂש מסך לפתח האהל תכלת וארגמן‬ ‫ותולעת שני ושש משזר מעשה רקם׃ ‪38‬ואת עמודיו חמשה ואת וויהם וְצִּפָה ראשיהם וחשקיהם‬ ‫זהב ואדניהם חמשה נחשת׃ פ‬ ‫‪The thirty-six italicized verbs are all third-person masculine singular.34 The‬‬ ‫‪section’s parallel in the instruction pericopes is Exod 26, where all the parallel‬‬ ‫‪verbs are second-person masculine singular and their subject is clearly Moses,‬‬ ‫‪the addressee there (see #4). But the subject of our verbs cannot be Moses (last‬‬ ‫‪mentioned in Exod 36:6), nor can it be Bezalel (Exod 36:2) or Oholiab (ibid.),‬‬ ‫‪34‬‬ ‫‪ for the‬קטל ;‪ at the beginning of each topic‬ויקטל ‪ Meir Paran notes that the pattern is:‬‬ ‫‪ once (v. 38) for a grand conclusion (Forms, 210).‬וקטל ‪continuation; and‬‬

3s Verbs with Indefinite Subjects in the Tabernacle Pericopes of Exodus

199

for two reasons: first, because the subject ‫ כל חכם לב בעשי המלאכה‬intervenes (Exod 36:8a) between the last mention of those individuals and our verbs; second, because there would then be a contradiction in v. 8 – the verse’s first half says that the skilled workers made the tabernacle curtains, and the second half would be saying that only Moses, Bezalel, or Oholiab made them. Thus, the only eligible subject for the verbs is ‫ כל חכם לב בעשי המלאכה‬itself in v. 8. But if this were the verbs’ grammatical subject, we should expect them to be in the plural, as ‫ ויעשו‬in the beginning of v. 8 in fact is. Baruch Schwartz has raised the possibility that the priestly author deliberately transitions here from plural to singular verbs with the same subject in order to communicate that each skilled individual fashioned what he fashioned.35 Indeed, Schwartz has illuminated the sophisticated priestly practice of switching between singular and plural as needed, with analyses of Lev 18:6 and 19:3 in particular.36 However, those examples involve disagreement in number between verbs with different subjects or between verb and pronominal suffix, not disagreement between verbs with the same grammatical subject, as would be the case here. As a rule, in compound subjects with ‫ כל‬as the nomen regens, the verb agrees with the nomen rectum; alleged exceptions are extremely rare and doubtful.37 The nomen rectum ‫ חכם לב‬here is indisputably collective,38 and postpositive verbs with this type of collective subject are generally plural; while in some instances a collective subject takes a singular verb before it is mentioned and a plural verb after it is mentioned, the reverse does not occur.39 Accordingly, the subject ‫ כל חכם לב‬and its relatives in the tabernacle pericopes never take a singular verb anywhere else in the Masoretic Text (Exod 28:3–6; 35:10, 25; 36:4–5; see also 34:32; 35:20–24, 26, 29).40 It would be an anomaly if the subject did so here. If the foregoing argumentation is accepted, the subject of the italicized verbs is most likely indefinite. The relevant segments may be translated into English as “they were made” (v. 8b), “five curtains were joined” (v. 10a), etc.41 Made by whom and joined by whom? Although they are not the grammatical subject, we understand from the first half of v. 8 that the relevant agents were “all those who  Personal communication, March 2019. J. Schwartz, The Holiness Legislation: Studies in the Priestly Code (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1999), 132, 163–64, 282, 309 [Hebrew]. 37 GKC, § 146c; Joüon, § 150o; see n. 61 below. 38  The Samaritan Pentateuch has ‫ חכמי‬instead of ‫חכם‬, making it not merely collective but formally plural. The Peshitta, Vulgate, and Targumim use plural forms for this word. 39 GKC, § 145b–g, o, q, s, u; Joüon, § 150b, e, j, l–m. 40  The verb pair ‫ יבאו ויעשו‬in Exod 35:10, with the subject ‫כל חכם לב בכם‬, appears in the Samaritan Pentateuch as singular ‫( יבוא ועשה‬likewise in the Septuagint and the Vulgate). And the verb ‫ טוו‬in 35:25, with the subject ‫כל אשה חכמת לב‬, appears in the Samaritan Pentateuch as singular (and masculine) ‫טוה‬. The latter reading is presumably influenced by the immediately preceding and singular-suffixed ‫בידיה‬. I suspect that ‫ בידיה‬is actually meant to modify ‫חכמת לב‬ before it, as partially understood by the Septuagint and perhaps no one else. 41  See K&D ad loc.; works cited in Houtman, Exodus, 420; Propp, Exodus 19–40, 664. 35

36 Baruch

200

Raanan Eichler

were skilled among the workers.” Thus, the observation that the subject of these verbs is indefinite is consequential for the meaning of the section: the structural elements of the tabernacle proper were made by the skilled workers generally,42 and not, as readers have tended to understand, by Bezalel alone.43 The Targumim and the Vulgate agree completely with the Masoretic Text regarding the grammatical number of the verbs in question.44 The Samaritan Pentateuch does, too, except that it has the plural ‫ ויעשו‬instead of the singular ׂ‫ וַ ַ ּי ַעש‬at the beginning of v. 31. This is perhaps due to the influence of the plural ‫ והיו‬verbs in the previous two verses, whose subject is the tabernacle’s frames. But the Peshitta consistently uses plural forms for the manufacturing verbs, except for ‫ ָע ָ ׂשה‬in v. 35, which it renders in the singular like the Masoretic Text.45 The Peshitta’s plural forms are presumably an effort to make the verbs agree with the most proximate eligible subject, ‫כל חכם לב בעשי המלאכה‬.

4. Inexplicit Instances In some cases, it appears that there was originally a 3s verb with an indefinite subject, but a change in vocalization or even a small change in letters due to the problematic nature of this construction created the reading in the Masoretic Text. We will now look at these. 42. Exod 25:28, in the instructions regarding the table, reads: ‫ועשית את הבדים עצי שטים וצפית אתם זהב וְנִּׂשָא בם את השלחן׃‬

The verse’s parallel in the execution pericopes is Exod 37:15: ‫ויעש את הבדים עצי שטים ויצף אתם זהב לָ ֵ ׂשאת את השלחן׃‬

The italicized verb is pointed as niphal (passive) third-person masculine singular, such that its subject is ‫השלחן‬: “the table shall be carried by them.” The standard reference grammars cite this instance with others as exemplifying the phenome42  As seems to have been understood by Nahmanides on Exod 36:8. See also Amos Hakham, Book of Exodus II, Daat Mikra (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1991), 368 [Hebrew]. 43  Naftali Z. Y. Berlin (Netziv) on Exod 36:13 and 36:17; Martin Noth, Exodus: A Commentary, trans. John S. Bowden, OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962), 276; Durham, Exodus, 478–79; Houtman, Exodus, 420. 44  The first verb in v. 10 is extant also in 4QExodk in the singular. The verb in v. 33 and the first verb in v. 34 are extant in 4QReworked Pentateuchc in the singular: see Qimron, Hebrew, 3:119. 45  In the Septuagint, where the structure of the pericopes is radically different and which has equivalents only to vv. 8–9 and 35–38, the personal verbs in those sections are consistently plural. Conversely, the initial verb at the beginning of v. 8, which is plural in the Masoretic Text, is singular in the Septuagint excluding Codex Alexandrinus; but it is doubtful whether this reflects a difference in the underlying Hebrew text.

3s Verbs with Indefinite Subjects in the Tabernacle Pericopes of Exodus

201

non of the impersonal passive with the accusative of the affected object.46 Aside from the uncommonness of this phenomenon, there is an additional unusual feature here: the italicized verb is the only occurrence of niphal ‫ נשׂ א‬in the Pentateuch. The Samaritan Pentateuch has ‫ונשאו‬, vocalized wnšā’u ( ּ‫)וְ נָ ְ ׂשאו‬, here,47 a qal (active) third-person masculine plural verb with an indefinite subject: “they shall carry.” This reading seems to be reflected also in the Peshitta, Targum Onqelos, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, which use a plural active participle. The Septuagint, the Vulgate, and, apparently, Targum Neofiti agree with the masoretic spelling and vocalization; the former two each use a passive singular form; the last uses an infinitive. It seems most likely that the word was originally intended as ‫( וְ נָ ָ ׂשא‬as in Exod 28:12, 29, 30, 38), a qal (active) third-person masculine singular verb, and that its subject was indefinite. The decline of the 3s indefinite subject caused a change of vocalization in the Masoretic Text and a slight change of letters in the Samaritan Pentateuch, neither of which significantly changed the meaning from that originally intended. 43–44. Exod 25:29, the next verse in the instructions regarding the table, reads: ‫ועשית קערתיו וכפתיו וקשותיו ומנקיתיו אשר יֻּסְַך בהן זהב טהור תעשה אתם׃‬

Its parallel in the execution pericopes is Exod 37:16: ‫ויעש את הכלים אשר על השלחן את קערתיו ואת כפתיו ואת מנקיתיו ואת הקשות אשר יֻּסְַך בהן זהב טהור׃‬

The two italicized verbs are pointed as hophal (passive) imperfect third-person masculine singular, and their root is ‫נסך‬, “to pour.” These, like ‫ וְ נִ ּ ָשׂ א‬in the previous verse (#42), are impersonal passives, but here there is no definite subject in view; they are thus “ordinary” impersonal passives.48 This construction has no counterpart in English, but it can be partially captured by translating the relevant segment as “with which things may be poured.”49 These are the only occurrences in the Bible of hophal ‫נסך‬. Aside from this anomaly, again there is textual confusion. The Samaritan Pentateuch in 37:16 with ‫ יוסך‬yuwwsåk, the Peshitta and Targum Neofiti on both verses, and Targum Onqelos and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on 25:29 all use passive third-person singular forms, agreeing with the masoretic letters and pointing. However, the Septuagint on 37:16 uses an active third-person singular 46  GKC, § 121a–b; Joüon, § 128b. It is worth examining how many of the other instances of this form are artifacts of the flight from the 3s indefinite subject. See also Elijah Mizrahi and Judah Loew of Prague (Gur Aryeh) ad loc. 47  See Tal, Pentateuch, 680. 48  GKC, § 121a–b; Joüon, § 152fa. 49  Propp, Exodus 19–40, 311: “from which may be poured.”

202

Raanan Eichler

form, reflecting the vocalization ‫יִ ַּס ְך‬. The Samaritan Pentateuch in 25:29 has ‫יסכו‬ yissku, a qal (active) third-person masculine plural verb with an indefinite subject: “they shall pour”; Targum Onqelos and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on 37:16 use masculine plural participles, perhaps reflecting the same text and vocalization. The Vulgate on both verses uses a passive plural form, perhaps reflecting the same text but vocalized ּ‫יֻ ְּסכו‬, “they shall be poured.” And the Septuagint on 25:29 uses a second-person singular form, reflecting ‫ת ַּס ְך‬,ִ ּ “you shall pour.” It seems most likely that the originally intended word was ‫יִ ַּס ְך‬, a qal (active) third-person masculine singular verb. This intent was preserved only in the Septuagint on 37:16. The other witnesses scattered in various directions in their search for meaning.50 45. Exod 38:21, in the reckoning of precious materials collected for the tabernacle, reads: ‫אלה פקודי המשכן משכן העדת אשר ּפֻּקַד על פי משה עבדת הלוים ביד איתמר בן אהרן הכהן׃‬

The verse lacks a parallel in the instruction pericopes. The italicized verb is pointed as pual (passive) perfect third-person masculine singular: “was recorded by.”51 While all the textual witnesses seem to agree on this, there are two problems with the verb. First, it does not match its ostensible subject, the plural ‫פקודי‬, in number.52 Second, there is only one other occurrence of pual ‫ פקד‬in the entire Bible, ‫ ּ ֻפ ַ ּק ְד ּ ִתי‬in Isa 38:10, and that occurrence is dubious: 1QIsaa has the noun ‫ פקודתי‬instead; the Septuagint and Vulgate use active forms and seem to reflect qal ‫;פ ַק ְד ּ ִתי‬ ָ ּ and the Peshitta seems similarly to reflect ‫( ּ ָפ ַק ְד ּ ָת‬Targum Jonathan is unclear). There is also only one occurrence of piel ‫ פקד‬in the Bible, the participle ‫ ְמ ַפ ֵ ּקד‬in Isa 13:4, and this occurrence, too, is not clear-cut: while 1QIsaa agrees, 4QIsab has hiphil ‫ מפקיד‬instead.

 Exod 30:32, regarding the anointing oil, reads ‫על בשר אדם לא ייסך‬. The verb is presumably third-person masculine singular from the root ‫סוך‬. Some of the medieval Jewish commentators understood it as qal (active) with an indefinite subject (David Kimhi on Gen 50:26, citing “some say”; Abraham ibn Ezra on Mic 1:7, noted by Ezra Z. Melamed, Bible Commentators, 2nd ed., 2 vols. [Jerusalem: Magnes, 1978], 2:564 [Hebrew]; apparently Rashi on Exod 30:32). Alternatively, it has been explained as an abnormal manifestation of the hophal (passive) stem (Ibn Ezra on Exod 30:32, citing Jonah ibn Janah; Hezekiah b. Manoah on Gen 50:26 and Exod 30:32; works cited in Houtman, Exodus, 578; HALOT) or as a rare passive qal stem (Shmuel D. Luzzatto on Gen 50:26; GKC, § 73f, very hesitantly; see also Joüon, § 81e; Joshua Blau, The Phonology and Morphology of Biblical Hebrew [Jerusalem: Academy of the Hebrew Language, 2010], 90 [Hebrew]). A number of Kennicott’s masoretic manuscripts have ‫ יסך‬instead; the Samaritan Pentateuch reads ‫ יוסך‬yuwwsåk; all the ancient translations use passive forms. 51  See Steven E. Fassberg, An Introduction to the Syntax of Biblical Hebrew, Biblical Encyclopaedia Library 36 (Jerusalem: Bialik, 2019), 140 [Hebrew]. 52  Cornelis Houtman asserts that the subject is ‫( המשכן‬Exodus, 594). But the affected object of ‫ פקד‬in this sense is always ‫( פקדים‬Num 1:44; 3:39; 4:37, 40, 45, 46; 26:63, 64). 50

3s Verbs with Indefinite Subjects in the Tabernacle Pericopes of Exodus

203

It seems most likely that the italicized verb was originally intended as qal (active) perfect third-person masculine singular ‫ ּ ָפ ַקד‬and that its subject was indefinite. A similar text with a 3s indefinite subject is found in Num 4:49: ‫‏על פי‬ ‫יהוה ּפָקַד אותם ביד משה‬. The vocalization of the word in our verse was changed in all of the extant textual witnesses such that it would be passive (without significantly affecting the meaning), because this was the least “invasive” way of creating a comprehensible text when the 3s indefinite subject was forgotten. 46. Exod 27:7, in the instructions regarding the main altar, reads: ‫וְהּובָא את בדיו בטבעת והיו הבדים על שתי צלעת המזבח בשאת אתו׃‬

The verse’s parallel in the account of the main altar’s manufacture is Exod 37:7a: ‫בהם‬ ֑ ‫וַ ָ ּי ֵבא את הבדים בטבעת על צלעת המזבח לשאת אתו‬

The italicized verb is hophal (passive) third-person masculine singular. It is cited, along with Exod 25:28 (#42), as an example of an impersonal passive with the accusative of the affected object:53 “and its poles shall be inserted.” Again, we see chaos among the textual witnesses. 4QpaleoGen–Exodl agrees with the Masoretic Text. But the Samaritan Pentateuch has ‫והבאת‬, “and you shall insert,” reflected also by the Septuagint, the Peshitta, the Vulgate, some witnesses to Targum Onqelos, and Targum Neofiti.54 However, most witnesses to Targum Onqelos,55 followed by Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, use an active third-person masculine singular form, apparently reflecting ‫וְ ֵה ִב(י)א‬.56 The best explanation for this chaos seems to be that the text was originally ‫ והבא‬and was intended to be vocalized ‫וְ ֵה ִבא‬, expressing an indefinite subject. This intent was preserved only in the majority reading of Targum Onqelos and in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan. Some readers in antiquity intuitively began to vocalize the word as ‫וְ ֻה ָבא‬, leading to the orthography ‫ והובא‬in the Masoretic Text and 4QpaleoGen–Exodl. The reading ‫ והבאת‬in the Samaritan Pentateuch and other witnesses would have been prompted by the form ‫ והבאת‬in the corresponding instruction regarding the ark (Exod 25:14: all witnesses). 47–48. Exod 31:15, in the instructions regarding the Sabbath, reads: ‫ששת ימים יֵעָׂשֶה מלאכה וביום השביעי שבת שבתון קדש ליהוה כל העשה מלאכה ביום השבת מות יומת׃‬

 See n. 46 and Rabin, “Stylistic Variation,” 257. Paran rejects this reading as the lectio facilior (Forms, 194 n. 48). 55 This reading is attested across multiple textual families, including the Sabbioneta print, and it is the reading of Vat. ebr. 448 and of three Cairo Genizah fragments: Cambridge, T-S B9.2; T-S B9.10; Strasbourg, 4017/6 (see Sperber, Pentateuch, 135; Grossfeld, Targum, 78). I thank Itai Kagan for calling my attention to it. 56  See Propp, Exodus 19–40, 336. 53

54 Meir

204

Raanan Eichler

The verse’s parallel in the execution pericopes is Exod 35:2: ‫ששת ימים ּתֵעָׂשֶה מלאכה וביום השביעי יהיה לכם קדש שבת שבתון ליהוה כל העשה בו מלאכה יומת׃‬

Another very similar verse is Lev 23:3: ‫ששת ימים ּתֵעָׂשֶה מלאכה וביום השביעי שבת שבתון מקרא קדש כל מלאכה לא תעשו שבת הוא ליהוה‬ ‫בכל מושבתיכם׃‬

The italicized verb in Exod 31:15 is pointed as niphal (passive) imperfect thirdperson masculine singular, such that its subject is ‫מלאכה‬: “for six days shall work be done.” But the verb does not match its subject in gender.57 The Septuagint and a marginal comment in Targum Neofiti use second-person singular verbs here, seeming to reflect ‫ת ֲע ֶ ׂשה‬,ַ ּ “you (singular) shall do.” Kennicott Manuscript 84 from the thirteenth century has ‫ת ָע ֶ ׂשה‬,ֵ ּ (feminine) “shall be done,” and Kennicott Manuscript 9 from the seventeenth century has unpointed ‫תעשה‬. The Peshitta and the Vulgate use second-person plural verbs, seeming to reflect ּ‫ת ֲעשׂ ו‬,ַ ּ “you (plural) shall do.” The Samaritan Pentateuch, with ‫ יעשה‬iyyāši, and the Targumim agree with the masoretic letters and pointing, and 4QpaleoExodm (‫)יע[שה‬, ֯ too, agrees with the masoretic letters. The confusion continues in the similar verses. In Exod 35:2, Targum Onqelos and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan agree with the masoretic ‫ת ָע ֶ ׂשה‬.ֵ ּ But the Samaritan Pentateuch has ‫ יעשה‬iyyāši (‫)יֵ ָע ֶ ׂשה‬.58 The Septuagint, the Peshitta, and Targum Neofiti appear to reflect ‫ת ֲע ֶ ׂשה‬,ַ ּ while the Vulgate may reflect ּ‫ת ֲעשׂ ו‬.ַ ּ In Lev 23:3, Targum Onqelos and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan again agree with the masoretic ‫ת ָע ֶ ׂשה‬.ֵ ּ The Samaritan Pentateuch again has ‫ יעשה‬iyyāši (‫)יֵ ָע ֶ ׂשה‬.59 The Septuagint and Targum Neofiti again appear to reflect ‫ת ֲע ֶ ׂשה‬.ַ ּ The Peshitta, the Vulgate, a marginal comment in Targum Neofiti, and the Genizah Targum may reflect ּ‫ת ֲעשׂ ו‬.ַ ּ 4QLevb has ‫תעשה‬. The situation is presented in the following table, with readings reconstructed from translations in italics. ‫יֵ ָע ֶ ׂשה‬

‫יַ ֲע ֶ ׂשה‬

‫ּ ֵת ָע ֶ ׂשה‬

‫ַת ֲע ֶ ׂשה‬

ּ‫ַת ֲעשׂ ו‬

LXX, TNmg

Pesh., Vulg.

Exod 31:15

SP, MT TO, TN, TPJ 4QpaleoExodm

MTKenn. 84

Exod 35:2

SP

MT TO, TPJ

LXX, Pesh., TN

Vulg.

Lev 23:3aα

SP

MT TO, TPJ

LXX, TN

Pesh., Vulg., TNmg, GT

MTKenn. 9

4QLevb

57 Abraham ibn Ezra (long commentary) hesitantly proposed that there is an elided masculine noun here such as ‫כל‬. 58 See Tal, Pentateuch, 687. Samaritan Targum: ‫יתעבד‬. 59  Samaritan Targum: ‫יתעבד‬.

3s Verbs with Indefinite Subjects in the Tabernacle Pericopes of Exodus

205

It seems most likely that the italicized verb in all three verses was originally intended as ‫יַ ֲע ֶ ׂשה‬, a qal (active) imperfect third-person masculine singular with an indefinite subject,60 and that the search for meaning after this construction was forgotten caused the textual witnesses to scatter in all directions. The change of vocalization to ‫ יֵ ָע ֶ ׂשה‬would have been easiest, even unconscious. The changes of letters to ‫ תעשה‬and ‫ תעשו‬could have been influenced by the negative pentateuchal formulae ‫( לא תעשה [כל] מלאכה‬Exod 20:10; Deut 5:14; 16:8) and / ‫כל מלאכה‬ ‫( מלאכת עבדה לא תעשו‬Lev 16:29; 23:3aβ, 7, 8, 21, 25, 28, 31, 35, 36; Num 28:18, 25, 26; 29:1, 7, 12, 35; Jer 17:22). None of these changes significantly affected the meaning of the verses.61 The main conclusions of this short study are as follows. First, the 3s indefinite subject is common in the priestly source, and we should be on the lookout for it throughout the source and elsewhere in the Bible. Second, the source says that the structural elements of the tabernacle proper were made by the skilled workers generally and not by Bezalel alone. Third, the 3s indefinite subject tended to trigger changes in the vocal and literal transmission of the Bible. Finally, the Masoretic Text seems to be the tradition that most often preserves the 3s indefinite subject intact, but there are instances where it does not.

60  John W. Wevers (Notes on the Greek Text of Exodus, SCS 30 [Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990], 513) maintains, and Propp (Exodus 19–40, 365) suggests as a possibility, that this is true regarding Exod 31:15. 61  See also Exod 12:16; GKC, § 146c; Joüon, § 150o.

Cross-Reference and “Borgesian” Slippage in Leviticus 1–5 Naphtali S. Meshel, Adiv Hadar, Yedidya Jesselsohn, Yael Leokumovich, Hananel Shapira, Omri Shareth, Doren G. Snoek, Julia Tuliakov, Daniel Zohar 1. Introduction One of Baruch Schwartz’s most prominent qualities, recognized by all who have had the good fortune of having him as a teacher, is his complete and uncompromising devotion to his students. This paper was designed, from its very inception within a project-based graduate seminar at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, as a tribute to this aspect of Baruch’s career, as it is the fruit of the combined effort of his ‫ תלמידים‬and ‫תלמידי תלמידים‬.1 This paper addresses two peculiarities of P’s legal writing, which have not been addressed in a systematic manner in the literature: its generous use of “cross-references” (as defined below), in contrast to other biblical legal writing, and an apparent confusion between the timeline of the text and the timeline of the events it envisions. Our primary objective in this paper is to identify, name, and demonstrate these two phenomena, the second of which cannot be understood independently of the first. The two are thoroughly intertwined in Lev 1–5.

2. Logical and Chronological Order in Narrative and Law 2.1. Law and Order in Biblical Literature In biblical and ancient Near Eastern literature, as in many other corpora, the principles governing the order of textual units within legal texts (including ritu1  With the full support and encouragement of the editors, a project-based graduate seminar, “Ritual and Texts,” was offered at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem during the fall of 2020. The format of the course was experimental: participants from diverse fields including Biblical Studies, Assyriology, Linguistics, and Anthropology formulated the research question, constructed the syllabus, wrote various sections, and copy-edited the manuscript together. The kernel of the idea developed here was first presented in a workshop at Princeton University in 2016. We thank the participants of that workshop – Joel Baden, Leora Batnitzky, Raanan Eichler, Martha Himmelfarb, Judah Kraut, Christophe Nihan, Gary Rendsburg, Jeff Stackert, and Andrew Teeter for their input. Our thanks go to Maya Rosen for assistance in translation and copy-editing.

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al law) differ fundamentally from those governing narrative texts. Narratives generally follow chronological-sequential organizing principles.2 Therefore, if two events are narrated in sequence, then absent clues to the contrary one tends to presume that the events transpire in that order in the story world. The documents constituting the compiled Pentateuch, and as a result, the compiled Pentateuch (as Schwartz so cogently argues) are no exception: the events from creation to the flood, through the times of the patriarchs down to the exodus, transpire as the pentateuchal text progresses, with few exceptions, until the death of Moses.3 There are various qualifications to this generalization, for example, when flashback and flash-forward are involved (Gen 42:21–22 and 15:13–16, respectively), when headings and summaries are involved (cf. Gen 1:1 vs. 1:3–5), or – on a different plane – when editorial displacement or scribal misplacement occur.4 The composite nature of the compiled Pentateuch complicates this generalization, but exceptions like these do not render this basic principle of biblical narrative any less fundamental for understanding of pentateuchal narrative texts.5 A different set of organizing principles, in which chronological concerns are subordinated to logical ones, governs the structure of biblical and ancient Near Eastern legal texts, such as the laws that Moses is to set before the Israelites in Exod 21–23 (the Book of the Covenant). Within the smallest units of each envisioned scenario, the order of events is chronological just as in narratives (e. g., 2  On the explicit logical relation between the events within a narrative as one of the fundamental building blocks of the genre, see for example Mieke Bal, Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative, trans. Christine van Boheemen (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985), 13–25. Throughout this paper, we use the term “narrative” even when we have in mind a relatively narrow subset, namely historiographic narrative, since the principles we have in mind are quite general. As Hayden White has shown, it is non-trivial that historiography takes narrative form, and there are non-narrative forms of historical writing. See Hayden White, “The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality,” Critical Inquiry 7 (1980): 5–27. 3  See Baruch Schwartz, “The Torah: Its Five Books and Four Documents”, in The Literature of the Hebrew Bible: Introductions and Studies, ed. Zipora Talshir (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2011), 161–226 [Hebrew]. 4 Joel S. Baden, “The Original Place of the Priestly Manna Story in Exodus 16,” ZAW 122 (2010): 491–504; idem, “The Structure and Substance of Numbers 15,” VT 63 (2013): 351–67, at 354–57; Simeon Chavel, Oracular Law and Priestly Historiography in the Torah, FAT II/71 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 20 n. 51. 5  This is not to deny that diverse literary traditions, and not only modern ones (e. g., Joyce, Borges, and some of Tarantino’s films), may develop peculiar narrative techniques that problematize the simple chronological principle described here. Already in antiquity, Aristarchus and others observed that “Homer narrates events that happened at the same time as if they happened one after the other.” See Francesca Schironi, “Greek Commentaries,” DSD 19 (2012): 399–441, at 42, and cf. n. 61. The phenomenon, now known as Zielinski’s law, was first expressed by Thaddaeus Zielinski, Die Behandlung gleichzeitiger Ereignisse im antiken Epos: Erster Theil, Philologus Supplementband 8 (Leipzig: Dieterich’sche Verlags-Buchhandlung, 1899–1901): 407–49; for another example, see R. M. Frazer, “Hesiod’s Titanomachy as an Illustration of Zielinski’s Law,” GRBS 22 (1981): 5–9.

Cross-Reference and “Borgesian” Slippage in Leviticus 1–5

209

a slave is bought, works for six years [21:2a], and is released the seventh [21:2b]);6 but in terms of the ordering of its larger building blocks, logical, non-chronological considerations are predominant. This is true both with regard to primary scenarios (normally introduced by ‫ כי‬or ‫ )וכי‬and with regard to subscenarios (i. e., subcases of the primary scenarios, normally introduced by ‫ אם‬or ‫)ואם‬.7 In Exod 21:2–6 and 7–11 (two primary scenarios, introduced by ‫כי‬, addressing the purchase of an ‫ עבד‬and an ‫אמה‬, respectively), the purchase of male Hebrew slaves is not envisioned as occurring in practice before the purchase of a female slaves.8 Rather, the precedence of vv. 2–6 results from logical considerations based on sociological categories like gender and age (similarly, 21:28a, 31a, 32a). 2.2. Leviticus 1–5 as Law and Narrative The situation in P’s legal sections is slightly more complex than in the Book of the Covenant, which is inserted en bloc in E’s narrative, since in P law and narrative are more thoroughly intertwined.9 Let us consider Lev 1–5, the focus 6  Absent indication to the contrary, such as lexical temporal indicators (e. g., Deut 4:42) or the use of the past perfect (Num 5:13, ‫ והיא לא נתפשה‬pace NJPS, “she had not been taken forcefully,” see Deut 22:28); but cf. Baruch Levine, Numbers 1–20, AB 4A (New York: Doubleday, 1993), 193. 7 The principles governing P are similar to those governing D and E. In P, the primary scenarios are introduced by means of subject + ‫ כי‬+ yiqṭōl, but in D and E primary scenarios are usually introduced with ‫ כי‬+ verb + subject; see Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, AB 3 (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 772 for the observation and for clear examples. See Guy Darshan, “The Casuistic Priestly Law in Ancient Mediterranean Context: The History of the Genre and its Sitz im Leben,” HTR 111 (2018): 24–40, at 27–28. Scenarios may be ordered according to topic, e. g., (a) laws pertaining to the purchase of slaves (Exod 21:2–10); (b) laws pertaining to damage inflicted by a human being (vv. 12–27); (c) damage inflicted by one’s ox (vv. 28–36), etc., or according to another logical principle; but they are not ordered chronologically. Other ancient Near Eastern law codes organize legal scenarios associatively, whether at the level of similarities between cases or through catchwords and phrases, or by deploying other legal principles, such as associating polar cases. For an overview, see Martha Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, WAW 6 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995), 3–4. See further Shalom Paul, Studies in the Book of the Covenant in the Light of Cuneiform and Biblical Law, VTSup 18 (Leiden: Brill, 1970), 106 n. 1; Barry Eichler, “Literary Structure in the Laws of Eshnunna,” in Language, Literature, and History: Philological and Historical Studies Presented to Erica Reiner, ed. Francesca Rochberg-Halton (New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1987): 71–84. Copyists sometimes recognized these arrangements and inserted topical headings in, for instance, the Code of Hammurabi, for which one copy adds at least two such topical headings; see Jacob J. Finkelstein, “A Late Old Babylonian Copy of the Laws of Hammurabi,” JCS 21 (1967): 39–48, esp. 42–43 and n. 6. 8 The fact that different organizing principles govern the micro- and macro-levels of legal scenarios may lead to textual complexity, but it is rarely the source of confusion. This is not to say that there cannot be doubts occasionally (e. g., Deut 24:6); but thanks to clear grammatical signposts (e. g., ‫ אשר‬,‫ או‬,‫ ואם‬,‫ אם‬,‫ אך‬,‫ וכי‬,‫)כי‬, these are relatively rare. 9  See Baruch J. Schwartz, “The Priestly Account of the Theophany and Lawgiving at Sinai,” in Texts, Temples, and Traditions: A Tribute to Menahem Haran, ed. Michael Fox et al. (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1996): 103–34; Liane M. Feldman, The Story of Sacrifice: Ritual and Narrative in the Priestly Source, FAT 141 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020).

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of this study, putting aside text-historical questions for the time being.10 These chapters are part and parcel of P’s grand historiographic narrative. They tell of two (rather lengthy) actions that take place on the primary level of narration,11 as expressed by the two instances of the verb ‫( וידבר‬1:1, 4:1) that introduce yhwh’s direct speech. In this respect they follow the same basic chronological principles governing the rest of biblical narrative: in P’s story world, YHWH relates the words found in Lev 1:2–3:17 to Moses at some point before those constituting Lev 4:2–5:26.12 As law, the five chapters form a thematic unit, discussing all the major sacrificial types: ‫( עולה‬wholeburnt), ‫( מנחה‬cereal), ‫( שלמים‬well-being), ‫( חטאת‬purification), and ‫( אשם‬reparation).13 Each primary scenario, in turn, divides into subscenarios, and some subscenarios comprise smaller units depicting alternative ramifications. The primary scenarios (introduced by ‫כי‬, more or less coinciding with the chapter divisions in Lev 1–5)14 are organized according to logical considerations: first there is a division into two sections: “voluntary” (Lev 1–3) followed by “obligatory” (Lev 4–5). The “voluntary” offerings are then subdivided into two: first “most holy” (Lev 1–2), then “holy” (Lev 3). Finally, the “most holy” subdivide into two: first animal (Lev 1), then vegetable (Lev 2). There is no expectation within the law that Israelites should offer wellbeing offerings before purification offerings (in fact, the precise opposite is usually assumed), or cereal offerings before wellbeing offerings.15  See below, n. 14.  For a discussion of levels of narration see Bal, Narratology, 134–49. 12  It is unclear how much time elapsed between the conclusion of the first and the commencement of the second; one need not presume that Moses relayed the two to the Israelites (both begin with ‫ )דבר אל בני ישראל‬in the order in which they were transmitted to him, but these complications do not directly affect our argument here. 13  On the position of ‫עלה‬, see James W. Watts, Ritual and Rhetoric in Leviticus: From Sacrifice to Scripture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 63–72. 14  Wellbeing offerings are introduced by means of ‫ ואם‬not ‫וכי‬. This anomaly in the text may be explained by a combination of text-historical and logical grounds: originally, the ‫ ואם‬introducing the ‫ שלמים‬was perfectly justified inasmuch as it was the second (and last) sub-case of the voluntary offerings, which were introduced in 1:2 by ‫( …אדם כי יקריב‬the first subcase, introduced in v. 2, was the ‫)עלה‬. At a later stage, the section on ‫( מנחה‬ch. 2) was interpolated. Quite reasonably, it was introduced by means of ‫ כי‬since it is a primary scenario not subsumed under ‫( אדם כי יקריב מכם קרבן לה׳ מן הבהמה‬that ‫ מן הבהמה‬is part of the apodosis, contra the Masoretic cantillation, see Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 145–46). This text-historical process accounts for the anomalous use of ‫ ואם‬in 3:1; see Rolf Rendtorff, Studien zur Geschichte des Opfers im alten Israel, WMANT 24 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1967), 8–9. 15 Rather, as Anson Rainey, “The Order of Sacrifices in Old Testament Ritual Texts,” Biblica 51 (1971): 485–98 demonstrated, there are (at least) three different orders in which priestly literature organizes the sacrificial types: didactic (the order in which they are taught, as at Lev 1–5, ‫ אשם‬,‫ חטאת‬,‫ שלמים‬,‫ מנחה‬,‫ ;)עולה‬administrative (the order in which they are listed as ingredients to be collected for designated rituals, e. g., Num 28–29, ‫ שלמים‬,‫ אשם‬,‫ חטאת‬,‫ מנחה‬,‫ )עולה‬and procedural (the order in which they are actually sacrificed, e. g., Lev 5:8–11, roughly ,]‫ [אשם‬,‫חטאת‬ ‫)עולה‬. The first two are governed primarily by “logical and conceptual” organizing principles 10 11

Cross-Reference and “Borgesian” Slippage in Leviticus 1–5

211

Subscenarios, too, are ordered logically and non-chronologically.16 For example, within each sacrificial type, the organizing principle is often the size or economic value of the offering.17 For example, Lev 1 proceeds from (1) a male bovine = a member of the herd (vv. 3–9) to (2) an ovine/caprine = a member of the flock (vv. 10–13); to (3) birds (pigeons or turtledoves, vv. 14–17), and Lev 3 proceeds from bovines (3:1b–5) to sheep (6–11) to goats (12–16).18 Similar considerations govern the order of subscenarios in the other chapters, and there is no expectation that one Israelite must offer a bovine before another offers an ovine. Inasmuch as Lev 1–5 contain ritual regulations for diverse scenarios that may arise among the Israelites at various, unpredictable future points in time, they follow non-chronological principles. Here, an analogy to a cookbook may be helpful: chronological order is important within each recipe (first oil is added, then spices, as at Lev 2:1); but the order of the alternative scenarios (e. g., raw, baked, or deep-fried semolina [as in Lev 2]) is non-chronological.19 A person has a choice – on designated occasions, an obligation – to present a particular (see ibid., 486, italics in the original): the didactic order is based on the grouping of the ‫ריח ניחוח‬ type in Lev 1–3 vs. the atoning type in Lev 4–5; and the administrative order is based roughly on the percentage of the offering that goes to the deity, in descending order (and also corresponds to their relative frequency in the calendric cycle). The procedural order, by contrast, is chronological (as it corresponds to the order of instructions within a given recipe in a cookbook). For Rainey there is one exception to this distinction, namely, a case where chronological considerations seem to affect the order of scenarios in Lev 1–5. The ‫מנחה‬, he claims, was placed after the ‫ עלה‬types because it accompanies ‫ עלה‬offerings in practice. This argument cannot be accepted for two reasons: first, according to this logic, cereal offerings should have appeared after the ‫ שלמים‬offerings, not before them, as ‫ שלמים‬also entail subordinate cereal offerings. Second, the ‫ מנחה‬offerings discussed in Lev 2 are probably not (and at any rate not primarily) the kind offered alongside ‫ עלה‬offerings; they are standalone cereal offerings. See Naphtali S. Meshel, The “Grammar” of Sacrifice: A Generativist Study of the Israelite Sacrificial System in the Priestly Writings with a “Grammar” of Σ (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 66–67. 16  This simple principle – that the order of the ritual must follow the order of the text (absent indications to the contrary) is spelled out in the classical Vedic scholastic tradition dedicated to the study of relations between sacrificial text and sacrificial ritual. See the Jaimini-mīmāṃsāsūtra 5.1.4, in Shābara-bhāṣya, trans. Ganganatha Jha, Gaekwad’s Oriental Series 66, 70, 73 (Baroda: Oriental Institute, 1933–1936), 2.866. 17 In the case of the cereal offerings, the scenarios proceed from raw to processed (within the processed forms, baking precedes other forms of cooking, as at Exod 16:23 – also P). 18  Sheep and goats are differentiated due to differences in anatomy, especially the presence of the broad tail in sheep. Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 213, states that “discrete sections are needed with respect to the sheep and the goat – in contrast to the burnt offering, which subsumes them under the heading of [‫‘ ]צאן‬flock animals’ (1:10–13) – because the sheep possesses the broad tail (v. 9) but not the goat.” In Lev 4, the size of the animal also correlates with the status of the offerer. 19  There is some correlation between the twofold narrative-chronological division (Lev 1–3 vs. Lev 4–5, each opening with a ‫ )וידבר‬and the fivefold legal-logical division of these chapters, inasmuch as the first, earlier speech discusses voluntary offerings whereas the second speech addresses obligatory ones. However, in terms of the organizing principles that govern them, one can simply speak of two different sets of organizing principles.

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offering. When two separate sacrificial scenarios are found in sequence, one need not assume that, in the future reality envisioned by the legislators, they are expected to occur in that order in the society that is the addressee of these laws.20 Little of what has been stated thus far is contentious, nor is it particularly surprising; in fact, there would be no need to dwell upon the fundamental difference between narrative and legal texts if it were not that the unit comprising Lev 1–5 (specifically in Lev 1, 3–5), pertaining to ritual sacrifice, blurs this dichotomy between narrative and legal texts in a way that is both curious and clever. Before turning to those examples, and in order to facilitate their presentation, we will now present the first of two peculiarities in P’s legal writing discussed in this paper, namely its use of cross-reference.

3. The First Phenomenon: Cross-Reference 3.1. Defining Cross-reference Whereas P’s legal sections are substantially no different from the other pentateuchal documents in their employment of nonchronological organizing principles, they diverge from other pentateuchal legal texts significantly in a formal aspect that has not been fully appreciated thus far, namely, the degree to which they employ “cross-reference.”21 For the purposes of this paper, we define a “cross-reference” as a case where one passage within a given literary work draws an explicit analogy to another passage in the same work, by stating that some aspect of what is discussed at present (in the “anchor text”) is identical, or similar in some way, to what is stated there (in the “target text”).22

20  Of course, chronology, in a different sense than procedural order, may serve as a consideration in ordering sacrificial requirements. In Num 28–29, for example, the differing sacrificial requirements for different calendric occasions are listed with consideration to the calendric cycle and frequency of events: first the offerings of each day, then Sabbath offerings, then monthly ones, and finally, those for annual occasions. This is the result of subordinating sacrificial order to temporal and calendrical patterns, and it is clear from the text’s explicit chronological markers that the sacrifices are not to be subsequent to one another as in a procedural order. 21  The term “cross-reference” is also employed by James W. Watts, Leviticus 1–10, HCOT (Leuven; Paris: Peeters, 2013), at 337, regarding the link between Lev 4:10 and 3:5; at 347, regarding the link from 4:20 and 4:21 to 4:11–12, “the first half of this verse refers explicitly to the instructions in vv. 11–12, rather than repeating them” (quote at p. 343); and at 354, regarding the link between Lev 4:33 and 1:11. See Naphtali S. Meshel, “Hermeneutics and the Logic of Ritual,” HeBAI 7 (2018): 466–82. 22  This includes the study of intertextuality in the broad sense of the term, that is, beyond the sense it has in Kristeva’s writings; see Gregory Machacek, “Allusion,” PMLA 122 (2007): 522–36, esp. 524; William Irwin, “What Is an Allusion?” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 59 (2001): 287–97; with particular reference to biblical literature, Russell L. Meek, “Intertextuality,

Cross-Reference and “Borgesian” Slippage in Leviticus 1–5

213

By focusing on those instances where an explicit grammatical marker of analogy is found (e. g., “in the same manner as,” “in the same place in which”), and by using the technical term “cross-reference,” rather than theoretically laden (and more elusive) terms such as “allusion,” “reference,” or “echo,” we aim to distinguish the phenomenon at hand from a much more widespread, well-studied, and highly complex set of phenomena that is the object of inquiry within the framework of reference theory.23 Though they are not identical, the phenomenon discussed here is closer to the purely technical usages of “vide,” “s. v.,” or “see below.” Our terminology also calls to mind the option called “cross-reference” in electronic documents, used for the creation of internal links between sections of selected text (with the option of creating a hyperlink in one part of a document to another part of that same document).24 3.2. Identifying Cross-References25 P’s laws of sacrifice and purity often call for the juxtaposition of discrete, even distant legal units, stating that the law applying in one case is the same as – or Inner-Biblical Exegesis, and Inner-Biblical Allusion: The Ethics of a Methodology,” Biblica 95 (2014): 280–91. 23  Highly nuanced (and much debated) terminologies for allusions, references, and echoes, etc. have been developed within the framework of reference theory; we refrain from using the dichotomy “source text” vs. “receptor text” (whereby the receptor text refers to, or alludes to, the source text [see Meek, “Intertextuality,” though the terms are confused on p. 289]), instead using the terms “target” and “anchor” as defined here, which are common in modern programming contexts. 24 To be clear, neither P nor any other pentateuchal document employs fully explicit textual cross-references, whereby the anchor text specifically instructs the reader to turn (as in “scroll down” or “flip”) to the target text with an imperative comparable to the Latin vide. Neither does one find explicit cross-references to laws that are said to be written (2 Kgs 14:6 [cf. 2 Chr 25:4]) or stated elsewhere, in contrast to the explicit techniques developed at Qumran such as ‫כי הוא‬ ‫אשר אמר‬, ‫ואשר אמר‬, or other variations. Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985), 107–11, draws attention to biblical references (through ‫ כתוב‬or ‫ )ככתוב‬to written texts. For examples and accounts of the development of a range of methods for evoking the Pentateuch, in particular in the literature from Qumran, see also Moshe Bernstein, Introductory Formulas for Citation and Re-Citation of Biblical Verses in the Qumran Pesharim: Observations on a Pesher Technique, DSD 1 (1994): 30–70; Shani Tzoref, “Qumran Pesharim and the Pentateuch: Explicit Citation, Overt Typologies, and Implicit Interpretive Traditions,” DSD 16 (2009): 190–220, esp. 194 n. 6. 25  The discussion here is limited to the use of cross-reference in legal texts. Explicit references (usually back-references) to events and characters mentioned elsewhere in the same work are unsurprisingly the norm in narrative texts, considering the continuity of plot and character (and often place) in many narratives. Examples are legion, in Priestly and non-Priestly narratives alike: the vast majority of instances in which the term ‫( כאשר‬+ qāṭal) is used in the sense of “just as” (e. g., Gen 8:21; 21:1; as opposed to “when”) can be cited, alongside many others, e. g., ‫ויהי רעב‬ ‫( בארץ מלבד הרעב הראשון אשר היה בימי אברהם‬Gen 26:1 → Gen 12:1 [J]); ‫( וישחטהו ויחטאהו כראשון‬Lev 9:15 → 9:8–14), where the term ‫ ראשון‬discloses that a cross-reference is implied; also Gen 49:31, 50:13 → Gen 23, where ‫ שמה‬discloses this. To the best of our knowledge, P’s narratives are no

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similar in some aspect to – a law that applies in another case. The ubiquity of such analogizing “cross-references” in P’s laws of sacrifice and purity stands in stark contrast to their relative paucity in, and often complete absence from, comparable biblical and ancient Near Eastern corpora.26 Let us consider five pentateuchal examples of a legal text that uses ‫( כאשר‬or simply ‫כ‬-), in order to highlight the ways in which the “cross-references” in Priestly law differ from apparent parallels in non-Priestly law. a. If the anointed priest transgresses … he shall remove all the suet of the bull of the purification offering … just as it is removed from the ‫ שלמים‬bovine. (Lev 4:8–9) less and no more replete with cross-references than other pentateuchal documents (despite P’s proclivity to use ‫ כאשר צוה ה׳‬and the like); but a more thorough study of this is desirable. At any rate, such internal references within narrative are fundamentally different from the phenomena discussed here, as will presently become apparent, since they refer to the event in the narrative and not merely to the text. 26 A survey of Mesopotamian and Anatolian legal corpora suggests that cross-references (as defined here) are as rare in other ancient Near Eastern legal corpora as they are in non-Priestly pentateuchal legal corpora. When present, their number varies with the genre of the corpus. The Middle Assyrian Laws are the exception that proves this rule. In Roth, Legal Collections, there is only one occurrence of a cross-reference, in the Middle Assyrian Laws. The context relates to different cases of fornication, and the link in law A23 directs treating a man as in laws A12–16 (or A15, pp. 157–60). By contrast, cross-references are more often found in ritual literature, such as links referring to incantations. When the incantations appear at the beginning of the tablet, the cross-reference can be considered “internal;” in other cases, the cross-reference is to be considered “external” (at least to the tablet). These cross-references are found in prescribed ritual actions, such as in the Mīs Pî ritual texts, which detail the many ritual actions of opening the mouth of the statue god; see Christopher Walker and Michael Dick, The Induction of the Cult Image in Ancient Mesopotamia: The Mesopotamian Mīs Pî Ritual, SAALT 1 (Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2001), 38 (and see p. 54 for normalized text and translation). The links in this text direct the reader to incantations that should be read during the ritual. For example, Mīs Pî 2:53 (BM 45749, see ibid., p. 73) refers to an incantation found in Mīs Pî 4:1–20 (p. 157); other examples are found in the lines that follow. There are also links in the Zukru ritual texts of the city of Emar. For example, the text occasionally states that a rite should be performed “as on the previous day” (ki-i ša u4-mi ma-ḫi-ri-im-ma); see John Tracy Thames, The Politics of Ritual Change: The Zukru Festival in the Political History of Late Bronze Age Emar, HSM 65 (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2020), particularly p. 96 on Emar 373+:198 (and see pp. 84–88 on the joins and tablet). Similarly, the instructions for the previous day require the distribution of lambs “as done before” (ki-i ša i-na ma-ḫi-ri-im-ma-a, Emar 373+:195, see ibid., 96). Presumably, this directs the reader to the long description of the lamb distributions detailed in lines 78–162 (pp. 92–94). These and other instances cross-references in Mesopotamian ritual literature require further examination, but the quantity of cross-references in other ancient Near Eastern sources we have examined is meager in comparison to P. The Temple Vision of Ezekiel is pervaded with comparable (not identical) phenomena, mostly limited to architectural or spatial crossreferences (for example Ezek 40:21 [‫]כמדת השער הראשון‬, 22, et passim). Since the book of Ezekiel, and specifically its Temple Vision, is notorious for its linguistic, thematic, and ideological links to priestly literature in the Pentateuch, Ezekiel deserves a special study, but this is beyond the scope of the present article.

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Cross-Reference and “Borgesian” Slippage in Leviticus 1–5

In example a, the phrase ‫כאשר יורם משור זבח השלמים‬, which concludes the instructions for the removal of the “suet” of a ‫ חטאת‬bull (‫ )פר‬offered by a high priest, compares it to the removal of the suet of any bovine (‫שור‬, which includes also bulls) offered as a ‫ שלמים‬offering, as enjoined in an earlier passage (Lev 3:3–4). Lev 3:3–4 (Target Text)

Lev 4:8–10 (Anchor Text)

‫וה‬-‫והקריב מזבח השלמים אשה ליה‬

‫ואת כל חלב פר החטאת ירים ממנו‬

‫את החלב המכסה את הקרב‬

‫את החלב המכסה על הקרב‬

‫ואת כל החלב אשר על הקרב‬

‫ואת כל החלב אשר על הקרב‬

‫ואת שתי הכלית‬

‫ואת שתי הכלית‬

‫ואת החלב אשר עלהן אשר על הכסלים‬

‫ואת החלב אשר עליהן אשר על הכסלים‬

‫ואת היתרת על הכבד על הכליות יסירנה‬

‫ואת היתרת על הכד על הכליות יסירנה‬

‫כאשר יורם משור זבח השלמים‬

The anchor text (i. e., the text in which ‫ כאשר‬is found, Lev 4:8–9) and the target text (i. e., the scenario to which ‫ כאשר‬refers, Lev 3:3–4) are separated by some twenty-three verses, which discuss very different scenarios that do not involve bovines. One scenario, in Lev 3:9, entails different instructions for the treatment of the animal’s suet, 3:9. The similarity between the anchor text and the target text is not limited to the contents of their ritual regulations but pertains to the precise wording of the law. Similar cross-references – some with verbatim repetition, others without it – pertain to the precise organs to be removed as suet from ovines (Lev 4:32–35 refers to 3:9–10); the precise location of slaughter of purification and reparation offerings (4:27–29, 6:18, and 7:12 all refer to the scenario enjoined in 1:11); and the remuneration of priests (5:13 refers back to 2:10; 7:7 refers back to 6:19), and more (see Table 1). For the sake of simplicity, we mark the process of reference with a right arrow (→), with the anchor text(s) to its left and the target text(s) to its right. Most cross-references are of the form x → y. In some cases, a single anchor text may refer to more than one target text, for example, ‫כחטאת וכאשם‬, in which case they can be designated x → (y, z). In other cases, a single target text may be referred to by more than one anchor text, namely, (x, y) → z; and a target text of one anchor text can, in turn, serve as an anchor text for another targettext to form x → y → z (4:20 → 4:10 → 3:3–4). The examples cited here, though constituting only a fraction of P’s internal cross-references,27 offer a sense of P’s dependency on a thick web of analogies for 27  The number of cross-references in P varies depending on how one delimits the inquiry. There are just over a couple dozen on a conservative count, i. e., only those containing explicit

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constructing its legal system. A control group derived from the other large pentateuchal legal sections, namely the Book of the Covenant, the Deuteronomic law, and the Holiness Code, drives the point home. In non-P pentateuchal law even the simplest x → y cross-references, that is, explicit statements indicating that “as in x, so in y,” are few and far between.28 Consider the following examples from non-P pentateuchal law: b. If it gores a boy or a girl, the owner shall be dealt with according to this same rule. (‫כמשפט הזה‬, Exod 21:31) c. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month of Abib. (‫כאשר צויתך‬, Exod 23:15) d. You shall do nothing to the young woman; the young woman has not committed an offense punishable by death, because this case is like that of someone who attacks and murders a neighbor. (‫כי כאשר יקום איש על רעהו ורצחו נפש כן הדבר‬ ‫הזה‬, Deut 22:26) e. Just as gazelle or deer is eaten, so you may eat it; the unclean and the clean alike may eat it. (‫כאשר יאכל את הצבי ואת האיל‬, Deut 12:22) Example b likens the laws pertaining to an ox that gores “a boy or a girl” to those pertaining to an ox that has gored “a man or a woman” (Exod 21:28–30). While referring to a previous text (like a and c) and creating a strict legal analogy (like a and e), the phrase ‫ כמשפט הזה‬is hardly a cross-reference. Grammatically and logically, it is an extension of a previous law.29 Therefore, it is closer to a “ditto” (unlike a, c, d and e) and thus lacks the constitutive component of a cross-reference, namely, referring to a different text (the “cross” component, as it were).30 The difgrammatical markers such as ‫כאשר‬, ‫ במקום אשר‬,-‫כ‬, etc. (see Table 1). This study adopts this narrow definition. However, if one expands the scope of the inquiry to the kind of referentiality in P wherein P coins neologisms or reuses common terms as technical terms with a specific denotation that remains consistent thereafter (e. g., ‫)מנחה‬, there are many more. A full study of these and other examples in P would provide an account of additional features and so countenance many dozens of other examples on this more inclusive count. 28  According to our count there are no cross-references in pentateuchal law outside P’s laws of sacrifice and purity. ‫( לא תצא כצאת העבדים‬Exod 21:7) is a possible exception, though it presents an anti-analogy rather than an analogy. Moreover, the target text and the anchor text are in such proximity that this verse is not a strongly illustrative example of a cross-reference. 29  We thank Jeffrey Stackert for the term “extension.” Deut 20:15 and 22:3 function in this same way. A modern example may clarify the difference between “extension” and crossreference: if on l. 14 of a book we find “as above, l. 13,” this counts as a cross-reference – even though it refers only to the line above. But if l. 14 says “and the same applies to our case,” this “the same” is not a cross-reference at all. 30 That is, the “ditto” does not refer to another text but is shorthand for the repetition of the same text. Such “ditto”-type references are not rare in ancient Near Eastern ritual texts. They occur, for instance, in Maqlû V:58–59, five times for ša tēpušāni tušēpišāni ana muḫḫikunu ēpuša (“[the magic] that you have performed against me, have had performed against me, I perform against you”), which appears in line 57. Here, the KIMIN sign appears following specific kinds of magic. See also Maqlû 5:61–67, for KIMIN as liṣbatkunūši or tušaṣbitāʾinni (“May [subject] seize you” and “you have caused to seize me”). The text and translations are those of Tzvi

Cross-Reference and “Borgesian” Slippage in Leviticus 1–5

217

ference between a “ditto” and a “cross-reference” is not simply a question of the proximity of the target and anchor texts. As seen in Table 1, a “cross-reference” can refer to a proximate passage (Exod 21:28–30 immediately precede 21:31). It is also, and primarily, because in such cases the anchor text uses the deictic ‫הזה‬ to create the analogy, assuming the target text rather than – as in the case of a cross-reference – asserting it.31 Example c explicitly points to a previous section of the text (Exod 13:4 [E]).32 However, unlike examples a, b, and e, which create strict analogies between discrete legal scenarios, the phrase ‫ כאשר צויתך‬does not create a legal analogy between different scenarios. It simply reminds the addressees (the characters, who are strictly speaking the addressees of the second person suffix, and also the readers/audience of the text) that this commandment has been enjoined upon them in the past. In other words, the legal scenario is one and the same; it is the act of injunction that is repeated. As such, c is not a legal cross-reference at all, even though it appears within a legal passage.33 Example d is similarly non-legal, but in a different sense. From a purely grammatical perspective, it has the appearance of a reference to the laws of homicide, which are, moreover, discussed in detail elsewhere in D (e. g., in Deut 19:1– 13). However, from a rhetorical perspective the purpose of this analogy is exhortational and not formal-legal. That is to say, it is not the case that the legislator calls upon the audience to consult another passage that determines the criminal Abusch, The Witchcraft Series Maqlû, WAW 37 (Atlanta: SBL, 2015), 105. The Emariot Zukru festivals are particularly clear, for they prescribe an offering to Dagan and then follow it with a list of deities for whom the same offering should be made; in each case, the offering is denoted by a “ditto” sign; see Daniel Fleming, Time at Emar: The Cultic Calendar and the Rituals from the Diviner’s Archive, e. g., at 242–3 for Emar 373:76–95 (Msk 74292a+). See also Wilfred Lambert, Babylonian Oracle Questions (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2007): 23:23 (BM 40163), 24:8, 19 (BM 40176), and 25:1, 10 (BM 40216); here, the “ditto” does not extend a legal case or a ritual treatment but rather abbreviates a common invocation of Shamash and a request for a favorable response. 31  Other examples of this type can be found in Priestly and non-Priestly legal corpora alike, e. g., Exod 22:29, 23:11 (E); Deut 15:17 (D; note that each employs ‫כן‬, “thus”). 32 Note also ‫ אשר צויתך‬in Exod 34:18. This is often attributed to J, in which case it is not entirely clear what the cross-reference refers to. The lack of a target-text in J might serve as further evidence for the theory expounded by Gesundheit, according to which 34:18 is a mechanical reiteration of 23:15. On the relation between Exod 34:17–26 and Exod 23:14–19, see Shimon Gesundheit, Three Times a Year: Studies on Festival Legislation in the Pentateuch, FAT 82 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 128–30. I thank the honoree of this volume for clarifying this point to me. 33 The same holds true for etiological references from the law to the narrative, for instance, in the case of Miriam and leprosy (Deut 24:9 → Num 12:10–15), or creation in P and H (Exod 31:12–17 → Gen 2:1–3, on which see Jeffrey Stackert, “Compositional Strata in the Priestly Sabbath: Exodus 31:12–17 and 35:1–3,” JHebS 11 [2011], esp. 12–20). This consideration is related to another, more fundamental and subtle one: example b is outside the purview of this study because it is formally a cross-reference to a narrative event, not to a legal stipulation – as is revealed by the irruption of the first and second person (“I commanded you”).

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status of a victim of murder (rather, the lack thereof ) and then apply the same to the status of the victim of rape (though rabbinic legal midrash reads the analogy as a formal legal one).34 Rather, as Deut 22:27 reveals, 22:26 pleads to the conscience of the audience not to blame the helpless victim. The comparison is not to the legal case of the murderer but to the innocence of the victim. Just as the (ambushed?) murder victim did nothing wrong, so the rape victim did nothing wrong and cannot be guilty of a capital offense. Further, since there is (unsurprisingly) no passage in D indicating that a victim of murder is not punishable, 22:26 could not possibly be a cross-reference to such a passage (see example e). Example e is particularly revealing because it has the veneer of a true legal cross-reference. This example indicates that the legal stipulations pertaining to the consumption of non-sacrificial bovines, ovines and caprines are identical to those pertaining to the consumption of gazelles and deer. As in example a and many Priestly examples,35 the text even proceeds (somewhat redundantly) to explain some of the aspects of the analogy – namely, in this case, that both polluted and pure people may partake in such meals and that they can be eaten ‫בשעריך‬. However, in stark contrast to the Priestly cross-references we have seen, this one (like Deut 12:15, 15:22) is not a cross-reference at all, but a reference to common social practice. This is so because D nowhere regulates the manner in which gazelles and deer are to be consumed. Neither is there any reason to assume that Deut 12:22 was ever intended to call to mind such a text, that is, that a passage on the consumption of gazelles existed at the time of the composition of Deut 12:22. Because it has no textual target, within the analogy of hyperlinks D’s ‫ כאשר‬is not a cross-reference but a “dead link,” that is, an explicit reference to a law that does not appear elsewhere in the text. 3.3. Reference to Another Text and Reference to Social Reality It is essential to clarify how P’s cross-references diverge from D’s “dead links.” In theory, one might object that P’s “just as it is removed from the bull of the wellbeing offering” (4:8–9) is substantially no different from D’s “just as gazelle or deer is eaten” (or, for that matter, E’s ‫כמהר הבתולות‬, Exod 22:16): like D’s analogy, one might claim that P’s analogies are references to social practice, and not a reference to a text at all. Three considerations militate against this possibility: verbal correspondence, sequence of anchor and target texts, and the absence of “dead links” from P’s sacrificial and purity laws. First, as we have seen above, the anchor text is verbally identical to the target text – a sequence of 28 words (with only one very minor difference in a preposition) that cannot be explained as resulting from a shared 34 See

b. Sanh. 74a, contrary to the plain sense of the verse.  See Table 1.

35

Cross-Reference and “Borgesian” Slippage in Leviticus 1–5

219

referent in the world of social reality. This alone is suggestive of a textuality inherent in P’s cross-references. Second, a substantial majority of P’s crossreferences correspond to information supplied, on a sequential reading, earlier in the document and not later, with few exceptions.36 This sequence suggests that the cross-references are to texts and not to social phenomena. We can test this premise by imagining, for a moment, that P’s texts and cross-references both point to social realities. The anchor and target texts would then both point to those external realities – not one to the other – and their relationship within the text would be coincidental. This coincidental relationship would not require their sequential order in the text (anchor follows target), and sequences like this would themselves be coincidental. The distribution noted above, in which the target text precedes the anchor text, would then be a highly unlikely result. Thus, the presence of the attested pattern, in which the target text ordinarily precedes the anchor text and the paucity of forward-references suggests that the crossreferences are to other parts of P’s text and not to social realities. Finally, even if the first two criteria are not always present,37 it is hardly likely that coincidence alone would account for the fact that in their current state, P’s sacrificial and purity laws contain not a single “dead link.”38 This situation stands in stark contrast 36 The exceptions are two links in Lev 6:10 (“I have given it as their portion … it is most holy like the purification offering and the reparation offering”) to Lev 6:19 (“the priests who offers it as a purification offering shall eat of it”) and to 7:7 (“it shall belong to the priest who makes expiation thereby”), and the phrases ‫ כימי נדת דותה‬and ‫“( כנדתה‬as at the time of her menstrual infirmity;” “as during her menstruation”) in Lev 12:2, 5, referring to the laws of the menstruant in Lev 15:19–24. For a possible explanation of this phenomenon, see below n. 43. Watts, Leviticus 1–10, 284, observes that “P’s instructions may presuppose regulations that appear later in the book, as well as earlier. Narrative sequence does not govern the logic of lists of instructions.” 37  The first is unhelpful when the anchor text is brief (e. g., ‫ ;)כמנחה‬because there are some forward-references, exceptions to the second also exist. 38  Given a lack of manuscript evidence for wholesale creation of the links we describe, it is not likely that there are substantial processes of harmonization that created these textual links we describe as cross-references. In some cases, there seem to be harmonizing textual elaborations, but there is only one case where the existence of the entire cross-reference in the anchor text may be a result of editorial interventions. Harmonizing elaboration is possibly at work in Lev 3:5, which we identify as a link to Lev 1:7–9. There, the LXX and Samaritan Pentateuch add text reflecting ‫אשר על המזבח‬. This can be understood as harmonizing with Lev 1:8 and 1:12, as noted by Milgrom, Leviticus, 209. Similarly, in Lev 7:2 (‫ )במקום אשר ישחטו את העלה ישחטו את האשם‬LXX adds ἔναντι κυρίου, reflecting the same tendency as LXX in Lev 4:2, 4; on such harmonizations and further on this same verse, see Emanuel Tov, “Textual Harmonization in Leviticus,” in The Text of Leviticus: Proceedings of the Third International Colloquium of the Dominique Bathélemy Institute, held in Fribourg (October 2015), OBO 292; Publications of the Dominique Barthélemy Institute 3 (Leuven/Paris: Peeters, 2020), 13–37, esp. 19. There is only one case in which the existence of a cross-reference may be due to editorial intervention: the reference from Lev 5:13, ‫כמנחה‬, which links it to 2:10. If one were to accept that Lev 2 is a later interpolation into P (see above, n. 14), then any links to Lev 2 would have been created after its interpolation. (Alternatively, if Lev 2 was dislocated, then this link could have existed previously.) The evidence on whether the phrase ‫ והיתה לכהן כמנחה‬is original is mixed. First, we have identified no other links besides this one to Lev 2, which is plausibly itself

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to the non-Priestly explicit references (not cross-references), which invariably lack a target text precisely because, as argued here, they never referred to such a text in the first place, but rather to social reality. Consulting Table 1 with these criteria in mind, it is now possible to pinpoint the phenomenon at hand more precisely: the profuse employment of crossreferences is a characteristic not of priestly legal writing in general but rather of P’s system of sacrifice and purity. P’s laws on sacrifice and purity are replete with cross-references, whereas other legal sections in the Pentateuch do not employ this technique.39

4. The Second Phenomenon: Time- and Text-Order Confusion Since the phenomenon we turn to discuss now is counter-intuitive and, upon first reflection, rather unlikely, let us state the case clearly from the outset, using an analogy to an alphabetically-ordered cookbook. P normally does what an ordinary cookbook would do; that is, it refers its readers back to earlier sections of the text.40 For example, under “Blueberry Pie,” one may read “the dough is prepared just like the dough for an Apple Pie.” inserted. Second, LXX is suggestive of textual growth in 5:13, perhaps reflecting the addition of ‫ הנותר‬and ‫ ;כמנחת הסולת‬this suggests that early readers found 5:13b elliptic. Finally, in every other occurrence in this section, ‫ ל‬+ ‫ סלח‬is continued by an extension of sacrificial procedure or a new sacrificial procedure, which is uninterrupted (Lev 4:20, 26, 31, 35; 5:10, 16, 18, 26). Taking this evidence together suggests at least the possibility that ‫ והיתה לכהן כמנחה‬is an addition; if Lev 2 was interpolated, it was plausibly motivated by the parallel between the vegetal nature of the offering in 5:11–13. It is not necessary for our argument to make a firm judgment about the secondary nature of this cross-reference, but the accumulation of evidence necessitates presenting it to the reader. 39  The situation in H deserves special notice. Num 15:20 and 18:27–28 are not properly cross-references but are cases of “dead links,” which have a referent external to the text – since no priestly text explicitly enjoin the setting aside of ‫ תרומה‬from the “threshing floor” or from the “winepress” and there is not even an instruction equivalent to Ezek 45:13 in P or in H. (On “dead links,” see example e and section III.C.) For the assignment to H, see Israel Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 53, 72–73. For analysis of the logic of H in Numbers 18, see Jeffrey Stackert, Rewriting the Torah: Literary Revision in Deuteronomy and the Holiness Legislation, FAT 52 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), with discussion of the levitical tithe at 184–91, and see 184 n. 42 for an analysis of the verbal parallels between Num 15:20 and 18:27–28). Finally, Num 15:14, also H, is like example b in that it is an extension (see above, n. 28) of 15:13, as are other Priestly formulas equating the laws of the ‫ גר‬with that of the ‫אזרח‬. The ‫ מלבד‬clauses in Num 28–29 are difficult to categorize in the present study because they are primarily clarificatory but seem also to evoke prior text. In the calendrical outline of Num 28–29, their existence is necessary because without them there would be gray areas in sacrificial procedures outlined there; for example, does one offer the sacrifices of Num 28:19–22 in addition to the ‫ תמיד‬of Num 28:3–9 or instead of it? 40 See, for instance, Florence Kreisler Greenbaum, The International Jewish Cookbook (Old Bletchley: Callender, 2018), 13, “to render meat ‘fit’ for food, the animal must be killed and cut

Cross-Reference and “Borgesian” Slippage in Leviticus 1–5

221

On rare occasions, P may refer to a later section, just as a cookbook might, in principle, state under “Apple Pie” that “the preparation of the dough is just like the dough for a Blueberry Pie.” Forward-reference is perhaps less intuitive than back-reference, but still within the range of the acceptable, especially if the later case is more elaborate, more central, or more common.41 On a number of occasions, however, P does something entirely different and quite odd: under Blueberry Pie, it seems to assume that the reader has not only read about baking apple pies, but that the reader has recently finished baking one – and refers to the apple pie it as if it has already been baked or even as if it is still in the oven – apparently for no other reason than that Apple Pie appears shortly before Blueberry Pie in the cookbook. This is very odd, because each scenario within the cookbook is expected to inhabit its own (hermetic) time frame. Similarly, in Lev 1–5, in a handful of cases, the legislator seems to forget that the different scenarios are alternative ritual regulations ordered logically, rather than chronologically. As we shall see, the cases are few enough to stand out as highly irregular, but too numerous to be brushed aside as mere errors. 4.1. The Grammar of Cross-References Since P’s laws are often presented as general commands regulating future ritual activity (as we have seen in Part 2), the analogical cross-references (described in Part 3) are normally drawn not to events that have already transpired, but rather to events envisioned as occurring in the future. In these cases, the author may use, as expected, habitual yiqṭōl forms such as ‫ יוסר‬and ‫“( תשחט‬just as fat of the sheep is removed …”, Lev 4:35; “at the spot where the wholeburnt offering is slaughtered, 7:2). Alternatively, the analogy may be constructed using nominal forms only, for example, ‫כחטאת כאשם‬. This is done in many cases (see Table 1). Moreover, if there is a need to explicate the temporal relation between two envisioned events within the same “recipe” that are compared to each other, future perfect qāṭal forms can be used. A good example is Lev 16, which first describes how Aaron is to manipulate the blood of a ‫חטאת‬-bull (v. 14), and then states that he is to manipulate the blood of the male caprine in the same manner (v. 15). The verbal sequence here is ‫ועשה לדמו כאשר עשה לדם הפר‬, “he shall do to its blood as he has done [= will have done] with the blood of the bull”). Another case is Exod 40:15a, which similarly accords with the rules of grammar and does not confound the constraints of logic. In this verse, the action enjoined in ‫ומשחת אותם‬ is to follow the action described in ‫כאשר משחת את אביהם‬. Although it refers to a future event (enjoined already in 40:13 and realized in Lev 8:12), the qāṭal is used in ‫ כאשר משחת‬because it is to precede the ‫ומשחת אותם‬. These cases may stand out up … put into a pan … the head, however, should be cut open …,” and 14, “to kasher suet or fat … remove skin, and proceed as with meat (emphasis added).” 41  This consideration may account for the four exceptions discussed above, n. 37.

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at first sight as somewhat similar to the case we aim to present below, but in fact the use of the qāṭal to express the future perfect is not peculiar to P (cf. ‫כתבתי‬, Exod 24:12 [E]).42 All this is unsurprising: these cases involve nothing more than a subtle grammatical feature, not to be confused with the curious phenomenon we now turn to describe. 4.2. Lev 4:20–21, 31 and ‫הפר הראשון‬ In a handful of instances involving cross-reference (three of which are found in the same context), P seems to refer to its own previously mentioned scenarios as if they have actually been performed in the chronological sequence in which they appear in the text. The first case is Lev 4:20, which refers back to vv. 5–10. Leviticus 4 enumerates five subcases of the primary scenario, ‫“ נפש כי תחטא‬if a person transgresses” (the last two might be considered two ramifications of a single sub-scenario): (1) a ‫ חטאת‬bull, if the anointed priest transgresses (‫אם הכהן המשיח יחטא‬, vv. 3–12); (2) a ‫ חטאת‬bull, if the entire community transgresses (‫ואם כל עדת ישראל ישגו‬, 13–21); (3) a male caprine, if a chieftain transgresses (‫אשר נשיא יחטא‬, 22–26); (4.a) a female caprine if a layperson transgresses (‫ואם נפש אחת תחטא‬, 27–31); since a layperson may opt to bring his ‫ חטאת‬offering from among the ovines, a fifth sub-scenario is introduced, namely (4.b) a female ovine, if the layperson should so desire (‫ואם כבש יביא קרבנו‬, 32–35). Linguistically, stylistically and logically, the scenarios are alternatives – not parts of one prolonged ritual complex. Therefore, as expected, the order is not chronological but logical, following the descending order of the status of the transgressor (and accordingly, grosso modo, the economic value of the zoeme to be offered): the high priest at the top of the hierarchy, followed by the congregation as a whole, political leaders, and finally a layperson. And yet, when the second scenario (a bull for the high priest) includes an analogy to the first scenario (a bull for the congregation), it speaks as if the first scenario is actually expected to occur before the second. In Lev 4:20, when summarizing the manipulation of the bull’s blood and suet within the sanctuary precincts, the text harks back to vv. 6–10: ‫ועשה לפר כאשר עשה לפר החטאת כן יעשה לו‬ The bull shall be treated just as the ‫ חטאת‬bull was treated; one (or: he) shall do the same with it. (4:20)43 42 I thank Prof. Baruch Schwartz for pointing out to me the use of the future perfect in this verse. 43  On identifying the different agents denoted by impersonal verbs, see the principles laid out by Chaim Rabin, “Stylistic Variation in the Impersonal Subject in the Hebrew Bible,” in Studies in the Hebrew Bible and Hebrew Language offered to Meir Wallenstein on the Occasion of His Seventy-Fifth Birthday (Jerusalem: Kiryath-Sepher, 1979) [Hebrew], 256–68, esp. p. 262 and n. 16.

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223

In v. 21, when instructing that the bull (except for its suet and blood) is to be incinerated outside camp, the text refers to vv. 11–12, which instructed that a bull brought for a transgression of the high priest should be incinerated outside the camp: ‫והוציא את הפר אל מחוץ למחנה ושרף אתו כאשר שרף את הפר הראשון חטאת הקהל הוא‬ The bull is to be brought outside the camp, and it is to be burned as the first bull was burned; it is the ‫ חטאת‬for the assembly (v. 21).44

Three interrelated elements in these verses deserve our attention here: the use of ‫ הראשון‬in v. 20, and the use of the qāṭal forms ‫ כאשר עשה‬and ‫ כאשר שרף‬rather than the yiqṭōl forms ‫ כאשר יעשה‬and ‫כאשר ישרוף‬, as in comparable passages in P (and in BH in general). Let us begin with the use of ‫ הראשון‬in v. 21. One of a handful of readers who was gravely disturbed by the awkward formulation of these verses was A. B. Ehrlich (1909), who notes wryly in his 1908 Hebrew commentary: ‫ וקרא הכתוב לפר ההוא כן אף על פי שאין‬.‫ הפר הנאמר ראשון בפרשה והוא פר הכהן המשיח‬:‫הפר הראשון‬ 45.‫ ואני לא ידעתי כלשון הזה בכל המקרא‬.‫ ולא לכפרה על חוטא אחד‬,‫שני הפרים קרבים כאחד‬

By ‫לא ידעתי כלשון הזה בכל המקרא‬, Ehrlich seems to mean that in all other occurrences of ‫ ראשון‬in the biblical corpus some aspect of temporal priority is involved, but in this verse, textual priority alone is at play (‫הפר הנאמר ראשון‬ ‫)בפרשה‬, precisely because the two passages are alternative scenarios and not part of a single, extended ritual (‫)אף על פי שאין שני הפרים קרבים כאחד‬. This anomaly is not, in and of itself, an indication of problematic logic: were it not for the double use of qāṭal forms (‫ועשה‬, ‫ )ושחט‬in conjunction with this ‫הראשון‬, one might argue that we are actually facing a unique case of the use of a scribal technique in the Hebrew Bible, which elsewhere lacks internal textual references such as “supra,” “infra,” “s. v.,” etc., in the technical sense of these terms.46 By the time he had written the Randglossen, however, Ehrlich seems to have realized the import of the ostensible grammatical-chronological blunder in Lev 4:20–21 more clearly. Still, he addresses it only in a roundabout way, noting that ‫ פר החטאת‬can “ridiculously” (“lächerlicher Weise”) be translated his own ‫חטאת‬ bull, “as if it were determined that each and every high priest would experience both cases!”47  See Rabin, “Stylistic Variation.”  Arnold B. Ehrlich, The Bible According to Its Literal Meaning (New York: Ktav, 1969), I:214 [Hebrew]. 46 On the talmudic phrase, ‫שפיל לסיפיה דקרא‬, see Yakir Paz, “The Torah of the Gospel: A Rabbinic Polemic against The Syro-Roman Lawbook,” HTR 112 (2019): 517–40, at 534 n. 64. 47  Arnold B. Ehrlich, Leviticus, Numeri, Deuteronomium, vol. 2 of Randglossen zur hebräischen Bibel: textkritisches, sprachliches und sachliches (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1909), 15: “der Ausdruck ‫פר‬ ‫החטאת‬, den man lächerlicher Weise zu übersetzen pflegt, ‘sein eigener Sündopferfarr’ – als ob vorausgesetzt wäre, dass jeder Hohepriester beide Fälle erleben würde! – ist hier, da auch der in 44 45

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Ehrlich’s comments do not address the cardinal grammatical problem in these verses head on. They nonetheless suggest that he must have been aware of them and of the “ridiculous” conclusions that need to be drawn from Lev 4:20–21, if the qāṭal forms that they employ are to be taken at face value. The problem is that when vv. 20–21 stipulate that the high priest “shall do to this bull just as he has done to the ‫ חטאת‬bull” and that he “shall burn it just as he burned the first bull,” they seem to assume the first bull has actually been slaughtered and incinerated, forgetting, as it were, that they refer to the law (and bull) immediately preceding this law (and bull) only in the textual sequence in which they appear but not in reality. It is as if the bulls were walking, in Escher-esque fashion, out from the text of Lev 4 into reality, and crawling back into it again.48 4.2.1 Possible Solutions There are at least three ways to solve the apparent conundrum posed by Lev 4:20–21: (1) emending ‫ עשה‬and ‫ שרף‬to ‫ יעשה‬and ‫( ;ישרוף‬2) interpreting the choice of the qāṭal as a mere stylistic preference and maintaining that it carries a habitual sense (i. e., interpreting them as yiqṭōls); or (3) admitting that they are (future) perfect forms, and insisting that the two bulls are in fact envisioned as offered seriatim. The first path is unlikely, as all witnesses seem to reflect qāṭal forms (including LXX’s plural form, κατέκαυσαν).49 Although graphical copyist’s errors involving a mere yod are not rare, the double attestation (in v. 20 and in v. 21) and, more importantly, the presence of ‫ הראשון‬suggest that a process beyond matters of lower criticism is at play. That is, in light of Ehrlich’s comment on ‫הראשון‬, emending the verse to ‫ ושרף את הפר כאשר ישרף את הפר הראשון‬would not much improve matters. Additionally, there is one very similar case of which we are aware, also occurring in Lev 4 and with a qāṭal where a yiqṭōl would be expected, in the subscenario in which a layperson has transgressed, and more specifically, in the first ramification of this subscenario, when that layperson elects to bring a goat (rather than a sheep). In the description of the manipulation of the animal’s suet, v. 31 reads: ‫ואת כל חלבה יסיר כאשר הוסר חלב מעל זבח השלמים‬ And all its suet shall be removed (or: and he shall remove all its suet) just as the suet was removed from upon the ‫ שלמים‬offering. Rede stehende Farre ein Sündopfer ist, keine hinreichende nähere Bestimmung. Est is ‫הראשון‬ nach ‫ החטאת‬ausgefallen …” 48 In particular, we have in mind Escher’s 1943 lithograph, “Reptiles.” 49  Sam = MT. Whether LXX’s κατέκαυσαν reflects‫ ושרפו‬in its Vorlage or a (correct) interpretation of ‫ ושרף‬as an impersonal third-person verb (reflected in a third-person pl.) is immaterial for the present argument, which relies only on the form being an aorist. See Chaim Rabin, “The Ancient Versions and the Indefinite Subject,” Textus 2 (1962): 60–76.

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This case is not as unequivocal as the cases discussed above, for two reasons. First, without ‫ הראשון‬as in 4:21, the claim here rests on the morphology of a single verb, which might be explained away – though only with difficulty – as a case of stylistic variation. Second, both LXX and the Samaritan reflect yiqṭōl forms in the place of MT’s ‫הוסר‬. If MT’s ‫ הוסר‬is to be emended accordingly, then the question does not arise in the first place. Nevertheless, since MT is probably to be preferred here,50 the presence of a third such case of a qāṭal form where a yiqṭōl would be expected, within a cross-reference and merely fourteen verses after 4:20–21, renders the probability of textual corruption less likely. The second path is implicitly held by many translations and commentaries.51 P is indeed prone to stylistic variation, alternating between diverse morphological, lexical and syntactic choices that are semantically equivalent, as demonstrated quite elaborately by Paran, Rendsburg and others (in fact, note the alteration between ‫ רו״מ‬and ‫ סו״ר‬in Lev 4:19, 31, with regard to the removal of suet).52 However, this path is equally unlikely, for two reasons. First, as already noted, the use of ‫ הראשון‬reveals that other considerations, not mere alternation between qāṭal and yiqṭōl, are at work here. Second, when morphological alternation occurs in P, it is precisely that: alternation among forms that turn out to be equivalent (very commonly, wĕqātal/yiqtōl and wayyiqtōl/ qātal). In a few instances, P (including H) alternates between yiqṭōl and qāṭal forms when there is a possibility of alternating between them without tampering with assumptions of the legal formulation, as at Lev 11:4–6 (where the participial

50  LXX and the Samaritan do not reflect the same form – the Samaritan reads ‫ יסיר‬whereas LXX’s περιαιρεῖται reflects the passive ‫יוסר‬. It therefore seems that each attempted to resolve MT’s lectio difficilior by resorting to a grammatically “more correct” form. LXX (or its Vorlage) sufficed with transforming the qāṭal to a yiqṭōl, perhaps modelling the phrase on the nearlyidentical phrasing in v. 35, ‫( …ואת כל חלבה יסיר כאשר יוסר חלב‬καὶ πᾶν αὐτοῦ τὸ στέαρ περιελεῖ, ὃν τρόπον περιαιρεῖται στέαρ …). The Samaritan, on the other hand, reflects a more thorough form of harmonizing transformation, since it is based both on the qāṭal-yiqṭōl-transformation and on a passive-active transformation, perhaps modeled on 4:24, 33, et al. Note that Paul Harlé and Didier Pralon, Le Lévitique: Traduction du texte grec de la Septante, Introduction et Notes, vol. 3 of La Bible d’Alexandrie (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1988), 98, suggest that in 4:27–35 the translation of LXX reflects several stylistic variations. 51  The majority of commentaries ignore the issue. One exception is the 13th–14th century rabbi Jacob ben Asher, who offers a homiletic rationale: ‫ הוסר‬in Lev 4 is to be read in conjunction with the only other biblical attestation of ‫הוסר‬, Dan 12:11, as an indication that ‫שמעת הוסר התמיד הוסר‬ ‫כל חלב שבזכותו נשתלח ברכה בכל‬. Menaḥem Bolle, The Book of Leviticus (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1991) [Hebrew] 1.66 adheres to this solution, claiming that ‫ הוסר‬is semantically equivalent in this case to the participial form, but the weakness of evidence there adduced shows only that this solution is untenable (‫הרימתי‬, Gen 14:22). 52   E. g., wĕqātal vs. yiqṭōl (passim), wayyiqtōl vs. qāṭal, forms with and without copulas, and perhaps even plene vs. defective spelling – if we are to attribute these to P (as opposed to a copyist). On stylistic variation, see Gary Rendsburg, “Repetition with Variation: Legal and Cultic Texts,” in How the Bible Is Written (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2019).

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‫ מפריס‬is followed by ‫ יפריס‬and then ‫ )הפריסה‬or Lev 17:4, 9 (‫ לא הביאו‬vs. ‫)לא יביאנו‬.53 This is also sometimes seen in the use of a yiqṭōl where a qāṭal might be expected (compare Deut 14:7b [‫ ]הפריס‬with Lev 11:5 [‫)]יפריס‬ – a situation facilitated by the yiqṭōl’s ability to denote imperfective aspect, including habitual behavior and by the qāṭal’s ability to appear in “global” characterizations.54 Similarly, the legal situation in Lev 17:4 and 17:9 does not differ as a result of the appearance of the qāṭal in one and the yiqṭōl in the other, because the distinction is one of perfectivity vs. imperfectivity and not of tense or time. In Lev 17:4, the offender “has not brought” the slain animal to the tent of meeting, and in 17:9 the offender “does not bring” the slain animal. The legal situation is the same in each regardless of the verbal aspect; at stake is only whether the action is understood as “complete” or “incomplete.” The third path is presented clearly by Milgrom, though it has its roots in antiquity.55 On his reading, since the high priest is himself a member of ‫עדת‬ ‫ישראל‬, when the “entire congregation” transgresses, it is inevitable that he, too, will have transgressed. Therefore, whenever a congregational ‫חטאת‬-bull is offered (Lev 4:13–21), a high priest’s ‫חטאת‬-bull must also be offered (vv. 3–12). Taken thus, the two scenarios read as consecutive parts of a long (compounded) ritual, rather than as two alternative scenarios (to be precise, the first could take place 53  Note that both examples are found within a subordinate clause preceded by ‫לא‬. Paran notes the example from Lev 11 in passing. See Meir Paran, Forms of the Priestly Style in the Pentateuch: Patterns, Linguistic Usages, Syntactic Structures (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1989), 349 n. 37 [Hebrew]: “we have here a stylistic phenomenon tending to create variation when a verb is repeated: once as a participle (‫)מפריס‬, once in the future (‫)יפריס‬, and once in the past (‫)הפריסה‬.” 54 See Paul Joüon and Takamitsu Muraoka, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew (Rome: Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 2006), § 111e. The converse situation is, of course, inhibited by the qāṭal’s perfectivity, i. e., it may appear as a future perfect but is unlikely to appear as a simple future in legal texts. Compare also D’s ‫ כאשר נדרת‬vis-à-vis Ecclesiastes’s ‫כאשר תדר‬. 55  Milgrom, Leviticus, 241, writes that “the high priest has erred in judgment, causing ‘harm to the people’ (v. 3) whereby, in following the high priest’s ruling, the people also err. Because both their errors comprise inadvertent violations of prohibitive commandments (vv. 2, 13)… each party is responsible for purging the shrine with the blood of a similar sacrifice.” Milgrom also points out the comment by Rabbi Hiyya in Lev. Rab. 5:6, ‫תני רבי חיא הואיל ומשיח מכפר וצבור‬ ‫מתכפר‬, ‫ ;מוטב שיקדים מכפר למתכפר‬both Jacob Milgrom and the midrash note parallels to Lev 16, in which the high priest sacrifices first. Gary Anderson, “The Interpretation of the Purification Offering (‫ )חטאת‬in the Temple Scroll (11QTemple) and Rabbinic Literature,” JBL 111 (1992): 17–35, at 21, illustrates how the Temple Scroll also read Lev 5:3–21 as a unit and used them as a model in constructing its version of the ordination offering-complex. Specifically, he points out that the Temple Scroll includes an important gloss (‫ויקרב את אשר [לכה]נים בריאשונה‬, i. e., “let the bull of the priests be brought first”). The text in Leviticus, he says, shows that the congregational offering and the priestly offering “could function as a unit,” while the other offerings (those of the chieftain and layperson) could not (22–35). Finally, Lawrence Schiffman, “ʿôlâ and ḥaṭṭāʾt in the Temple Scroll,” in Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom, ed. David P. Wright, David Noel Freedman, and Avi Hurvitz (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1995), 39–48, at 46, claims in passing that these two passages in Lev 4 must have influenced the author of the Scroll in constructing the ‫מלואים‬.

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without the second – if only the high priest transgresses – but not vice versa). Since the second ritual is never envisioned as being carried out without the first preceding it, the text’s reference to “the first bull” as well as the use of qāṭal forms, which are thus true future perfects, are perfectly reasonable. This ingenious solution has the merit of taking P’s odd morphological and lexical choices seriously, but it cannot be accepted, for four reasons. First, judging by the usage of ‫ כי‬and ‫ אם‬throughout P and particularly in Lev 4, the scenarios in vv. 3–12 and 13–21 are alternatives no less than the scenarios in vv. 3–12 and 27–31 are alternatives. Second, P has many ways to express situations in which more than one offering must be brought (‫על‬, a simple copula, or a phrase such as ‫פרים שנים‬, cf. H’s ‫)מלבד‬, but none of these is employed here. Third, Milgrom’s reading depends on a hyper-literal and unlikely reading of ‫ כל‬in ‫כל עדת ישראל‬. Admittedly, from a purely formal point of view, the high priest is a member of the community, so that technically if each and every Israelite has transgressed, the high priest has perforce transgressed; it nonetheless stands to reason (as ancient and modern commentators have correctly argued) that the verses refer to communal transgression in the broad sense of the term, not necessarily to an arithmetic sum total. Finally, in P’s parlance, the high priest is distinct from the ‫ קהל‬and from ‫עדת ישראל‬, as is evident from Lev 16:17b, ‫וכפר בעדו ובעד ביתו ובעד‬ ‫כל קהל עדת ישראל‬. Since these three explanations have been weighed and found wanting, the conundrum remains: Lev 4:20–21 (thrice) and 4:31 (once) seem to fall into a textual trap whereby the authors forget, or pretend to forget, that they are referring to an alternative scenario that is merely textually anterior, since they employ language that implies that these scenarios have already taken place – or rather, that they will already have taken place by the time the textually-posterior alternatives occur. 4.3. The Fire-Scheme As Baruch Schwartz and his students have demonstrated time and again – most systematically Liane Feldman – a careful study of P’s legal sections reveals that the author is keenly aware of what the characters – the addressees of the law – know at each and every moment of the legal “monologues,” adapting the language of the law accordingly.56 Leviticus 1, on wholeburnt offerings, begins with a scenario in which a person has selected to bring a bovine (vv. 3–9). The law requires that it be a male, and proceeds to enjoin the praxemic sequence in which it is offered, from its 56  Feldman, Story of Sacrifice. Note, too, that these are authors that somehow remember that in Leviticus 8:17 a bull is burnt ‫ מחוץ למחנה‬and not ‫( על שפך הדשן‬as one would expect, apud Lev 4:12) because, considering that this is the first “incinerated” ‫חטאת‬, there are no “dumpgrounds” yet.

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presentation (v. 3) until it is turned to smoke upon the altar (v. 13). Only here, of all scenarios and subscenarios of sacrificial offerings in Lev 1–5, does the law mention the placement of coals and wood upon the altar (v. 7) after the bull is quartered and before it is placed upon the altar. There is a broad consensus that the legislator mentions the kindling of fire only here not because male bovines offered as wholeburnt offerings are the only type of offering that entails the ritual of fire-placement, but rather because the passage treating them happens to be the first scenario in the text (which, in turn, has to do with the logical, nonchronological considerations discussed above, p. 5).57 As Feldman explains, the instructions appear in this passage only and not in subsequent sacrificial scenarios since it is P’s custom to elaborate on a topic the first time it comes up, and abbreviate in subsequent passages, where the same piece of data is assumed to be known.58 While correct, her explanation does not account for the larger scheme of which 1:7 is part, whereby each time the fire is mentioned, it is within a list that enumerates the objects placed upon it:59 1:7a 1:7b 1:8 1:12 1:17 3:5 4:35 5:12

‫ונתנו בני אהרן הכהן   אש על המזבח‬ ‫  ל האש‬ ‫ וערכו עצים‬ ‫על העצים אשר על האש אשר על המזבח‬ )‫(עולה מן הבקר‬ ‫על העצים אשר על האש אשר על המזבח‬ )‫(עולה מן הצאן‬ ‫על העצים אשר על האש‬ )‫(עולה מן העוף‬ 60 )‫(חלבי שלמים מן הבקר)   על העלה אשר על העצים אשר על האש (על המזבח‬ ‫(חלבי חטאת מן הצאן) על אשי ה׳‬ ‫(אזכרה) על אשי ה׳‬

Schematically, the language of P creates a scheme structured like “The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly”:

 Second Temple and rabbinic sources reflect a different solution, according to which the references to the fire in Lev 1 belong with 6:1–6. See Yonatan Sagiv, “Leviticus 1 and 6: From Contextual to Extra-textual Exegesis,” JJS 48 (2012): 49–61 (at 54–55), and Hillel Mali (forthcoming). In the Aramaic Levi Document 9:1–5, different amounts of wood are prescribed for offerings of different sizes; see Jonas C. Greenfield, Michael E. Stone, and Esther Eshel, The Aramaic Levi Document: Edition, Translation, Commentary. SVTP 19 (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2004), 86–87. The plain meaning of the verse is perhaps that the firewood should be added as necessary. See the comment of Aaron ben Elijah (Aharon son of Eliyahu) of Nicomedia (1328– 1369), The Book of the Crown of the Torah (Yevpatoria/Gozlava: Abraham Firkovich, 1868) [Hebrew], 4b:‫שהוא מצוה לקיום האש ומאותה העת היו מפרישים לשרפת העולה עם מערכת העצים‬. 58 Feldman, Story of Sacrifice, 54. 59 Moreover, it does not account for the placement of these instructions between v. 7 and 9, rather than earlier in the ritual. The only reason seems to be so that the fire appears before the flesh appears, so that the flesh can be said to be placed on the fire. 60  Codices Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, and multiple other mss; see John William Wevers, Leviticus, Septuaginta II:2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986), 56. 57

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1:7 wood / on fire / on altar 1:8 ‫עלה‬ / on wood / on fire / on altar61 1:12 ‫עלה‬ / on wood / on fire / on altar 1:17 ‫עלה‬ / on wood / on fire 3:5 ‫שלמים‬ / on ‫עלה‬ / on wood / on fire (on altar) 4:35, 5:12 ‫ חטאת‬/ on ‫ שלמים‬and ‫( עלה‬lit. “food-gifts of YHWH”)

Once the fire is placed upon the altar in 1:7a, and wood upon the fire in 1:7b, pieces of the wholeburnt offering can be said to be placed upon the wood that is upon the fire that is upon the altar (v. 8), but the scheme does not stop here. Once the ‫“ עלה‬is located” upon the altar (in Lev 1), the law in 3:5 – which belongs to an alternative scenario in which ‫ שלמים‬are offered – speaks of placing the wellbeing offering “upon the wholeburnt offering that is upon the wood that is upon the fire that is upon the altar.” Even though they appeared only in the first scenario, it is reasonable to assume that there are fire and wood upon the altar, given P’s use of shorthand. But the assumption that there is an ‫ עלה‬upon which the ‫ שלמים‬can be placed (3:5) is not reasonable: there is no requirement to offer a wholeburnt offering before each and every ‫ שלמים‬offering; and it is unlikely that ‫ על העולה‬refers to the morning ‫( תמיד‬introduced in Lev 6).62 Rather, the reason the legislator envisions an ‫ עלה‬upon the altar at the time the ‫ שלמים‬is brought is that it appears in an earlier scenario – earlier in terms of the timeline of the text, but not in the timeline of the reality it envisions (like ‫)הפר הראשון‬. This is clearly borne out by the use of ‫( על אשי ה׳‬in the plural) in two subsequent scenarios – Lev 4:35 and 5:12: now that ‫ עלה‬and ‫ שלמים‬offerings “are located” upon the altar (from Lev 1 and 3 respectively; as well as cereal offerings, which are also considered ‫)אשים‬, the legislator in Lev 4–5 (4:35, 5:12) can speak 61 LXX’s grammar in ἐπὶ τὰ ξύλα τὰ ἐπὶ τοῦ πυρὸς τὰ ὄντα ἐπὶ τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου is decidedly odd. Using “pieces of wood” instead of “wood” for clarity (to distinguish pl. from sg. in English), LXX’s phrasing should be rendered “upon the pieces of wood which are upon the fire, which are upon the altar” (i. e., the wood, not the fire, is said to be upon the altar; formally, the fire is not said to be upon the altar in this phrase, though v. 7 makes this amply clear). It is difficult to imagine a practical implication (in terms of the ritual imagined), but the translators went out of their way to adopt this rendering of the Hebrew ‫על העצים אשר על האש אשר על המזבח‬. Because Hebrew ‫ אשר‬does not decline for case, gender, or number, the translation is not technically wrong, only improbable. Lev 1:12 reads similarly (without ὄντα) ἐπὶ τὰ ξύλα τὰ ἐπὶ τοῦ πυρὸς τὰ ἐπὶ τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου. 62  For Lev 3:5, Milgrom, Leviticus, 208–209 suggests that the burnt offering referenced here is the ‫ תמיד‬offering of Exod 29:28–39 or Num 28:3–4 and takes ‫ על‬as “with.” His view is that the ‫ תמיד‬burns all day (and all night) and that, therefore, the other offerings are added to it. This is unlikely because, as Rendtorff has argued, Lev 1–5 are unaware of 6–7; see Studien, 10–11. Furthermore, even if one were to assume that the legislators of Lev 1–5 are aware of Lev 6, there is little reason to assume that the remains of a small morning wholeburnt offering – a lamb – would still be on the altar at every given point during the day. (Lev 6:2 cannot be used as counterevidence because ‫ העלה‬there pertains to multiple offerings whose incineration may continue overnight and not only to the evening ‫תמיד‬. See Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 383, citing Wolfgang Wessely). We thank Francis Landy for assisting in clarifying this issue.

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of placing a ‫ חטאת‬upon the food-gifts of YHWH (‫אשי ה׳‬, pl.!), a term that covers wholeburnt and wellbeing offerings, but not purification offerings.63 Note that we place “is located” and “are located” in quotation marks, since these offerings do not linger on the altar beyond the conclusion of the scenarios within which they are located. In other words, 3:5 seems to assume that 1:7–8 is not only known to the audience (which is true, if the reader is careful), but that the offering of a bull as a votive offering by an individual (1:3–9) has actually taken place. Similarly, 4:35 and 5:12 seem to assume not only that 1:7–8 and 3:5 (and presumably other scenarios) are known to the audience (which is again true, if the reader is careful), but that that these scenarios are to have taken place in practice before the offering of the ‫חטאת‬. This final example is particularly telling, since in the procedural order, ‫ חטאת‬offerings are always brought before ‫ שלמים‬and ‫ עלה‬offerings – a principle that is explicit in 5:8 itself.64

5. Borges and His Priestly Precursors The two cases examined above are not similar to each other in every way,65 but they converge on one crucial feature: blurring the borders between textual order and the envisioned outcomes of the procedures described in the text. In both cases, this text-time blurriness cannot be explained away. If it were not for the unusual use of ‫הראשון‬, as recognized by Ehrlich, the first case (the use of qāṭal forms) could be dismissed as a linguistic ripple in P’s legal logic. The second, however, tends to give the impression of a carefully crafted textual maneuver, displaying a complex nesting structure. Thus, they a certain slippage, or blurring of borders, between the temporality governing the social world which the laws envision and another kind of temporality – that which governs both the character’s speeches (the order of scenarios delivered from YHWH to Moses) which in Lev 1–5 is also the order of the text itself – that is, the order of P’s words as read to the audience, or the order of words written on a scroll.66 63 See

Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16, 161–62. theory, one might object to this explanation and argue that when there is a series of offerings, wholeburnt offerings really do usually precede well-being offerings; and therefore there at least a chance that there might be a wholeburnt offering upon the altar when an individual brings his votive well-being offering. This objection is weak, in that the offerings envisioned in Lev 1, 3 and 4 are not part of a series within a festival, comprising several offerings, but first and foremost self-standing offerings. Lev 4:35 and 5:12 also demonstrate that such an objection is unhelpful; these verses deal with purification offerings; and as Anson Rainey has shown, when there is a series of offerings, the procedural order is such that purification offerings always precede the other offerings. 65  Lev 4:20–21, 31 is primarily temporal, while the fire-scheme has a significant spatial element (‫)…אשר על… אשר על‬. Further, the first is facilitated by the phenomenon of cross-reference – itself unique to P’s laws of sacrifice and purity – while the second is not. 66  The case of Lev 4:20–21, 31 and the case of the fire-scheme also intertwine in the text. That 64 In

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231

We are not aware of any legal or ritual corpus from antiquity to the present that operates in this way. Since the phenomenon is reminiscent of the kind of ploys developed by the Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges, particularly in “The Library of Babel,”67 we use the adjective “Borgesian” when referring to them.68 5.1. Explanation of the Data: Homo Alludens The Borgesian phenomenon we have identified here, unlike cross-reference, is narrow in scope, being limited to a handful of instances in Lev 1–5,69 and it is anomalous enough to demand explanation. We have excluded the possibility that we are faced with a series of unrelated errors (textual, grammatical, or logical). While our primary goal here is not a full account, we offer here three possible explanations for the origin and function of this phenomenon. The first explanation pertains to the fact that P, generally, experiments with a new combination of historiographic and legal genres, in a way that is both subtler and more thorough than any of its peers and precursors. This experimentation with a hybrid genre may explain the “bleeding,” so to speak, of the chronological organizing principle governing narrative texts into the logical organizing principle governing legal/ritual texts. This explanation, according to which the “borgesianisms” are accidental, explains why they are so rare, but it does not explain why they are all concentrated in Lev 1–5. The second, to which we have already alluded, relies in part on this same generic experimentation or blending of historiographic and legal genres in P. However, instead of understanding the borgesianisms as accidental slips between a logical organizing principle for legal texts and a chronological organizing principle for narrative ones, this explanation would attribute them to artistry by the writers of P. While the first explanation is perhaps more attractive for 4:20–21, 31, the fire-scheme can hardly be an accident. It is then more difficult to characterize is, the first case occurs in Lev 4 and the second in Lev 3–5. Moreover, 4:31 (from the first set) is not only found in close proximity to 4:35 (from the second set) – these two verses, which alternate between ‫ הוסר‬and ‫יוסר‬, are nearly identical. 67  Jorge Luis Borges, “La biblioteca de Babel,” in El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan (Buenos Aires: SUR, 1942): 93–105. 68  m. Kelim 1:5 enumerates the regulations pertaining to ten alternative forms of ritual pollution as if they befell a single person seriatim: ‫ אסור‬,‫ חזר להיות טבול יום‬.‫ אסור בקודש ומותר ובמעשר‬,‫ מחוסר כיפורים‬.‫עשר טומאות פורשות מן האדם‬ ‫ חזר‬.‫ מטמא משכב תחתון כעליון‬,‫ חזר להיות בועל נדה‬.‫ אסור בשלשתן‬,‫בקודש ובתרומה… חזר להיות בעל קרי‬ ‫ מטמא בביאה… פירש ממנו אבר‬,‫ מטמא משכב ומושב… חזר להיות מצורע מוסגר‬,‫להיות זב שראה שתי ראיות‬ ‫ מטמא במגע ובמשא‬,‫שאין עליו בשר כראוי‬ While this formulation is reminiscent of the process identified in Lev 4, it is merely a mnemonic or didactic device (perhaps a playful one) and does not entail any confusion between logical and chronological organizing principles. 69  There are between two and four “Borgesian cross-references” (4:20, 4:21 [twice], 4:31) and three or four “Borgesian fire-constructions” (3:5, 4:35; 5:12, which are dependent on 1:7–8 [cf. 1:12, 17]), and the maximum density of these Borgesian features occurs towards the end of Lev 4.

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both the fire-scheme and 4:20–21, 31 as accidental; a writer once observed being clever might be clever yet again, and perhaps even more subtly so. Between these first two explanations, then, the second is in our view somewhat more plausible. The third explanation, which does not exclude these first two, pertains to a property of complex ritual systems, including rituals that are textually constructed.70 In Homo Ludens, Johan Huizinga argues that rituals qua rituals are characterized by a ludic element, an element that they share with other domains of human social activity ranging from games, to hunting, to legal-juridical processes. As such, ritual time-space functions differently from quotidian timespace and shares some aspects of the time-space of play and games, which is hermetic and not open.71 The hermetic nature of P’s sacrificial laws is nowhere more evident than in the thick web of cross-references that weaves together P’s ritual instructions. P’s sacrificial rituals themselves (in the sense of the rituals envisioned and enjoined in P’s text) are a tightly-knit system, governed by a “grammar” of their own. But P’s ritual texts, too, are a tightly-knit system. As in a game (of chess, or of soccer), every move is related to the totality of moves and positions that precede it and that follow it. This is borne out in several ways in P: it is evident in the development of a special technolect applicable specifically to P’s sacrificial system, and it is reinforced by the thick web of analogizing cross-references that tie P’s ritual systems together, somewhat as every word in a dictionary is defined elsewhere in the same dictionary.72 Seligman et al. build upon Huizinga’s theory, demonstrating that ritual, like play, allows for the construction of a “subjunctive” world, a world governed by a set of laws that both reflect the (not fully realizable) ideals of the society participating in the action and contribute to the constitution of these ideals through the construction of a “subjunctive reality.” In their own words, “the model we propose … understands ritual as a subjunctive – the creation of an order as if it were truly the case. Or, putting it in different words, the subjunctive creates an order that is self-consciously distinct from other possible social worlds.”73 For example, when using the frozen (and ritualized) phrase, “could you please pass me the salt?” at the dinner table (rather than a plain “pass me the salt,” or “salt!”), adults contribute to the construction and reinforcement of a subjunctive reality in which the child has the right, the social standing, and the ability to refuse the  On literary rituals, see Feldman, Story of Sacrifice, 11–18. Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture (New York: Roy, 1950), 14–15, 19–20. 72 The fact that P’s laws of sacrifice and purity never reference ritual procedures or social practices from domains that are outside the text (i. e., there are no dead links) reinforces the sense of a hermetically sealed system. See above, pp. 13–14. 73  Adam B. Seligman et al., Ritual and Its Consequences (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 20. 70

71 See

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request without serious consequences. This ideal, “as-if ” world is repeatedly constructed and held together by rituals. What is true of the ritualized mealtime phrase is all the more pertinent to complex ritual acts such as the sacrifices enjoined in Lev 1–5. Jacob Milgrom and his students, including Baruch Schwartz, have elaborated upon the details of the “as if ” world that these rituals reflect, construct, and envision: it is a world wherein the deity dwells in the midst of the Israelite community, is affected by miasma that they generate, bears their ‫עון‬, and responds to their ritual work by accepting their gifts and, potentially, by blessing them.74 We suggest that it is not merely the case that P’s rituals qua rituals (apud Seligman et al.) are designed to construct a “subjunctive world,” but that P’s text, inasmuch as it is itself characterized by ritualization,75 effects a subjunctive world in which the events take place “as if.” In arguing this, we extend their argument from the rituals themselves to the ritual texts. Whereas Seligman et al. claim that rituals create a subjunctive world governed by its own rules, we take an additional step forward, extending to the ritual texts of Leviticus what they attribute to the ritual practices that the texts envision. Such an extension is justified in light of the profound homologies between ritual text and ritual practice in P.76

74 Jacob Milgrom, “Israel’s Sanctuary: The Priestly ‘Picture of Dorian Gray,” RB 83 (1976): 390–99; Baruch J. Schwartz, “The Bearing of Sin in the Priestly Literature,” in Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom, ed. David P. Wright, David Noel Freedman, and Avi Hurvitz (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1995), 3–21; Jeffrey Stackert, “How the Priestly Sabbaths Work: Innovation in Pentateuchal Priestly Ritual,” in Ritual Innovation in the Hebrew Bible and Early Judaism, ed. Nathan MacDonald (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016), 79–111. 75  Watts, Ritual and Rhetoric, 15 (citing Bergen). 76 Dorothea Erbele-Küster, “Reading as an Act of Offering: Reconsidering the Genre of Leviticus 1,” in The Actuality of Sacrifice: Past and Present, ed. Alberdina Houtman et al. (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2014), 34–46, is very much attuned to its fictionality. See also Bryan D. Bibb, Ritual Worlds and Narrative Worlds in the Book of Leviticus (London/New York: T&T Clark, 2009), esp. 34–69. See Watts, Ritual and Rhetoric; Mary Douglas, Leviticus as Literature (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 230: “learning the book becomes a way of internalizing the tabernacle.” See also Wesley Bergen, Reading Ritual: Leviticus in Postmodern Culture (London/New York: T&T Clark, 2005); Hanna Liss, “The Imaginary Sanctuary: The Priestly Code as an Example of Fictional Literature in the Hebrew Bible,” in Judah and Judeans in the Persian Period, ed. Oded Lipschits and Manfred Oeming (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2006), 663–89; Naphtali S. Meshel, “Hermeneutics.” The recent volume Text and Ritual in the Pentateuch: A Systematic and Comparative Approach, ed. Christophe Nihan and Julia Rhyder (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2021) was not available to us to incorporate the insights of Lionel Marti, Patrick Michel, Yitzhaq Feder, James Watts, Christian Frevel, Jeremy Smoak, and Dorothea Erbele-Küster, though Christophe Nihan’s introduction to the volume (pp. 1–29) offers a helpful overview of their arguments and directions for further study.

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6. Conclusion: Cross-Reference and the Elephant-in-the-Car Effect In this article, we identified two phenomena. One is cross-reference; the other, Borgesian slippage, is secondary to cross-reference and far less extensive. Our primary goal has not been to fully explain them, but rather to identify them, to demonstrate that they occur in recurring patterns, and to pinpoint their location in a limited textual corpus. Cross-reference, especially, we submit for consideration as a well-differentiated feature of P’s laws of sacrifice and purity. P’s system of cross-reference, to our knowledge, has not been described systematically, even though it appears that these cross-references occur with greater frequency in the laws of sacrifice and purity than any closely comparable phenomenon in biblical and ancient Near Eastern literature. Because we live with technologies like the internet – collective, anonymous, and thoroughly linked within itself – systems of textual and technological cross-reference are quotidian in many respects. Yet P, despite its composition within the constraints of basic technologies for writing and textual preservation, develops an intricate system of cross-reference at the core of the legislation in which it imagined how YHWH might dwell among his people. The priestly cross-references are not a direct precursor to the intricate textual and technological networks that we encounter, but perhaps both participate in and result from some of the same tendencies, above all, a desire to construct a coherent world – even if that world is imagined or can only exist literarily. “Borgesianisms,” which are also distinctive but remain subsidiary to crossreference in both relative importance and in frequency, are limited to Lev 1 and 3–5. (This, in and of itself, is significant because it reinforces other text-historical considerations that have led scholars to identify Lev 1 + 3–5 as a unit.)77 They coincide with cross-reference in Lev 4 to create a ludic – and alludic – conundrum. While cross-reference adequately differentiates the first phenomenon from other forms of reference, something more specific than the adjectival “Borgesian” might help to further clarify the second. And it is, indeed, distinct enough to deserve a name. We propose naming it the “elephant-in-the-car effect,” after a wellknown series of elephant riddles: How do you fit five elephants in a Volkswagen? – Two in front, three in the back. How do you fit six elephants in a Volkswagen? – Two in front, three in the back, one in the trunk. How do you fit five giraffes in a Volkswagen? – You open the doors, take out the elephants, put in the giraffes, and shut the doors.78 77 See

above, n. 14.  Frank Kermode, “Hoti’s Business: Why Are Narratives Obscure,” in The Genesis of Secrecy:

78

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235

The first riddle in this series contains what Kermode calls an interpretive trap: “it can only be answered if you ignore the hint that it has to do with size; it has to do only with the number.”79 So too, the second. The third is funny because series of riddles, like series of sacrificial laws, are organized according to logical, not chronological order: each riddle inhabits a hermetic time frame, and the characters from an earlier riddle do not typically stampede into the narrative world of the next. The apple pie in our cookbook somehow survived through the book’s pages to meet the blueberry pie in the oven. So, too, we have seen that, on occasion, P is so immensely absorbed in its own narrative that the elephant-in-the-car effect allows elements of one ritual to perdure and meet those of another. P relates how the deity narrates legal scenarios to Moses, who is then to relay them to the Israelites. In the course of this narration, one seems to forget that these passages, though embedded in a narrative, do not create a narrative sequence but rather constitute discrete legal scenarios. In other words, P is so absorbed in its hybrid “as-if ” world of textual rituals that it seems not to notice – or, plausibly, plays at not noticing – the elephant in the room: that law is law, and narrative – narrative.

On the Interpretation of Narrative (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), 23–48, at 24 n. 1. 79  See Kermode, “Hoti’s Business,” 24.

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‫‪236‬‬

‫‪Table 1: Cross-References in P’s Laws of Sacrifice and Purity‬‬ ‫‪Link in its immediate context‬‬

‫‪Anchor text Target text‬‬ ‫‪Lev 1:7–8‬‬

‫‪Lev 1:17‬‬

‫)‪Lev 1:(7–8‬‬

‫‪Lev 3:5‬‬

‫י־א ֲהרֹן הַּמִזְּבֵחָה עַל־הָעֹלָה אֲׁשֶר עַל־הָעֵצִים אֲׁשֶר‬ ‫וְ ִה ְק ִטירוּ אֹתוֹ ְבנֵ ַ‬ ‫עַל־הָאֵׁש‬

‫‪Lev 3:3–4‬‬

‫‪Lev 4:9–10‬‬

‫וְ ֶאת ַה ּ ֹי ֶת ֶרת ַעל ַה ָּכ ֵבד ַעל ַה ְּכלָ יוֹ ת יְ ִס ֶיר ָּנה‪ .‬כַּאֲֶׁשֶר יּוַרם מִּׁשֹור זֶבַח‬ ‫הְַּׁשְלָמִים‬

‫‪Lev 4:3–10‬‬

‫‪Lev 4:20‬‬

‫וְ ָע ָ ׂשה לַ ּ ָפר ּכַאֲׁשֶר עָׂשָה לְפַר הַחַּטָאת ֵּכן יַ ֲע ֶ ׂש ּ‬ ‫ה־לוֹ‬

‫‪Lev 4:11–12‬‬

‫‪Lev 4:21‬‬

‫וְ ָ ׂש ַרף אֹתוֹ ּכַאֲׁשֶר ׂשַָרף אֵת הַּפָר הִָראׁשֹון‬

‫‪Lev 1:11‬‬

‫‪Lev 4:24‬‬

‫וְ ׁ ָש ַחט אֹתוֹ ּבִמְקֹום אֲׁשֶר־יִׁשְחַט אֶת־הָעֹלָה לִפְנֵי יְהוָה‬

‫‪Lev 3:3–5‬‬

‫‪Lev 4:26‬‬

‫וְ ֶאת ָּכל ֶחלְ ּבוֹ יַ ְק ִטיר ַה ּ ִמזְ ֵּב ָחה ְּכְחֵלֶב זֶבַח הְַּׁשְלָמִים‬

‫‪Lev 1:11‬‬

‫‪Lev 4:29‬‬

‫ת־ה ַח ָּטאת ִּבמְקֹום הָעֹלָה‬ ‫וְ ׁ ָש ַחט ֶא ַ‬

‫‪Lev 3:14–15‬‬

‫‪Lev 4:31‬‬

‫ל־חלְ ָּב ּה יָ ִסיר ּכַאֲׁשֶר הּוסַר חֵלֶב מֵעַל זֶבַח הַּׁשְלָמִים‬ ‫ת־כ ֶ‬ ‫וְ ֶא ָּ‬

‫‪Lev 1:11‬‬

‫‪Lev 4:33‬‬

‫וְ ׁ ָש ַחט א ָֹת ּה לְ ַח ָּטאת ּבִמְקֹום אֲׁשֶר יִׁשְחַט אֶת־הָעֹלָה‬

‫‪Lev 3:9–10‬‬

‫‪Lev 4:35‬‬

‫ל‪-‬חלְ ָּב ּה יָ ִסיר ּכַאֲׁשֶר יּוסַר חֵלֶב הַ ֶּכׂשֶב מִּזֶבַח הַּׁשְלָמִים‬ ‫ת‪-‬כ ֶ‬ ‫וְ ֶא ָּ‬

‫‪Lev 1 and 3‬‬

‫‪Lev 4:35‬‬

‫וְ ִה ְק ִטיר ַה ּכ ֵֹהן א ָֹתם הַּמִזְּבֵחָה עַל אִּׁשֵי יְהוָה‬

‫‪Lev 1 and 3‬‬

‫‪Lev 5:12‬‬

‫וְ ִה ְק ִטיר הַּמִזְּבֵחָה עַל אִּׁשֵי יְהוָה ַח ָּטאת ִהוא‬

‫‪Lev 2:10‬‬

‫‪Lev 5:13‬‬

‫וְהָיְתָה לַ ֹּכ ֵהן ַּכִַּמִנְחָה‬

‫‪Lev 6:19, 7:7‬‬

‫‪Lev 6:10‬‬

‫ֶחלְ ָקם נָ ַת ּ ִתי א ָֹת ּה ֵמ ִא ָּׁשי ק ֶֹד ׁש ָק ָד ׁ ִשים ִהוא ַּכַחַָּטָאת וְכָאָָׁשָם‬

‫‪Lev 1:5, 11‬‬

‫‪Lev 6:18‬‬

‫ִּבִמְקֹום אֲֶׁשֶר ִּתִָּׁשָחֵט הָעֹלָה ּ ִת ָּׁש ֵחט ַה ַח ָּטאת לִ ְפנֵ י יְ הוָ ה ק ֶֹד ׁש ָק ָד ׁ ִשים ִהוא‬

‫‪Lev 1:5, 11‬‬

‫‪Lev 7:2‬‬

‫ְׁשחֲטּו אֶת הָעֹלָה יִ ׁ ְש ֲחטוּ ֶאת ָה ָא ׁ ָשם‬ ‫ִּבִמְקֹום אֲֶׁשֶר יִ ְ‬

‫‪Lev 6:19‬‬

‫‪Lev 7:7‬‬

‫ַּכַחַָּטָאת ָּכ ָָא ׁ ָשם ּתוֹ ָרה ַא ַחת לָ ֶהם ַה ֹּכ ֵהן ֲא ׁ ֶשר יְ כַ ּ ֶפר ּבוֹ לוֹ יִ ְהיֶ ה‬

‫‪Lev 15:19–24‬‬

‫‪Lev 12:2‬‬

‫ּכִימֵי נִּדַת ּדְ�ֹותָּה ּ ִת ְט ָמא‬

‫‪Lev 15:19–24‬‬

‫‪Lev 12:5‬‬

‫וְ ָט ְמ ָאה ׁ ְש ֻב ַעיִ ם ְּכְנִָּדָתָּה‬

‫‪Lev 1, Lev 4‬‬

‫‪Lev 14:13‬‬

‫וְ ׁ ָש ַחט ֶאת ַה ֶּכ ֶבשׂ ִּבִמְקֹום אֲֶׁשֶר יְִׁשְחַט אֶת הַחַָּטָאת וְאֶת הָעֹלָה ִּב ְמקוֹ ם‬ ‫ַה ֹּק ֶד ׁש‬

‫‪Lev 4‬‬

‫‪Lev 14:13‬‬

‫ִּכי ַּכַחַָּטָאת ָה ָא ׁ ָשם הוּ א לַ ֹּכ ֵהן ק ֶֹד ׁש ָק ָד ׁ ִשים הוּ א‬

‫‪Lev 15:19–24‬‬

‫‪Lev 15:25‬‬

‫וְ ִא ָּׁשה ִּכי יָ זוּ ב זוֹ ב ָ ּד ָמ ּה יָ ִמים ַר ִּבים ְּבֹלא ֶעת נִ ָ ּד ָת ּה אוֹ כִ י ָתזוּ ב ַעל נִ ָ ּד ָת ּה‬ ‫ָּכל יְ ֵמי זוֹ ב ֻט ְמ ָא ָת ּה ִּכִימֵי נִָּדָתָּה ּ ִת ְהיֶ ה ְט ֵמ ָאה ִהוא‬

‫‪Lev 15:20–23‬‬

‫‪Lev 15:26‬‬

‫ָּכל ַה ּ ִמ ׁ ְש ָּכב ֲא ׁ ֶשר ּ ִת ׁ ְש ַּכב ָעלָ יו ָּכל יְ ֵמי זוֹ ָב ּה ְּכְמְִׁשְַּכַב נִָּדָתָּה יִ ְהיֶ ה ּ ָל ּה‬

‫‪Lev 15:20–23‬‬

‫‪Lev 15:26‬‬

‫וְ כָ ל ַה ְּכלִ י ֲא ׁ ֶשר ּ ֵת ׁ ֵשב ָעלָ יו ָט ֵמא יִ ְהיֶ ה ְְּכטֻמְאַת נִָּדָתָּה‬

‫‪Lev 16:14‬‬

‫‪Lev 16:15‬‬

‫ת־דמוֹ ּכַאֲׁשֶר עָׂשָה לְדַם הַּפָר‬ ‫וְ ָע ָ ׂשה ֶא ָ ּ‬

‫וְ ִה ְק ִטיר אֹתוֹ ַה ֹּכ ֵהן הִַּמִזְ ֵֵּבחָה עַל הָעֵצִים אֲֶׁשֶר עַל הָאֵׁש‬

“She Shall Be Burned with Fire” Femininity and Intersectionality in the Bible’s Priestly Source* Sarah Shectman ‫ובת איש כהן כי תחל לזנות את־אביה היא מחללת באש תשרף‬ If the daughter of a priest defiles herself through prostitution, it is her father whom she defiles; she shall be burned with fire. (Leviticus 21:9)

On first encountering Lev 21:9, a reader might pass over it with barely a thought: of course the daughter of a priest would bring shame on her father – defile him – if she were sexually promiscuous.1 Sexual promiscuity is immoral and defiling, and this dirty daughter’s behavior naturally reflects negatively on her father, a priest who is expected to maintain the highest levels of ritual purity, both cultically and morally.2 But a closer look at the text in a different theoretical light shows that this verse is not just about defilement but is a careful deployment of gender norms as a means of creating and maintaining the priest’s physical sanctity and his position at the top of a social hierarchy. This essay will explore how gender and power interact in Lev 21–22, how the behavior of women in priestly families is controlled and constructed to maintain priestly power, and how this behavior reflects and creates hierarchies of status and power between women and men across social classes. I will approach these questions through two lenses: intersectionality, which looks at how different identity categories come together in “relations of power”; and femininities, which analyzes how ideas about womanliness and manliness do the same. This examination will expose how control of women’s access to sanctity and the

* I am grateful to Ingrid Lilly, Eva Mroczek, Seth Sanders, and Ilona Zsolnay for their feedback on earlier versions of this paper and to Joel Baden and Jeffrey Stackert for their thoughtful editing. 1 On sexual promiscuity in the Hebrew Bible, see Hilary Lipka, Sexual Transgression in the Hebrew Bible, HBM 7 (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2006); on sexual behavior and im/purity, see Eve Levavi Feinstein, Sexual Pollution in the Hebrew Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014). 2  On the connection between sin and impurity, see Jonathan Klawans, Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), esp. 26–31. Jonathan Klawans leaves the verses to be discussed here out of his discussion of gender and impurity (38–41) and does not discuss Lev 21:9 at all.

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sacred and regulation of their sexual activity, especially before marriage, were critical components in maintaining priestly position and power.3 Applying an intersectional and gendered lens to what the texts say about women in priestly families will help us move beyond readings of the text that focus only on the men in these families, enriching our thinking about priests, gender, and social stratification in ancient Israel. In the process, we will also see how the Holiness material has broader implications for our understanding of the ways that gender norms can be deployed to construct and maintain social and sacred hierarchies, not only in ancient Israel or among its neighbors but in any society that shares similar principles of gender normativity and of access to the sacred. Given Baruch Schwartz’s significant contributions to the study of the Holiness material, and his consistent encouragement of my work on gender in the Priestly corpus, it is an honor to dedicate this article to him.

1. Class and Gender (Intersectionality and Femininities) Intersectionality and gender studies, especially the study of masculinities and femininities, have made only minor inroads into biblical studies, and even less into pentateuchal studies specifically.4 This is unfortunate, because biblical texts reflect a social system with a number of hierarchies, including ones based on

3 As I have argued elsewhere, laws regulating priestly men’s and women’s mourning rites, eating of sacred foods, and sexual/marital behavior had additional social ramifications, creating hierarchies between different social classes of women and between women of the priestly class and men of different classes. See Sarah Shectman, “The Social Status of Priestly and Levite Women,” in Levites and Priests in History and Tradition, ed. Mark A. Leuchter and Jeremy M. Hutton, SBLAIL 9 (Atlanta: SBL, 2011), 83–99. 4 Intersectionality began in legal studies and has become a key component of critical race studies. Though there has been some work on intersectionality and the Hebrew Bible, it is still fairly limited. For the foundational study of intersectionality, see Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color,” Stanford Law Review 43 (1990–91): 1241–99. On intersectionality in the Hebrew Bible, see Gale Yee, ed., The Hebrew Bible: Feminist and Intersectional Perspectives (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2018); L. Juliana Claassens and Carolyn J. Sharp, eds., Feminist Frameworks and the Bible: Power, Ambiguity, and Intersectionality, LHBOTS 630 (London: T&T Clark, 2017). Though there is a wealth of feminist analysis of the Hebrew Bible, it is still held off as a separate realm of study, not integrated into mainstream scholarship. Gender studies has made fewer inroads than feminism and is most heavily represented by queer studies. There are a small number of studies of masculinities, a growing area of analysis, and little to none on femininities specifically. For introductions to the topic, see Justin Charlebois, Gender and the Construction of Dominant, Hegemonic, and Oppositional Femininities (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2011); Mimi Schippers, “Recovering the Feminine Other: Masculinity, Femininity, and Gender Hegemony,” Theory and Society 36 (2007): 85–102.

“She Shall Be Burned with Fire”

239

class and gender.5 Though there appear to have been rival priesthoods,6 or at least rival priestly factions, they seem to have shared the idea of the hereditary priesthood, and in the Persian period, in the absence of an Israelite monarchy, the group responsible for the Priestly texts of the Pentateuch became ascendant.7 The authors writing the Priestly materials were invested in legitimating and maintaining their position at the top of the cultic hierarchy, which they did both in the laws that showed how the priests were those with the most access to the Israelite god, Yahweh, and in the narrative that told the story of how the priests had been chosen for their status by none other than Yahweh.8 Biblical hierarchies revolve mostly around men – fathers, kings, priests – and so the picture that most scholars paint of Israelite society is one of a strict patriarchy with women unilaterally subordinate to men. But social stratifications apply to women as well – women in the royal court, for example, exercised a significant degree of power in some cases.9 It is not accurate to talk about “the Israelite woman” or “the biblical woman” as a monolithic entity or as a figure who was always subordinated to men in a straightforwardly hierarchical fashion. Instead, social status depended on what Carol Meyers calls heterarchies:10 that is, intersections between class and gender that meant women could move within and between various hierarchies depending on their position relative to the people around them. These intersections also exist outside of obvious locations like the monarchy – for example, they are visible in the relationships among Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar, where Sarah as wife is generally subordinate to her husband Abraham but exercises significant power over Hagar, an enslaved woman from an “outsider” ethnic group. Multiple identities can intersect within a single person’s experience, revealing that power is relational. It is derived from the relationships of group members to each other and their relationships to other groups individually as well – like female, enslaved, and foreign in the case of Hagar, and female, not enslaved, and “native” in the case of Sarah.  5  On cultic hierarchies in the Bible, see, e. g., Saul Olyan, Rites and Rank: Hierarchy in Biblical Representations of Cult (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).  6  On the history of the priesthood, see Mark Leuchter, The Levites and the Boundaries of Israelite Identity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017); Gabriele Boccaccini, Roots of Rabbinic Judaism: An Intellectual History, from Ezekiel to Daniel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002).  7  See, e. g., Boccaccini, Roots, 61.  8  On the inseparable nature of the Priestly narrative and ritual/law, see Liane M. Feldman, The Story of Sacrifice: Ritual and Narrative in the Priestly Source, FAT 141 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020).  9 See, e. g., Beverly W. Cushman, “The Politics of the Royal Harem and the Case of BatSheba,” JSOT 30 (2006): 327–43. For Assyian parallels, see Saana Svärd, Women and Power in Neo-Assyrian Palaces, SAAS 23 (Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2015). 10 Carol Meyers, Rediscovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 196–99.

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Despite Meyers’s work on heterarchies, and Saul Olyan’s work on status and power in relation to the cult,11 neither gender studies nor intersectionality has made much progress in pentateuchal scholarship. Even more recent discussions of gender in the Priestly texts generally address why women were excluded from the priesthood in ancient Israel or how purity laws impacted women – understood as lay women.12 This is where intersectionality is a particularly instructive lens. Kimberlé Crenshaw, in her defining article laying out the subject of intersectionality, describes the place of women of color in “discourses of either feminism or antiracism” that treat only one or the other of those issues but never both together. As she notes, “Because of their intersectional identity as both women and of color within discourses that are shaped to respond to one or the other, women of color are marginalized within both.”13 Likewise, analyses of Priestly material either ignore women entirely in their discussion of priests or ignore priests entirely in their discussion of women.14 Neither approach recognizes that both priest and woman are operative in some texts. That is, they do not ask how the intersection of these categories positions women who are members of priestly families – of the priestly class – in relation not only to priestly men but also to men and women from nonpriestly families. They do not ask how feminine priestly gender is embodied or performed, according to the Priestly view, or how the Priestly conception of femininity contributes to gender hierarchy. In gender studies, a society’s norms of masculine and feminine behavior, those gender norms that are considered ideal or that are most valued, are termed dominant masculinities and femininities.15 Gender hierarchy occurs when those dominant forms of masculinity and femininity are used to justify asymmetric power relations, to maintain a hierarchy that subordinates other masculinities 11 Olyan,

Rites and Rank. few (mostly) recent examples of studies covering women in P include Dorothea Erbele-Küster, Body, Gender and Purity in Leviticus 12 and 15, LHBOTS 539 (London: Bloomsbury, 2017); Deborah W. Rooke, ed., Embroidered Garments: Priests and Gender in Biblical Israel, HBM 25 (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2009); Deborah L. Ellens, Women in the Sex Texts of Leviticus and Deuteronomy: A Comparative Conceptual Analysis, LHBOTS 458 (New York: T&T Clark, 2008). Claudia Camp perhaps comes closest to what I am doing here, in that she addresses the issue of women within priestly families; however, she is focused on how the narrative others these women, specifically in the context of the Miriam and Dinah narratives. See Claudia Camp, Wise, Strange and Holy: The Strange Woman and the Making of the Bible, JSOTSup 320, Gender, Culture, Theory 9 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2000), 191–226. 13  Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins,” 1244. I am cognizant of the fact that I (a white woman) am applying a theory developed to address the particular challenges of Black women/women of color in a context in which race is not overtly visible. But intersectionality’s design as a tool to address intersections of gender and power nevertheless makes it useful for analyzing other differences in social status, with the recognition that issues of race and issues of class may overlap but are not the same. 14  Again, for a near exception, see Camp, Wise, Strange and Holy. 15  See, e. g., Charlebois, Gender, 27; R. W. Connell, Masculinities, 2nd ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 77. 12 A

“She Shall Be Burned with Fire”

241

and femininities to the dominant ones. When this happens, dominant masculinity and femininity become hegemonic, meaning that they become tools of inscribing and reinforcing their position.16 Ideas about masculinity and femininity also change with time and culture, and behaviors that are associated with one gender or another do not have to be traits that correspond specifically to sex-based behaviors or differences or to traits that we associate with a particular gender. Masculinities studies treats men as gendered rather than gender neutral, as tends to be the assumption in more traditional methods, especially historicalcritical ones that do not incorporate a gendered approach.17 The focus of masculinities and femininities studies is thus on how masculine and feminine norms are used to create and maintain power structures that benefit men, what masculinities theorist R. Connell calls the “patriarchal dividend.”18 Masculinities is founded on the premise that “masculinity and femininity are inherently relational concepts… . [M]asculinities are configurations of practice structured by gender relations.”19 Just as masculinities are those gendered behaviors that position men in a social hierarchy and thereby cement women’s subordinate status in relation to men, femininities are gendered behaviors that position women in a social hierarchy and thereby also cement women’s subordinate status in relation to men. That is, though hegemonic femininity is a dominant femininity that works to subordinate other forms of femininity to it, hegemonic femininity will itself be subordinate to hegemonic masculinity and will work to ensure hegemonic masculinity’s position at the top of the hierarchy. Indeed, as Justin Charlebois notes, “Hegemonic masculinity is constructed through the domination of femininity.”20 Femininities theory is a young discipline, and there are multiple views of how femininity works with masculinity. The framework I will follow here is that of Mimi Schippers, who asks these questions of the text: 1. What characteristics or practices are understood as manly in the setting? 2. What characteristics or practices are understood as womanly? 3. Of those practices and characteristics, which ones situate femininity as complementary and inferior to masculinity?21 16 Charlebois,

Gender, 29–30; Connell, Masculinities, 77. Krondorfer, “Biblical Masculinity Matters,” in Biblical Masculinities Foregrounded, ed. Ovidiu Creangă and Peter-Ben Smit, HBM 62 (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2014), 289. This extends to the notion that biblical men and even masculine grammatical forms can include or mask the presence of women within them; see Sarah Shectman, “The Priestly Language of Gender,” HeBAI 8 (2019): 417 n. 3. 18  Connell, Masculinities, 79–80. 19 Connell, Masculinities, 43–44. 20  Charlebois, Gender, 30, following Schippers and building on Connell. 21  Schippers, “Recovering,” 100. Schippers includes two more questions: “4. What characteristics and practices of women are defined as feminine, contaminating, or disruptive? That is, what are the pariah femininities circulating? 5. What characteristics or practices of men are 17 Björn

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2. Priestly Masculinity Given that femininity’s meaning exists in relation to masculinity (and vice versa), our study of priestly femininity must start with a study of priestly masculinity. As already noted, there is not much scholarship on priestly masculinities. Masculinities studies in the Hebrew Bible mostly focuses on the royal and/or warrior as the hegemonic masculine ideal and analyzes other masculinitities in relation to this ideal.22 As Hilary Lipka notes, “Hegemonic masculinity in biblical texts is tied to the notion of strength, as expressed by terms such as ‫כח‬, ‫זרוע‬, ‫ חיל‬,‫גבורה‬,

defined as feminine, contaminating, or disruptive? What are the male femininities?” But these move beyond the scope of the discussion here, and so I have left them aside for now. Femininities is theoretically distinct from feminism as an approach. As Schippers and Sapp put it, feminism (meaning second-wave feminism, which is the feminist movement that took hold in the 1970s in the United States) “assumes that normative features or socially prescribed requirements of femininity are the embodiment of patriarchal domination and oppression.” That is, femininity is imposed on women by men as part of women’s subordination and is something that a feminist should therefore reject. A critique of feminism sees this top-down, one-size-fits-all model as generally essentializing and denying women agency. Femininities, in contrast, comes out of third-wave feminism (feminism from the 1990s and on), which sees gender as socially constructed and femininity as a set of cultural ideals for womanhood, albeit within a hierarchically structured order. And in this view, as in intersectionality, power is relational and dynamic, not static or fixed. Femininity thus becomes a sort of smorgasbord of options for gender performance; Justin Charlebois, The Construction of Masculinities and Femininities in Beverly Hills, 90210 (Lanham: University Press of America, 2012), 2, calls them “repertoires of social actions.” Though femininities can be used to reinforce a gender hierarchy with men at the top, they can also be a tool to counteract that hierarchy. Intersectionality, following Kimberlé Crenshaw, also works against the essentialism of feminism, which sees women as a single category. 22  See, e. g., Kelly Murphy, Rewriting Masculinity: Gideon, Men, and Might (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019); Rhiannon Graybill, Are We Not Men? Unstable Masculinity in the Hebrew Prophets (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016); and the essays collected in Ovidiu Creangă, ed., Men and Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond, Bible in the Modern World 33 (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2010); Ovidiu Creangă, ed., Hebrew Masculinities Anew, HBM 79 (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2019). Sandra Jacobs ventures into Priestly masculine ideals, but her conclusions focus on virility and procreation and on circumcision as the means of achieving these ideals; see Sandra Jacobs, “Divine Virility in Priestly Representation: Its Memory and Consummation in Rabbinic Midrash,” in Ovidiu Creangă, ed., Men and Masculinity, 146–170; Sandra Jacobs, “The Unblemished Male? Castration and the Cut of Circumcision,” in Ovidiu Creangă, ed., Hebrew Masculinities Anew, 107–124. Deborah Rooke has made some forays into the priestly ideal of masculinity, in her talk for the online conference “Created Male and Female: The Hebrew Bible, Gender, and Sexuality,” sponsored by the Oriel Centre for the Study of the Bible and the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Research Seminar, Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford, April 26, 2021, https://www.theology.ox.ac.uk/article/createdmale-and-female-the-hebrew-bible-gender-and-sexuality, accessed August 19, 2022; the author graciously shared with me a copy of her talk, which will appear in the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of the Hebrew Bible, Gender, and Sexuality.

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and ‫עז‬, all of which denote strength, almost exclusively male strength.”23 Lipka continues, The ideal of masculine performance in ancient Israel was so integrally connected to displays of physical strength and ability in warfare that even when Judah no longer had much in the way of an army (or any army, for that matter), the importance of physical strength and prowess in combat continued to be upheld in several biblical texts as part of the hegemonic masculine ideal.24

At the same time, however, alternative ideals developed, the priestly ideal being one remarkably different example. Priestly masculinity may be an example of what Lipka calls “another model of masculinity [that] may be emerging or even dominant within a particular sub-culture or sub-group of society, reflecting differing cultural perspectives.”25 Arguably, the priestly ideal may have become an increasingly dominant form of masculinity in the Second Temple period, when the temple became the focus of Jewish communal identity in the absence of a monarchy or army.26 This model of masculinity is found primarily in the Priestly (and specifically the Holiness) material. The Priestly ideal is most obviously focused on purity and on the proper qualifications for the priest, which allow him to properly perform his cultic duties. P uses several binary oppositions to establish hierarchies: pure and impure, holy and common, priest and nonpriest, male and female.27 These oppositions, and the embodiment of all the first elements in the person of the priest – especially the high priest – establish the priest as the masculine human ideal in P’s worldview.28 Turning to the biblical text, we can begin to build our picture of how class and gender intersect and how femininity is deployed in the Priestly laws to help establish and maintain male priestly power. I have chosen to focus on Lev 21–22 because these chapters lay out a number of rules for the physical appearance and 23 Hilary Lipka, “Masculinities in Proverbs: An Alternative to the Hegemonic Ideal,” in Ovidiu Creangă and Peter-Ben Smit, eds., Biblical Masculinities Foregrounded, 88. See also Hilary Lipka, “Shaved Beards and Bared Buttocks: Shame and the Undermining of Masculine Performance in Biblical Texts,” in Being a Man: Negotiating Ancient Constructs of Masculinity, ed. Ilona Zsolnay, SHANE (London: Routledge, 2017), 177. 24  Hilary Lipka, “Masculinities in Proverbs,” 89. 25  Hilary Lipka, “Masculinities in Proverbs,” 92. Though Lipka points to sapiential models which emphasize that “wisdom and strategy are superior to physical strength and ability with a weapon” (94), other models certainly developed too. See also Connell, Masculinities, 76–81. Connell argues that it is “the successful claim to authority … that is the mark of hegemony” (77). In this regard, the priests appear to have been highly successful. 26 See Lipka, “Masculinities in Proverbs,” 99–100. The argument of the Holiness School that “all Israel shall be holy” suggests the extension of this ideal to all people, and thus its importance. On variations of this phrase and H, see Israel Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 81. 27  Shectman, “Social Status,” 83; Olyan, Rites and Rank, 7. 28 See Boccaccini, Roots, 43, who notes that the Zadokite priests are the leaders in Jerusalem in the postexilic period.

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social behaviors allowed for priests and their families. I have discussed some of these rules elsewhere, but they are worth quickly revisiting here to fill in our picture of priestly masculinity a bit.29 In addition to reiterating the hereditary male nature of the priesthood through the chapters’ opening address to the “sons of Aaron” (Lev 21:1), these chapters provide details about what goes into the ideal of priestly masculinity, starting with the priest’s body. In order to be qualified as an officiating priest, with access to the most holy places and activities within the temple, the priest must conform to a very particular set of physical traits. Excluded are various physical traits such as blindness, uneven limbs, scars, and crushed testes (Lev 21:18–20). Priests with these traits may continue to eat the sacrificial portions reserved for them, even the most holy ones, but they are not allowed to offer sacrifices, to approach the altar, or to go behind the curtain into the presence of the deity.30 The reason provided for these restrictions is that the priests officiate over sacrifices, offering God’s food: ‫קדש׃‬ ׁ ‫אשי יהוה לחם אלהיהם הם מקריבם והיו‬ ׁ ‫קדשים יהיו לאלהיהם ולא יחללו ׁשם אלהיהם כי את‬ ׁ They shall be holy to their god and shall not profane the name of their god, for they bring Yhwh’s offerings, the food of their god. They shall be holy. (Lev 21:6)

According to P, priests are at the top of the human hierarchy of the sacred and of access to the sacred – to God’s food, ‫לחם אלהיהם‬, which makes physical contact with God (in the form of smoke) and thus can carry the impurity of the person presenting the offering.31 These restrictions and requirements deploy bodily norms, including a specifically masculine one (namely, crushed testes), to create levels of hierarchy and subordination. A priest who displays any of these traits is inherently a lesser priest, with less access to the divine.32 29  See Sarah Shectman, “Priestly Marriage Restrictions,” in Sexuality and Law in the Torah, ed. Hilary Lipka and Bruce Wells, LHBOTS 675 (London: T&T Clark, 2020), 180–93, and Shectman, “Social Status.” 30 For studies on the function of the priesthood and the relationship of the priests to the deity, see Menahem Haran, Temples and Temple Service in Ancient Israel: An Inquiry into the Character of Cult Phenomena and the Historical Setting of the Priestly School (Oxford: Clarendon, 1978); Joachim Schaper, Priester und Leviten im achämenidischen Juda: Studien zur Kult- und Sozialgeschichte Israels in persischer Zeit, FAT 31 (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000); Phillip Peter Jenson, Graded Holiness: A Key to the Priestly Conception of the World, JSOTSup 106 (London: T&T Clark, 1992). 31 On the function and purpose of sacrifices in P, see Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 3 (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 440–89. 32  Note that the text does not impute any moral failure in the description of these characteristics. Disability studies has been very fruitful for analyzing this text. See, e. g., Julia Watts Belser, “Priestly Aesthetics: Disability and Bodily Difference in Leviticus 21,” Int 73 (2019): 355–66; Jeremy Schipper and Jeffrey Stackert, “Blemishes, Camouflage, and Sanctuary Service: The Priestly Deity and His Attendants,” HeBAI 2 (2013), 458–78. Note also that in the NeoBabylonian period, men with certain blemishes, notably including castration, were excluded

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In addition to physical, bodily traits that establish the ideal form of the “whole” priestly male body, Leviticus also enumerates various behaviors required of priests. The first passage, in Lev 21:1–5, concerns mourning rites and the people a priest is allowed to mourn for. This passage includes another stipulation about physical appearance and behavior (shaving and disfiguration, which are mourning practices in this case, not general prohibitions on these activities33), and it also restricts whom the priests are permitted to mourn – a very limited list that includes only close relatives, most of whom probably lived in the same household as the priest. The people listed are all what we would call blood relatives, meaning that they are born into priestly families – and specifically into the subject’s family. The restrictions are especially targeted at avoiding corpse contamination by the priest, allowing it only for very important relationships. The high priest faces even greater restrictions on mourning. According to Lev 21:10–11, he is not allowed to mourn for anyone. This restriction is framed in terms of the special oil that has been poured on his head and the special clothing he wears: because these are sanctified, he may not desecrate them in any fashion, even to mourn someone close to him. In fact, the next verse (21:12) tells us, the high priest is apparently confined to the temple.34 What we see in these laws is that the restrictions on the male priests’ traits and behaviors are both a result of and an attempt to safeguard the continuation of their special priestly status. So although the rules constrain the priests in various ways, they also serve to enhance the priests’ status and power as intermediaries with the divine. As for the characteristics or practices that are understood as masculine in these verses, there is a decided absence of the masculine features that are most commonly associated with hegemonic masculinity elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, especially the warrior-king ideal noted above.35 In fact, most of the physical from the priesthood. See Bastian Still, The Social World of the Babylonian Priest, CHANE 103 (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 192–93. 33 See Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 17–22: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 3A (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 1801–2. 34  This perplexing verse does not make clear whether this pertains to all times or only times when a priest might be in mourning for someone close to him. There is no indication elsewhere in P that the priest is required to live inside the sanctuary at all times, nor does the description of the wilderness sanctuary or the temple contain anything about living quarters for priests. How would he see his wife and family? How would he have sex with his wife and ensure the continuation of the high priest’s line? Milgrom (Leviticus 17–22, 1816) argued that it means the high priest cannot leave the temple to follow the funeral procession, but there is no mention of any such procession, and that seems like a modern projection onto the biblical text. Given its placement in the text, it is likely that this restriction does apply only to some limited case having to do with mourning and corpse contamination, and it points to the high priest again being enjoined with greater restrictions because of his greater sanctity. 35  Indeed, in P it is Yahweh who occupies the role of king, and the priests are his servants. See Schipper and Stackert, “Blemishes,” 459.

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traits – related to eyes and limbs – are what we would think of as gender neutral in any cultural context. The priest’s body is male by default more than it is constructed in obviously male ways: that is, the priest’s assumed male gender and his social class intersect here to construct this particular view of masculinity as distinct from other forms of masculinity or of femininity. The major characteristic of priestly masculinity is the physical wholeness or intactness and the cultic purity, including restricted corpse contamination, of the priest and especially of the high priest. Priests are required above all to maintain their holiness and their fitness to offer sacrifices and to approach God within the temple. Their physical state (primarily) and their behavior are both highly controlled in order to preserve this access.36 Given that P was probably writing at a time when there was no Israelite or Judean monarchy, and that Leviticus is a book written by priests, this description of masculinity is fitting. And it is also arguably a new, postexilic hegemonic masculinity: priests, not kings, were community leaders in the Second Temple period.37

3. Priestly Femininities Our portrait of priestly masculinity so far has established that bodily holiness is reliant on bodily wholeness and purity. The priest is required to safeguard his sanctity not only through his physical traits – lack of physical impairments – but also through his behaviors: abstaining from mourning rites that would put him in contact with corpse contamination and threaten his sanctity and God’s. But what do these rules tell us about femininities – about women as subjects and about how they participate in maintaining male priestly power as a result? The priestly binaries of pure/impure, holy/common, priest/nonpriest, and even male/female38 are instructive here. Though women in priestly families are  See Schipper and Stackert, “Blemishes,” 459–60.  Boccaccini, Roots, 43. Given both the political situation and P’s view of Yahweh as king and the priests as his servants (with explicit use of terms using the root ‫)עבד‬, it is logical that the priests would have sought a different model for hegemonic human masculinity. The exclusion of the priest with a crushed testicle is also notable given the role of eunuchs as royal servants in the ancient Near East. As Tracy M. Lemos notes, royal servants had significant status by virtue of their position within the palace, and thus castration was not necessarily correlated with low status (Tracy M. Lemos, “‘Like the eunuch who does not beget’: Gender, Mutilation, and Negotiated Status in the Ancient Near East, in Disability Studies and Biblical Literature, ed. Candida R. Moss and Jeremy Schipper [New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011], 47–66). The view of priests as servants of Yahweh, though it relies on a different model of masculinity, operates intersectionally and does not preclude the priests’ position at the top of the human social hierarchy. At the same time, Yahweh requires that his priests not have any physical traits, even those traditionally associated with royal servants, that differentiate them in any way from an ideal and unblemished human form; see Schipper and Stackert, “Blemishes.” 38  On the male/female binary in P, see Shectman, “Priestly Language.” 36 37

247

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required to maintain cultic purity in the same way lay men and lay women are (the first binary in the list), they are excluded from the holy side of the holy/ common binary. And of course, a tacit aspect of the wholeness in the physical description of the qualified priest is the priest’s maleness. As Rhiannon Graybill has argued, the male body in the Bible is constructed as the whole body, closed and impenetrable, in contrast to the penetrable and therefore imperfect female body.39 It is not only that women in priestly families are not required to maintain these physical and behavioral traits; they are necessarily unable to maintain them because they are not male. Their lack of male wholeness excludes them from those priestly binaries that position men at the top of the priestly hierarchy. Nevertheless, their proximity to those men provides them with a degree of status not available to lay people. Returning to the rules about mourning, we can see that women in priestly families derive their status from their relationship to priestly men, and they can lose certain rights or privileges through various behaviors, including marrying. Women’s status is relational and therefore flexible, and women within priestly families may occupy different status positions as a result. For example, a priest might not be able to mourn his married sister who no longer lives in his house – but their father would be able to. Likewise, the priest’s wife is not listed, and in fact the prohibition against mourning kin by marriage seems specifically to prohibit it, but a priest’s son may mourn his mother, the same woman. Another way to describe these relationships, rather than “blood relationships,” is as vertical versus horizontal, as visualized in the following chart showing the priest’s family relationships.40 Permitted mourning relationships Father

Unmarried Daughter

Mother

Son

Married Daughter

39  See Rhiannon Graybill, “Masculinity, Materiality, and the Body of Moses,” BibInt 23 (2015): 518–40, at 534. 40 On family and kinship structures in the Hebrew Bible, see Naomi Steinberg, Kinship and Marriage in Genesis: A Household Economics Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993); Cynthia Chapman, The House of the Mother: The Social Roles of Maternal Kin in Biblical Hebrew Narrative and Poetry, AYBRL (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016); Kristine Garroway, Children in the Ancient Near Eastern Household (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2014).

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relationshipsbonds formed vertically (or: hierarchically) are stronger than those formed horizontally, and the brother-sister relationship is particularly fragile. The fact that the same person can occupy a vertical relationship to one person and a horizontal one to another – like the married daughter to her father versus her brother – is an illustration of how intersectionality works: status is flexible, and power is relational. Taking mourning as a sign of status – that a person has a significant enough bond to a priest to permit his mourning them – these laws also demonstrate that women in priestly families occupy a higher position in the social hierarchy than lay people, even lay men, do.41 Despite the priests’ sanctity, they are allowed to perform these potentially dangerous and contaminating rites for certain women. Leviticus 22:10–13 enumerates rules about consumption of sacred portions: these are parts of sacrificial offerings that the priest is allowed to bring out of the temple and to his family as food. These rules reflect the same concepts showing how people in the priest’s household and family attained status through their relationships to priestly men and how these relationships could be broken and that status lost. Women and other members of the priest’s household, including enslaved people, were allowed to eat the sacred food that the priest brought home. A priest’s daughter who left his household to marry a layman was no longer able to eat the sacrificial portions he brought home, but if she later returned to his household because she was widowed or divorced, and she was childless, she was allowed to eat them again.42 The defining feature here is that the situation would allow the priest’s daughter to return and be a member of the household again, and logically she would be able to eat the household’s food. But this also means that she would again lose access to this food, and the status that it might convey, if she married into a nonpriestly household. And notably, an enslaved man or woman in the priest’s household would also have had access to this food. So where access to the sacred conveys status, not only women in priestly families but also enslaved people in their households would have had some small degree of status – however fragile in its permanence – in comparison to other women or enslaved people, illus-

41  See Shectman, “Social Status.” This is the very premise of Olyan’s Rites and Rank: “ritual action in cultic and quasi-cultic contexts shapes social configurations, inscribing status on participating individuals and groups” (11), including among priests. 42 Note that the divorced daughter is allowed back into his house, with no apparent stigma attached to her; on arguments concerning an alleged stigma attached to divorce, see Shectman, “Priestly Marriage Restrictions,” esp. 186–87. The implication of her being childless here is simply that if she had children she would not be returning to her father’s house, where she would go to live while waiting to remarry. Instead, she would be taken care of by her husband’s family, at least as a widow; see Jennie Ebeling, Women’s Lives in Biblical Times (London: T&T Clark, 2010), esp. 79–85, 133–36. It is possible that being a divorcee implies that she has no children, since inability to produce a child would have been grounds for divorce.

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trating multiple intersectionalities, along lines of class, both priestly and enslaved, and of gender. The remaining topic that Lev 21 addresses is marriage restrictions for priests, rules that move even more directly into constructing a specifically priestly femininity. ‫וקדשתו כי את לחם אלהיך‬ ‫קדש הוא לאלהיו׃‬ ‫גרושה‬ ׁ ׁ ‫מאישה לא יקחו כי‬ ׁ ׁ ‫ואשה‬ ׁ ‫‏אשה זנה וחללה לא יקחו‬ ׁ ‫איש כהן כי תחל לזנות את אביה היא מחללת‬ ‫קדוש אני יהוה‬ ‫קדש יהיה לך כי‬ ׁ ‫מקדשכם׃ ובת‬ ׁ ׁ ׁ ‫הוא מקריב‬ ‫באש תשׂ רף׃‬ ׁ They shall not marry a prostitute or a defiled woman, nor shall they marry one divorced from her husband. For he is holy to his god. You shall treat them as holy, for he offers the food of your god; he shall be holy to you, for I Yhwh who sanctify you am holy. If the daughter of a priest defiles herself through prostitution, it is her father whom she defiles; she shall be burned with fire. (Lev 21:7–9)

These restrictions apply to regular priests – that is, priests who are not the high priest. First, we can note that these restrictions say nothing about the woman’s physical appearance or traits. Since women are by definition excluded in P from being priests and thus from contact with the most sacred items or with the divine, the traits required of priests are irrelevant for them. Instead, the stipulations relate entirely to her sexual behavior. She does not have to be a virgin – she can be a widow, and at first glance it might seem that she could in theory be a woman who is not a virgin but who is also neither a prostitute, defiled, nor divorced. The term ‫חללה‬, “defiled,” in v. 7 seems opaque and perhaps redundant alongside ‫זנה‬, “prostitute” – it is often taken to be an amplification of ‫ זנה‬rather than a separate category.43 Its specific meaning here is not clear. Does it point to the frequency or wanton nature of the sex the woman has had? And why is it a problem? Is it a reflection of her moral character or of permanent ritual pollution of some kind? What requirement of femininity are we dealing with? A closer look at the term ‫ חללה‬shows that it works rhetorically here to heighten the importance of premarital virginity for the priest’s daughter, a rule not enforced to the same degree for women from other families. This rhetorical device serves to differentiate the ‫חללה‬, the defiled and defiling daughter, from the ‫קדש‬, “holy,” priest. Two other pentateuchal laws, one from Exodus and one from Deuteronomy, are helpful here.44 Together, they show that in other circumstances, an un43  On various options for the relationship between these terms, and concluding that they are two separate terms, see Feinstein, Sexual Pollution, 232 n. 296. See also Lipka, Sexual Transgression, 249–50. 44 On these passages, see especially Carolyn Pressler, The View of Women Found in the Deuteronomic Family Laws, BZAW 216 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1993), 35–41; Lipka, Sexual Transgression, 170–84; Tikva Frymer-Kensky, “Virginity in the Bible,” in Gender and Law in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East, ed. Bernard M. Levinson, Tikva Frymer-Kensky, and Victor H. Matthews, JSOTSup 262 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998), 91–93.

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married virgin woman who had sex was not disqualified from marriage. The first is from the book of Exodus: ‫לאשה׃ אם מאן ימאן אביה לתתה לו כסף‬ ׁ ‫אשר לא ארשׂ ה ׁושכב עמה מהר ימהרנה לו‬ ׁ ‫איש בתולה‬ ׁ ‫וכי יפתה‬ ‫ׁישקל כמהר הבתולת׃‬ If a man seduces an unbetrothed virgin and lies with her, he shall pay her bride-price and she shall be his wife. If her father refuses to give her to him, he shall pay silver according to the bride-price for virgins. (Exod 22:15–16)

According to this law, a woman who has premarital sex loses some of her potential value to attract a higher bride-price.45 But the implication is that although the father might have lost the ability to make some money in marrying his daughter off, she still had some prospects for marriage, even if the father did not want to marry her to the man who “seduced” her. The “bride-price for virgins,” after all, implies that there is also a bride-price for nonvirgins. A parallel law in Deuteronomy adds the stipulation that the man and the woman must get married and that he is never allowed to divorce her. ‫השכב עמה לאבי‬ ‫אשר לא ארשׂ ה ותפשׂ ה ׁושכב עמה ונמצאו׃ ונתן‬ ׁ ‫האיש‬ ׁ ׁ ‫איש נער [נערה] בתולה‬ ׁ ‫כי ימצא‬ ‫אשר ענה לא יוכל ׁשלחה כל ימיו׃‬ ׁ ‫לאשה תחת‬ ׁ ‫חמשים כסף ולו תהיה‬ ׁ ]‫הנער [ה][נערה‬ If a man comes upon an unbetrothed virgin girl and he seizes her and lies with her, and they are discovered, the man who lay with her shall pay the girl’s father fifty [shekels of ] silver, and she shall be his wife. Because he has violated her, he may never divorce her. (Deut 22:28–29)

In this case, the payment is fixed, but again the woman is not described as having done something wrong or as having become defiled.46 The woman who marries a priest in Lev 21:7 and the priest’s daughter in Lev 21:9 are presumably similar to these women in that they are virgins still living in their fathers’ houses before they marry. Yet neither of the laws in Exodus and Deuteronomy describes an unmarried woman who has premarital sex as defiled or as disqualified from future marriage, nor do they stipulate that she be killed. The problem in Lev 21, as Eve Feinstein and Shawna Dolansky have both argued, is not sexual profligacy or literal prostitution but any sexual activity outside of marriage.47 Sexual intercourse is understood as marking a woman with the es45  See Frymer-Kensky, “Virginity in the Bible,” 80. On bride-price in ancient Israel, see T. M.  Lemos, Marriage Gifts and Social Change in Ancient Palestine, 1200 bce to 200 CE (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 46  For discussion of what ׂ‫תפש‬, “seizes,” means in this text, see Pressler, View of Women, 38; Lipka, Sexual Transgression, 174–75. On the meaning of ‫ענה‬, “violated,” see Pressler, View of Women, 37–38; Lipka, Sexual Transgression, 186–88; Feinstein, Sexual Pollution, 69–72; Ellen van Wolde, “Does ‘innâ Denote Rape? A Semantic Analysis of a Controversial Word,” VT 52 (2002): 528–44. 47  See Feinstein, Sexual Pollution, e. g. 72; Shawna Dolansky, “A (W)ḥol(e)(y) Breach: Philology, Gender, and Meaning,” HeBAI 8 (2019): 399–415.

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sence of the man she has had sex with. It is not inherently a problem or bad, but it creates some kind of physical marker in the woman – specifically, inside her womb. This physical, material understanding of the world’s contaminating forces is typical of P.48 The marking essence is not necessarily problematic in and of itself. But for a priest, the essence must have been put there while the woman was married. The root ‫ חלל‬used here is significant in this regard: it is the opposite of ‫קדש‬, “sacred.” Both terms appear repeatedly in this chapter, not just in these verses. But as we have seen, the term ‫ חלל‬does not appear in other biblical laws related to premarital sex. Notably, it does not appear in texts about actual prostitutes or literal prostitution either. The use of the root ‫ חלל‬tells us that pre- or nonmarital intercourse resulted in a woman being marked in a fashion that made her unacceptable specifically for a priest: she became ‫ חללה‬for him. This also explains why marrying a widow is acceptable: she is also marked by a sexual essence, but it does not pose a problem because she was married when she was marked.49 Verse 7 gives us the rationale for the prohibitions: ‫קדש הוא לאלהיו‬ ׁ ‫כי‬, “because he (the priest who is her potential husband) is sacred to his god.” The priests are sacred and must be treated as such, because they offer God’s sacrifices. Contact with this kind of sexual marking essence puts that sanctity at risk. This is not a moral issue: a divorcée bears a prohibited marking essence, but there is no indication in the Hebrew Bible that divorce is perceived as a moral failing or inherently defiling or as disqualifying a woman for subsequent marriage. (In fact, Deut 24:1–4 informs us that women could divorce and remarry multiple times with little problem.)50 And as we saw above, a priest’s divorced daughter was allowed to return to his house and resume eating sacred food, also suggesting that divorce was not defiling or polluting. Rather, the issue here is one of strict sexual purity, which is maintained through clearly defined male bonds that must occur one at a time and in a sanctioned fashion. Like the marking essence, the male bond has a physical aspect.51 The fact that a priest may marry a widow but not a divorcee suggests that those bonds fully dissolve only with the husband’s death. The final verse of this section also tells us that the problem with sexual defilement of a priest’s daughter is the defilement of her father: ‫את אביה היא‬ 48  On the physical aspects of impurity and ritual pollution, as evidenced by its transmissibility by contact, see Jacob Milgrom, “Israel’s Sanctuary: The Priestly ‘Picture of Dorian Gray,’” RB 83 (1976): 390–99; and see the overviews in Feinstein, Sexual Pollution, 11–41; Klawans, Impurity, 21–42. 49 See Shectman, “Priestly Marriage Restrictions.” Note that Ezek 44:22 allows priests to marry widows only of priests, but not other widows. So for Ezekiel, it seems that the “marking essence” that a widow would have borne was required to come from another priest. 50  See Shectman, “Priestly Marriage Restrictions.” For a detailed discussion of Deut 24:1–4 and the many explanations offered for the perceived problem in the relationships described therein, see Feinstein, Sexual Pollution, 53–65. 51  See Shectman, “Priestly Marriage Restrictions,” esp. 188–92.

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‫מחללת‬, “it is her father whom she defiles” (v. 9). Note the use of the same root, ‫חלל‬, for both her behavior and its consequences for him. In both cases, ‫ חלל‬points to a literal, physical kind of defilement: for the daughter, it is an illicit sexual marking essence, and for the priest it is the resulting degradation of his sacred priestly status, which in turn can contaminate the food he offers to God. It is not only about the risk of sexual contact with her present or future husband, as the previous verses laid out. The penalty for the daughter of a priest who “defiles herself through prostitution” (which in this case, again, means premarital sex, not literal prostitution), and who thereby also defiles her father, is to be burned alive.52 This is an extreme penalty and one that is not reflected elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible in the case of unmarried women or prostitutes (or both). A similar law in Lev 19:29 stipulates that a father should not “degrade his daughter through prostitution,” the same Hebrew roots we have here, but without stipulating any penalty. The closest example we have to the punishment here is the case of a woman who has deceived her husband into thinking she was a virgin when she was not, in Deut 22. That is also called prostitution and is taken as a reflection on her father’s house, and in that case the woman is stoned to death. We see a different justification for the requirement of virginity in the case of a woman who marries a high priest (Lev 21:13–15). He may marry only a virgin (and not a widow), meaning that his increased sanctity rules out a woman who has been marked with any sexual essence.53 The marriage prohibition for the high priest is framed in terms of protecting the sanctity of his “seed” – typically understood as his offspring. But the notion that a physical impurity could be transmitted intergenerationally would be unusual.54 The priests and high priest have to be anointed and ordained in order to obtain this degree of sanctity; though they are born into the priestly line, they are not born sanctified for service in the temple. So how would the priest’s offspring be defiled through his sexual contact? Though it is possible that this means that the child’s paternity would be in question or that the lineage would in some way be defiled, there is a more direct explanation. The term usually translated “offspring,” Hebrew ‫זרע‬, more literally means “seed” or, in this case, “semen.” Because the priest’s semen is part of 52 Lipka also notes the connection of the verb ‫רף‬ ׂ‫ש‬, “burn,” here to acts of purification (Lipka, Sexual Transgression, 140 n. 60). 53  Shectman, “Priestly Marriage Restrictions,” 192. The text also suggests that he is required to marry a woman from another priestly family (182). 54 Though intergenerational punishment is attested in the Hebrew Bible, it does not extend to the transmission of a physical impurity from parent to child. However, the ‫חרם‬, “ban,” though not the language used in our texts, hints at the notion that some kind of impurity could pass to future generations; see Joel S. Kaminsky, Corporate Responsibility in the Hebrew Bible, JSOTSup 196 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic), 67–95. (Impurity could of course have an impact on future generations by means of its consequences – namely exile from the land. But the people did not inherit the impurity itself in that conception.)

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his body, it is sanctified by his ordination. Sex with a nonvirgin threatens that: planting the “holy seed” – literally, his sanctified sperm – in a profane receptacle will profane that seed and, by contact, the priest himself, as well as his offspring.55 Together, these restrictions on priestly marriage practices suggest that women in priestly families, and perhaps women in nonpriestly families with traditions of marriage to priestly families, face additional constraints on their behavior, in order to remain the kind of women who would be eligible to marry priests. These women are required to behave in very particular ways – ways in which male priests (and laymen) are not constrained, and ways in which other women are not so strictly constrained. Specifically, women who marry priests are required to remain virgins until they marry, which men and other women are not. Furthermore, the requirement for the daughter of a priest carries a penalty of death. Women in priestly families are also discouraged from divorcing, at least if they want to remarry within a priestly family. These restrictions on feminine behavior work to preserve male priestly prerogative: women’s behavior is defined in terms of how it affects the priests’ purity and their ability to perform their service and perpetuate the priestly line. That is, it is hegemonic femininity, meaning that although it sits at the top of the hierarchy of femininities, it is also femininity in subordination to and support of hegemonic masculinity.

4. Conclusions To return to our guiding questions, we can ask again, 1. What characteristics or practices are understood as manly in Lev 21–22? 2. What characteristics or practices are understood as womanly? 3. Of those practices and characteristics, which ones situate femininity as complementary and inferior to masculinity? That is, what are the hegemonic femininities? As we have seen, hegemonic masculinity in P positions priests, and especially the high priest, as whole and holy, at the top of the hierarchy centered on the temple. Priests are restricted in certain traits and behaviors as a result, which serves to justify and maintain their status and their access to the sacred. In addition to being the sons of priests, traced back to the line of Aaron, they have to display a certain set of physical characteristics as markers of their fitness to function as priests and approach the sacred. Similarly, women in priestly families are constrained more than laypeople in their behavior, which is primarily 55  We can also see this reflected in Ezra 9 and the fear of the transfer of female pollution to the “pure male Israelite body.” Whereas in H the main concern is with the woman’s sexual history, in Ezra it is her genealogy. H’s extension of priestly purity requirements to all Israel thereby extends H’s construction of priestly masculinity to all Israel; see Feinstein, Sexual Pollution, 131, 154.

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focused on sexual behavior and marriage. Sexual chastity before marriage is the main component of their femininity, and the framing of this chastity in terms of maintaining male priestly sanctity positions it as complementary to priestly masculinity. The exclusion of these women from priesthood – from innate, embodied holiness – positions them as inferior to men. The restrictions placed on women in priestly families are all in service of preserving the priesthood, in particular through the concept of genealogical purity, which requires strict conformity to certain sexual norms by priestly women. Their behavior is specifically targeted at producing the next generation of male priests. At the same time that these women face restrictions on their behavior, they also enjoy certain privileges and status that come with being associated with members of the priestly line, including access to sacred foods and the performance of mourning rites for them. This status creates hierarchies between different social classes of women – women with and without that access to the sacred – and creates hierarchies between women of the priestly class and men of different classes, illustrating how status was and is intersectional. The privileges and status that these women enjoy depend on their continued affiliation with priests and are therefore precarious; they can be lost through marriage to a nonpriestly family or departure from the priestly household. A priest’s daughter faces additional risks in the expectation of premarital virginity, to the extent that the exceptional punishment of burning to death is the penalty if she does not fulfill this obligation. In addition to demonstrating the utility of intersectionality and femininities to our understanding of the inner logic of the Priestly source, these findings also illuminate our understanding of the social history of ancient Israel. They show yet another way in which the Priestly authors worked to create a rhetorical and ideological foundation that provided a thorough and continued justification for their sacred monopoly and their position at the top of the Israelite socioreligious hierarchy.

Creation, Sanctuary, and the Priority of the Priestly Story Jeffrey Stackert Perhaps more than any other scholar, Baruch J. Schwartz has insisted that the reconstruction and analysis of the pentateuchal Priestly (P) source must be guided by this work’s story.1 Entailed in this claim are several sub-claims, each of which Schwartz has taken pains to establish – or, in some cases, reestablish – through detailed investigation. Chief among them are the following: 1. that P is (and always has been) a narrative from its beginning to its end, including in its legal sections; 2. that it features a unique plotline and distinctive ideation and characterization; and 3. that, as such, its accountability is internal, that is, the work’s details cohere within its story world and need not correspond with ideas or perspectives external to it. It is on these bases, says Schwartz, that P can be distinguished from the other works with which it is intertwined in the Pentateuch. P’s story, with the fictive world that it creates, is likewise what properly differentiates this work from other ancient Near Eastern works with which it bears resemblance, both in form and content. It is P’s story, then, that should guide its interpretation. In the abstract, these claims are not (overly) controversial. Yet as I will show, they have sometimes been set aside, especially in instances where similarities have been observed between P and other ancient Near Eastern texts. I will consider two such instances, along with their attendant interpretive claims, in this study. The first concerns the completion of the creation of the world in P. Several scholars have suggested that P’s creation is properly concluded only once the deity’s sanctuary is constructed. This claim is built in part internally, namely, on the basis of lexical similarities between Gen 1–2 and Exod 39–40 as well as other details in P’s creation account that foreshadow later developments in the work (e. g., its hinting at the seventh day as Sabbath in Gen 2:2–3). But it is driven, too, by ancient Near Eastern comparisons, especially with the Babylonian Enūma Elîš myth, where the tethering of creation and sanctuary construction is a featured story detail.2 The second instance is again based in part on ancient Near Eastern 1 I offer this study as a tribute to my teacher, friend, and colleague, Baruch J. Schwartz, from whom I have learned so much, including the observations that undergird the argument here. I am grateful to my colleague, Simeon Chavel, for his helpful feedback on an earlier draft. All shortcomings here are, of course, my own. 2 See lines IV 135–VI 68. For detailed discussion, see Wayne Horowitz, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography, Mesopotamian Civilizations 8, 2nd ed. (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2011), 111–27.

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analogues and is closely related to the first. It is the claim that the created world itself serves in P as the deity’s sanctuary. I will argue that each of these interpretations is precluded for P by its story. Simply put, P could have told such a story, but it did not. Alongside these claims, I will also offer a literary theorization in support of prioritizing story in the analysis of the work’s component parts, including in instances where comparative evidence is available. While one aim of the argument here is to challenge existing, well-endorsed scholarly claims, this study offers more than negative conclusions. I will show that the distinction between creation and sanctuary also proves critical for understanding central aspects of P’s cultic vision – most notably, its pure/impure and sacred/profane dichotomies. As such, it demonstrates (again) the close connection between the Priestly cult, with its attendant rules, and the story that P tells. Without a disjunction between creation and the divine sanctuary (eventually) established within it, the existence of impurity and profaneness in P’s “good” creation is inexplicable. In the end, then, P’s story, including its account of the Israelite cult, coheres only because of the fundamental differentiation made within it between creation and sanctuary.

1. Connecting Priestly Creation and Sanctuary With varying details, scholars have argued for an essential connection between creation and the deity’s sanctuary in P. The variations among the individual claims are hardly surprising; more notable are their substantial commonalities. Modern exegetes were first prompted by several verbal parallels between the respective conclusions of P’s creation account and its account of the desert sanctuary’s construction, parallels that were observed already by rabbinic interpreters:3 3  A. H. McNeile, The Book of Exodus, WC (London: Methuen, 1908), 155–56; Benno Jacob, Das Erste Buch der Tora Genesis: Übersetzt und erklärt (Berlin: Schocken, 1934), 67; Martin Buber, Die Schrift und ihre Verdeutschung (Berlin: Schocken, 1936), 39–42. Subsequently, reference to these parallels has become very common among scholars. See, e. g., Joseph Blenkinsopp, “The Structure of P,” CBQ 38 (1976): 275–91, at 280–83; Peter J. Kearney, “Creation and Liturgy: The P Redaction of Ex 25–40,” ZAW 89 (1977): 375–87; Moshe Weinfeld, “Sabbath, Temple and the Enthronement of the Lord: The Problem of Sitz im Leben in Genesis 1:1–2:3,” in Mélanges bibliques et orientaux en l’honneur de M. Henri Cazelles, AOAT 212 (Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1981), 501–12, at 503; Bernd Janowski, “Tempel und Schöpfung: Schöpfungstheologische Aspeckte der priesterschriftlichen Heiligtumskonzeption,” Jahrbuch für biblische Theologie 5 (1990): 37–69, at 46–47; Christian Frevel, Mit Blick auf das Land die Schöpfung erinnern: Zum Ende der Priestergrundschrift, HBS 23 (Freiburg: Herder, 2000), 157–60; Jared C. Calaway, The Sabbath and the Sanctuary: Access to God in the Letter to the Hebrews and its Priestly Context, WUNT II/349 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 32–42. See additional examples below. For rabbinic references and discussion, see Peter Schäfer, “Tempel

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Gen 1–2:4a

Exod 39–40

Gen 1:31 ‫וירא אלהים את כל אשר עשה והנה טוב מאד ויהי‬ ‫ערב ויהי בקר יום הששי‬

Exod 39:43 ‫וירא משה את כל המלאכה והנה עשו אתה כאשר‬ ‫צוה יהוה כן עשו ויברך אתם משה‬

Gen 2:1 Exod 39:32 ‫ותכל כל עבדת משכן אהל מועד ויעשו בני ישראל ויכלו השמים והארץ וכל צבאם‬ ‫ככל אשר צוה יהוה את משה כן עשו‬ Gen 2:2 Exod 40:33 ‫ויקם את החצר סביב למשכן ולמזבח ויתן את מסך ויכל אלהים ביום השביעי מלאכתו אשר עשה וישבת‬ ‫ביום השביעי מכל מלאכתו אשר עשה‬ ‫שער החצר ויכל משה את המלאכה‬ Gen 2:3 ‫ויברך אלהים את יום השביעי ויקדש אתו כי בו שבת‬ ‫מכל מלאכתו אשר ברא אלהים לעשות‬

Exod 39:43 ‫וירא משה את כל המלאכה והנה עשו אתה כאשר‬ ‫צוה יהוה כן עשו ויברך אתם משה‬ Exod 40:9 ‫ולקחת את שמן המשחה ומשחת את המשכן ואת כל‬ ‫אשר בו וקדשת אתו ואת כל כליו והיה קדש‬

Scholars have concomitantly observed 1. the appearance of the revelation of the Sabbath command (Exod 31:12–17) and Moses’s recitation of it to the Israelites (35:1–3) alongside Yahweh’s revelation of the instructions for building the sanctuary (Exod 25–31) and their enactment (Exod 35–40), and 2. the reference to the deity’s creation and cessation on the seventh day at the conclusion of the Sabbath instructions (31:17). This co-occurrence of Sabbath ideation with creation in Gen 1–2 and sanctuary building in Exod 25–31, 35–40 is often understood to strengthen the creation/sanctuary nexus. Some scholars have also identified additional parallels between Priestly creation and sanctuary building.4 Taken together, these correspondences and cross-referencing have been interpreted to signal a substantial connection between creation and sanctuary in P, usually of special theological significance. The most forceful of such claims propose a congruity or even equivalence between the created world and the sanctuary, such that the world is understood as the deity’s sanctuary and/or that the created world in P was somehow incomplete prior to the construction of Yahweh’s sanctuary within it. und Schöpfung: Zur Interpretation einiger Heiligtumstraditionen in der rabbinischen Literatur,” in Studien zur Geschichte und Theologie des rabbinischen Judentums, AGJU 15 (Leiden: Brill, 1978), 122–33, at 131–33; Bernd Janowski, “Tempel und Schöpfung,” 37–39; William H. C.  Propp, Exodus 19–40: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 2A (New York: Doubleday, 2006), 676. 4 See, e. g., Kearney, “Creation and Liturgy”; Janowski, “Tempel und Schöpfung”; Propp, Exodus 19–40, 675–76.

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A few instances of such arguments will exemplify what has become an increasingly well-subscribed scholarly interpretation. Commenting specifically on the parallel formulations in Gen 1–2 and Exod 39–40, Jon D. Levenson has stated, Collectively, the function of these correspondences is to underscore the depiction of the sanctuary as a world, that is, an ordered, supportive, and obedient environment, and the depiction of the world as a sanctuary, that is, a place in which the reign of God is visible and unchallenged, and his holiness is palpable, unthreatened, and pervasive ….the Temple was conceived as a microcosm, a miniature world. But it is equally the case that in Israel … the world – or, as I should say, the ideal or protological world, the world viewed sub specie creationis – was conceived, at least in Priestly circles, as a macro-temple, the palace of God in which all are obedient to his commands.5

Mark S. Smith has argued similarly: Taken together, the correspondences between the end of Genesis 1 and the end of Exodus 39–40 offer a profound vision of reality. In arriving at the end of Genesis 1 and seeing its correspondences with Exodus 39–40, readers come to understand that as they have watched the unfolding of creation at its very beginning, all the while they have been contemplating the very temple of the world.6

Yet another instance is found in the work of Gary Anderson: “The construction of the tabernacle is the climax of creation. At Sinai, God descended to earth and drew Israel to himself. Creation remained unfinished until the day the tabernacle was completed.”7 Finally, David P. Wright has argued that P depicted the completion of creation in the foundation of the nation and cult at the time of Moses. Its pattern thus coincides with that of Mesopotamian literature, such as Enuma elish and Atrahasis, where humans were created for the cultic service of the gods and where the act of creation sets the stage for political and national identity. P may well have intentionally formulated its version of creation and national origins in reaction to models from Mesopotamia.8

As this final citation exemplifies, such scholarly arguments have included comparisons with a variety of other biblical and especially extrabiblical ancient Near Eastern texts in support of the creation/sanctuary connections that they

5  Jon D. Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil: The Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipotence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 86; cf. 99. See also Levenson’s earlier study that addresses the same issues: “The Temple and the World,” JR 64 (1984): 275–98. 6 Mark S. Smith, The Priestly Vision of Genesis 1 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2010), 108. 7 Gary A. Anderson, The Genesis of Perfection: Adam and Eve in Jewish and Christian Imagination (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 202 (emphasis in original). 8  David P. Wright, Inventing God’s Law: How the Covenant Code of the Bible Used and Revised the Laws of Hammurabi (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 358–59; compare Janowski, “Tempel und Schöpfung,” 62–63 and passim. Janowski in particular has developed the connections between creation, the founding of Israel, and its sanctuary-building activity.

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identify. Yet missing from many of these comparative interpretations is careful attention to various details in P. Paramount among these overlooked details is the Priestly work’s basic story. When issues of plot or story have been considered, the procedure has often been to identify the storyline of Enūma elîš and then to claim that, in view of the common sequence of world creation and sanctuary construction in P and Enūma elîš, P tells a substantially similar story.9 Two questions should therefore be posed: Does P’s story – in particular, its treatment of creation and sanctuary – indeed resemble closely that of Enūma elîš or other ancient Near Eastern works to which it has been compared? And how should similarities and dissimilarities, especially at the story level, be adjudicated within larger interpretive arguments?

2. Priestly Story, Story World, and Ancient Near Eastern Comparison Answering the first of these questions requires a description of P’s story.10 The second question requires determining the relative weight to be afforded to various kinds of evidence adduced in the evaluation of P and, in particular, the role of story and story world in the interpretation of literary works. I will thus

 9  Scholars have sometimes offered interpretations that explicitly identify this creation/ sanctuary connection as an allegory. For example, Blenkinsopp stated, “What P seems to have done is emphasize the building of the sanctuary rather than accession to kingship as the climax of creation. As a result Israel was provided with its own highly unique and appropriate version of creation as a foundation or charter myth for the rebuilt sanctuary and the cult which was to be carried out in it” (“Structure of P,” 286). 10  My focus in this discussion is the originally independent P work that was later supplemented (e. g., by H) prior to its inclusion in the Pentateuch. On the nature of P as an originally independent literary source, see, inter alia, Klaus Koch, “P – Kein Redaktor!: Erinnerung an zwei Eckdaten der Quellenscheidung,” VT 37 (1987): 446–67; Baruch J. Schwartz, “The Priestly Account of the Theophany and the Lawgiving at Sinai,” in Texts, Temples, and Traditions: A Tribute to Menahem Haran, ed. Michael V. Fox et al. (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1996), 103–34; idem, “‘Profane Slaughter’ and the Integrity of the Priestly Code,” HUCA 67 (1996): 15–42; Joel S. Baden, “Identifying the Original Stratum of P: Theoretical and Practical Considerations,” in The Strata of the Priestly Writings: Contemporary Debate and Future Directions, ed. Sarah Shectman and Joel S. Baden, AThANT 95 (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 2009), 13–29; Liane M. Feldman, The Story of Sacrifice: Ritual and Narrative in the Priestly Source, FAT 141 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020), 4–6, 23–26, and passim. For discussion of the relationship between P and its later supplements, see, e. g., Israel Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School, trans. Jackie Feldman and Peretz Rodman (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995); Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 17–22: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 3A (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 1319–52; Baruch J. Schwartz, The Holiness Legislation: Studies in the Priestly Code (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1999), esp. 17–24 [Hebrew]; Christophe Nihan, From Priestly Torah to Pentateuch: A Study of the Composition of the Book of Leviticus, FAT II/25 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007).

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first review the Priestly story and then, drawing upon the literary theorization of Benjamin Harshav, argue for the prioritization of story in evaluating the relationship between creation and sanctuary building in P. P offers a historical account of the Israelite cult that begins with the creation of the world and extends to the Israelites’ entry into the land of Canaan. In P’s story, once Yahweh created the earth,11 he remained at significant remove from it and paid it minimal attention, even though he found his creation there entirely pleasing (Gen 1:31). The deity’s inattentive stance toward his creation allowed calamitous violence to break out on earth (‫חמס‬, Gen 6:11) – violence that threatened Yahweh’s repose and thus challenged the status quo post-creation.12 This circumstance represents the single major dilemma in P and the complication that finds resolution in the remainder of the plot. Put simply, the deity had once enjoyed the created world – and this is the reason that he created it in the first place, namely, for his own enjoyment13 – but when it ran amok, it became intolerable, and he was forced to intervene. He did so first with the Flood and subsequently with his habitation amidst his creation. The continuation of P is an account of Yahweh’s transition from the heavens, where he resided prior to his move to earth (Gen 1:2; 17:22), to his habitation in the sanctuary amidst the Israelites (Exod 25:8; 40:34). This transition required several steps that, according to P, were accomplished gradually over time. They include the formal selection of Abraham and his descendants as Yahweh’s special people (Gen 17); the growth of this people group to a size sufficient to service the deity in their midst (Gen 47:27; Exod 1:7); the rescue of this people group from Egypt, where they had fallen into slavery (again, due to divine inattention, Exod 2:23aβ–25);

11  There have been several attempts to attribute the Priestly creation account, in part or in whole, to a later H stratum instead of P. See, e. g., Yairah Amit, “Creation and the Calendar of Holiness,” in Tehillah le-Moshe: Biblical and Judaic Studies in Honor of Moshe Greenberg, ed. Mordechai Cogan, Barry L. Eichler, and Jeffrey H. Tigay (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1997), 13*–29*, esp. 22*–26* [Hebrew]; Edwin Firmage, “Genesis 1 and the Priestly Agenda,” JSOT 82 (1999): 94–114; Jacob Milgrom, “HR in Leviticus and Elsewhere in the Torah,” in The Book of Leviticus: Composition and Reception, ed. Rolf Rendtorff and Robert A. Kugler, VTSup 93 (Atlanta: SBL, 2003), 24–40, at 33–37; Bill T. Arnold, “Genesis 1 As Holiness Preamble,” in Let Us Go Up to Zion: Essays in Honour of H. G. M. Williamson on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. Iain Provan and Mark J. Boda, VTSup 153 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 331–43. These studies struggle to understand P as a narrative composition; the arguments presented here thus represent a challenge to them. 12 See Propp, Exodus 19–40, 681; Jeremy Schipper and Jeffrey Stackert, “Blemishes, Camouflage, and Sanctuary Service: The Priestly Deity and His Attendants,” HeBAI 4 (2013): 458–78, at 469, 475–76, which builds upon Baruch J. Schwartz, “The Flood Narratives in the Torah and the Question of Where History Begins,” in Shai le-Sara Japhet: Studies in the Bible, Its Exegesis and Its Language, ed. M. Bar Asher et al. (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2007), 139–54, esp. 150– 53 [Hebrew]. 13  For discussion of this issue, see Schipper and Stackert, “Blemishes, Camouflage, and Sanctuary Service,” 468–69.

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the construction of the deity’s earthly habitation (Exod 25–29; 35–40); the revelation of rules that would attend this sanctuary’s functioning (portions of Leviticus, Numbers); the acquisition of land to serve as a permanent home for Yahweh’s sanctuary; and the settlement of the Israelites within that land (portions of Joshua).14 As even this schematic description suggests, P constitutes a well-developed narrative with a clear beginning, middle, and end. Its plot is character-centered, focused on Yahweh and his preferences and expectations, and the work’s historical presentation functions as both etiology and allegory. That is, P’s account of the past explains and advocates for particular scenarios – religio-ritual, legal, and geographical – in its present, and this work’s details correspond significantly, though not completely, with features of its late Iron Age situation, which it seeks to influence.15 The cohesive nature of P’s narrative presentation, including the interconnectedness of its narrative and laws, exemplifies this work’s adherence to what the literary theorist Benjamin Harshav termed an “internal field of reference.” According to Harshav, this internal field of reference, that is, the fictive world created in a work, is the defining feature of literature: “A literary text builds the boat under its own feet while rowing in the sea ….In other words, a work of literature projects its own ‘reality’ while simultaneously describing it.”16 Literary  Schwartz has aptly observed that these different events in P’s plot are not weighted equally: “The Priestly narrative … telegraphs early events and rushes to Sinai, after which it slows down to a snail’s pace and becomes a protracted tale of endless lawgiving” (“Priestly Account,” 109). For detailed development of this feature in P, see Feldman, Story of Sacrifice. For discussion of the issue of where P ends, including the various scholarly proposals that have been offered, see esp. Frevel, Mit Blick auf das Land. 15 For discussion of P as political allegory and for pentateuchal works more generally as both etiology and allegory, see Joel Rosenberg, King and Kin: Political Allegory in the Hebrew Bible, Indiana Studies in Biblical Literature (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), 1–46; Jeffrey Stackert, “Political Allegory in the Priestly Source: The Destruction of Jerusalem, the Exile, and their Alternatives,” in The Fall of Jerusalem and the Rise of the Torah, ed. Peter Dubovský, Dominik Markl, and Jean-Pierre Sonnet, FAT 107 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 211–26; idem, Deuteronomy and the Pentateuch, AYBRL (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2022), 36–51; and Simeon Chavel, Oracular Law and Priestly Historiography in the Torah, FAT II/71 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014). Simeon Chavel argues, “The author [P] does not care about Israel’s origins except to the degree that they condition in some way the structure and behavior of the society in the author’s own times. To this end, it seems correct to suppose that the author constructs a transparent portrayal, one that he feels he can safely assume the audience will perceive, consider with respect to its own conditions, and apply without straining” (175–76). For correspondences between P and its late Iron Age setting, see, e. g., Jeffrey Stackert, “The Priestly Sabbath and the Calendar: Between Literature and Material Culture,” in Contextualizing Jewish Temples: Challenges and Opportunities, ed. Tova Ganzel and Shalom E. Holtz, BRLJ 64 (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 49–64, and the literature cited there. 16  Benjamin Harshav, Explorations in Poetics (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007), 7. For further discussion of the application of Benjamin Harshav’s theorization to pentateuchal narrative, see Stackert, Deuteronomy and the Pentateuch, esp. 29–36. 14

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works are literary, says Harshav, in as much as they prioritize their internal field of reference over any other referential framework. To be sure, this prioritization does not mean that a literary work must be divorced from external realities. Literary works also regularly feature an “external field of reference,” namely, reference to details from beyond the literary work, and knowledge of this external field of reference can be indispensable to readers. Moreover, a literary work’s internal field of reference is often modeled on external realities; the internal field of reference in a historical novel is a thoroughgoing example. This mimetic quality of literature can even create confusion for readers precisely with respect to what is real and what is fictive.17 Yet what is important for this discussion is that literature is not beholden to external realities – either from the real world or other literary works. Rather, it can and does regularly introduce alternatives to them.18 As long as a story’s details are interdependent and internally consistent, they are literarily acceptable, regardless of their correlations with or divergences from the world beyond the story. Harshav thus concludes that to marshal external counterevidence against a literary depiction is to misunderstand the literary work in which it appears.19 In a basic sense, then, a literary work’s internal field of reference functions as a guide for its interpretation. A theorization such as Harshav’s has important implications for comparative analyses of biblical (and other ancient Near Eastern) texts. Especially relevant is this theorization’s role for evaluating thematic parallels and other isolated features that might be shared among texts. Methodological studies have regularly emphasized the perils of prioritizing similarities over differences in the comparison of ancient Near Eastern texts, and scholars generally endorse such warnings.20 Yet pentateuchal material has presented a special challenge: comparisons of elements (or combinations of elements) found in different works should be undertaken only after they are assessed within an individual work. With the Pentateuch, then, this process first requires the disentanglement and 17  Barbara Herrnstein Smith, On the Margins of Discourse: The Relation of Literature and Language (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 25. 18 Harshav, Explorations in Poetics, 28–30. 19  Harshav, Explorations in Poetics, 15. 20 See, e. g., Meir Malul, The Comparative Method in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Legal Studies, AOAT 227 (Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1990); William W. Hallo, “Compare and Contrast: The Contextual Approach to Biblical Literature,” in The Bible in the Light of Cuneiform Literature: Scripture in Context III, ed. William W. Hallo et al., Ancient Near Eastern Texts and Studies 8 (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen, 1990), 1–30; Shemaryahu Talmon, “The Comparative Method in Biblical Interpretation: Principles and Problems,” in Literary Studies in the Hebrew Bible: Form and Content: Collected Studies (Jerusalem: Magnes; Leiden: Brill, 1993), 11–49. Jonathan Z. Smith has offered perhaps the strongest and clearest articulation of the importance of difference in comparison. See his Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), esp. 36–53.

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reconstitution of its underlying compositions so that an individual pentateuchal source can be interpreted. Scholars have sometimes short-circuited the interpretive process, moving too quickly to comparison and, with it, an identification of likeness between texts. In some instances, given the challenge of delineating the Priestly work amid the compiled Pentateuch, it may even be that ancient Near Eastern comparison has been advanced as a substitute for (or guide for) this difficult task. Whatever the case, what has been left aside is the question of the internal relations of the elements within each respective work compared.

3. Reevaluating Creation and Sanctuary in the Priestly Story In the case of Priestly creation and sanctuary, then, the first question to be posed is, How do these elements relate to each other in P’s story? Only once this question is answered can we move to a comparison of P’s creation and sanctuary with this combination of elements in other works. As noted already, according to the Priestly story, when the deity made the world, he did so without any intent to live in it among his creation. It is only in the unfolding of the Priestly plot that Yahweh decides to dwell on earth, a decision that necessitates the institution of the Israelite cult, beginning with the construction of the sanctuary. This means that, within P’s story world, the cult and its sanctuary were not planned from the beginning; nor was the world created to be a hospitable environment for the deity’s habitation. This storyline, with its fundamental discontinuity between creation and sanctuary, accounts for various details in P, several of which stand as a challenge to the scholarly claims reviewed above. For example, because Yahweh had no intent to dwell on earth when he created it, Levenson’s claim that “the ideal or protological world, the world viewed sub specie creationis – was conceived, at least in Priestly circles, as a macro-temple, the palace of God in which all are obedient to his commands” is unsustainable. According to P, a world that includes the divine sanctuary was not the ideal, at least if the ideal is understood as the world viewed sub specie creationis. An earthly sanctuary was instead the result of unforeseen circumstances – the deity’s response to the behavior of the animals and humans that he had created. Levenson is correct that the deity’s expectation in P is that all creatures will obey his commands,21 but this expectation is not tied to any conception of the world “as a macro-temple, the palace of God.” 21  For discussions of this feature of P – what is sometimes referred to, at least as it relates to humans, as P’s “positive anthropology” – see, e. g., Sean E. McEvenue, “Word and Fulfillment: A Stylistic Feature of the Priestly Writer,” Semitics 1 (1970): 104–10; Blenkinsopp, “Structure of P,” 275–78; Thomas Pola, Die ursprüngliche Priesterschrift: Beobachtungen zur Literarkritik und Traditionsgeschichte von Pg, WMANT 70 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag 1995), 116– 46; Eckart Otto, “Forschungen zur Priesterschrift,” ThR 62 (1997): 1–50. From a slightly different

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Given these plot details, Levenson’s claim that the deity’s “holiness is palpable, unthreatened, and pervasive” in P’s created world also requires amendment. In P, the deity is indeed viewed as the source of holiness.22 However, given that Yahweh remains at maximal distance from the earth at creation, it is difficult to understand how this holiness could be “palpable” or “pervasive” in the created world. It is little wonder, then, that P includes no such details.23 Moreover, once Yahweh does inhabit his earthly sanctuary in P – crucially, in a world characterized by the same conditions that existed there from the very beginning – his holiness is anything but “unthreatened.” As P describes at length, considerable and constant energy must be expended to maintain separation between the holy deity and the rest of the created world beyond his orbit.24 Similar critique can be leveled against other arguments connecting creation and sanctuary in P. Smith’s characterization of “the very temple of the world” closely resembles Levenson’s view, and the same counterarguments apply. In Exod 39–40, P describes the completion of a sanctuary in the created world; it never considers a temple of (i. e., a temple that is) the world. Characterization of sanctuary construction as a “completion” or “climax” of Priestly creation, as suggested by Anderson and Wright, is likewise problematic. P’s use of similar wording in Gen 1–2 and Exod 39–40 does prompt the question of the significance of perspective, see Schwartz, “‘Profane’ Slaughter,” 39–42; Jeffrey Stackert, “Why Does the Plague of Darkness Last for Three Days?: Source Ascription and Literary Motif in Exodus 10:21–23, 27,” VT 61 (2011): 657–76, at 671–74. 22 See esp. Baruch J. Schwartz, “Israel’s Holiness: The Torah Traditions,” in Purity and Holiness: The Heritage of Leviticus, ed. Marcel J. H. M. Poorthuis and Joshua Schwartz, JCPS 2 (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2000), 47–59, esp. 52–58. 23  The harmonistic and anachronistic perspective that Levenson advocates is well demonstrated in the conclusion of his article, “The Temple and the World.” There Levenson draws upon Jewish mysticism to characterize a movement of divine presence away from the created world: [After the patriarchal period,] the availability of God does not continue. Instead, God withdraws somewhat from the world, in what Lurianic Qabbalah terms ṣimṣûm, “contraction.” The presence of God is not diminished but concentrated. The glory that had filled the world now fills the Tabernacle and its successors, the Temples of Jerusalem. The Temple is the world before the divine contraction, the world in a state of grace and perfection (297). The direction of divine movement in P is precisely the opposite. 24 See, e. g., Menahem Haran, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel: An Inquiry into Biblical Cult Phenomena and the Historical Setting of the Priestly School (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1985); Philip Peter Jenson, Graded Holiness: A Key to the Priestly Conception of the World, JSOTSup 106 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1992); David P. Wright, “Holiness in Leviticus and Beyond: Differing Perspectives,” Int 53 (1999): 351–64. It should be noted that the notion of “pervasive” holiness is probably an impossibility (for P), at least as described by Levenson. A fundamental feature of holiness is separation, normally in the midst of otherwise proximal coexistence. If holiness were pervasive in the world, the possibility of separation would be lost. Divine location away from earth could be construed as holiness, but in this case, holiness would not be pervasive in the created world. For further discussion of holiness and profaneness in P, see below.

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this similarity, but both P’s plot and a careful consideration of the language correspondences highlighted directly contradict a characterization of the sanctuary as a climax or completion of creation. According to Gen 2:1, the heavens, the earth, and their host (i. e., what was created with them25) – all the elements of the created world – “were completed” (‫)ויכלו השמים והארץ וכל צבאם‬. The following verse continues, “God completed … the work that he had done” (……‫ויכל אלהים‬ ‫)מלאכתו אשר עשה‬. As the parallels cited above highlight, Exod 40:33b reports that Moses completed his construction of the sanctuary (‫;)ויכל משה את המלאכה‬ it was only upon such completion that the deity could take up residence in it. Both Gen 2 and Exod 40 report the completion of an action; they are simply discrete actions.26 Viewed in this light, the corresponding language in Gen 1–2 and Exod 39–40 can be understood in a different, and less freighted, sense. Indeed, these parallels may only be another example of the stylistic consistency so readily observable across P.27 Details of Anderson’s argument that sanctuary building in P is the “climax of creation” deserve additional attention. While it is correct to characterize the establishment of the sanctuary as a high point in the Priestly story, it is not the climax of creation. As I have suggested, creation is a single, discrete event in P’s plot; it is not depicted as an ongoing process across the Priestly work. Anderson offers other comments that are closer to this assessment. For example, he notes, Unlike other myths of origin, the biblical story takes a long time before it discloses its ultimate aim. No doubt this delay is intentional; it allows Israel’s appearance in the story – like her election itself – to emerge as a surprise, a completely unexpected event from the perspective of Genesis 1–11.28

In these observations, Anderson hints at a distinction between the Priestly work and its goals, on the one hand, and details within that work’s plot and story world, on the other. Observing this difference makes possible another distinction, namely, between the purpose of creation, which is determined within the Priestly story world and is part of it, and the purpose of the story itself, which requires consideration of that which is external to its fiction – what I have termed P’s etiology and allegory. To make a claim about the purpose of creation is to make 25 For

this understanding of ‫צבאם‬, see HALOT (Study Edition) 2:995, and references there.  On the meaning of the root ‫כל׳׳י‬, including specific comment on its use in this context, see, e. g., Janowski, “Tempel und Schöpfung,” 58, which builds upon Odil Hannes Steck, Der Schöpfungsbericht der Priesterschrift: Studien zur literarkritischen und überlieferungsgeschichtlichen Problematik von Genesis 1,1–2,4a, FRLANT 115 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975), esp. 178–88. 27 On Priestly style, see, e. g., Sean E. McEvenue, The Narrative Style of the Priestly Writer, AnBib 50 (Rome: Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1971); Meir Paran, The Forms of the Priestly Style in the Pentateuch: Patterns, Linguistic Usages, Syntactic Structures (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1989) [Hebrew]. 28  Anderson, Genesis of Perfection, 200. 26

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a claim about P’s plot and, by extension, the intent of a character within the story, namely, the deity who engages in the acts of creation. Neither P’s characterization of Yahweh nor its larger plot supports the claim that the sanctuary was imagined from the beginning.

4. Creation, Sanctuary, and an Impure and Profane World Beyond the shape it gives to the Priestly plotline, the discontinuity between creation and sanctuary in P also informs central features of this work, including its pure/impure and holy/profane classifications. Perhaps nothing is more central to P than its cult and, within it, its system of purity and purification. With the establishment of its cult, P offers classifications of all objects, persons, animals, and spaces as either impure or pure (=lacking impurity), and it insists that impurity must be kept at bay from the sanctuary, where it is intolerable to the deity.29 Voiced by Yahweh himself, Lev 15:31 makes this point forcefully: ‫והזרתם את בני ישראל מטמאתם ולא ימתו בטמאתם בטמאם את משכני אשר בתוכם‬ You shall warn the Israelites concerning their impurity, that they should not die because of it by contaminating my sanctuary that is in their midst.

Yet across its otherwise extensive treatment of purity and impurity, P never directly addresses the basic question of impurity’s origin. In response to this apparent lacuna, it might be observed that P sometimes assumes details in its story world due to its cultural inheritance and/or other aspects of its compositional context. In other words, P is an historically situated work that reflects that situatedness. This view is certainly correct, and it applies well to the concepts of purity and impurity in P.30 Yet in view of P’s richly imagined story world and plot, the issue of impurity’s origin within that story world is an important one for those who would claim that creation was always to culminate in sanctuary building. If the deity created the world as a sanctuary or as a locus for his sanctuary, and if impurity was both part of that world from the start and repugnant to the deity, how could the world be deemed “very good” at the end of 29  See, e. g., Jacob Milgrom, “Israel’s Sanctuary: The Priestly ‘Picture of Dorian Gray,’” RB 83 (1976): 390–99; idem, Leviticus 1–16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 3 (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 616–17; Jonathan Klawans, Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), esp. 21–26 (concerning what Klawans terms “ritual impurity”). 30 In general, see, e. g., Baruch A. Levine, In the Presence of the Lord: A Study of Cult and Some Cultic Terms in Ancient Israel, SJLA 5 (Leiden: Brill, 1974); David P. Wright, The Disposal of Impurity: Elimination Rites in the Bible and in Hittite and Mesopotamian Literature, SBLDS 101 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987); Joel S. Baden and Candida R. Moss, “The Origin and Interpretation of ṣāraʿat in Leviticus 13–14,” JBL 130 (2011): 643–62, at 651.

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the sixth day of creation? If, alternatively, impurity was not part of creation from its beginning, when and how was it introduced into the world? In their analysis of the impurity-producer ‫( צרעת‬skin disease/surface affliction), Joel S. Baden and Candida R. Moss have observed that ‫ צרעת‬is not a divine punishment for sin in P (Lev 13–14), as it is in non-Priestly biblical texts. It is instead a naturally occurring condition, akin to childbirth (Lev 12), genital discharge (Lev 15), and death (Num 19), each of which also causes impurity according to P. Yet Baden and Moss also emphasize that such naturally occurring conditions must be understood in P as divine in origin: In the Priestly laws too, however, we can say that Yhwh is to be understood as the origin of the ailment, though perhaps in a less direct manner. As argued above, ṣāra‘at according to the Priestly writings is a natural phenomenon, like genital discharge and childbirth. We are misunderstanding Israelite religion anachronistically if we draw a sharp distinction between natural phenomena and the work of Yhwh. Certainly for the Priestly authors, nature, indeed the entire cosmos, is under the command of Yhwh, and, although not everything that comes from Yhwh is necessarily a reward or punishment, everything does come from Yhwh.31

Such observations, coupled with P’s account of the world’s history, make possible an answer to the question of impurity’s origin: like the conditions that cause impurity, impurity itself has a divine origin, and that origin is creation. That is to say, the deity created the world in such a way that it would produce impurity. Profaneness is construed similarly in Priestly texts. As part of its establishment of the cult, P categorizes all persons, places, objects, and even time as either sacred or profane. As with cultic impurity, profaneness is not sinful, but Yahweh experiences profane persons, places, objects, and animals as intolerable when they are near him. Moreover, again like impurity, profaneness is not introduced into the world at any moment in the history that P recounts. It is instead a basic characteristic of the created world and requires redress only to accommodate Yahweh on earth. The world in P, then, was not only created with impurities and the possibility of producing impurities; it was made to be profane rather than holy.32 In view of these details, the possibility that Yahweh always intended to inhabit the created world – that the world as created is or ever would be a sanctuary or,  Baden and Moss, “Origin and Interpretation of ṣāraʿat,” 652.  The meaning of ‫ קד׳׳ש‬in Gen 2:3 requires contextual determination. Despite some claims to the contrary, the root ‫ קד׳׳ש‬itself need not carry an explicitly cultic connotation. On the semantics of ‫קד׳׳ש‬, both for the Hebrew Bible generally and in Priestly texts, see esp. Schwartz, “Israel’s Holiness,” 47–49. For arguments against its cultic semantics in Gen 2:3, see, e. g., Daniel Timmer, Creation, Tabernacle, and Sabbath: The Sabbath Frame of Exodus 31:12–17; 35:1–3 in Exegetical and Theological Perspective, FRLANT 227 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009), 73; Jeffrey Stackert, “How the Priestly Sabbaths Work: Innovation in Pentateuchal Priestly Ritual,” in Ritual Innovation in the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Judaism, ed. Nathan MacDonald, BZAW 468 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016), 79–111, at 91 n 30. 31 32

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on its own, hospitable to a sanctuary within it – is unthinkable within P’s story world. Yet because, at the time that Yahweh created the world, he never intended to inhabit it, the impurities and profaneness that occur naturally in the world were unproblematic. This detail is consistent with the goodness refrain in Gen 1: the deity judged his creation good for the purposes for which it was created.33 Only when circumstances changed and Yahweh decided to dwell amidst his creation did remediation on earth become necessary.

5. Conclusion With special focus on P’s accounts of creation and sanctuary, I have argued for the priority of P’s story for its interpretation, including in comparisons with other ancient Near Eastern works. P’s story includes both the creation of the world and the establishment of the deity’s sanctuary, but this story differs from those of other ancient Near Eastern works that include creation and sanctuary building. A disjuncture between creation and sanctuary is fundamental to the Priestly story and its constituent parts. Comparison of P with other ancient Near Eastern works with analogous themes in this case proves beneficial, but not for the similarities that might be observed among them. Such comparison instead underscores the Priestly story’s distinctiveness, recognition of which pays significant interpretive dividends. I have highlighted here the ways in which the phenomena of purity and holiness in P’s cult are integrally tied to this work’s disjuncture between creation and sanctuary; other details in P similarly rely on its distinctive plot. Such prioritization of story and story world – what Harshav called the internal field of reference – not only foregrounds the religious imagination of P. It also underscores the contingency of its views. This observation is especially important for the foregoing discussion because P’s ideas concerning creation and sanctuary, like many of its other ideas, were quickly lost in this work’s reception. Ironically, P has been read against itself to establish the creation/sanctuary nexus, beginning with the rabbis and continuing to the present. Ultimately, what is required for understanding P – or indeed any literary work – is careful consideration of, and allowance for, what is distinctive about it. And as Baruch J. Schwartz has rightly insisted, the starting point for such an understanding of P is its story.

33  For discussion of this detail, see Schipper and Stackert, “Blemishes, Camouflage, and Sanctuary Service,” 468–69.

Tradition and Change in Priestly Law On the Internal Coherence of the Priestly Worldview* Benjamin D. Sommer “Only in P does the private stage of the lawgiving ultimately involve the repeated, vicarious participation of the people … These recurring events make the Priestly account one of unending public theophany. As in the other accounts, the appearance of God on the mountain leads to the private lawgiving [to Moses], but in P the visible Presence of God does not depart; it remains with the Israelites forever.”1 “Past and future apply to humans but to God (praised be His name) this does not apply. Each and every day God gives the Torah to the people Israel.”2 “As for the issue of the liturgy stating, ‘He gives the Torah,’ [even though the previous line in the liturgy reads, ‘He gave His Torah’]: in reality God (praised by His name) already gave it. But He is still giving it, and He will never cease … The Holy Blessed One gave the Torah and He gives the Torah at every time. At every hour the spring that pours forth does not stop; what God gives is what God gave in potential to every individual.”3

In what follows, I present two claims. The first involves the relationship between conceptions of law and lawgiving in the Priestly Document. I argue that P regards legal evolution over time, and even human-driven modifications to the law, with equanimity. P does not regard the law as a perfect and unchanging entity given once and for all time. This conception of the law fits well with P’s understanding of divine revelation, because, as I have previously argued, P presents divine reve* It is an honor and a pleasure to dedicate this essay to Baruch Schwartz as a small return for his friendship and his extraordinary intellectual generosity. 1 Baruch Schwartz, “The Priestly Account of the Theophany and Lawgiving at Sinai,” in Texts, Temples, and Traditions. A Tribute to Menahem Haran, ed. Michael V. Fox, et al. (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1996), 103–34, at 125. 2  Avraham Yehoshua Heschel of Apt, Oheiv Yisrael (Zhitomir, 1864), 172 [Hebrew]. Hebrew original: ‫ ובכל יום ויום הוא נותן התורה לעמו ישראל‬,‫ אבל אצל הש׳׳י אינו שייך זה‬,‫באדם שייך עבר ועתיד‬. All translations in this article are my own. 3  Isaiah Horowitz, Shenei Luḥot Haberit (Warsaw: n.p., 1930 [original publication: 1648]), from the section, “Beit Ḥokhmah,” 18b, 19b [Hebrew]. Hebrew original: ‫ועניין נותן התורה באמת‬ ‫הש׳׳י כבר נתנה אבל עדיין נותן התורה ולא יפסיק…נמצא הקב׳׳ה נתן התורה והוא נותן התורה בכל עת ובכל‬ ‫שעה המעיין הנובע אינו פוסק ומה שנותן הוא בכח מה שנתן‬. As the longer discussion on 18b makes clear, ‫ בכח‬is used on 19b in two senses: in its standard medieval philosophical Hebrew sense, “in potential,” but also in the sense, “to every individual at that individual’s level of understanding,” as per the midrash found, e. g., in Mek. Yitro § 9; Exod. Rab. 5:9 and 29:1; Pesiq. Rab. Kah. Baḥodesh Hashelishi, end of § 12; for further references, see Menahem M. Kasher, Torah Sheleimah, 48 vols. (Jerusalem: Beit Torah Sheleimah, 1979), 15:109 § 240 [Hebrew].

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lation as entailing dialogue and process.4 It follows, then, that P’s understanding of revelation generates a particular approach to the law. In making this claim about revelation and the law, I illustrate a second claim, which concerns what we might call P’s intellectual style. More than most biblical corpora, the final form of the P document, whatever the complexities of its composition history, presents us with a highly integrated thought-world.5 Each piece of an ideational structure in P implies and reflects other pieces of that structure. Thus it is typical of P that its conception of lawgiving is in perfect harmony with its view of the law that was given. If this is so, then P bequeaths us a surprisingly systematic theology. This theology entails one of the earliest known understandings of the evolving nature of what later comes to be called Jewish law. The notion of a legal tradition that provides a guiding context for legal change, and even the thematization of that legal change, are already present in the Pentateuch’s P source.6

1. Revelation in P Before making my claim about P’s comfort with the idea of change within legal tradition, I should summarize my earlier argument that P views revelation as dialogical and ongoing. As Baruch Schwartz has persuasively argued, P’s portrayal of lawgiving differs from the portrayals in E and D in several significant respects.7 For E and D, lawgiving was an event that took place on the top of a particular mountain (which they call “Ḥoreb”). But for P lawgiving (the bulk of which begins only at Lev 1:18) was a process that unfolded at the structure P that variously calls the ‫“( אהל מועד‬the tent of meeting”) and the ‫“( משכן‬tabernacle”). That tent was located at the foot of a mountain (which P and J both call “Sinai”) for approximately seven weeks, starting on the first day of the first month in the second year following the exodus. Consequently, the lawgiving can be described as taking place “at Sinai” (Lev 7:38, 25:1, 26:46, and 27:34), but this phrase does not mean on top of the mountain; it refers to acts that took place in the tent at

4 See Benjamin D. Sommer, Revelation and Authority: Sinai in Jewish Scripture and Tradition, ABRL (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), 53–60. 5  By “the P document” and “P” I refer to the amalgamation of Priestly and Holiness materials that we have in the Pentateuch – that is, P=PT+HS (using the sigla found in Israel Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995]). 6 My phrasing here and in this article’s title alludes to Mordecai Waxman, ed., Tradition and Change: The Development of Conservative Judaism (New York: United Synagogue, 1958). 7 Schwartz, “Priestly Account,” 114–30, esp. 124. 8  Schwartz, “Priestly Account,” 116. To be sure, a few laws were revealed earlier in P, before the tabernacle existed, as necessitated by events (e. g., the law of Passover in Exod 12, and various details about the tabernacle and its equipment in 25–31). But, as Schwartz notes (115), “in the main” the lawgiving commences at Lev 1:1.

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the foot of the mountain.9 Lawgiving at the tent continued, however, after the Israelites and the tent left Sinai; God revealed various laws during the thirty-eight years when they travelled through the wilderness toward the Land of Canaan.10 To be sure, the number of laws given when the tent was at Sinai, during the first month of the nation’s second year in the wilderness and during the first twenty days of the second month, is larger than the number of laws given during the subsequent thirty-eight years. The former are found throughout Leviticus and in Num 1–10, while the latter are found in P passages of Num 15–36. But both the first seven weeks of lawgiving and next thirty-eight years were extended periods of time, whereas for E and D the lawgiving was an event rather than a process. A brief and easily overlooked verse provides crucial information for understanding what transpired between God and Moses each time Moses received legislation at the tabernacle. In Num 7:89, P tells us: When Moses came to the tent of meeting to speak with Him, he heard the voice ‫[ ִמ ַדּ ֵבּר‬on the translation of this term, see below] to him from above the covering that was on top of ark of the covenant, from between the two kerubim, and He spoke to him.

According to this verse, Yhwh sat on the throne created by the outstretched wings of the kerubim above the ark in the holy of holies. From there the deity communicated with Moses, who (to judge from the evidence of Lev 16) was located outside the holy of holies. Thus this verse presents P’s own commentary on earlier P verses like Exod 25:22 and Lev 1:1, which describe how God vouchsafed laws to Moses at the tent. P employs this verse to explain the nature of lawgiving generally.11 The verse does not narrate but gives background information relevant to all the times God interacted with Moses at the tent.12  9 As already noted in the commentary of Ramban to Lev 7:38. See further Schwartz, “Priestly Account,” 123–24 and n. 45 there. 10  See Aryeh Toeg, Lawgiving at Sinai (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1977), 154–57 [Hebrew]. Toeg points out that the tension between the idea of lawgiving at Sinai and lawgiving at the tent of meeting already attracted attention from the rabbis, who attempt to harmonize between these two options; see b. Ḥag 6a–b. 11 On the iterative nature of the actions the verse comes to describe, see Jacob Licht, A Commentary on the Book of Numbers I-X (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1985), 112 [Hebrew]; Baruch Levine, Numbers 1–20: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 4A (New York: Doubleday, 1993), 259. Ibn Ezra maintains that the phrase “When Moses went to the tent of meeting to speak with Him” refers back to Lev 1:1 (see also Bekhor Shor for this reading), and thus our verse in Numbers explains what precisely transpired on that first occasion of divine speech from the tent and on all subsequent ones. Exod 25:22, Lev 1:1, and Num 7:89 need to be read together to give us a picture of what happens when God reveals the law to Moses at the tent; so Rashi and his sources in Sifre Bemidbar, Naso’ § 58. On the crucial connection of our verse with Exod 25:22, see also August Dillmann, Die Bücher Numeri, Deuteronomium und Josua, 2nd ed., KHAT (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1886), 41, though the connection does not require the compositional suggestion Dillmann puts forth. 12  I must confess that the MT’s waw-consecutive verbs ‫ וַ יּשמע‬and ‫ וַ יְ דבר‬in this verse argue against my contention that we should see this verse as describing a repeated action rather

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What matters for the point I want to make about dialogical lawgiving is the unusual verb ‫ ִמ ַדּ ֵבּר‬in our verse.13 This hithpael construction appears only in this verse, in two additional verses closely related to P (Ezek 2:2 and 43:6, which also describe communication between God and a prophet), and, possibly, in 2 Sam 14:13.14 The use of this highly unusual verb to explain what takes place when God communicates with Moses from the throne in the tent suggests that this communication was not a simple matter of speaking in the way that humans speak.15 What sort of communication might this term imply? Hithpael constructions have several types of meaning. A hithpael can describe a reciprocal action, so that ‫ ִמ ַדּ ֵבּר‬may refer to communication that moves back and forth between God and Moses. Jacob Milgrom notes that the preposition used here, ‫אתו‬, recalls the phrase ‫דּ ֵבּר ֶאת־‬,ִ which means “converse, confer,” as opposed to ‫דּ ֵבּר ֶאל־‬,ִ “to speak to.”16 This phrasing suggests that P regards revelation not simply as a top-down affair in which God gave and Moses received, but as involving some degree of reciprocity or dialogue.17 At the same time, the hithpael can intend ongoing action, so that we might translate, “he would hear the voice continually speaking to him,” “he would hear the voice as it went on speaking to him.”18 It may also refer to frequentative or repeated action, which would produce the translation than a single punctual event. The ancient versions, however, read at least the second of these as indicating repeated action: LXX renders ‫ וידבר‬with the imperfect ἐλάλει, as if the Hebrew read ,‫ וִ ַיד ֵבּר‬rather than rendering with the aorist ἐλάλησεν, the normal translation of the wawconsecutive ‫וַ יְ דבר‬. For ‫ וישמע‬it must be admitted that LXX has an aorist (ἠκ́ ουσεν or in some mss ἠκ́ ουσαν or ἠκ́ ουσα), clearly reflecting a waw-consecutive. Vulgate, however, has audiebat for ‫ וישמע‬and loquebatur for ‫וידבר‬, both imperfect indicatives (rather than, e. g., locutus, the perfect indicative that it uses to render the waw-consecutive ‫)וַ יְ דבר‬. Onqelos and Pseudo-Jonathan render ‫ וידבר‬with ‫( מתמלל‬precisely as they render ‫ ִמ ַדּ ֵבּר‬earlier in the verse, and unlike their normal rendering of the waw-consecutive ‫)וַ יְ דבר‬, thus suggesting that they, like LXX, read the imperfect ‫ וִ ַיד ֵבּר‬here. 13 The verse contains several stylistic anomalies that attract the attention of an audience familiar with the norms of the Bible’s typical narrative style, as noted by Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2004), 720. 14  The case in Samuel is textually suspect (LXX might read ‫מעביר‬, and even MT in that context can be understood as ‫ מן‬+ the piel infinitive rather than a hithpael participle). All the remaining cases are unique to texts stemming from priestly authors. 15  Diether Kellermann, Die Priesterschrift von Numeri 1, 1 bis 10, 10. Literarkrit. u. traditionsgeschichtl. untersucht, BZAW 120 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1970), 108, dismisses the evidence of the verb form as late Masoretic hairsplitting – as if an emphasis on fine distinctions were not at the very heart of the Priestly worldview! 16  Jacob Milgrom, Numbers, JPSTC (Philadelphia: JPS, 1989), ad loc. 17  This sense may be reinforced by the fact that we cannot be sure whether to translate, “He would speak to him,” or “he would speak to Him.” On this ambiguity, see Milgrom, Numbers, 59; Alter, Five Books, 720; Levine, Numbers 1–20, 259; Kellermann, Priesterschrift, 107–8. 18  See Levine, Numbers 1–20, 258; Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses, The Schocken Bible: A New Translation with Introductions, Notes, and Commentary (New York: Schocken, 1995), 695. On the ongoing or durative sense of the hithpael, see Ephraim Speiser, “The Durative Hithpaʿel: A Tan- Form,” JAOS 75 (1955): 118–21.

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“he would hear the voice as it spoke again and again.”19 The construction can also be reflexive, which leads Rashi to suggest that this voice “would speak to itself, and Moses would hear on his own” – that is, at the tent, Moses somehow attained access to God’s internal ruminations. A voice that allows for continuous rather than punctual communication or the overhearing of internal dialogue is not a voice speaking in any normal sense of the word. The choice of verb here suggests that whatever communication transpired when Moses went to the tent differs from what happens when one human speaks to another.20 The general or iterative statement that is Num 7:89, I submit, governs the many specific cases in which the root ‫ דב׳׳ר‬is associated with the subject Yhwh throughout P. The hithpael in this governing statement serves as P’s means for conveying a rather Maimonidean message: whenever the root ‫ דב׳׳ר‬occurs with God as its subject, it denotes something different from what it denotes when humans are its subject.21 This message comes across especially strongly in one other possible meaning of the hithpael, whose relevance to our verse has not been noted. The hithpael construction can denote simulation – that is, it can be used when the subject of the verb acts as if he were doing something. For example ‫ התחלה‬means “pretend to be ill” in 2 Sam 13:5; ‫ התנכר‬means “act like a stranger” in Gen 42:7 and 1 Kgs 14:5, 6.22 If this sense of the verbal construction is intended, then the Priestly narrator is intimating that “speaking” is not something that the deity  The hithpael in Hebrew may refer not only to durative action but perhaps to repeated or iterative action. In Akkadian, these two related but distinct aspects are conveyed by related but distinct verbal constructions, the ta-infix and the tan-infix forms respectively; see GAG §§ 91 and 92. But as GAG § 92f notes that the ta-infix verbs not only signify the durative but sometimes slide into an iterative/habitual meaning. Similarly, we can readily imagine that the Hebrew hitphael can refer not only to durative action (as Ephraim Speiser argues in the article cited in the previous note) but also to iterative actions. See the useful review of literature on this question in Nahum Waldman, The Recent Study of Hebrew (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College, 1989), 34–36. 20  Alter, Five Books, ad loc., speaks of “a theological impulse here to interpose some kind of mediation between the divine source of the speech and the audible voice that is spoken to Moses.” 21 See The Guide of the Perplexed, 1:65, 1:67, and 2:48 (= Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, trans. Shlomo Pines, with an introduction by Leo Strauss [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963], 158–60, 161–62, 409–12). Of course Maimonides takes this point much further, arguing that any active verb attached to the subject “God” has a meaning fundamentally different from that verb attached to other subjects, and even the verb “to be” attached to the subject God can mean only that God does not have the attribute negated by the predicate of the sentence in question; see 1:51–60 (= Maimonides, Guide, trans. Pines, 112–47). 22 On this use of the hithpael, see P. Joüon and T. Muraoka, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, SB (Rome: Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1991), § 53i (with additional examples), and also Shlomoh Morag, Torat Hahegeh Vehatsurot shel ʿIvrit: Phonetiqah Uphonologiyah: Shiʿurei Yesod, ed. Aharon Mama and Avi Ben-Amitay; recorded by Ada Yardeni (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2009), 174 #2 [Hebrew], as well as Joshua Blau, Torat Hahegeh Vehatsurot shel Leshon Hamiqra, (Jerusalem: Academy for the Hebrew Language, 2010), 218 § 1 [Hebrew]. Two especially clear examples of this use of the hithpael occur in Prov 13:7. 19

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really does, and when the narrator attaches the verb “speak” to the subject “God,” it intends something different from that verb’s usual meaning. God’s “speaking” is something that only a prophet has experienced, and therefore something for which there is no word among us non-prophets who make up the narrator’s audience. My use of quotes in the previous sentence, in fact, may be exactly what the Priestly authors (and Ezekiel) intend when they use the strange hithpael form of this verb: they remind us that God’s “speaking” is not really speaking at all.23 These various meanings of the hithpael for our verb do not rule each other out; the meanings are complementary, and all of them may be at play in our verse. For P, revelation, or God’s “speaking,” was dialogical, ongoing or frequentative (that is to say, a process rather than an event), and unlike the communication that takes place among human beings.

2. The Law’s Evolution in P The way P lays out the nature of revelation in Num 7:89 is consistent with the character of lawgiving elsewhere in the Priestly Document. P represents the lawgiving as something that continued over time and hence as allowing for legal evolution and change. The lawgiving took place largely over seven weeks at the outset of the nation’s second year in the wilderness, and it continued sporadically thereafter until shortly before Moses’s death nearly four decades later. Usually it involved only Moses, but in a few cases it included Aaron or Aaron’s sons.24 Both the ongoing nature of lawgiving in P and its dialogical nature come to the fore in five Priestly stories in which Moses approaches God with legal queries.25 These are: – Lev 24:10–23 (the story of the blasphemer [‫)]המקלל‬, – Num 9:1–14 (the second Passover [‫([פסח שני‬ – Num 15:32–36 (the wood-gatherer [‫)]מקושש העצים‬ 23 Given the rarity of the hithpael of ‫ דב׳׳ר‬and the likelihood that it appears only in texts stemming from priestly authors (viz., P and Ezekiel; see n. 14 above), I wonder if the verb may be a neologism coined by P to convey the idea that whenever the Priestly narrator says that God speaks, the narrator actually means that God “speaks.” 24  Itamar Kislev, “Numbers 36:13, the Transition Between Numbers and Deuteronomy, and the Redaction of the Torah,” in Tziporah Talshir Festscrhift (forthcoming), points out that it is for this reason that hundreds of different laws in P are introduced by their own ‫ וידבר‬or ‫ויאמר ה׳‬ formulas: God communicated with Moses again and again over the forty years. In E and D, on the other hand, we do not repeatedly see this formula, since they know of only two legislative events. 25  See Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Clarendon, 1985), 98–102; Simeon Chavel, Oracular Law and Priestly Historiography in the Torah, FAT II/71 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), passim.

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– Num 27:1–11 (the daughters of Tzelofḥad [‫)]בנות צלפחד‬ – Num 36:1–9 (the Manassite elders and the daughters of Tzelofḥad [‫זקני מנשה‬ ‫)]ובנות צלפחד‬. In these oracular novellas (as Simeon Chavel calls them),26 Moses receives both specific responses and general statements of law for the ages. In two of these passages (the blasphemer and the wood-gatherer), the reason for the legal query is that the law is unclear or incomplete regarding a particular situation, but in three of them (the second Passover and both stories involving the daughters), the motivation behind the query is that some Israelites seem dissatisfied with the existing law. In all five of them, Moses asks God to clarify the law, and God responds to Moses’s request. Most famously, Num 27:1–11 tells of the daughters of a recently deceased man, Tzelofḥad,27 who had no sons. Because women cannot inherit under the existing law, his landholding is set to pass to his closest male relative. As a result, his land and his name will disappear forever.28 The daughters approach Moses to ask why their father’s name should be lost, and they request the right to inherit his land so that the family’s ‫נחלה‬, and hence Tzelofḥad’s name, will endure. The daughters’ query is not open-ended. They respectfully present an objection to the existing law of inheritance, and they make the solution they were looking for explicit. God’s response to the query is fascinating. God does not declare, “I am perfect! !‫תמים פעלי וכל דרכי משפט! תורת ה׳ ותמימה‬ – And so  Chavel, Oracular Law, 12.  The pronunciation of the name may be either Ṣelofḥād or Ṣelāfeḥād. Either possibility is in principle possible. The former possibility regards the ‫ קמץ‬under the ‫ ל‬as short (and hence as /o/ in Sephardic pronunciation) and the vowel under the ‫ פ‬as a ‫שוא נח‬. That approach is supported by the spelling ‫ צלופחד‬in 4Q27 f42 47:3. The latter possibility takes the ‫ קמץ‬as long (and thus as /a/ in Sephardic pronunciation) and the vowel under the ‫ פ‬as a ‫שוא נע‬. That approach gains support from LXX’s rendering of the name, Σαλπααδ. A pronunciation that is not grammatically possible is the one canonized as the spelling in English ever since the KJV, “Zelophehad” (=*Ṣelofeḥād). That spelling implies that the ‫ קמץ‬under the ‫ ל‬is a short vowel even as it regards the vowel under the ‫ פ‬as a ‫שוא נע‬. In fact, a ‫ שוא נע‬cannot follow a short vowel. 28  The daughters do not specify the consequence of that disappearance, but we may surmise that the assumption underlying their worry in the narrative’s ancient Near Eastern context is that the absence of a male heir, combined with the dissipation of the deceased man’s plot of land, will result in a degraded afterlife for the deceased or perhaps even no afterlife at all. If the ‫ שם‬or ‫נבש‬/‫ נפש‬of a deceased man has no property associated with, no stele associated with it, and/or no male descendant’s to recite the man’s name, the deceased person cannot enjoy an afterlife. Cf., e. g., the Katumuwa Inscription from Zincirli; 2 Sam 18:18; and the texts cited in regard to the phrases involving šume zakārum (“reciting the name”) and paqādum (“taking care [of the dead]”) in J. J. Finkelstein, “The Genealogy of the Hammurapi Dynasty,” JCS 20 (1966): 95–118, at 114–15, and their parallel in the Standard Version of the Gilgamesh Epic, 12:146–153. On this confluence of themes in biblical and ancient Semitic literature generally, see further Herbert Chanan Brichto, “Kin, Cult, Land and Afterlife  – A Biblical Complex,” HUCA 44 (1973): 1–54; Seth Sanders, “Naming the Dead: Funerary Writing and Historical Change in the Iron Age Levant,” Maarav 19 (2012): 11–36; and Seth Sanders, “The Appetites of the Dead: West Semitic Linguistic and Ritual Aspects of the Katumuwa Stele,” BASOR 369 (2013): 35–55. 26 27

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who are these women to tell Me how to run My universe?” Instead, God agrees to their plan, saying: “‫”כן בנות צלפחד דברת‬ – “What the daughters of Tzelofḥad say is right” (Num 27:7). God agrees to modify the existing law of inheritance to allow the property of a man without sons to be divided among his daughters. This Priestly story presents the law as malleable and open to improvement.29 As if to underscore this point, the revision to the law of inheritance is itself revised in a later passage, Num 36:2–4. There leaders from the tribe of Manasseh (to which Tzelofḥad’s family belongs) approach Moses to point out a wrinkle in the solution that God set forth in Num 27. What would happen, under the revised inheritance law, if one of the daughters marries a man from some other Israelite tribe? In that case, the children of that marriage will inherit Tzelofḥad’s land, and a piece of Manasseh’s territory will pass into the permanent possession of the other tribe. The tribal leaders object to the apparently unforeseen consequence of the legal revision God agreed to in Num 27. Again, God does not respond angrily, insisting that there can be no consequences unforeseen by God’s all-seeing eyes. Rather, God responds precisely as God had done earlier: “‫כן מטה‬ ‫”יוסף דברים‬ – “What the tribe of Joseph says is right” (Num 36:5). God had improved the original law in light of the daughters’ plea, but the tribal leaders’ subsequent plea reveals that God had not improved it enough. So the amendment is amended: the daughters may inherit, but not if they marry a man from outside their tribe. If they are to exercise their right to inherit, they must marry men from a family in their own tribe. In that case, Tzelofḥad’s land will stay with his descendants through the female line, while also remaining with his tribe. This amendment does not undo the earlier revision.30 Before that revision, it seems likely that the land would have gone to Tzelofḥad’s closest male relative. Under the new law, the daughters are permitted to marry more distant members of their tribe, and if they had decided to do so, five more distantly related Manassites could have ended up owning the land. (In fact the daughters marry their first cousins, and so five first cousins acquire the land, but the amended amendment allowed them to marry other Manassites.) In any event, the amendment to the amendment solves the problem that concerns the tribal elders. In presenting these five stories of legal revision and clarification, the Priestly Source acknowledges without embarrassment or discomfort that what God has 29  Chavel, Oracular Law, 16, highlights “the deity’s responsiveness to developments on the ground even within the highly detailed system he himself devised” in all of the oracular novellas, noting further that “describing the divine responsiveness in these terms does not mean to emphasize the level of personification for the deity as an amiable fellow, but to shed light on the way the author or authors imagining the deity in this manner create space for developments in the human sphere generally and in their society in particular.” 30  Here I take a position differing from that of my teacher, Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 105, and of my colleague, Simeon Chavel, Oracular Law, 243–50. However, I am told (personal communication from Michael Fishbane) that my position matches that of Moshe Greenberg.

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wrought is not always set in stone. The law can be upgraded – and the upgrade can be upgraded, too. The divine origin of the law is not assumed to entail its perfection or immutability.31 P’s narrative makes clear that God does not find this insulting. God allows Israelites to participate along with God in bringing about legal development over time. The difference between P and D in this regard is instructive. Evidence of legal revision and interpretation is abundantly present in both these pentateuchal documents; in particular, D’s updating of E’s legal traditions has been widely studied in biblical scholarship as far back as the late nineteenth century.32 But while P openly narrates the way God and Israel interact to revise the law, D (as Bernard Levinson has repeatedly emphasized) employs a variety of rhetorical strategies to conceal its own revisionary nature.33 When D tells us that the laws found in Deut 12–26 had been given to Moses at Mount Ḥoreb, D claims that its version of the law is the original one, and thus D calls our attention away from its own sources.34 By portraying lawgiving as an event, D disowns the legal evolution to which it contributes. By portraying lawgiving as a process, P acknowledges legal evolution. Indeed, by recounting five distinct episodes in which the law changed, P thematizes that evolution. It is not only in the oracular novellas that P presents the law as subject to revision. Elsewhere P describes how God, Moses, and Aaron modify ritual laws to fit the exigencies of particular situations. In a recent book, Liane Feldman discusses the surprising manner in which Moses and Aaron carry out several rituals during the ceremonies for the dedication of the tabernacle in Lev 8–10.35 Four rituals performed in those chapters deviate from the regulations that cover such rituals in Lev 1–7, but Feldman provides a painstaking, nuanced, and brilliant  Of course, this disconnect between divinity and perfection, especially in regard to law, is characteristic of biblical and rabbinic thought generally. Perfection in the philosophical sense and its corollary, immutability, enter Jewish thinking about the divine only in the Middle Ages. On this theme, see the already classic treatment of Christine Hayes, What’s Divine About Divine Law? Early Perspectives (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015). 32   See, e. g., S. R.  Driver, Deuteronomy, 3rd ed., ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1902), iii–xiv, as well as Driver’s detailed treatment of individual laws in the commentary to chapters 12–26 itself. 33  See, e. g., Bernard M. Levinson, Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 145–57; Bernard M. Levinson, “You Must not Add Anything to What I Command You: Paradoxes of Canon and Authorship in Ancient Israel,” Numen 50 (2003): 1–51. Further, D commands in Deut 4:2 and 13:1 that its own (revisionary and innovative) laws should not be revised or subject to innovation. On the other hand, it is unlikely that D intended those verses as a constitutional or jurisprudential regulation. Rather, the language of these verse serves as a rhetorical device, and the practical applicability of the verses was likely intended quite narrowly. See my discussion in Sommer, Revelation and Authority, 197–98 and 347 nn. 38–39. 34 Nonetheless, we cannot describe D as iconoclastic or antagonistic to its own sources. After all, by updating their content and passing it along in its revised form, D effectively preserves most of the content of those sources. 35  Liane Feldman, The Story of Sacrifice: Ritual and Narrative in the Priestly Source, FAT 141 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020), 67–108. 31

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analysis to show that each deviation made sense in the context of the dedication ceremony at hand. Somewhat oddly, Feldman fails to note that in the first two deviations she discusses (which involve Moses’s actions in Lev 8:14–7 and 8:22–29) it was God Himself who, in Exod 29:10–14, 19–26, had ordained the variations to the general laws found in Lev 1–7. In those cases Moses was not improvising in regard to Lev 1–7; he was simply performing, note for note, the variation God had composed in Exod 29. But Feldman’s larger point remains valid for the last two cases: both Moses and Aaron introduce their own variations into the laws found in Lev 1–7 as they carry out parts of the ceremonies, and there is no indication that God is dissatisfied with their actions. Feldman’s description of the differences between the rules in Lev 1–7 and their modified application in Lev 8–10 is extraordinarily detailed and entirely convincing. Her interpretation, modified slightly to account for the evidence of Exod 29:10–14,19–26, can be summarized as follows: In Exod 29, God tells Moses how to perform the ceremonies for ordaining the priests and inaugurating the sanctuary. In doing so, God introduces (proleptic) variations to two of the more generally applicable laws God will later reveal in Lev 1–7. First, in Exod 29:10–14 God introduces a variation to the general rules pertaining to the ‫ חטאת‬or purification ritual performed on behalf of Aaron at the ceremonies to inaugurate Aaron into the role of high priest. In Exod 29:10– 11, God directs Moses to use a bull when performing this ritual; this direction matches Lev 4:3, which designates a bull for use in a ‫ חטאת‬on behalf of a high priest. But in Exod 29:12 God tells Moses to sprinkle the bull’s blood on the horns of the bronze altar outside the tent. This sprinkling, surprisingly enough, does not match the rules for a ‫ חטאת‬performed for a high priest, which, according to Lev 4:7, is to be sprinkled on the gold altar inside the tent. Rather, God’s direction to sprinkle blood on the bronze altar matches Lev 4:27–35’s rule covering the ‫ חטאת‬performed on behalf of a regular Israelite. Thus what God directs Moses to do does not fit any category of ‫ חטאת‬in Lev 4; it blends elements of two different categories. Similarly, in Exod 29:19–26, God requires Moses to deviate from the normal rules for the ‫ זבח השלמים‬or communion offering when he offers that offering (known specifically as ‫איל המלאים‬, the ram of ordination) at the inaugural ceremonies. According to Lev 7:31–34, the right thigh of a communion offering should be eaten by the priest who officiates at the ceremony, while the breast from a communion offering must be eaten by the Aaronide priests generally. But in Exod 29:22–25 God directs Moses to burn the right thigh on the altar; and in v. 26 God directs Moses to eat the breast himself, rather than giving it to the priests to eat. When Moses carries out the purification ritual in Lev 8:14–17 and offers the ram of ordination in 8:22–29, he does so according to God’s specific instructions in Exod 29 (and not, as Feldman claims, according to Moses’s own improvisation).

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Why, though, did God tell Moses to deviate from the general rules when performing the purification ritual and offering the ram at the inaugural ceremonies? Feldman utilizes Naphtali Meshel’s notion of ritual grammar36 to show that each deviation in Lev 8–10 accords with the implicit logic of the regulations in 1–7, in particular with their careful distinctions involving priests and regular Israelites. The variations, she shows, reflect the liminal status of Aaron and his sons in Lev 8.37 Because they are not yet priests (after all, making them into priests is the end-goal of the procedures described in Lev 8–10), the rules for a high priest’s ‫ חטאת‬from Lev 4:3–12 do not yet apply to Aaron. But by this point in the proceedings he is not a regular Israelite, either. Consequently, the ‫ חטאת‬rules that apply to regular Israelites in Lev 4:27–35 are inappropriate for him as well. The proleptically varied rules God vouchsafes to Moses in Exod 29 anticipate the anomalous status of Aaron in this ritual by mixing and matching elements of the respective ‫ חטאת‬rituals in Lev 4 in a manner that reflects Aaron’s liminal state. Similarly, the breast of the ordination-ram offered at the inauguration ceremony cannot go to priests generally, because at this point, there are none – Aaron and his sons are not quite full-fledged priests yet. And the right thigh cannot go to the officiating Aaronide, because in this case the officiant, Moses, is not an Aaronide at all. But as officiant, Moses should receive something; so the right thigh that normally would go to the officiant goes to God (it is burned on the altar), and the breast that would normally go to the Aaronide priests generally goes to Moses. In her beautifully textured analysis, Feldman shows that this one-time ritual combines elements from the basic ritual forms in Lev 1–7 in a manner appropriate for the situation described in Lev 8, which involves liminal actors (that is, individuals who were potentially priests and then partially ordained priests) in a liminal space (a structure that was hardly a simple, everyday tent but was not yet a fully dedicated sanctuary) rather than the full-fledged priests acting in a full-fledged sanctuary that Lev 1–7 assume.38 It appears that Moses learns from these two cases of divine mixing and matching that situation-specific variations in the general laws of sacrifice are appropriate, so long as they follow the logic of those general laws. Having learned from God’s example, Moses introduces his own improvisation to the inaugural ceremonies in Lev 8, specifically in the order in which he brings forth Aaron and his sons, garbs them in their new priestly apparel, utilizes anointing oil, and slaughters various animals. The precise details need not detain us here. Suffice it to say that God gave instructions on these procedures in Exod 29:36–37, Exod 40:14–15, and Lev 8:1–3, but (Feldman demonstrates) these three texts do not 36 See Naphtali S. Meshel, The “Grammar” of Sacrifice: A Generativist Study of the Israelite Sacrificial System in the Priestly Writings with a “Grammar” of Σ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). 37  Feldman, Story of Sacrifice, 67–108, esp. 70–83. 38  Feldman, Story of Sacrifice, 81–83.

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fully set out the proper order in which Moses is to perform these actions; each text mentions only some parts of the procedures. Feldman explains how, in Lev 8:4–26, Moses improvises in accordance with the ritual logic of the system God had implicitly revealed. Thus Moses fashions an appropriate order that is not spelled out in any of God’s instructions. (In fact, Feldman shows that the procedure Moses devises seems, at least on the surface, to depart from God’s instructions in Lev 8:1–3.39) Moses demonstrates in Lev 8:4–26 that he – like God in Exod 29:10–14, 19–26 – can improvise within the logic of the system as he makes a series of judgment calls, sometimes interrupting one divinely mandated procedure to begin another one before completing the first. I find myself wondering whether we should infer that God intended Moses to undertake the intellectual work of figuring out these variations and making the attendant determinations about the procedural order. After all, God could have explained the precise order by giving Moses all the rules in a single statement. But by laying them out in three different passages, none of which was complete, God forced Moses to work out on his own how to implement the rules. Aaron appears to have learned from both God’s and Moses’s examples. As Aaron takes over the role of priest from Moses in Lev 9:8–11, he, too, performs a ‫ חטאת‬ritual that does not precisely match any one category of ‫ חטאת‬mandated in Lev 4. Aaron combines elements from several of them in a way that is ritually appropriate to the unique liminal situation in Lev 9. The mixing and matching Aaron improvises in Lev 9 is analogous to the mixing and matching that God ordained in regard to the ‫ חטאת‬in Exod 29:10–14 and that Moses carried out in Lev 8:4–17.40 The details are copious and intricate, but what is clear is that in Exod 29 and Lev 8–10, God, then Moses, and finally Aaron introduce variations into laws found elsewhere in Exodus and Leviticus, and these variations follow the logic of the ritual law as a whole. Subsequently, in Lev 10:1, Nadav and Avihu introduce a different sort of variation as they step forward to burn incense in firepans at the tent. The incense ritual that the two sons of Aaron attempt to perform, Feldman demonstrates, fails to conform to various norms of Leviticus’s ritual system.41 For example, Feldman explains: In the sacrificial system within the priestly story world, the incense offering always accompanies another offering. It is never offered on its own, yet this is precisely what the 39 Feldman,

Story of Sacrifice, 74–77.  One might argue that the procedure Aaron follows was in fact commanded in detail by God, since Moses refers in 9:6 to a divine command whose details are never provided. But given the specific nature of the divine commands up until this point in the story, it seems more likely that Moses is making a general reference to God’s requirement that a dedication ceremony take place; or in 9:6 Moses may even ascribe a divine authority to the human improvisations that are to follow. 41  Feldman, Story of Sacrifice, 104–7. 40

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priests try to do. They create their own category of sacrifice and bring it to Yhwh. They innovate, but they have not really learned the building blocks or the general rules of the system. They create something new, but what they create is outside the bounds of an acceptable sacrifice in the priestly system.42

As a result, the fire that they attempt to present at the altar is characterized as ‫אש זרה‬ – “an inappropriate fire,” a fire that does not fit the system. (Within the P document, the term ‫זר‬, usually translated as “strange,” simply means that which does not belong, a person who is in a place not intended for him or her.43) In light of Feldman’s analysis, it becomes clear that Lev 10:1’s characterization of their act as something “that He did not command them” (‫ )אשר לא צוה אתם‬does not signify that the two sons of Aaron made an offering that was improper because it was voluntary. After all, voluntary offerings are a category well known within P’s ritual system. (All ‫ זבחי שלמים‬are voluntary; further, any Israelite could voluntarily offer an ‫ עולה‬or a ‫ מנחה‬as well.) Rather, the phrase “which He did not command” refers to the fact that the manner of its presentation deviated from the internal logic of the system in a way that had no justification. The results of the attempted innovation by Nadav and Avihu were swift, unambiguous, and disastrous. The contrast between the acceptable improvisations of God, Moses, and Aaron, on the one hand, and the catastrophic improvisations of Aaron’s sons, on the other, shows that P endorses the idea of humanly ordained changes within legal tradition but rejects outright innovations that lack a sufficient basis in that tradition. Variations that adhere to the logic of the system, whether divinelyinitiated or originating with human beings, can be acceptable. I have noted several cases of legal evolution that occur through the mediation of Moses and Aaron during the generation that follows the exodus. Does P envision this evolution continuing after their deaths? In light of what we have seen about the theory of revelation and the practice of legal evolution in P texts, it seems reasonable to suggest that the Priestly Source may assume that the dialogue driving legal evolution will continue. More specifically, it is possible that P ordains the institution of the ‫ אורים ותמים‬in part with this goal in mind. We cannot know, of course, how P intends these oracular devices woven into the high priest’s garments to function. But from the other references to the ‫ אורים ותמים‬in the Bible, it is clear that people in authority addressed questions to this device and obtained responses, probably in the form of a yes or a no, through some

 Feldman, Story of Sacrifice, 106.  See Jacob Milgrom, Studies in Levitical Terminology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), 5. Precisely the same usage continues, incidentally, in modern Hebrew, in the street sign stating ‫ רכב זר ייגרר‬,‫“( אין חניה‬No parking – a vehicle that is zar will be towed”). The vehicle is not inherently ‫ ;זר‬only its location makes it so, and if parked a few meters further up the street it would not be. The same is true of ‫ הזר הקרב‬in Num 1:51; 3:10, 38; 18:7; the individual in question, a few cubits back, was not ‫ זר‬at all. 42 43

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simple procedure.44 The presence of this oracular device inside the ‫חשן המשפט‬ (“the breastplate of judgment,” or “the pocket for the law,” Exod 28:30) suggests that according to P the device was used for judicial purposes, and perhaps also that it could be used for legislative purposes as well.

3. P’s Intellectual Style: System and Integration I have argued for the congruence between P’s theory of revelation and P’s understanding of the law as evolving within an implicit logic. This congruence is typical of the P document. Of course, the P authors were ancient Near Eastern thinkers; as such, they were innocent of the emphasis that Greek philosophers would put on articulating a central idea explicitly and then working out deductively what follows from the central idea.45 But in its own inductive way, P was self-consistent and architectonic in a manner that recalls the method of philosophical texts. To be sure, P does not begin by stating a governing principle and defining core terms. Instead, the priests seem, to our more systematic eyes, to tuck their theory of revelation away in Num 7:89. Similarly, P explains the very purpose of the exodus – and thus of the existence of the Israelite nation and of the tabernacle – quite in passing in Exod 29:46a: ‫וידעו כי אני ה׳ א־להיהם אשׁר הוצאתי‬ ‫“( אתם מארץ מצרים לשׁכני בתוכם‬And they shall know that I, Yhwh, am their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt so that I could dwell in their midst”). This principle is mentioned in what to us seems an odd place that P does not 44 The literature is vast; see esp. Shraga Bar-On, Lot-Casting, God, and Man in Jewish Literature from the Second Temple Period to the Renaissance (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2020), 96–105, 111–15 [Hebrew], who emphasizes that in P the strictly Priestly control of this mantic object serves as “a bureaucratic brake or moderating authority” (103) that limits the potentially disruptive effects of such an object. In other words, in non-priestly hands, an oracular mechanism can oppose tradition or provide a means to run around a tradition, but in P it the oracle is placed into the control of an institution committed to the tradition as a whole, so that whatever changes it might allow are likely to be organic rather than radical. 45 This is not to say that ancient Near Eastern thinkers had no abstract principles or postulates that guided their thought. But they tended not to articulate them. Nonetheless, ancient Near Eastern Listenwissenschaft is often guided by such postulates, which we can – are supposed to? – derive inductively. On such a use of Listenwissenschaft, see Jean Bottéro, Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning, and the Gods, trans. Zainab Bahrani and Marc Van De Mieroop (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 169–84, and, more generally, Marc Van De Mieroop, Philosophy Before the Greeks: The Pursuit of Truth in Ancient Babylonia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015). See also the valid remark of C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2017), 53: “The Jews [by which Lewis means ancient Israelites] were not, like the Greeks, an analytical and logical people; indeed, except the Greeks, no ancient peoples were.” See further on this theme, e. g., Othmar Keel, The Symbolism of the Biblical World: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Book of Psalms, trans. Timothy J. Hallett (New York: Seabury, 1978), 8–9, and Jonathan Klawans, Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple: Symbolism and Supersessionism in the Study of Ancient Judaism (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 20.

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highlight, but the principle makes sense of everything that has happened in P’s narrative, at least since the designation of Abraham and his progeny as significant to God, and much of what will later appear in P’s laws (whose goal, above all, is to maintain conditions that allow God to continue dwelling on earth amidst the Israelites). Similarly, while there is no formal definition of the principles behind the laws of murder in P, Moshe Greenberg points out that “a precise and adequate formulation of the jural postulate underlying the biblical law of homicide is found in Genesis 9:6 (a P verse): ‘Whoever sheds the blood of a man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God was man made.’”46 Again, the principle consistently governs a range of texts elsewhere in P (e. g., the law of capital punishment for murder in Lev 24:17), even though the principle is not highlighted by its textual placement. This sort of congruence between a postulate and the postulate’s practical implications can be seen even in cases where the postulate is never articulated at all. For example, P’s perception of divinity matches P’s manner of thinking about bodies, objects, and groups more generally. I have argued elsewhere that P’s God is not the fluid and shifting being found in J and E, present in many places, wrestling with a human here and standing outside a tent there, lurking at times in one humanoid body and at other times in several, while also abiding in wood and stone.47 Rather, P’s God is strictly delimited: Whereas for J and E God can have many bodies at a given moment, for P, God has only one body, the ‫כבוד‬.48 Priestly theology, then, resembles Priestly cosmogony, Priestly anthropology, and Priestly law: in all these, boundaries, their formation, and their maintenance are absolutely crucial. P’s emphasis on strict and clear distinctions is evident from the opening lines of the P document in Genesis 1, where creation consists first and foremost of dividing and setting limits – between light and dark, between water and land, between waters above and waters below. This tendency recurs throughout the P document. Israel is to imitate God by creating distinctions: between sacred times and normal times, between acceptable foods and unacceptable ones, between those who may stand closer to the ‫ כבוד‬and those who, in that particular location, would be out of place or ‫זר‬. P’s concern with the indivisibility of God’s body, furthermore, recalls P’s laws of sacrifice. A human who is not whole – that is, who has lost a limb – may not officiate as a priest (Lev 21:17–21); an animal who lost a limb may not function as an offering (Lev 1:3, 10; 3:1,6, etc.). A similar concern lies behind the terminology P chooses when discussing the fate of an Israelite who fails to make crucial distinctions, such as using priestly anointing oil on a non-priest, or eating a sacrificial meal while ritually 46 Moshe Greenberg, “Some Postulates of Biblical Criminal Law,” in Studies in the Bible and Jewish Thought (Philadelphia: JPS, 1995), 31. 47  Benjamin D. Sommer, The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 38–57. 48  Sommer, Bodies, 68–79.

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impure, or failing to remove blood from meat before eating it: the offending Israelite in these cases is “cut off ” (‫ ;נכרת‬see Exod 30:33, Lev 7:20, 17:14, etc.).49 The idiom reflects P’s concern with integrity. The ultimate punishment in P’s worldview is to cease to be part of a whole, to be located outside of the sphere one was intended to inhabit, to be in the wrong place. The Priestly authors, of course, are not unique among biblical writers in their tendency towards building well-structured and highly ramified ideational complexes; the same tendency can be seen in Deuteronomy and in the writings of Isaiah ben Amoṣ. But this proto-philosophical tendency is, I think, especially developed in the Priestly writings. It follows that we can legitimately say that the P authors speak, in their own concrete idiom, as theologians.50

49  Scholars have debated the precise meaning of this punishment in P, but the point I make stands regardless of how we define P’s metaphoric use of the term, which elsewhere involves limbs or trees rather than humans. To be “cut off ” is in some sense to cease to be part of a whole – whether because one has died (the least likely interpretation, it seems to me) or because one has no progeny (or one’s progeny die) so that one does not remain part of the nation in the long run (the most likely interpretation). On the term, its meaning, and its derivation, see especially Baruch Schwartz, The Holiness Legislation: Studies in the Priestly Code (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1999), 52–57 [Hebrew]. 50 Cf. Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 3A (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 42: “Theology is what Leviticus is all about.”

Intergenerational Punishment: A New History* Simeon Chavel Many works collected in the Hebrew Bible present Israel’s god as one who punishes children because of their parents, and entire generations because of their predecessors. Intergenerational punishment is an idea about how Yahweh holds people of Israel and Judea to account for certain offenses, be it the nation as a whole, specific groups within the nation, or individuals.1 Most writings that engage the idea present it positively, as a feature of godly greatness. Two later texts, though, present Judeans criticizing it and Yahweh responding to the criticism, at Jer 31 and Ezek 18. How did the idea that Yahweh behaves this way originate? Why did most writers see it as positive? How did some come to challenge it? And why, for over two thousand years, has it been so misunderstood – to the persistent denigration of Jews and Judaism?

* It is an honor and a pleasure to contribute this study in recognition of Baruch as a teacher, scholar, and friend. It brings together many of the thought-worlds he works in and many of the biblical texts he works on. This study enjoyed a gracious and rigorous hearing by Jessie DeGrado, Tzvi Abusch, David Wright, and the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, Brandeis University, Feb. 14, 2020. “P,” “J,” “E,” and “D” below are titles of literary works, never names of writers, editors, collectives, institutions, or sets of ideas. EBY = Eliezer Ben Yehuda, A Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew, ed. H. Ben Yehuda et al., 16 vols. (Tel Aviv: La’am Publishing House, 1948–1959); KB = Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros (Leiden: Brill, 1958); KBR = Ludwig Koehler, Walter Baumgartner, and J. J.  Stamm, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament: Study Edition, trans. and ed. M. E. J. Richardson; 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 2001); TDOT = Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, ed. G. Johannes Botterweck et al., trans. John T. Willis et al., 15 vols (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977–2006). Citations of MT, including versification, follow Aron Dotan, Biblia Hebraica Leningradensia (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2001). Jewish medieval commentators on the Torah are cited from M. L. Katzenelnbogen, The Torat Chaim Chumash, 7 vols. (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1993). 1  No writers have Yahweh instruct Israelites to behave this way in their practice of law and management of society. One has Yahweh prohibit it outright: ‫לא יומתו אבות על בנים ובנים לא יומתו‬ ‫( על אבות איש בחטאו יומתו‬Deut 24:16). When seen against traditional cases of poetic justice as found on Hammurabi’s monument (§§ 210, 230, in Martha T. Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997]), that prohibition appears to reject them as actual law rather than expressive works, though D has its own varieties of poetic justice (Deut 19:16–19; 25:11–12; compare Hammurabi §§ 192–197, 200, 205, 226, 253, 256, 282). At 2 Kgs 14:6, the narrator cites the principle to explain political clemency over expedience; the effect (1) casts the political sphere as family, (2) subordinates it to law, and (3) gives the principle a home, a scenario to which it applies. See too n. 38 below.

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The argument here makes six points.2 (1) The idea of intergenerational punishment rests on the idea of Yahweh’s patience and love; it imagines Yahweh to bear offense and manage it piecemeal over time.3 (2) The terms and concepts of intergenerational punishment come from the family sphere of life. They express the anxieties around family circumstances, a pressing issue at any given moment, and around family identity, which depends on longevity. In the old cliché, intergenerational accountability explains why bad things happen to good people. (3) Its application to the nation is a metaphorical extension, since nations do not have generations. If anything, it concerns social spheres: one group behaves one way and another suffers the consequence. (4) Criticism arose in the late NeoBabylonian period, when life in Judea had deteriorated grievously and Judeans felt Yahweh’s management to have gone awry. (5) The prophetic texts depicting this criticism give Yahweh opposite responses to it. In one he accepts it; in the other he rejects it. (6) By a certain point, in the Persian period, the conditions of family, society, and divinity that undergirded the ideas of intergenerational accountability ruptured by the Babylonians were reconfigured so as to produce a whole new set of ideas. Together, these six points make up a new history of the idea of intergenerational punishment. * Writers in the Hebrew Bible imagine the relationship between Yahweh and Israel in typological terms, through the social poetics of complex relationships of hierarchy and intimacy, like those between husband and wife, parent and child, and king and subject. As imagined, the superior party acts benevolently, graciously, with long-lasting love, while the subordinate party must always acknowledge, show appreciation, and be devoted and loyal. The subordinate who is disloyal, shows ingratitude, or fails to acknowledge offends the superior and warrants the speedy withdrawal of support and protection and exposure to poverty, abuse, illness, and death.

2  So many have written on the passages and topics below. Useful points of contrast are Joel S. Kaminsky, Corporate Responsibility in the Hebrew Bible (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995); Bernard M. Levinson, Legal Revision and Religious Renewal in Ancient Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 57–88; Joseph Lam, Patterns of Sin in the Hebrew Bible: Metaphor, Culture, and the Making of a Religious Concept (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). 3 The argument builds on Yochanan Muffs, “Who Will Stand in the Breach? A Study of Prophetic Intercession,” in Love and Joy: Law, Language and Religion in Ancient Israel (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992), 9–48, esp. 16–22; and Jacob Milgrom’s understanding of P, summarized by Baruch J. Schwartz, “The Bearing of Sin in Priestly Literature,” in Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom, ed. David P. Wright et al. (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1995), 3–21.

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A lyrical text in which the speaker calls for praising Yahweh shows the two sides: Ps 30:6

‫ כי רגע באפו‬but a flash in his anger ‫ חיים ברצונו‬long life in his pleasure

In a prophetic text, assumedly about Persian period Judea, Yahweh says: Isa 54:7–8

‫ ברגע קטן עזבתיך‬In the briefest flash I left you ‫ וברחמים גדלים אקבצך‬And with great love I will gather you in4 ‫ בשצף קצף הסתרתי פני רגע ממך‬In foaming fury I hid my face, in a flash, from you ‫ ובחסד עולם רחמתיך‬But with endless devotion I love you5

In D, Moses uses terms of emotion as in political and legal documents:6 Deut 7:9–10 ‫וידעת כי יהוה אלהיך הוא האלהים‬ ‫האל הנאמן‬ ‫שמר הברית והחסד‬ ‫לאהביו ולשמרי מצותיו לאלף דור‬

Know that Yahweh your god is the god the reliable god who keeps commitment and devotion for those who love him and keep his commands, for a thousand generations7 and who repays those who hate him, to his face, ‫ומשלם לשנאיו אל פניו להאבידו‬ destroying him;8

4 On

‫רח״ם‬, see S. David Sperling, “Biblical rḥm I and rḥm II,” JANES 19 (1989): 149–59. For the overlapping imagery of gathering together and gathering up in one’s arms, see Isa 40:11: ‫כרעה‬ ‫ עלות ינהל‬/ ‫ ובחיקו ישא‬/ ‫ בזרעו יקבץ טלאים‬/ ‫עדרו ירעה‬. 5  I understand ‫ חסד‬to be best represented by “devotion; expressions of devotion,” namely, the commitment and expression of loyalty generated internally comparable to that imposed externally. Compare Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, The Meaning of Hesed in the Hebrew Bible: A New Inquiry (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1978), 233–35; Carsten Ziegert, “What is ‫ ?חסד‬A FrameSemantic Approach,” JSOT 44 (2020): 711–32. Suffix-conjugation verbs (here ‫ )רחמתיך‬mark perfective aspect, not past tense; tense is determined by context. See Dennis Pardee, “The Biblical Hebrew Verbal System in a Nutshell,” in Language and Nature: Papers Presented to John Huehnergard on the Occasion of His 60th Birthday, ed. Rebecca Hasselbach and Na‘ama Pat-El (Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2012), 285–317. 6  William L. Moran, “The Ancient Near Eastern Background of the Love of God in Deute­ ronomy,” CBQ 25 (1963): 77–87; Muffs, Love and Joy, 121–93; Moshe Weinfeld, “Covenant Terminology in the Ancient Near East and its Influence on the West,” JAOS 93 (1973): 190–99; Zvi Henri Szubin and Bezalel Porten, “The Status of a Repudiated Spouse: A New Interpretation of Kraeling 7 (TAD B3.8),” Israel Law Review 35 (2001): 46–78. 7  I take the antecedent of “a thousand generations” (‫ )לאלף דור‬to be “who keeps” (‫)‏שמר‬. 8 I take the antecedent of “to his face” (‫ )אל פניו‬to be “who repays” (‫)ומשלם‬, despite the disagreement in number with “those who hate him” (‫ ;)לשנאיו‬see the next line. Arnold B. Ehrlich (Randglossen zur Hebräischen Bibel, 7 vols. [Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1968], 2:273) infers the

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Simeon Chavel

‫ לא יאחר לשנאו אל פניו ישלם לו‬he will not delay for the one who hates him; to his face he will repay him

Yahweh’s fierce passion (‫ )קנ״א‬for devotion – ardor tinged with jealousy – is a smoldering fire ever ready to explode.9 In D, Moses warns emphatically in one speech: Deut 4:24 ‫ כי יהוה אלהיך אש אכלה הוא אל קנא‬For Yahweh your god – a consuming fire is he! An ardent deity!

He says more expansively in another: Deut 6:15

‫ כי אל קנא יהוה אלהיך בקרבך‬For an ardent god is Yahweh your god in your midst ‫ פן יחרה אף יהוה אלהיך בך‬Lest the nose of Yahweh your god flare against you ‫ והשמידך מעל פני האדמה‬and he destroy you from the earth …!

In another work, Joshua warns the Israelites before he dies that Yahweh’s ardor precludes patience; if they betray him he will finish them off: Josh 24:19–20

‫ לא תוכלו לעבד את יהוה‬You cannot worship Yahweh ‫ אל קנוא הוא‬,‫ כי אלהים קדשים הוא‬Because he is an august god, he is an ardent god! ‫ לא ישא לפשעכם ולחטאותיכם‬He will not put up with your treachery and your offenses ‫ כי תעזבו את יהוה…וכלה אתכם‬If you leave (off minding) Yahweh … he will finish you off !

Writers throughout the Hebrew Bible deploy this idea.10

connotation “immediately.” Accidental or planned, the line creates a steady shift from the plurals of the previous line to the singular of the next.  9  On ‫קנ״א‬, see Erin L. Guinn-Villareal, Biblical Hebrew QIN’Â and the Maintenance of Social Integrity in Ancient Israelite Literature (Ph.D. diss.; Johns Hopkins University, 2018); compare KB, 842–43, s. v. ‫ § קנא‬5, where the right nuance is applied only to an unwarranted emendation of Ruth 4:5 from MT ‫ קניתי‬to ‫קנאתי‬. 10 See Deut 32:16–21, which pairs ‫ קנ״א‬with ‫ ;כע״ס‬also 4:23–26; Exod 34:14, which echoes Deut 4:24 and Exod 20:3–5/Deut 5:7–9 (following implications of Shimon Gesundheit, Three Times a Year: Studies on Festival Legislation in the Pentateuch, FAT 82 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012], 12–43). Note the coordination of ‫ קנ״א‬with destruction elsewhere: 2 Sam 21:2 (spurring ‫ ;)נכ״ה‬Isa 11:11–16 (paired with ‫ ;)צר״ר‬also 1 Kgs 19:1–18, in which Elijah’s ‫( קנ״א‬vv. 10, 14) leads Yahweh to a violent purge (vv. 15–18). Following Baruch J. Schwartz (“Ezekiel’s Dim View of Israel’s Restoration,” in The Book of Ezekiel – Theological and Anthropological Perspectives, ed. Margaret S. Odell and John T. Strong [Atlanta: SBL, 2000], 43–67), compare Ezek 29:25, where Yahweh’s ‫ קנ״א‬for his name leads him to restore Jacob after destroying the great world powers.

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In P, Yahweh readies to destroy a large group or the whole nation in a flash and warns Moses and Aaron to take cover: Num 17:10

‫ הרמו מתוך העדה הזאת‬Back away from this crew ‫ ואכלה אתם כרגע‬And I will finish them off in a flash!11

Speed here does not measure the time between offense and reaction, but the totality of the reaction.12 Time-to-reaction does feature in a text that illustrates just how cognizant the writers were that they looked to human models – hierarchical ones – to understand Yahweh. A bit of sage advice pairs god and king to warn of the blinding speed of their time to reaction, which crosses quickly into unpredictability: Prov 24:21–22 ‫ירא את יהוה בני ומלך‬ ]‫עם [שניהם] אל [תתעבר‬ ‫כי פתאם יקום אידם‬ ‫ופיד שניהם מי יודע‬

Beware Yahweh, my son, and king With both, do not grow angry13 For of a sudden occurs their devastation and the destruction by both who can foreknow?

In this view of the world, every breach of the superior’s rules and regulations, of the order imposed on the household, should earn immediate isolation, banishment, and death. But how, then, could anyone survive? No one, after all, is perfect (Qoh 7:20). The problem appears in works as diverse as P, which worries about accidental offenses and unknown ones (Lev 4–5); Ps 19, in which the speaker begs Yahweh to free him of their grip (vv. 13–14); and Job, which makes of it a conundrum of the impossible: imagine a definitely flawless man who suffers – what would he, his neighbors, and Yahweh say and do? Some biblical writers answer the problem with loving patience. The superior bears a certain amount of disorder, impertinence, or forgetfulness. Israel lives between the passion and compassion of their god. 11  The same occurs at Num 16:21. In my analysis, an editor wrote vv. 20–24, 26–27a to combine E’s brief scene (vv. 12–14, 25, 27b–34) and P’s extensive compounded ones. 12 In Ps 6, the speaker concludes by invoking the sudden and complete end of their nemeses (v. 11): ‫ ישבו יבשו רגע‬/ ‫יבשו ויבהלו מאד כל איבי‬. That in these instances ‫ רגע‬and related terms connote speed as a quality of anger (“in an instant”), not a limit on its duration (“for a moment”), see David Daube, The Sudden in the Scriptures (Leiden: Brill, 1964), 1–12; KB, 874 ‫ § רגע‬4 (the reference to post-biblical Hebrew usage “move to and fro” may explain best the full semantic range, since it can comprise both stroking to calm and stoking to flare up). Compare EBY, 6433b–34b (with rabbinic lore calculating the length of a ‫ ;)רגע‬Tryggve Kronholm, “‫רגע‬,” TDOT 13:326–29; KBR, 1188a–89. 13  Emending MT ‫ שונים‬and ‫( תתערב‬Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 10–31, AYB 18B [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009], 751–52). For explicit equation of god and king, see Mal 1:6–14; for some of its social poetics, see (following many others) Simeon Chavel, “The Face of God and the Etiquette of Eye Contact: Visitation, Pilgrimage, and Prophetic Vision in Ancient Israelite and Early Jewish Imagination,” JSQ 19 (2012): 1–55.

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And so in E, Yahweh has Moses warn the Israelites not to cross his agent (‫)מלאך‬ who will lead them to Canaan, for “he will not put up with your treachery” ‫לא ישא‬ ‫( לפשעכם‬Exod 23:20–21). Forty days later (24:18b) they violate Yahweh’s cardinal rule not to use sculpted objects with precious metals (20:18–22; 32:1–8, 15–24). Certain Yahweh means to react, Moses challenges him to “bear their offense,” ‫תשא חטאתם‬, or destroy Moses too (32:30–32).14 Yahweh agrees to calm down, punish now those who helped make the sculpture, and continue as planned; but, he warns, a second offense will call this one to mind, and those who worshipped it will suffer (vv. 33–35):15 Exod 32:34

‫ וביום פקדי‬The day I (am forced to) take note, ‫ ופקדתי עליהם חטאתם‬I will note against them this offense of theirs.16

14 This summary presumes that “erasing from [Yahweh’s] book” (Exod 32:32–33) is an idiom

for destroying and not something additional. The root ‫ חט״א‬seems to me best conceived materially as “stain” (a visual concept), especially because of D-stem “sprinkle,” which always removes something unwanted, namely, de-stains and restores visual purity. Compare Lam, Patterns of Sin, 2–6 (an important argument, though one I think flawed, that the concept “sin” precedes the various expressions – cognitive metaphors – that aim to communicate it); idem, “On the Etymology of Biblical Hebrew ‫חטאת‬: A Contribution to the ‘Sin Offering’ vs. ‘Purification Offering’ Debate,” JSS 65 (2020): 325–46, esp. 334–35, 344–45. (“Stain” leaves open whether the term ‫ חטאת‬refers to what prompts the offering or what it accomplishes.) 15 Note ‫ עש״ה‬at 32:35 and throughout 20:18–22 (also 20:3), rather than ‫ חו״י‬or ‫( עב״ד‬20:4). (On ‫ חו״י‬see Chaim Cohen, “The Saga of a Unique Verb in Biblical Hebrew and Ugaritic: ‫השתחוה‬ ‘to Bow Down’ – Usage and Etymology,” in Textures and Meaning: Thirty Years of Judaic Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, ed. L. Ehrlich et al. [Amherst: Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2004], 322–41.) 16 Dictionaries and lexical studies show what a problem ‫ פק״ד‬poses. The dictionaries confusingly index highly context-specific connotations and implications as denotations. G. André, “‫פקד‬,” TDOT 12.50–63, and KBR, 955–57, consider the base meaning of ‫ פק״ד‬obscure, go in difficult directions, and create odd entries; they confuse extensional and intensional descriptions and do not have limits for the intensional. The “corpus-driven cognitive semantics” study by Jeremy Thompson and Kristopher Lyle (“A Behavioral Profile Analysis of Biblical Hebrew ‫פקד‬: Quantitative Explorations of Polysemy,” in Ancient Texts and Modern Readers: Studies in Ancient Hebrew Linguistics and Biblical Translations, ed. Gideon R. Katzé et al. [Leiden: Brill, 2019], 127–48) reveals what an outlier “visit; visit upon, inflict, punish” in particular is among the other meanings and illustrates how it leads to forced analysis. Stuart Creason’s (“PQD Revisited,” in Studies in Semitic and Afroasiatic Linguistics Presented to Gene B. Gragg, ed. Cynthia L. Miller [Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2007], 27–42) meaning, “to put in place, systemically speaking,” treats ‫ פק״ד‬as a technical administrative term that penetrated non-administrative use widely, which leads to many forced interpretations. Lam (Patterns of Sin, 127–43) follows Creason, and argues that for cases of sin it refers to (the specific scenario of ) keeping accounts (as a cognitive metaphor) and where sin seems implied it is an idiom (“lexicalized”) for “punish.” But as Ben Yehuda’s survey makes clear (EBY, 5092–5096), the verbal idea of ‫ פק״ד‬is fundamentally one of cognition, “to take note, call to mind, recall, consider, give attention to, focus on; count, list, designate” (so too Ephraim A. Speiser, “Census and Ritual Expiation in Mari and Israel,” BASOR 149 [1958]: 17–25, and others); its varied contexts do not so much give it or indicate for it new meanings (denotations), as imply the mood or effect of noticing,

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Possibly, the idea of restraint and deferral assumes that anger dissipates with time, for when Israelites worship Baal Peor, Moses has the worshippers killed and Yahweh seems satisfied (Num 23:1a, 3a, 5).17 J has a more complex set of ideas.18 Yahweh rescues the Israelites from Egypt and brings them to Mount Sinai where they can view him, and his acts of benevolence and intimacy, but they give shocking offense. J has a gap here, but judging by Yahweh’s repeated warnings against approaching him (19:10–13, 20– 25; 34:2–3) and his restrictions on the leaders while Moses reascends (34:3 vs. 24:1–2, 9), the people rushed the mountain to gawk at Yahweh, get near him, and maybe touch him.19 Moses persuades Yahweh neither to destroy the Israelites and start over with Moses, nor to establish extra distance from them. Looking ahead, he also moves Yahweh to reveal his characteristics, what calms him, and this turns out to be a formula of Yahweh’s divine-caliber love, calm, and restraint: Exod 34:6–7

‫ יהוה יהוה אל רחום וחנון‬Yahweh, O Yahweh, a god suffused with love and graciousness,

etc. (connotations) – which includes “note what is missing” (“miss”) or “be noticed for being absent” (“be missing”). ‫ פק״ד‬can have a direct object, “note, consider X;” an indirect object with preposition ‫על‬, “consider, with respect to, relevance for, effect on Y;” and both, “note, consider X, with respect to, relevance for, effect on Y.” In clauses with both when the direct object is “offense,” the meaning should be “note/recall offense, with respect to Y,” and the context will determine that respect. For denotation, connotation, extension, intension, and other lexicographical concepts, see Hadumod Bussman, Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics, trans. and ed. Gregory P. Trauth and Kerstin Kazzazi (London: Routledge, 1996); David Crystal, A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, 6th ed. (Malden: Blackwell, 2008). 17  See too 1 Kgs 21:29. By contrast, given the thrust of the episode at 2 Kgs 20:11–19, Hezekiah’s remark at v. 19 seems designed to make him look callous. At Ps 109:14–15, the speaker petitions Yahweh to recall fully, with all due outrage, the offensiveness of the speaker’s enemy’s predecessors, precisely to bring about the enemy’s total ruin and final end: ‫ וחטאת‬/ ‫‏יזכר עון אבתיו אל יהוה‬ ‫ ויכרת מארץ זכרם‬/ ‫ יהיו נגד יהוה תמיד‬/ ‫אמו אל תמח‬. Similarly, at Jer 23:24 ‫ופקדתי על האיש ההוא ועל‬ ‫ ;ביתו‬36:31 ‫ופקדתי עליו ועל זרעו ועל עבדיו את עונם‬, Yahweh refers to affecting the household and the extended family, respectively. Regarding Num 25:1–15, J comprises vv. 1b–2, 3b–4; P begins at v. 6, which follows 22:1 directly (vague settings and abrupt beginnings occur elsewhere in P, e. g., Lev 24:10; Num 15:32). 18  Exod 32:9–14 (originally, probably after v. 29), 25a, 26–29, 30 (‫ ;)ויהי ממחרת‬33:1, 3–6 (until ‫)עדים‬, 12–23; 34:2–3, 4 (‫)וישכם משה בבקר ויעל אל הר סיני כאשר צוה יהוה אתו‬, 5–9. Compare Baruch J. Schwartz, “The Priestly Account of the Theophany and Lawgiving at Sinai,” in Texts, Temples, and Traditions: A Tribute to Menahem Haran, ed. Michael V. Fox et al. (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1996), 103–34, esp. 120–29; “On the Binding Status of the Mitzvot: The Legal Grundnorm and its Rationale in the Torah’s Tradition,” Shnaton Ha-Mishpat Ha-Ivri: Annual of the Institute for Research in Jewish Law 21 (1998–2000): 241–65, at 256–57 [Hebrew]. On 33:2, 6, see Joel S. Baden, “On Exodus 33,1–11,” ZAW 124 (2012): 329–40. 19 Simeon Chavel, Oracular Law and Priestly Historiography in the Torah, FAT II/71 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 82–83; for the social poetics at play in this reconstruction see Chavel, “The Face of God.” Yahweh’s use of space (and the public’s finery) to demarcate his person is consistent with the concern for his recognized singularity that leads him to Abram, and the deal he makes with him, in the early scenes of J (Gen 2–12).

292

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‫ ארך אפים ורב חסד ואמת‬calm and of great true devotion,20 ‫ נצר חסד לאלפים‬who treasures devotion for thousands (of generations),21 ‫ נשא עון ופשע וחטאה ונקה לא ינקה‬who bears corruption and treachery and offense,22 and (as for) cleansing he does not cleanse,23 ‫ פקד עון אבות על בנים ועל בני בנים על‬who notes the corruption of fathers against sons ‫ שלשים ועל רבעים‬and grandsons, third generations and fourths.

The statement reflects a material, embodied notion of sin and how it affects human and god. Obnoxious behavior is noxious; rotten behavior produces rot. As Schwartz puts it: “Throughout the biblical literature, transgressions, once committed, are often objectified. They are depicted not as past events or actions but rather as odious, foul objects that come into present existence.”24 In today’s idiom (‫)כדאמרי אינשי‬, a person can “be toxic.” In biblical literature, toxicity depresses, accumulates, and crushes (Ezek 4:4–8; Ps 31:11; 38:5), exhausts and demands exertion (Isa 43:24), disfigures and makes miserable (Isa 52:13–53:12), and causes rotting and groaning (Lev 26:39; Ezek 4:17; 24:23; 33:10).25 The associations make up a single set anchored in people’s somatic and 20  ‫“ ארך אפים‬long of face/nose” indicates a relaxed, calm face; compare ‫“ חרון אף‬flaring nose/ face.” See Mayer I. Gruber, Aspects of Nonverbal Communication in the Ancient Near East, Studia Pohl 12 (Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1980), 480–553. I understand ‫ חסד ואמת‬as a hendiadys, in which the second noun qualifies the first. 21  Namely, he repays human devotion by never forgetting it. 22  Each of the terms characterizes person-to-person misbehavior; therefore, rendering any of them by English “sin,” a term for human misbehavior towards the divine or from the divine perspective, is misleading. 23 Regarding “cleanse,” see below. On the infinitive absolute followed by cognate finite verb, see Gideon Goldenberg, “Tautological Infinitive,” Israel Oriental Studies 1 (1971): 36–85, esp. 66, 76–77. With negation, it means the action does not occur at all; see Lev 7:24; Num 23:25; Deut 21:14; Judg 15:13; 1 Kgs 3:27; Isa 30:19; Jer 6:15 (= 8:12); 11:12; 23:32; Ezek 20:32; also Amos 3:5; Jer 13:12 (rhetorical questions). It cannot mean that the action occurs but not completely; contra Cornelis Houtman, Exodus, HCOT; 4 vols. (Kampen: Kok, 1993–2002) 3:706–709; Lam, Patterns of Sin, 32. 24 “Bearing of Sin,” 7; also “‘Term’ or Metaphor? Biblical ‫חטא‬/‫פשע‬/‫נשא עון‬,” Tarbiz 63 (1994/1995): 149–71 [Hebrew], which exposes a scholarly tradition of a philology of convenience supported by that pernicious idea, the “ancient Hebrew mind” (157–62). 25  In Ezekiel, Ezekiel must mime being depressed and crushed. In Isaiah, people know their toxic behavior physically affects those who are especially loyal to Yahweh. In P, following Yahweh’s rules protects vitality; diverging from them – toxic behavior – ruins it (e. g., Lev 18:5, 29–30). Works as disparate as P and Ps 82 express the idea that toxic behavior poisons and rots the world (Gen 6:11–12; Ps 82:2–5); in P toxic behavior also ruins a particular section of it (Lev 18:24–28). See Baruch J. Schwartz, The Holiness Legislation: Studies in the Priestly Code (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1999), 151–55, 222–37 [Hebrew]. I italicize the titles of biblical books, because roman type creates the illusion that they are not literature. In the case of books named for the main character, especially the prophetic books, roman type facilitates and reinscribes the confusion between writer and character and whether the character is known to have said such speeches and done such things in real life. For example, scholars commonly attribute the ideas

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psychological experiences of the infected dying and the rotting dead.26 Like a device that registers the presence of contaminants, Yahweh, the source of life, with his divine-caliber senses registers toxicity, and it affects him.27 Majesty that he is, he ought to remove it quickly and completely, an action denoted by D ‫נק״י‬, cleansing physically, like ‫“ כל״י‬finishing (off )” – not pardoning and forgiving emotionally or clearing a “state” of sin and a reputation. Such cleansing and removal entails eradicating the toxic person, but Yahweh, a life-giving, life-loving god, “does not cleanse” (‫)נקה לא ינקה‬.28 Instead, he bears (‫ )נש״א‬toxicity, and with each generation he notes (‫ )פק״ד‬it again and cleanses a bit of it.29 In familiar if in the prophetic books to the main characters, even when the literature is clear and explicit that the characters do not initiate those ideas, just transmit them from Yahweh. This confusion is all the more fundamental to Ezekiel. 26  Contra Gary A. Anderson, Sin: A History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010); Lam, Patterns of Sin. On somatics and psychology, with respect to impurity and disgust, see Yitzhaq Feder, “Defilement and Moral Discourse in the Hebrew Bible: An Evolutionary Framework,” Journal of Cognitive Historiography 3 (2016): 157–89; Thomas Kazen, Issues of Impurity in Early Judaism (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2010), 13–40; “Disgust in Body, Mind, and Language: The Case of Impurity in the Hebrew Bible,” in Mixed Feelings and Vexed Passions: Exploring Emotions in Biblical Literature, ed. F. Scott Spencer (Atlanta: SBL, 2017), 97–115 (additional bibliography at 97 n. 1). 27 Note the difference from Jacob Milgrom’s idea that in P impurity is attracted to the holy and “penetrates” the Tabernacle’s spaces (“Israel’s Sanctuary: The Priestly ‘Picture of Dorian Gray,’” RB 83 [1976]: 390–99). Rather, toxicity emanates everywhere and divine sensitivity – of divinely crafted objects too – registers it (the way mold appears on objects and affects people through sight and smell). This view answers Schwartz’s question, “How can an object, even a metaphysical one such as an objectified sin, be in two places at once?” (“Bearing of Sin,” 19). 28 Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, trans. and ed. Michael Schwarz; 2 vols. (TelAviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 2003), pt. 1 § 54, 1.134 [Hebrew]. At Jer 30:11; 46:28, Yahweh distinguishes between the nations, whom ‫“ אעשה כלה‬I will finish off,” and Jacob, whom ‫לא אעשה כלה‬ “I will not finish off,” then adds about Jacob, ‫“ ויסרתיך למשפט ונקה לא אנקך‬I will discipline you as warranted but cleansing I will not do” (like 2 Sam 7:14–15). Joel 4:21 ‫ ונקיתי דמם לא נקיתי‬has an independent clause followed by an asyndetic relative clause, “I will cleanse their blood (that) I did not cleanse” (Isaiah di Trani), and the relative clause refers to the violence by Egypt and Edom in Judea at v. 19 (Rashi); see Menachem Cohen, Mikra’ot Gedolot ‘Haketer’: The Twelve Minor Prophets [Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2012], 94–95). In a standard extension, D ‫נק״י‬ can denote “consider cleansed” (Exod 20:6/Deut 5:10; Ps 19:13–14). In practice, this can overlap with N ‫“ נק״י‬be considered clean; be cleared” (Jer 25:29; 49:12). Contra G. Warmuth, “‫נקה‬,” TDOT 9.553–563. D ‫ כפ״ר‬denotes wiping or removing without destroying (Milgrom, “Israel’s Sanctuary”); therefore it can refer to smoothing a frowning or grimacing face (Gen 32:21). G and N ‫מח״י‬, a frictionless process, can go either way: “offense” is rinsed beneficially (Isa 25:8; 43:25; Jer 18:23; Ps 51:3, 11; see Prov 30:20), but a name, person, group, or object is flushed and erased entirely (Gen 7:4, 23; Exod 17:14; Deut 29:19; Judg 21:17; Ezek 6:6). At Kgs 21:13, Yahweh uses ‫ מח״י‬to compare erasing Jerusalem with rinsing a dish. The material idea of offense and painful cleansing continues, or resurfaces, deep in Jewish sources. For example, following Talmudic lore (b. Ber. 17a; b. Yoma 87b [text and variants: https://bavli.genizah.org/]), the individual’s prayer on Yom Kippur concludes, ‫ומה שחטאתי לפניך מרוק ברחמיך הרבים אבל לא על ידי יסורין וחלאים רעים‬ (e. g. Parma 2581, fol. 13, 13th–14th c. France, https://web.nli.org.il/). 29  The long-lived view that ‫ נשא עון‬and ‫ נק״י‬denote forgiveness – Lam (Patterns of Sin, 28– 29) explains ‫ נשא עון‬as lexicalized – has Yahweh saying one thing (he forgives) and its opposite

294

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misleading legal terms, Yahweh does not compound punishment; he fractions it and parcels it out.30 This way causes misfortune to later generations, and it will feel disproportionate to their own behavior, but Yahweh does not destroy and the people as a whole will endure. Yahweh teaches Moses to remind him not to cleanse fully, because he does not actually want the result. Later on in J,31 Israelite spies return from Canaan with a pessimistic report, and the Israelites bemoan their doom. As at Sinai, Yahweh tells Moses he will decimate the Israelites by plague and start over with Moses. As at Sinai, Moses says that would be self-defeating. As he learned at Sinai, Moses calls on Yahweh to exercise his characteristic self-restraint (‫)כח‬:32 Num 14:17–19 ‫ ועתה יגדל נא כח אדני כאשר דברת לאמר‬Now then, let my Lord’s restraint grow, just as you said, ‫“ ״יהוה ארך אפים ורב חסד‬Yahweh, patient and of great devotion, ‫ נשא עון ופשע ונקה לא ינקה‬who bears corruption and treachery, and (as for) cleansing, he does not cleanse, ‫ פקד עון אבות על בנים על שלשים ועל רבעים״‬who notes the corruption of fathers against sons, thirds and fourths” ‫ סלח נא לעון העם הזה כגדל חסדך‬please forgive this nation’s corruption as befits your great devotion ‫ וכאשר נשאתה לעם הזה ממצרים ועד הנה‬and just as you have borne for this nation from Egypt all the way here.

Sure enough, Yahweh forgives just as Moses told him to. In this case that means that the generation of offenders will die slowly enough, naturally, so their children replace them and enter Canaan. In these scenes, the logic of the scene and the flow of the discourse dictate that the entire statement calms Yahweh by reminding him of his great patience, (he does not), and has led to forced and confused interpretation. Moreover, taking the abstract idea “forgiveness” as a natural, default one that speakers and writers of Hebrew had trouble articulating (hence the cognitive metaphors) is belied by the history of “forgiveness,” “absolution,” “pardon,” “atonement,” and their related verbs, for they all developed from different specific, concrete meanings and scenarios – in different languages – into a shared abstract idea (see the Oxford English Dictionary Online, Oxford University Press, December 2021, www. oed.com). In so many instances of ‫נשא עון‬, “bearing, putting up with corruption” fits as well as “forgive.” Other writers speak of Yahweh avoiding offense (Ps 51:11; Mic 7:18; compare Prov 19:11, where it parallels keeping calm) or shielding himself from it (Ps 32:1; 85:3; Neh 3:37; compare Prov 10:12; 17:9). H ‫ עב״ר‬with “corruption” as direct object denotes removing offense; two writers portray this as easy (Job 7:21), as simple even as removing clothing (Zech 3:4), while a third involves extreme violence (2 Sam 12:10–14). At 2 Sam 24:10–13, it is unclear whether Yahweh fulfills David’s request or ignores it. 30  Compare Rashi; Hizzequni. 31  Num 13:17b–20, 22–24, 26 (‫)ויראום את פרי הארץ‬, 27–31, 33; 14:1 (‫)ויבכו העם בלילה ההוא‬, 11– 25, 39–44. See Joel S. Baden, The Composition of the Pentateuch: Renewing the Documentary Hypothesis, AYBRL (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 79–80. 32  Rashi; Ibn Ezra; Muffs, “Who Will Stand in the Breach?” 21.

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including the part typically called “intergenerational punishment.” To remind Yahweh at this point that it is his psychological make-up to pardon and forgive but only partially would be self-defeating. Rather, Moses discusses cleansing; he reminds Yahweh not to cleanse instantly, in a flash, but over time.33 This analysis warrants revisiting the puzzling text at Exod 20:2–6 in E.34 Yahweh prohibits both acknowledging other gods and making images to represent him; he characterizes himself as a most ardent god, ‫אל קנא‬, then states that he handles toxicity over generations and recalls loyalty for generations. ‫ כי אנכי יהוה אלהיך אל קנא‬For I Yahweh your god am an ardent god ‫ פקד עון אבת על בנים על שלשים ועל רבעים‬Who notes the corruption of fathers against sons, thirds and fourths ‫ לשנאי‬for those who spurn me ‫ ועשה חסד לאלפים‬And who does devotedly for thousands (of generations) ‫ לאהבי ולשמרי מצותי‬for those who love me and keep my commandments

The sequence, a statement of ardency followed by two participial clauses, ‫פקד‬ (“who notes”), etc. and ‫“( ועשה‬and who does”), etc., has suggested to readers for millennia that Yahweh’s ardor entails long memory and compounded reactions. Instead of punishing corruption for one generation, the offender alone, he punishes four generations; and instead of rewarding one generation, the loyal person, he rewards endlessly. However, according to the texts reviewed and the ideas delineated, Yahweh’s enflamed ardor eradicates immediately not over time, so that distributing punishment over a few generations represents his generosity just like recalling devotion forever does. The characterization at Exod 20:5–6, then, does not illustrate volcanic ardor erupting in waves over generations in the face of worship of other gods or worship with images; it expresses compassionate restraint. In that case, it seems inappropriate to the context altogether. Notably, it closely resembles the compassion formula in J – in reverse order, like an inverted quotation. If the characterization comes from J, where it indicates compassion and interrupts the sentiment Yahweh is expressing, then, likely, a writer drawing on J inserted it here. The effect is that just as Yahweh raises the image of a disloyal Israel and declares himself dangerously ardent, he reminds himself of his patience.35 33  Similarly, at Jer 30:10–11 (as throughout vv. 3–26) Yahweh emphasizes his punishment of Jacob’s oppressors and his rescue of Jacob; a concluding warning or reminder that he will not clear Jacob of wrongdoing cuts the wrong way. So too at Jer 46:27–28 (within vv. 1–28). 34  That the text at 20:1–13 is an insertion into E, see Simeon Chavel, “A Kingdom of Priests and its Earthen Altars in Exodus 19–24,” VT 65 (2015) 169–222, esp. 190 n. 75. 35  For another speaker switching addressee mid-sentence, see Song 1:2. Relatedly, the speaker changes mid-sentence at Gen 9:6b and Lev 10:10–11, where the narrator completes Yahweh’s

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Simeon Chavel

The insertion also includes an opposition between “hate” (‫ )שנ״א‬and “love” and “keeping commandments” (‫ שמ״ר מצות‬+ ‫)אה״ב‬, which the compassion formula in J does not have. The opposition occurs in one of Moses’s speeches in D, where it serves the distinction between immediate decimation and eternal devotion (Deut 7:9–10). The effect of including this opposition has Yahweh consider worthy of incredible forbearance even those who hate him by worshipping offensively.36 In a combined Torah, the insertion at Exod 20:5–6 portrays Yahweh doing exactly what he will teach Moses later (34:6–7), after the Israelites disloyally make an image out of precious metals and declare it their god (32:1–8) and Yahweh’s ardor flares; it back-fills a precedent.37 Just such an insertion about compassionate restraint into a description of divine terror occurs at Nah 1:2–11 too. The speaker describes Yahweh as ardent (‫)אל קנוא‬, of fiery anger (‫ חמתו נתכה כאש‬,‫ חרון אפו‬,‫ זעמו‬,‫)בעל חמה‬, who finishes off (‫ כלה הוא עשה‬,‫)כלה יעשה‬. In the middle, an interrupting remark cuts the other way, counter-asserting Yahweh’s compassionate patience – with J’s distinctive use of “power” (‫ )כח‬for self-restraint: ‫( יהוה ארך אפים וגדל כח ונקה לא ינקה‬v. 3a).38

speech, and at Isa 10:12a, where a prophetic quoting voice inserts a dependent temporal clause into Yahweh’s speech (though ‫ אדני‬could be an ancient miscorrection of ‫)אשור‬. 36  That Yahweh’s speech at Exod 20:1–13 attracted interpolation from elsewhere in the Torah in ways that give the reused text new meaning, see e. g. Jeffrey H. Tigay, “Conflation as a Redactional Technique,” in Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism, ed. Jeffrey H. Tigay (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2005 [1985]), 53–96, at 78–83; Jeffrey Stackert, “How the Priestly Sabbaths Work: Innovation in Pentateuchal Priestly Ritual,” in Ritual Innovation in the Hebrew Bible and Early Judaism, ed. Nathan MacDonald, BZAW 468 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016), 79–111, at 85–88, esp. 86 n. 14. 37  For more back-filling, compare 1 Sam 25:1 with 28:3; Exod 11:2–3 with 12:35–36 (on which see the contribution of Joel Baden to this volume); Exod 12:34, 39 with 13:3–10; and 2 Kgs 14:6 with 2 Kgs 22–23, which illustrates that Judean kings knew the “scroll of Moses’s teaching” and implies that Ahaz willfully ignored it, Hezekiah lived by it, and Manasseh actively suppressed it (dooming his son Amon), before Josiah rediscovered it and championed it. 38 A late Iron Age inscription inside a Judean cave (Bet Lei, Inscription B) may say, ‫פקד יה אל‬ ‫חנן נקה יה יהוה‬, which may recall the phrases in J (Patrick D. Miller, “Psalms and Inscriptions,” in Congress Volume, Vienna 1980, ed. J. A. Emerton, VTSup 32 [Leiden: Brill, 1981], 311–32, at 328– 32). But the absence of ‫( עון‬or any object), the parallelism of ‫ פקד‬and ‫נקה‬, the other inscriptions in the cave, and the cave’s ostensible use as a hideaway all give the inscription a different topic and sense: the writer seeks to be (or has been) noticed and treated as clean, namely, worthy of rescue. In any case, the reading is unlikely. See diverging epigraphic, contextual, and historical analyses in Johannes Renz and Wolfgang Röllig, Handbuch der althebräischen Epigraphik, 3 vols. (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1995) 1:242–50; Ziony Zevit, The Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches (London: Continuum, 2001) 405–37; Alice Mandell and Jeremy Smoak, “Reconsidering the Function of Tomb Inscriptions in Iron Age Judah: Khirbet Beit Lei as a Test Case,” JANER 16 (2016): 192–245; Jody E. Washburn, Iron Age Cave Inscriptions from the Southern Shephelah: An Integrative Study of the Beit Lei and el-Qôm Inscriptions (Ph.D. dissertation; University of California Los Angeles, 2016), esp. 72–78, 135–39, 172–74, 203–204, 225–28, 229–46; idem, “The Family Tomb as an Inscribed Artifact: Toward and Integrative Analysis of the Beit Lei Inscriptions,” Maarav 23 (2019): 93–113.

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Psalm 103 articulates the ideas and expressions of both Exod 33–34 and 20. A speaker begins by instructing themself (v. 1 ‫ וכל קרבי‬/ ‫ )נפשי‬to praise Yahweh. After speaking generally about Yahweh’s loving care (vv. 2–6), the speaker invokes the scene in J at Exodus 33–34 and rephrases it to describe Yahweh as one who shared his ways with Moses and Israel (v. 7 ‫ לבני ישראל עלילתיו‬/ ‫ יודיע דרכיו למשה‬// Exod 33:13 ‫)הודעני נא את דרכך…וראה כי עמך הגוי הזה‬, which are compassion, patience, and devotion (v. 8 ‫ רחום וחנון יהוה ארך אפים ורב חסד‬// Exod 34:6 ‫יהוה יהוה אל רחום‬ ‫)וחנון ארך אפים ורב חסד ואמת‬. Next, precisely where Yahweh expressed cleansing gradually (Exod 34:7), the speaker describes dissipating anger and reduced payback (vv. 9–10) and characterizes these as: a triumph of devotion (v. 11), keeping treachery at bay (v. 12), a parent’s melted heart (v. 13), and compassion for the doomed and the fragile (vv. 14–16). Capturing Yahweh’s complete statement in J, the speaker sums up with “eternal devotion” and “virtuous behavior to descendants” (v. 17 ‫ וצדקתו לבני בנים‬/ …‫)חסד…מעולם ועד עולם‬. Deftly adapting the language at Exod 20:5–6 (‫)‏לשנאי…לאהבי ולשמרי מצותי‬, the speaker closes by identifying the descendants as casual sinners who are loyal to Yahweh (v. 18 ‫לשמרי‬ ‫)בריתו ולזכרי פקדיו לעשותם‬, which implicitly distinguishes them from those who really spurn him. * In the influential texts reviewed above, the formula of Yahweh’s patience applies to Israel as a whole, but two aspects show the formula’s origin to be family life. First of all, the language of fathers, children, grandchildren, third generation, and fourth comes from individual family lines and is appropriate only to them. It applies to wider levels of society only by metaphorical extension. Secondly, in the Hebrew Bible reference to seeing third and fourth generations signals a blessed individual, like Joseph, Job, and, by way of foreknowledge, King Jehu.39 If the formula for divine patience referred originally and primarily to family life and expressed that perspective, it shows that Israelians and Judeans saw Yahweh as essential to the health, happiness, and longevity of family lines. Namely, he was not exclusively or mainly a royal or national god of heroic character such that for local needs they had to turn elsewhere, but one whom families besought and trusted for their basic life-cycle. Notably, the formula does not invoke national heroics or royal patronage. People invoked Yahweh in a familial or local guise, which accords markedly with the invocations of him on pots, amulets, cave walls, and sherds in funerary and other spaces and in the inventory of personal names throughout the Iron Age.40 39 Gen 50:22–23; Job 42:16; 2 Kgs 10:30, respectively; also 2 Kgs 15:12. See the playful evocation regarding ‘Abdon son of Hillel of Pir‘aton: ‫( ויהי לו ארבעים בנים ושלשים בני בנים‬Judg 12:14). 40  Other expressions of the idea that Yahweh attends to families individually occur in E, in which Yahweh makes every family a priestly one, whose altar he will visit and whom he will bless directly (Chavel, “Kingdom of Priests”), and in P, in (1) Yahweh’s instructions as to how Israelite

298

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The formula also shows that Israelians and Judeans engaged in intellectual speculation about their god’s body, space, personality, and behavior. They conceptualized him as life-giving and life-sustaining, whose norms are life-supporting (Ps 19:8–11) such that divergence is as noxious as it is obnoxious and ought to be eliminated immediately. To take the logic one step further, they used the complex notion of pristine vitality on the one hand and decaying rot on the other to express Yahweh’s physical self and space and their own responsibility and risk living in his proximity. If he will attentively sustain their lives, they must maintain a pure lifestyle without antilife behavior and its putrid manifestations. They modulated the relationship by the notion of loving and deliberate patience. Rather than eradicate putrid behavior all at once, which would destroy the vulnerable human beings and their family line, Yahweh cleanses over time. They will suffer bouts of misfortune and anxiety, but they will survive and, on the whole, thrive.41 This notion of slow punishment over generations also shows that Israelian and Judean families considered their identity a temporal, corporate one: they enjoy life so long as they have generational continuity. By implication, each member is responsible for the rest; each segment in the genealogy, for those before and after. To ensure the line’s duration means carrying a portion of the offensive rot of prior generations. Carrying it entails misfortune, and Yahweh’s erasure of a part brings suffering; the alternative, that the original offender bear the entire responsibility, would quickly destroy that person, their household, and the entire family line. To put it in familiar terms, intergenerational punishment was an ancient theory of why misfortune befalls god-fearing people: Yahweh is keeping the family families should keep themselves safe during his attack on Egypt and how they should commemorate their rescue, at Exod 12 (Mira Balberg and Simeon Chavel, “The Polymorphous Pesaḥ: Ritual Between Origins and Reenactment,” JAJ 8 [2017]: 292–343, at 297–309), and (2) Yahweh’s rules permanently tying plots of land to the families entering Canaan from Egypt, at Lev 25; Num 27:1–14. This is not to claim that Israelians and Judeans turned only or overwhelmingly to Yahweh for their household needs or that they never invoked him in larger guise; see Rainer Albertz and Rüdiger Schmitt, Family and Household Religion in Ancient Israel and the Levant (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2012), 339–86; Renz and Röllig, Handbuch der althebräischen Epigraphik, 1.47–64 (Kuntillet ‘Ajrud), 173–75 (En Gedi), 245–46 (Bet Lei, Inscription A). 41  This set of ideas seems (meta)physical rather than metaphorical. Conceptualizing what is experienced indirectly (the divine) on the basis of what is experienced directly (life and death) differs from applying concepts unique to one domain of experience to another (as cognitive metaphor theory has it); note Lam, Patterns of Sin, 113, 179. The point does not deny the use of metaphors for misbehavior; see Lesley R. DiFransico, Washing Away Sin: An Analysis of the Metaphor in the Hebrew Bible and Its Influence (Leuven: Peeters, 2016), 1–142. (My view of literal and metaphorical – what a text includes in and excludes from the reality it projects – follows Benjamin Harshav, Explorations in Poetics [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007] 1–112.) Nor for that matter does the analysis deny other (meta)physical notions of misbehavior; see instructively on impurity Tracy M. Lemos, “Where There Is Dirt, Is There System? Revisiting Biblical Purity Constructions,” JSOT 37 (2013): 265–94.

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line and its identity alive.42 Such a corporate, vertical notion is likely connected, on the one hand, to the deep and persistent mutual dependency of premodern farm life, which in ancient Judea included challenging terrain and adverse conditions with relatively high mortality rates and limited longevity, and on the other, to the relative stability of the Judean polity and society.43 At an unknown moment in the history of Judea, someone extended this local idea of the relationship between family life and god – of divine patience – to the family of families, royalty, and also to the nation as such. To judge by texts in the Hebrew Bible, the extension took root and proliferated.44 Portraying a later, much depicted moment in the history of Judea, the early sixth century bce, several texts have Judeans criticizing intergenerational cleansing. What happened? The Babylonian king Nabû-kudurri-uṣur (Nebuchadnezzar) had become a world ruler and exerted rough control over an unruly Judea he would eventually raze and depopulate.45 Around 597 he deported its king Yehoiakin and loyalists 42  For notions and expressions of vertical integration, see Johannes Pedersen, Israel: Its Life and Culture, trans. Aslaug Møller and Annie I. Fausbøll, 2 vols. (London: Oxford University Press; Copenhagen: Branner, 1926–1940) 1:245–59 (notwithstanding his Orientalism and intellectual antisemitism); Herbert C. Brichto, “Kin, Cult, Land and Afterlife – A Biblical Complex,” HUCA (1973): 1–54; Shunya Bendor, The Social Structure of Ancient Israel (Jerusalem: Simor, 1996), 124–28; Jonathan Z. Smith, “Here, There, and Anywhere,” in Relating Religion: Essays in the Study of Religion (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2004), 323– 39, at 325–28; Francesca Stavrakopoulou, Land of Our Fathers: The Roles of Ancestor Veneration in Biblical Land Claims (New York: T & T Clark, 2010), 1–28; Avraham Faust, The Archaeology of Israelite Society in Iron Age II, trans. Ruth Ludlum (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2012), 159–77; also Chavel, Oracular Law, 235–40. Most of the many good studies on “domestic/family/household” religion in ancient Israel and Judea, which includes dead ancestors and land inheritance, emphasize the integrity and coherence (its boundaries and content) of the family/household at any given point in time from the point of view of the living, but not the way time itself is a factor and an agent in that coherence; to put it differently, they analyze the religion of this sphere from a functional(ist) and legal point of view, but overlook it as ideological, as sets of practices and ideas that constitute family or household and reinforce the idea of it as such. 43  Ps 90:10, that a person may live 70 or 80 years, represents the rare and ideal not the common, and its ascending numbers function by the conventions of parallelism, not to convey a meaningful contrast (Menahem Haran, “Biblical Studies: The Literary Applications of the Numerical Sequence X /X+1 and Their Connections with the Patterns of Parallelism,” Tarbiz 39 [1971]: 109–36 [Hebrew]); note Isa 65:20, which presents 100 as fantastical. One can understand writers who have Yahweh demand honor for parents and death for striking or cursing them, especially if they envisioned infirm parents who perilously drain family resources. Success on the land, Yahweh warns, depends on tending to them precisely at that trying stage. See E: Exod 20:12; 21:15, 17 (LXX 15, 16); P: Lev 19:3; 20:9; D: Deut 5:16; 27:16; also Prov 15:20; 20:20–21; esp. 23:19–22. So too the writer (in D) who has Yahweh legislate the opposite case, the unlikely but highly resonant one where parents come to fear and reject their own child for dangerously shirking responsibility, recklessly consuming precious resources, and putting the whole family at risk, at Deut 21:18–21. See too Judg 17:1–2; Prov 19:26–27; 23:19–22; 28:24; 30:11–17. 44  One writer has Yahweh behave this way towards non-Israelite nations too, at Gen 15:13–16. 45 Possible real-time expressions: Lachish 3, 4; Arad 24 (Renz and Röllig, Handbuch der althebräischen Epigraphik, 1.412–22, 389–93). Archaeological results: Avraham Faust, Judah

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to Babylonia, and appointed a new king, Zedekiah.46 Babylonian record-keeping shows the deported king and his people enjoying a cushy captivity in Babylon.47 Biblical works depict Judeans in Judea protesting a harsh life. They grumble rather poetically that the fathers ate unripe grapes48 but the sons’ teeth hurt;49 namely, predecessors behaved hastily, and successors suffer for it. The quip may mean that Yehoiakin and his father Yehoiaqim were quick to conspire against Nebuchadnezzar, but Judeans left behind suffer depleted resources, higher tribute, and toughened policies. In other words, it refers not to generations but to socio-political spheres of society – regimes and their subjects.50 Two texts cast it as a complaint that the prior generation offended Yahweh and this one suffers the effect. In the terms of intra-familial accountability, the complaint alleges that this generation suffers disproportionately; either Yahweh forgot his math, or his loving patience has worn out.51 The different texts that depict Judeans complaining this way portray Yahweh responding, and each response contradicts the other. One appears in the book inin the Neo-Babylonian Period: The Archaeology of Desolation (Atlanta: SBL, 2012); Avraham Faust and Ze’ev Safrai, The Settlement History of Ancient Israel: A Quantitative Analysis (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2015), 111–16 [Hebrew]. Later portrayals: 2 Kgs 24:18–25:21 and Lamentations, on which see Cathleen Kavita Chopra-McGowan, Representing the Destruction of Jerusalem: Literary Artistry and the Shaping of Memory in 2 Kings 25, Lamentations, and Ezekiel (Ph.D. dissertation: The University of Chicago, 2019). 46  2 Kgs 23:36–24:17; A. Kirk Grayson, Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2000 [1975]), 102 (Chronicle 5, reverse, lines 11–13). 47  James Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 3rd ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 308. Compare 2 Kgs 25:27–30. 48 All take ‫ בסר‬this way. Unripe grapes are particularly sour for their high acidity, which led to making acid juice from them already thousands of years ago. See Alan Davidson and Tom Jaine, The Oxford Companion to Food, 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 851; Amanda Dupas de Matos et al., “Chemical and Sensory Analysis of Verjuice: An Acidic Food Ingredient Obtained from Unripe Grape Berries,” Innovative Food Science and Emerging Technologies 44 (2017): 9–14; Najiba Salah Eddine et al., “Effect of Four Grape Varieties on the Physicochemical and Sensory Properties of Unripe Grape Verjuice,” International Journal of Food Science, article ID 6457982 (2020): 1–7. 49  So LXX ᾑμωδίασαν (see the dictionaries). On the basis of Qoh 10:10 and Rabbinic literature, most ascribe to the root ‫ קה״ה‬the meaning of “blunt” (see the dictionaries), but unripe grapes are not particularly hard, certainly not enough to blunt human teeth. Possibly, it refers to the sharp pain in the teeth when one eats something sour, like they are cracking (as LXX has it); see previous note. 50  Note that kings and heads of other collectives are often referred to as “father” and their subordinates as “sons” (see the dictionaries). Alternatively, the quip decried the miserable life in Judea after the destruction. 51  The view of Moshe Greenberg (“Some Postulates of Biblical Criminal Law,” in Yehezkel Kaufmann Jubilee Volume [Jerusalem: Magnes, 1960], 5–28, at 22) and others that the writers of the texts in Jeremiah and Ezekiel applied the principle of Deut 24:16 to the theological sphere misdescribes the circumstances. The writers of both texts have the people voicing a complaint that generates the idea of generational independence; in neither text does Deut 24:16 play any role at all.

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troduced as the collected prophecies and deeds of a Benjaminite priest, Jeremiah, who lived in Judea in these times.52 The other appears in the book presented as the first-person retrospective of prophetic experiences by a Jerusalem priest, Ezekiel, also of these times, but he is in Babylonia since the deportation of 597, and he tells this story in the 560s.53 In the text at Jer 31:28–29, Yahweh tacitly admits that his age-old method has gone awry, is flawed, and is beyond repair. He declares that a day will come when people will have no cause to gripe that sons’ teeth hurt for fathers who ate unripe grapes, because only the teeth of he who eats unripe grapes will hurt. ‫ בימים ההם לא יאמרו עוד‬In those days will no longer be said, ‫“ ״אבות אכלו בסר ושני בנים תקהינה״‬Fathers ate unripe grapes and the teeth of the sons hurt,” ‫ כי אם איש בעונו ימות‬Rather, each by his own corruption will die ‫ כל האדם האכל הבסר תקהינה שניו‬Any person who eats unripe grapes, his teeth will hurt

What follows, at vv. 30–33, makes this individualism practicable. Yahweh forecasts a new compact, a time when no one in the houses of Israel or Judah, young or old, will need to be taught knowledge of him by anyone else. Each will have it written directly on their own heart. ‫‏‬,‫ נאם יהוה‬,‫הנה ימים באים‬ ‫וכרתי את בית ישראל‬ ‫ואת בית יהודה ברית חדשה…‏‬ ‫נתתי את תורתי בקרבם‬ ‫ועל לבם אכתבנה…‏‬ ‫ולא ילמדו עוד איש את רעהו‬ ‫ואיש את אחיו לאמר "דעו את יהוה״‬ ‫כי כולם ידעו אותי‬ ‫למקטנם ועד גדולם…‏‬

Days are coming – speech of Yahweh – when I will make with the House of Israel and the House of Judea a new covenant … I will put my teaching inside them And on their heart I will inscribe it … And they will no longer instruct each his friend and each his brother, “Know (this of ) Yahweh,” because all of them will know me from their youngest/meanest to their oldest/ greatest

This sequence of statements construes intergenerational cleansing and family education as the two sides of mutual dependence. To break the injustice of one means overcoming the necessity for the other. The very nature of family will

52  On the distinctiveness of Jer 30–31 and its parts, see Robert P. Carroll, Jeremiah – A Commentary, OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986), 568–618, also 71–72; Menahem Haran, The Biblical Collection: Its Consolidation to the End of Second Temple Times and Changes of Form to the End of the Middle Ages, 4 vols. (Jerusalem: Bialik/Magnes, 1996–2014), 3:62–66 [Hebrew]. 53  Simeon Chavel, “Yahweh Become a Temple? MT Ezekiel 11:16 ‫ מקדש מעט‬Revisited,” in Contextualizing Jewish Temples, ed. Tova Ganzel and S. E. Holtz, BRLJ 64 (Leiden: Brill, 2021) 103– 22, at 109 n. 30; also Martti Nissinen, “(How) Does the Book of Ezekiel Reveal Its Babylonian Context?” WdO 45 (2015): 85–98.

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change dramatically.54 Imagine Proverbs without the culturally formative trope of fathers and mothers teaching their children (and instructing them to inscribe their words on their tablet-hearts).55 The text at Ezek 18 presents Yahweh telling Ezekiel what to say to Judeans so they quit quipping and griping that fathers eat unripe grapes and sons’ teeth hurt. At first, it sounds like the text in Jeremiah: intergenerational punishment must end; each person should be accountable for themself (vv. 1–4). Unlike the brevity in Jeremiah, Yahweh elaborates lengthily with five schematized illustrations, and the verbose disquisition turns out to lay a trap. As the cases progress, problems emerge, and the logic of individualism breaks down; as Yahweh goes on, his tone grows more ironic and sarcastic. He reveals himself harshly critical of individualism, for it will lead to worse injustice and more accusations of divine mismanagement. Yahweh begins with the case of a virtuous man, listing his many fine behaviors and concluding he will live; namely, he will enjoy a full, blessed life (vv. 5–9). Next Yahweh portrays the virtuous man’s son, a villain. He will die on account of his villainy; namely, he will have a short, unlucky life (vv. 10–13). Then Yahweh depicts a virtuous grandson. As before, his virtue earns him a full, blessed life. But this means he does not help his father; he will not bear his father’s corruption and cut its effect (vv. 14–18). At this point – Yahweh warns Ezekiel – the people will cry in horror, “Why doesn’t the son share the father’s corruption?” (v. 19a !?‫ מדע לא נשא הבן בעון האב‬:‫)ואמרתם‬. Ezekiel, Yahweh dictates, will rebut them with their own idea of no sharing, each for themself: The son behaved well, so he should enjoy life to the fullest (vv. 19b–20): !‫ והבן משפט וצדקה עשה‬But the son behaved virtuously! ‫– חיה יחיה!‏‬  ‫ את כל חקותי שמר ויעשה אתם‬He kept all my rules and did them! He should certainly live! ‫ הנפש החטאת היא תמות!‏‬The body that offends, it (alone) should die! ‫ בן לא ישא בעון האב ואב לא ישא בעון הבן!‏‬Son shall not share father’s corruption and father shall not share son’s! ‫ צדקת הצדיק עליו תהיה ורשעת רשע עליו‬The virtuous’s virtue shall be on him, and the ‫ תהיה!‏‬villain’s villainy shall be on him!

Yahweh presses on with two more cases, logical extensions to the point of absurdity. Just as there is no carryover between generations, so too within a single person’s life: a villain who reverses should enjoy a virtuous person’s end, old, healthy, and happy, their villainy and their victims completely forgotten (vv. 21– 54 In the same set of speeches (see Jer 30:1–4) is another utopian reversal in the social order: ‫ נקבה תסובב גבר‬/ ‫( כי ברא יהוה חדשה בארץ‬31:21), probably the source for brides circling grooms in the traditional Jewish wedding ceremony. 55 See esp. the three-link chain at 4:1–6:19, where a father quotes to his sons the guidance that his father gave to him.

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22),56 while a virtuous person who devolves into villainy will die a villain, early and miserable, all their virtue vanished (v. 24). The people, Yahweh knows, will again accuse him of faulty reckoning, of making no sense (v. 25a), and Ezekiel will reply for him that it is not his ways that do not add up but theirs (vv. 25b–29).57 Beyond laying a trap, Yahweh’s verbosity illustrates what it takes to do justice and causes its audiences to feel impatience with that work. Yahweh carefully delineates the five cases, detailing the positive scenarios and their negatives, and draws a line of logical implications. He lists a dozen or more specific behaviors and general clauses of virtue and villainy, which is all tedious enough, but he repeats it three times (vv. 6–9, 11–13, 15–18). The comprehensiveness, repetitiveness, and detail evoke irritation in the listener, who should enjoy the gratification of hearing cases of individualized justice. Yahweh’s style models the care it takes to consider the implications of any system; it highlights that he is committed to keeping track, while people find it tedious and irritating. Counting requires patience and proves Yahweh’s compassion, while people’s irritation shows them to be impatient and self-centered. How, then, can they have the audacity to challenge his compassion, calculus, and justness?58 As opposed to Jeremiah, then, in Ezekiel Yahweh derides individualized justice as unjust. Careful what you wish for, he chides, you just might get it. Instead, he urges Judeans, do good, offset generations past, and better the future. He is, after all, a life-loving god (vv. 30–32). In short, Trust me. Neither text, Jer 31:28–33 or Ezek 18, has Yahweh explain the harsh conditions that prompt the Judeans’ complaint. Neither has him guarantee that they will end. Nor does either have Yahweh counter that Judeans have it wrong, that he never worked across generations to begin with. The writers had a thought-world 56  At this point Yahweh interjects: !‫– הלוא בשובו מדרכיו וחיה‬ ‫– נאם אדני יהוה‬ !?‫החפץ אחפץ מות רשע‬ (v. 23). The sentiment undergirds intergenerational accountability; invoking it for individual accountability, where it entails leaving a trail of crimes and victims unaccounted for, produces sarcasm. Later, to conclude, Yahweh repeats the idea sincerely (vv. 30–32). 57 Elements of this speech recur at 33:1–20, but in that text Yahweh addresses topics other than intergenerational responsibility; compare Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 21–37, AB 22A (New York: Doubleday, 1997], 675–80), who takes a contrasting approach to ch. 18 and the relationship of 33:1–20 to it, but still recognizes a substantive difference in topic, and note Haran, Biblical Collection, 3:362 n. 111. 58  At Jer 32:6–25, Jeremiah challenges Yahweh’s instruction in the midst of a siege sure to destroy Jerusalem that he buy the deed to certain land (vv. 24–25). He illustrates Yahweh’s incomparable power, wisdom, and meticulous accounting, which make a reprieve of the siege that is surely Yahweh’s way to end Judea impossible and purchasing a deed meaningless (vv. 16– 22). The illustration includes that Yahweh maintains the intricate balance between limitless reward (‫)עשה חסד לאלפים‬, “returning fathers’ corruption to the heart of their sons after them” (‫)משלם עון אבות אל חיק בניהם אחריהם‬, and individual accounts (vv. 18–19). The interpretation that Jeremiah refers in a general way to impulsive anger that consumes generations contradicts the premise of Yahweh’s meticulous, scrupulous precision that makes the challenge.

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with a long tradition of how Yahweh operates and why; they engaged a reality that challenged it and did what they could. One has Yahweh concede, which calls the past into question; the other has him dig in, which leaves the future unsure. * The Neo-Babylonian and early Persian periods were more than troubled for Judea. They were a watershed. To judge by literature of the mid- to late Persian period, Judeans ceased imagining Yahweh along these lines altogether. Ideas had so changed that interpreters no longer understood passages about intergenerational responsibility and the like, taking them to refer to Yahweh’s tough love and initiating the line of thought that has continued down to today as the traditional meaning. How did they forget so quickly and so widely? Persian-period Judea features a distinctive mix of rupture, continuity, and renewal. The archaeology of Judea in the Neo-Babylonian period shows widespread destruction and depopulation.59 When signs of settled life reemerge in the Persian period – drips and drabs in the late sixth century bce gaining steam mainly in the fifth – they indicate a shrunken and gutted region with a small population economically dependent on groups in regions around it.60 Importantly, precisely those practices that seem to have expressed the ideologies of family ceased and were replaced – the four-room house, the ubiquitous female figurines, and especially the family cave-tomb.61 Like elsewhere in the Levant, new Faust, Judah in the Neo-Babylonian Period, chs. 1–3, 6–7, 10. Oded Lipschits and Manfred Oeming, eds., Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2006), esp. Lipschits, Ussishkin, and Stern; Diana Edelman, “Settlement Patterns in Persian-Era Yehud,” in A Time of Change: Judah and Its Neighbors in the Persian and Early Hellenistic Periods, ed. Y. Levin, LST 65 (London: T & T Clark, 2007), 52– 64; Oded Lipschits, “Jerusalem Between Two Periods of Greatness: The Size and Status of the City in the Babylonian, Persian and Early Hellenistic Periods,” in Judah Between East and West: The Transition from Persian to Greek Rule (ca. 400–200 bce), ed. L. L. Grabbe and O. Lipschits (London: T & T Clark, 2011), 163–75; Faust, Judah in the Neo-Babylonian Period, ch. 5; Faust and Safari, The Settlement History of Ancient Israel: A Quantitative Analysis (Ramat Gan: University of Bar-Ilan, 2015), 111–16 [Hebrew]; Marvin L. Miller et al., eds., The Economy of Ancient Judah in Its Historical Context (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2015), esp. Guillaume, Fried, and Lipschits; also Lester L. Grabbe, “The Reality of the Return: The Biblical Picture Versus Historical Reconstruction,” in Exile and Return: The Babylonian Context, ed. Jonathan Stökl and Caroline Waerzeggers, BZAW 478 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015) 292–307; Diana Edelman, “Different Sources, Different Views: Snapshots of Persian-Era Yehud Based on Texts and Archaeological Data,” EstBib 76 (2018): 411–51. 61 Avraham Faust, “Social, Cultural and Demographic Changes in Judah during the Transition from the Iron Age to the Persian Period and the Nature of the Society during the Persian Period,” in From Judah to Judaea: Socio-Economic Structures and Processes in the Persian Period, ed. Johannes Unsok Ro, HBM 43 (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2012), 108–34; Judah in the NeoBabylonian Period, ch. 4. On the continued recalcitrance of the figurines, see Josef Mario Briffa, “Through a Glass Darkly: Figurines as a Window on the Past,” in The Last Century in the History of Judah: The Seventh Century bce in Archaeological, Historical, and Biblical Perspectives, ed. Filip Čapek and Oded Lipschits (Atlanta: SBL, 2019), 181–99. 59  60 

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settlement structures would entail new ideologies.62 The literature portraying the period or reflecting its conditions and mood conveys fragility and anxiety, frustration, dependence on local leadership, and the importance of communal boundaries.63 At the same time, it also shows the writers to be rich with older lore and literature, to be in command of the Judean language, and to see themselves and their society as the direct continuation of Judea-that-is-Israel. In other words, the radical disconnection of families from their landholdings through forced migration and destruction disrupted the ideology of the vertical continuity of families and estranged many of the concepts connected to it.64 The structure and dynamics of the new society replaced that conceptual package by an ideology of horizontal, homogenizing, collective identity. Among other things, this ideology developed itself through what Moshe Halbertal has coined “text-centeredness,” when larger-scale texts – written scrolls and their contents – gain broad-based status and coinage as sites of identity and power.65 In this con62  Bruce Routledge, “Average Families? House Size Variability in the Southern Levant,” in The Family in Life and in Death: The Family in Ancient Israel – Sociological and Archaeological Perspectives, ed. Patricia Dutcher-Walls, LHB/OT 504 (New York: T & T Clark, 2009) 42–60, at 59. Changes in the referent of ‫ משפחה‬and from ‫ בית אב‬to ‫ בית אבות‬may reflect this shift, see David S. Vanderhooft, “The Israelite mišpāḥā, the Priestly Writings, and Changing Valences in Israel’s Kinship Terminology,” in Exploring the Longue Durée: Essays in Honor of Lawrence E. Stager, ed. J. David Schloen (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2009), 485–96, at 490– 91; H. G. M. Williamson, “The Family in Persian Period Judah: Some Textual Reflections,” in Symbiosis, Symbolism, and the Power of the Past: Canaan, Ancient Israel, and Their Neighbors from the Late Bronze Age Through Roman Palaestina, ed. William G. Dever and Seymour Gitin (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2003), 469–85. 63  I mean Haggai, Zechariah-Malachi, Isa 49–66, Lamentations, Psalms (select pieces), EzraNehemiah, Ruth. 64  That Ruth reprises the vertical concept does not vitiate the argument. Some will have had deeper knowledge and traditions. Indeed, Ruth is so fundamentally informed by the works that came to make up the Hebrew Bible (Yair Zakovitch, Ruth: Introduction and Commentary, Mikra le-Yisra’el [Tel Aviv/Jerusalem: Am Oved/Magnes, 1990], 14–16, 18–33; Chavel, Oracular Law, 250–56) that it makes sense for it to reflect and reuse the vertical ideology; if anything, it is the exception that proves the rule. 65  Moshe Halbertal, The People of the Book: Canon, Meaning, and Authority (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), 1–44; also Baruch J. Schwartz, “The Torah – Its Five Books and Four Documents,” in The Literature of the Hebrew Bible: Introductions and Studies, ed. Zipora Talshir; 2 vols. (Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi, 2011), 1:161–226, at 217 [Hebrew]. D, which nullifies emplaced modes of religious expression and replaces them with text, itself included, likely played a role (Simeon Chavel, “Biblical Law,” in The Literature of the Hebrew Bible, 1:227–72, at 256– 65 [Hebrew]). Indeed, Menahem Haran argues that D, a late-sixth century bce collection of late-seventh century bce material, represents the first Judean canon and that book technology played a pivotal role in producing Judean canonical literature: Biblical Collection, 1:95–96; 2:40–93, 170–84 [Hebrew]; “Book-Scrolls in Israel in Pre-Exilic Times,” JJS 33 (1982): 161–73; “More Concerning Book-Scrolls in Pre-Exilic Times,” JJS 35 (1984): 84–85; “Book-Scrolls at the Beginning of the Second Temple Period: The Transition from Papyrus to Skins,” HUCA 54 (1983): 111–22; “Book-Size and the Device of Catch-Lines in the Biblical Canon,” JJS 36 (1985): 1–11; “Book-Size and the Thematic Cycles in the Pentateuch,” in Die Hebräische bibel und ihre zweifache Nachgeschichte: Festschrift für R. Rendtorff zum 65. Geburstag, ed. Erhard Blum et

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text, offense and its treatment shift from the material notion of toxicity and cleansing to the psychological one of insult, remorse and forgiveness (represented abundantly in Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah).66 Dedicated readers of the old, newly collected and centered texts pored over their trove of scrolls portraying the past as if it were their living tradition. In the meantime, their social structure, dynamics, and core ideas had so changed that they found certain concepts unrecognizable, took them as metaphorical, occasionally intervened, and thereby shaped the texts’ reception for millennia.67 * The idea of intergenerational sharing, then, begins life deeply embedded in the experiential web of family life, its hierarchy, intimacy, and interdependence. It asserts in material terms a complex god whose majesty deserves a pristine environment, but who compassionately bears his creatures’ toxicity and carefully keeps track of family doings to cleanse it over time and preserve their line. This powerful idea is expanded to cover the spheres of king and kingdom and of nation and generations. Portrayals of a period of frightful instability challenge the idea’s continued utility. By its terms, Yahweh is either no longer compassionate or unable to keep accounts. Contradictory responses have him either promise to quit managing this way or insist on continuing to do so. After a deep demographic and cultural break, the society that emerges has a new structure and develops new ideas about divine presence and human behavior. It no longer recognizes the old ideas and reinterprets its legacy material.

al. (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Velag, 1990), 165–76. For summary and synthesis, see David Stern, The Jewish Bible: A Material History (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2017), 15–27. For an analogous transformation from “traditional” society to “text-centered,” see Haym Soloveitchik, “Rupture and Reconstruction: The Transformation of Contemporary Orthodoxy,” Tradition 28 (1994): 64–130; Isaac Chavel, “Response,” The Torah U-Madda Journal 7 (1997): 122–36. 66  See David A. Lambert, How Repentance Became Biblical: Judaism, Christianity, and the Interpretation of Scripture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). Anderson (Sin, 27–39) skips over insult to the idea of debt. 67  Schwartz, “‘Term’ or Metaphor,” illustrates at many levels the substantial clash faced by Jewish medieval commentators between their ideas about God and their new, textually-based lexicographic method. For an analogous case of rapidly forgetting a long-ubiquitous concept to the point that later it produced bafflement and even resentment, see Arthur M. Melzer, Philosophy Between the Lines: The Lost History of Esoteric Writing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014).

What is Tôrâ? David Lambert That something happened in the history of ancient Israel, whereby certain scrolls became “Law,” Judaism a “religion of laws,” and Jews a “people of the book” remains a commonplace in biblical studies.1 The claim for such a transformation rests to a surprising extent on a semantic argument, the main contours of which are already present in Julius Wellhausen’s Prolegomena.2 There Wellhausen describes what might be referred to as the differentiated meanings and evolutionary development of the term, tôrâ. Tôrâ, according to Wellhausen, starts its history as a mode of oral instruction. At its roots, it is the verbal action of a subject, that is, “direction” or “decision:”3

1  As Julius Wellhausen puts it, “The introduction of the law, first Deuteronomy, and then the whole Pentateuch, was in fact the decisive step, by which the written took the place of the spoken word, and the people of the word became a ‘people of the book’” (Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel, trans. J. Sutherland Black and Allan Menzies [Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1885], 409). For Judaism as a “religion of laws” or a “religion of the book,” see, respectively, James L. Kugel, “Some Unanticipated Consequences of the Sinai Revelation: A Religion of Laws,” in The Significance of Sinai: Traditions about Sinai and Divine Revelation in Judaism and Christianity, ed. George J. Brook et al., TBN 12 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 1–13, and Jonathan Ben-Dov, “Writing as Oracle and as Law; New Contexts for the Book-Find of King Josiah,” JBL 127 (2008): 223–39. See, also, Konrad Schmid, “The Canon and the Cult: The Emergence of Book Religion in Ancient Israel and the Gradual Sublimation of the Temple Cult,” JBL 131 (2012): 289–305; Thomas Römer, “Transformations in Deuteronomistic and Biblical Historiography: On ‘Book-Finding’ and other Literary Strategies,” ZAW 109 (1997): 1–11, esp. 9–11; and Joachim Schaper, “A Theology of Writing: The Oral and the Written, God as Scribe, and the Book of Deuteronomy,” in Anthropology and Biblical Studies: Avenues of Approach, ed. Louise J. Lawrence and Mario I. Aguilar (Leiden: Deo Publishing, 2004), 97–119, esp. 114–15. Konrad Schmid argues for the book as a holistic replacement for the cult; Thomas Römer for the book as representing the end of prophecy; and Joachim Schaper for a broader theological transformation, a “textualization of revelation” (114), whereby a “technology of writing bred a new concept of adherence to the divine, i. e. orthodoxy on the basis of a fixed text” (109), despite his acknowledgment of the “restricted literacy” (112) at the time. One of the few to critique Julius Wellhausen’s specific argument about the development of Judaism as a “religion of law” at the time of Ezra has been Klaus Koch, “Ezra and the Origins of Judaism,” JSS 19 (1974): 173–97. 2 For a broader critique of Julius Wellhausen’s view of Judaism and evolutionary approach to Israelite history, see Moshe Weinfeld, The Place of the Law in the Religion of Ancient Israel, VTSup 100 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 3–15; and Jeffrey Stackert, A Prophet Like Moses: Prophecy, Law, and Israelite Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 2–16. 3  Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 394.

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As a whole it is only a power and activity of God, or of the priests. Of this subject there can be no abstract; the teaching is only thought of as the action of the teacher. There is no torah as a ready-made product, as a system existing independently of its originator and accessible to every one; it becomes actual only in the various utterances, which naturally form by degrees the basis of a fixed tradition.4

Tôrâ may begin as a subjective act but, according to Wellhausen, it then crosses over the human-nonhuman divide to become a definite, written object, the “Law:” With the appearance of the law came to an end the old freedom, not only in the sphere of worship, now restricted to Jerusalem, but in the sphere of the religious spirit as well. There was now in existence an authority as objective as could be; and this was the death of prophecy.5

In this narrative of decay, tôrâ is drained of its specific semantic force as the utterance of a speaker, its connection to the living presence of God, and, “reduced to writing,”6 it comes to refer in more general terms to a body of written law.7 For Wellhausen, this development can be identified first in Deuteronomy, which establishes its legal collection as authoritative text, “this book of Torah” (Deut 28:63).8 After exile, tôrâ becomes a way of referencing the entirety of the Penta4 Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 395. See, also, Thomas Willi, Esra: Der Lehrer Israels (Leipzig: Evangel Verlagsanstalt, 2012), 177–88. 5  Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 402. Compare, more recently, Karel van der Toorn, Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 207: “Matters change to the extent that we may speak of a paradigm shift when written texts supplant the oral tradition as the main channel of information … Applied to a collection of texts, revelation denotes a product rather than an interaction. Since the written text has an objective existence outside its producers and consumers, it is a source of authority by itself.” The strong association between writtenness and authority is also presumed in Joachim Schaper, “Torah and Identity in the Persian Period,” in Judah and the Judeans in the Achaemenid Period: Negotiating Identity in an International Context (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2011), 27–38. 6  Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 404. 7  On the developmental scheme whereby, in biblical studies, the written replaces the oral and for a consideration of the value judgments that attend such an account, see Jacqueline Vayntrub, Beyond Orality: Biblical Poetry on its Own Terms (London: Routledge, 2019). Though scholars have complicated the boundaries between written and oral forms of transmission, a sense of the spoken as more immediate, closer to thought itself, and the written as representing a fundamental, evolutionary shift in consciousness still prevails. See, for example, Joachim Schaper, “Hebrew Culture at the ‘Interface Between the Written and the Oral,” in Contextualizing Israel’s Sacred Writings: Ancient Literacy, Orality, and Literary Production, ed. Brian B. Schmidt, AIL 22 (Atlanta: SBL, 2015), 323–40, esp. 331–32. The issue has to do with the continued hold of what Jacques Derrida refers to as “logocentrism,” the sense of the oral as closer to a living, divine presence or truth, and writing as merely an external representation of that internal reality. See Of Grammatology (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977), 3–26. For Derrida, all is mediated, at its origins, by writing in its various senses, that is to say, there is no concept or ideal that exists prior to and outside of its signifier. 8  Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 402. See, also, Menahem Haran, The Biblical Collection: Its Consolidation to the End of the Second Temple Times and Changes of Form to the End of the Middle

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teuch, especially by way of incorporating the Priestly Code, “the definite ‘Mosaic law’” in Wellhausen’s parlance.9 Finally, the Pentateuch’s position as the “Law” comes to serve as a basis for envisioning biblical literature as a whole as “canon,” “Written Torah” in the words of the rabbis. That is to say, it becomes a collection of authoritative, regulative literature.10 Along with the continued portrayal of Judaism as a “religion of laws” and Jews as a “people of the book,” the basic contours of Wellhausen’s history of tôrâ as a term have been broadly adopted.11 In particular, it has been accepted in biblical scholarship that tôrâ comes to signify an (ever-expanding) corpus of literary texts, such that it eventually receives the generalized sense of “canon.”12 Wellhausen’s argument about the evolution in tôrâ’s meaning, however, may depend on an overly simplistic understanding of the relationship between signifier and signified, tôrâ as a place holder, an expression, for the inventory of textual entities to which it would seem to refer. If tôrâ is used in conjunction with specific laws in the priestly source, then it must mean a “single cultic ordinance,” as one scholar puts it.13 Or, as another concludes, if the term is applied to a whole corpus of laws, as in Deuteronomy, then it must be “a novel concept of an all-embracing collection of laws.”14 A third maintains that, if tôrâ is used in association with a written work, a sēfer, as is the case elsewhere in Deuteronomy, then it warrants the conclusion that “the appearance of the book of Deuteronomy was a turning point in the status of the concept, tôrâ, in the history of Israel … tôrâ attained the concrete meaning of a ‘scroll in which tôrâ is written.’”15 Finally, scholars have held, if it is used in connection to a corpus of material identifiable with Ages (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2003), esp. 2:290–300 [Hebrew], who sees Deuteronomy as the “first canon.”  9 Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 405. This argument is also clearly traced in the “Introduction” of Maria Häusl to Sedaqa and Torah in Postexilic Discourse, ed. Susanne Gillmary-Bucher and Maria Häusl, LHB/OTS 640 (New York: T&T Clark, 2017), 2–3. 10  Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 409–10. 11  For another recent example, see William M. Schniedewind, “The Textualization of Torah in Jeremiah 8:8,” in Was ist ein Text? Altestamentliche, Ägyptologische und Altorientalistische Perspektiven, ed. Ludwig Morenz and Stefan Schorch, BZAW 362 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2007), 93–107. 12  Michael A. Fishbane, “‫תוֹ ָרה‬,” ּ In Encyclopaedia Biblica (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1982), 8:469–83, esp. 471–72 [Hebrew]; F. García López and H.-J. Fabry. “Tôrâ,” TDOT 15:609–46, esp. 639, 642–43; and Bernd Schipper, The Hermeneutics of Torah: Proverbs 2, Deuteronomy, and the Composition of Proverbs 1–9, AIL 43 (Atlanta: SBL, 2021), 233–36. 13  Fishbane, “‫תוֹ ָרה‬,” ּ 471. See 470–71 for fuller discussion. See, further, James L. Kugel, “Torah,” in Contemporary Jewish Religious Thought: Original Essays on Critical Concepts, Movements, and Beliefs, ed. Arthur A. Cohen and Paul Mendes-Flohr (New York: Free Press, 1987), 995– 1006, at 995. 14  Ben-Dov, “Book-Find,” 226–27. 15  Haran, Biblical Collection, 2:173 (translated from the Hebrew). Haran thus follows the basic Wellhausenian trajectory in seeing a movement from subjective speech to material text in the understanding of tôrâ (170–74). See, also, Ben-Dov, “Book-Find,” 227.

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the Pentateuch as a whole, as is perhaps the case in Ezra-Nehemiah, then, as a term, it now must signify, more broadly, an authoritative collection of written literature, that is, “canon.”16 In each of these cases, the semantic force of tôrâ as a signifier is ascertained through a straightforward identification of the contents populating the signified. Some scholars have resisted a definition of tôrâ as “law.” They have done so on the basis of the phrase “Torah of Moses” being applied eventually to a corpus that includes not only legal, but also narrative material.17 Perhaps, then, “teaching” would be a better translation, as narrative, like law, can serve to instruct.18 But the basic semantic practice remains the same: the meaning of tôrâ is simply rendered on the basis of the contents that are said to be present in the corpus with which it is associated. Here, we can see the circularity that arises in this form of argumentation because of the profound problem posed by anachronism. If tôrâ is defined simply through an inventory of its referents, how are those same objects, the signified, to be understood? Any seemingly straightforward identification of the signified items will depend entirely upon modes of classification that are presentist and essentialist – whether the understanding of “law” as a natural category; teaching through exemplification as an inevitable, narratival aim;19 or authoritative literature, or, scripture, as a universal 16 Thus Timothy H. Lim, The Formation of the Jewish Canon, AYBRL (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014), 71–72, based on tôrâ’s supposedly different referents in Ezra-Nehemiah, distinguishes between two meanings: “The term ‘torah’ in Ezra-Nehemiah is used in two main ways. It signifies the traditional laws of the Judeans that Ezra read out to the assembled of Israel. This literary use of ‘torah’ is symbolic; it does not refer to the Pentateuch as such. It raises aloft an emblem of Judean tradition that was being reestablished after the return from exile. A second use is torah as the signification of the laws and narratives of the Jewish people in the time of the final redaction of Ezra-Nehemiah.” Note, also, Ernest W. Nicholson, The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century: The Legacy of Julius Wellhausen (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 258: “This polyvalent nature of the Pentateuch means that it is only by a tour de force that its varied contents can be subordinated to one supposed overriding theme – unless it is so broadly defined as to be generalized, like the traditional description Torah ‘Instruction.’” 17  The question, of course, is fully immersed in modern inner-Protestant, ProtestantCatholic, and Christian-Jewish polemics. Another avenue has been to maintain that a prophetic sense of tôrâ as “teaching” became “law” only through its Greek translation as nomos. See Charles H. Dodd, The Bible and the Greeks (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1935), 25–42. 18  The argument perhaps can be traced to Solomon Schechter. On this, see Stephen Westerholm, “Torah, Nomos, and Law: A Question of ‘Meaning,’” Studies in Religion 15 (1986): 327–36. For more recent iterations, see Marc Brettler, “Torah,” in The Jewish Study Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 2; Thomas Römer and Marc Brettler, “Deuteronomy 34 and the Case for a Persian Hexateuch,” JBL 119 (2000): 401–19, esp. 417–18; and James A. Saunders, Torah and Canon (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1972), 3. See, also, Thomas Willi, Juda-Jehud-Israel: Studien zum Selbstverständnis des Judentums in persischer Zeit, FAT 12 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1995), 91–101; and Willi, Esra, 187–88, for an understanding of tôrâ as a “single, great learning process” that includes narratival elements. 19  See David Lambert, “Biblical Narrative as Ethics? Genesis Rabbah and the Limits of Exemplarity,” DSD 28 (2021): 423–47. Hindy Najman has shown how Philo, in a manner very tightly connected to his own particular cultural milieu, turns the patriarchs, as copies of nature,

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phenomenon.20 What new significations would emerge if we attempt to trace how deployment of the signifier “tôrâ” does not just passively reflect or reference a growing literary corpus but actively shapes ancient Israel’s understanding of it? It is on this methodological point that I would like to turn to the work of my teacher and mentor, Baruch Schwartz. Schwartz himself has developed a particularly helpful definition of tôrâ as “‘instruction,’ in the sense of directives given by a party who is both in a position of authority and in possession of the requisite knowledge to a party presumed to be both of inferior status and obligated to comply.”21 (Like so many others, he also does embrace a more “inclusive use” of the term based on the broader range of components eventually contained by literary works referred to as tôrâ.)22 However, what I would like to focus on now, more broadly, is what one might refer to as his “immanent” approach to biblical criticism. In analyzing the integrity of the Pentateuch’s literary sources, the logic of the priestly literature, the theology of Ezekiel, or, of particular relevance to the present study, the concrete realities of Hebrew terms, Schwartz’s work proceeds through an insistence on “dwelling within” the texts he analyzes. This heightened focus on the inner mechanics of a source text can reveal connections, whether narratival or conceptual, obscured by approaches that proceed from questions more oriented toward external frames of reference.23 In the case at hand, chaining the complex semantics of tôrâ to the literary history of the Pentateuch interferes with an immanent account of the multifaceted assemblage that is tôrâ,24 as it is plugged into a diverse range of situations and harnessed for different kinds of work within the biblical corpus.25 Too often, with into law through a practice of exemplarity in Seconding Sinai: The Development of Mosaic Discourse in Second Temple Judaism, JSJSup 77 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 70–107. 20  See, for now, David Lambert, “Preview: Is Bible ‘Scripture?’” Metatron 1 (2022): https:// metatron.scholasticahq.com/article/31529-preview-is-bible-scripture. Accessed August 21, 2022, as well as the forthcoming article, David Lambert, “Multiplicity and the Idea of Scripture in Recent Study,” The Journal of Theological Studies. 21  Baruch J. Schwartz, “The Torah: Its Five Books and Four Documents” in The Literature of the Hebrew Bible: Introductions and Studies, ed. Zipora Talshir (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2011), 1:161–226, at 162 [Hebrew]. 22 Schwartz, “Torah,” 163. 23 Baruch J. Schwartz has pointed to the work of Meir Weiss (The Bible from Within: The Method of Total Interpretation [Jerusalem: Magnes, 1984], for which Schwartz himself was involved in the translation) and Yochanan Muffs (Love & Joy: Law, Language, and Religion in Ancient Israel [New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992]) as further models. 24 Similarly, Bernard M. Levinson has argued for the need to take the literary framing of biblical law into full account. See “The Right Chorale: From the Poetics to Hermeneutics of the Hebrew Bible,” in “Not in Heaven:” Coherence and Complexity in Biblical Narrative, ed. Jason P. Rosenblatt and Joseph C. Sitterson, Jr. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), 129–53, esp. 146–48. 25  Multivalence is often better described as a matter of differing forms of contextualization than sharply differentiated meanings, as the latter can be aligned with pre-existing evolutionary paradigms or modern forms of categorization. On the problem of “pseudo-polysemy,” see

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little explication, the Hebrew term is casually deployed by scholars as a generic way of referring to an authoritative textual structure.26 In turn, lack of clarity on what tôrâ is ultimately may obscure aspects of the history of the Pentateuch itself. The present essay, part of a larger project on the Pentateuch’s identity as tôrâ, aims to forward a single argument, that there is no evolutionary development in the phenomenology of tôrâ whereby instruction becomes law, the written word overtakes the spoken, and personal utterance turns into fixed collection.27 Instead, tôrâ provides an exemplary of case of a “quasi-object, quasi-subject.”28 Challenging the subject-object divide common to what Bruno Latour has referred to as the “Modern Constitution,” tôrâ combines subject-like dimensions (“as the action of the teacher”) with object-like dimensions (“as objective as could be”), with both simultaneously present throughout the various stages of Wellhausen’s would-be developmental scheme. In short, despite the varying contents of the literary objects with which the term “tôrâ” is sometimes associated, it retains its particular valence as a directive utterance that achieves some form of ongoing instantiation as speech.29 In this account, writing does not transform and fix in place an otherwise effervescent phenomenon, but serves as one type of repository for what was always already conceptualized as a substantive entity. For tôrâ utterance, like other instances of speech collected in biblical literature, does not participate in a metaphysics of presence, whereby its words serve to express some deeper truth – the will or knowledge of God – and aim to achieve some higher purpose–mental effect on the human spirit. Tôrâ does not reflect or revert Richard C. Steiner, “Does the Biblical Hebrew Conjunction -‫ ו‬Have Many Meanings, One Meaning, or No Meaning at All?,” JBL 119 (2000): 249–67. 26 As argued, the path for such a usage was paved by Wellhausen. See, for instance, in Gary N. Knoppers and Bernard M. Levinson, “How, When, Where, and Why Did the Pentateuch Become the Torah?,” in The Pentateuch as Torah: New Models for Understanding its Promulgation and Acceptance, ed. Gary Knoppers and Bernard M. Levinson (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2007), 1–19, and throughout the collected volume as a whole, where “Torah” is mostly used to mean simply a text that has been “promulgated” and “accepted.” See, also, Christophe Nihan, “The Emergence of the Pentateuch as ‘Torah,’” Religion Compass 4 (2010): 353–64. 27 Elsie Stern, “Royal Letters and Torah Scrolls: The Place of Ezra-Nehemiah in Scholarly Narratives of Scripturalization,” in Contextualizing Israel’s Sacred Writings: Ancient Literacy, Orality, and Literary Production, ed. Brian B. Schmidt, AIL 22 (Atlanta: SBL, 2015), 239– 62, esp. 239–41, suggests that evidence for the ongoing vitality of orality in ancient Israel poses a particular challenge to the ongoing acceptance of Julius Wellhausen’s paradigm in contemporary scholarship. 28  For “quasi-objects, quasi-subjects,” see Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern, trans. Catherine Porter (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), and my piece, “Tôrâ as Mode of Conveyance: The Problem with ‘Teaching’ and ‘Law,’” in Torah: Functions, Meanings, and Diverse Manifestations in Early Judaism and Christianity, ed. William H. Schniedewind et al., Early Judaism and its Literature 56 (Atlanta: SBL, 2021), 61–80, esp. 61–68. 29  As a literary phenomenon, therefore, tôrâ can be seen as participating in what Susan Niditch, Oral World and Written Word: Ancient Israelite Literature, LAI (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996), 78, refers to as an “aesthetic in the oral register.” See, further, Vayntrub, Beyond Orality.

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to logos.30 Rather, like praise, prayer, proverbs, and prophecy, once generated, it exists as its own material substrate, and operates, is transmitted and preserved as such. Such speech leaves its own iterable mark, its own substantial presence, and thus finds itself comfortably at home in, not alienated from its spiritual origins by, the written record.31 In sum, it does not follow merely from the emergence of the Pentateuch in post-exilic Judea as a legible textual corpus that the semantics of tôrâ necessarily have shifted. Instead the sense of tôrâ as a spoken entity, a substantiated repository for events of command-giving and receiving, is retained with important implications, we shall see, for understanding Judeans’ continued willingness to rework and resignify the textual corpus associated with it.32 Such evidence for tôrâ’s ongoing hybridity as substantivized speech helps challenge the last vestiges of an evolutionary form of historicism that is represented by Wellhausen and still continues to inform the field of biblical studies. As Karl Popper put it over fifty years ago: “the idea of the movement of society itself–the idea that society, like a physical body, can move as a whole along a certain path and in a certain direction–is merely a holistic confusion.”33

4. Subject-like Dimensions 1.1 Tôrâ is Speech On a basic level, tôrâ is a form of speech, not an abstraction like “teaching” or “law” and not a text. To be sure, tôrâ is often ensconced in a written text, as the existence of the Pentateuch and biblical texts’ own allusions to written tôrâ collections make clear. However, these same texts remain insistent on its oral nature, as is apparent from any pentateuchal command: “YHWH spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: ‘This is the tôrâ ruling that YHWH commanded, saying: “Tell the children of Israel that they should take …”’” (Num 19:1–2). The question, of  Biblical study thus offers us an opportunity to glimpse a language that is prior to, in Derridean terms, the “epoch of the logos.” See n. 7. 31  On the iterable mark, see Jacques Derrida, “Signature Event Context,” in Margins of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 307–30. 32  Willi, Esra, 187–88, likewise, posits the ongoing, at least, rhetorical relevance of oral instruction to the phenomenon by way of explaining the relatively free use of textual sources in the period. He does so, however, by simply extending Julius Wellhausen’s argument about tôrâ’s early stage, as instruction, to its later stage as well. For Thomas Willi, what matters is the logos of the law, not the letter itself but the deeper meaning that lies behind it. It is in this capacity as pedagogy, not legal directive, that Willi, like Wellhausen, sees the Pentateuch becoming an all-encompassing source. In a similar vein, Schipper, Hermeneutics of Torah, emphasizes the “dynamic dimension” of tôrâ, at least in its post-exilic usage, but connects it, not to its technical mode of conveyance, but to its overall resulting influence on the life of its recipient, that is, a generic sense of “teaching” or “upbringing, education”: “Torah designates something dynamic that relates to the way (of life) of the individual” (233). 33  Karl R. Popper, The Poverty of Historicism (London: Routledge, 1957), 105. 30

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course, does not have to do with the reconstruction of the history of the text as originally oral but the significance of its representation as such within biblical literature.34 Tôrâ thus appears consistently alongside other verbal roots related to speech such as ʾmr, “For they have rejected the tôrâ of YHWH of hosts; they have spurned the word (ʾimrat) of the Holy One of Israel” (Isa 5:24), and dbr, “Hear the word (dᵊḇar) of YHWH, chieftains of Sodom; give ear to the tôrâ of our god, people of Gomorrah” (Isa 1:10). Tôrâ resides on/in and comes forth from the tongue, the lips, and the mouth: “Proper tôrâ was in his mouth; perversion was not found on his lips” (Mal 2:6), and, again, “Her mouth opened up with wisdom; trustworthy tôrâ was upon her tongue” (Prov 31:26). “Your tôrâ,” that is, the “tôrâ of YHWH” (Ps 119:1), which famously forms the subject of Ps 119 as a whole and appears as a phrase throughout, is, more fully and properly speaking, “the tôrâ of your [YHWH’s] mouth” (Ps 119:72). Rejected tôrâ is, therefore, a “voice” not “heard:” “You did not hear the voice of YHWH; you did not walk according to his tôrâ” (Jer 44:23). Refusing to take in tôrâ speech leads to the repudiation of one’s own voice, that specialized form of verbal output that we refer to as prayer: “Those who turn their ear away from hearing tôrâ – their own prayer is an abomination” (Prov 28:9). It might be supposed that, once uttered, tôrâ attains some more permanent form as a written record or dissolves into the mind in the form of memorization. Nevertheless, tôrâ that has been transmitted continues to be conceptualized as a form of speech, such that “the tôrâ of YHWH may be in your mouth” (Exod 13:9). As it says in Job, “acquire from his mouth tôrâ and lay his words upon your heart” (Job 22:22). It is not always appreciated that the term “heart” (lēḇāḇ) in passages such as this one is not a moniker for the inner mind and its capacity for memorization, but rather a way of demarcating the body.35 Rather than serving as a way to signify an interior space to the exclusion of an exterior, it depicts a proximity to the material being of the person. “His words” are transferred to the recipient and placed upon their very person, where they circulate, with34 See, again, Vayntrub, Beyond Orality. See, also, Niditch, Oral World, 125–27, though Niditch falls back on an argument for the originating primacy of the oral in the composition of biblical texts (108–30), on which see F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp’s discussion of an “informing orality” in On Biblical Poetry (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 233–324. 35  For a fuller discussion of leḇaḇ as mapping onto a sense of the proximate body in ancient Israel, not the modern concept of “mind,” see David Lambert, “Refreshing Philology: James Barr, Supersessionism, and the State of Biblical Words,” BibInt 24 (2016): 332–56, esp. 341–49. In seeing tôrâ as continuing to operate as speech, words upon the body, through a practice of recitation, I depart from some of the conclusions of David M. Carr, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 5–6, who sees a “transmission of texts from mind to mind,” a process of “education-enculturation” enabled by memorization. For more on the material sense of “heart,” see, also, now Ellen van Wolde, “A Prayer for Purification: Psalm 51:12–14, a Pure Heart and the Verb ‫ברא‬,” VT 70 (2020): 340–60, esp. 350–54.

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out a doubt, through a practice of recitation.36 It is this transfer of tôrâ as tôrâ, that is to say, as speech, that is at stake in the passage, itself oft-rehearsed, from Deuteronomy: “These words that I command today shall be upon you (literally, upon your heart). You will teach them to your children and speak them when you dwell in your house, when you travel on the road, when you lie down, and when you get up” (Deut 6:6–7). “These words” being “upon you,” being bound “upon your hand” and placed “between your eyes” (Deut 6:8), results in their constant utterance but also flows naturally into their being written upon one’s immediate surroundings, “on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (Deut 6:9). What is in view is not a radical evolution in the nature of tôrâ, from speech to writing.37 If we allow ourselves to fully trace out the connections that the passage establishes what emerges instead is a holistic vision of tôrâ as substantive speech that is located on and extends from the person through a variety of media. Similarly, when its preservation as a written record comes into view, tôrâ still readily reverts to the spoken word with its location on the body: “This tôrâ scroll must not depart from your mouth; you must recite it day and night …” (Josh 1:8).38 1.2 Tôrâ’s Speakers As a form of speech, tôrâ always has a speaker with whom it is indelibly connected and from whom it cannot be dissociated.39 It is “tôrâ of YHWH/God,” “tôrâ of Moses,” “tôrâ of your mother” (Prov 6:20), or “tôrâ of a sage” (Prov 13:14). Even when the term, tôrâ, is not immediately attached to the name of the one who utters it, the identification of its speaker is never far off: “tôrâ is sought from his [the priest’s] mouth” (Mal 2:7). The point of this close association is not simply to generate authority for an abstract “law” or “teaching” by naming its author, whether god, an ancient founder, or another authoritative figure.40 Rather, as an utterance, there can be no tôrâ without a speaking subject. Of its various human speakers, tôrâ is most consistently associated with “his [the priest’s] mouth.” It is said of the tribe of Levi: “They preserve your word and keep your covenant. They impart (yôrû) your rulings to Jacob, your tôrâ to Israel” (Deut 33:9–10). 36 For the heart as capable of actual speech, see H. L. Ginsburg, “Heart,” Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem: Keter, 1972), 8:7–8; and, now, Edward L. Greenstein, “The Heart as an Organ of Speech in Biblical Hebrew,” in Semitic, Biblical, and Jewish Studies in Honor of Richard C. Steiner, ed. Aaron J. Koller et al. (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2020), 206–18. 37  Cf. Schaper, “Theology of Writing,” 106–107. 38 See, also, Ps 1:2 and Isa 59:21. 39 For tôrâ as speech performance, see, also, Jacqueline Vayntrub, “Torah as Speech Performance in the Hebrew Bible,” in Torah: Functions, Meanings, and Diverse Manifestations in Early Judaism and Christianity, ed. William H. Schniedewind et al., Early Judaism and its Literature 56 (Atlanta: SBL, 2021), 37–59. 40  On attribution as an authority-conferring strategy, see Najman, Seconding Sinai.

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On the basis of such a verse, Wellhausen concludes: “It is Jehovah [sic] from whom the torah of the priest and the word of the prophet proceeds: He is the true director … Torah and word are cognate notions, and capable of being interchanged.”41 Wellhausen’s point is an important one. There is a phenomenological proximity between the priestly tôrâ and the prophetic dāḇār (“word”); both are divine utterances mediated by human agents.42 However, when we trace out the actors that the biblical texts themselves put into play, it becomes clear that, in his concern to push tôrâ in its pre-Law stage out of the ecclesiastical realm and back to the divine logos, Wellhausen has understated the position of the priest as agent in the production of tôrâ utterance. In Jer 18:18, we have tôrâ and dāḇār juxtaposed with a third kind of inspired speech, “counsel”: “tôrâ will not fail from the priest, nor counsel from the sage, nor word (dāḇār) from the prophet.” Here and throughout biblical literature, such forms of speech are attributed to specialized speakers because of their nature as utterances. In the case of tôrâ, a priest must be named as its instrument, because it requires generation in the human realm, even if that may lead at times to ambiguity, in our terms, as to its authorship, whether it be from the deity or his human representative; whether it is, for instance, “tôrâ of Moses” or “tôrâ of YHWH.” The result is that it is possible to speak of a certain transitivity of agency, or surplus of agents, in the tôrâ phenomenon; attribution slips readily from one speaker to another.43 It is this property of transitivity that helps explain the distinct focus on the locale of tôrâ in many of its representations: “For instruction (tôrâ) comes forth from Zion, and the word of YHWH from Jerusalem” (Isa 2:3), a passage that Schwartz has done much to elucidate.44 Situating tôrâ in a specific place identifies it with the denizens of that domicile. It allows for an association of utterances with the voice of the persons who dwell there – the deity and his attendants – without spelling out the precise dynamics of tôrâ’s transmission as divine utterance. When a judicial ruling is required on a novel matter, the case should be brought “to the place YHWH, your god, will choose (as a sanctuary).” There “the Levitical priests” will pronounce a “verbal ruling” (dᵊḇar hammis̆pāṭ). Then, “you must carry out the decision-utterance (haddāḇār) which they speak forth to you from that place which YHWH chooses … the tôrâ which they instruct  Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 397.  For updated ways of thinking about the synchrony of prophecy and law, see Stackert, Prophet Like Moses. 43 It may be this element of transitivity that makes tôrâ so useful as a framework for comprehending a legal system committed to envisioning the deity as its agent of authorization. For the unusual role played by the deity in lawgiving in ancient Israel, see Moshe Greenberg, “Some Postulates of Biblical Criminal Law,” in Studies in the Bible and Jewish Thought (New York: JPS, 1995), 25–41. 44  Baruch J. Schwartz, “Torah from Zion: Isaiah’s Temple Vision (Isaiah 2:1–4),” in Sanctity of Time and Space in Tradition and Modernity, ed. A. Houtman et al., Jewish and Christian Perspectives 1 (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 9–26, esp. 16–17. 41 42

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you and the ruling which they say to you, you must carry out” (Deut 17:8–10). There is no explicit divine speaker here, but neither is YHWH entirely absent from the situation, as the utterance comes forth from the very place associated with his name. When tôrâ’s connection to place is severed, there is a concern to reinstate its locale: “The king of Assyria commanded: ‘Bring there one of the priests who were exiled from there, and they shall go and dwell there, and he shall instruct them (wᵊyǒrēm) in the rulings of the god of the land.’ And one of the priests who was exiled from Samaria came and dwelt in Bethel, and instructed (môreh) them how to serve YHWH” (2 Kgs 17:27–28). While the use of a priest allows for a continued link to the deity, housing tôrâ in Bethel (“the House of God”) also subtly conjures the presence of a divine speaker, who is, otherwise, much less evident in this historiographic account than the flesh-and-bones emperor of Assyria. If we conceive of tôrâ not as abstract “law” but as a form of speech ensconced in the place of its speaker, then much of the Pentateuch would appear to be divine tôrâ speech, associated with Sinai/Horeb and mediated by its priestly/ prophetic speaker, Moses. Taken together with the prophetic corpus, we have evidence for a strikingly loquacious god, the Bible’s most incessant speaker. In short, if we are to understand what much of biblical literature was conceptualized as being, rather than just historically how it was produced, we will need to bring back what Latour refers to as the “crossed-out God,” the role of the deity in the hierarchy of things and people prior to its erasure and assignment to a separate realm of being in the Modern Constitution.45 In sum, even before biblical text is conceptualized as a visual object, it is voiced speech.46 For that reason, instead of describing the Pentateuch using the static, literary categories of “narrative” and “law,” it might be better to speak of the more dynamic processes of rehearsing divine deeds and preserving divine speech. Both would have served as ways of engaging a being that was otherwise not readily seen or consistently manifest.47 With snippets of recorded utterances, YHWH secures representation through his own voicing. Indeed, evidence for such a word piety appears in some of the very passages, examined earlier, that emphasize personal tôrâ recitation. Thus the placing of tôrâ utterances upon one’s being that is enjoined in Deuteronomy follows immediately upon the injunction to “love” YHWH, a “love” that has been  Latour, We Have Never Been Modern, 32–35. the divine voice, see Schaper, “Interface,” 334. 47 My claim here is not meant to discredit the presence of various biblical representations of the deity as having a body. (See Benjamin Sommer, The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel [New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009], especially 4–5.) To the contrary, I see the focus on “voice” as extending the focus on embodiment in ancient Israel and as one more way of concretizing, like physical representation, the deity’s presence. The point instead is that all practices of embodiment – whether auditory or visual – respond to an underlying problem of how to manifest largely unseen realities. 45

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shown to be a covenantal matter of adherence to a sovereign.48 There is, therefore, little difference if such “love” for the divine being, really, “attachment” in a social, even physical sense, is substantiated through transference of its object – the body of the deity – to a concretized realm of speech: “How I love your tôrâ; all day it is my speech” (Ps 119:97). One notes immediately that tôrâ, once again, is clearly identified as a form of recited speech, but, more significantly for our present purposes, all of Ps 119 suggests an attachment to the deity that is secured by communing with his voice, that is, his tôrâ. The very possibility for such tôrâ piety demonstrates why tôrâ cannot be detached from the person of its speaker. It is not “law” or “teaching,” an object apart, but an intersubjective utterance: it is voice. 1.3 Tôrâ as an Act The primacy accorded the speaker in depictions of tôrâ is not just because all speech requires a speaker but because tôrâ is an act that requires an agent. It does not adhere to conventional understandings of speech, whereby our words serve to convey or give expression to certain knowledge or truth. Rather it is an utterance that accomplishes a task and leaves a certain mark. It requires one with a capacity to generate such an effect.49 Its basis as an act is rooted in its very morphology; tôrâ appears throughout biblical literature as a t-preformative noun associated with the hifʿil form of the verbal root, yrh.50 The connection is evident in a passage quoted earlier: “yôrû your rulings to Jacob, your tôrâ to Israel” (Deut 33:10).51 However we regard the original derivation of tôrâ, it is obviously its actual usage, not its etymology, that matters for our purposes.52 That use has nothing to do with “throwing,” the qal form of yrh, but with its causative sense, as “directing” or “instructing.”53 Wellhausen understood this matter quite well: “The verb from which Torah is derived signifies in its earliest 48  William L. Moran, “The Ancient Near Eastern Background of the Love of God in Deuteronomy,” CBQ 25 (1963): 77–87; and see, further, Lambert, “Refreshing Philology,” 349– 52. 49  Modern discussions of speech as action revolve around the work of J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962). In How Repentance Became Biblical: Judaism, Christianity, and the Interpretation of Scripture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), I argue as well for the need to understand speech as act in connection to confessional and prophetic utterances in ancient Israel (pp. 51–67 and 91–118, respectively). 50  On tôrâ as derived from the hifʿil form of yrh, see A. E. Cowley, trans., Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar (Oxford: Clarendon, 1910), 237. It follows a similar pattern as tôdâ from ydh. Paul Joüon and T. Muraoka, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew: Volume I (Rome: Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 2005), 260, note that the “‫ ת‬preformative” is usually associated with the hifʿil. 51 See, also, Exod 24:12 and Isa 2:3. 52  James Barr, Semantics of Biblical Language (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), 107– 60. 53 Cf. Vayntrub, “Torah as Speech Performance,” where the novel suggestion is made to see tôrâ as based on an original “metaphor of movement.”

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usage to give direction, decision.”54 A good example would be: “He [Jacob] had sent Judah ahead of him to Joseph lᵊhôrōt before him to Goshen” (Gen 46:28). Judah acts as a “guide,” leading Jacob and family to Goshen. Indeed, throughout the corpus, the language of tôrâ is thoroughly integrated with “path” imagery: “Enjoin upon them the statutes and tôrōt; make known to them the path they are to follow” (Exod 18:20).55 Wellhausen, out of his concern to partition tôrâ “in its earliest stage” from post-exilic “Law,” suggests that it relied upon “a voluntary recognition of its moral authority.”56 But it is important to recognize that such “directing” along a path is not merely the giving of advice or sharing of information but the very determination – the assignment or identification – of where one ought to go. As such, the hifʿil form of the verbal root, yrh, may be rendered “instruct,” if that term is understood in the sense of the setting forth of an authoritative directive. Indeed, tôrâ is often interchangeable with the noun, miṣwâ: “tôrâ and miṣwâ” (Exod 24:12),57 and its verbal root, ṣwh, because of their shared sense of “command:” “All the tôrâ that Moses, my servant, commanded you (ṣiwwᵊḵā)” (Josh 1:7). As a form of “command,” tôrâ can be profitably compared to another type of utterance, the oracular, political command found in the mouths of prophets – whither to travel, whether to fight, and to whom to turn for succor. It is this phenomenological proximity, noted earlier, between tôrâ and prophetic speech that partially underlies the duality of Moses’s role in pentateuchal sources, as both tôrâ instructor and prophetic leader. Thus Israel’s readiness to follow tôrâ utterance is extrapolated from their (in)ability to follow YHWH’s directions in their wilderness journey: “Do not test YHWH, your god, as you tested (him) at Massah; keep the commands of YHWH, your god, his decrees and statutes, which he commanded you” (Deut 6:16–17). Indeed, it is possible to see the wilderness narratives as a whole as anticipating this connection between political and tôrâ instructions, as it is put: “So that I might test them: will they proceed according to my instruction (bᵊtôraṯî) or not?” (Exod 16:4). A similar blending occurs in the case of Abraham, who receives verbal commands as to where to travel but no “teaching” in any broader sense. Yet he is to be rewarded “because Abraham heeded my voice, preserved my charge, my commands, my statutes, and my instructions (wᵊtôrōṯāy)” (Gen 26:5). All of this is to say that the force of the tôrâ utterance, like the prophetic directive, resides in what it generates, a path to be followed. The performative or transactional aspect of tôrâ can be seen clearly from the specific contexts in which it is said to be produced, the most prominent of which  Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 394.  See, also, for instance, Isa 42:24. 56  Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 395 57  See, further, Prov 6:20, and the equivalence of the two terms in Deut 4:44 and 6:1. 54 55

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are the judicial and the cultic.58 Thus, tôrâ is portrayed as an act of adjudication on the part of Moses: “When they [the people] have a dispute, it comes before me, I judge between one person and another, and I pronounce the statutes of God and his tôrōt” (Exod 18:16). These tôrōt are rulings or decisions, put into effect by an agent authorized to pronounce in a given situation.59 A similar structure appears in connection to cultic matters: “Be careful in cases of skin affection very much to keep and carry out all that the levitical priests shall instruct (yôrû) you; as I have commanded (ṣiwwîṯīm) them, keep and carry out” (Deut 24:8). What is in view here is not the transmission of a general teaching about purity but specific determinations, declarations from god and priest, as to how to proceed in a particular set of circumstances.60 These passages also invite us to return to the question of tôrâ’s transitivity. In each case, tôrâ is represented as being uttered by both deity and human. The point, I would propose, is not to trace the ruling back to its origins in the heavenly realm, to show the divinity of its authorship. Rather, because tôrâ is a form of effective utterance, it comes into existence only through its activation, not just by god, but by judge and priest, even if that entails a multiplication of the actors at work in its enactment. Furthermore, from the variety of contexts in which tôrâ is located – in the above, judicial and priestly decisions, but also, elsewhere, wisdom utterance61 – and, indeed, their frequent blending, it follows that tôrâ does not designate a specific sort of object, like “law,” “ritual,” or “proverb,” but an intersubjective process of enacting a ruling through its verbal articulation. Finally, as an act that is punctual, tôrâ requires an occasion, a moment in which it is put into effect. Tôrâ, therefore, cannot be properly traced without reference to its originating situation. Here is where it becomes possible to understand the centrality of Sinai/Horeb and, in the case of Deuteronomy, the plains of Moab in the pentateuchal texts: “Recall the instruction of Moses (tôraṯ mǒs̆eh), my servant, whom I charged at Horeb with statutes and rulings for all Israel” (Mal 3:22). As a speech event, tôrâ requires an agent, a place, and a time. Actually, in keeping with tôrâ being an effective utterance, we might do better to avoid speaking of “revelation at Sinai,” as the use of such a term may interfere with a proper description of what tôrâ is. “Revelation” implies the existence of a stable, independent structure, a body of heavenly knowledge or divine truth, 58  See Michael LeFebvre, Collections, Codes, and Torah: The Re-characterization of Israel’s Written Law, LHB/OTS 451 (New York: T&T Clark, 2006), 40–47, for the view of oracles, in which, I would emphasize, a verdict is delivered, as “Israel’s prescriptive law-source” (40). 59 See, further, Deut 17:8–11 and Isa 2:3–4. 60 See, further, Lev 14:57 and Ezek 44:23. 61  See, for example, Prov 3:1. The tôrâ framework becomes a means of theorizing the wisdom utterance and its transmission as a practice of oral recitation. The parent-teacher does not just offer advice but enacts a series of commands to direct the child-pupil throughout their lifetime. See, also, Schipper, Hermeneutics of Torah, 231–92.

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that, though it happens to be disclosed at a specific moment in time, is ultimately untethered to local circumstances – historical, geographical and political. Tôrâ or, as it is referred to in the following passage, miṣwâ, is not a heavenly or divine matter but a product of a given moment in time: “Surely, this instruction (miṣwâ) which I command you this day is not too wondrous for you, nor is it far off. It is not in the heavens, that you should say: ‘Who will ascend for us to the heavens, acquire it for us, and let us hear it, so that we can enact it?’… Rather, the matter is exceedingly close to you, in your mouth and near your heart, for its enactment” (Deut 30:11–14). It is the force of “this day” that generates miṣwâ and makes it present, in the midst of the people, as substantive speech.62 Notwithstanding their considerable differences, the pentateuchal sources all dedicate significant narrative space to identifying the precise occasions of tôrâ instruction, whether Sinai/Horeb or the plains of Moab, because, one way or another, law in biblical literature must have a moment of authorization; it must be narrated.63 Nowhere is the incessant historicization of tôrâ – the blending of general laws with specific, past events – more obvious than in the priestly source’s focus on tôrâ as a product of oracular occasions.64 There we can see, for instance, how the narration of the nation’s first Passover slips into an occasion 62 A well-developed recent example of the view of revelation as disclosure can be found in Benjamin Sommer, Revelation and Authority: Sinai in Jewish Scripture and Tradition, AYRBL (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015). In Sommer’s theory of participatory revelation, human interpreters translate and variously express an otherwise voiceless divine presence and command. “God spoke” is metaphorical. By positing a reality, a metaphysics, outside of text and utterance, Benjamin Sommer re-embeds God’s voluminous speech in the Bible back into the divine logos. Tôrâ command is no longer a geographically emplaced, historically embedded speech act that generates its own world of existence but a reflection, a version, of a broader eternal, universal obligation, ḥiyyuv. For Sommer, Deuteronomy’s use of the phrase “hayyôm” addresses “the many ‘todays’ of each person the text addresses” (194). In What’s Divine About Divine Law? Early Perspectives (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), Christine Hayes, using the language of Max Weber, has recognized law in ancient Israel as a “positive enactment” (15), hence, in many cases, its “retention of first-person address” (16). She writes further: “Biblical divine law is not represented as possessing features typically attributed to an ontologically primary natural order or abstract eternal truth … divine law is represented as particular rather than universal, arbitrary rather than rational, evolving rather than static, coercive rather than instructive, and as addressed to obedient servants” (16). On the last designation of tôrâ recipients as “obedient servants,” see my discussion below in “Tôrâ’s Other Subjects.” I would note that her view of biblical law in this discussion as expressing God’s “will,” which is how she glosses Weber’s language of “positive enactment” (15–16), runs the risk of stepping back from the articulation of tôrâ’s own generative capacity as act to seeing it as an expression of a divine desire beyond the immediacy of the present. 63  Here I would agree with Sommer, Revelation and Authority, 123, that tôrâ is a “combination of law and narrative in which the latter comes to authenticate, cultivate, and motivate the former,” but would suggest that the role of narrative vis-à-vis law can be defined much more sharply when tôrâ’s identity as event is taken into account. Law is narratival. On law and narrative, see, further, Baruch Schwartz, “Torah,” 162–69; and Simeon Chavel, Oracular Law and Priestly Historiography in the Torah, FAT II/71 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 265–70. 64  See Simeon Chavel, Oracular Law, as well as further, below.

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for instructions as to various permanent observances associated with the holiday (Exod 12–13). In short, tôrâ, as a form of knowledge, does not appear as an independent, abstract entity, whether a generalizable ideal or an eternal law, that comes from or reflects the divine mind or will. Rather, it is an act that always remains situated within the specific event and circumstances of its production. 1.4 Tôrâ’s other Subjects As an interpersonal event, a mark that one subject leaves upon another, representations of tôrâ regularly engage a range of actors, not only speakers of tôrâ but its recipients. Tôrâ utterance raises the question of response. To flesh out this point, it will be useful to trace the idioms used to depict obedience and its opposite, disobedience. Here is one example: “On account of their abandoning my instruction (tôrāṯî), which I set before them, not obeying me [literally: hearing my voice], and not walking according to it …” (Jer 9:12). The idiom, “to hear the voice of,” may need to be considered with greater nuance. Rather than adopting the customary abstraction, “obey,” “aligning her will with that of Yahweh,”65 we might do well to attend fully to its focus on “voice.”66 Is this not the voice of the commander that is so basic to what tôrâ, its parallel in this passage, ultimately is? The mechanism at work in this idiom is not plugged into the inner conscience but is to be located in the power of spoken words to induce action. Attending to “my instruction,” with its opposite being “abandoning” it – a failure to preserve the repository of utterances that is tôrâ – generates response, “walking according to it.” To put it differently, “heeding the voice,” responding to tôrâ, as a form of cognition, is embedded in a dynamic, auditory, relational space that exists between bodies rather than processed as an abstract obligation within the autonomous mind of the would-be servant. Another common idiom should be reconsidered as well. What does it mean to “guard” tôrâ? Here is one example: “let me grasp, and I will observe (wᵊʾeṣṣᵊrâ) your tôrâ and keep it (wᵊʾes̆mᵊrennâ) in/by/upon the whole heart” (Ps 119:34). The translation offered here of the verbal roots, nṣr and s̆mr, as “observe” and “keep,” takes these terms for “guarding” and, as is commonly done, treats them as an idiomatic expression for the performance of commands. But there is another aspect imparted by their use: the actual preservation of the commander’s instructions upon the being of their recipient, “in/by/upon the whole heart.” Not only is obedience a concrete, relational act, not mental acceptance of some abstract “Law,” but its very instrument, tôrâ, is a personal, embodied medium. It is the voice of the deity, the preservation of which upon and around the person itself compels obedience. In short, the range of “guarding” terms should be 65 Christine

Hayes, Divine Law, 23.  See, also, Jacqueline Vayntrub, “Torah as Speech Performance,” 51.

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rendered, more literally, as a form of transmission, as “preserving” the instructor’s oral commands upon the body of the recipient. Tôrâ, therefore, is an example of embodied and extended cognition, a form of human processing that circulates in the body – the mouth – and material that extends beyond the body – preserved instructions – rather than through mental representation.67 As a surfeit of language and directive, the possession of tôrâ extends the self rather than being submerged within it.68 As such, tôrâ can be traced as a kind of treasure to be acquired by a subject for the superior guidance it offers: “When you walk, it guides you; when you lie down, it protects you; and when you awake, it speaks to you. For command (miṣwâ) is a lamp, instruction (tôrâ) a light, and disciplinary guidance a path to life” (Prov 6:22–23).69 Finally, one notes particularly in the priestly narrative the extensive quotation of divine command and the detailing of its fulfillment, often in conjunction with the following idiom: “And all the children of Israel enacted what YHWH commanded (ṣiwwâ) Moses and Aaron; so they carried out” (Exod 12:50). The phrase, “what YHWH commanded,” may be taken as indicating a focus on the completion or exactness of the Israelites’ performance. But, it also clearly serves to emphasize its relational aspect – action as following directly from the deity’s own instruction70 – as well as the materiality of that command – instruction as an entity that has been generated and now must be carried out. The personal nature of response to tôrâ forces us to reconsider the appropriateness of obedience to “Law,” adherence to abstract teachings or authoritative writings, as a biblical paradigm for moral behavior in favor of a more embodied, relational model that

67 Discussion of these forms of cognition and limitations of mental representation as a cognitive model can be found in Albert Newen, Leon de Bruin, and Shaun Gallagher, eds., The Oxford Handbook of 4E Cognition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). For another example from biblical studies, see David Lambert, “‘Desire’ Enacted in the Wilderness: Problems in the History of the Self and Bible Translation,” in Self, Self-Fashioning and Individuality in Late Antiquity, ed. Maren Niehoff and Joshua Levinson, Culture, Religion and Politics in the GrecoRoman World 4 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019), 25–49. 68 Cf. Carr, Tablet of the Heart, 6: “The mind stood at the center of the often discussed oralwritten interface. The focus was on inscribing a culture’s most precious traditions on the insides of people,” and see n. 35, above. On the “material concept of speech” present in notions of transmission in ancient Israel and one of the functions of the “heart” as “storage of speech-items,” see, further, Jacqueline Vayntrub, “Like Father, Like Son: Theorizing Transmission in Biblical Literature,” HeBAI 7 (2018): 500–26, esp. 517. The difference is, in part, a methodological one, whether one is focusing on an immanent account of the biblical texts’ language or aiming to develop a broader sociological model. 69 See, also, for instance, Deut 4:5–8. 70  Similarly, “sinning” in biblical literature is always “sinning against” another, as in the phrase, ḥṭʾ lᵊ… See Lambert, How Repentance Became Biblical, 55–58. For the conjunction of “sinning against” and failing to follow tôrâ instruction as a personal rejection of the deity, see Jer 44:23.

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focuses on voice, preservation, and personal instruction.71 It invites us, in other words, to return to the generative quality of utterance itself as substance and mechanism, as its own signifying presence that does not gesture at some deeper truth, whether its origins in divine truth or its formation of human minds, but attempts to instill itself upon the subject as such, as speech.

5. Object-like Dimensions 2.1 Publishing Tôrâ It is precisely because tôrâ is an occurrence, an event that transpires between subjects in time, that it must also assume object-like dimensions. For a voice from the past to be preserved in the present, it needs to leave behind some material residue, of which a most obvious instantiation would be the collections of tôrâ found in the pentateuchal sources themselves. In short, the activation that is tôrâ requires some theory of substantiation, which we have already seen in full effect: the speaking subject generates a writing, in its broadest possible sense of collected or textualized utterance, that exists both as act and as material mark upon the hearing subject. For that reason, representations of its publication, quite apart from the presence of an actual written record, frequently appear alongside depictions of tôrâ instruction.72 Tôrâ must be made known to all to whom it applies; to be activated, it must be disseminated. But to be disseminated, the event of past command needs to be translated into a body of present instructional material – a material, transmissible unit of knowledge. As we see in a key passage quoted earlier, “They impart (yôrû) your rulings to Jacob, your tôrâ to Israel” (Deut 33:10): tôrâ exists not just as an act of directing, but as a substantive set of directions. That publication necessarily involves a degree of objectification can be seen from other passages as well. Having received instructions from the deity, Moses 71 For a recent discussion of some of these themes, see Jacqueline Vayntrub, “Ecclesiastes and the Problem of Transmission in Biblical Literature,” in Scribes and Scribalism, ed. Mark Leuchter, The Hebrew Bible in Social Perspective (New York: Bloomsbury, 2021), 79–93. 72  For a discussion of the publication of tôrâ, not as text but as instructional material, see Moshe Greenberg, “Three Conceptions of the Torah in Hebrew Scriptures,” in Die Hebräische Bible und ihre zweifache Nachgeschichte: Festschrift für Rolf Rendtorff zum 65 Geburtstag, ed. Erhard Blum et al. (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag 1990), 365–78. Joachim Schaper, “The ‘Publication’ of Legal Texts in Ancient Judah,” in The Pentateuch as Torah: New Models for Understanding its Promulgation and Acceptance, ed. Gary Knoppers and Bernard M. Levinson (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2007), 225–36, assumes oral annunciation along with writing to be necessary for the act of publishing or putting law into force. But while there is a clear emphasis on dissemination through utterance, the occasional presence of writing in such contexts cannot be flattened into the general purposes of publication. See below, where writing does not involve dissemination but, more specifically, putting curses into material effect.

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is told to “enjoin upon them [the people] the statutes and instructions (tôrōt); make known to them the path they are to follow” (Exod 18:20). Likewise, Moses must “tell Aaron and his sons: this is the instruction regarding the sin offering (tôraṯ haḥaṭṭāʾṯ)” (Lev 6:18). The publication of tôrâ that, according to each passage, Moses is charged with carrying out is itself instrumental in putting tôrâ into effect. But it also packages the originating instructional act as a discrete entity, a tôrâ, to be passed along. Deuteronomy itself may be seen as just such an act of publication, a transfer of prior commands, previously delivered to Moses, to the body of the public. Its words are simultaneously Moses’s active command on the plains of Moab to Israel and text arranged and transmitted for future generations: “These words that I command today shall be upon you. You will teach them to your children …” (Deut 6:6–7). It is not that, over time, interpersonal instruction becomes a transmissible object through publication. Rather both dimensions – tôrâ as past event occurring between subjects and tôrâ as ongoing, substantivized object that can be passed along – are part of the tôrâ assemblage, which, therefore, brings together actors both past and present. Tôrâ is emplaced in the past by one subject as a material entity that now exists upon or in the midst of another. It is “my instruction (tôrāṯî), which I set (naṯattî) before them” (Jer 9:12).73 2.2 Serial Tôrâ More can be said about the published form taken on by the substantivized act that is tôrâ. One of the most consistent aspects of tôrâ’s representation in ancient Israel is its depiction as a series of commands. Instances of tôrâ are grouped and transmitted together as a collection. It is for this reason that, throughout the biblical corpus, we find listings of redundant terms for “instruction:” “my charge (mis̆martîy), my commands (miṣwōṯāy), my statutes (ḥūqōṯay), and my instructions (wᵊtôrōṯāy)” (Gen 26:5); “his instruction (uḇᵊṯōrāṯô), his statutes (uḇᵊḥūqōṯâw), and his injunctions (uḇᵊʿēdwōṯâw)” (Jer 44:23); and “all its statutes (ḥūqōṯâw), all its specifications (read: ṣûrôṯâw), and all its instructions (read: tôrōṯāw)” (Ezek 43:11). Each of these words does not have a separate meaning. Rather the multiplication of overlapping plural terms indicates a view of tôrâ as naturally occurring in series of like-utterances. The deity’s commands, even if uttered on distinct occasions, are gathered up and packaged together. Instructions, instructions, and more instructions! The observation holds even when we encounter tôrâ in the singular: “… preserve my commandments (miṣwōṯay) and statutes (ḥūqōṯay), in keeping with the instruction (hattôrâ) that I commanded your fathers” (2 Kgs 17:13). Here we find a collective use of tôrâ as constituted by a multitude of “commandments and stat73  The transactional quality of the verbal root used here, ntn, usually rendered as “give,” substantiates tôrâ as an object bestowed upon Israel. For other examples, see Jer 26:4 and Jer 44:10.

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utes.” This use demonstrates the ease with which it is possible to toggle between tôrâ as part of a series of specific injunctions and tôrâ as a single inclusive restatement of a series of utterances.74 The prevalence of such lists of tôrâ terms not only speaks to a shared conception of how tôrâ travels, that is, in collections, but also to its significance. The generic quality of the references suggests an investment in the machinery of tôrâ itself – its role in structuring relational states, preserving divine voicing, etc. – beyond the specifics of the laws it conveys. In this context, the proliferation of command serves to accentuate the extent of the deity’s embodied (or voiced) presence in Israel’s midst. The implications of the generic representation of tôrâ for the Pentateuch’s relative lack of legibility in the biblical corpus will be considered in a separate study. For now, it is essential to see that tôrâ as an intersubjective act achieves concrete existence as a collected series of utterances. 2.3 Written Tôrâ Wellhausen’s theory of tôrâ as “Law” depends in great measure on tôrâ’s proposed evolution as a physical, written object that is publicly accessible and in possession of independent textual authority. Does the instantiation of tôrâ in written form indicate an historic shift in its identity, a movement away from subjective command toward objective authority? That reconstruction falters along several lines. One difficulty has been gestured at already: tôrâ’s represented transmission as a repository of command erases the proposed ontological distinction between oral and written. Rather than an interface between oral and written, we have something closer to a phenomenological equivalence or near overlap; tôrâ can be deposited as a part of a series of utterances on a person or in a scroll. For that reason, there is no tension in the fact that it is an intensively scribal work such as Deuteronomy that develops the sense of tôrâ as personal, spoken repository most clearly. One can readily suppose deuteronomic scribes imagining and asserting for the laws penned within the work a broader, substantiated oral presence among the people. Also noteworthy in this regard is the ease of transition between the oral and the written, how the written readily reverts to the oral and vice versa. Earlier, I quoted: “This tôrâ scroll must not depart from your mouth; you must recite it day and night” (Josh 1:8). Here is another example in which oral and written imagery mix: “I will place my instruction (tôrāṯî) in your midst, and will inscribe it upon you [literally, “your heart”]” (Jer 31:33). Writing is the perfect image for the successful placement of tôrâ upon the now-extended self of the recipient because both writing and recitation are ways of depositing utterance as a material entity.

 See the discussion of the Deuteronomic usage below.

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The presence of written tôrâ in multiple layers of biblical literature poses another difficulty for Wellhausen’s theory, but I would like to focus on a more pressing and immediate problem: the specific functions actually attributed to writing within the corpus. In other words, rather than looking beyond the immediate representations of the biblical texts to see how they contribute to an external framework, namely, the history of writing in ancient Israel, I would develop an immanent account of writing’s purposes as depicted within the terms of the passages themselves. Specifically, I will highlight two functions of writing: as testimonial deposit and as textual record of past oral command used for renewed oral performance. Biblical portrayals could develop the theme of dissemination through the copying of scrolls, consultation with a legal text for the purpose of judicial determinations, or the ritual adulation of the written word, but they do not. Instead representations of writing frequently point to the singularity of the scroll and its deposit in a specific area with restricted access: “bind up the testimony (tᵊʿûdâ), seal the instruction (tôrâ) with my disciples” (Isa 8:16). Moses writes down the words of his tôrâ to Israel upon the plains of Moab and instructs the Levites: “Take the scroll of this tôrâ and place it beside the Ark of the Covenant of YHWH, your god; it shall remain there as a witness (lᵊʿēd) against you” (Deut 31:26). In its capacity as “testimony” or “witness against,” it is the deposit of the written scroll, rather than its dissemination, that comes into view.75 In this scenario, the scroll itself acts as an agent of covenant. It functions as a mechanism within a broader machine-like assemblage, bringing into effect its stipulated terms subsequent to their being delivered and accepted orally. Thus in Exod 24:3–8, after speaking with the Israelites, Moses prepares a theater of operation that includes a “scroll of the covenant” (24:7), an altar with twelve pillars (24:4), and “blood of the covenant” (24:8). Writing, building, and sacrificing all work together to activate the covenant. In this case, the scroll physically instantiates a covenant that is being made “upon all of these words” (Exod 24:8), words that exist in quite material terms. It is precisely in its capacity as testimonial deposit that curses take their place alongside tôrâ proper in the tôrâ scroll. Thus Israel will be punished “in accordance with all of the curses of the covenant recorded in this scroll of the tôrâ” (Deut 29:20).76 Whereas modern conceptualizations of the book tend to focus on its production as a means of replication and publication, covenantal writing exploits the potential of any material entity to achieve a singularity of identity, rather than 75 On the role of the writing in testimony, see Niditch, Oral World, 87–88; and Menahem Haran, “The Bĕrît ‘Covenant’: Its Nature and Ceremonial Background,” in Tehillah le-Moshe: Biblical and Judaic Studies in Honor of Moshe Greenberg, ed. Mordecai Cogan, Barry L. Eichler, and Jeffrey H. Tigay (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1997), 203–19, esp. 215–17, as well as Haran, Biblical Collection, 2:150–54. 76  Note, as well, Lev 26.

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merely being a copy of the same. In the ancient world, writing can involve the crafting of a written object and putting it away.77 Writing thus becomes a practice of intense localization, not publication; the scroll inhabits a particular locale. It should not be seen, for example, as an exceptional circumstance that only a single “tôrâ scroll” would be found in the “house of YHWH” (2 Kgs 22:8), another “scroll of the covenant” (2 Kgs 23:2), in the time of Josiah. In keeping with the theme of testimonial deposit, the scroll provokes immediate mourning upon its recitation, as its covenantal terms have been neglected. The episode may aid us but little in reconstructing an objective history of writing in ancient Israel but it tells us a great deal about how, historically, texts were configured, not only in ancient Israel but in the treaties that populated the ancient Near East, as potent objects deposited in the house of the deity. While the need for testimony may provide an initial impetus for writing, the written text also furnishes a basis for an ongoing speaking forth: “I will give you tablets of stone with instructions and commands, which I have written to instruct them (lᵊhôrōṯām)” (Exod 24:12). This dynamic is particularly evident in contexts of covenant renewal. After mourning the doom spelled out and put into effect by the scroll’s curses, Josiah performs a public recitation of the “words of the scroll of the covenant” in the “house of YHWH” before the people as a whole (2 Kgs 23:1–2). What is demanded is not learned consultation with an authoritative written text but a renewed oral command performance. In such situations, tôrâ is not encountered as written text per se but command contained within a written record; it is writing in rather the same way that a phonograph recording is vinyl. When Joshua builds an altar, “as Moses, the servant of YHWH, commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the scroll of Moses’s instruction” (Josh 8:31), it is Moses’s past command that directs Joshua, but that command now resides in the written medium. Here, the phrase, “scroll of Moses’s instruction (sēp̄er tôraṯ mǒs̆eh),” is not just the title of a written work; it speaks to the presence of a complex assemblage, a quasi-object, quasi-subject.78 It is a material object that contains past oral instruction, not just associated with Moses, in the manner of an author or compiler, but, most specifically, uttered by him, as its speaker. And, because it never loses its status as preserved speech, published tôrâ material readily reverts to new instructional moments in an ongoing process of reactivation and republication, that is to say, reading performances.79 Thus, in the same passage as  See Isa 30:8. Ska, “From History Writing to Library Building: The End of History and the Birth of the Book,” in The Pentateuch as Torah: New Models for Understanding its Promulgation and Acceptance, ed. Gary Knoppers and Bernard M. Levinson (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2007), 145–69, esp. 166, speaks of “the (basic) identity of the written tradition with the oral tradition,” “a perfect equivalence of orality and literacy,” rather than a model of oral traditions “coexisting” with written traditions. 79 On which, see James W. Watts, Reading Law: The Rhetorical Shaping to the Pentateuch, BibSem 59 (Sheffield: Sheffield University Press, 1999), 15–31. 77

78 Jean-Louis

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above, Joshua “read aloud all the words of the instruction (hattôrâ), as well as the blessing and curse – all that was written in the scroll of the instruction (hattôrâ). There was nothing from all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read aloud before the entire congregation of Israel, including the women, the children, and sojourner who went in their midst” (Josh 8:34–35).80 To be accessed through its material encasement, tôrâ instruction must be performed anew in the manner of its originating, oral context.81 Such public reading – always framed as a reading of legal instructions – is not just meant to be informational, a way of sharing the contents of a scroll, or persuasive.82 Such speech should not be reduced to the knowledge it references or to its mental effect. It is itself a speech event that leaves a mark; it enacts a past command preserved in a scroll and newly sets it before the people, in the case of Joshua, now that they have entered into the land.

6. The Persistence of Tôrâ The oral and written, subjective and objective, are not two stages in the evolution of tôrâ but two aspects simultaneously present throughout its different manifestations and situations in biblical literature. The present context does not allow for a full analysis of how varied collections of law, mostly found in the Pentateuch but also, in one case, the book of Ezekiel, represent themselves as tôrâ sources.83 These sources appear, first and foremost, as speech acts, even while they are themselves, most obviously, written and also develop in various ways their written or material dimensions. To address all too briefly the case of the priestly source and Deuteronomy, much is made of their unique features within the context of the Wellhausian evolutionary scheme, but both adhere to the same basic phenomenology of tôrâ. The priestly source, for its part, is often seen as part of the movement from instruction to law because of its supposed application of tôrâ to single, specific laws. Tôrâ, in this context, is frequently translated as “law” or, even, “ritual,” as in the following from the NJPS translation: “The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: Command Aaron and his sons thus: This is the ritual (tôraṯ) of the burnt offering …” (Lev 6:1–2).84 Schwartz already properly elucidated this use of the 80 See,

also, Deut 31:10–13.  Niditch, Oral World, 39–59, sees this as an aspect of the primacy of an oral culture in antiquity. 82  For Watts, Reading Law, reading is bound up in a rhetoric of persuasion. On the exhortative model as applied only later to the interpretation of biblical texts, see John Barton, Oracles of God: Perceptions of Ancient Prophecy in Israel after the Exile (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1986), 154–78; and Lambert, How Repentance Became Biblical, 91–95. 83  For the book of Ezekiel, see Menahem Haran, “The Law-Code of Ezekiel XL–XLVIII and its Relation to the Priestly School,” HUCA 50 (1979): 45–71. 84  Baruch A. Levine, The JPS Torah Commentary: Leviticus (Philadelphia: JPS, 1989), 34, notes: “As used here, torah signifies the content [italics mine] of the instruction.” 81

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term, maintaining that tôrâ retains its sense as “instruction.”85 Tôrâ is not merely a reference to the single law that follows but to the process of its delivery. We see the failure of any semantics that would determine signification through a straightforward inventory of a term’s supposed referent. It is not a single law that is in view (in fact, there are a series of laws, here, about the burnt offering) but a single event of oracular utterance. This tôrâ is part of a series of other command performances related to sacrifice, all of which occur in a single locale: “Such is the instruction (hattôrâ) of the burnt offering, the meal offering, the sin offering, the guilt offering, the offering of ordination, and the sacrifice of well-being, which YHWH commanded Moses on Mount Sinai” (Lev 7:37–38). To thematize this material as decontextualized law is to miss an essential point. The so-called priestly code is not represented, first and foremost, as a legal handbook,86 but as a collection of the deity’s utterances. The existence of such a collection in the locale of their speaker serves to establish the legitimacy of the site in which the speaking god dwells and explains the conditions of its success, that is, the deity’s ongoing presence as dependent upon the fulfillment of his instructions. On the face of it, Deuteronomy marks a significant broadening in the use of tôrâ.87 Tôrâ, as a term, now appears to comprehend the literary work as a whole: “On the other side of the Jordan, in the land of Moab, Moses expounded this tôrâ (hattôrâ hazzōʾṯ), saying …” (Deut 1:5) and, again, “This is the tôrâ that Moses set before the children of Israel” (Deut 4:44).88 If so, it now serves as a generic way of denoting “authoritative literature,” in other words, “canon.”89 At the very least, even in its potentially more limited usage, rather than referring to a single law, as in the priestly source, tôrâ in Deuteronomy functions as a collective term referring to a whole series of laws: “What great nation has just statutes and judgments like the entirety of this tôrâ (hattôrâ hazzōʾṯ) that I set before you this day?” 85  Baruch Schwartz, The Holiness Legislation: Studies in the Priestly Code (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1999), 17–24 [Hebrew]. 86  Again, Schwartz, Holiness Legislation, 17–24. 87  See, above, n. 10. 88  See Schaper, “‘Publication,’” 225–31, for a refutation of the view that tôrâ is a reference to laws that have come before Deuteronomy, in the canonical ordering, and that Deuteronomy itself is therefore “interpretation.” Rather it “must refer to the ‘Torah’ that follows” (229). 89  Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), 338. Stephen B. Chapman, “‘The Law and the Words’ as a Canonical Formula within the Old Testament,” in The Interpretation of Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity: Studies in Language and Tradition, ed. Craig A. Evans (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2000), 26–74, provides a compelling critique of the view that tôrâ, beginning with Deuteronomy, serves as a technical term for a certain fixed pentateuchal canon by demonstrating ongoing variation in its usage, especially the way in which it continues to appear in tandem with other legal terms, “without any clear indication that it functions differently” (38–39). Chapman, however, deploys this variability to extend the sense of tôrâ as a canonical designation to include prophetic writings, thus effacing its more specific semantic force as “directive” and continuing the line of questioning that would seek to match oblique references to tôrâ with actual textual corpora rather than focusing on its ideational implications.

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(Deut 4:8). Here, an abstract, generic category of law, “statutes and judgments,” might appear to be in view. But have the semantics of tôrâ really shifted? The whole force of Deuteronomy’s frame lends itself to positioning tôrâ as a single event of utterance, namely Moses’s instruction of Israel on the plains of Moab prior to their entrance into the Land. What is in view in this setting of tôrâ before Israel is “this tôrâ (hattôrâ hazzōʾṯ) that I set before you this day” (Deut 4:8). It is a decidedly oral affair: “These are the testimonies, the statutes and the judgments that Moses spoke to the children of Israel upon leaving Egypt” (Deut 4:45).90 In other words, it is a unified speech act that itself consists of a series of rules and regulations (Deut 12–26) – the oral commands with which YHWH charged Moses during his forty days and nights on Mt. Horeb according to Deut 5. Moses’s instructional performance continues to figure along with YHWH’s, through the transitive property of tôrâ, even as a simultaneous sense of these “statutes and judgments” as a material possession, an inheritance to be transmitted for generations, is developed. What differs here is not the phenomenology of tôrâ, but the scale of instruction; all law in Deuteronomy is located within a single, imagined speech event. “The tôrâ” remains a reference to Moses’s originating act of instruction even when the full written text, with its inclusion of other elements, is alluded to.91 Clearly the scroll in question contains curses (see, above, Deut 29:20). Still, it is “this scroll of the tôrâ,” that is, the scroll that, most notably, preserves Moses’s oral instruction to Israel on the plains of Moab. The nature of tôrâ’s identity as speech event hardly changes just because, in its written instantiation, it is also deposited with the curses that bring it into full effect. Nowhere is it the dissemination of the scroll, which, according to Deuteronomy, exists as such in only two copies, that is in view;92 if we are to follow Deuteronomy’s frame, what is transmitted remains tôrâ, oral instruction in “statutes and judgments.” One of the weaknesses in the theory of tôrâ’s transformation is the multiplicity of moments heralded as defining turning points. Was it the book of Deuteronomy, after the composition of which, in fact, there is continued ev90 Cf. Schaper, “‘Publication,’” 228–29, who takes the phrase, “this tôrâ,” as pointing to “the textualization of the Torah,” because it appears elsewhere in conjunction with the verb ktb (“to write”). 91  Cf. Jean-Pierre Sonnet, The Book within the Book: Writing in Deuteronomy, BibInt 14 (Leiden: Brill, 1997), who sees in Deuteronomy a movement from an inner frame, as Mosaic speech, to its final completion as a “book,” which is the effective form of communication it eventually assumes. 92  One scroll is deposited next to the ark (Deut 31:26) and the other in the court of the king (Deut 17:18–20). See Haran, Biblical Collection, 2:173. Nevertheless, Haran maintains that Deuteronomy aspired to be disseminated as a written text, but that its ambitions were frustrated by the lack of literacy in the period, thus requiring alternative means of publication. I argue that no lack is perceived because tôrâ was never conceived as scroll-text but as text-performance, along with covenantal deposit.

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idence of tôrâ as a phenomenon of oral instruction and a relative lack thereof for its functioning as authoritative literature? Or, was it the Judeans’ return from exile that made the decisive difference?93 On the face of it, there is much in EzraNehemiah and other Persian period literature to commend the view that, among the returnees, at least, something like the present-day Pentateuch had become tôrâ and that tôrâ had become a form of authoritative text.94 After all, we find frequent allusions to tôrâ in conjunction with a written scroll and quotations from it as a legal source. Thus, “the altar of Israel’s god” is built “to offer upon it burnt offerings according to the [instructions] written in the tôrâ of Moses, the man of god” (Ezra 3:2). A tôrâ scroll is even brought before the people and read to them, while they stand in its presence (Neh 8:1–5).95 Yet there is something odd about this tôrâ scroll. It never ceases to exist as a form of oral instruction and is consistently marked as such, even at the expense of considerable redundancy, throughout post-exilic literature.96 It is still “the scroll of Moses’s instruction with which YHWH charged Israel” (Neh 8:1).97 There is an insistence on returning to the originating moment of YHWH’s instruction and, by transitivity, Moses’s secondary instruction as “man of God” (Ezra 3:2) in references to the tôrâ scroll, because the scroll itself is not “Law” or sacred, authoritative text but an instrument for recording and preserving what remains primary here, tôrâ as past speech event. The people do not stand when the scroll is brought before them; it is not itself an object of veneration. They stand when Ezra opens the scroll (Neh 8:5), because they are now in the presence of YHWH, as represented by his voice, his “instruction.”98 For that reason, Ezra immediately 93  John J. Collins, The Invention of Judaism: Torah and Jewish Identity from Deuteronomy to Paul (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2017), helpfully reviews the problems with either of these timelines by noting tôrâ’s surprising absences as an authoritative text even after each supposedly watershed moment. 94  See, for instance, Lim, Formation of the Jewish Canon, 54–73; and Sara Japhet, “Law and ‘The Law’ in Ezra-Nehemiah,” Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies, ed. Moshe Goshen-Gottstein and David Assaf (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1988), 99–115, esp. 104, who identifies Ezra as a “turning point – according both to traditional views and modern scholarship – to the ‘religion of the law,’ that is: a religion based on a written book.” Significantly, Sara Japhet (104 n. 10) notes that this view in modern scholarship originates with Wellhausen and his followers, on which see above. 95  For Neh 8 as “revolutionary,” see Juha Pakkala, Ezra the Scribe: The Development of Ezra 7–10 and Nehemia 8, BZAW 347 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004), 274–81. 96  See, especially, Stern, “Torah Scrolls.” 97  For that reason, I believe Avi Hurvitz, “On the Borderline between Biblical Criticism and Hebrew Linguistics: The Emergence of the Term ‫משה‬-‫”ספר‬, in Tehillah le-Moshe: Biblical and Judaic Studies in Honor of Moshe Greenberg, ed. Mordechai Cogan et al. (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1997), 37*–43* [Hebrew], is right to be cautious about concluding that diachronic changes in the phrases used to refer to the tôrâ scroll associated with Moses correspond to changing views of either its nature or contents. 98  Cf. Jeffrey H. Tigay, “The Torah Scroll and God’s Presence,” in Built by Wisdom, Established by Understanding: Essays on Biblical and Near Eastern Literature in Honor of Adele Berlin, ed. Maxine L. Grossman (Bethesda: University of Maryland Press, 2013), 323–40, esp.

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blesses the deity upon opening the scroll, and it is then that the people genuflect. In short, the people’s gaze is not to the text itself but to the imagined speech event that lies behind it. The direction of this gaze, broadly speaking, might help explain the noted inexactitude of quotation when it comes to pentateuchal law in Ezra-Nehemiah, as well as the Chronicler, and, even, the willingness to attribute laws not found in the Pentateuch to YHWH’s tôrâ.99 The scroll serves as a medium for reenacting divine speech, not as an objective text, a printed book, to be consulted according to chapter and verse.100 It has a certain material weight or what is sometimes described as “iconic” value.101 As a physical entity it provides a material basis on 328, who, following Yehezkel Kaufmann, sees the scroll as itself a “cultic object.” Sara Japhet, “The Ritual of Reading Scripture (Nehemiah 8:1–12),” in New Perspectives on Old Testament Prophecy and History: Essays in Honour of Hans M. Barstad, VTSup 168 ed. Rannfrid I. Thelle et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 175–90, clearly critiques this position: “The ritual acts are simple and quite succinct, with the focus being the reading of the words in the book rather than the book as an object” (177, and see, especially, 177 n. 9).  99 See Joseph Blenkinsopp, “Was the Pentateuch the Civic and Religious Constitution of the Jewish Ethnos in the Persian Period?” in Persia and Torah: The Theory of Imperial Authorization of the Pentateuch, ed. James W. Watts, SymS 17 (Atlanta: SBL, 2001), 41–62; and Juha Pakkala, “The Quotations and References of the Pentateuchal Laws in Ezra-Nehemiah,” in Changes in Scripture: Rewriting and Interpreting Authoritative Traditions in the Second Temple Period, ed. Hanne von Weissenberg, Juha Pakkala, and Marko Marttila, BZAW 419 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011), 193–222. 100  On the question of the accessibility of scrolls, see Niditch, Oral World, 41–42. Thomas Willi, “Leviten, Priester und Kult in vorhellenistischer Zeit: Die chronistische Optik in ihrem geschichtlichen Kontext,” in Gemeinde ohne Tempel/Community without Temple ed. Beate Ego et al., WUNT 118 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999), 75–98, esp. 86–87, has suggested that in references to a written scroll “the point of reference is the Scripture as an integrated unity rather than a particular verse or passage.” Rather than positing a generalized, textual idea of scripture and a commitment to its overarching concepts, I suggest below a more specific function for the tôrâ scroll as a repository of oral utterance by way of explaining the indirectness of attention to its exact wording. In his article, “Which Kind of Authority? The Authority of the Torah during the Hellenistic and the Roman Periods,” in Scriptural Authority in Early Judaism and Ancient Christianity, ed. Géza G. Xeravits, Tobias Nicklas, and Isaac Kalimi, DCLS 16 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013), 1–15, Stefan Schorch makes a compelling case for the “creation of awareness of the textual surface, which increasingly attributed authority to the concrete wording of the text” (10) as a group specific dynamic within the late Second Temple period. Similarly, Armin Lange, “From Literature to Scripture: The Unity and Plurality of the Hebrew Scriptures in Light of the Qumran Library,” in One Scripture or Many? Canon from Biblical, Theological and Philosophical Perspectives, ed. Christine Helmer and Christof Landmesser (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 51–107, has noted that, at the beginning of the Second Temple period, “what is important and what is noted is the command God gave through Moses; the literature quoted has no importance of its own” (82–83). Note how Japhet, “The Law,” also speaks of tôrâ as a material, canonical text, but not yet that sort of text: “what may be called ‘a religion of the book’ was not in fact ‘a religion of the letter” (115). See, also, Paul Mandel, The Origins of Midrash: From Teaching to Text, JSJSup 180 (Leiden: Brill, 2017). 101 On writing in the ancient world as “monumental and iconic” (59), see Niditch, Oral World, 39–59. See, also, Karel van der Toorn, “The Iconic Book: Analogies between the Babylonian Cult of Images and the Veneration of the Torah,” in The Image and the Book: Iconic Cults, Ani-

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which the temple and its attendant practices can be reauthorized, as seen in Ezra 3:2, above, but, to do so, it need not be subject to the sort of practice of close reading familiar to the modern reader with its aim of deciphering meaning.102 It provides a loose evidentiary base, an archive of earlier command, at which one might gesture in a much rougher, more approximate form of referentiality than the one to which we are accustomed, given the availability and legibility of print text.103 In other words, instead of positing otherwise unattested versions of the Pentateuch to explain deviations from the known text – thereby proliferating material objects104 – we might recognize that the Pentateuch, like tôrâ, exists as a quasi-object, quasi-subject.105 It is not just a question of what is actually in it, but what it is assembled as being – not just textual object, but imagined speech event. In the same vein, it is striking that only legal portions of the Pentateuch are ever identified as located within the tôrâ scroll.106 What Ezra reads is framed as a conism, and the Rise of Book Religion in Israel and the Ancient Near East, ed. Karel van der Toorn, CBET 21 (Leuven: Peeters, 1997), 229–48; and Collins, Invention of Judaism. For a “functional” critique of tôrâ in the Persian Period as part of “rigid law-religion” (285), see Bob Becking, “The Idea of Torah in Ezra 7–10: A Functional Analysis,” ZABR 7 (2001): 273–85. 102 A concise overview of the problems in seeing an “axial shift” with regard to textual authority in the Persian period can be found in John J. Collins, “The Transformation of the Torah in the Second Temple Period,” JSJ 43 (2012): 455–74, esp. 458–62. See, further, LeFebvre, Collections, Codes, and Torah, 96–145. Cf. Michael Fishbane, “From Scribalism to Rabbinism: Perspectives on the Emergence of Classical Judaism,” in The Garments of Torah: Essays in Biblical Hermeneutics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), 64–78, esp. 65–67. For a view in keeping with Michael A. Fishbane’s exegetical focus, see H. G. M. Williamson, Ezra and Nehemiah (Sheffield: JSOT, 1987), 90–98. 103 Stern, “Torah Scrolls,” provides a compelling account of this variability as reflecting the place of writing in largely oral societies. Such “prescriptural” societies place authority in the hands of “text-brokers,” depend on “audience and context specific” performances, and show little awareness of the distinction between oral and written materials (241–43). As Elsie Stern puts it, the “representation of torah in E-N appears distinctly undertexualized,” because the authority of a law “lies in the fact of its articulation as torah by an authorized text-broker, not in its verifiable inclusion in a written text” (246). Such “text-brokers” thus produce “new compositions” (260). I see my present work as supplementing Elsie Stern’s sociological one, by showing how, apart from any actual history of orality, her model is largely confirmed by an immanent account of tôrâ as an act of oral instruction in biblical literature. For textual pluriformity as a function of texts being part of an oral continuum, see Niditch, Oral World, 75–76. On the problem the modern conception of the “book” poses for the interpretation of ancient literary phenomenon, see Eva Mroczek, The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). 104  Pakkala, Ezra the Scribe, 284–91. 105  Stern (“Torah Scrolls,” 260–61) also speaks of the hybridity of tôrâ in terms of being both a “body of material comprised of oral and written components,” but also “transmitted in its fullest, hybrid form from one generation of authorized text-broker to the next.” So, as a tôrâ assemblage, it entails not only written texts and spoken utterances, but also past and present speakers. 106  As Joel Baden, The Composition of the Pentateuch: Renewing the Documentary Hyphothesis, AYRBL (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 224–25, notes: “The preservation of the sources was primarily the preservation of the laws contained in them … we can at least be

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collection of legal utterances.107 Is it possible that there was a pentateuchal object that failed to include narrative?108 There is nothing in what we know of the history of the Pentateuch’s composition that would support such a possibility. Furthermore, knowledge of the pentateuchal narratives is clearly reflected throughout Ezra-Nehemiah.109 So we must pose a different question: what are the conditions under which Pentateuchal sources become legible as written texts? Once again, this question does not concern the objective history of the Pentateuch, but what the Pentateuch, as a textual object, is construed as being.110 Any immanent account of the “scroll of the tôrâ of Moses” as a textual assemblage must trace it as a material encapsulation of directive utterances. Thus we find carefully traced in Ezra-Nehemiah the identity of tôrâ’s speakers – Moses and YHWH – and their “transitivity,” as well as the location of tôrâ as a specific, past command event. Narratives, though surely found in the inventory of objects that populate the Pentateuch, figure in this tôrâ assemblage only insofar as tôrâ speech needs a time and place–an occasion–in which to occur. That is because what we have is not a canonical text demanding a high degree of fidelity to its contents through an extensive, deliberate practice of interpretation, but a canonical event or series of events, “the instruction of Moses,”111 that receives a textual imprint but continues to be accessed in far more imaginative and varied ways than Wellhausen’s “Law” could ever account for.112

certain that for the authors of those stories living in the late biblical period, the relevant parts of the ‘scroll of the Torah of Moses’ (Neh 8:1) were the laws (see especially Neh 10).” 107  Ska, “From History Writing to Library Building,” 167, notes this same emphasis in the case of Moses’s reading performance in Exod 24:7. 108 That is the suggestion in Joseph Blenkinsopp, Ezra-Nehemiah: A Commentary, OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1988), 152–57. 109  Consider, for instance, the rehearsal of Israel’s history in the prayer found in Nehemiah 9. The passage is clearly in conversation with Pentateuchal sources but they are not related to as written texts. What is in view are simply past events. 110 Note the formulation that appears in David M. Carr, “The Rise of Torah,” in The Pentateuch as Torah: New Models for Understanding its Promulgation and Acceptance, ed. Gary Knoppers and Bernard M. Levinson (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2007),, 39–56, at 51: “… the shared Ezra traditions, like many other Second Temple traditions, construe [italics mine] this narrative-legal complex as ‘law’ or ‘commandment.’” 111  Niditch, Oral World, 55, notes that “monuments – even those in plain view – are not so much meant to be read word for word to obtain information or to verify a date as to point to, verify, and eternalize an event in a more holistic and symbolic fashion.” Note, as well, Lange’s emphasis on “event” as the nexus of textual engagement before the late Second Temple period (“From Literature to Scripture,” 81–82). 112  Showing this has been the fruit of much of the research into the literature of the late Second Temple period over the last few decades. See, in particular, James L. Kugel, Traditions of the Bible: A Guide to the Bible As It Was at the Start of the Common Era (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998); Hindy Najman, “The Vitality of Scripture within and beyond the ‘Canon,’” JSJ 43 (2012): 497–518; and Mroczek, Literary Imagination.

4Q385 (Pseudo-Ezekiel) in the Context of Ezekiel’s Restoration Tova Ganzel ‫שים לבך וראה בעיניך ובאזניך שמע‬ )5 ‫את כל אשר אני מדבר אתך לכל חקות בית ה׳ ולכל תורתו (יחזקאל מד‬ Dedicated to Prof. Baruch Schwartz, Who instructed and interpreted the laws and hearings of the Book of Ezekiel.

1. Introduction The scholarly discussion of the relationship between Pseudo-Ezekiel (4Q385) and Ezek 37:1–14 has furthered our understanding of both texts. Nonetheless, some of the significant differences between these two texts have not yet received sufficient consideration. In this article I identify the distinctive features of those places where Pseudo-Ezekiel diverges from the biblical text and suggest that this comparison facilitates deeper assessment of the meaning of Pseudo-Ezekiel’s message.1 1 Four

Qumran manuscripts contain rewritten compositions from the Book of Ezekiel: 4Q385, 4Q388, 4Q386, and 4Q391. Three of these texts have overlapping material. 4Q385 contains the dry bones vision and is the most complete; the discussion here focuses on this text. For an overview of the scope of Pseudo-Ezekiel manuscripts (4Q383, 4Q385–391), see Devorah Dimant, “A. Pseudo-Ezekiel,” in Qumran Cave 4.XXI: Parabiblical Texts, Part 4: Pseudo-Prophetic Texts, DJD 30 (Oxford: Clarendon, 2001), 7–16. For an evaluation of these manuscripts, see Elisha Qimron, The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Hebrew Writings, Between Bible and Mishnah: The David and Jemima Jeselsohn Library (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2010–2014), 2:85–90 [Hebrew]; Monica Brady, “Biblical Interpretation in the ‘Pseudo-Ezekiel’ Fragments (4Q383–391) from Cave Four,” in Biblical Interpretation at Qumran, ed. Matthias Henze (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 88–102; Molly Zahn, “Prophecy Rewritten: Use of Scriptural Traditions in 4QPseudo-Ezekiel,” JAJ 5 (2014): 335–67, esp. 340–42; Anja Klein, “Resurrection as Reward for the Righteous: The Vision of the Dry Bones in Pseudo-Ezekiel as External Continuation of the Biblical Vision in Ezekiel 37.1–14,” in ‘I Lifted My Eyes and Saw’: Reading Dream and Vision Reports in the Hebrew Bible, ed. Elizabeth R. Hayes and Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer, LHBOTS 584 (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), 196–220, esp. 202–08. For ways in which 4QPseudo-Ezekiel was used in early texts, see George J. Brooke, “Ezekiel in Some Qumran and New Testament Texts,” in The Madrid Qumran Congress: Proceedings of the International Congress on the Dead Sea Scrolls, 18–21, March 1991, ed. Julio Trebolle Barrera and Luis Vegas Montaner, STDJ 11 (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 1:317–37; Mladen Popović, “Prophet, Books and Texts: Ezekiel, Pseudo-Ezekiel and the Authoritativeness of Ezekiel Traditions in Early Judaism,” in Authoritative Scriptures in

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2. Ezekiel 37:1–14 The attempt to identify the prophetic message conveyed by the passages in Ezekiel describing Israel’s restoration has generated considerable scholarly controversy and, in its context, scholars have addressed the extent to which the restoration prophecies reflect the words of the prophet. This question is directly related to general assumptions regarding the composition of the book of Ezekiel.2 The present study is limited to the literary and theological aspects of Ezekiel 37:1– 14 and follows the holistic method of interpretation put forth by Moshe Greenberg in his commentary on Ezekiel.3 Baruch Schwartz has characterized Ezekiel’s restoration prophecies as follows: “Thus, Ezekiel predicts, YHWH is bound and determined to embark on a most ungracious project of forced rehabilitation, in order to correct the failures of history once and for all and ultimately to derive the satisfaction for which he has striven for so long. For his people, this is anything but a relief.”4 Schwartz highlights Ezekiel’s bleak portrait of YHWH’s judgment of Judah.5 In conjunction Ancient Judaism, ed. Mladen Popović, JSJSup 141 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 227–51 (and see the bibliography there); Anja Klein, “Resurrection as Reward.” 2  At one end, we find those who claim that the book underwent a process of redaction (Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, trans. Ronald E. Clements, Hermeneia [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979], 1–77, and others in his wake). Others, however, contend that only a small portion of the prophecies in this book are Ezekiel’s, and that the redactor (or redactors) arranged the content of the book – for various reasons – and in several stages. For a summary of recent criteria leading to these conclusions, see Paul M. Joyce, Ezekiel: A Commentary, LHBOTS 482 (New York: T & T Clark, 2007), 7–16. At the opposite end of the spectrum, some scholars advance a holistic approach, claiming that the entire book was authored by the sixth-century prophet Ezekiel, as evidenced by its organized, consistent structure. Greenberg is among the foremost proponents of this approach. See Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20, AB 22 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 18–27; Moshe Greenberg, “What are Valid Criteria for Determining Inauthentic Matter in Ezekiel?” in Ezekiel and His Book: Textual and Literary Criticism and Their Interrelation, ed. Johan Lust (Leuven: University Press, 1986), 123–35. See also Block, The Book of Ezekiel, Chapters 1–24, 17–23. 3 According to this method, a prophecy is best understood on the basis of a “close reading” of the text, taking into account its internal structure, form, and syntax. See Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20, 18–27, and throughout Greenberg’s commentary. 4  See Baruch J. Schwartz, “Ezekiel’s Dim View of Israel’s Restoration,” in The Book of Ezekiel: Theological and Anthropological Perspectives, ed. Margaret S. Odell and John T. Strong (Atlanta: SBL, 2000), 43–67, at 67. According to Schwartz, even the few favorable, optimistic verses found in Ezekiel constitute a negligible minority and are most likely later additions. For a recent similar interpretive review, see Ariel Kopilovitz, “Israel’s Future in Ezekiel’s Restoration Oracles (Ezekiel 33–37),” Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University, 2018, 31–37 [Hebrew]. 5  In his discussion of the Gog prophecy, Zimmerli suggests a possible motivation behind the few places where we find positive expressions in Ezekiel: “In his final word, however, the final redactor allows … that God, after a period of anger against the people’s offenses, once again turns his face to them in grace, has mercy on them, brings them back again to his land, i. e., close to God, and pours out his spirit on them” (Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel 2, trans. James D. Martin, Hermeneia [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983], 324).

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with the prophet’s generally pessimistic view of the Israelites, Schwartz concludes that Ezekiel’s restoration prophecies likewise reflect a dim outlook.6 The prophecy itself provides no clues as to whether Ezekiel was convinced that the divine word would be fulfilled. Ezekiel’s reply to the divine query in the opening of the oracle, as to whether these bones can live again, cannot be taken as a positive answer.7 Later in the prophecy we learn from God’s words to the prophet that the people as well are not convinced that the bones can be revived. In presenting the divine response to the uncertainty voiced first in the reply and subsequently in the quotation of the people’s comment, the prophecy reiterates the divine promise that the dry bones will live (vv. 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 14) and concludes with the declaration that the divine word will be fulfilled: “Then you shall know that I the LORD have spoken and have acted” (37:14). There is, however, no further quotation of the prophet’s (or his audience’s) words in the oracle. On the contrary, Ezekiel underscores that he is simply relaying what God has commanded him to say (vv. 7, 10), and the fact that God is commanding him to prophesy receives emphatic repetition (vv. 4, 9, 12).8 Thus, this prophetic unit reflects and attests to the divine word as conveyed to the prophet. It does not, however, contain any statement of this oracle’s acceptance, its future realization, or of the abandonment of despair by the prophet or the people.9 It is on these points that PsEzek differs from Ezek 37:1–14.

6  For commentaries that view Ezek 37:1–14 as an ambivalent prophecy, where the prophet plays an ambiguous role with pessimistic features, see, e. g., Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 21–37, AB 22a (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 742–49; Rimon Kasher, Ezekiel: Introduction and Commentary, Chaps. 25–48, Mikra leYisrael (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2004), 710–11, 714–19 [Hebrew]. 7  Greenberg, Ezekiel 21–37, 742–43: “God’s question about the reanimation of the bones highlights its improbability.” 8  See Schwartz, “Ezekiel’s Dim View,” 67: “YHWH will resurrect his people for his own thoroughly egocentric reasons, and in the course of doing so will show them that they are wrong and he is right. In this light too we can understand his pronouncement that the exiles of 597, not the homelanders who presumptuously claim to be more righteous, will be restored; thus the error of the homelanders will be proven (11:14–21; 33:23–29).” 9 As arranged in the MT, the vision of the dry bones (chapter 37) precedes the prophecy to Gog from the land of Magog (chapters 38–39) and the temple vision (chapters 40–48). However, in one LXX manuscript (Papyrus 967) the sequence differs: the dry bones prophecy follows the prophecy to Gog from Magog and precedes the temple vision. Note that this manuscript includes a Greek translation (Chester-Beatty-Scheide, 967), which dates to the second or third century ce, and an early Latin translation, Vetus Latina, found in the sixth-century Old Latin manuscript Codex Wirceburgensis. The absence of Ezek 36:23c–38 sparked a comprehensive discussion of Ezekiel 36–39 as found in the MT in comparison to the translations; see Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 3rd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012), 299–301; J. Lust, “Ezekiel 36–40 in the Oldest Greek Manuscript,” CBQ 43 (1981): 517–33; Ashley S. Crane, Israel’s Restoration: A Textual-Comparative Exploration of Ezekiel 36–39, VTSup 122 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 62–86, 207–64; Ingrid E. Lilly, Two Books of Ezekiel: Papyrus 967 and the Masoretic Text as Variant Literary Editions, VTSup 150 (Leiden: Brill, 2012). Notwithstanding the fact that

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3. 4Q385 3.1 Text and Translation I have distinguished between the text of 4Q385 that is linguistically derived from Ezek 37:1–14 – marked by italics – and the sections of the text where PsEzek is linguistically distinct from Ezek 37:1–14 – marked by underlining. Bold type represents words typical of Ezekiel, but which are not quoted directly from Ezek 37:1–14.10 Unmarked text reflects a shared lexicon with other prophetic books or connecting material. ‫ [כי אני יהוה[ הגואל עמי לתת להם הברית‬ ‫ [ואמרה יהוה [ראיתי רבים מישראל אשר אהבו את שמך וילכו‬ ‫֯בדרכי] לבך וא[לה מתי יהיו והיככה ישתלמו חסדם ויאמר יהוה‬ ‫אלי אני אראה את בני ישראל וידעו כי אני יהוה‬ ‫ עצם אל עצםו ופרק‬11‫ [ויאמר [בן אדם הנבה על העצמות ואמרת וידבקו‬ ‫]אל פרקו ויה]י כן֯ ויאמר שנית הנבא ויעלו עליהם גדים ויקרמו עור‬ ‫רוח‬ ֯ ‫ויאמר שוב אנבא על ארבע רוחות השמים ויפחו‬ ֯ [ ‫]מלמעלה ויהי כן‬ ‫̇קומו עם רב אנשים ויברכו את יהוה צבאות אשר‬ ֯ ‫]בהרוגים ויהי כן [ ו̇י‬ ]‫ [חים  ו[ אמרה יהוה מתי יהיו אלה ויאמר יהוה אל[י זה‬ ]      [‫ [לך האות בטרם יהיו הד]ברים יכף עץ ויזקף‬

.1 .2 .3 .4 .5 .6 .7 .8 .9 .10

1. [For I am YHWH] the one who redeems my people by giving them the covenant 2. [And I said: YHWH ] I have seen many from Israel who have loved your name and walked 3. in the ways of [your heart Th]ese when will they come to be and how will they be recompensed for their piety and YHWH said 4. to me I will see Israel and they will know that I am YHWH. 5. [And he said] Son of man, prophesy over the bones, say and stick bone to bone and joint 6. [to its joint And it wa]s so And he said a second time: Prophesy, and sinews will come up over them and be covered with skin 7. [from above. And it was so] And he said I prophesy again over the four winds of the heavens and blow spirit 8. [into the dead. And it was so] And many people stood up and they blessed YHWH of hosts who 9. [life vacat And] I said YHWH when will these come to be And YHWH said to m[e this] 10. [ is your sign  before will be these] t[hings] a tree shall bend and shall stand     ] the location of Ezekiel 37:1–14 may not have been firmly fixed in the Second Temple period, this prophetic unit is clearly part of the larger unit dedicated to the future restoration of the Israelites. 10  MT Ezek constitutes the basis for this comparison with PsEzek. As presented here, the Hebrew text from 4Q385 is taken from Qimron, Dead Sea Scrolls, 2:85; see the discussion there regarding the combination of the two manuscripts. This text is based on new readings of new photographs. Some scholars also link 4Q387 and 4Q391 to sections of Ezekiel; see Qimron, Dead Sea Scrolls, 1:90. Since the extant material does not exhibit substantial differences, I have chosen to address the text that preserves the most detail. The English translation is mine, based on existing translations, including DJD 30:23–24. 11  ‫ וידבקו‬is a new reading, which can be seen in photo 40.615, and is more accurate than the alternative suggestions. See Qimron, Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew Writings, 2:85.

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3.2 Pseudo-Ezekiel and the book of Ezekiel Scholars, first and foremost Devorah Dimant, have explored the connections between the group of fragmentary texts known as Pseudo-Ezekiel and the book of Ezekiel.12 Based on the links between these texts and Ezekiel’s visions of the chariot, the war between Egypt and Babylonia, and the dry bones, alongside the explicit mention of Ezekiel’s name,13 shared terms,14 and themes, the name Pseudo-Ezekiel was assigned to these texts. Dimant notes: The most salient feature of Pseudo-Ezekiel is the conscious effort to model its discourse on the canonical prophecies of Ezekiel […] Furthermore, the author adopts the stylistic peculiarities of the canonical discourse attributed to this prophet […] In this manner the author appropriates the voice of biblical Ezekiel. Thus the author attempts to extend the prophetical authority of Ezekiel to his own interpretations and additions. Yet despite the close imitation, slight alterations, additions and sporadic late locutions betray the postbiblical milieu of our composition.15

Since the publication of this research, scholars have not only addressed the question of what “biblical Ezekiel” is;16 they have also attempted to determine the relationship between the various versions of the text known as “Pseudo-Ezekiel” and to understand the development of these texts in relation to Second Temple literature.17

12  For the characteristics of the existing texts known as Pseudo-Ezekiel, see DJD 30:7–16. Devorah Dimant’s fundamental assumption is that no explicit connection exists between sectarian literature and PsEzek; it is therefore logical to assume that the expectation of the end-time reflected here does not necessarily reflect only sectarian opinions. See Devorah Dimant, History, Ideology and Bible Interpretation in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Collected Studies, FAT 90 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 423–40. On Devorah Dimant’s work, see Kipp Davis, Cave 4 Apocryphon of Jeremiah and the Qumran Jeremianic Traditions: Prophetic Persona and the Construction of Community Identity, STDJ 111 (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 46–59; and Florentino García Martínez, “The Apocalyptic Interpretation of Ezekiel in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Interpreting Translation: Studies on the LXX and Ezekiel in Honour of Johan Lust, ed. Florentino García Martinez and M. Vervenne, BETL 192 (Leuven: Peeters, 2005), 163–76; Klein, “Resurrection as Reward,” 208–10. 13 Three times, all in 4Q385. 14 Such as ‫בן אדם‬, “son of man,” three times in 4Q385 and 4Q386. 15  DJD 30:10. 16  On the criteria for categorizing such texts, see Michael Segal, “Between Bible and Rewritten Bible,” in Biblical Interpretation at Qumran, ed. Matthias Henze, Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 10–28, as well as the bibliographical references there. 17 David A. Teeter (“The Hebrew Bible and/as Second Temple Literature: Methodological Reflections,” DSD 20 [2013]: 349–77) differs somewhat from Devorah Dimant on methodological questions concerning the relationship between the Hebrew Bible and extra-biblical interpretations found at Qumran and their implications for understanding the ways in which the texts developed.

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Aspects of PsEzek and its relationship to Ezekiel have been addressed in the scholarship from the time of its initial publication.18 Two articles from 2014, by Anja Klein and Molly Zahn, respectively, devote attention to methodological questions. Klein’s paper carefully considers the biblical text in Ezek 37:1–14 and the ways in which it may have been transformed by PsEzek. She pays special attention to the exegetical relationship between the texts and to how PsEzek draws on the canonical book of Ezekiel in its given form. She concludes: “The exegetical interest lies in an eschatological interpretation of the biblical account that focuses on the question how the righteous will be recompensed and when this will happen.”19 I suggest here that this significant contribution to the understanding of PsEzek has overlooked some of this text’s complexity and the additional challenges posed by a close reading of it. Although I agree with Klein that PsEzek addresses the eschatological challenges of its day, the extent to which PsEzek changed and added to the canonical book of Ezekiel requires further examination. PsEzek is primarily a revision of the prophecy in Ezekiel on which it relies, created by combining this text with language not found in the book of Ezekiel.20 Although PsEzek cannot in my opinion contribute to our understanding of the development of the text of biblical Ezekiel, it can be seen as an additional, advanced, “external” stage of the development of the “latest literary supplementation” to the book of Ezekiel.21 Zahn’s comprehensive methodological study is chiefly concerned with rewriting processes.22 In addressing how the relevance and authority of the Ezekiel traditions are evidenced elsewhere in the text, she concludes: “PsEzek reframes Ezekiel’s prophecies so as to answer more clearly the all-important questions of ‘how’ and ‘when’ they would be fulfilled … it seems fair to say that providing an actualizing interpretation of some of Ezekiel’s major prophecies appears to constitute a major goal of the work.”23 I concur with Zahn’s approach; I suggest, however, that we can arrive at a more refined understanding of this text by examining additional biblical expressions that the author of PsEzek interpreted and combined with Ezek 37, expressions that evidence a unique attitude 18  See Albert L. A. Hogeterp, “Resurrection and Biblical Tradition: Pseudo-Ezekiel Reconsidered,” Biblica 89 (2008): 59–69. Regarding the status of these texts during the Second Temple period, see Popović, “Prophet, Books and Texts.” 19 Klein, “Resurrection as Reward,” 219. 20  Although I agree with Devorah Dimant and others who conclude that 4Q385 was an independent composition, it seems to me that the thematic role of the changes incorporated in the text remains relevant even if the text was intended as a literary expansion of Ezekiel. 21 Klein, “Resurrection as Reward,” 219. Current research points to evidence that the text of Ezekiel existed in several forms and suggests that it may have been revised at least once to recalibrate or adjust aspects of Ezekiel’s apocalyptic perspective. See Lilly, Two Books of Ezekiel, 112–15, and Popović, “Prophet, Books and Texts,” among others. This question cannot be properly addressed on the basis of the single fragment discussed here. 22 Zahn, “Prophecy Rewritten.” 23  It is for this reason that PsEzek is best understood as a “postbiblical” text. See ibid., 363.

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343

toward Israel’s restoration. By adding “missing” elements to an authoritative text, the author of PsEzek shaped the divine answer for an audience that may have perceived the absence of these elements in the prophetic oracle and therefore continued to despair.

4. Lexical comparisons: 4Q385 and Ezekiel 37:1–14 In what follows, I present intra-biblical comparisons. I have indicated in the footnotes those cases already cited by Dimant, while adding other parallels not mentioned in her study. The methodological explanation for the discrepancies between this and Dimant’s list lies in two criteria used in her comparison: first, Dimant used the entire Hebrew Bible as the basis for comparison without giving preference to parallel verses from Ezekiel; second, Dimant focused on similarity without taking into account the question of disparity. In other words, I seek to ask further questions: in comparison to the corresponding prophecy in Ezekiel in particular, and the prophecies of national redemption in Ezekiel in general, what elements appear in the text in front of us and what are missing (perhaps intentionally)? And, what is the significance of the fact that in this concise text, clearly written with Ezek 37:1–14 in mind, we find a cluster of words atypical of Ezekiel? By following the intra-biblical parallels that can be adduced, I diverge from Dimant’s conclusions and attempt to identify the theme that formed the basis of these additions, changes, and corrections.24 4.2 Scriptural Reuse in PsEzek The following section undertakes a lexical analysis of the text of 4Q385. As we have seen, based on the numerous topical and linguistic similarities between Ezek 37:1–14 and 4Q385, scholars have demonstrated that the eschatological hopes voiced in 4Q385 derive from the vision of the dry bones and are grounded in its theological outlook. The changes embedded in 4Q385 depart from Ezek 37:1–14 by incorporating and underscoring redemptive elements not found in the original text. Table 1 shows the text of 4Q385 alongside the corresponding biblical expressions. The italicized words in 4Q385 mark text that is also found in Ezek 37, and

24  This text belongs to the genre of Rewritten Scripture, which expands scriptural tradition though new compositions in biblical style, often in an attempt to renew hope. See e. g. William A. Tooman, “Transformation of Israel’s Hope: The Reuse of Scripture in the Gog Oracles,” in Transforming Visions: Transformations of Text, Tradition, and Theology in Ezekiel, ed. William A. Tooman and Michael A. Lyons, Princeton Theological Monograph Series 127 (Eugene: Pickwick, 2010), 50–110.

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the MT is cited in the adjoining column.25 Words typical of Ezekiel that appear in chapter 37, but which are not unique to this book, are shown in bold type. The remaining unmarked words belong to the prophetic literature as a whole but are not typical of the book of Ezekiel. Bracketed MT text is similar to, but not identical with, Ezek 37. Identification of biblical texts other than Ezekiel used by the author of 4Q385 complements the writing process described by Zahn,26 and is consistent with her overall conclusion: “There are instances where PsEzek uses language familiar from scripture without appearing to refer to any one passage, a technique familiar both from expanded editions of scriptural books and other rewritten compositions.”27 Underlined text indicates reuse of words or phrases found elsewhere in the prophetic literature, in which PsEzek alludes to other redemption prophecies.28 Table 1: 4Q385 and the MT: A Comparison 4Q385 1

‫הגואל עמי‬ ‫לתת להם הברית‬

MT Sources Not in Ezekiel ‫]וְ כָ ַר ּ ִתי לָ ֶהם ְּב ִרית ׁ ָשלוֹ ם‬ [ ‫וּ נְ ַת ּ ִתים‬+ ‫ ְּב ִרית עוֹ לָ ם‬Ezek. 37:26?

2

‫ראיתי‬ ‫רבים מישראל‬ ‫אשר אהבו את שמך‬ ‫וילכו‬

‫יתי‬ ִ ‫וְ ָר ִא‬ ]‫[העצמות רבות‬ [‫ב ְב ִריתִֽי‬+ ִּ ]‫ש֣ם‬ ֵ ׁ ‫וּֽלְ ַא ֲה ָבה֙ ֶאת‬ ] ּ‫[וּ ְב ִמ ׁ ְש ּ ָפטַ֣י יֵ לֵ֔כו‬

3

29 ‫מתי יהיו‬ ‫ ישתלמו חסדם‬30‫והיככה‬

‫חֶ ֶ֙ס ֙ד‬

4

31‫ישראל‬

‫אלי אני אראה את בני‬ 32‫וידעו כי אני יהוה‬

Ezek. 37:8 Ezek. 37:2 Isa. 56:6 Ezek. 37:24 Not in Ezekiel

] ‫יהם‬ ֶ ֵ‫[לְ ֵעינ‬+ [‫ ] וְ לִ ְבנֵ י יִ ְ ׂש ָר ֵאל‬Ezek. 37:20–21 [‫ ]וִ ַיד ְע ּ ֶתם ִּכי ֲאנִ י יְ הוָ ה‬Ezek. 37:6,13,14

25  It should be noted that Ezek 37:4, 7, 9, 10 also have parallels in p 976. Although these variants “arguably reflect two variant Hebrew texts for the Greek tradition,” the following comparison will be based on the MT. See Lilly, Two Books of Ezekiel, 115. 26  Zahn, “Prophecy Rewritten,” 344–50. 27  Zahn, 360. 28  The parallels cited by Devorah Dimant in DJD 30:23–29 are indicated in the following notes. William A. Tooman (“Between Imitation and Interpretation: Reuse of Scripture and Composition in Hodayot [1Qha] 11:6–19,” DSD 18 [2011]: 54–73) has addressed the signs of deliberate literary borrowing: uniqueness or rarity, multiplicity, and thematic correspondence. The scriptural reuse identified here (aside from Ezek 37:1–14) follows these principles. On the form of the changes to Ezekiel and additions to an authoritative text in PsEzek, see Zahn, “Prophecy Rewritten,” along with her extensive bibliography. 29  Dimant connects the phrase ‫ ואלה מתי יהיו‬to Dan 8:13 (DJD 30:25). 30  Dimant connects the word ‫ והיככה‬to Song 5:3 and Est 8:6 (ibid.). 31  Dimant connects the phrase ‫ את בני ישראל‬after the active form of ‫ אראה‬with Gen 41:28 and Ezek 40:4 (ibid.). 32  Dimant notes that the phrase ‫ וידעו כי אני ה׳‬is characteristic of the style of biblical Ezekiel (ibid., 24, comments, line 1, and 26, line 4).

4Q385 (Pseudo-Ezekiel) in the Context of Ezekiel’s Restoration

4Q385

MT Sources

5

‫בן אדם‬ ‫הנבה על העצמות‬ ‫ואמרת וידבקו עצם אל עצםו‬ ‫ופרק‬

[‫]בן ָא ָדם‬ ֶּ Ezek. 37:3 ‫ ִה ָּנ ֵבא ַעל ָה ֲע ָצמוֹ ת‬Ezek. 37:4 ֹ‫ ֶע ֶצם ֶאל ַע ְצמו‬Ezek. 37:7

6

‫ויאמר שנית הנבא‬ ‫ויעלו עליהם גדים‬ 34 ‫ויקרמו עור‬

[‫יתי‬ ִ ‫אתי ַּכ ֲא ׁ ֶשר ֻצ ֵ ּו‬ ִ ‫ ]וְ נִ ֵּב‬Ezek 37:7 ‫יהם ִ ּג ִדים‬ ֶ ֵ‫וְ ִה ֵּנה ֲעל‬ ‫יהם עוֹ ר‬ ֶ ֵ‫ וַ ִ ּי ְק ַרם ֲעל‬Ezek. 37:8

7

‫ויאמר שוב אנבא על‬ ֯ ‫רוח‬ ֯ ‫ ויפחו‬35‫ארבע רוחות השמים‬

[ ‫ה ָּנ ֵבא‬..‫א‬ ִ ‫ֹאמ… ִה ָּנ ֵב‬ ֶ ‫וַ ּי‬ ] Ezek. 37:9 ‫ ֵמ ַא ְר ַּבע רוּ חוֹ ת ּב ִֹאי ָהרוּ ַח‬Ezek. 37:9

33

8 9 10

36 ‫̇קומו עם רב אנשים‬ ֯ ‫ו̇י‬ ‫ויברכו את יהוה צבאות אשר‬

37

‫אמרה יהוה מתי יהיו אלה‬ 38

‫ברים יכף עץ ויזקף‬

345

[‫יהם‬ ֶ ֵ‫[ ]וַ ַ ּי ַע ְמדוּ ַעל ַרגְ ל‬Ezek. 37:10] [Zech. 1:12] [‫]עד ָמתַ֗י‬ ַ [‫ ַ]קח לְ ָך ֵעץ ֶא ָחד‬Ezek. 37:15–19

Line 1: The first example where PsEzek’s use of terminology differs from Ezekiel comes from the opening of the fragment, which begins with a description of God’s actions: ‫“ הגואל עמי לתת להם הברית‬Redeemer of my people, giving to them the covenant.” Based on a paradigm of divine redemption, it introduces the word ‫“ גואל‬redeemer,” which is not found in Ezekiel.39 It is, however, characteristic of Isaiah (41:14, 44:24, 48:17, 49:7,40 54:8, and elsewhere).41 The introduction of new words to the opening line indicates that the text is not just an extension of the text in Ezek 37, but rather charts an independent path by including a concept that is  Dimant connects this line to Ezek 37:4 (ibid., 26).  Dimant connects the word ‫ ויקרמו‬to Ezek 37:6, 8 (ibid., 27). 35 Dimant connects the phrase ‫ ארבע רוחות‬together with the word ‫ שמים‬to Zech 2:10; Dan 8:8, 11:4 (ibid., 27). 36  Dimant connects the phrase ‫ עם רב אנשים‬to Ezek 37:10 (ibid., 28). 37  Although this line has no biblical parallels, it should be noted that elements from this line appear in p967 and perhaps provide additional evidence for this text. See Lilly, Two Books of Ezekiel, 115. 38 Dimant connects line 10 to vv. 16–20 in the following prophetic unit in Ezekiel (DJD 30:29). 39  The root ‫ גא״ל‬appears once in Ezekiel, in the description of the exiles surrounding Ezekiel in Babylon: “Son of Man, your brothers, the people of ‫( ”גאלתך‬11:15). Many critics emend to ‫גולתך‬, which makes sense. Others maintain MT and explain “family members,” since one’s ‫ גואלים‬are his close relations. In any case, this is not an exception to the absence of ‫ גאל‬as a term for YHWH’s past or future actions toward Israel. 40 The comparison to Isa 49:7 was noted by Dimant (ibid., 24). 41 ‫ גא״ל‬occurs 20 times in the prophecies in Isa 40–66, in Jeremiah twice (31:11, 50:34), but never in Ezekiel. Concerning unique topics that appear in Deutero- and Trito-Isaiah but are not found in Ezekiel or Jeremiah, see Konrad Schmid and Odil H. Steck, “Restoration Expectations in the Prophetic Tradition of the Old Testament,” in Restoration: Old Testament, Jewish, and Christian Perspectives, ed. James M. Scott, JSJSup 72 (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 41–81. 33 34

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not part of Ezekiel’s thought. Additionally, in Ezekiel the word ‫“ ברית‬covenant” is often found in negative contexts that relate to its violation by the Israelites (16:8, 59).42 However, if the author of 4Q395 was alluding to the closing verses of the next prophetic unit in Ezekiel (37:15–28), then he may have reformulated the Ezekielian notion of a new covenant through the addition of ‫ הגואל עמי‬to the ‫ברית‬ 37:26(). Divine recall of the covenant appears in Ezekiel, but its establishment is a unilateral divine act, and the Israelites’ failure to fulfill their covenantal obligations is underscored (16:60–62; 44:7).43 This will also be the case in the future (34:25, 37:26). Line 2: The root ‫ רא״ה‬is typical of the book of Ezekiel and appears in the opening of many descriptions of what this prophet “sees.” The word ‫ ראיתי‬occurs in Ezek 37:8 and may also link this chapter and 4Q385. ‫ רבים מישראל‬may also echo the many bones (‫ )העצמות רבות‬mentioned in Ezek 37:2. The end of the line, ‫וילכו‬, also appears in Ezek 37:24. It is however important to note that in this chapter ‫ ראה‬introduces Ezekiel’s vision, whereas in 4Q385 it indicates that Ezekiel observes the situation of righteous Israelites who have not been recompensed. However, the focus of this line is ‫“ אשר אהבו את שמך‬who have loved your name.” Love (‫ )אהב‬as a term is not used positively in Ezekiel, and the root ‫ אה״ב‬appears in Ezekiel only in the description of Jerusalem fornicating with her lovers in chapters 16 (vv. 33, 36, 37) and 23 (vv. 5, 9, 22). This contrasts with Jeremiah, which refers to YHWH’s ‫“ אהבת עולם‬everlasting love” for Israel (Jer 31:3) and claims that YHWH remembers Israel’s faithfulness of old; in Ezekiel YHWH accuses Israel of not remembering his kindness (16:22, 43).44 The precise locution ‫ אהב‬+ ‫“ שם‬to love the [divine] name” appears only once in the prophetic literature, in Isa 56:6; it appears, in similar form, in Ps 5:12, 69:37, and 119:132.45 Line 3: ‫“ ישתלמו חסדם‬recompensed for their piety.” The actions of ‫רבים מישראל‬ “many from Israel” (line 2) are described as “their piety.” The root ‫חס״ד‬, piety, does not appear in Ezekiel.46 Its absence is particularly striking given the dozens 42 See Schwartz, “Ezekiel’s Dim View”; Baruch Schwartz, “The Ultimate Aim of Israel’s Restoration in Ezekiel,” in Birkat Shalom: Studies in the Bible, Ancient Near Eastern Literature, and Postbiblical Judaism Presented to Shalom M. Paul, ed. Chaim Cohen et al. (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2008), 1:305–19. 43  In Ezek 17, the violation of the covenant is attributed to the people, as well as to the king of Judah, and the text emphasizes that the covenant which was created (v. 13) and was supposed to be kept (v. 14) has been violated (vv. 15, 16, 18, 19). The idea of a divine-Israelite covenant may reflect a tradition derived from Jer 31:31–34, which turns up in different forms elsewhere in the Dead Sea Scrolls corpus. 44  See Schwartz, “Ezekiel’s Dim View,” 53. 45  Dimant has already noted the connection to Ps 5:12, 119:132 (DJD 30:25). For a terminological discussion of Ezekiel’s restoration prophecies, see Tova Ganzel, “Ezekiel’s Restoration Oracles: A Terminological Consideration,” Beit Mikra 58 (2013): 62–74 [Hebrew]. 46 It appears multiple times, however, in Jer 2:2, 31:20, 32:18, 33:11.

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of occurrences in different contexts, including the redemption of the people, in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, and elsewhere.47 Line 8: ‫“ ויברכו את ה׳ צבאות‬and they blessed YHWH of hosts.” Israel’s blessing of God is also nowhere found in Ezekiel. The root ‫“ בר״ך‬to bless” appears only twice in the book of Ezekiel, but with respect to different subjects. The first is Ezek 3:12, when the prophet hears a great roaring sound: “Blessed is the Presence of the Lord, in His place” (3:12).48 The second is found in the description of the divine grant of future prosperity to the land of the Israel: “I will make these and the environs of My hill a blessing: I will send down the rain in its season, rains that bring blessing” (34:26). This apparently is a different use of ‫( ברך‬blessing) in Ezekiel; it is YHWH who will bless the land of Israel, making it rainy and fertile. In contrast PsEzek has resurrected corpses blessing God, which means praising him verbally. This is one of the significant divergences from the book of Ezekiel in PsEzek. Line 9: The language of the question, “until when” ‫מתי יהיו אלה עד‬, is unique. It bears some thematic resemblance to Zech 1:12, to the angel’s inquiry concerning when Jerusalem will be rebuilt: ‫עד מתי אתה לא תרחם את ירושלם‬. Although we could assume that when the text differs from biblical Ezekiel, the author of PsEzek is alluding to other prophetic literature, it is in fact difficult to determine whether these allusions are intentional. Thus, although there is no attestation to the people wondering when restoration would take place in the prophetic books, examination of these Second Temple-period texts shows that their authors harbored expectations of divine redemption of the people at that time. Line 10: This line is truncated, but the words preserved may correlate with the second part of Ezek 37. Scholars correctly view vv. 15–19, where the prophet sees a conjoined stick or tree (‫ )עץ‬of Judah and Ephraim, as a separate prophetic unit. However, based on the unusual image of ‫עץ‬, and the thematic correspondence between it and the description of a tree standing tall and upright in the future in 4Q385,49 I suggest that, taken together with the shared terminology with Ezekiel 47  In Ps 62:13 ‫ חסד‬describes God and Israel. The combination ‫ חסד‬+ ‫ שלם‬in reference to Israel is found only in Jer 32:18. In this verse, however, God not only shows kindness but also visits the guilt of fathers on their children; therefore, no connection can be drawn between the appearances of these two terms in the verse. Dimant similarly connects the word ‫ חסד‬here to Isa 55:3, Neh 13:14, and 2 Chron 32:32. 48 Note some scholars have embraced the conjecture that ‫ ברוך‬of MT is a corruption of ‫;ברום‬ if this is the case then this is a scribal error and this ‫ ברך‬is irrelevant. See Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20, 70–71. 49  For a discussion of this allusion, see Dimant, DJD 30:8–29. She suggests that it may symbolize death and resurrection.

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noted above, this fragmentary last line in 4Q385 may allude to the prophecy that follows the vision of the dry bones in Ezek 37. This examination, which underscores the appearance of terms used in 4Q385 not found in Ezekiel and their thematic correspondence to prophecies of restoration elsewhere, indicates that PsEzek both changes and adds to an authoritative text. The adjustments made are both lexical and theological (‫ ברך‬,‫גאל‬ ‫)ברית‬. They may be explained as manifesting a shift away from the emphasis on autonomous divine action in Ezekiel, there evidenced by the descriptions of restoration enacted solely by God and at his initiative (37:5, 6, 12–14), in order to (re)establish that the divinely initiated ‫ ברית‬receives a response from the people who do not remain passive: “many people, and they blessed YHWH of hosts” (line 8). As opposed to unilateral divine activity on behalf of the people in Ezekiel, irrespective of whether they have repented, in PsEzek there are righteous people to whom God responds. In addition, despite the fact that only a few words have been preserved at the end of the extant text of PsEzek, based on the uniqueness and thematic correspondence of the image, I suggest that this last line may provide a glimpse of the continuation of 4Q385. The prophecy that continues the vision of the dry bones in Ezekiel opens with the image of a tree, which may have been reused in the image of the tree standing upright at the end of PsEzek; this perhaps suggests that PsEzek continued in this prophecy’s vein.

5. Significance of the “non-Ezekiel 37” lexica for the message of 4Q385 I suggest that the terminology used in 4Q385 represents a deliberate choice.50 On the one hand, 4Q385 exhibits familiarity with the text of Ezek 37 and alludes to its biblical form; on the other hand, by reusing terminology that reflects different motifs, similar to those found elsewhere in the Bible, it deliberately reshapes the biblical Ezekiel prophecy. Specifically, it was its somber impression that the author of 4Q385 sought to “correct” by departing from the theocentric focus of the restoration prophecies in the book of Ezekiel, where God acts to sanctify his name in the eyes of the nations and not for the Israelites’ sake, replacing it with a more loving covenantal relationship. By inserting terms from the oracles of other prophets, the author of 4Q385 imposed a different perception, one that reflects Second Temple period concerns. This perhaps illustrates an attempt to actualize prophecy in the Second Temple period, an attempt that may be attrib50  Regarding specific phrases, Zahn suggests that the language and imagery “were simply what came to mind naturally for a Second Temple author composing a ‘scriptural’ prophecy” (“Prophecy Rewritten,” 361).

4Q385 (Pseudo-Ezekiel) in the Context of Ezekiel’s Restoration

349

uted to elements of Second Temple Jewish society who, experiencing incongruity between their expectations and their reality, aspired to a different reality. This text does not reflect the continuing process of expansion of “biblical Ezekiel” as a literary work, but is an independent composition, part of a genre of postbiblical writing that mirrors disappointment with Ezekiel’s restoration prophecy and with the existing Second Temple. By placing Ezek 37’s prophecy in a more positive light, it provides a glimpse of the expectations of certain parts of Jewish society for the overturning of Ezekiel’s “dim view” of restoration and illuminates their future hopes. Moreover, we must consider the historical context of the book of Ezekiel. Although the question of the date of its composition and editing is largely shrouded in mystery, recent decades have seen the emergence of a growing consensus regarding the historical context of its prophecies. It is likely that Ezekiel, who prophesied in exile, and was not present in Jerusalem at the time of the destruction of the temple, did not himself witness the state of Jerusalem’s residents during the harrowing years of famine and the burning of the temple.51 By contrast, such experiences may have prompted Jeremiah, who did witness such tribulations, to include consolatory aspects that are lacking in Ezekiel’s prophecies.52 It was this void in Ezekiel that the author of PsEzek sought to fill with a consolatory message of a renewed divine-Israelite covenant. Furthermore, the texts that mention bones in Ezekiel and their interpretation differ from what emerges from the interpretation of the bones in 4Q385 noted here. First, in Ezek 1–24 (“the chapters of rebuke”), God scatters the bones of the sinners in the vicinity of their worship (6:5), and these bones are cooked in the city on the eve of the destruction (24:4–5, 10). In Ezek 37:1–14 (the vision of the dry bones) the response to God’s question as to whether the bones in the valley will live is, “You know” (37:3). Notwithstanding linguistic similarities, there is a fundamental difference in content between Ezekiel and 4Q385. Ezekiel’s response to the cry, “They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, our hope is gone, we are doomed’” (37:11), has not materialized. 4Q385, therefore, asks “when” and expresses hopes for the realization of this prophecy. Its author wonders about the future reward for those who love God, who have not yet merited God’s grace in exchange for walking in His ways. In response, God instructs the prophet to revive the dry bones (as in the biblical prophecy), an event that will occur. Although this is not a sectarian text,53 it seems that the author continued to count on the realization of this prophecy while the Second Temple still stood.54 51  See, for example, the commentaries of Greenberg (Ezekiel 1–20, 11–17) and Block (Ezekiel: Chapters 1–24, 1–23). 52  Regarding the possible influences of Ezekiel’s location in exile on the content of his prophecies, see Daniel Smith-Christopher, A Biblical Theology of Exile, OBT (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002), 75–104. 53  See n. 7. 54  Silviu N. Bunta, “In Heaven or on Earth: A Misplaced Temple Question about Ezekiel’s

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This terminological consideration shows the extent to which the text of 4Q385 supplies answers to unresolved issues in Ezekiel. A first such issue is the response to the divine prophecy, which contains no indication of the prophet’s acceptance of the message. He merely relays it as commanded. 4Q385 continues the truncated dialogue and, because they accept the divine word and expect its fulfillment, the people’s desire is clarified. A second issue is the realization of redemption. Indeed, in Ezekiel the people are resurrected, but there is no closeness between God and his people. By introducing missing terminology, the author of 4Q385 fills this lacuna in the divine-Israelite bond based on a covenant that encompasses love and mercy. The existing discussion of the historical context of PsEzek rightly views it in the context of a broader spectrum of texts from the Second Temple period that contain motifs of resurrection and restoration.55 In pointing out the significant differences between PsEzek as a whole and Ezekiel, Dimant notes that the extant text does not fully repeat everything found in Ezekiel’s prophecy in chapter 37. She thus concludes, “Although some elements of this portrait are taken from the biblical figure, the keen interest in eschatological events and the emphasis on the fortunes of the righteous are concerns typical of the Second Temple era.”56 PsEzek evidently reflects the fundamental longing for redemption that was part of Second Temple period thought, the aspiration for fulfillment of the ideological expectations and divine promises reflected in prophetic oracles. Immediately on publishing the text, Dimant correctly noted that the longing for the resurrection of the dead that arises from the text is concrete, not metaphorical, as shown by the people’s benediction, which offers thanks for an already accomplished event (even if only in the vision).57 This detailed prophecy, which conveys a powerful, inspiring message of national restoration in a rhetorically perfect vehicle,58 served as the basis for a text that aimed to respond to the question of when this prophecy would be realized. The fragmentary condition of 4Q385, and our lack of knowledge, prevents us, however, from determining whether this new text gained authoritative status of its own. Visions,” in With Letters of Light: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Early Jewish Apocalypticism, Magic, and Mysticism in Honor of Rachel Elior, ed. Daphna V. Arbel and Andrei A. Orlov (New York: de Gruyter, 2011), 28–44; Brooke, “Ezekiel in Some Qumran and New Testament Texts.” 55  For the continuing discussion of resurrection (among other topics), see Jon D. Levenson, Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), 156–65. For another example, see Hindy Najman, Losing the Temple and Recovering the Future: An Analysis of 4 Ezra (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014). 56 Dimant, DJD 30:11. 57 See DJD 30:34. Such an expectation appears in an additional fragment that mentions Ezekiel by name. See 4Q385 4:2–4 (Qimron, Dead Sea Scrolls, 2:87). A similar question, ‫מתי‬ ‫תקבצם‬, is found in 4Q386 1 ii 3. Although only a few fragments have been preserved, they reflect a concrete expectation for the people’s redemption. 58  Greenberg, Ezekiel 21–37, 747.

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6. Conclusion As part of the Second Temple-period response to the question of what expectations for restoration should be, 4Q385 engages the dry bones vision, but also alters its meaning by introducing new materials to Ezekiel’s vision. It achieves this change through the use of language missing not only from Ezek 37:1–14, but from all of Ezekiel’s restoration prophecies, enlisting the text from Ezek 37 both to support its own ideology and to address the questions of when and how restoration will be realized. This study thus belongs to the body of research examining of how later texts quote, rewrite, or expand scriptural prophecies.59 Using the portrayal of Israel’s restoration in 4Q385 as its focus, this article explored how additions to Ezek 37 in PsEzek are utilized to create a consolatory message. These additions share a common denominator: not only are the terms of redemption used by 4Q385 absent from Ezek 37; they are also conspicuously absent from Ezekiel’s restoration prophecies. Its author underscores his message by creating a cluster of allusions to Ezek 37:1–14,60 an authoritative text for the future restoration of the people,61 while at the same time introducing changes that transform Ezekiel’s “dim view of restoration” into a more optimistic vision that includes divine love, benevolence, and blessing for his people.62 4Q385 thus not only addresses the question of when the restoration prophesied by Ezekiel will take place; it provides a more optimistic picture of this restoration. The comparison between 4Q385 and the book of Ezekiel as a whole emphasizes this underlying theme, overlooked in previous scholarship, that unites all of the corrections and changes that distinguish this text from the biblical version.

 See, e. g., Eibert Tigchelaar’s examination of Jeremiah in the context of the DSS and his stance: “within the larger narrative, Jeremiah’s lament anticipates, and perhaps even enables, the possibility of a new future” (Eibert Tigchelaar, “Jeremiah’s Scriptures in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Growth of a Tradition,” in Jeremiah Scriptures: Production, Reception, Interaction, and Transformation, ed. Hindy Najman and Konrad Schmid, JSJSUP 173 [Leiden: Brill, 2016], 289– 306, at 291). 60  For a characterization of allusions, see Benjamin D. Sommer, A Prophet Reads Scripture: Allusion in Isaiah 40–66, Contraversions; Jews and other Differences (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998). 61  For a recent survey of this topic, see chapter 2 of Nathan Mastnjak, Deuteronomy and the Emergence of Textual Authority in Jeremiah, FAT II/87 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016). 62  Davis noted a similar tendency (Cave 4, 227–33). On the authoritative nature of the prophets in the eyes of the Qumran sect, see Michael Segal, “Biblical Interpretation – Yes and No,” in What is Bible? ed. Karin Finsterbusch and Armin Lange, CBET 67 (Leuven: Peeters, 2012), 63–80, at 69. On the nature of the restoration prophecies in Ezekiel, see Schwartz, “Ezekiel’s Dim View.” 59

Impurity without Danger A Mishnaic Reading of the Priestly ḥattat Mira Balberg One of Baruch Schwartz’s seminal contributions to the study of priestly theology is his cogent elucidation of the concept of sin in biblical literature,1 and especially his careful work to disentangle the knot of the ḥattat offering, in which impurity and sin, purification and forgiveness, physical objects and human subjects, all seem to be confusingly bound up together. In his article “The Bearing of Sin in Priestly Literature” Schwartz builds on Jacob Milgrom’s insight that the sanctuary becomes polluted by the presence of sins and impurities in the camp of the Israelites and requires purgation through ḥattat as a result,2 but he puts forth sharper and more systematic distinctions between the manners in which impurity and sin each operate and are eradicated in the priestly worldview. Milgrom maintained that transgressions generate physical impurity that affects the sanctuary from afar, and accordingly that in the realm of the sacred sins and impurities are one and the same, even though their effect on the individual who experiences them is quite different. Schwartz, in contrast, showed that sins were perceived as having real and palpable presence that affects both those who committed them and the sanctuary, and that this presence was distinct from that of bodily impurity. As Schwartz put it, “not one but two types of pollution are said to accumulate in the sanctuary and need to be purged. Only bodily impurities generate defilement; sin does not. When the Israelite sins, what penetrates the realm of the sacred is not defilement but rather the transgressions themselves.”3 Schwartz demonstrated that impurities and sins are fully disparate in the priestly paradigm, as evidenced by the fact that the processes through which they are removed are conceptualized differently. Impurity operates like dirt or 1  See Baruch J. Schwartz, “Term or Metaphor – Biblical ‫פשע‬/‫ חטא‬/‫ נשא עון‬,” Tarbiz 63 (1994): 149–71 [Hebrew]. Baruch Schwartz continued to develop his insights specifically in regard to the Priestly Code in the article “The Bearing of Sin in Priestly Literature,” in Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish and Near Eastern Ritual, Law and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom, ed. David P. Wright, David Noel Freedman, and Avi Hurvitz (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1995), 3–21. See further discussion also in Baruch J. Schwartz, The Holiness Legislation: Studies in the Priestly Code (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1999), 57–65 [Hebrew]. 2  See Jacob Milgrom, “Israel’s Sanctuary: The Priestly Picture of Dorian Gray,” RB 83 (1976): 390–99. 3  Schwartz, “Bearing of Sin,” 7.

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filth that must be cleansed and thereby disappear, whereas sin operates like a weight or a burden that must be taken away.4 Both processes – expunging impurity (‫ חטא‬,‫ )טהר‬and carrying sin away (‫פשע‬/‫חטא‬/‫)נשא עון‬ – are often described through the single term ‫כפר‬, but they are not identical in essence. Moreover, both processes are applicable both to the sinner(s) and to the sanctuary. In a case of bodily impurity, in the same way that the impurity in/on one’s person must dissipate (through the passage of time) and be washed away (in water), so impurity must be wiped away from the sanctuary and its articles through the purifying blood of the ḥattat. In the case of sin, in the same way that the individual or group “bears” the sin as a burden until another agent (generally, God) deigns to take it away, so the sin must be borne away from its place of residence in the sanctuary by an external agent (most quintessentially, the scapegoat of the Day of Atonement). The nuanced distinctions that Schwartz draws in this article rest on the premise, brought to the fore by Milgrom, that in the priestly paradigm impurity and sin are able to penetrate God’s abode even from afar and to contaminate it cumulatively.5 The priestly notion of effect from afar was notably lost on the rabbis of late antiquity, and accordingly on generations of commentators who followed in their footsteps.6 For the rabbis, impurity could be contracted only through direct contact, whereas sin was understood to be a spiritual and mental phenomenon with no physical repercussions.7 Accordingly, the rabbis understood the concept of atonement (‫ )כפרה‬either in abstract terms of forgiveness or, as I argued elsewhere, simply as the mechanical outcome of correct completion of the sacrificial process.8 The ḥattat offering, in turn, was not viewed by the rabbis as a tool for purging the sanctuary (since they did not conceive of the sanctuary as requiring purgation unless it was directly contaminated), but as a means for alleviating the guilty conscience of the sinner or, according to other views, as a penalizing mechanism for negligent or careless behavior.9 Yet while the rabbis operated in a conceptual world fundamentally different from that of the priestly authors, as perceptive readers of the priestly literature they were confronted with the same conundrums that engage modern biblical scholars. The 4 Schwartz,

“Bearing of Sin,” 18. Milgrom, “Israel’s Sanctuary.” 6  As noted by Jacob Milgrom, “The Graduated Sin Offering in Leviticus 5:1–13,” Beit Mikra 29 (1984): 139–48 [Hebrew]. 7  See Jonathan Klawans, Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 92–117. 8 See Mira Balberg, Blood for Thought: The Reinvention of Sacrifice in Early Rabbinic Literature (Oakland: University of California Press, 2017), 65–107. 9  For systematic discussions of the rabbinic understanding of ḥattat, see Noam Zohar, “The Sin offering in Tannaitic Teachings,” MA Thesis, Hebrew University, 1988; Arye Edrei, “If Any One Shall Sin Through Error: On the Culpability of the Unwilling Transgressor in Biblical and Rabbinic Literature,” Annual of the Institute for Research in Jewish Law (2007): 1–62 [Hebrew]. 5 See

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rabbis noted that ‫ כפר‬is used both for people and for the sanctuary, and both for impurity and for sin; they noted that the effect of the ḥattat is both purification and forgiveness (which they did not consider to be the same thing); and they noted that ḥattat is required vis-à-vis specific transgressions but also required periodically without any connection to specific transgressions. All those dualities warranted explanation. In this essay I closely analyze one unit in the Mishnah that attempts to establish a framework for understanding the relations between impurity and sin, sanctuary and persons, and individual and congregation in the priestly sacrificial system. I find this unit instructive and intriguing not because the rabbis’ interpretation of the priestly rituals is cogent as such, but because this interpretation helps us see with great clarity how confounding the rabbis found the intersection of impurity and sin in the ḥattat offering. It is precisely because the mishnaic interpretation is somewhat forced and inconsistent that it provides us with a glimpse into the struggles and challenges of the rabbis in their attempts to make sense of the priestly worldview. At the same time, for the rabbis textual difficulties are always also opportunities. I argue that through their attempt to present a coherent account of the workings of ḥattat (henceforth: sin offering)10 in the sanctuary, the rabbis sought to promote both a theological-ethical agenda regarding personal responsibility in the commission of sins, and a theologicalsocial agenda regarding the division of labor between individuals and congregation. It was Baruch Schwartz who taught me that visible seams and cracks in a text often hold the key to understanding its formation and its meaning, and I wish to pay him tribute by implementing this methodology on the first chapter of Mishnah Shevu’ot.

1. The Graduated Sin Offering and Personal Responsibility The biblical passage that stands at the core of tractate Shevu’ot of the Mishnah is Lev 5:1–14, which presents a subset of four transgressions distinct from “any of YHWH’s commandments about things not to be done” discussed in Lev 10  Jacob Milgrom was adamant that one should translate the term ḥattat as “purification offering,” identifying its origin in the pi’el form ḥitte’ rather than in the qal form ḥata’; see Jacob Milgrom, “Sin-Offering or Purification-Offering?” VT 21 (1971): 237–39. I agree, however, with James Watts and William Gilders, who both made the point that this offering is fundamentally associated with sin and that “sin offering” is the more appropriate translation. See James Watts, Ritual and Rhetoric in Leviticus: From Sacrifice to Scripture (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 79–85; William K. Gilders, “‫ חטאת‬as Sin Offering: A Reconsideration,” in The One Who Sows Bountifully: Essays in Honor of Stanley K. Stowers, ed. Caroline Johnson Hodge et al. (Providence: Brown Judaic Studies, 2013), 119–28. Jeffrey Stackert pointed out to me that if the pi’el form ḥitte’ is privative, as Milgrom argues, it denotes the undoing of sin, which ties ‫ חטאת‬and ‫ חטא‬more closely than Milgrom’s overall argument suggests. I thank him for this observation.

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4.11 Two of the transgressions mentioned in this passage have to do with oaths (failing to provide a testimony in response to an imprecation and failing to fulfill one’s own oath) whereas the two others have to do with impurity that was not handled properly. These four transgressions are relatively mild in nature, as they pertain to omissions of things that should have been done rather than to strict prohibitions that were broken.12 These transgressions are to be addressed through a sin offering, but unlike in the cases mentioned in Lev 4 there is flexibility vis-à-vis the type of sacrificial substance required for the offering, depending on the offender’s financial situation. The rabbis thus identified this particular expiatory offering as a unique sacrificial category and termed it “an ascending and descending offering” (‫ )קרבן עולה ויורד‬to denote its fluctuating value. The majority of tractate Shevu’ot deals with oaths (hence its name), but its first two chapters discuss the requirement to bring an “ascending and descending offering” (which I henceforth call “graduated sin offering”) for omissions pertaining to impurity. It is specifically the first of these two mishnaic chapters that I wish to explore in some detail in this essay. After Lev 5:1 lays out the case of one who failed to provide a required testimony, Lev 5:2–3 relate two cases involving contraction of impurity: ‫ד ָבר ָט ֵמא אוֹ ְבנִ ְבלַ ת ַח ָ ּיה ְט ֵמ ָאה אוֹ ְּבנִ ְבלַ ת ְּב ֵה ָמה ְט ֵמ ָאה אוֹ ְּבנִ ְבלַ ת ׁ ֶש ֶרץ ָט ֵמא וְ נֶ ְעלַ ם‬-‫ל‬ ּ ָ ָ‫אוֹ נֶ ֶפ ׁש ֲא ׁ ֶשר ּ ִת ַ ּגע ְּבכ‬ :‫אוֹ כִ י ַ ּיִגע ְּב ֻט ְמ ַאת ָא ָדם לְ כֹל ֻט ְמ ָאתוֹ ֲא ׁ ֶשר יִ ְט ָמא ָּב ּה וְ נֶ ְעלַ ם ִמ ּ ֶמנּ וּ וְ הוּ א יָ ַדע וְ ָא ׁ ֵשם‬ :‫ִמ ּ ֶמנּ וּ וְ הוּ א ָט ֵמא וְ ָא ׁ ֵשם‬ Or when a person touches any unclean thing – be it the carcass of an unclean beast or the carcass of unclean livestock or the carcass of an unclean swarming thing – and it was concealed from him, and he has become unclean, and is guilty. Or when he touches human uncleanness – any uncleanness by which one can become unclean – and it was concealed from him, and he has become aware of it, and is guilty.13

The nature of the offense related in these verses is not entirely clear. It is by no means a crime to contract impurity in the priestly system – in fact, it is oftentimes inevitable – so it is hardly likely that the very fact that one touched a source of impurity (a dead animal in the first case, an impure person in the second case) renders one guilty. Rather, it appears that what generates guilt in these cases is the lack of awareness of impurity rather than the impurity itself, and it is upon the awakening of one’s awareness that guilt is set in motion. One feels guilty not for having contracted impurity in the first place but when realizing that one failed, unwittingly, to act as a person who contracted impurity ought. Milgrom concluded that the person in question transgressed insofar as they neglected to pu-

 Lev 4:2.  See Milgrom, “Graduated Sin Offering.” 13  All translations are mine, unless otherwise noted. 11 12

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rify themselves in a timely manner, thus allowing impurity to linger in the camp and to penetrate the sanctuary.14 Milgrom’s reading is persuasive, but as he himself noted, the rabbis would not have accepted this reading. The rabbis, as mentioned above, maintained that impurity affects the sanctuary only if one actually enters the sanctuary while impure or touches any of its articles directly. Since they did not consider the contraction of impurity as such to be a sin, and since they did not think that failure to purify oneself impacts anyone or anything other than the impure person and their immediate surroundings,15 the rabbis interpreted that the person in question is guilty because they unwittingly came into direct contact with the sanctuary or with the sancta while impure: m. Shevu’ot 2.1–2 (according to MS Kaufman) ‫ידיעות הטומאה שתים שהן ארבע נטמא וידע נעלמה ממנו טומאה וזכור את הקודש נעלם ממנו קודש וזכור‬ ‫לטומאה נעלמו ממנו זה וזה אכל את הקודש ולא ידע {ומשאכל ידע} הרי זה בעולה ויורד‬ ‫נטמא וידע נעלמה ממנו טומאה וזכור למקדש נעלם ממנו מקדש זכור לטומאה נעלמו ממנו זה וזה נכנס‬ ‫למקדש ולא ידע ומשיצא ידע הרי זה בעולה ויורד‬ 2.1 There are two [scenarios] of awareness of impurity, which are [actually] four [scenarios]: [A] (1) If one became impure and was aware of it, and impurity was concealed from him while he remembered the sancta, (2) or the sancta was concealed from him while he remembered his impurity, or both were concealed from him, and he ate a sacred item, and he was not aware, and after he ate, he became aware – he is [liable for] an ascending and descending offering. 2.2 [B] (1) If one became impure and was aware of it, and impurity was concealed from him while he remembered the sanctuary, or (2) the sanctuary was concealed from him while he remembered his impurity, or both were concealed from him, and he entered the sanctuary, and he was not aware, and after he left, he became aware – he is [liable for] an ascending and descending offering.

As this passage explains, there are two turns of impurity-related events that would require one to provide a graduated sin offering: [A] one touched a holy article (such as holy foodstuffs) while impure without realizing it, or [B] one entered the sanctuary while impure without realizing it. Each one of these events of unwitting contact can further unfold in two different ways: (1) one did not realize that one was impure at the time, or (2) one did not realize that what one was touching or the place one was entering was sacred. It is also possible that

14  See Milgrom, “Graduated Sin Offering.” The obligation to purify oneself in a timely manner after contracting impurity, and the notion that one who fails to purify oneself pollutes the sanctuary, are explicitly stated in Num 19:20: “If one became impure and did not purify oneself, that person shall be cut off from the congregation, for he has contaminated the sanctuary of YHWH.” 15 See the discussion in Vered Noam, “The Bounds of Non-Priestly Purity: A Reassessment,” Zion 72 (2007): 127–60 [Hebrew].

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one was aware of neither, but this case is not counted in the Mishnah as an independent sub-scenario. It is important to note that by interpreting Lev 5:2–3 as pertaining to “the impurity of the sanctuary and the sancta” (‫ )טומאת מקדש וקדשיו‬the rabbis turned a relatively mild transgression of omission into a grave offence of commission. One who comes into contact with the holy while impure breaks a negative commandment punishable by extirpation (‫)כרת‬, not merely fails to follow a positive commandment.16 In this respect, even though unwitting contact between impurity and the sancta is rectifiable through a distinct type of offering, for all other intents and purposes this offence is viewed by the rabbis like any other offence that warrants a sin offering when done erroneously and lashes when done knowingly.17 In another mishnaic passage, one who enters the sanctuary or touches the sancta while impure is mentioned alongside various other inadvertent transgressors who must provide a sin offering, such as one who violates the Sabbath, one who commits idolatry, one who participates in illicit sexual relations, one who eats bread on Passover, etc.18 It seems, then, that the rabbis understood the requisite sacrifice of the polluter of the sancta as a means to remedy their state as a sinner, not as a means to cleanse the sanctuary itself of pollution.19 The first chapter of Mishnah Shevu’ot, however, presents a somewhat more complicated picture. According to the Mishnah in tractate Shevu’ot, the graduated sin offering of Lev 5 applies to inadvertent polluters of the sanctuary and the sancta only in one very particular case: a case in which one was initially aware of all the relevant information (i. e., that they were impure and that the item or place in question was sacred), then forgot some or all of this relevant information and entered the sanctuary or touched holy articles, and finally was reminded of the information that temporarily escaped them. As m. Shevu’ot 2.2 describes it, “one became 16 The

rabbis rely here on Num 19:20; see Sifre on Numbers 129 (ed. Horovitz-Rabin 167).  Pollution of the sanctuary and the sancta is mentioned among the list of transgressions warranting extirpation in m. Ker. 1.1–2 and among the list of transgressions warranting lashes in m. Mak. 3.2. On the rabbinic transformation of the karet punishment into corporal punishment, see Aharon Shemesh, Punishments and Sins: From Scripture to the Rabbis (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2003), 82–96 [Hebrew]. 18  m. Ker. 1.1–2. 19  Yosef Marcus argued that the rabbis assumed that the sanctuary cannot contract impurity at all, even if impure persons come into contact with it, and that the rabbis’ interest in “the pollution of the sanctuary and the sancta” is strictly in the transgression of the polluter, not in the consequences for the sanctuary itself. See Yosef Marcus, “Sin Offerings for Impurity of the Temple and its Holiness in Tannaitic Literature: Atonement for Sin or Purification of the Temple?” Jewish Studies Internet Journal 21 (2021): 1–21 [Hebrew]. While I am not entirely convinced that rabbinic texts are unanimous on the question of the pollution of the sanctuary, and I think some of them do suggest that such pollution is a problem in and of itself, Marcus is undoubtedly correct that the opening passages of tractate Shevu‘ot are concerned with the transgressor and not with the sanctuary, as will be discussed below. However, I argue that these passages are guided by and struggle with Lev 16, in which pollution and transgression are intertwined. 17

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impure and was aware of it, and [then] impurity was concealed from him […] and he entered the sanctuary, and he was not aware, and after he left, he became aware.” It is in such a case, and only in such a case, that the requisite offering is a graduated sin offering. In all other configurations of awareness or lack thereof, the situation is remedied through different kinds of congregational sacrificial offerings, as the Mishnah elaborates: m. Shevu’ot 1.2–4, 1.9 (according to MS Kaufman) ‫כל שיש בה ידיעה כתחילה וידיעה בסוף והעלם בנתיים הרי זה בעולה ויורד‬ ‫יש בה ידיעה כתחילה ואין בה ידיעה בסוף שעיר הנעשה בפנים יום הכיפורים תולה עד שתיתוודע לו ויביא‬ ‫בעולה ויורד‬ ‫אין בה ידיעה כתחילה אבל יש בה ידיעה בסוף שעיר הנעשה בחוץ יום הכיפורים מכפר שנ׳ מלבד חטאת‬ ‫ מה הפנימי אינו מכפר אלא על דבר שיש בו ידיעה אף החיצון לא‬20}‫הכיפורים על מה שזה מכפר {זה מכפר‬ ‫יכפר אלא על דבר שיש בה ידיעה‬ ‫ועל שאין בה ידיעה לא כתחילה ולא בסוף שעירי רגלים ושעירי ראשי חדשים מכפרים דב׳ ר׳ יודה ר׳ שמעון‬ ‫אומ׳ שעירי רגלים מכפרים אבל לא שעירי ראשי חדשים ועל מה שעירי ראשי חדשים מכפרים על טהור‬ ‫שאכל טמא ר׳ מאיר או׳ כל השעירים כפרתן שווה על טומאת מקדש וקדשיו‬ ]…[ ‫ועל זדון טומאת מקדש וקדשיו שעיר הנעשה בפנים ויום הכיפורים מכפר ועל שאר עבירות שבתורה הקלות‬ ‫והחמורות הזדונות והשגגות הודע ולא הודע עשה ולא תעשה כריתות ומיתות בית דין שעיר המשתלח מכפר‬ 1.2 Whenever there is awareness at the beginning and awareness at the end and concealment in the interim – [atonement takes place] through an ascending and descending offering. If there is awareness at the beginning but there is no awareness at the end – the goat that is offered inside [on/and] the Day of Atonement suspends [judgment] until it becomes known to him, [at which point] he shall bring an ascending and descending offering. 1.3 If there is no awareness at the beginning but there is awareness at the end – the goat that is offered outside [on/and] the Day of Atonement atone(s), as it was said, [and there shall be one goat for a sin offering] in addition to the sin offering of expiation (Num 29:11). Whatever that one atones for, this one atones for: in the same way that the inner [goat] only atones for that which involves awareness, so the outer [goat] only atones for that which involves awareness. 1.4 And if there is awareness neither at the beginning nor at the end, the goats of the festivals and the goats of the beginnings of months atone, the words of R. Yehuda. R. Shimon says: the goats of the festivals atone [in such cases], but not the goats of the beginnings of months. And for what do the goats of the beginnings of months atone? For a pure person who ate an impure [sacred] substance. R. Meir says: all goats equally atone for the impurity of the sanctuary and the sancta. […] 1.921 And for pollution of the sanctuary and the sancta done knowingly, the goat that is offered inside and the Day of Atonement atone(s). And for all other transgressions in the Torah, light and severe, advertent and inadvertent, known and unknown, positive and

20 Missing

in the line and added (possibly by the scribe) on the margins.  1.6 in the printed edition.

21

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negative, [warranting] extirpation and [warranting] execution by a court – the goat that is sent away atones.

The mishnaic unit presents two interpretive moves. First, it states that the graduated sin offering described in Lev 5:1–14 is required only of an individual who polluted the sanctuary or the sancta due to a temporary lapse of awareness, and that in all other cases in which the sanctuary was polluted there is a designated congregational offering that takes care of the problem (I will discuss the exact nature of the “problem” in the next section). Second, it presents an elaborate division of labor between different congregational offerings, such that each offering is said to atone for a specific combination of pollution of the sanctuary and state of awareness of the polluter. Before we delve more deeply into the details, let us first look into the restrictive reading of the graduated sin offering with which the unit commences. Why did the rabbis decide that only “awareness at the beginning and awareness at the end and concealment in the interim” warrants the inadvertent polluter to bring a sin offering? It is obvious that the polluter needs to know eventually (‫ )בסוף‬that they had entered the sanctuary or touched the sancta while impure: clearly, they cannot be expected to bring an offering for a transgression they do not know they committed. We would expect, however, that even if one were initially (‫ )כתחילה‬unaware of one’s impurity or of the sacred nature of what one had contact with (as described in m. Shevu’ot 1.3), once one learns that one transgressed one would be required to provide an expiatory offering. Why does the Mishnah restrict the applicability of the graduated sin offering only to cases of forgetfulness, and does not also include cases of initial ignorance? A halakhic midrash presents this restrictive reading as anchored in the language of biblical text itself: Sifra Hovah 8.12.11 (according to MS Vatican 66) ‫ומניין שאינו חייב עד שיהא בה ידיעה כתחילה וידיעה בסוף תל׳ לו׳ ונעלם ממנו ונעלם ממנו שני פעמין‬ ‫דברי ר׳ עקיבה רבי אומר ונעלם ממנו מכלל ידיעה והוא ידע הרי שתי ידיעות‬ And whence that one is not liable [for a graduated sin offering] unless there is awareness at the beginning and awareness at the end? Scripture says, and it was concealed from him (Lev 5:2), and it was concealed from him (Lev 5:3) twice, the words of R. Akiva. Rabbi [Yehuda the Patriarch] says, and it was concealed from him – this indicates [an initial state of ] awareness; and he has become aware of it – behold, there are two [states of ] awareness.

As is typically the case in the Sifra, the Mishnah’s ruling is a foregone conclusion that the homilists seek to present as deriving from specific biblical verses.22 R. Akiva uses the doubling of the phrase “and it was concealed from him” in two consecutive verses as a signpost that another doubling is implied in the verse: 22  See Azzan Yadin-Israel, Scripture and Tradition: Rabbi Akiva and the Triumph of Midrash (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), 9–100.

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a state of awareness prior to the concealment and a state of awareness after it. Rabbi [Yehuda the Patriarch] reads the phrase “it was concealed from him” itself as intrinsically implying prior awareness of the situation (something can be “concealed” only if it was initially “revealed”). These somewhat forced midrashic moves indicate that the rabbinic restriction of the graduated sin offering only to cases of forgetfulness, to the exclusion of cases of ignorance, was guided by a preexisting legislative paradigm that took primacy over the more straightforward reading of the biblical text. The rabbis’ insistence that one had to be initially aware of one’s impurity (or of the sancta) to be required to provide a sin offering is in keeping with a broader tendency that can be identified in tannaitic literature: a tendency to restrict individuals’ liability for sin offerings only to cases in which it was in their power to prevent the transgression from happening. As Arye Edrei showed, most of the rabbis interpreted the biblical category of inadvertent transgression (‫ )שגגה‬as akin to the modern category of negligence, and they excluded from this category individuals who could not be blamed for their actions at all.23 Multiple tannaitic passages present the notion that inadvertent transgressors should bring a sin offering only if it was reasonable to expect them to be more cautious, or if they did not have genuinely good reasons to have erred in the performance of the commandment. If their error was inevitable or even predictable under the circumstances, they are often exempt from a sin offering altogether.24 To a certain extent, this tendency among the Tannaim can be understood in light of their overarching emphasis on intention, will, and mindset as key factors in halakhic performance, which has been discussed extensively in scholarship.25 Although the early rabbis fully acknowledged that transgressions can occur unintentionally, a majority of them maintained that at least some presence of mind and personal responsibility is necessary for a violation of the law to even count as a transgression. In ruling that one who was not initially aware of the situation before polluting the sanctuary or the sancta is exempt from a graduated sin offering, the Mishnah 23 Edrei, “If Any One Shall Sin.” A notable exception to this rule, as Edrei pointed out, is R. Eliezer, who systematically considers individuals to be fully responsible for any transgression they commit, regardless of the circumstances. This falls in line with R. Eliezer’s overarching dismissal of intention and state of mind in jurisprudence; see Yitzhak D. Gilat, The Teachings of Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrkanos and Their Position in the History of Halakhah (Tel Aviv: Devir, 1968) [Hebrew]. 24  For notable examples see Edrei, “If Any One Shall Sin,” 35–59. See also Zohar, “Sin Offering.” 25 For studies on the role of intention in tannaitic legislation, see Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, The Human Will in Judaism: The Mishnah’s Philosophy of Intention (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986); Mira Balberg, Purity, Body, and Self in Early Rabbinic Literature (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014), 74–95; Ishay Rosen-Zvi, “The Mishnaic Mental Revolution: A Reassessment,” JJS 66 (2015): 36–58.

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makes a strong statement about personal responsibility and its relation to sacrificial requirements. According to the Mishnah, if a sin offering is the appropriate channel through which the transgressor’s sin may be absolved, then an individual need not provide a sin offering if they cannot be regarded as responsible for their sinful action. However, the fact that the individual who polluted the sanctuary or the sancta need not provide a sin offering does not mean that a sin offering does not need to be provided. As the rest of the mishnaic chapter elaborates, in all the cases in which individuals cannot or need not provide an individual sin offering different congregational sin offerings do the job of “atoning.” But for what or for whom, exactly, do those congregational offerings atone? And why are different offerings designated to atone for different combinations of pollution and un/ awareness? I turn to these questions in the next sections.

2. The Ambiguity of Atonement: For What and for Whom? The Mishnah, as summarized above, presents the view that only individuals who can be held responsible for polluting the sanctuary or the sancta are required to provide the requisite sin offering, but a sin offering is nonetheless needed in any case in which the sanctuary or the sancta became polluted. On the face of it, this makes sense. Polluting the sanctuary and the sancta, for the rabbis, is both a moral transgression (like breaking any other prohibition) and an action that results in physical impurity that must be gotten rid of. The requisite sin offering therefore does double-duty: it both attains forgiveness for the transgressor and serves to cleanse the sanctuary. To be sure, in the priestly paradigm any sin offering for any and every transgression serves both these functions. For the rabbis, however, only actual contact between impurity and the sanctuary renders the sanctuary impure – and accordingly, polluting the sanctuary through direct contact is the only transgression in the rabbinic system that fully operates according to the priestly paradigm. The rabbis’ distinction between the “sin” component of the ḥattat (which operates vis-à-vis the transgressor) and its “impurity” component (which operates vis-à-vis the sanctuary or the sancta) seems especially apparent in the second case described in the Mishnah, that of “awareness at the beginning but no awareness at the end.” Here, the person who polluted the sanctuary bears responsibility for their own actions, since this person was initially aware of their state of impurity or of the sacred place or articles, but then forgot about it. This person is expected to bring “an ascending and descending offering” once they realize that they had polluted the sanctuary (and thereby move to the first category in the Mishnah, that of “awareness at the beginning and awareness at the end and concealment in the interim”), but presumably the sanctuary itself cannot linger in its polluted state until the indefinite point at which the polluter even-

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tually brings the offering. Thus, the purification of the sanctuary will be attained through the “inner” goat of the Day of Atonement, that is, the sin offering whose blood is brought into the inner sanctum as described in Lev 16:15–16: “He shall slaughter the goat for the sin offering for the people and take its blood behind the curtain […] thus he shall purge the sanctum of the uncleanness and transgressions of the Israelites.” Here it appears that the mixture of sin and impurity in the act of polluting the sanctuary is separated into its constitutive elements, and each element is to be treated with a different offering: the impurity of the sanctuary with the inner goat, and the sin of the polluter with the graduated sin offering the polluter will eventually bring. But a closer look at the wording of this mishnaic passage reveals a more complicated picture: ‫יש בה ידיעה כתחילה ואין בה ידיעה בסוף שעיר הנעשה בפנים יום הכיפורים תולה עד שתיתוודע לו ויביא‬ ‫בעולה ויורד‬ If there is awareness at the beginning but there is no awareness at the end – the goat that is offered inside [on/and] the Day of Atonement suspends [judgment] until it becomes known to him, [at which point] he shall bring an ascending and descending offering.

The sentence ‫ שעיר הנעשה בפנים יום הכיפורים תולה‬is grammatically senseless. In MS Kaufman as well as in MS Cambridge (Lowe), there is no conjunction or preposition in the sentence, so it is not clear what, if any, the connection between “the goat that is offered inside” and “the Day of Atonement” is. In MS Parma de Rossi 138, as well as in the printed edition (following the Babylonian Talmud), there is a conjunction between the two nouns: ‫שעיר הנעשה בפנים ויום הכיפורים‬ ‫“( תולה‬the goat that is offered inside and the Day of Atonement suspend”). The problem with this version is that there is disagreement between the conjunction of nouns and the singular verb form. If both the goat and the Day of Atonement together suspend judgement, then we would expect ‫תולין‬.26 While these grammatical incoherencies are not egregious in and of themselves, I contend that they are symptomatic of a more profound ambiguity in this mishnaic passage. This ambiguity stems, I propose, from uncertainty regarding the meaning of the verb ‫ כפר‬and the intended object of this prevalent verb in the biblical account of the Day of Atonement. The clause in the Mishnah mentions three agents of atonement: the “inner goat,” the Day of Atonement, and the graduated (“ascending and descending”) sin offering. What is the relation between these three agents, and what does each 26 In the Palestinian Talmud (y. Shevu’ot 1.3, 33a) there appears a statement – possibly tannaitic – that may point to a different configuration of this sentence: ‫שיור שעיר הנעשה בפנים יום‬ ‫“( הכיפורים תולה‬what is left by the goat that is offered inside, the Day of Atonement suspends”). If this is indeed the correct reading of this statement (which is entirely uncertain), it may point to an attempt to resolve the seeming lack of grammatical connection between the goat and the Day of Atonement in the Mishnah. However, this sentence in the Palestinian Talmud is very difficult to comprehend, and in all likelihood it is the result of a scribal error.

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of them do? According to the paradigm I delineated above, we would expect that the goat whose blood is brought into the inner sanctum serves to purify the sanctuary from its impurity, and the graduated sin offering that will eventually be brought by the polluter serves to resolve the sin of the contrite polluter. But what the “inner goat” is said to do here is not purify the sanctuary but suspend judgment, and this judgment can be understood only as the judgment of the polluter. It cannot be understood as the judgement of the people as a whole, since the premise of the mishnaic unit is that the requisite sacrifice is determined in accordance with the responsibility of the specific person who caused the pollution. If the inner goat was meant to absolve the people as a collective, there would be no reason why this offering would “suspend” rather than fully “atone” if sacrificed properly.27 According to this passage in the Mishnah, then, the primary function of the “inner goat” is to protect the polluter from the repercussions of their sin by giving them an extended opportunity to correct their transgression once they become aware of it.28 This suggests that if the sanctuary is not purged of impurity using the blood of the inner goat, the pollution’s effect would be disastrous – but this disastrous effect would apply specifically to the sinner. What seemed at first like a neat distinction between the impurity component and the transgression component of inadvertent pollution turns out to be, upon a closer look, a subsuming of the former into the latter: the concern with the pollution of the sanctuary and the sancta does not pertain to the condition of the sanctuary and the sancta as such, but to the effects that this pollution has on the person(s) who caused it. What is the Day of Atonement doing in this passage, then? The easiest way to make sense of this sentence is to read “the Day of Atonement” as a descriptor of “the goat that is offered inside” and to emend the sentence by adding the preposition ‫ ב‬before ‫( יום הכיפורים‬so the text would read ‫שעיר הנעשה בפנים ביום‬ ‫הכיפורים תולה‬, “the goat that is offered inside on the Day of Atonement suspends”). This emendation, however, is not only unsupported by the extant textual witnesses but also creates a textual superfluity. There is only one “goat that is offered 27 In fact, the concluding passage of the chapter, which I do not discuss in this essay, suggests that as far as the Israelite collective is concerned, the inner goat does atone for them fully: “R. Shimon says: in the same way that the blood of the goat offered inside atones for Israel, so the blood of the bull atones for the priests […] in the same way that the confession over the goat that is sent away atones for Israel, so the confession over the bull atones for the priests” (m. Shevu’ot 1.10 [1.7 in the printed edition]). It is worth noting that in Qumranic writings the blood of the inner goat is systematically presented as meant to atone for the sins of Israel as a collective, rather than as an agent for purifying the sanctuary, and this Mishnaic passage may echo the same view. See Cana Werman and Aharon Shemesh, Revealing the Hidden: Interpretation and Halakha in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2011), 348–68 [Hebrew]. 28  As the Babylonian Talmud explains it (b. Shevu’ot 8b): “If it (= the inner goat) does not atone, why does it suspend [judgment]? R. Zeira said: to say that if [the polluter] dies [before he provides his offering], he dies without sin. Rava said to him: if he dies, then death itself scrubs him of sin! Rather, Rava said: to protect him from torments.”

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inside” in the entire sacrificial system, and it is necessarily the one offered on the Day of Atonement, so there is no need to spell that out.29 Considering that the phrase “the Day of Atonement” seems out of place in this passage (as well as in the next passage) and disrupts the grammatical coherence of the sentence, it stands to reason that it may have been incorporated at a later phase of the Mishnah’s formation. An additional, although by no mean conclusive indication that “the Day of Atonement” was inserted into the Mishnah at a secondary stage can be found in a statement that appears in the Palestinian Talmud: ‫כשם‬ ‫שהשעיר הנעשה בפנים מכפר על הזדונות ותולה על השגגות בדבר שיש בו חיוב קרבן אף שעיר‬ ‫“ המשתלח מכפר‬In the same way that the goat that is offered inside atones for advertent transgressions and suspends [judgement] for inadvertent transgressions in matters for which one owes an offering, so the goat that is sent away atones.”30 Here, similar to m. Shevu’ot 1.2, the goat that is offered inside is said to suspend the judgment of those who transgressed inadvertently, but the Day of Atonement is not mentioned alongside it. If the Day of Atonement was indeed incorporated into this passage at a later stage, whence came this addition and why? By way of speculation I suggest that the Day of Atonement was first incorporated into m. Shev’uot 1.9, which deals with intentional pollution of the sanctuary, and later on this insertion was reproduced also in m. Shevu’ot 1.2 and 1.3 for the sake of consistency. Let us take a look at m. Shevu’ot 1.9: ‫ ועל שאר עבירות שבתורה הקלות‬31‫ועל זדון טומאת מקדש וקדשיו שעיר הנעשה בפנים ויום הכיפורים מכפר‬ ‫והחמורות הזדונות והשגגות הודע ולא הודע עשה ולא תעשה כריתות ומיתות בית דין שעיר המשתלח מכפר‬ And for intentional pollution of the sanctuary and the sancta, the goat that is offered inside and the Day of Atonement atone(s). And for all other transgressions in the Torah, light and severe, advertent and inadvertent, known and unknown, positive and negative, [warranting] extirpation and [warranting] execution by a court – the goat that is sent away atones.

The rabbis follow the priestly paradigm in maintaining that sin offerings are appropriate only in cases of erroneous transgressions. One who transgressed knowingly can be forgiven through repentance and change of heart but not through the sacrificial channel. If one polluted the sanctuary while fully aware of one’s actions, then one cannot rectify the damage one caused by providing a graduated sin offering, and the purification of the sanctuary in such a case would have to be attained through another agent. As per Lev 16, the most likely agent for purification of the sanctuary would be the sacrificial goat of the inner sanctum. 29 The

phrase “the goat that is offered inside” appears also in t. Kippurim 3.19.  y. Yoma 8.6, 45b. I thank Avigail Manekin-Bamberger for alerting me to this passage. 31  The text is identical in MS Parma de Rossi 138. In MS Cambridge (Lowe) there is no conjunction (‫)שעיר הנעשה בפנים יום הכיפורים מכפר‬. In the printed edition: ‫שעיר הנעשה בפנים ויום‬ ‫הכיפורין מכפרין‬. 30

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But for the rabbis who ventured to understand the workings of the sacrificial goat vis-à-vis the two elements that constitute the pollution of the sanctuary, impurity and transgression, the biblical use of the verb ‫ כפר‬in this context presented a challenge. Since the rabbis understood ‫ כפר‬in terms of forgiveness of sins and not in terms of purification of objects, they were met with the question of how the sacrificial goat in and of itself can serve to attain forgiveness for the worst possible kind of sinner – one who transgressed a prohibition flagrantly, “with a high hand” (‫)ביד רמה‬.32 To say that the inner goat alone atones in the case of intentional pollution would be akin to saying that the intentional sinner need not do anything – indeed, they need to do less than the unintentional transgressor – to be forgiven, and that is clearly a theological impasse. Here comes into play a prominent rabbinic notion, attested in several tannaitic passages: that the Day of Atonement is an independent agent for attaining forgiveness, which functions to absolve sinners of their guilt regardless of the sacrificial activity that takes place during the day.33 Especially relevant in this regard is the following passage in the Tosefta: t. Kippurim 4.16–17 (according to MS Vienna 20) ‫ אומ׳ חומר בשעיר שאין ביום הכפורים וביום הכפורים שאין בשעיר שיום הכפורים‬34‫ר׳ לעזר בי ר׳ שמעון‬ ‫מכפר בלא שעיר ושעיר אין מכפר אלא עם יום הכפורים חומר בשעיר שהשעיר מיד ויום הכפורים עם חשיכה‬ R. Eleazar b. R. Shimon says: there is a stringency in the goat that is not in the Day of Atonement, and [a stringency] in the Day of Atonement that is not in the goat. For the Day of Atonement atones without a goat, and the goat only atones with the Day of Atonement; but the goat [atones] immediately, and the Day of Atonement only when it had become dark.35

While this passage probably refers to the scapegoat rather than to the sacrificial goat,36 it is evident that the view expressed in this passage is that the sacrificial  See Num 15:30–31.  See m. Yoma 8.6 (8.7 in MS Kaufman): “A sin offering and a certain guilt offering (’asham vadai, i. e., guilt offering brought over transgressions that are known with certainty to have occurred) atone. Death and the Day of Atonement atone along with repentance. Repentance atones for light transgressions, both positive and negative, and for severe [transgressions] it suspends [judgement] until the Day of Atonement comes and atones for them.” Similarly, the Sifra (Ahrei mot 1.8.5, ed. Weiss 83a) asserts that “even if there are no offerings and no goat, the day atones.” On the tannaitic disconnect between the sacrificial activity of the Day of Atonement and the atoning effect of the day itself and the repentance associated with it see also Werman and Shemesh, Revealing the Hidden, 361–63. 34 In MS Berlin: R. Eleazar b. R. Yose. 35 Cf. m. Ker. 6.4: “If one is in doubt as to whether one has committed a transgression during the Day of Atonement, even when it had become dark, he is exempt [from providing a guilt offering], for the entire day atones.” See also y. Yoma 8.7, 45c; Sanh. 10.1, 27d; Shevu’ot 1.6, 33c. 36  m. Shevu’ot 1.9 indicates that it is specifically the scapegoat that enables the forgiveness of all sins, whereas the sacrificial goat atones only for the pollution of the sanctuary. However, as m. Yoma 6.1 clearly illustrates, the two goats are effectively interchangeable and are two parts 32 33

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activities of the Day of Atonement are of no effect in and of themselves, at least as far as atonement of sins is concerned. They are only effective if they take place on the Day of Atonement – presumably because of the activities of fast and selfdenial that the Israelites undertake during that day – and the Day of Atonement serves to attain atonement even without any goats whatsoever. It is certainly not surprising that a rabbi living after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple expresses the opinion that atonement can be attained without sacrifices, but in the context of our mishnaic chapter the notion that expiatory sacrifices cannot atone without the Day of Atonement serves a different purpose. By adding the words “and the Day of Atonement” to the Mishnah’s ruling about intentional pollution of the sanctuary, whoever added these words made the point that intentional polluters are atoned for by the inner goat of the Day of Atonement not because of the goat alone but because of the day – that is, because they fully repent and afflict themselves as part of the day’s rites. Thus, the editor was able to dispel the troubling impression that an intentional sinner could be atoned for through a congregational offering without the sinner doing anything. I suggest that the words “The Day of Atonement” were first incorporated into passage 1.9 of the mishnaic chapter, where they seem to fit most tightly, and were later reproduced in the preceding passages that mention the sacrificial sin offerings of the Day of Atonement (1.2 and 1.3) as well. The Day of Atonement was added to these passages, however, not simply as a result of mindless mechanical copying but due to a deeper interpretive conundrum that pervades this mishnaic chapter as a whole, namely, the rabbis’ uncertainty regarding the meaning of the verb ‫ כפר‬that repeatedly appears in the biblical account of the Day of Atonement. For the rabbis, as I mentioned, ‫ כפרה‬means the absolution of sinners of their sins: it does not mean purgation or cleansing of impurity.37 Yet the rabbis were also aware that in the biblical description of the Day of Atonement, the object of ‫ כפר‬is the sacred realm and the sanctuary itself (‫ וכפר על הקדש‬,‫)וכפר את הקדש‬. Attempting to resolve this conundrum, the rabbis concluded that the sacred realm needed to be attended to through the sacrificial offerings because it has become polluted, but that the atonement element of the rite was for the sin of those who made it impure. This in turn raised the question of how a sacrificial offering that was provided by someone other than the individual who sinned (i. e., the of the same offering: it is therefore possible that the generic term “the goat” refers to both of them as one. 37 As noted above (n. 27), the tendency to interpret ‫ כפרה‬as pertaining exclusively to the people and not to the physical sanctuary can be detected already in Second Temple sectarian writings. This is especially conspicuous in the Temple Scroll from Qumran, in which the phrase ‫( וכפר על הקדש‬Lev 16:16) is replaced with the phrase ‫וכפר בו על כל עם הקהל‬. See Israel Knohl and Shlomo Naeh, “Milu’im and Kippurim,” Tarbiz 62 (1993): 17–44 [Hebrew]; Werman and Shemesh, Revealing the Hidden, 349–55. While the rabbis do maintain the priestly understanding of the rites of the Day of Atonement as pertaining to the pollution of the sanctuary, they see the atonement that those rites attain as pertinent specifically to human beings.

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congregation as a whole) can delay or change the sinner’s verdict, and so an additional element of the Day of Atonement as a day of personal repentance was thrown into the mix. It appears, then, that the rabbis interpreted the fundamental division of labor between the two goats of the Day of Atonement in terms of a distinction between impurity and sin. The inner ḥattat goat was meant to deal with impurity brought into the sacred realm, whereas the scapegoat was meant to carry away the transgressions of the people. Since the rabbis did not assume that the sanctuary could be polluted from afar, they explained that the inner ḥattat goat is meant to address impurity that came into contact with the sanctuary or its articles directly. Polluting the sanctuary directly, however, is a sin in and of itself, so the distinction between the function of the two goats had to be reformulated. Rather than having one goat address impurity and the other goat address sin, the Mishnah framed both goats as addressing sin: the inner goat addresses the sin of polluting the sanctuary, whereas the scapegoat addresses all other sins. In line with their understanding of the verb ‫ כפר‬across the board as referring to absolution of sins and not to cleansing of pollution, the rabbis interpreted the function of the “inner” goat as effecting atonement for the sinful polluter; and since they could not accept that absolution of sins can be attained without the sinner actively repenting, they made a point of incorporating The Day of Atonement as an additional atoning agent into the mishnaic account. The Mishnah as it stands before us reflects these different interpretive processes, which together generate a somewhat incoherent picture. Nevertheless, the incoherencies allow us to see up close how the rabbis struggled to align the priestly texts with their own distinct perceptions of sin, impurity, and individual responsibility.

3. Multiple Agents of Atonement: A Division of Labor The inner goat of the Day of Atonement is not the only sacrificial animal designated by the Mishnah to address the pollution of the sanctuary and the sancta. Between its discussion of a forgetful polluter who has not yet realized their transgression (m. Shevu’ot 1.2) and its discussion of an intentional polluter (m. Shevu’ot 1.9) the Mishnah deals with cases in which the polluter of the sanctuary is not held accountable and is not expected to provide a graduated sin offering at all, but a congregational ḥattat is nonetheless required. m. Shevu’ot 1.3 discusses the case of one who was initially unaware of one’s impurity (or of the sancta) but realized it after the pollution has already taken place: ‫אין בה ידיעה כתחילה אבל יש בה ידיעה בסוף שעיר הנעשה בחוץ יום הכיפורים מכפר שנ׳ מלבד חטאת‬ ‫ מה הפנימי אינו מכפר אלא על דבר שיש בו ידיעה אף החיצון לא‬38}‫הכיפורים על מה שזה מכפר {זה מכפר‬ ‫יכפר אלא על דבר שיש בה ידיעה‬ 38

 Missing in the body of the text and added on the margins.

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If there is no awareness at the beginning but there is awareness at the end – the goat that is offered outside [on/and] the Day of Atonement atones, as it was said, [and there shall be one goat for a sin offering] in addition to the sin offering of expiation (Num 29:11). Whatever that one atones for, this one atones for: in the same way that the inner [goat] only atones for that which involves awareness, so the outer [goat] can only atone for that which involves awareness.

The “goat that is offered outside” is a sacrificial category that the rabbis added to the elaborate ritual of the Day of Atonement following the festival instructions of Num 29: “On the tenth day of this seventh month you shall have a holy convocation ]…] You shall offer a burnt offering to YHWH, a pleasing odor: one young bull, one ram, seven male lambs a year old […] with one male goat for a sin offering, in addition to the sin offering of atonement, and the regular burnt offering and its grain offering, and their drink offerings” (Num 29:7–11). While the two kinds of ḥattat mentioned in v. 11 (‫ְ ׂש ִעיר ִע ִזּים ֶא ָחד ַח ָּטאת ִמ ּ ְל ַבד ַח ַּטאת‬ ‫)ה ִּכ ּ ֻפ ִרים‬ ַ in all likelihood refer to the sacrificial goat and the goat that is sent away, the rabbis identified in this verse a third goat that is required for the Day of Atonement ritual, which is to be offered in the afternoon along with the daily tamid offering.39 Like in the previous passage, the “Day of Atonement” appears alongside the sacrificial offering that is said to atone, but the grammatical connection between them is unclear. This passage presents two surprising interpretive moves. First, it rules that one who had no way of knowing that they were conveying impurity to the sanctuary or to the sancta is exempt from providing a graduated sin offering, but that a congregational sin offering is nonetheless necessary in such a case. Second, this passage asserts that atonement in such a case is attained not through the inner goat of the Day of Atonement, as it is in the other cases we have seen, but through a different sacrificial offering. Above I proposed that the rabbis exempted the ignorant (as opposed to the forgetful) polluter from the graduated sin offering because in their view one is liable for a transgression only if they had a reasonable way of avoiding it. But if the rabbis deemed the ignorant polluter not liable for their transgression, why did they decide that an atoning offering is nonetheless needed? Again, on the surface the answer to this question seems obvious: regardless of the moral culpability of the polluter the sanctuary still remains polluted, and so a purifying congregational offering is required in order to cleanse it. This answer, however, overlooks the mishnaic designation of a unique sacrificial offering to address this case. If the congregational sin offering is meant to address the impurity of the sanctuary regardless of the polluter’s guilt or lack thereof, why is one congregational offering called for when the polluter could have prevented the pollution, and another when the polluter could not have prevented 39

 See m. Yoma 7.3.

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the pollution? Why are all circumstances of sanctuary pollution not addressed through the same sacrificial offering, namely, the inner goat of the Day of Atonement? The fact that the Mishnah designates different sacrificial offerings to atone for pollution brought about through different states of awareness indicates that its concern is not with the sanctuary, and not with the people as a collective, but with the polluter. In the case of the ignorant polluter who had no initial knowledge of the situation, the rabbis deem the polluter not guilty enough to provide a sin offering from their own funds, but nominally guilty insofar as they transgressed a prohibition. This nominal guilt of the polluter is to be atoned for through “the goat that is offered outside.” Is there any logic behind the rabbinic ruling that a polluter who had initial awareness is (temporarily) atoned for by the inner goat, whereas a polluter who did not have such awareness is (definitively) atoned for by the outer goat? I propose that this distinction may have to do with the biblical description of the inner goat as designated to atone “for the uncleanness and transgressions of the Israelites, whatever their sins” (‫אתם‬ ָ ‫יהם לְ כָ ל ַח ּ ֹט‬ ֶ ‫)מ ֻּט ְמאֹת ְּבנֵ י יִ ְ ׂש ָר ֵאל וּ ִמ ּ ִפ ׁ ְש ֵע‬. ִ 40 The heightened emphasis on transgressions in this verse, especially the use the word ‫ פשע‬that in rabbinic discourse is often used to denote criminal neglect (as opposed to ‫אונס‬, over which one has no control), may have led the rabbis to conclude that the inner goat is designated to atone for offences for which the individual holds graver responsibility. This reading is supported by the fact that the inner goat is also mentioned in m. Shevu’ot 1.9 as atoning for pollution of the sancta done knowingly. It is possible, then, that the rabbis decided to allocate a different goat – the “outer goat” – to atone for an offence that cannot be rightly defined as a ‫פשע‬, since it was committed by one who was initially unaware of the situation and had no way of preventing the pollution from happening. Yet the rabbis’ interpretive decision to match different kinds of congregational sin offerings with different states of awareness before and after the pollution may have also been informed by a rather mundane hermeneutical problem of supply and demand, so to speak. By reading the phrase “in addition to the sin offering of atonement” in Num 29:11 as calling for a third sacrificial goat on the Day of Atonement, the rabbis introduced into their sacrificial system a sin offering that serves no apparent purpose. They thus had to invent a purpose for this third goat, and they designated it as an atoning agent for the ignorant polluter. It could be argued, of course, that the rabbis chose to read Num 29:11 as requiring a third goat because they wanted to distinguish between different levels of awareness and responsibility. It is impossible to determine which came first – a scriptural surplus that was used to manufacture legal distinctions, or legal distinctions that were attached to a manufactured scriptural surplus. Nonetheless, if we turn to the debate that begins in the following passage (m. Shevu’ot 1.4) and takes up most  Lev 16:16.

40

Impurity without Danger

371

of the rest of the mishnaic chapter, we see quite clearly that the problem of scriptural supply and demand – namely, the fact that the Priestly Code presents more congregational sin offerings than the rabbis know what to do with – was indeed something the Mishnah had to reckon with. Above I presented only the first line of this debate, which I now present in full: m. Shevu’ot 1.4–841 (according to MS Kaufman) ‫ועל שאין בה ידיעה לא כתחילה ולא בסוף שעירי רגלים ושעירי ראשי חדשים מכפרים דב׳ ר׳ יודה ר׳ שמעון‬ ‫אומ׳ שעירי רגלים מכפרים אבל לא שעירי ראשי חדשים ועל מה שעירי ראשי חדשים מכפרים על טהור‬ ‫שאכל טמא ר׳ מאיר או׳ כל השעירים כפרתן שווה על טומאת מקדש וקדשיו‬ ‫היה ר׳ שמעון או׳ שעירי ראשי חדשים מכפרים על טהור שאכל טמא ושלרגלים מכפרים על שאין בה ידיעה‬ ‫ ידיעה בסוף‬43}‫ על שאין בה {ידיעה בתחילה אבל יש בה‬42‫לא בתחילה ולא בסוף ושל יום הכיפורים מכפרין‬ ‫ אמ׳ להן‬44‫אמרו לו מה הן שיקרבו זה בזה אמ׳ להן יקרבו אמרו לו הואיל ואין כפרתן שווה היאך הן קריבין‬ ‫כולן באין לכפר על טומאת מקדש וקדשיו‬ ‫ר׳ שמעון בן יהודה או׳ משמו שעירי ראשי חדשים מכפרין על טהור שאכל טמא מוסף עליהן של רגלים‬ ‫שהן מכפרין על טהור שאכל טמא ועל שאין בה ידיעה לא בתחילה ולא בסוף מוסף עליהן של יום הכיפורים‬ ‫שהן מכפרין על טהור שאכל טמא ועל שאין בה ידיעה לא בתחילה ולא בסוף ועל שאין בה ידיעה בתחילה‬ ‫אבל יש בה ידיעה בסוף‬ ‫ שיקרבו זה בזה אמ׳ להן הין אמרו לו אם כן יהו של יום הכיפורים קריבים לראשי חדשים‬45‫אמרו לו אומ׳ היה‬ ‫ באין לכפר‬46‫אבל היאך של ראשי חדשים קריבים ליום הכיפורים לכפר כפרה שאינה שלהן אמ׳ להן כלום‬ ‫על טומאת מקדש וקדשיו‬ 1.4  And if there is awareness neither at the beginning nor at the end, the goats of the festivals and the goats of the beginnings of months atone, the words of R. Yehuda. R. Shimon says: the goats of the festivals atone, but not the goats of the beginnings of months. And for what do the goats of the beginnings of months atone? For a pure person who ate an impure [sacred] substance. R. Meir says: all goats equally atone for the impurity of the sanctuary and the sancta. 1.5  R. Shimon used to say: the goats of the beginnings of months atone for a pure person who ate an impure [sacred] substance, and the goats of the festivals atone for [pollution of the sanctuary in which] there is awareness neither at the beginning nor at the end, and [the goat] of the Day of Atonement atones for [pollution of the sanctuary in which] there is no awareness {at the beginning but there is awareness} at the end. 1.6  They said to him: can [all those goats] be offered one instead of the other? He said to them: they may be offered. They said to him: but if their atonement is not identical, how

41 m.

Shevu’ot 1.4–5 in the printed edition.  The plural form ‫ מכפרין‬appears in all the textual witnesses, despite the fact that only one offering is referred to here (namely, the “goat offered outside” of the Day of Atonement). This is probably a result of the recurring appearance of the plural form ‫ מכפרין‬everywhere else in the text. 43  Missing in MS Kaufman due to scribal error. I emended the text according to the other textual witnesses. 44 In the printed edition: ‫קרבין זה בזה‬. 45  In MS Parma de Rossi 138 the word ‫ רבי‬was added above the line, probably to indicate “R. Shimon.” In the printed edition instead: ‫מהו שיקרבו זה בזה‬. 46  Should read ‫כולם‬, as in all the other textual witnesses. 42

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can they be offered [in each other’s place]? He said to them: they are all designated to atone for the impurity of the sanctuary and the sancta. 1.7  R. Shimon b. Yehuda says in the name [of R. Shimon]: the goats of the beginnings of months atone for a pure person who ate an impure [sacred] substance. In addition to them, the goats of the festivals atone for a pure person who ate an impure [sacred] substance and for [pollution of the sanctuary in which] there is awareness neither at the beginning nor at the end. In addition to them, [the goat] of the Day of Atonement atones for a pure person who ate an impure [sacred] substance, and for [pollution of the sanctuary in which] there is awareness neither at the beginning nor at the end, and for [pollution of the sanctuary in which] there is no awareness at the beginning but there is awareness at the end. 1.8  They said to him: [R. Shimon] used to say that one can be offered instead of the other. He said to them: yes. They said to him: if so, let [the goat designated] for the Day of Atonement be offered on the beginnings of months, but how can the [goats designated] for the beginnings of months be offered on the Day of Atonement to make atonement that is not theirs?! He said to them: they are all designated to atone for the impurity of the sanctuary and the sancta.

m. Shevu’ot 1.4 begins by addressing a case in which the one who polluted the sanctuary had no initial knowledge of their impurity and/or of the sancta before coming into contact with the sacred, and they also never realized that such contact had taken place even after the fact. This person obviously cannot provide a graduated sin offering, since they do not know that they have done something wrong, but according to the rabbis they also need not provide a graduated sin offering, since their initial ignorance exculpates them. In terms of liability, one who had “awareness neither at the beginning nor at the end” is identical to the one who had no awareness at the beginning but did have awareness at the end: they both had no way of preventing the transgression from happening. Why, then, is atonement attained through different sacrificial offerings for each of those offenders? A probable answer is that the rabbis assumed that pollution of the sanctuary of which the polluter is never aware – not before, not during, and not after – is the most common scenario. Cases in which one is initially aware of impurity or of the sancta but then forgets about it, or is initially unaware of impurity or of the sancta but then realizes it, or pollutes the sanctuary knowingly, can all be presumed to be fairly uncommon, and so atonement in these cases can be postponed until the Day of Atonement. In contrast, cases in which impurity of the sancta or the sanctuary is altogether unknown are likely to take place much more frequently, and therefore more frequent opportunities for atonement are in order. Here, however, the biblical surplus of sin offerings presents a challenge. The Priestly Code calls for congregational sin offerings at the beginning of each month and during the three annual festivals, and it is by no means clear for what or for whom these multiple offerings are intended. R. Yehuda, then, asserts that both kinds of congregational sin offerings are meant to atone for pollution of the sanctuary of which the polluter was and remains unaware. R. Shimon,

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in contrast, insists that different subcategories of offerings necessarily atone for different subcategories of transgressions, and rules that the goats of the beginnings of months are meant for a separate category of pollution of the sacred – for cases in which a pure person consumes contaminated meat.47 R. Meir, in turn, says that all goats that are congregationally offered as sin offerings are meant to accomplish the same thing, namely, to atone for pollution of the sanctuary and the sancta. m. Shevu’ot 1.4, then, presents three approaches to the problem of surplus of sin offerings in the Priestly Code – that is, to the fact that congregational sin offerings are required on multiple occasions in which there is no evident need for them. R. Yehuda maintains that sin offerings of two similar subcategories (festivals and beginnings of months) can be said to serve the same subcategory of pollution; R. Shimon maintains that each different subcategory of sin offerings must serve a different subcategory of pollution; and R. Meir maintains that all congregational sin offerings serve the same purpose and there is no substantive difference between them. As the next passages (m. Shevu’ot 1.5–6) reveal, even R. Shimon, who insists that each sacrificial subcategory match a different subcategory of pollution, does not think that these distinctions have any practical implications. When asked if one offering can be replaced with another (for example, if the goat designated for the outer sin offering of the Day of Atonement got lost and was found later, can it be used for the sin offering of the beginning of the month), R. Shimon answers in the affirmative, since ultimately all those sin offerings serve the same purpose. m. Shevu’ot 1.7–8 presents a different account of R. Shimon’s position, according to which the different sin offerings do not have completely separate functions, but rather some offerings have aggregate functions. The most frequent offerings (those of beginnings of months) can atone only for a pure person who ate impure substances; the less frequent offerings of festivals can atone for a pure person who ate impure substances and also for pollution of the sanctuary without any knowledge; and the even less frequent offering of the Day of Atonement can atone for those cases as well as for pollution of the sanctuary that one eventually became aware of. Even according to this construal of R. Shimon’s position, however, all those offerings are interchangeable.48 At the end of this lengthy debate, the mishnaic attempt to propose a one-to-one correspondence between the polluter’s state of awareness and the congregational sin offerings required on different occasions collapses. Each of the rabbis participating in the debate concedes that when all is said and done, all (or most) of those congregational sin offerings serve the exact same purpose, and the circum47  The prohibition for ritually pure people to consume impure meat relies on Lev 7:19; see also m. Zebaḥ. 13.12. 48  See also t. Shevu’ot 1.1.

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stances of the pollution are immaterial. This idea is stated even more forcefully in the parallel Tosefta, in which R. Shimon (very much at odds with the spirit of his statement in the Mishnah) obliterates the differences between the offerings altogether and proclaims that multiple sin offerings are needed simply because the pollution of the sanctuary is an ever-present problem: t. Shevu’ot 1.2 (according to MS Vienna 20) ‫היה ר׳ שמעון אומ׳ ל וב׳ שעירים לציבור בכל שנה ושנה ל״א בחוץ ונאכלין ואחד בפנים ואינו נאכל והשעיר‬ ‫ ז׳ בפסח וח׳ בחג וב׳ ביום הכיפורים א׳ בראש השנה ב׳ בעצרת א׳ בגלל הלחם‬49‫המשתלח יב׳ ביב׳ חדש שנה‬ ‫ ישראל‬50‫וא׳ בגלל היום ואם כיפר הראשון על מה שיני מכפר על טומאה שאירעם בין זה לזה ואומרין כך‬ :‫צריכין להביא ב׳ שעירים בכל יום אלא שחס הכתוב על נכסין של ישראל‬ R. Shimon used to say: there are thirty-two goats for the congregation every single year. Thirty-one are [offered] outside and are eaten, and one is [offered] inside and is not eaten, and [there is also] the goat that is sent away. Twelve [goats] on [the beginnings of each of ] the twelve months of the year, seven on Passover, and eight on the Festival (=Sukkot),51 and two on the Day of Atonement, one at the Beginning of the Year, and two on ’atzeret – one on account of the bread52 and one on account of the day.53 And if the first one [of the two] atoned, what does the second one atone for? For pollution that has taken place between one and the other. And we say: in this way [the people of ] Israel ought to bring two goats every single day, but Scripture spared the property of Israel.

According to R. Shimon in the Tosefta, multiple congregational sin offerings are required in the course of the year not because each offering deals with a different scenario of pollution, but because there is always a possibility that the sanctuary has become polluted again since the last time a congregational sin offering was offered – even if two sin offerings were offered on the very same day. This position, which takes to an extreme the rabbis’ concession in the Mishnah that all congregational sacrifices ultimately serve the same purpose, comes close to the plain meaning of sin offerings in the priestly system. In the priestly system it does not matter how the sanctuary became polluted or whether this could have been prevented: what matters is that its occasional pollution is inevitable, and that regular sin offerings are the tools through which this pollution is eradicated. While the rabbis did not share the priestly view that the sanctuary contracts impurity from afar, they seem to have conceded that all congregational sin offerings serve to deal with the same recurring problem of sanctuary pollution, and that all congregational sin offerings can do so interchangeably. Why, then, did they go through all the trouble of allocating different sin offerings for different scenarios

 Should be ‫חדשי השנה‬, as it is in MS Berlin and the printed edition.  In MS Berlin: ‫כל ישראל‬. 51  See Num 29:12–35. 52 See Lev 23:15–21. 53  See Num 29:26. 49 50

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of un/awareness if in the end they admitted that this taxonomic effort is inconsequential? I attempt to answer this question in the final section of this essay.

4. Conclusion: Atonement, Individual, and Congregation Let me summarize the analysis I have proposed up to this point. At the core of the Mishnah’s interpretation of the “graduated sin offering” of Lev 5:2–3 is the rabbis’ fundamental premise – which diverges from that of the Priestly Code – that the sanctuary can be polluted only as a result of direct contact with a source of impurity and not from afar. Accordingly, the rabbis transform the transgression of omission described in the biblical verses (failing to purify oneself and thus allowing impurity to linger in the camp) to a transgression of commission (actively conveying impurity to the sanctuary or the sancta). The graduated sin offering is thus construed by the rabbis as unique in its double function: it both attains forgiveness for the sin of the polluter (and in this respect it is comparable to all other sin offerings required for inadvertent transgressions) and it serves to purify the polluted sanctuary, which in the rabbis’ view no other individual sin offering needs to do. However, a prevalent rabbinic view is that an individual sin offering is required only if the individual who transgressed can be held at least partially responsible for their transgression. Accordingly, the rabbis introduce a distinction between pollution of the sanctuary as a result of forgetfulness, which requires the negligent individual to provide a graduated sin offering of their own, and pollution of the sanctuary as a result of ignorance, for which the polluting individual is not liable. This distinction, in turn, poses a problem: if individuals who are not to blame for having polluted the sanctuary need not provide a sin offering, how would the sanctuary be purged of the impurity they caused? Also, how would the sanctuary be purged of its impurity if the individuals who polluted it do not know that they polluted it, and therefore necessarily fail to provide an offering – or alternatively, if individuals polluted it knowingly such that a sin offering is not appropriate in their case? Here the congregational sin offerings prescribed by the Priestly Code for regular annual occasions come to the rescue. So far, so good: the rabbis seem to create a model, not too far off from the priestly model itself, in which congregational sin offerings are used as safety valves of sorts to deal with pollution of the sanctuary that has not otherwise been dealt with by the individuals who caused it. But a closer look at the Mishnah reveals a more complex picture. The passages we have seen suggest that congregational sin offerings function not (or not only) vis-à-vis the sanctuary but also or even primarily vis-à-vis the individual. This is evident in the ruling that the inner goat of the Day of Atonement serves to suspend the judgement of the negligent polluter until they realize they have sinned and provide a graduated sin offering, and more broadly in the notion that pollution brought about as a result

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of different states of awareness is atoned for by different kinds of congregational offerings. If the only purpose of congregational sin offerings were to cleanse the sanctuary of impurity, it would not have mattered whether this impurity was conveyed to the sanctuary by an innocent, negligent, or intentional polluter: the result would have been the same and the solution would have been the same. The distinction between different states of awareness before and after polluting the sanctuary suggests that the key concern in this mishnaic chapter is the individual and the absolution of the individual’s sin, not (or not primarily) the sanctuary as such. The shift of focus from the sanctuary to the sinner can be explained in terms of the more general semantic shift of the verb ‫ כפר‬in rabbinic Hebrew from “expunging” to “enabling forgiveness,” the latter of which necessarily refers to human beings. It is on account of this concern with the individual, I proposed, that the Day of Atonement is awkwardly incorporated into this mishnaic chapter as an additional, or alternative, path of absolution for individuals who polluted the sanctuary but cannot or need not provide a graduated sin offering. The Day of Atonement serves to explain how the individual polluter’s transgression can be forgiven despite the fact that they did not provide a sin offering of their own. Ultimately, the rabbis’ attempt to make the polluter’s state of awareness the organizing principle of the system of congregational sin offerings collapses. They end up acknowledging that there are more congregational sin offerings than there are different states of awareness, and also that in terms of their function all congregational sin offerings are effectively interchangeable (“they are all designated to atone for the impurity of the sanctuary and the sancta”). This raises the question of why, if the distinction between the exact atoning functions of different congregational offerings is of no consequence, the rabbis make a point of developing such a distinction in the first place. To begin answering this question, let me immediately assert that the rabbis, in general, do not limit their inquiries only to matters of practical ramifications, but are rather interested in conceptual and taxonomic investigations for their own sake. Since there are multiple congregational sin offerings required at different points in the year and in different time intervals, the rabbis assume that this multiplicity exists for a reason until proven otherwise. Therefore, they do their best to assign each type of congregational sin offering a different role, while conceding that this scholastic enterprise may not be of much consequence in practice. But the question remains: why base the taxonomy of congregational sin offerings specifically on the state of awareness of the polluter before and after the offence, and not on other factors? The trigger for consideration of states of awareness is clearly the references to “awareness” and “concealment” in Lev 5:2–3, but while it makes sense to consider an individual’s state of mind in determining their obligation to provide an individual offering, it is not at all self-explanatory why the awareness of an individual ought to play a part in the workings of congregational sin offerings.

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The answer to this question, I propose, lies in the innovative – indeed, revolutionary – ruling with which the mishnaic chapter commences, namely, that one who polluted the sanctuary or the sancta is liable for a graduated sin offering only if they knew they became impure, forgot about it, and then remembered it again – that is, only if they could be construed as negligent in their behavior and thus as somewhat to blame. This ruling, which corresponds with broader rabbinic tendencies to make sin offerings a channel of atonement for preventable transgressions rather than for entirely inadvertent transgressions, indicates that individual offerings are not the appropriate channel of atonement for transgressions for which one cannot be held responsible. Rather, it is congregational offerings that fill this function for individuals who are not culpable for polluting the sanctuary but are still guilty of polluting it. In other words, the Mishnah uses the criterion of the polluter’s awareness to explain why annual and monthly congregational sin offerings exist: they are the channel through which individuals who are not legally liable can be relieved of their guilt. A passage that appears elsewhere in the Mishnah offers possible context for the ideological backdrop that informed this ruling: m. Keritot 6.5 (according to MS Kaufman) ‫ר׳ אליעזר אומ׳ מיתנדב אדם אשם תלוי בכל יום ובכל שעה שירצה הוא היה נקרא אשם חסידין אמרו עליו‬ ‫ שהיה מיתנדב אשם תלוי בכל יום חוץ מאחר יום הכיפורים יום אחד אמ׳ המעון הזה אילו‬54‫על בבא בן בטא‬ ‫ אומרין לי המתן עד שתיכנס לספק וחכמ׳ אומ׳ אין מביאין אשם תלוי‬55}‫היו מניחין לי הייתי מביא {אלא‬ ‫ על דבר שזדונו כרת ושגגתו חטאת‬56}‫{אלא‬ R. Eliezer said: one may volunteer an uncertain guilt offering on any day and at any time that one wants, and it was called “the guilt offering of the pious.” They said about Baba ben Butta that he would volunteer an uncertain guilt offering every day, except for one day after the Day of Atonement. He said: By this Abode (i. e., the sanctuary)! If they would let me I would bring it, but they tell me “wait until you enter [a state of ] doubt.” But the Sages say: one does not bring an uncertain guilt offering except for [transgressions] that are [worthy of ] extirpation when done knowingly, and [require] a sin offering when done erroneously.

The sacrificial category that the rabbis denote “uncertain guilt offering” (‫אשם‬ ‫ )תלוי‬is based on Lev 5:17–19, “If a person sins without knowing it, doing any of the things that by YHWH’s commandments ought not to be done, he is guilty and shall bear his transgression: he shall bring to the priest a ram […] as a guilt offering.” The rabbis interpret this clause as referring to a person who suspects that they may have sinned but does not know it for certain (and therefore cannot bring an ordinary sin offering), and as a result is encumbered by feelings of guilt. The “uncertain guilt offering” is meant to relieve the person tormented with selfquestioning from their anguish. This unique offering is construed by R. Akiva  In MS Parma de Rossi 138 and MS Cambridge (Lowe): ‫בן ביטי‬. Printed edition: ‫בן בוטי‬.  Added on the margins. 56  Added on the margins. 54 55

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and his disciples in very restrictive terms: one should provide an uncertain guilt offering only if one knows exactly what transgression one may have committed and has a very good reason to think they have committed it – for example, if one had both sacrificial suet and non-sacral meat in front of them and they ate one of the two pieces but are not sure which was which.57 The passage quoted above reveals, however, that there were rabbinic circles that conceived of uncertain guilt offerings not as requisite responses to highly specific situations of doubt, but as available remedies for an ever-present anxiety of sin. We are told that some of the “pious ones” of the Second Temple period were in the habit of providing this offering very frequently, assuming they must have done something wrong even if they had no sense of what that wrong could be. This comment resonates with another tradition in the Tosefta, according to which “the first pious ones” were in the habit of making Nazirite vows so that they would be able to provide expiatory offerings for themselves despite not having any specific sin for which to seek atonement.58 It is of course possible that these traditions are not based on concrete knowledge but rather on fanciful legends about the excessive piety of previous generations (indeed, in the same passage in the Tosefta appears a competing view according to which the “first pious ones” never took on Nazarite vows because they considered them sinful, so it is clear that those semi-mythical figures are molded in literary traditions as the authors see fit). But regardless of the historicity of this tradition, in the Mishnaic passage quoted above R. Eliezer speaks of this practice favorably and presents it as fully legitimate. R. Eliezer’s statement aligns with another statement attributed to him in m. Ker. 6.1, which discusses a case of one who designated a ram for an uncertain guilt offering and then, before he had the chance to sacrifice the ram, found out that he had not sinned. What is to be done with the ram in such a case? Whereas R. Meir says that the ram remains unaffected by this designation and can return to the herd, and the Sages say that the ram is residually holy and therefore must be left to die a natural death, R. Eliezer says, “let it be sacrificed, for if it is not offered for one sin, it is offered for another sin.” In other words, R. Eliezer maintains that one can always assume that one has sinned, whether one is aware of it or not, and therefore an uncertain guilt offering is always appropriate.59 I propose that the mishnaic discussion of congregational sin offerings in tractate Shevu’ot sets out, at least in part, to respond to the very same anxiety 57 See

m. Ker. 5.5.  t. Ned. 1.1. 59  Israel Knohl identified this position of constant anxiety with the House of Shammai (with which R. Eliezer ostensibly had affinity), and the Sages’ rejection of this position with the house of Hillel. See Israel Knohl, “A Parasha Concerned with Accepting the Kingdom of Heaven,” Tarbiz 53 (1984): 11–31 [Hebrew]. On the Sages’ attempts to allay the anxiety of transgression more broadly, see Moshe Halbertal, The Birth of Doubt: Confronting Uncertainty in Early Rabbinic Literature (Providence: Brown Judaic Studies, 2020), 64–72. 58

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that informs the view of R. Eliezer and “the pious ones” presented in this passage. While the discussion in tractate Shevu’ot is restricted to one particular sin – polluting the sanctuary – and does not pertain to all transgressions, it does engage with the same gnawing concern that one has transgressed without knowing it and perhaps will never come to know of it with any certainty. The solution conjured in the Mishnah for this concern is not to authorize just-in-case individual offerings whenever one suspects that one had polluted the sanctuary, but rather to rely on congregational offerings to atone for the individual. The Mishnah makes a point of stating that specific congregational offerings are meant to atone for various individual lapses of awareness in order to drive home the idea that the congregation as a sacrificial agent has the ability to absolve the individual both of sin and of the existential guilt associated with the fear of sin. This interpretive move is part of a broader rabbinic tendency, which I discussed elsewhere, to downplay individual offerings and to play up congregational offerings within the sacrificial system as a whole. This tendency is informed by the notion that all congregational offerings are funded by the collective funds of the people of Israel,60 and therefore that each congregational offering is also an individual offering, since each individual participates in its funding.61 One passage in the Tosefta goes as far as stating that the atonement of sins – not just the sin of polluting the sanctuary, but all sins – is attained primarily through congregational offerings, rather than by individual offerings: “Thus said the Holy One, blessed be He: mortgage [the people of ] Israel for their shekels, so that congregational offerings be offered by them. For congregational offerings appease (‫ )מרצין‬and atone (‫ )מכפרין‬between Israel and their father in heaven.”62 The hermeneutical conundrums presented to the rabbis by the multiplicity of congregational offerings in the priestly system, and especially by the gaps and discord between the priestly construal of pollution and atonement and the rabbis’ understanding of these terms, were turned in the Mishnah into windows of opportunity. They allowed the rabbis to introduce their own views on individual responsibility and collective solidarity, and thereby allowed them to inject the sacrificial system with new and vibrant meanings – even long after sacrificial practices have become a thing of the past.

 See m. Šeqal. 4.1–2.  Balberg, Blood for Thought, 108–41. 62  t. Šeqal 1.6. 60 61

The Author of the Book of Job in the Jewish Tradition Throughout the Ages* Eran Viezel b. Bat 14b–15a assigns authors to each of the biblical books. Together with the accompanying discussion, this passage has stamped an ineradicable imprint on the question of the authorship of the biblical texts, also indirectly influencing Christian ideas with regard to this question. The early stages of critical biblical scholarship can thus be described as a gradual process of unshackling from the traditions that lie behind this list of authors and those that arose from it. This famous list of authors states that “Moses wrote … the book of Job.” Where did this tradition originate? Did Jewish sages across the ages really believe this claim? Herein, I shall endeavor to answer these two questions.

1. Moses as the Author of Job The section in b. B. Bat. 14b–15a (apparently a late Babylonian source, although commonly considered as baraita) falls into two halves. The first addresses the order of the biblical books, its starting point – so it would appear – being the custom of joining the scrolls to Prophets and Writings.1 The second seeks to identify the author of each book.2 Each section is accompanied by an extensive discussion. * This research was supported by the ISRAEL SCIENCE FOUNDATION (grant N. 1055/17). Unless otherwise noted, medieval texts are taken from the electronic edition of the Keter Mikra’ot Gedolot (Menahem Cohen ed.). 1  “Our Rabbis taught: It is permissible to fasten the Torah, the prophets, and the Hagiographa together” (b. B. Bat. 13b), Jacob N. Epstein, Prolegomena ad Litteras Amoraiticas: Talmud Babylonicum et Hierosolymitanum (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1963), 232 [Hebrew] (and there, a detailed list of parallels), and see Menahem Haran, The Bible and Its World: Selected Literary and Historical Studies (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2009), 292–301 [Hebrew]. For the idea that the order in which the scrolls were placed on the bookshelf lies behind the debate, see Nahum M. Sarna, “Concerning the Problem of the Ordering of Biblical Books.” SHNATON: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies 1 (1975), 197–203, at 200–202 [Hebrew]. Unless otherwise noted, talmudic quotes follow the Soncino edition. 2  The sense of the root ‫ כת״ב‬in the list of authors and the precise literary act it denotes require investigation in their own right: see for now: Sid Z. Leiman, The Canonization of Hebrew Scripture: The Talmudic and Midrash Evidence (Hamden: Archon, 1976), 163 n. 259; Yaa-

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The order of the biblical books appears to have been well-accepted and acknowledged, and the gemara merely confirming it.3 Rather than following a similarly established convention, however, the list of authors adduced represents a concentrated effort to attribute each book to a recognized writer. This opens with the statement: “Moses wrote his book [‫ ]ספרו‬and the portion of Balaam and Job.” Moses’s “book” is the Pentateuch in its entirety. This fact is indicated by the occurrence of the term ‫ ספרו‬throughout the list of authors – all the incidences of which demonstrate that the text was written by the person who stands at its center. The assertion that “Joshua wrote his book” thus signifies that Joshua penned the book of Joshua, “Samuel wrote his book” signifies that Samuel penned the book of Samuel, and so on.4 This conclusion is supported by the parallel in the Jerusalem Talmud (y. Soṭah 5:5, 20d): “Moses wrote the five books of the Pentateuch.” This conclusion is also supported by MS Paris 1337: “Moses wrote five books,” and by late textual variants of the list of authors, the majority of which specify that Moses penned the Pentateuch: “Moses wrote his book, the five books of the Pentateuch (‫חמשה‬ ‫)חומשי תורה‬,” “Moses wrote the Pentateuch,” and so on.5 Not appearing together with the notation ‫ ספרו‬elsewhere in the list of the authors, these explicit statekov Elman, “Orality and the Redaction of the Babylonian Talmud,” Oral Tradition 14 (1999): 64–67; Jed Wyrick, The Ascension of Authorship: Attribution and Canon Formation in Jewish, Hellenistic, and Christian Traditions (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 51–58; Shemaryahu Talmon, Text and Canon of the Hebrew Bible: Collected Studies (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2010), 427–28 (and n. 36), 431; Chaim Milikowski, Seder Olam: critical edition, commentary and introduction (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2013), 2:522 [Hebrew]. All the sources that deal with the list of authors cited herein reflect the premise that it signifies “to write.” 3 The order of the biblical books represents a Babylonian tradition, deviating slightly from the prevalent Tiberian tradition, see Yosef Ofer, The Babylonian Masora of the Pentateuch: Its Principles and Methods (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2001), 124–25 [Hebrew]. 4  With regard to the authors of some of the books, the gemara is more precise, stating that they were not responsible for all the text. The discussion of the Pentateuch revolves around the question of whether its final eight verses were written by Moses or Joshua; see n. 38 below. 5  Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, Suppl. Heb. 1337; For the textual variants of the list of the authors see www.lieberman-institute.com, accessed August 21, 2022, and see also “Hachi Garsinan” of the Friedberg Jewish Manuscript Society, and cf. Refoel N. N. Rabinowitz, Sefer Dikdukei Sofrim […], Bava Batra (Munich: Buchdrucker, 1881), 65–67 [Hebrew]; for other late versions, see Christian D. Ginsburg, Masorah Compiled from Manuscript I–III (London: N/A, 1880–1885), II:338–40, III:48, 302; Samuel E. Loewenstamm and Yehoshua Blau, Thesaurus of the language of the Bible (Jerusalem: Bible Concordance, 1957), I:45 (“addendum”); David S. Sassoon, Ohel Dawid: Descriptive Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the Sassoon Library, London (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1932), I:23; Meir Nehmad, Ma’amar Chakirah ‘al ha-Keter ha-Niqra Keter Aram Tzovah [the Crown Aleppo Codex] (Aleppo: Ezra Chaim, 1933), 10. Some of these versions were printed elsewhere, see Joseph Hasid and Shlomo Siani, eds., Sefer Machberet ha-Tijan le-Mechkar u-le-Mada‘ […] (Jerusalem: N/A 1961), 137– 38; Seligmann Baer and Hermann L. Strack, Diqduqe ha-tte‘amim des Ahron ben Moschen ben Ascher (Leipzig: N/A, 1879), 57 (70§). For a combination of different versions, see Yakov Sapir, Sefer Even Sapir (Mainz-Lick: J. Brill, 1866–1874), II:225.

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ments indirectly attest to the ambiguous usage of the term ‫ ספרו‬in relation to the Pentateuch.6 The “portion of Balaam” (‫ ;פרשת בלעם‬y. Soṭah 5:5, 20d: “Moses […] then went back [hazar] and wrote the portion of Balak and Balaam”) appears to denote the story of Balaam in the book of Numbers. Signaling that Moses was responsible for Balaam’s prophecy, it is common to argue that it militates against the idea that this foreign prophet wrote his own prophecies.7 In contrast to Moses’s “book” and Balaam’s portion, Job is attributed to Moses in y. Soṭah, the meaning of the dictum is clear, and its authenticity is also unquestioned. Although the ascription of the Pentateuch to Moses is well-known and accepted, its roots lying in the biblical text itself, the notion that Moses wrote Job is less self-evident, calling for explanation. Analysis of the list of the authors enables us to trace the motives for its identification of the authors of the biblical books. One of these is a preference, although unsystematic, for the most prominent prophet contemporaneous with the events depicted in the book or just afterwards. The list thus asserts that Samuel penned Judges and Ruth, and Jeremiah Kings. Clear links can be drawn between Job, his three friends – Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite – Elihu, and Uz (Job’s birthplace) and figures/places in Genesis: a)  The name Job is very similar to Jobab, the second Edomite king in the list in Gen 36:33–34. This identification is made explicitly in the colophon of LXX Job and the epigraph to the Testament of Job.8 b)  Esau and Adah’s son was Eliphaz (Gen 36:4, 10), Eliphaz’s own first-born being Teman (vv. 11, 15). c)  The name Zophar closely resembles Zepho, Teman’s brother (ibid). LXX Gen 36 and LXX 1 Chr 1:36 render Zophar. d)  Bildad the Shuhite recalls Haddad son of Bedad (Gen 36:35), also being linked associatively with Haddad’s Shuhite ancestry (Gen 25:2 [Shuah]). This identification is made explicitly in the colophon of LXX Job. 6  Some commentators and scholars suggest that “Moses’s book” refers to Deuteronomy. On this reading, however, the list of authors – which identifies the author of each biblical book – does not assign an author to Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. 7  For this issue, and for other explanatory approaches regarding the question of the Balaam portion mentioned in the list of authors, see Eran Viezel, “‘Moses Wrote His Book and the Portion of Balaam’: On the Mention of parashat Bil‘am in Bava Batra 14b,” Jewish Studies Internet Journal 18 (2021): 1–40 [Hebrew]; for a different and precise explanatory approach see idem, “The List of the Authors of the Biblical Books (BT, Bava Batra 14b–15a): Its Sources, Principles and Time,” HUCA (forthcoming). 8 See Annette Yoshiko Reed, “Job as Jobab: The Interpretation of Job in LXX Job 42:17b–e,” JBL 120 (2001): 31–55. The Testament of Job appears to have been written in the second century bce, possibly predating LXX Job. Whether any literary dependence exists between the two texts or whether both drew on a common third source with regard to Job’s identity, however, cannot be determined.

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e)  The name Uz also appears in the list of Seir’s grandsons (Gen 36:28). f )  Uz is one of the sons of Nahor, Abraham’s brother, together with Buz and Aram (Gen 22:20–21; for the connection between Uz and Buz, cf. also Jer 25:20, 23). This yields a further link with Elihu’s lineage (Job 32:2).9 These correspondences have led some to date the events described in Job to the timeline of Genesis. If the biblical books were authored by the most influential prophet of the day, Job was thus written by Moses. The gemara discusses various details of the list of authors. With respect to Moses’s authorship of Job, it cites a number of statements made by sages regarded as supporting this claim. The presence of the term )‫ ֵאפוֹ(א‬in the words of Job (19:23): ‫מי־יתן אפו ויכתבן מלי מי־יתן בספר ויחקו‬, and in the words of Moses (Exod 33:16): ‫ובמה יודע אפוא כי־מצאתי חן בּעיניך‬, is adduced as proof for the connections between Moses and the book of Job. This assertion is countered by the fact that Isaac (Gen 27:33), Jacob (Gen 43:11), and Joseph (Gen 37:16) all make use of the word )‫אפוֹ(א‬,ֵ the usage thus not being unique to Moses. This difficulty is in turn explained by the argument – based on the affinities between the verb ‫ יֻ ָחקוּ‬and Moses’ designation as ‫( ְמח ֵֹקק‬Deut 33:21) – that the verse constitutes Job’s direct entreaty of Moses to write his statements in a book. The text was thus written by Moses at Job’s request. Then follows a lengthy passage addressing the period during which Job lived, his birthplace (was he an Israelite or a foreigner?), and whether the story is historical or allegorical. Representing a variety of opinions, the proposals and counter-proposals reflect a continuing debate over the issue.10 Rather than relating directly to the formation of Job or Moses’s authorship of it, these revolve around the figure of Job and various aspects of the book bearing his name, being interwoven in the associative manner characteristic of talmudic editorship.11 As we shall see below, however, later generations perceived in this discussion a certain reservation with respect to Moses’s authorship of Job.  The linguistic affinities between Bela son of Beor, the first king adduced in Gen 36:32, and Balaam son of Beor are readily apparent. The colophon of LXX Job includes Balak [sic] son of Beor and Jobab (Job) amongst the Edomite kings listed in Gen 36. This triadic association between Genesis, Balaam, and Job echoes the clause: “Moses wrote his book, the portion of Balaam, and Job.” 10  In order, these are: Job was contemporaneous with the spies, the returnees, the bondage in Egypt, the judges, Ahasueras, David (vs. the previous contention), the Queen of Sheba, Jacob (and married to Dinah). The notion that Job lived during Moses’s days is also reflected in the discussion concerning the order of the books (14b). The premise that the biblical books are cited in chronological order raises questions about why Job follows Ruth and Psalms: “Now on the view that Job lived in the days of Moses, should not the book of Job come first?” 11 For the parallel gemara, with minor variations see, especially, y. Soṭah 5:8, 20c–d; Gen. Rab. 57:4, there, the sages explicitly ask: “When was Job?” For a summary of this discussion, see Hananel Mack, Job and the Book of Job in Rabbinic Literature (Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan, 2004), 78–86 (Hebrew). b. Soṭah 11a associates Job with the bondage in Israel: “There were three in that plan [to destroy Israel through the decree: ‘Every son that is born ye shall cast in the river’  9

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In addition to the list of authors and the discussion of )‫אפו(א‬, the attribution of Job to Moses is also indirectly reflected in the following two findings: a)  The biblical scrolls found at Qumran include 12 written in Paleo-Hebrew. Eleven of these contain one (or two) of the books of the Pentateuch; the twelfth contains the book of Job (4QpaleoJobc).12 If we surmise that this script was confined to the Pentateuch, this copy of Job may reflect the existence of a tradition linking it with the Pentateuch and Mosaic authorship. b)  Although the order of the books in the Syriac translation is rather fluid, Job generally appears after the Pentateuch. This placement may similarly represent the tradition ascribing the book to Moses.13 No other notation from the end of the Second Temple period and first centuries ce has been preserved indicating the existence of such a tradition.14 The idea that Moses wrote the book of Job may not have been very well known, certainly not leaving a great imprint during this period. This state of affairs has changed since the Middle Ages. Through the medieval period, early modernity, and up until today, numerous scholars have addressed the question of who wrote Job. In most cases, rather than comprehensive, detailed discussions, these consist of brief comments confirming Moses’s authorship. Together, they compose an extensive corpus that has yet to be fully examined. In light of the scope of the material, I shall focus herein on a number of key texts that exerted a great influence. I shall look first at the arguments made by scholars who espouse the Mosaic authorship of Job, then at those who remain undecided, and finally at those who reject it. As I shall endeavor to demonstrate in the concluding discussion, this survey – which sheds light on the history of the acceptance of a single detail within the talmudic list of authors – is linked to the place authoring/writing holds within the Jewish tradition in general, evincing the formative role the list has played in shaping scholarly opinions regarding the penning of the biblical books.

(Exod 1:22)], viz. Balaam, Job, and Jethro;” see Judith R. Baskin, Pharaoh’s Counsellors: Job, Jethro, and Balaam in Rabbinic and Patristic Tradition (Chico: Scholars Press, 1983), 7–43, and the references therein to Christian exegetes who relate to the days of Job and his lineage from Esau or Nahor. For the idea that these pages are based on a collection of midrashim on the book of Job, see Hananel Mack, Job, 25; and see Viezel, “List of Authors.” 12 Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 104–105. 13 Wido van Peursen, “Introduction to the Electronic Peshitta Text,” 2–3, github.com/ ETCBC/Peshitta, accessed August 21, 2022. 14  Sifre Deut 305 (Louis Finkelstein ed., 326–27), and ’Abot R. Nat., Version a:12, and version b:25 (Solomon Schechter-M. Kister ed., 50, 52; and other parallels) identify wisdom in Job 28 with Moses, this linkage possibly being implicated in some way with the ascription of the book to Moses.

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2. The Reception of the Tradition that Moses Wrote the Book of Job 2.1 Endorsement of the tradition that Moses wrote the book of Job The first to address the question of Job’s authorship was R. Saadia Gaon (882– 942, Babylonia). In his commentary on Job 1:1, he observes: As for the age in which Job lived, although the text does not specify it, tradition explicates, stating that he lived at the same time when our forefathers were sojourning in Egypt [b. Soṭah 11a], and that it was Moses who set down this Book of Job at the mandate of God and published it to the nation. And this is the true account. He who differs and says that these events took place after the entry of our forebears into the [promised] land is again relying upon such weak and specious cues, as “To whom alone the land was given” [Job 15:19], “in a moment they die, and at midnight are the people disturbed” [Job 34:20], and the like. But there is no need for us to prove the unsoundness of mere fancy.15

Endorsing the view that Moses wrote Job, Saadia links this argument with the tradition that Job lived during the bondage in Egypt.16 His comments affirm the existence of a belief, based on two verses in Job, that Job entered Canaan with the wilderness generation. This late date precludes Moses’s authorship of Job. I have been unable to trace the source of the view Saadia rejects. He may be referring to the gemara in b. B. Bat. – perhaps in line with the formulation in Gen. Rab. 57:4, which cites Job 15:19.17 While he holds that this explanation is so weak as to be dismissed out of hand, the very fact that he adduces the contrary opinion suggests that the issue was not regarded as self-evident.18 Rashi (ca. 1040–1105, Northern France) also accepts the ascription of Job to Moses. In his commentary on Job 31:35 – “Oh that I had someone to give me a hearing; Oh that Shaddai would reply to my writ” – he contends that Job wishes for attestation of his book:

15 Lenn E. Goodman, The Book of Theodicy: Translation and Commentary on the Book of Job by Saadiah Ben Joseph Al-Fayyūmī (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), 152. For the Arabic original, see Yosef Qapah, Translation and Commentary on the Book of Job by the Gaon Saadiah (Jerusalem: ha-Vaad l-Sifrei Rasag, 1973), 24. 16  See b. Soṭah 11a (n. 11 above). 17  “He flourished in the days of the tribal ancestors, as it is written, Which wise men have told, and have not hid it from their fathers (Job xv, 18). And what reward did they receive for this? That unto them alone the land was given (ib. 19)” (Gen. Rab. 57:4). Cf. b. Sanh. 106a; y. Soṭah 5:6; Exod. Rab. 21:7. 18  Although it is also inconsistent with what he regarded as the traditional view, he may also have discounted it on exegetical grounds; his commentaries on Job 15:19, 34:20 indicate that the first verse deals with the obligation to accept the words of the erudite and wise, the second with the fate of human beings. He thus makes no mention of the conquest of Canaan. Goodman, Saadiah on Job, 265, 359; Qapah, Saadiah on Job, 100, 168–69.

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Would that the Omnipresent bear witness for me in judgment, as He wrote concerning me (1:8): “For there is none like him on earth, a sincere and upright man, God-fearing.” Also Moses, who wrote his book and my book, will bear witness concerning me.

Although giving no indication of familiarity with other views, in spirit Rashi’s remarks closely resemble the response in the gemara, brought in support of the opinion that Moses wrote Job. He, too, may thus want to strengthen the Mosaic authorship of Job and dismiss other arguments. As two of the most well-known and influential medieval biblical commentators, Saadia Gaon and Rashi’s remarks may well have contributed directly to the establishment of the notion that Moses wrote Job. Close analysis of the treatment of the subject amongst the dozens of medieval, early modern, and contemporary scholars who espouse this position reveals a number of common themes.19 On numerous occasions, the scholars elucidate various links between Job and the Pentateuch in general and Genesis in particular, buttressing these with comprehensive categorical statements. Bahya ben Asher (1255–1340, Spain), for example, notes: “Behold, the book of Job resembles Genesis.”20 This “correspondence” and the affinities between the two texts prompted Shlomo Molkho (1500–1532, Portugal) to observe: “The book of Job is a part [lit: the whole] of the 19 In addition to the quotations cited in the text and footnotes herein, see also, inter alia, the following twenty scholars (in chronological order): Gersonides, introduction to his commentary on Job; Joseph Albo, Book of Principles (Pressburg: Schmidt, 1853), 7:181a; Obadiah Sforno, The Writings of R. Obadiah Sforno, ed. Zeev Gotlieb (Jerusalem: ha-Rav Kook, 1987), 460; Yehuda Ben Moshe Chalava, Sefer ’mrei shefer, ed. Haim B. Z. Herschler (Jerusalem: Herschler, 1993), 69; Shem Tov Ibn Shem Tov, Shem Tov’s Commentary on Guide for the Perplexed (Pressburg: Schmidt, 1856), 3:21 (30b); Abraham Zachut, Sefer yuhasin (Warsaw: Levin Epstein, 1902), 9; Eliyahu ben Asher Halevi Ashkenazi [Eliah Levita or Eliyahu Bachur], Sefer hatishbi (Bnei Berak: Matzliah, 1995), 318; David ben Shlomo Ibn Zimra, Radbaz Responsa, ed. Isaac Sofer (Bnei Berak: ‘Et sofer, 1975), 8:10 (9); Moshe Ben Yosef di Tirani, Sefer beit ’elohim … Sha‘ar yesodot (Jerusalem: ’Otzar ha-sefarim, 1985), 24:263; Maharal of Prague [Judah Loew ben Bezalel], Gur Ariye, ed. David Y. Hartman (Jerusalem: Mahon Yerushalayim, 1989), 1:2 (Gen 1:1); idem, Hidushei aggadot (Benei Berak: Yadut, 1980) 3:68 (B. Bat. 14b); Josiah Ben Joseph Pinto, Kesef mezukak (Venice: Y. Kalyani, 1628), 166:b (Korach:a); Natan Neta Ben Shlomo Shapira, Megale ‘amukot, ed. Shalom H. Weiss (Benei Berak: Weiss, 1982), 211 (Tisa‘: 2); Rafael Emanuel Hai Ricchi, ’Aderet ’eliyahu, ed. Shimon Yifrah (Jerusalem: Yifrah, 2000), 225, 228 (Pesahim 2a; Holin 137a); Moshe David Vally, Bi’ur mishneh torah (Jerusalem: Y. Spinner, 1989), 333; Malbim [Meir Leibush ben Yehiel Michel Wisser], Keshet u-magen: Commentary on Job (Bnei Berak: Mishor, 1990), 1 (introduction); idem, Hidushei ha-Malbim ‘al ha-shas, ed. Shlomo Drilih (Jerusalem: Qiryat No‘ar, 1966), 62 (Sanhedrin 109a); Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin [Netziv], Humash ha-‘emeq davar, ed. Mordehai Y. Quperman (Jerusalem: Quperman, 2007), 2:669 (Exod 33:23); Zev Wolf Einhorn, Midrash tana’im (Vilna: Man and Simmel, 1838), 11:25; Tzvi Hirsch Hayut, Ma’amar darhei moshe (Zolkow: Shauldov, 1840), 2:16a (n.); Meir Simcha of Dvinsk, Mesheh hokhma (Jerusalem: Quperman, 2018), 5:568 (Deut 34:8); Solomon Tzvi Schück, Rashban Responsa (Satmar: Boros, 1905), 203:166b–67a; idem, Torah shelemah (Satmar: Z. Schwartz, 1909), 25b, 109b, and many more. 20  Haim D. Chavel ed., Writings of Bahya ben Asher (Jerusalem: ha-Rav Kook, 1970), Kad ha-kemah: 138–39.

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Pentateuch.”21 Others represent Job and the Pentateuch as complementing one another. Abraham Abulafia (1240–1291, Spain/Malta), for instance, avows: “The Pentateuch contains wisdom, Torah, and prophecy; Job contains Torah, wisdom, and prophecy. In other words, the essence of the Torah, wisdom, and prophecy can be learnt from the Pentateuch and Job.”22 Nissim Moses of Marseille (early fourteenth century) similarly explicates: “Moses wrote equally his book and the book of Job.” Arguing that Job preceded the Pentateuch, he suggests that the links between them evince a process of spiritual-conceptual development: “Without doubt, he first wrote Job … to proclaim and comment on the complaints and grievances he would show Adam/humanity at the beginning of thought in the order of reality and providence in the lower world.” After Moses raised questions regarding the book of Job, he penned the Pentateuch to provide the answers: “Then he wrote his book, which removes and rejects all the doubts and criticisms for he who understands.”23 On occasion, those who allege that Moses wrote the book of Job draw attention to the affinities between the book and the story of Balaam, echoing the opening statement of the list of authors: “Moses wrote his book, the portion of Balaam, and Job.” Many adduce the fact that the portion of Balaam and Job both teach us about divine providence. Menahem haMeiri (1249–1310, Provence), for example, avows: “Moses wrote the book of Job, which teaches about providence … and the portion of Balaam in order to instruct about providence.”24 Simeon b. Tzemah Duran (Rashbatz; 1361–1444, Spain/ Algeria) similarly alleges: “He [Moses] wrote Job in order to remove the doubt that the righteous suffer … and [the portion] of Balaam for the same reason.”25 Even more adduce the points of contact between the Pentateuch and Balaam/ Job. R. Moses Isserles (Rama; 1530–1572, Cracow), for instance, asserts: “They said ‘Moses wrote his book and the book of Job and the portion of Balaam’ in order to demonstrate that all wisdom is revealed in Job … and the portion of Balaam, which contains all wisdom … the Pentateuch, which contains all wis Shlomo Molkho, Sefer ha-mefo’ar (Amsterdam: M. M. Coutinho, 1709), 16b. Various modern systematic attempts have been made to survey all the associations between the two books in order to prove that Moses indeed wrote both; see for example: Abraham Mendel Mohr, “Derisha ve-hakirah bi-devar sefer iyyov …,” Yerushalayim ha-benuya 1 (1844): 40–50; Baruch Halevi Epstein, a letter to Hayim Hirschensohn, Malki ba-Qodesh (see below, n. 42), 6:232–36; Rahel Margaliyot, Job As Is (Jerusalem: Marcus, 1981), esp. 76–90 (Hebrew); Yehuda Kiel, Commentary on Genesis [Da‘at Miqra] (Jerusalem: ha-Rav Kook, 1999), 1:34–43. The Jerusalem Talmud parallel version is also adduced herein. 22  Abraham Abulafia, ’Or ha-sekhel … Shomer mitzva, ed. Amnon Gross (Jerusalem: Gross, 2011), 2:24–25, and cf. idem, Otzar ‘eden ganuz, ed. Amnon Gross (Jerusalem: N/A, 2010), 295. 23 R. Nissim Moses of Marseille, Ma’asei Nissim, ed. Howard Kreisel (Jerusalem: Mekitzei Nirdamim, 2000), 87. 24  Menahem ha-Meiri, Hibbur teshuva: meshiv ha-nefesh, ed. Moshe Tzuriel (Jerusalem: haRav Kook, 2018), 462. 25  Simeon ben Tzemah Duran, Magen avot (Jerusalem: ha-Ktav, 2007), 21 (introduction); for Duran, see also below. 21

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dom.”26 Eliezer b. Elijah Ashkenazi the Physician (1513–1586) follows the same line. Suggesting that “Moses’s book” in the list of authors is in fact Ha’azinu (Deut 32), however, he analyzes the affinities between this portion and Balaam/ Job – “for all three were written for the same purpose, namely, the advent of the messiah.”27 This group – which includes many others – also all sing the praises of Job for its content, profound mysteries, and wisdom. The approach outlined above is far from self-evident. No similar statements appear in the discussion of the identity of any of the other biblical writers. To take just one example: while the majority of scholars through the generations have espoused the view – under the influence of the list of authors – that Samuel wrote the book of Samuel, Judges, and Ruth, none have sought to associate these books. Nor are Judges and Ruth said to be equal to the book of Samuel. The list of authors also forms the basis of the tradition that Jeremiah wrote the book that bears his name, Kings, and Lamentations. Here, too, however, little if any interest is shown in finding correspondences between the three texts or their attributes discussed. The fact that these issues are only raised in relation to Job suggests that its attribution to Moses was not obvious to all but required supporting evidence. This conclusion will become clearer below. 2.2 Avoidance of a clear decision if Moses wrote the book of Job Along with the dozens of scholars who accept the attribution of the book of Job to Moses, there were scholars who referred to this attribution, but refrained from deciding in clear words whether to accept it. One of the most well-known and influential figures in this group is Nahmanides (1194–1270, Gerona and Acre). In his lengthy preface to his commentary on Job, Nahmanides addresses the subject of divine providence, relating inter alia to the book’s ascription to Moses: Some of our masters said [other version: say] that Moses wrote it, and that the matter of this man and those friends of his was relayed to him by divine force [‫]מפי הגבורה‬, like the book of Genesis was relayed to him by divine force, and he was commanded to write it because it deals with a pillar of our faith and the foundation of the Torah.28

Nahmanides employs the expression “our masters have said” on over 70 occasions in his commentary on the Torah, quoting or adducing rabbinic statements.29 The passage cited above, however, is the only example I have found in 26  Moses Isserles, Torat ha-‘olah, ed. Nahum Karnbisser (Tel Aviv: Hidushei Rim, 1999), 2:77 (314). 27 Eliezer Ben Elijah Ashkenazi, Ma‘asei ’adonai (Venice: Z. Digara, 1583), 178a, and see, inter alia, Isaac Arama, Akedat Yitzhak (Levov: Polak, 1868), 82 (Balak, 123b); Abraham Ben Isaac Shalom, Neve shalom (Venice: Z. Digara, 1574), 2:37b; Moshe Ben Jacob Albelda, Reshit da‘at (Venice: Z. Digara, 1583), 1:1:1 (10a–b). 28  Commentary on Job 1:1. For the textual variants ‫יאמר‬/‫אמר‬, see Yehuda L. S. Friedman, Nachmanides’ Commentary on the Book of Job (Jerusalem: Feldheim, 2018), 18. 29  ‫ – רבותינו אמרו‬or, more rarely, ‫רבותינו באומרם‬.

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which he uses the compound ‫ יש‬+ ‫ מרבותינו‬+ ‫( אמר‬3rd pers. singular).30 Herein, he appears to allude to the fact that this is an individual opinion (da‘at yahid) that can be ignored or passed over in preference to others.31 Nahmanides also refers to Moses’s authorship of the book of Job in his sermon on Qohelet: Our masters have said that Moses wrote it [Job], and it is certainly befitting of him [ra’uyi lo]. The book was given to him by God like Genesis and the portion of Balaam, for the matter of Satan and the “heavenly beings [who] came to present themselves before the Lord” (Job 1:6) was only made known through prophecy.32

The notion that Job was given to Moses in the same way as Genesis and the portion of Balaam echoes the opening statement of the list of authors. Here, Nahmanides suggests that the account of the celestial court attests that Job was delivered through prophecy.33 He nonetheless refrains from reaching a decisive conclusion on the issue, merely observing that it is “befitting” that Moses should be given the text of Job. Neither of Nahmanides’s remarks allows us to determine whether he accepted or rejected Moses’s authorship of Job. Either way, he does not seem to have seen the attribution as solid and binding on everyone. Isaac ben Moses Arama (fifteenth/sixteenth centuries, Spain/Italy) also leaves the question open. In his introduction to his commentary on Job, Arama cites rabbinic sources relating to the time at which Job lived, his origin (whether he was an Israelite or foreigner), and on the possibility that the book is allegorical. At the heart of the passage lie the various opinions pertaining to Job cited in the gemara. He concludes his discussion with the statement: “The book will gain a higher status [madrega] if we say that all are Moses’s words through the Holy Spirit.”34 In the wake of Maimonides’s writings and treatment of the levels of prophecy and the uniqueness of Moses’s prophecies, the view that the Hebrew Bible is divided into the Pentateuch, Prophets, and Writings in line with three degrees of prophecy – Moses’s prophecies, the prophecies, and the Holy Spirit – gradually became prevalent. Although identified with Maimonides’s legacy, later scholars perceived this as preserving the traditional and time-honored view, linking it with well-known rabbinic dicta.35 The distinction between grades of 30 For ‫ אומרים‬+ ‫ רבותינו‬+ ‫( יש‬3rd pers. plural), see his commentary on Lev 6:4; cf. also his quotation of Rashi on Gen 6:9. 31  For doubts as to whether a statement or opinion is da‘at yahid cf., inter alia, Nahmanides’s comments on Exod 20:3–4; 21:9–10; 40:2. 32  Commentary on Qohelet, in Haim D. Chavel, ed., Writings of Nahmanides (Jerusalem: ha-Rav Kook, 1964), 1:196. 33 Cf. his remarks on Job 1:6: “‘The heavenly beings came’: this matter is [or: will] only [been] known through prophecy, teaching us that it was written by a prophet.” For the textual variants, see Friedman edition, 38. 34  Meir Arama, Me’ir iyyov (Venice: Georgio Cavalli, 1567), 3b. 35 Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed, 2:45, and see my papers: “On the Tripartite Division of the Bible in Jewish Tradition: Part A,” Beit Mikra 66 (2021): 387–419; “On the Tripartite Di-

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prophecy is also reflected in Meir Arama’s writings.36 In his comment mentioned above he regards the attribution of the book of Job to Moses as raising the status of the book – albeit not to a higher level of the Holy Spirit, to which all the books of Writings belong. Rather than unambiguously determining that Moses wrote the book, however, Arama employs a conditional sentence (“The book will gain … if we say”). This may serve as premise for his opinion or merely a possibility. Abarbanel (1437–1508, Portugal and Italy) engages in a detailed discussion of the formation of the biblical books. Although his views on the matter are not always consistent with the list of authors in b. Bava Batra, he regards the latter as a necessary and highly significant point of reference. Where he differs from it, he thus takes care to adduce supporting arguments. In rejecting the idea that the book of Joshua should be ascribed to Joshua, for example, he adduces a general principle: “Do not wonder over my deviation from the rabbinic view in this matter, for even the gemara does not agree with it, the Sages disputing whether Moses wrote Job or Joshua eight verses [i. e., Deut 34:5–12].”37 Abarbanel regards the ascription of Job to Moses as a key case that every detail in the list of authors requires close examination in its own right. As we noted above, the talmudic discussion focuses primarily on the date of the book of Job, irrespective of the question of its authorship. Like other scholars, however, Abarbanel appears to regard the gemara as reflecting uncertainty with respect to its writer – in the spirit of the well-known ambivalence over whether Moses or Joshua wrote the final eight verses of the Pentateuch.38 He thus neither clearly states his own opinion regarding the writer of Job – whether it should be attributed to Moses or not.39 Hayim Hirschensohn (1857–1935) similarly appeals to Moses’s authorship of Job as a key example of the controversy over the authors of the biblical books, this time within the context of critical biblical scholarship. One of the first vision of the Bible in Jewish Tradition: Part B,” Beit Mikra 67 (2022): 293-339, and the following section. 36  Cf. Meir Arama, Me’ir tehillot (Warsaw: Unterhandler, 1898), 255 (Ps 101); idem, Akedat Yitzhak … on Five Scrolls, ed. Amnon Gross (Jerusalem: Barazani, 2015), 43, 70 (introduction of Meir Arama’s commentary on Ester and the end of his commentary); For the link between the tripartite division of the Hebrew Bible and the three levels of prophecy, see Isaac Arama (Meir’s father), Akedat Yitzhak, 6:88 (bereshit); 29:469–70 (mi-ketz). 37 Isaac Abarbanel, Commentary on the Former Prophets (Pesaro, 1511/Jerusalem, 1955), 7–8. See Eric Lawee, “Isaac Abarbanel: Who Wrote the Books of the Bible?” Tradition 30.2 (1996): 65–73, at 70. 38  “Is it possible that Moses being dead could have written the words, ‘Moses died there’ [Deut 34:5]? The truth is, however, that up to this point Moses wrote, from this point Joshua wrote … Can [we imagine] the Pentateuch being short of one word? … what we must say is that up to this point the Holy One, blessed be He, dictated and Moses repeated and wrote, and from this point God dictated and Moses wrote with tears” (b. B. Bat. 14b). 39  Elsewhere, he plainly observes: “… in the book of Job, which Moses wrote.” Referring to Narvoni’s commentary on the Guide for the Perplexed, however, this statement probably does not represent his own view. See The Commentary of Abarbanel on the Guide for the Perplexed, ed. Israel Landa (Prague: Landa, 1831), 17:35a.

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religious Zionist thinkers in Israel, he proposed a halakhic distinction between the divine nature of the Pentateuch and its attribution to Moses: Although we believe that Moses himself wrote and sealed the whole Pentateuch, some in fact argue … that it was written by another man of truth, who recounts all God’s words to Moses. This question is not covered by “Because he hath despised the word of the Lord, refers to an epikoros” [b. Sanh. 99a], but falls under “faith in the Sages” [m. ’Abot 6:5].40

He further notes that: “In practical issues, we may interpret against the opinion of the talmudic Sages.”41 The example he adduces against those whose statements do not constitute halakhic rulings is the ascription of Job to Moses: “No harm will befall anyone who says that Moses did not write the book of Job, because this is not an issue of a pillar of faith or law and halakhah.” In response, Baruch Halevi Epstein (1860–1941, Belarus) sent him a letter citing numerous texts from the Pentateuch and the book of Job that exhibit substantive, stylistic, and linguistic affinities in support of the thesis of the Mosaic authorship of Job. Hirschensohn in turn doubled down on his claim that debate over the issue was legitimate, the gemara indicating that the matter had not been resolved: Everyone has the right to interpret such things according to his judgment and understanding. Even the Sages did not come to a decision … The language in which the Talmud speaks – Job lived “in the days” of Moses – evinces that they do not conclusively determine that the baraita [i. e., the list of authors] states that Moses wrote Job.42

Hirschensohn returns to the theme on another occasion, here remarking that Moses wrote the portion of Balaam, several others portions, and Job during the bondage in Egypt, in the course of time “joining all the portions with the Pentateuch according to God’s command but leaving Job in the Writings.”43 Although he treats the ascription of Job to Moses as “according to the opinion” of the Sages, clearly regarding it as a matter of discussion, he appears to believe that Moses  This recalls Joseph b. Eliezer’s (Bonfils) well-known dictum with respect to Ibn Ezra’s commentary on Gen 12:6: “Since we are obliged to believe in the words of tradition and the words of prophecy, what difference can there be if Moses wrote it or another prophet, since the words of every prophet are true and divinely inspired,” Tzophnath pane‘aḥ, ed. David Herzig (Krakow: Fischer, 1912), 92. 41 Cf. the view of various medieval thinkers, from the Gaonim onwards, in regard to aggadah and its distinction from halakhah and the Oral Law, e. g., Jacob Elbaum, Medieval Perspectives on Aggadah and Midrash: Selected and Compiled with an Introduction and Notes (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2000), 13–44 [Hebrew]. Hayim Hirschensohn may (also) have been influenced by this hierarchical division. 42 Hayim Hirschensohn, Malki ba-Qodesh: Responsa (Saint Louis: Moinester, 1919–1928), 2, 6:231–32; 6, 29:232–36, 245–46. 43  Hayim Hirschensohn, Seder la-Miqra (Jerusalem: ha-‘Ivri, 1933), 42:267. These statement of Hirchenson fit in with his unique position regarding the composition of the Torah, cf. Eran Viezel, The Intention of the Torah and the Intention of Its Readers: Episodes of Contention (Jerusalem: Hebrew University Magnes), 307–8 [Hebrew]. 40

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was indeed responsible for the book – despite his letter to Epstein implying the contrary. Nahmanides, Arama, and Abarbanel thus all leave the question of Job’s authorship open, and Abarbanel and Hirschensohn adduce the issue as an example par excellence of an unresolved talmudic sugiya. Their approach is consistent with the conclusion drawn in the previous section namely, that the attribution of Job to Moses was not self-evident. Several other statements in the spirit of these scholars may be cited, the majority being modern writers.44 It is a minority opinion, however, with very few sitting on the fence and taking no side. Both Nahmanides and Abarbanel exerted a great influence upon rabbinic biblical exegesis, of course, and Hirschensohn was also a prominent figure in his generation. Inter alia, they exerted an impact upon scholars whose interest lay in Moses’s literary activities.45 The fact that their comments stamped little imprint on the debate is not self-explanatory and thus requires special note. 2.3 Rejection of the tradition that Moses wrote the book of Job The first and the most important figure in this group is Abraham Ibn Ezra (1089– 1164/7, Spain and Latin Europe) – despite his rather vague formulation: Eliphaz the Temanite – from the family of Teman, the son of Eliphaz, the son of Esau. And I think, he was close to the days of Moses, so he was not named after Teman but after generations. Our Sages said that Moses wrote the Book of Job, but it seems to me that it is a translated book, because it is difficult to interpret, as all translated books are.46 44  See, inter alia, Vidal Ben Isaac ha-Zarfati, Tzuf devash, ed. David Ben Abu (Benei Berak: Kitvei Rabboteinu, 2016), 269; Avigdor Ben Simha Halevi, Hotam tokhnit (Wein: Schmidt, 1797), 11b; Aharon Yehuda L. Margaliyoth, Tal ’Orot (Pressburg: Schmidt, 1843), 17b; Zadok haKohen Rabinowitz, Peri tzadik (Lublin: Schneidmesser, 1907), 2:86 (Yitro 4); idem, ’Or zarua‘ le-tzadik (Lublin: Schneidmesser, 1929), 50; idem, Dover tzedek, ed. Yonadav Zer (Har Berakha: Berakha, 2008), 258; Yosef Ben Eliyahu Halevi, Yavo’ ha-levi (Kostandina: Moshe Di Castro, 1862), 72a. This group includes scholars who retain obtuse formulations. Jacob b. Joseph Reischer, for example, notes: “Moses wrote the book of Job – i. e., the pattern of the book was given during Moses’s days.” See ‘Iyyun Yaacov in ‘Ein yaakov (Jerusalem: ha-Mahon ha-Mefo’ar, 2008), 197 (Nedarim 22b); this notation gives no indication of his personal view on the matter. 45  I.e., Nahmanides’s distinction in his commentary between the heavenly Torah and that written by Moses; Abarbanel’s distinction between the point at which the events happened and that at which Moses recorded them through divine dictation; and Hayim Hirschensohn’s halakhic differentiation between the divine nature of the Torah and its ascription to Moses, which paved the way (under certain conditions) for the use of critical biblical scholarship. For Nahmanides, see idem, “‘Joshua Wrote […] Eight Verses of the Torah’: The Question of the Authorship of the Final Eight Verses of the Torah in Jewish Tradition Throughout the Ages,” SHNATON: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies XXVII (2022): 321–82 (354–55 and passim). For Abarbanel, see Eran Viezel, “Isaac Abravanel’s Question and Joseph Hayyun’s Answer: A New Stage in the Issue of Moses’ Role in the Composition of the Torah,” Religious Studies and Theology 35 (2016): 53–72. 46  Mariano Gómez Aranda, El comentario de Abraham ibn Ezra al libro de Job: Edición

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Ibn Ezra identifies Eliphaz the Temanite with the family of Teman, the grandson of Esau, mentioned in the book of Genesis (36:10–11). In his view, the descriptor ha-Temani (“the Temanite”) – “Teman” + “possessive yud”47 – is plausible only “after generations [have passed].” In Ibn Ezra’s terminology, the word “generation” does not refer to a fixed number of years; rather, an individual’s death is what constitutes the passing of a generation.48 Ibn Ezra thus appears to contend that Eliphaz could only be called “the Temanite” after Teman had come to be regarded as the progenitor of a well-known lineage – more than one generation after his demise. Ibn Ezra asserts that the historical period of Eliphaz the Temanite was “close to the days of Moses.” Other statements he makes suggest that he identified Eliphaz the Temanite with the grandson of Teman son of Eliphaz, who lived slightly before Moses’s deeds and the Tetragrammaton became public knowledge.49 The fact that the language of Job is difficult prompts him to regard it as having been translated.50 This claim can further be inferred from his remark in Sefer ha-Shem that the occurrence of the Tetragrammaton in several headings in Job is the work of the translator: “You see that we do not find it in the words of Job or his friends … The verse ‘Then the Lord replied to Job’ [Job 38:1; 40:1, 6] is the translator’s addition.”51 Naturally, Ibn Ezra believes the translator to have also added the framing story (Job 1–2, 42:7–17), in which the Tetragrammaton appears seventeen times. If the events depicted in the book of Job took place slightly earlier than Moses’s lifetime or at the very beginning of his career, Moses himself could quite easily have translated the book into Hebrew, adding the frame and the headings in

crítica, traducción y estudio introductorio (Madrid: CSIC, 2004), 10*; Mordechai Saul Goodman, Sefer Iyyov ‘im perushei Ibn Ezra (Jerusalem: ha-Rav Kook, 2010), 49–50, 386. For a more detailed discussion of this passage and Ibn Ezra’s linguistic and philosophical principles that underlie it, see Eran Viezel, “Abraham Ibn Ezra’s Commentary on Job 2:11: The Time and Place of Job and His Friends and the Composition of the Book of Job,” HUCA 88 (2017): 113–57. 47  yud ha-yahas, cf. Ibn Ezra long commentary to Gen 1:27; Exod 1:16, 3:18, and Sefer Moznayim, Mordechai Saul Goodman ed. (Jerusalem: Mosad ha-Rav Kook, 2016) 34; Safa berura, Gabriel Hirsch Lippmann, ed. (Fürth: D. J. Zürndorffer, 1839), 29b. 48 See in his commentary to Joel 1:3: “a generation is not a known number,” and inter alia, Ibn Ezra’s commentary on Gen 15:16, and his long commentary on Gen 6:9. 49  See especially: “And this name [Jehovah] was not known in the world except to a few pious men, until Moses, our teacher appeared. You see that we do not find it in the words of Job or his friends,” Sefer ha-Shem, ed. Israel Levin (New York: Keren Israel Katz, 1985), 427. Cf. also his short commentary on Exod 9:20, in which he relates in a general fashion to the days of Job, his commentary on Gen 36:32–33 and Job 1:1, wherein he rejects the identification between Job and Jobab, and his remarks on Job 32:2, where he seeks to date Elihu. 50  Ibn Ezra frequently employs the expression ‫ קרוב אלי‬to mean “it seems to me.” It thus does not reflect any reservation or uncertainty on his part (as it might in modern Hebrew). 51  Sefer ha-Shem, 427.

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which the Tetragrammaton occurs.52 However, this theory seems implausible to me. Ibn Ezra deals with the ancestry of Job and his friends diversely in various places in his commentaries on the book of Job and the Pentateuch. The relevant passages indicate that he believed Job, Eliphaz, and Bildad to be foreigners. Although Zophar’s origin is unknown, he is self-evidently not an Israelite – Elihu thus being the only Israelite in the story. Uz is in Edom, close to Haran and linked with the Arameans.53 When combined with the view that Job was translated into Hebrew from another language, these details suggest that Ibn Ezra assumed that the speeches in the book were originally delivered in Aramaic.54 This conclusion is of great import, his commentary on the word ‫ ֲעזָ אזֵ ל‬in Lev 16:8 evincing that he thought Moses ignorant of this language.55 Someone other than Moses must thus have translated Job into Hebrew. If so, Ibn Ezra’s comment on Job 2:11, ‫והקרוב אלי‬, should be understood as contrastive: “Our Sages said that Moses wrote the Book of Job, but [a contrastive waw] it seems to me …”56 Although Ibn Ezra’s exegesis of Job was well known, most scholars and commentators neglected his argument that it was translated into Hebrew. As demonstrated by the examples adduced in the first section above, many favored Mosaic authorship. At least some took this line in response to Ibn Ezra’s claim, however, 52  The fact Ibn Ezra does not identify the “translator” in Sefer ha-Shem does not necessarily mean that it was not Moses. Medieval commentators quite frequently assigned anonymous epithets to the biblical writers – “scribe,” “author,” “arranger,” mudawwin – rather than addressing them by name even when accepting their conventional identity; see Eran Viezel, “Medieval Bible Commentators on the Question of the Composition of the Bible: Research and Methodological Aspects,” Tarbiz 84 (2016): 108–12, 132–47 [Hebrew] and below n. 65. 53 See Ibn Ezra’s commentary on Job 1:1; 2:11; 32:2, and his long commentary on Exod 21:2. 54  To be precise: together, Job’s difficult language and Ibn Ezra’s linguistic-philosophical views thus led him to the conclusion that the book was translated into Hebrew. He does not suggest this with regard to any other biblical texts in which foreigners outside Israel appear. Job’s non-Israelite origin and that of his friends and the fact that Uz lies in Edom and is inhabited by Arameans are thus the logical outcome of his determination that the book was translated, serving to explain why the original was not in Hebrew. 55 “If you are able to understand the secret which is alluded to by the word following, ‘[for] ‫[ עזאזל‬into the wilderness],’ then you will know its secret and the secret of its name, as there are many examples like it in the Bible.” Cf. Solomon Ben R. Shmuel ha-Tzarfati: “‫עזאזל‬: it is wilderness … and in Aramaic wilderness is ‫ … עזאזל‬and do not be surprised at the fact that he writes this Aramaic word in the Torah, for it was not he who wrote this verse. And this is the secret that is referred to here – that it was not Moses who wrote this verse, but rather someone else. And do not be surprised at what I [=Ibn Ezra] say – that someone else wrote it, for there are other such instances in the Torah. In other words, there are many verses which were not said by Moses;” Israel M. Ta-Shma, Studies in Medieval Rabbinic Literature (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar, 2004), 1:276–77. 56  Note that contra medieval scholars, Ibn Ezra presumes that various biblical texts – pentateuchal verses, chapters of Isaiah, and units in Chronicles – were written by figures not adduced in the talmudic list of authors; see especially his comments on Deut 1:1–2, 34:1 (where he identifies the author as Joshua) and Isa 40:1.

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albeit not identifying him by name. On several occasions, R. Zerahiah b. Isaac b. Shealtiel Hen (thirteenth century, Spain) notes Job’s distinctive and difficult language, for example, clearly exhibiting Ibn Ezra’s influence upon him in this regard.57 At the same time, he stresses Job’s association with Moses: The Book of Job was written and composed through Moses’s understanding and by his abundant wisdom, and in it he aims to make known beliefs relating to divine providence; and it is possible that he composed it by means of the divine will emanating to him … If you say that Moses our Master found their [i. e., Job’s and his friends’] remarks written, scattered, and dispersed, and then he connected them and wrote them down – then where did he find the words of God? Who composed them from God and wrote them down? If you say: Job and his friends wrote down the words of God, the questioner will further respond: It is an exceptional thing that there should be six speakers, and no difference in their poetical style [‫ !]במליצתם‬Each one speaks just directly like the other in the poetical style of his remarks.58

Zerahiah rejects the view that Moses wrote Job on the basis of the sources at his disposal, adducing a rather dogmatic theological argument in support of his objections: God’s words coming “from his mouth” via his prophets, Moses could not have found them “scattered, and dispersed.” Zerahiah also appealing to aesthetic argument: Job and his friends could not have done so because all the statements exhibit the same style. They thus appear to have been penned by a single hand, giving no evidence of multiple authors living in diverse locations. This discussion clearly bears the marks of a polemic against Ibn Ezra’s remarks on Job 2:11. The latter also seem to lie in the background of Joseph Caspi’s (1280–1345, Provence) introduction to his commentary on Job: Although Job and his friends were not Jews, it was appropriate for one of the scribes among the ancient sages of our religion to write this story as it happened in his time, or slightly before him, since it is an eminent story, equally right for all nations and religions … Who knows if, perhaps, some or all of Job and his friends were Jews who were exiled for some reason to the land of Uz? … In the end, what value is there for us in these empty [‫ ]הבל‬inquiries? The truth is equally right for all of the nations. If Job was an Aramean, one should not argue: How could God have spoken with him? For is this not the case with the evil Balaam? One also should not ask: If Job and his friends were not Jews, how was this book included among the Holy Books? For here is your proclamation that 57  Cf. Zerahiah’s commentary on Job 15:16: “This book contains many irregular words [‫מלות‬ ‫ ]זרות‬which have no parallel [‫ [אין להן חבר‬in the Bible, but rather only in the Arabic language.” This remark prompted Abraham Kahana to assert that Zerahiah holds that Job was in fact translated; see idem, The Book of Job (Tel Aviv: Mekorot, 1968), 7, n. 1; 23, n. 3 [Hebrew]. For Zerahiah’s acquaintance with Ibn Ezra’s commentary on Job and his polemic against his view, see Aviezer Ravitsky, “The Thought of R. Zerahiah b. Isaac b. Shealtiel Hen” (PhD diss., Hebrew University, 1977), 103–104. Zerahiah wrote his commentary in Rome in 1290/1. See Ravitsky, ibid, 82; Israel Schwartz, ed. Tikvat ’enosh (Berlin: Gerschell, 1868), xix. 58  Schwartz, Tikvat ’enosh, 170, 173.

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it is equally right for all of the nations: The book of Jonah, which is entirely the story of another nation, is included. So, too, the story of the generation of the flood, and the story of Sodom and Gomorrah are written in the Torah. The general rule is: The ancient scribes of our nation and of the other nations wrote down all of the stories and the events, in order to bequeath true opinions and beliefs to those to come, such as they were [‫היו‬ ‫]על שהיו‬. This is enough.59

At the center of Caspi’s attention here lies the question of the ethnic identity of Job and his friends and, attendant upon this, the issue of whether any importance attaches to gentile history. Does God reveals himself to foreigners? Why do narratives relating to them appear in the biblical text? His determination that a character’s origin – and the implications thereof – is irrelevant, the truth being “equally right for all nations and religions,”60 represents the discussions in which his predecessors (the rabbinic sages and later commentators) engaged as insignificant and pointless (“empty inquiries”). In light of his close familiarity with Ibn Ezra’s commentaries, including that on Job, however, his statements are highly likely – and perhaps even preeminently – intended to deny any essential consequence to Ibn Ezra’s suggestion that Job was translated into Hebrew from another language. Caspi refers to the author of Job here as “one of the scribes among the ancient sages of our religion.” Slightly earlier, in discussing whether Job was an historical figure or whether the book is allegorical, he observes: “A sage wrote it.”61 It is thus difficult to determine his view of Job’s authorship, support existing both for and against the idea that it was Moses. Elsewhere, Caspi either identifies the biblical authors by name or adopts anonymous epithets. Even in the latter case, however, he follows rabbinic tradition.62 Indeed in his commentary on Genesis (8:21) he thus states: “It is well known from our holy masters that Moses wrote his book and the book of Job and that he wrote in Job that ‘he offered burnt offerings’ [Job 1:5], having said

59 The central place Ibn Ezra’s writings occupy in Caspi’s works is indicated first and foremost by Caspi’s supercommentary on Ibn Ezra: see Howard Kreisel, Five Early Commentators on R. Abraham Ibn Ezra (Beer Sheba: Ben Gurion, 2018), and for Caspi’s knowledge with Ibn Ezra’s commentary on the book of Job see Hannah Kasher, “Joseph Ibn Kaspi’s Aristotelian Interpretation and Fundamentalist Interpretation of the book of Job,” Da‘at 20 (1988): 119 [Hebrew], and see also Robert Eisen, “Joseph Ibn Kaspi on the Book of Job,” JSQ 13 (2006): 73. 60 Behind this lies Maimonides’s well-known dictum (introduction to Shemonah peraqim): “Accept the truth from whatever source it comes.” Cf. Hannah Kasher, ibid, 121. 61 Cf. the introduction to his commentary on Job. 62  Thus, for example, while he accepts Samuel’s authorship of the books that bear his name, cf. “Samuel, the writer of this book” (his commentary on 1 Sam 11:6; see also his comment on 1 Sam 8:9), he often refers him with an anonymous epithet “the writer.” See his commentaries on 1 Sam 4:21; 7:2; 17:18; 20:15; 25:37, 39; 27:3; 1 Chr 1:1; 13:6, 10; 18:17.

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the same of Cain and Abel.”63 This suggests that, despite not acknowledging it explicitly in his commentary on Job, he accepted the attribution of Job to Moses.64 On the other hand, whenever Caspi employs an anonymous epithet he adopts one prevalent among his peers – “the writer,” “the author,” “the scribe.” The expressions “one of the scribes among the ancient sages of our religion” and “a sage wrote” are distinctive, occurring only here in relation to Job. They thus leave the door open for the possibility that he may not intend a well-known and conventionally adduced figure. The premise that the reference “one of the scribes” is to Moses, the greatest of the prophets, is difficult to entertain.65 Caspi’s exegesis of the Pentateuch differs from his treatment of the Prophets and Writings, moreover, tending towards midrash and citation of dogmatic traditional opinions.66 We may thus suggest that his approach to Job forms part of the same orientation: while in his commentary on Genesis he conforms to the accepted rabbinic tradition that Moses wrote Job, in his remarks on Job he alludes to a divergent option. All these considerations preclude any conclusive determination of Caspi’s position with regard to the identity of Job’s writer. Several other scholars also appear to object to Ibn Ezra’s stance in his commentary on Job 2:11.67 Others partially accept his view, however. Although these support (or discount) the belief that Job was translated into Hebrew, they maintain that Moses himself was responsible for this task. In reference to the 63 Mishneh

kesef, ed. Isaac H. Last (Pressburg: ’Elkala’i: 1905), 34.  Caspi notes that Job takes places “in his [the writer’s] time or slightly earlier.” Although he does not date this, he may have had in mind the period after the giving of the Torah: “Why did God not say to Job: ‘Why did you denigrate me, by being drawn to the distorted view of Aristotle, or by denying the resurrection of the dead? You should have been drawn to the view of Eliphaz, which is the view of the Torah that I gave to Israel, the chosen people, on Mount Sinai!’” Caspi, the introduction to second commentary on Job (“the ninth argument”). 65  The fact that we are dealing here with medieval commentators who, while giving the impression that the writers were not known to them, identify them in line with the talmudic list of authors demands a cautious approach. R. Joseph Kara, for example, states: “The prophet who wrote this book” (commentaries on Judg 13:18; 17:6), and Pseudo-Rashi on Chronicles similarly observes: “And the person who wrote this book” (commentary on 2 Chr 32:19). In other places, however, both scholars associate the verses with Samuel and Ezra as per the traditional view. See Eran Viezel, “Medieval Bible Commentators,” 124–25. 66  This issue lies beyond our present brief. For a summary of his methodological principles, see Adrian Sackson, Joseph Ibn Caspi: Portrait of a Hebrew Philosopher in Medieval Provence (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 163–65. 67  For another possible example see Moses Kimhi’s (ca. 1127–1190) note in his preface to his commentary on Job: “Moses wrote his book and the Book of Job; we received this from our ancestors, the sages, for they and their words are truth.” Moses Kimhi not employing the same usage in his other commentaries (those extant are Proverbs and Ezra-Nehemiah), this statement appears to reflect the direct influence of Ibn Ezra’s dicta regarding the propriety of the traditional view, e. g.: “Our ancestors, the sages, were right and all their words are true” (end of Ibn Ezra’s short commentary on Genesis et al.). Prominent examples exist of scholars who cite an earlier commentator in order to dismiss his opinion, Moses Kimhi possibly being a classical example of this phenomenon. 64

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list of authors, Levi b. Abraham (b. ca. 1245, Provence), for example, remarks: “Moses appears to have found the book in Arabic and translated it, just as the portion of Balaam.” Like Ibn Ezra, he notes Job’s difficult language – characteristic of a translated book: “This displays some foreign words others being concise, while masculine and feminine are sometimes interchanged … and second and third person and singular and plural.”68 While Moses Ibn Tibbon (1195–1274, Provence) similarly suggests that Moses translated Job, he refrains from making a categorical judgment: “Moses wrote his book and the book of Job, and these things were consensual. He put it[!] on a book or translated them from another language.”69 Simeon b. Tzemah Duran likewise did not dismisses the possibility that Moses translated Job – albeit stressing that it was written under divine inspiration. He is also the only scholar of this period who directly cites Ibn Ezra’s commentary: The sage Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra, may his memory be a blessing, wrote that it seems to him that [the book of Job] was transcribed from another language, and that this is the reason that it is deeply poetic in style, as is typical of books transcribed from language to language. However, this need not be the case. Rather, since these people did not speak the Holy Language, when Moses transcribed their words, letter for letter, into the Holy Language by divine force, the language became “deep” as is typical of transcribed books.70

To the best of my knowledge, only two scholars evaluate Ibn Ezra’s opinion regarding the origin of the book of Job – Spinoza and Judah Leib Ben-Ze’ev. Although Spinoza opposes Ibn Ezra’s view, contending that it has no supporting arguments, he does not hide his esteem for his statements in this regard: Ibn Ezra … affirms in his commentary on the book [of Job] that it had been rendered into Hebrew from another language. I wish he had demonstrated this for us more conclusively, since we could deduce from it that the gentiles, too, possessed sacred books. I leave the question therefore in some doubt, surmising only that Job was a gentile and a man of the highest constancy.71

In contrast to Spinoza, the rabbinic scholar Judah Leib Ben-Ze’ev (1764–1811) espoused Ibn Ezra’s position in full: 68 Howard Kreisel, Levi b. Abraham: Livyat Hen – The Quality of Prophecy and the Secrets of the Torah (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2007), 105–106 [Hebrew]. In the continuation, in the spirit of the remarks adduced in section 2.1 above, Levi b. Abraham lauds the book of Job, linking its content with the portion of Balaam. 69  Moshe Ibn Tibbon, Perush ‘al Shir ha-Shirim (Lyck: Mekize Nirdamim, 1874), 13a. Levi and Moshe Ibn Tibbon should be added to the list of scholars influenced by Ibn Ezra’s remarks on Job 2:11 in Eran Viezel, “Ibn Ezra’s Commentary.” 70 Simeon b. Tzemah Duran, Sefer ohev mishpat ve-sefer mishpat tzedek: Biurum al Iyyov (Venice: Juan de Gara, 1589), 45b. 71  Baruch Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 147, and see Edwin M. Curley, “Maimonides, Spinoza, and the Book of Job,” in Jewish Themes in Spinoza’s Philosophy, ed. Heidi M. Ravven and Lenn E. Goodman (Albany: SUNY Press, 2002), 147–86, at 173.

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What seems correct is that the main part of the book was written in Arabic, or in the Aramaic language which is close to it, and Moses was the translator of this book into the Hebrew language – a work of art! … Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra also tended toward the opinion that this book is a translation.72

Although Ben-Ze’ev cites Ibn Ezra explicitly, he may also have been influenced by well-known early-modern Christian works.73 Critical biblical scholars also endorse the view that Job was translated, this being particularly true of those in the second half of the twentieth century. This group falls into three categories: those who maintain the book was originally written in Arabic, those who argue for an Aramaic or Edomite source, and those who contend that it blends several languages and dialects.74 All epitomize the spirit of modern critical biblical scholarship and indifference to traditional Jewish exegesis of Job. As far as may be determined, most are unfamiliar with Ibn Ezra’s commentary on Job 2:11.75 The view that Moses didn’t write Job is also held by various other scholars, apparently without any connection to Ibn Ezra. It may be deduced indirectly in The Guide for the Perplexed (2:32–48), wherein Maimonides discusses prophecy in detail. Adducing 11 “degrees,” he asserts the first and second degrees as a revelation under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, “the first and second degree are steppingstones toward prophecy, and someone who has attained one  Judah Leib Ben-Ze’ev, Mavo el mikra’ei kodesh (Vienna: Anton von Schmid, 1810), 65b; reprinted in Aaron Wolfsohn-Halle, Sefer Iyyov im Targum ashkenazi u-viur (Vienna: M. L. Loewy’s Sohn, 1818), n.p. For Ben-Ze’ev and his place in biblical scholarship, see Edward Breuer, “(Re)creating Traditions of Language and Texts: The Haskalah and Cultural Continuity,” Modern Judaism 16 (1996): 161–83. 73 Cf. Blaise Pascal: “The two oldest books in the world are those of Moses and Job, the one a Jew and the other a Gentile,” Pensées 12:741, trans. W. F. Trotter (Mineola: Dover, 2003), 223; Voltaire: “… the Hebrews translated it from Arabic,” s. v. “Job,” in Philosophical Dictionary, trans. Th. Besterman (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1971), 257; cf. Johann Gottfried Herder, Vom Geist der Ebräischen Poesie (Gotha: F. Andreas Berthes, 1890), 125; and see also Karl D. Ilgen: “qui huius exemplo monitus fortasse in Arabiam migrarit, oriundae,” Iobi: Antiquissimi carminis Hebraici natura atque virtutes (Lipsiae: Sumtibus Ioh. Beni: Georg. Fleischeri, 1789), 28. 74 For the first group, see Frank Hugh Foster, “Is the Book of Job a Translation from an Arabic Original?,” AJSL 49 (1932–1933): 21–45; Alfred Guillaume, “The Arabic Background of the Book of Job,” in Promise and Fulfilment: Essays Presented to Professor S. H. Hooke, ed. Frederick Fyvie Bruce (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1963), 106–27. For an Aramaic source, see Naftali Herz Tur-Sinai, Perush la-sefer Iyyov, mahadora hadasha (Jerusalem: R. Mass, 1972), 367–72. For an Idumean source, see Robert Henry Pfeiffer, “Edomite Wisdom,” ZAW 44 (1926): 13–25. For a combination of languages and dialects, see Abraham Kahana, Sefer Iyyov meforash (Tel Aviv: Mekorot, 1968), 22–24. While the view that Job was translated into Hebrew has been accepted only by some scholars, a larger group posits that the book reflects a different (southern or northern) dialect of Hebrew: see Yair Hoffman, A Blemished Perfection: The Book of Job in Context (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1996), 188–99. 75  Ibn Ezra’s comment is mentioned by Abraham Kahana, Sefer Iyyov, 7 n. 1, 23 n. 7, and Naftali Herz Tur-Sinai, Perush la-sefer Iyyov: Mahadora hadasha (Jerusalem: R. Mass, 1972), 367. 72

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of them is not to be considered as a prophet belonging to the class of prophets discussed in the preceding chapters. And even though he may sometimes be called a prophet, this term is applied to him in a general sort of way.” The Writings partakes of the second degree of prophecy: “It is through this kind of Holy Spirit that David composed Psalms, and Solomon Proverbs and Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs. Daniel and Job and Chronicles and all the other Writings have likewise been composed through this kind of Holy Spirit.” Their very name attests to the degree of prophecy of which they partake: “For this reason people call them ketubim (Writings), meaning thereby that they are written through the Holy Spirit.” The other nine degrees are distinguished from one another according to the nature of the revelation – a dream, vision, or speech, whether transmitted via a human being or angel. Moses stands in a class of his own, however, no one achieving the same prophetic status. The other prophets are not always inspired: For with regard to the degrees I shall mention, it sometimes happens that some of the prophetic revelation of one particular prophet comes to him according to a form characteristic of a certain degree, whereas another prophetic revelation, which comes to him at another time, corresponds to a degree inferior to that of the first prophetic revelation. For just as a prophet may not prophesy continuously the whole of his life, but prophesies at a certain moment and is abandoned by prophecy at many other moments, so may he also prophesy at a certain moment in a form characteristic of a high degree, and at another moment in a form characteristic of an inferior degree. Sometimes perhaps he achieves this high degree only once in his life and then is deprived of it and perhaps remains fixed in the inferior degree until the cessation of his prophesying. For there is no doubt that the prophesying of all the prophets [or: the rest of the prophets] comes to an end before their death, either shortly or a long time before.

Moses’s prophecy, in contrast, never alters in quality or permanence.76 The dual claim that the Writings (including Job) were written under the influence of the Holy Spirit on the second level of prophecy and that Moses stands on a level all of his own suggests that Job was not composed by Moses. Since Maimonides does not address the question of Jobian authorship directly, however, it is difficult to conclusively determine his opinion on the matter.77 Maimonides’s writings led to the entrenchment of the view that the tripartite division of the Hebrew Bible into the Pentateuch, Prophets, and Writings was 76  Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed, 2:45, trans. Shlomo Pines (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), 395–96, 398. For Maimonides’s theory of prophecy, see Howard Kreisel, Prophecy: The History of an Idea in Medieval Jewish Philosophy (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 2001), 148–315. Maimonides treats Moses’s prophetic status on numerous occasions in his writings, including the Thirteen Principles, and see Alfred L. Ivry, “The Image of Moses in Maimonides’ Thought,” in Maimonides After 800 Years: Essays on Maimonides and His Influence, ed. Jay M. Harris (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 113–34. 77  Twice (Guide for the Perplexed, 3:23), Maimonides employs a passive construction, thus not referring to the author by name: “When the story of Job was written,” “Know then and consider how the story, which has perplexed people, is composed,” trans. Pines, 494.

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based on three degrees of prophecy – Moses’s, the prophets’, and the Holy Spirit.78 Joseph b. David Ibn Yahya (1494–1534, Portugal/Italy) seeks to align the talmudic list of authors with Maimonides’s position.79 First citing the list of authors, he then defines Moses’s literary activity, observing that he “found the questions and answers of Job and his friends written down, mixed with other books from among the nations.” This suggests that he regards at least some of the sources in Job as non-Hebrew in origin, Moses “search[ing] within them, and by means of the Holy Spirit … separating wheat from chaff [‫]אוכל מתוך פסולת‬, and wrote the book of Job sequentially, in accordance with the truth itself, as it happened, without adding or detracting.”80 Ibn Yahya integrates this description with Maimonides’s notion of the degrees of prophecy: “When he wrote the Pentateuch, a spirit of prophecy came over him through a glass that shines, above which there is no higher level; and even though one man wrote them both, Job was joined with the Writings for its writing through the Holy Spirit.” On this reading, even Moses can oscillate between degrees of prophecy: “Moses wrote them [the Pentateuch and Job] by his own hand, because a prophet never remains on the same level of prophecy.” This conclusion runs counter to Maimonides’s statement that Moses’s prophecy is always constant, however. Ultimately, Ibn Yahya thus rejects the idea that Moses wrote Job, recalling the gemara in some respects and holding that Job lived in the days of the judges: “[Job] lived during the days when the judges judged and was an Israelite … he went to live in Uz with great wealth and there called on God’s name and converted Eliphaz the Temanite and his companions.” In line with this dating, he suggests that Samuel, the author of Judges, also penned Job: “It may be that Samuel the Ramatite wrote the book of Job as he wrote Ruth amongst the Writings.”81 Dozens of scholars continued to link the degrees of prophecy with the tripartite division of the Hebrew Bible throughout the Middle Ages and early modernity, some paying particular attention to the question of the identity of the biblical  Although Maimonides explicitly defines the level of prophecy of the Writings as lower than Moses’s and that of the Pentateuch, he never directly states that the canonical division is determined by the degree of prophecy each possesses. This claim is only made by those in his wake, under the influence of his thought. 79 Completed in 1529, Ibn Yahya’s commentary on the Writings was printed in 1724 in Mikra’ot Gedolot (sefer kehillot Moses) (New York, 1987). The quotations herein are taken from the Bologna edition (1537). 80  According to Ibn Yahya, the distinction between the parts worthy of being written down (‫ )אוכל‬and those unworthy (‫ )פסולת‬is characteristic of the literary endeavors of other biblical writers: see the introductions to his commentaries on Songs, Daniel and Chronicles, the head of his commentary on Ps 42, and his commentary on Prov 25:1 (4b, 26a, 83a, 105b, 117b). While some of these statements were copied in Isaac Arama’s Akedat Yitzhak and attributed to Arama, they are in fact Ibn Yahya’s. See Yeshayahu Sonne, “Tokh keday kriyah,” Qiryat Sefer 7 (1930): 279–81. 81  Ibid., 89b (contrary to what I have written before; see Viezel, “Ibn Ezra’s commentary,” 147–48). 78

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authors. Maimonides’s assertion that the prophets’ level varies is also reflected in these texts, being adduced inter alia in the context of the books written by Samuel and Jeremiah – some of which fall within the Prophets (Judges, Samuel, Kings, Jeremiah) and some in the Writings (Ruth and Lamentations). Only two scholars appear to have addressed Job’s ascription to Moses from this perspective, however – Meir Arama (who, as we saw above, left the question open) and Ibn Yahya, who rejected it.82 Few modern scholars also oppose the attribution of Job to Moses. David Solomon Sassoon ascribes Job to Jeremiah, and Samuel Zanvil b. Joseph Sternberg (Venice) ascribes Job to Ezra. Both adduce substantive and stylistic arguments in support of their theories, drawing analogies between Job and Jeremiah or Job and Malachi (= Ezra according to b. Meg. 15a).83 In contrast, David Moses Strashun proposes that the book was written in India by one of the Judahite exiles, its anonymous author being a doppelgänger of Elihu.84 Rather than Ibn Ezra’s views or Maimonides’s notion of the degrees of prophecy, all three figures appear to base their opinion on the gemara in Bava Batra. None of their proposals have found any followers. As two of the most prominent and influential Jewish thinkers of all time, the impact Ibn Ezra and Maimonides exerted on later Jewish thinkers is clearly evident – inter alia on those who address the question of the formation of the biblical books. Ibn Ezra’s well-known remarks in regard to the later additions in the Pentateuch have been explored extensively, in particular by his commentators, also prompting discussion and argument among modern writers.85 Maimonides, by contrast, displays little interest in the subject in its own right. His eighth principle of faith may nonetheless be considered as constituting a watershed in the way the topic was approached.86 No rabbinic scholar investigating Moses’s

 Zadok ha-Kohen Rabinowitz (1823–1900) also combined the two issues, his words indicating no clear conclusion with regard to the matter, however; see Dover tzedek, 287. Moses Judah Ben Aharon Kutna (b. nineteenth century, Poland) similarly adduces the attribution of Job to Moses as a decisive argument against the claim that the Prophets are more sacred than the Writings; see Mishpat tzedek (Przemyśl: Kneller, 1914), 18:4b. This statement (a polemic against Solomon Tzvi Schück [1844–1916]) evinces the opposite tendency to that adopted by Arama, Ibn Yahya, and Rabinowitz. 83  David Solomon Sassoon, Natan hokhma le-Shlomo (Jerusalem: N/A, 1989), 161–72; Samuel Zanvil Sternberg, Iyyuv ‘im be’ur hiker shadai (Zhytomyr: I. M. Bakst, 1872), x–xii. 84 David Moses Strashun, Meishar nebokhim (Vilna: Rosenkrantz, 1897), 37–47. 85 For the history of the reception of these, see Uriel Simon, “The Ear Discerns Words”: Studies in Ibn Ezra’s Exegetical Methodology (Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 2013), 407–64 [Hebrew], and my forthcoming paper, Eran Viezel, “Abraham Ibn Ezra’s Account of the Composition of the Torah: A Medieval Precedent for Biblical Criticism?,” JSQ (2023). 86  Maimonides’s commentary on the Mishnah, Sanhedrin 10:1, ed. Yosef Qapah (Jerusalem: ha-Rav Kook, 1965), 214, and cf. Mishneh Torah, Sefer ha-Mada‘, Halkhot teshuva 3:8. 82

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literary activity can avoid this text.87 As we noted above, Maimonides’s linkage between the degrees of prophecy and the tripartite Hebrew Bible was highly influential. In its wake, numerous scholars down through the generations have engaged with the issue, some linking it directly to the question of biblical authorship. Significantly, none of the discussions relating to Moses’s responsibility for Job, Ibn Ezra’s comment on Job 2:11, or Maimonides’s degrees of prophecy left any great imprint. This finding is consistent with our conclusion in the previous section with respect to Nahmanides, Abarbanel, and Hirschensohn – three highly respected figures – who also failed to stamp any substantial imprint upon the issue of the Mosaic authorship of Job.

3. Summary and Conclusions Although the question of the formation of the biblical books lies at the center of critical biblical scholarship, it lay beyond the horizon of most Jewish sages over the centuries. This fact should not surprise us, the idea that Scripture was written by an “author” not being paramount in preeminently oral cultures, in which traditions are passed down from generation to generation. In antiquity, the traditions were associated directly with God and exemplary figures – the prophets and sages – in order to bestow authority upon and distinguish them from other traditions. This linkage between a tradition/book and a specific individual is not accompanied by a concrete picture of literary activity.88 When writing is regarded as a technical skill, the questions of who composed/ authored a book and the origin of a particular copy a person holds in his hand have little influence upon its status.89 Attribution of a tome to a literary personage is a matter of connecting the traditions it preserves with his name, irrespective of the way in which the texts found their way into its pages. Rabbinic literature treats the topic in much the same manner. Apart from the list of authors in b. B. Bat., which identifies the writer of each biblical book, we find only isolated dicta that address the matter directly, most of these not offering

87 See Viezel, “Joshua Wrote,” and for the polemical and educational motives that led Maimonides to formulate the eighth principle of faith, see Marc B. Shapiro, The Limits of Orthodox Theology: Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles Reappraised (Oxford: Littman Library, 2004), 115–21. 88  Prov 25:1 is unusual in this respect: “These are other proverbs of Solomon that the officials of King Hezekiah of Judah he‘etiqu.” 89 Cf., e. g., Karl van der Toorn, Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 5, 42–45; Hindy Najman, Seconding Sinai: The Development of Mosaic Discourse in Second Temple Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 27–29; Michel Foucault, “What Is an Author?” in Michel Foucault: Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology, ed. James D. Fabion (New York: New Press, 1998), 205–22, esp. 211–12.

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a concrete or distinct description of any literary activity.90 Although this picture changed only in the Middle Ages and early modernity, it bears a complex hue. During these formative periods, dozens of scholars related to the topic in various ways. The majority sufficed with brief remarks that give little, if any, indication of whether they accepted the list of authors in full. Only isolated figures dealt with the question of the formation and writing of the biblical books in details, few of them presenting original views diverging from the talmudic text.91 Even those who adopt an innovative approach exhibit a large measure of dogmatism and imprecision. Up until the invention of printing, storytellers, authors, editors, and copiers were indeed rarely distinguished.92 With the Enlightenment, the emergence of secularization, and the development of critical biblical scholarship, rabbinic figures began discussing the formation of the biblical books. This trend continues up until today. Alongside those who remain fiercely loyal to tradition, numerous scholars are adopting independent and original views on the subject that are not always consistent with the list of authors.93 In Jewish tradition down through the ages, the question of who wrote Job has largely gone hand in hand with the place formation and writing hold within tradition in general. The above survey divides the opinions into three categories. The largest group of scholars accepted the attribution of Job to Moses in line with the list of authors. A far smaller number left the question open – even fewer rejecting it altogether. The accumulated evidence points to the central place the list of authors holds in the discussion. All the scholars noted above, including those who oppose the ascription of Job to Moses, recognize its significance and form their views in light of its text. 90 We should note in particular here the tradition relating to the three books discovered in the Temple precinct (y. Ta’an 4, 2 [68a]) and the traditions that evolved from this; the discussion of the order of writing of Solomon’s works, and the identity of the elders who said (not wrote) Psalms (Songs Rab., 1:1; 4:4; Eccl. Rab. 7:19); and the prophecies delivered by Beeri, Hosea’s father, incorporated into Isaiah (8:19–20; Lev. Rab. 6:6, 15:2 [Margulieth ed., 142–43, 321–22]). 91  The most in-depth, if not very original or creative, treatment is found in Ibn Ezra and Radak’s commentaries in the Middle Ages and Abarbanel and Joseph Ibn Yahya’s during the Renaissance. For a comprehensive survey of medieval opinions with respect to the composition of the biblical books, see Viezel, “Medieval Bible Commentators,” 151–57. 92  For the development of semantic rigor as an integral literary activity, see Joseph Ibn Yahya’s clear distinction between “poet,” “writer,” and “author” at the beginning of his comment on Ps 42 (Bologna edition, 26b). Composed in 1526 (ibid., 65b), this clearly alludes to Job 19:23 in relation to the profound change instigated by the introduction of printing into the realm of books (ibid., 96b). 93  For nineteenth-century Jewish research, see Edward Breuer and Chanan Gafni, “Jewish Biblical Scholarship between Tradition and Innovation,” in Hebrew Bible, Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation, ed. Magne Sæbø (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013), III/1:262–303. To date, no exhaustive description exists of twentieth/early twenty-first-century rabbinic/Ultra-Orthodox approaches, however.

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Many of those who deal with the topic, whether directly or indirectly, stress its validity and adduce various considerations in support of it. This unique orientation, unparalleled in the discussion of other biblical books, evinces that, despite being entrenched in Jewish tradition, Job’s ascription to Moses was never regarded as self-evident, even being opposed by some. This circumstance may stem from two complementary factors: a) Arguments and proofs can be adduced in support of the list of authors. Some of the writers identified in the inventory are even linked with specific verses.94 This is true of all the biblical books with the exception of Job, the latter being the only work ascribed to an author on the basis of homography, homophony, and associative affinities. b) A measure of difficulty exists in linking Moses, the greatest of the prophets and author of the Pentateuch, with Job and its distinctive content, language, and provocative figures.95

These two points may both have militated against accepting Job’s ascription to Moses as self-evident, prompting further discussion of the issue. Here, too, we see the profound influence the list of authors exerted on Jewish tradition over the generation with respect to the authorship of the biblical books. Rather than prompting scholars to suggest another candidate, the difficulty in attributing Job to Moses led them to stress Moses’s nomination and adduce supporting arguments for his authorship.

94 The most prominent examples herein are the headings that appear in some of the Psalms, Prov 25:1, and 2 Chr 35:25. For a survey of all the considerations relating to the identity of the biblical writers according to the list, see Max L. Margolis, The Hebrew Scriptures in the Making (Philadelphia: JPS, 1922), 20–22; Viezel, “List of Authors.” 95  Mack, Job, chap. 4–6.

List of Contributors Joel S. Baden, Professor of Hebrew Bible, Yale University Mira Balberg, Professor of History and Endowed Chair in Ancient Jewish Civilization, University of California, San Diego Simeon Chavel, Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible, University of Chicago David Ben Gad HaCohen, Independent researcher Guy Darshan, Senior Lecturer, Department of Biblical Studies, Tel Aviv University Raanan Eichler, Associate Professor, The Zalman Shamir Bible Department, Bar-Ilan University Liane Feldman, Assistant Professor, New York University Tova Ganzel, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Jewish Studies, Bar-Ilan University Itamar Kislev, Professor, Department of Bible, University of Haifa Ariel Kopilovitz, Senior Lecturer, The Zalman Shamir Department of Bible, Bar-Ilan University David Lambert, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Naphtali Meshel, Senior Lecturer, Department of Bible & Department of Comparative Religion, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Dodani Orstav, Independent researcher Ariel Seri-Levi, Lecturer of Hebrew Bible in the Goldstein-Goren Department of Jewish Thought, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Sarah Shectman, Senior Editor, The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization Benjamin D. Sommer, Professor of Bible and Ancient Semitic Languages, The Jewish Theological Seminary Jeffrey Stackert, Professor of Hebrew Bible, University of Chicago Eran Viezel, Professor, Ben Gurion University

Index of Ancient Sources Genesis 1 255–268, 283 1–2 255–268 1–2:4 257 1–11 28n3, 265 1:1 208, 387n19 1:2 260 1:3–5 208 1:26–27 154 1:26–28 81n77 1:27 394n47 1:31 38n28, 257, 260 2 255–268 2–12 291n19 2:1 257, 265 2:1–3 217n33 2:2 257 2:2–3 255 2:3 257, 267n32 3:4–5 81n77 3:22–23 72n53 3:22–24 81n77 4:10–15 76n62 5:3 154 5:3–32 81n77 6:9 290n30, 394n48 6:11 260 6:11–12 292n25 6:12 38–39, 38n28 6:18 136n46 7:4 293n28 7:23 293n28 8:21 213n25, 397 9:6 154n34, 283, 295n35 9:9 136n46 9:11 136n46 9:17 136n46 10:32 81n77 11:6–8 72n53 11:6–9 81n77 11:9 191

12:1 213n25 12:6 392n40 12:9 33n17 12:17 9 13:11 33n17 14:22 225n51 15 7n7 15:13–14 7n7 15:13–16 208 15:14 7 15:16 394n48 15:17 61n12 16:1–14 21n10 17 260 17:7 136n46 17:19 136n46 17:21 136n46 17:22 260 18:1 64, 64n23 18:2 64 18:13 64, 64n23 18:16 64n23 18:20–32 76n62 18:21 9, 64 18:22 64 18:26 64n23 19:1 64 19:13 64 19:14 65 19:15 64 19:24 92n27 19:29 51n58 20:1 33n17 20:9 66n29 20:23 20 21:1 213n25 21:9–21 21n10 21:10 21n10 21:13 21n10 22:20–21 384 23 213n25

410

Index of Ancient Sources

23:2 35 23:16 157n48 25:2 383 26:1 213n25 26:5 319, 325 26:20 68n34 26:26–31 111n76 27:33 384 28 24n22 28:10–22 19 28:13–14 21 28:18 23 28:20–21 19, 24, 25n23 28:20 24 28:21 24, 26 29:32 68n34 30:24 68n34 32–33 1 32:2 22 32:2–3 20, 23 32:2–33:20 20 32:3 20n4, 22 32:4–7 20 32:6 21 32:8–9 20 32:10 21 32:10–13 23n17 32:13 21 32:14 20, 23 32:14–22 20, 23n17 32:21 293n28 32:22 23n17 32:23 20, 21, 22 32:24 22 32:23–24 20, 21 32:23–25 20 32:25–31 21 32:25 21, 22 32:26 21, 22, 23 32:27 22 32:28–30 22 32:29 23 32:30 22, 22n14, 65n25 32:31 21, 22 32:31–32 20 32:31–33 21, 23 32:32 20n4, 21, 22, 23 32:33 21, 22, 23

33:1–2 21 33:1–3 20 33:1–15 20 33:6 21 33:11 21 33:16–17 20 31:17 20n4 33:20 1, 19–26 35:5 33n17 35:10 23 35:21 33n17 35:22–26 51n58 36 384n9 36:4 383 36:10 383 36:10–11 394 36:11 383 36:15 383 36:28 384 36:32 384n9, 394n49 36:33–34 383 36:35 383 37 88n14 37–45 17 37:16 384 41:28 344n31 42:7 273 42:21–22 208 43:11 384 45:10 6 46:1 33n17 46:2 129n21 46:28 319 46:28–29 6 46:34 6 47:1 6 47:4 6 47:6 6, 6n4 47:11 6n4 47:27 6n4, 260 49:31 213n25 50:8 6 50:13 213n25 50:22–23 297n39 50:25 10n17 50:26 202n50

Index of Ancient Sources

Exodus 1–2 7n7 1:7 260 1:16 394n47 1:22 385n11 2:23–25 261 3 7, 8n12, 11, 12, 13 3:1 10n16, 60 3:1–6 16 3:2 65, 65n27 3:7–8 8n12 3:8 8n12, 74n55 3:9–10 16 3:9–15 8n12 3:10 8n12 3:11–15 16 3:13–15 8, 17 3:14–15 8 3:15 8n12 3:16 8n12, 65 3:16–20 8n12 3:16–22 8 3:17 74, 74n55 3:18 394n47 3:19–20 7, 8 3:20 9 3:21 14n24 3:21–22 1, 5–18 3:22 12n19 4:18 10, 11, 16, 17 4:27 60 6:1 8n11, 9 6:3 65n27 6:4 136n46 6:9 101n50 6:11 14, 14n23 6:25 133n33 7:7 8 7:9 8 7:14–18 10n15 7:15 93 7:16 8n11 7:17 8n11 7:20 8n11 7:25 8n11 7:26 8n11 7:26–29 10n15 8:4 8n11

411

8:12–13 8n11 8:16 8n11, 93 8:16–19 10n15 8:18 6, 8n11 8:24–25 8n11 9:1 8n11 9:1–5 10n15 9:13 8n11, 93 9:13–19 10n15 9:15 8n11 9:20 394n49 9:26 6 10:1 8n11, 10n15 10:1–3 9n14, 10n15 10:3 8n11, 10n15 10:3–6 10n15 10:4 9 10:6 9 10:7 8n11 10:13 59n11 10:14 59n11 10:29 9 10:29–11:4 9, 11 11 8, 13 11:1 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 68n34 11:2 14, 14n24 11:2–3 1, 5–18, 296n37 11:3 11, 12n19 11:4 9 11:4–7 11 11:12 165n76 11:33 79n70 12 12, 270n8, 298n40 12–13 322 12:16 205 12:21 13 12:22 154 12:27 13, 30n6 12:29 8n11, 13 12:29–34 11 12:34 296n37 12:35 14n24 12:35–36 1, 5–18, 296n37 12:37 6n4 12:39 296n37 12:50 323 13:3 30n6 13:3–10 296n37

412

Index of Ancient Sources

13:4 217 13:5 74n55 13:9 314 13:17–18 10n17 13:18 10n17, 16, 17 13:18–19 10, 10n17, 11, 16 13:19 10n17 13:21 65 13:21–22 92n28 14–19 95n35 14:2 14n23, 101n50 14:14 66n28 14:15 14n23 14:19 33n17, 69n38 14:19–20 65, 92n28 14:21 59n11, 66n28 14:24 59n11, 65, 66n28, 92n28 14:25 66n28 14:27 66n28 15:20–21 10n17 15:22 33n17 16 31, 36, 48, 51 16:4 319 16:7 141n51 16:10 38n28, 39, 92n28, 101n50, 141n51 16:14 38n28, 39 16:23 211n17 16:28–29 79 17:1 66n30 17:1–7 106n56 17:2 66, 68, 68n34, 69 17:3 69 17:4 69 17:5–6 69 17:6 69n38, 106n56, 109n67 17:7 8, 63, 63n21, 66, 66n29, 67, 67n33, 68, 68n34, 69, 70 17:8 68n36, 70n39 17:8–16 10n17 17:14 293n28 18 10n16, 17, 111n73 18:1–Num 10:10 84n2 18:5 60, 111n73 18:8 17 18:13–26 118 18:15 111n73, 119

18:15–16 118n91 18:16 111n73, 118n90, 320 18:19–20 118n91 18:20 319, 325 19 84 19–34 1, 55–82, 84n2, 86 19:1 29 19:1–2 30t1, 62n17, 66n30 19:2 60, 69n37 19:2–9 62n15 19:3 58, 60, 105, 106n56, 110 19:4 17 19:6 101n50 19:7 58 19:7–8 106n56 19:7–18 62 19:8 58, 66n32, 67n33, 69n37 19:9 58, 62n13, 66, 66n32, 67n33, 68, 70, 107 19:9–13 55–58, 105n56 19:10 58, 67n33, 106n56 19:10–11 60, 70 19:10–13 58, 67n33, 71, 291 19:11 60, 78 19:12 60 19:12–13 58, 78, 92n26 19:13 60 19:14 58, 60, 62n15, 105, 106n56 19:14–16 55–58, 60 19:16 58, 60, 91, 91n24, 107, 111, 111n74, 113 19:16–19 62n15 19:17 58, 60 19:17–19 111, 113 19:18 58, 59, 59n10, 60, 61, 61n12, 62, 62n15, 91n24, 110n70 19:19 111n74 19:20 58, 59, 60, 91, 91n24 19:20–25 55–58, 96n38, 291 19:21 60, 92n26 19:21–24 71, 78 19:22 71, 71n44 19:23 60 19:23–24 92n26 19:24 71, 71n44 19:25 96n38

Index of Ancient Sources

20 297 20:1–5 111 20:1–13 295, 295n34, 296n36 20:1–23:33 62n15, 113 20:2–3 99 20:2–6 295 20:3–4 390n31 20:3–5 288n10 20:4 290n15 20:5–6 295, 296, 297 20:6 293n28 20:10 205 20:12 299n43 20:15–18 117 20:16 111 20:17 111 20:18 61, 61n12, 107, 110, 111, 113n79 20:18–19 61 20:18–22 290, 290n15 20:19–23 111 20:20 111n75 20:20–23:19 95 20:21 60, 158n52 20:22 81n76 20:22–23:33 96n38 20:24 70n41 21–23 208 21–23:19 85 21:1–23:33 111 21:2 209, 395n53 21:2–6 209 21:2–10 209n7 21:7 216n28 21:7–11 209 21:9–10 390n31 21:12–27 209n7 21:15 299n43 21:17 299n43 21:28–30 216, 217 21:28–36 209n7 21:29 209 21:31 209, 216, 217 21:32 209 22:15–16 250 22:16 218 22:29 217n31 23:11 217n31

413

23:14–19 217n32 23:15 216, 217n32 23:16 133 23:19 176 23:20–21 76, 290 23:20–23 73 23:21 76, 77n63 23:21–22 77n63 24 71n48 24:1 71n44, 96n38 24:1–2 55–58, 92n26, 96n38, 291 24:1–11 71, 72n53 24:3 111, 113, 117n87 24:3–4 85 24:3–8 62n15, 327 24:4 93n32, 111, 116n87, 327 24:4–8 84, 111 24:4–8 94 24:7 117n87, 327, 335n107 24:8 327 24:9 291 24:9–11 55–58, 96n38 24:10 71n46 24:10–11 60, 77n63, 78 24:11 94, 111, 111n76 24:11–15 62n15 24:12 85, 87n8, 89, 93n32, 106, 110, 111, 121, 222, 318n51, 319, 328 24:12–15 94 24:13 60 24:13–15 87n8, 111 24:15 92n28, 106, 141n52 24:15–18 62n17, 87n8, 141 24:16 141n51 24:17 91n22, 141n51 24:18 60, 62n15, 87n8, 94, 106, 112, 290 24:18–25:1 196 25–29 261 25–31 192, 193, 257, 270n8 25:1 141, 194, 195, 196 25:1–30:10 194 25:1–31:18 62n17, 87n8 25:2 14n23 25:8 136, 260 25:9 196, 196n25

414

Index of Ancient Sources

25:14 203 25:16 85 25:21 85 25:22 85, 124, 175, 271, 271n11 25:28 200, 203 25:29 201, 202 25:31 195 25:37 194, 195 25:39 195 25:40 196 26 198 26:30 196 26:31 195 26:33 154n33 26:34 85 27 127 27–30 48n50 27:3 154 27:7 203 27:8 196 27:14 153n26 27:15 153n26 27:20–21 194 27:21 85, 194 28–29 48n50 28:3–6 199 28:7 153 28:12 153, 201 28:25 153 28:26 154n33 28:29 201 28:30 201, 282 28:33–34 152n19 28:38 154n35, 201 29 278, 279, 280 29:1 152 29:4 127n11 29:6 153n30 29:10–11 278 29:10–14 278, 280 29:11 127n11 29:12 278 29:16 152n19 29:19–26 278, 280 29:20 152n19, 153n27 29:22–25 278 29:26 278

29:28–39 229n62 29:32 127n11 29:36 158n53 29:36–37 279 29:40 153n24 29:42 127n11 29:45 136n44 29:46 136, 136n44, 282 30:6 85 30:8 194 30:11–16 128, 165, 165n74, 194 30:12 157n49, 165 30:13 153n24, 157, 167n80 30:13–14 165 30:15 153n24 30:16 157, 165 30:17–21 127, 194 30:22–33 194 30:23 153n24 30:26 85 30:32 202n50 30:33 284 30:34–38 194 30:36 85 31:1–11 194 31:2 194 31:7 85 31:12–17 194, 217n33, 257 31:15 203, 204, 205n60 31:17 257 31:18 84n2, 85, 87n8, 90, 94, 96, 98n42, 100n47, 113 32:1 14, 106 32:1–6 112 32:1–8 87n8, 290, 296 32:1–25 62n15 32:1–29 109 32:6 158n52 32:7 106 32:7–10 112, 120n92 32:12 77n63 32:9–14 291n18 32:15 85, 87n8, 100, 106, 107n59, 112n78 32:15–17 112 32:15–24 290 32:16 85, 87n8, 113

Index of Ancient Sources

32:17 77n63 32:19 77n63, 84, 85, 90, 94, 112 32:20 112 32:21 112 32:22–24 112 32:23 14 32:25 291n18 32:26–29 291n18 32:29 291n18 32:30 110, 291n18 32:30–31 112 32:30–32 290 32:30–35 62n15 32:32 112 32:32–33 290n14 32:33 112 32:33–35 290 32:34 112, 290 32:35 290n15 33 55n7, 107 33–34 72n53, 91n21, 297 33:1 291n18 33:1–3 63n21, 72, 72n49, 72nn53, 73, 75, 76, 79 33:1–6 1, 15, 55–58, 109, 109n66 33:1–11 15n28, 62n13 33:2 73, 76, 291n18 33:2–3 62n13, 73–74 33:3 8n11, 63, 76 33:3–6 291n18 33:4 76 33:4–5 62n13, 76n60 33:5 8n11 33:6 15, 109, 112 33:6–7 80 33:6–11 62n15 33:7 118n90, 118n91, 119, 123, 124 33:7–11 76, 101n48, 110n69, 112, 113n79, 114, 114n81, 118, 123 33:9 70n41, 86, 92n28, 93n29, 110, 113, 118n91 33:9–10 69n38 33:9–11 124 33:11 118n9, 124

33:12 33:12–23

415

76n59, 77 55–58, 76, 93, 94, 291n18 33:13 297 33:14–15 77, 77n64 33:15 77n64 33:16 77, 78, 94, 384 33:18 71n46 33:19 94 33:20 77n63, 78 33:20–23 60, 78 33:21 93 33:23 387n19 33:24 71n46 33:26–29 72n51 34 1, 83–121 34:1 62n15, 84, 85, 87, 89, 90–91, 92, 99, 105, 112, 113 34:1–4 97 34:2 55–58, 86, 91–92, 93 34:2–3 291, 291n18 34:3 55–58, 78, 92, 291 34:4 55–58, 62n15, 85, 87, 92, 93, 105, 107n59, 110, 112, 113, 291n18 34:5 62n15, 86, 92–93, 105, 107, 110, 112, 113 34:5–7 77 34:5–16 55–58 34:6 96. 297 34:6–7 291–292, 296 34:6–9 94 34:7 297 34:8–9 77 34:9 8n11, 63, 94 34:10 84, 94, 96, 98 34:10–15 77 34:10–16 94, 96 34:11 78, 94, 96 34:12 94 34:12–15 78 34:12–26 85 34:13 94 34:14 89n16, 94, 288n10 34:15–16 94 34:17 89n16

416

Index of Ancient Sources

34:17–26 62–3, 95, 96, 217n32 34:17–28 62n13 34:18 89n16, 217n32 34:18–26 95 34:19 89n16 34:22 89n16, 133 34:25 89n16 34:26 89n16 34:27 55–58, 85, 87, 95–96, 97, 98 34:27–28 84, 98n43 34:28 55–58, 62n15, 85, 87, 88, 89, 89n16, 89n17, 96–99, 104n54, 105, 107, 110, 112, 113 34:28–29 104 34:29 85, 86, 99–100, 104n54, 105, 107n59, 112, 113 34:29–35 87 34:29–Num 10:28  62n17 34:30 38n28, 39, 86 34:30–31 101 34:30–35 86, 101 34:31 101 34:32 101, 199 34:34 101 35–40 192, 193, 257, 261 35–Num 10 110n73, 114 35:1–3 217n33, 257 35:2 204 35:4 152 35:10 199, 199n40 35:20–24 199 35:25 199, 199n40 35:26 199 35:29 199 36:2 198 36:4–5 199 36:5–6 30n6 36:6 198 36:8 199, 200n42, 200n45 36:8–9 200n45 36:8–38 197, 198 36:10 199, 200n44 36:13 200n43 36:17 200n43 36:31 200

36:33 200n44 36:34 200n44 36:35 195, 200 36:35–38 200n45 36:38 198n34 37:1–38:20 197 37:7 203 37:15 200 37:16 201, 202 37:23 194 37:24 195 38 127 38:3 154 38:7 196 38:8 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 130n25, 142 38:14 153n26 38:15 153n26 38:21 202 38:21–39:31 197 38:26 153n24 38:30 127n11 39 255–268 39–40 255–268 39:19 154n33 39:25–26 152n19 39:30 153n30 39:32 257 39:43 38n28, 39, 257 40 47, 193n13, 255–268 40:1–16 193n13 40:2 390n31 40:4 194 40:9 257 40:10 157 40:12 127n11 40:13 221 40:14–15 279 40:15 221 40:17 127n14 40:17–33 193n13 40:25 194 40:33 257, 265 40:34 141n51, 141n52, 260 40:34–35 140, 141 40:34–38 92n28, 193n13 40:35 141, 141n51

Index of Ancient Sources

Leviticus 1

210, 211, 228n57, 229, 230n64, 234, 236T1 1–2 210 1–3 210, 211n15, 211n19 1–5 2, 207–236 1–7 277, 278, 279 1:1 141, 210, 270, 270n8, 271, 271n11 1:2 210n14 1:2–3:17 210 1:3 127n11, 228, 283 1:3–9 211, 227, 230 1:4–9 157 1:5 127n11, 152n19, 236T1 1:7 228, 228n59, 229, 229n61 1:7–8 230, 231n69, 236T1 1:7–9 219n38 1:8 219n38, 228, 229 1:9 211n18, 228n59 1:10 283 1:10–13 211, 211n18 1:11 152n19, 212n21, 236T1 1:12 219n38, 228, 229, 229n61, 231n69 1:13 228 1:14–17 211 1:17 228, 229, 231n69, 236T1 2 210, 210n14, 211, 211n15, 219n38, 220n38 2:1 211 2:10 215, 219n38, 236T1 3 210, 211, 229, 230n64, 236T1 3–5 231n66, 235 3:1 283 3:1–5 157, 211 3:2 127n11, 152n19 3:3–4 215, 236T1 3:3–5 236T1 3:5 212n21, 219n38, 228, 229, 229n62, 230, 231n69, 236T1 3:6 283 3:6–11 211 3:8 152n19 3:9 215

417

3:9–10 215, 236T1 3:12–16 211 3:13 152n19 3:14–15 236T1 4 211n18, 222, 224, 225n51, 226n55, 227, 230n64, 231n66, 231n68, 231n69, 234, 236T1, 278, 279, 280, 355–356 4–5 210, 211n15, 211n19, 229, 289 4:1 210 4:2 219n38, 356n11 4:2–5:26 210 4:3 30n6, 278 4:3–10 236T1 4:3–12 222, 226, 227 4:4 127n11, 219n38 4:5–10 222 4:6–10 222 4:7 127n11, 278 4:8–9 214, 215, 218 4:8–10 215 4:9–10 236T1 4:10 212n21, 215 4:11–12 212n21, 223, 236T1 4:12 227n56 4:13–21 222, 226, 227 4:18 127n11 4:19 225 4:20 212n21, 215, 220n38, 222–227, 231n69, 236T1 4:20–21 222–227, 230n65, 230n66, 231, 232 4:21 212n21, 222–227, 231n69, 236T1 4:22–26 222 4:24 225n50, 236T1 4:26 220n38, 236T1 4:27–29 215 4:27–31 157, 222, 227 4:27–35 225n50, 278, 279 4:29 236T1 4:31 220n38, 222–227, 230n65, 230n66, 231, 231n66, 231n69, 232, 236T1

418 4:32–35 4:33 4:35

Index of Ancient Sources

215, 222 212n21, 225n50, 236T1 220n38, 221, 225n50, 228, 229, 230, 230n64, 231n66, 231n69, 236T1 5 358 5:1 356 5:1–14 355, 360 5:2 360 5:2–3 356, 358, 375, 376 5:3 360 5:3–21 226n55 5:8 230 5:8–11 210n15 5:10 164n70, 220n38 5:11–13 220n38 5:12 228, 229, 230, 230n64, 231n69, 236T1 5:13 215, 219n38, 220n38, 236T1 5:15 157n50, 166 5:16 153n24, 220n38 5:17–19 377 5:18 157n50, 166, 220n38 5:22–35 226n55 5:24 153n24 5:25 157n50, 166 5:26 220n38 6 229, 229n62 6–7 229n62 6:1–2 329 6:1–6 228n57 6:2 229n62 6:4 390n30 6:10 219n36, 236T1 6:13 153n24 6:17 325 6:18 158n53, 215, 236T1 6:19 215, 219n36, 236T1 7:1 158n53 7:1–7 166 7:2 152n19, 219n38, 221, 236T1 7:5 158n53 7:7 215, 219n36, 236T1 7:12 215 7:19 373n47

7:20 284 7:24 292n23 7:31–34 278 7:35–37 166 7:37–38 330 7:38 270, 271n9 8 279 8–9 113n80 8–10 277, 278, 279, 280 8:1–3 279, 280 8:3 127n11 8:4 127n11 8:4–5 152 8:4–17 280 8:4–26 280 8:9 153n30 8:12 221 8:14–17 278 8:15 152n19 8:17 227n56 8:22–29 278 8:23–24 153n27 8:31 127n11 8:33 127n11 8:33–35 163 8:35 127n11 9 280 9:6 141n51, 280 9:7 30n6 9:8–11 280 9:8–14 213n25 9:15 30n6, 213n25 9:16 164n70 9:22–24 30n6 9:23 141, 141n51 10 162n66 10:1 280, 281 10:3 30n6 10:6 35 10:7 127n11 10:10–11 295n35 10:16 38n28, 39 11 226n53 11–15 49 11:4–6 225 11:5 226 12 267 12:2 219n36, 236T1

Index of Ancient Sources

12:4 156 12:5 219n36, 236T1 12:6 127n11 13–14 9, 267 13:5–6 38n28 13:8 38n28 13:10 38n28 13:13 38n28 13:17 38n28 13:20–21 38n28 13:25–26 38n28 13:30–32 38n28 13:34 38n28 13:36 38n28 13:39 38n28 13:43 38n28 13:45–46 156 13:53 38n28 13:55–56 38n28 14:3 38n28 14:11 127n11 14:13 236T1 14:14 153n27 14:15 153n27 14:16 153n27 14:17 153n27 14:21 158n53 14:23 127n11 14:25 153n27 14:26 153n27 14:27 153n27 14:28 153n27 14:37 38n28 14:39 38n28 14:44 38n28 14:48 38n28 14:57 320n59 15 267 15:19–24 219n36, 236T1 15:20–23 236T1 15:25 236T1 15:26 236T1 15:31 136n44, 266 16 221, 271, 358n19, 365 16:2 33, 33n17, 154n33, 175 16:8 395 16:12 154n33 16:14 221, 236T1

16:15 154n33, 221, 236T1 16:15–16 363 16:16 136n44, 367n37, 370 16:17 227 16:24 30n6 16:29 205 16:31 152n20 17:4 226 17:5 127n11 17:6 127n11 17:9 127n11, 226 17:14 284 17:21 127n11 18:1 136n43 18:4 136n43 18:5 136n43, 292n25 18:6 199 18:12 136n43 18:24–28 292n25 18:26 136n43 18:29–30 292n25 19:3 199, 299n43 19:29 252 19:37 136n43 20:9 299n43 20:22 136n43 21 2, 249, 250 21–22 237–254 21:1 244 21:1–5 245 21:6 244 21:7 249, 250, 251 21:7–9 249 21:9 237, 237n2, 250, 252 21:10–11 44n40, 245 21:10–13 248 21:12 153n30, 245 21:13–15 252 21:17–21 283 21:18–20 244 21:22 154n35 22:2 14n23 22:3 154n35 22:6 154n35 22:14 153n24 23 48n50 23:3 204, 205 23:7 205

419

420 23:8 205 23:13 153n24 23:15 152 23:15–16 152n20 23:15–21 374n52 23:21 205 23:25 205 23:28 205 23:31 205 23:32 152n20 23:33–44 133 23:35 205 23:36 205 24:1–4 194 24:10 291n17 24:10–23 274 24:11 46n44 24:17 283 25 298n40 25:1 270 25:2 152n20 25:4 152n20 25:8 152, 152n20 25:18 136n43 26 327n76 26:1–13 137 26:3 136n43 26:9 136n46 26:11 136n44 26:15 136n43 26:30 159 26:39 292 26:43 136n43 26:46 270 27 166 27:2 158 27:3 157n50 27:5 157n50 27:6 157n50 27:8 166 27:11–12 166 27:13 153n24 27:14 166 27:15 153n24 27:19 153n24 27:27 153n24 27:31 153n24 27:34 270

Index of Ancient Sources

Numbers 1–10 271 1:16 133n33 1:44 202n52 1:46 167n80 1:51 281n43 2:2 124 2:9 167n80 2:34 152 3–4 134 3:10 163, 281n43 3:13 17 3:23–38 168 3:24 133n33 3:25 127n11 3:26 152n19 3:28 155, 155n43 3:30 133n33 3:31 138 3:35 133n33 3:38 156, 163, 281n43 3:39 202n52 4:14 154 4:15 138 4:23 127, 129 4:25 127n11 4:37 202n52 4:40 202n52 4:45 202n52 4:46 167n80, 202n52 4:49 203 5:1–4 156 5:3 136n44 5:7 153n24 5:8 158n53 5:13 209n6 6:4 153n30 6:10 127n11 6:13 127n11 6:18 127n11 7:2 133n33 7:4–9 134 7:13 154n37 7:19 154n37 7:25 154n37 7:31 154n37 7:37 154n37 7:43 154n37

Index of Ancient Sources

7:49 154n37 7:55 154n37 7:61 154n37 7:67 154n37 7:73 154n37 7:79 154n37 7:84 154n37 7:85 154n37 7:89 175, 271, 271n11, 273, 274, 282 8:2–3 194 8:17 17 8:24 127, 129 8:26 155n43 9:1–14 274 9:14–15 114 9:15–22 92n28 10:1–10 164 10:2 154n31 10:3 127n11 10:8 154n31 10:9 154n31 10:10 154n31, 164 10:11–12 29, 92n28 10:11–28 33 10:12 30t1, 30, 33, 34 10:33 33n17 10:33–36 78n65 10:34 92n28 10:35 78n65 10:35–36 175 10:36 78n65 11 79n69, 88n13, 108, 114 11–12 114n81 11:1–3 79 11:4 8n11 11:10 127n11 11:11–12 112 11:14–17 112 11:16–17 93n29, 124 11:17 92n28, 110 11:19–20 79 11:20 63, 78, 79, 79n70 11:20–21 8n11 11:24–29 124 11:24–30 112 11:25 92n28, 110 11:31–32 59n11

421

11:33 79 11:35 33 12 33, 112 12:2–15 124 12:3 14 12:4–5 93n29 12:5 69n38, 92n28, 110 12:6 129n21 12:10–15 217n33 12:16 29n5, 30t1, 33 13–14 31, 36 13:3 33 13:17–20 294n31 13:21 31 13:22–24 294n31 13:24 68n34 13:26 29, 29n5, 30t1, 30, 32, 33, 294n31 13:27–31 294n31 13:32 30n6 14:1 294n31 14:3 50 14:4 63 14:10 141n51 14:11 8n11, 78, 80 14:11–25 76n62, 81n77, 294n31 14:12 80 14:13–16 80, 80n74 14:13–19 80n73 14:14 8n11, 69n38, 78, 92n28 14:17–18 80 14:17–19 294 14:21 141n51 14:22 17 14:25 33n17 14:26–35 81n77 14:29–35 31 14:33 31, 36 14:35 134, 134n37 14:36–38 31 14:39–44 294n31 14:40 91n22, 93n32 14:42 8n11, 78n65 14:44 78n65, 91n22 14:45 78n65 15 51 15–36 271 15:4 153n24

422

Index of Ancient Sources

15:5 153n24 15:6 152n23 15:7 152n23 15:13 220n39 15:14 220n39 15:20 220n39 15:24 164n70 15:30–31 366n32 15:32 291n17 15:32–36 274 16 50 16–17 31, 36, 38, 48 16:1 134n37 16:3 136n44 16:11 134 16:18 127n11 16:19 127n11, 141n51 16:21 289n11 16:27 127n11 16:35 36 17 9n14, 36n24, 38n27 17:6–15 48 17:7 38n28, 92n28, 141n51 17:10 289 17:12 38n28 17:12–14 36, 289n11 17:15 127n11 17:20–24 289n11 17:23 38n28 17:25 289n11 17:26–27 289n11 17:27–34 289n11 17:33–35 37 18 38n27, 48 18:1–7 134 18:3 138 18:6–7 124 18:7 154n33, 281n43 18:16 157n50 18:19 154n35 18:27–28 220n39 19 38n27, 48, 51, 267 19:1–2 313 19:2 14n23 19:20 156, 357n14, 358n16 20 32, 39, 42 20–21 32n16

20–31 28 20:1 30t1, 31, 31n10, 32, 36 20:1–13 32n14 20:2 32 20:6 127n11, 141n51 20:14 31n10 20:14–16 17 20:16 31n10 20:17 20n4 20:22 29, 30t1, 31n10, 32 20:22–29 40t2, 44 20:22–25:15 40n31 20:28 37, 91n22 20:29 35, 38 21–22 1, 27–52 21–25 40, 40t2 21–26 27n2 21:1–3 40t2, 41 21:4 32, 40t2, 41, 42 21:4–9 41 21:5–9 40t2 21:10 29, 30t1, 33, 34, 38, 40, 41, 44, 47t3, 50, 51 21:10–11 40t2, 41, 42 21:11 29, 30t1, 34, 38, 40, 41, 44, 47t3, 50, 51 21:12 42 21:12–18 40t2 21:12–24:25 42 21:19–20 40t2, 41 21:21–32 10n17, 40t2 21:22 20n4 21:23 41 21:24–25 41 21:26–30 41n35 21:33–35 40t2, 41n36 21:35 41 22–24 42 22:1 29, 29n5, 30t1, 34, 35, 38, 40, 40t2, 41, 44, 45, 47t3, 50, 51, 291n17 22:2–6 41 22:2–24:25 40t2, 41 22:3 42 22:13 8n11 22:24 69n38 22:26 69n38 23:1 291

Index of Ancient Sources

23:3 291 23:5 291 23:8 66n29 23:14 42 23:25 292n23 25 1, 27–52 25:1–2 40t2, 42, 291n17 25:1–5 42, 44 25:1–15 291n17 25:2 46n42 25:3 43 25:3–4 291n17 25:4 40t2, 43 25:5 43, 46n42 25:6 127n11, 291n17 25:6–13 34n20 25:6–15 40t2, 44 25:6–19 27 25:6 34, 24n21, 35, 38, 39, 44, 45, 52 25:6–13 46n43 25:7–8 45 25:8 37n25 25:8–9 45, 46 25:10–11 37 25:10–13 45, 47t3 25:11–13 28n4 25:12–13 37 25:13 46 25:14 133n33 25:14–15 45, 46, 47t3 25:15 47, 50 25:16 50 25:16–18 45, 47t3, 48 25:18 46n42, 47 25:19 45, 46 26 42, 46, 47t3, 50, 51 26:1 46, 47 26:3 35, 42, 45 26:59 191n4 26:63 45n41, 202n52 26:64 202n52 27 276 27:1–11 275 27:1–14 298n40 27:2 127n11 27:3 134n37 27:7 276

423

27:14 31n10 28–29 210n15, 212n20, 220n39 28:3–4 229n62 28:3–9 220n39 28:5 153n24 28:7 153n24 28:14 152n23, 153n24 28:18 205 28:19–22 220n39 28:22 158n53 28:25 205 28:26 205 29:1 205 29:7 205 29:7–11 369 29:11 359, 369, 370 29:12 205 29:12–35 374n51 29:12–39 133 29:18 164n70 29:21 164n70 29:24 164n70 29:26 374n53 29:27 164n70 29:30 164n70 29:35 205 29:37 164n70 30 192 30:2 133n33 31 45, 45n42, 46, 47 31:2 47, 48 31:6 138, 154n31 31:12 35, 47n47 31:14 167 31:26 133n33 31:29 153n24 31:30 153n24 31:42 127n13, 153n24 31:47 153n24 31:48 167 31:48–54 165n74 32 31n11, 35, 50, 98n42 32:2 98n42 32:3 35 32:5 50 32:6 98n42 32:16 98n42

424 32:17 50 32:20 98n42 32:21–22 50 32:24 50 32:28 133n33 33:1–37 120 33:14–15 66n30 33:36–27 31n10 33:48–50 45n41 33:50 35 33:52 154n34 34–38 35 34:11 153n25 35:1 35, 45n41 35:34 136n44 36:1 133n33 36:1–9 275 36:2–4 276 36:5 276 36:13 35, 45n41 Deuteronomy 1:1–2 395n56 1:5 330 3 41n34 4–5 62n16 4:2 117, 277n33 4:5–8 323n69 4:8 331 4:11 61 4:13 98n44, 99 4:23–26 288n10 4:24 288, 288n10 4:36 77n64, 81n76 4:42 209n6 4:44 319n57, 330 4:45 101n50, 331 5 331 5:7–9 288n10 5:10 293n28 5:14 205 5:16 299n43 6:1 319n57 6:3 74n55 6:6–7 315, 325 6:8 315 6:9 315 6:15 288

Index of Ancient Sources

6:16–17 319 7:2 159n57 7:9–10 287, 296 9–10 120 9:1 115 9:3 115 9:5 115, 136n46 9:8–21 115, 120n92 9:9 85n3, 97 9:11 85n3 9:12–17 119 9:15 85n3, 100, 106n57 9:18 97 9:25–29 115 10:1–5 115 10:1 115 10:2 115 10:3 115 10:4 99 10:5 116 10:8 116 10:10–11 109, 115 11:1 155n42 11:9 74n55 11:18–20 116n86 12–26 277, 331 12:5 136n45 12:11 136n45 12:13–14 158n52 12:15 218 12:21 136n45 12:22 216, 218 12:26 154n35 12:27 158n52 13:1 117, 277n33 13:2–6 117 13:6 117 14:7 226 14:24 136n45 15:13 15 15:17 217n31 15:22 218 16:8 205 16:13 133 17:8 9, 118n90 17:8–10 317 17:8–11 320n59 17:8–13 118, 119

Index of Ancient Sources

17:9 118, 119 17:18–20 331n92 18 134n36 18:15–22 117 18:16 117 19:1–13 117 19:16–19 285n1 20:15 216n29 21:5 9 21:14 292n23 21:18–21 299n43 22 252 22:3 216n29 22:26 216, 218 22:27 218 22:28 209n6 22:28–29 250 24:1–4 251, 251n50 24:6 209n8 24:8 9, 320 24:9 217n33 24:16 285n1, 300n51 25:11–12 285n1 26:3–10 120 26:15 74n55 27:3 74n55 27:16 299n43 28:63 308 28:69 98 29:8 98 29:19 293n28 29:20 327, 331 30:7 68n34 30:11–14 321 31:4 110 31:9 116 31:9–13 119 31:10–13 329n80 31:14–15 93n29, 124 31:14–24 115n83 31:15 69n38, 92n28, 124n4 31:20 74n55 31:25 115n83 31:25–26 116, 119 31:26 327, 331n92 31:28 115n83 31:30 115n83 32 389

32:1–44 115n83 32:8–9 26 32:16–21 288n10 32:25 98n42 32:51 31n10 33:9–10 315 33:10 318, 324 33:12 153n25 33:21 384 34:1 98n42, 395n56 34:5 391n38 34:5–12 391 34:8 35, 45n41, 387n19 Joshua 1:7 319 1:8 315, 326 3:16 143n55 5:6 74n55 6 49n55 8 49n55 8:34–35 329 9 186n57 9:6 159n57 9:23 186n57 9:27 186n57 11:5 134n37 14:1 133n33 15:8 153n25 15:10 153n25 15:11 153n25 18:1 186n55 18:12 153n25 18:13 153n25 18:16 153n25 18:18 153n25 18:19 153n25 19:51 127n11, 133n33 21:1 133n33 22:9–20 24 24 120 24:19–20 288 Judges 9:24 68n34 12:14 297n39 13:18 65n25, 398n65 15:13 292n23

425

426

Index of Ancient Sources

16:3 153 17:1–2 299n43 17:6 398n65 21:17 293n28 1 Samuel 1:7 126 1:9 126 1:28 5n1, 13n21 2:13–14 125 2:15 125 2:22 1, 124, 125–130, 130n25, 133, 142, 186n55 2:27–36 130 3:3 126, 163 3:15 126, 129n21, 176 4–6 175n14 4:7 175 4:18 126 4:21 397n62 5:7 68n34 6:3 158n53 6:3–18 166 6:4 158n53 6:5 154n34 6:8 158n53 6:11 154n34 6:13–21 78n65 7:2 397n62 8:9 397n62 9:8 153n24 11:1–2 159n57 11:6 397n62 12:8 120 13:9 158n52 17:6 153 17:18 397n62 20:15 397n62 21:10 164 24 13 25:1 13, 13n21, 296n37 25:2 13 25:37 397n62 25:39 397n62 27:3 397n62 28 13, 31n21 28:3 13, 13n21, 296n37

2 Samuel 5:3 159n57 5:9 154n33 6 137, 175n14 6:1–5 138–139 6:1–11 138 6:2–8 78n65 6:12–19 138–139 6:14 183n47 6:16 183n47 6:17 137, 140, 143, 178 6:17–19 181 6:19–20 181 6:20–23 181n41 7 136 7:2 137, 143 7:6 137, 143, 187n60 7:14–15 293n28 12:10–14 294n29 12:25 158 13:5 273 14:13 272 17:11 77n64 18:2 152n23 18:18 275n28 21:2 288n10 24 183 24:10–13 294n29 24:18 23 1 Kings 1:6 191n4 1:11–27 158 1:50–51 156n45 2:3 155n42 2:4 136n46 2:28–31 156n45 3:1 176 3:2 177n19 3:3 177, 1177n19, 77n21 3:4 173, 177, 179, 180 3:4–15 135, 173, 176, 186 3:5 180 3:8 132n29 3:15 178, 178n25, 180 3:27 292n23 5:28 152n21 6 131, 135, 136

Index of Ancient Sources

6–7 149, 164 6–8 134, 142, 143 6:1–10 135 6:6 152 6:8 153n26, 153n28 6:9 135, 155, 155n40 6:10 135 6:11–14 134–137 6:11 134–137 6:11–13 134 6:12 134–137 6:13 134–137 6:14 134–137 6:15 134–137 6:16 142n53 6:19 137 6:33 153n24 7:1–12 133 7:8 154n33 7:21 153n28 7:25 154n33 7:31 154n33 7:34 153n26 7:39 153n26, 153n28 7:40 154n38 7:45 154n38 7:50 142n53, 154, 154n38, 155n41 7:51 133, 154n35 8 131 8:1–5 131–134, 137, 138–139 8:1 131–134, 138–139, 185 8:2 131–134, 138–139, 140 8:3 131–134, 138–139, 185 8:4 124, 130–142, 185, 186n55 8:5 131–134, 138–139 8:5–9 185 8:6 142n53 8:10 137–142 8:10–11 2, 137–142 8:11 137–142, 175 8:20 136n46 8:22–53 141 8:27 136 8:65 133 9:2 135 9:3 136n45

427

11:14 155 11:29–39 158 12:15 136n46 13:9 196n26 14:5 273 14:6 273 16:32 23 19:1–18 288n10 19:4–18 97 19:8 97 19:10 288n10 19:14 159, 288n10 19:15–18 288n10 19:16 158 21:29 291n17 2 Kings 6:25 153n24 8:24 178n24 9–10 159 9:1–13 159 9:27–28 148 10:30 297n39 11 147–172 11:1 150, 155 11:1–2 149n10 11:1–12 149 11:2 148, 149, 160 11:3 149n10, 150, 162 11:4 148, 148n6, 162, 164 11:5 151, 152 11:5–6 149n10, 152 11:5–7 155 11:5–13 167n83 11:7 152 11:8 149n10, 155, 156 11:9 148, 151, 152 11:10 164 11:11 153 11:12 149n10 11:13 149, 149n10 11:13–14 149 11:13–18 149 11:14 149n10, 154, 164, 168 11:14–17 167n83 11:15 154, 155, 156, 167 11:16 149, 149n10 11:17 149n10

428

Index of Ancient Sources

11:18 149, 154, 159, 160 11:18–20 149 11:19 149n10, 150, 170 11:20 149, 149n10, 150 11–12 2, 147–172 12 147–172 12:1–2 149 12:1–4 150 12:3 160, 169 12:3–4 149 12:5 154, 157, 165 12:5–6 162 12:5–17 148n7, 149, 150 12:6 165 12:6–9 154 12:7 148, 148n7, 162 12:9 160 12:10 156, 157, 164, 168 12:11 160 12:12 153, 167 12:13 154 12:14 154, 155, 162 12:16 161 12:17 158, 166, 166n79 12:18–19 150 12:19 154n35, 161 12:20 149 12:20–22 150 12:22 169 14:3 169 14:6 213n24, 285n1, 296n37 15:12 297n39 15:15 154n35 16:10–18 149 16:11 152 16:16 152 17:13 325 17:27–28 317 20:11–19 291n17 20:19 291n17 21:13 293n28 22–23 149, 296n37 22:3 148n7 22:3–7 160 22:4 168 22:5 154 22:8 328

23:1–2 328 23:2 328 23:2–3 98n44 23:3 148n7 23:8 153n29 23:20 159 23:36–24:17 300n46 24:18–25:21 300n45 25:14 155n41 25:15 154n38 25:19 127 25:25 155 25:27–30 300n47 Isaiah 1:10 314 2:2 176 2:3 316, 318n51 2:3–4 320n59 5:24 314 8:16 327 10:12 296n35 11:11–16 288n10 13:4 202 25:8 293n28 29:7–8 127 30:8 328 30:19 292n23 38:10 202 40–66 345n41 40:1 395n56 40:11 287n4 41:14 345 42:24 319n55 43:24 292 43:25 293n28 44:24 345 48:17 345 49–66 305n63 49:7 345, 345n40 52:13–53:12 292 54:7–8 287 54:8 345 55:3 347n47 56:6 346 59:21 315n38 63:8–9 77n64 65:20 299n43

Index of Ancient Sources

Jeremiah 2:2 346n46 3:16 175n11 3:16–17 176, 176n17 3:17 191 6:15 292n23 8:12 292n23 9:12 322, 325 11:2–3 98n44 11:5 74n55 11:6 98n44 11:8 98n44 11:12 292n23 13:12 292n23 15:25 127 17:22 205 18:18 316 18:23 293n28 23:24 291n17 23:30 165n76 23:32 292n23 25:20 384 25:29 293n28 26:4 325n73 29:10 136n46 29:26 160 30–31 301n52 30:1–4 302n54 30:10–11 295n33 30:11 293n28 31 285 31:3 346 31:11 345n41 31:20 346n46 31:21 302n54 31:28–29 301 31:30–33 301 31:31–34 346n43 31:33 326 32:6–25 303n58 32:16–22 303n58 32:18 346n46, 347n47 32:18–19 303n58 32:22 74n55 32:24–25 303n58 33:11 346n46 33:14 136n46 34:18 98n44

41:1 155 44:10 325n73 44:23 314, 323n70, 325 46:27–28 295 46:28 293n28 49:12 293n28 50:34 345n41 52:18 154n38, 155n41 52:19 154 Ezekiel 1–24 349 1:1 129n21 1:28 141n51 2:2 272 3:12 141n51, 347 3:23 141n51 4:4–8 292 4:6 153n27 4:11 153n24 4:17 292 5:2 152n23 5:6 136n43 5:7 136n43 5:12 152n23 6:4–5 159 6:5 349 6:6 293n28 7:20 154n34 8:3 129n21 8:9 136n43 8:16–9:7 159 10:3 153n29 10:4 141n51 10:18 141n51 11:14–21 339n8 11:15 345n39 11:20 136n43 11:23 141n51 16:17 154n34 16:22 346 16:33 346 16:36 346 16:37 346 16:43 346 16:60 136n46 16:60–62 346 16:62 136n46

429

430

Index of Ancient Sources

17 346n43 17:13 155, 346n43 17:14 346n43 17:15 346n43 17:16 346n43 17:18 346n43 17:19 346n43 16:8 346 16:59 346 18 285, 302, 303, 303n57 18:1–4 302 18:5–9 302 18:6–9 303 18:9 136n43 18:10–13 302 18:11–13 303 18:14–18 302 18:15–18 303 18:17 136n43 18:19–20 302 18:21–22 302–303 18:23 303n56 18:24 303 18:25 303 18:25–29 303 18:30–32 303, 303n56 20:11 136n43 20:13 136n43 20:16 136n43 20:19 136n43 20:21 136n43 20:24 136n43 20:32 292n23 20:40 154n35 21:19 152n23 22:26 154n35 23:5 346 23:9 346 23:14 154n34 23:22 346 24:4–5 349 24:10 349 24:23 292 25:9 153n25 27:9 154 27:27 154 29:25 288n10 33:1–20 303n57

33:10 292 33:23–29 339n8 34:25 346 34:26 347 36–39 339n9 36:23–38 339n9 36:27 136n43 36:38 154n35 37 3, 337–351 37:1–14 337–351 37:2 344, 346 37:3 136n43, 345, 349 37:4 136n43, 339, 344n25, 345, 345n33 37:5 339, 348 37:6 339, 344, 345n34, 348 37:7 339, 344n25, 345 37:8 344, 345, 345n34, 346 37:9 339, 344n25, 345 37:10 339, 344n25, 345, 345n36 37:11 349 37:12 339 37:12–14 348 37:13 344 37:14 339, 344 37:15–19 345, 347 37:15–28 346 37:20–21 344 37:24 344, 346 37:26 344, 346 38–39 339n9 40–48 339n9 40:2 129n21 40:4 344n25 40:18 153n26 40:21 214n26 40:22 214n26 40:39 158n53 40:40 153n26 40:41 153n26 40:44 153n26 41:2 153n26 41:26 153n26 42:13 158n53 43:3 129n21 43:4 141n51

Index of Ancient Sources

43:5 141n51 43:6 272 43:9 136n43 43:11 325 43:25 158n53 44:3 164 44:4 141n51, 337 44:7 346 44:7–9 168 44:11 160 44:14 168 44:15–31 168 44:17 154n33 44:22 251n49 44:23 320n60 44:24 136n43 44:29 158n53 45:13 153n24 45:22 158n53 46:2 164 46:14 152n23, 153n24 46:19 153n26 47:1 153n26 47:1–2 153n27 47:2 153n26 48:20 153n24 Hosea 5:8 154n31 6:8 66n29 12:4–5 22n14 Joel 1:3 394n48 4:21 293n28 Amos 3:5 292n23 5:26 154n34 6:6 154n38 Micah 1:7 202n50 7:18 294n29 Nahum 1:2–11 296 1:3 296

Zachariah 1:12 345, 347 2:10 345n35 3:4 294n29 9:15 154n38 12:2 154 13:9 152n23 14:12 127 14:20 154n38 Malachi 1:6–14 289n13 2:6 314 2:7 315 3:22 320 Psalms 1:2 315n38 5:12 346, 346n45 6 289n12 6:11 289n12 19 289 19:8–11 298 19:13–14 289, 293n28 30:6 287 31:11 292 38:5 292 39:7 154n34 42 402n80, 405n92 51:3 293n28 51:11 293n28, 294n29 62:13 347n47 69:37 346 73:20 154n34 78 120n93, 143n55 78:60 143, 143n55 81 120n93 82 292n25 82:2–5 292n25 90:10 299n43 98:6 154n31 103 297 103:1 297 103:2–6 297 103:7 297 103:8 297 103:9–10 297 103:11 297

431

432

Index of Ancient Sources

103:12 297 103:13 297 103:14–16 297 103:17 297 103:18 297 105 120n93 106 120n93 109:14–15 291n17 119 318 119:1 314 119:34 322 119:72 314 119:97 53, 318 119:132 346, 346n45 132:8 175 135 120n93 136 120n93

6:22–23 323 10:12 294n29 13:7 273 13:14 315 15:20 299n43 17:9 294n29 19:11 294n29 19:26–27 299n43 20:20–21 299n43 23:19–22 299n43 24:21–22 289 25:1 402n80, 404n88, 406n94 28:9 314 28:24 299n43 30:11–17 299n43 30:20 293n28 31:26 314

Job 1–2 394, 395n53 1:1 386, 389n28, 394n49 1:5 397 1:6 390, 390n33 2:11 395, 395n53, 396, 398, 404 7:21 294n29 15:16 396n57 15:18 386n17 15:19 386, 386n18 19:15 6 19:23 384, 405n92 22:22 314 25:20 384 25:23 384 28 385n14 31:35 386 32:2 384, 394n49, 395n53 34:20 386, 386n18 38:1 394 40:1 394 40:6 394 42:7–17 394 42:16 297n39

Ruth 4:5 288n9 4:17 6

Proverbs 3:1 320n61 4:1–6:19 302n55 6:20 315, 319n57

Song of Songs 1:2 295n35 5:3 344n30 Ecclesiastes 7:20 289 10:10 300n49 Esther 8:6 344n30 1 Chronicles 1:1 397n62 1:36 383 5:29–41 169 6:16 188 6:16–17 188 6:16–32 188 6:17 124n4, 186n59, 187, 188 6:18–32 187 6:33 188 8:29–32 179n33 9 188 9:11 188 9:13 188 9:18 188n66

Index of Ancient Sources

9:19 188, 188n66 9:21 124n4 9:23 188 9:24 168 9:26 188 9:27 188 9:29 138 13:3 179, 185n52 13:6 397n62 13:8 169n85 13:10 397n62 15:13 179, 185n52 15:16–21 188 15:24 165n72, 169n85 15:26 178n28 15:27 183n47 15:28 165n72, 169n85 15:29 183n47 16 179n29, 187 16:1 178 16:1–3 181 16:1–38 190 16:4 182 16:4–6 177, 182 16:4–7 181 16:5 188 16:6 169n85, 182 16:7 188 16:8–36 181n42, 182n44 16:34 182 16:37 182 16:37–38 181, 182, 188 16:37–41 179n32 16:37–42 177 16:38 183n46 16:39 173, 181–183, 184 16:39–40 182 16:39–42 173, 181–183, 184 16:40 181–183 16:41 181–183 16:41–42 188 16:42 169n85, 183n46 16:43 181 17:5 187n60 18:17 397n62 21:1–22:1 183 21:18 23 21:26 178n28

433

21:26–22:1 183 21:28 183n49 21:28–30 179n32 21:29 173, 183–185 21:29–30 181, 183–185 21:30 183–185 22–29 174 22:1 183n49, 184, 184n51 23–27 189n68 23:32 124n4, 189 26:12–19 168 28:17 154n38 29:21 178n28 2 Chronicles 1 183 1:2–3 180 1:2–13 176–181, 176n18 1:3 124n4, 173, 177, 179, 180, 180n36 1:3–6 190 1:3–13 173 1:4 177, 178, 179, 179n32 1:5 173, 177, 179, 180, 185n52 1:6 124n4, 179, 180, 180n36 1:7 180 1:7–12 180 1:13 124n4, 178, 178n25, 180n36 3:17 153n28 4:8 154n38 4:10 153n28 4:11 154n38 4:22 154n38, 155n41 5:2 185 5:4 134n36, 185 5:5 124n4, 138, 185–187 5:6 134n37 5:6–10 185 5:11–14 175n15 5:12–13 169n85 6:41 175 7:6 165n72, 169n85 8:1 132n31 13:12 169n85 13:14 169n85 15:14 169n85

434

Index of Ancient Sources

20:28 169n85 21:20 178n24 22:11 148, 160, 163 23:4–5 152 23:6 164, 168 23:11 153 23:13 164 23:14 155 23:18–19 168 24:3 160n58 24:6 157n49, 169 24:8 156n46, 164 24:17–27 169 24:19–22 159n55 24:25 169 25:4 213n24 29:6 189, 189n70 29:26 169n85 29:27 169n85 29:28 169n85 31:2 189n66 32:19 398n65 32:32 347n47 34:9 168 34:30–31 98n44 35:25 406n94 Daniel 1:3 155 8:8 345n35 8:13 344n29 11:4 345n35 12:11 225n51 Ezra 3:2 332, 334 3:10 165n72, 169n85 7:1–5 169 9 253n55 Nehemiah 7:69 154n38 8 332n95 8:1 332, 335n106 8:1–5 332 8:5 332 9 335n109 9:13–15 120

10 335n106 10:33 152n23 11:11 169 12:35 165n72, 169n85 12:41 165n72, 169n85 13:14 347n47

Deuterocanonical Literature 2 Maccabees 2:4–8 175n11

Apocrypha Ben Sira 28n4

New Testament Matthew 21:12 165 27:6 160

Dead Sea Scrolls 4Q11 (4QpaleoGen-Exod1) 203 4Q21 (4QExodk) 200n44 4Q22 (4QpaleoExodm) 197n30, 204 4Q24 (4QLevb) 204 4Q27 275n27 4Q51 (4QSama) 125, 126 4Q55 (4QIsaa) 202 4Q56 (4QIsab) 202 4Q101 (4QpaleoJobc) 385 4Q365 (4QReworked Pentateuchc) 197n31, 197n32, 200n44 4Q383 337n1 4Q385 (Pseudo-Ezekiel) 3, 337–351 4Q385–391 337 4Q386 337n1, 341n14 4Q387 340n10 4Q388 337n1 4Q391 337n1, 340n10 4Q395 346 Temple Scroll 367n37

Index of Ancient Sources

Other Second Temple Texts Aramaic Levi Document 9:1–5 228n57

Rabbinic Literature Tosefta Nedarim 1.1 378n58 Šeqalim 1.6 379n62 Shevu’ot 1.1 373n48 1.2 374 Yoma (Kippurim) 3.19 365n29 4.16–17 366 Mishnah ’Abot 6.5 392 Sanhedrin 10.1 403n86 Šeqalim 4.1–2 379n60 Shevu’ot 355 1.1–2 357 1.2 365, 367, 368 1.2–4 359 1.3 360, 365, 367, 368 1.4 370, 372, 373 1.4–5 371n41 1.4–8 371–372 1.5–6 373 1.7–8 373 1.9 359, 365, 366n36, 367, 368, 370 1.10 364n27 2.1–2 357 2.2 358 Kelim 1.5 231n68

435

Keritot 1.1–2 358n17, 358n18 5.5 378n57 6.1 378 6.4 366n35 6.5 377 Makkot 3.2 358n17 Yoma 1.4 163n68 5.2 175n11 6–7 163n68 6.1 366n36 7.3 369n39 7.4 163n68 8.6 366n33 87b 293n28 Zebaḥim 13.12 373n47 14.6 126n7 Babylonian Talmud Baba Batra 13b 381n1 14b 387n19, 391n38 14b–15a 381, 383n7 Berakot 17a 293n28 Ḥagigah 6a–b 271n10 Sanhedrin 74a 218n34 99a 392 106a 386n17 Shevu’ot 8b 364n28 Soṭah 9a 137 11a 384n11, 386, 386n16 Yoma 21b 175n12 54a 49n55

436

Index of Ancient Sources

Zebaḥim 118a 126n7

Sifra Hovah 8.12.11 360

Jerusalem Talmud

Mekilta Yitro 9 269

Sanhedrin 10.1, 27d

366n35

Shevu’ot 1.3, 33a 1.6, 33c

Mekilta Behodesh [Yitro] 2 67n33

363n26 366n35

Shevu’ot 1.6 366n35 1.33 366n35

Roš Haššanah 6a 133n34 Soṭah 5.5 382–383 5.6 386n17 5.8 384n11 5.20c–d 384n11 5.20d 382–383 Ta’an 4 405n90 2 (68a) 405n90 Yoma 8.6, 45b 8.7, 45c

365n30 366n35

Midrashim and Minor Tractates Sifre Ahrei mot 1.8.5 366n33 Sifre Bemidbar Naso § 58 271n11 Sifre on Numbers 129 358n16 Sifre Deuteronomy 305 385n14

Other Rabbinic Literature Genesis Rabbah 57:4 384n11, 386, 386n17 78:5 65n25 Exodus Rabbah 5:9 269 21:7 386n17 29:1 269 Leviticus Rabbah 5:6 226n55 6:6 405n90 Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:19 405n90 Songs Rabbah 1:1 405n90 4:4 405n90 Pesiqta de Rab Kahana Bahodesh Hashelishi 12 269 ’Abot de Rabbi Natan Version a:12 385n14 Version b:25 385n14

Index of Authors Abusch, Tzvi ​216–217n30 Achenbach, Reinhard ​37n26, 48n51, 176n17 Ackerman, Susan ​126n7, 127n14, 129n23 Addis, W. H. ​7n5, 11n18, 96n39 Adelman, Rachel ​130n24 Akiva, R. ​360, 360n22, 378 Albertz, Rainer ​298n40 Alter, Robert ​272n13, 272n17, 273n20 Amar, Itzhak ​168n84 Amit, Yairah ​260n11 Anderson, Gary A. ​226n55, 258, 258n7, 264, 265, 265n28, 293n26, 306n66 André, G. ​290n16 Aranda, Mariano Gómez ​393n46 Arnold, Bill T. ​260n11 Ashley, Timothy ​33n18, 36n22 Askin, Lindsey Arielle ​28n4 Auld, A. Graeme ​13n21 Austin, J.  L. ​318n49 Azar, Moshe ​192n6 Bacon, Benjamin W. ​6n3, 9n13, 19n1, 67n33 Baden, Joel S. ​6n3, 7n7, 9n14, 15n28, 27n3, 28n4, 32n14, 32n15, 32n16, 36n23, 41n33, 41n34, 41n37, 46n42, 51, 51n57, 51n58, 54n5, 62n13, 63n21, 66n28, 66n30, 66n31, 67n334, 68n35, 69n37, 70n39, 72n49, 73n54, 74n55, 76n60, 79n67, 79n68, 79n69, 81n75, 88n12, 88n14, 91n23, 95n36, 96n39, 107n59, 108n63, 108n64, 109n66, 109n68, 109n69, 110n69, 110n73, 208n4, 259n10, 266n30, 267, 267n31, 291n18, 294n31, 296n37, 334n106 Baentsch, Bruno ​6n3, 15n25, 35n21, 46n45, 89n16 Baer, Seligmann ​382n5

Bal, Mieke ​208n2, 210n11 Balberg, Mira ​298n40, 354n8, 361n25, 379n61 Bar-On, Shimon ​63n19 Bar-On, Shraga ​282n44 Barr, James ​318n52 Barrera, Julio Trebolle ​129n18 Barton, John ​329n82 Baskin, Judith R. ​385n11 Baumgartner, Walter (KB, KBR) ​285, 288n9, 289n12, 290n16 Becker, Douglas J. ​24n20 Becker, Joachim ​181n39, 186n59, 188n63, 189n67 Becking, Bob ​334n101 Beentjes, Pancratius C. ​184n49 Belser, Julia Watts ​244n32 Bendavid, Abba ​192n6 Ben-Dov, Jonathan ​307n1, 309n14, 309n15 Ben-Ḥayyim, Z. ​193n14 Bendor, Shunya ​299n42 Benzinger, Immanuel ​145n1, 185n54 Bergen, Wesley ​233n75, 233n76 Berlin, Adele ​182n44 Bernstein, Moshe ​213n24 Bibb, Bryan D. ​233n76 Blau, Joshua ​202n50, 273n22, 382n5 Blenkinsopp, Joseph ​256n3, 259n9, 263n21, 333n99, 335n108 Bloch-Smith, Elizabeth M. ​71n48 Block, Daniel I. ​338n2, 349n51 Blum, Erhard ​8n10, 15n26, 43n39, 73n54, 146n4 Boccaccini, Gabriele ​239n6, 239n7, 243n28, 246n37 Bolle, Menaḥem ​225n51 Borges, Jorge Luis ​207–236 Bottéro, Jean ​282n45 Boyd, Samuel ​59n10 Brady, Monica ​337n1

438

Index of Authors

Braun, Roddy L. ​174n9, 174n10, 177n20, 178n23 Brettler, Marc ​310n18 Breuer, Edward ​405n93 Brichto, Herbert Chanan ​275n28, 299n42 Briffa, Josef Mario ​304n61 Briggs, C. A. ​89n16, 95n33 Brightman, Edgar ​6n3 Brooke, George J. ​337n1, 350n54 Brueggemann, Walter ​161n61 Buber, Martin ​256n3 Bunta, Silviu N. ​349n54 Burney, Charles F. ​132, 132n30, 135n40, 136n42, 140n50, 150n14, 177n19 Bussman, Hadumod ​291n16 Calaway, Jared C. ​256n3 Camp, Claudia ​240n12, 240n14 Carpenter, J. Estlin ​6n3, 7n9, 10n15, 11n18, 12n19, 90n18 Carr, David M. ​28n3, 28n4, 314n35, 323n68, 335n110 Carroll, Robert P. ​301n52 Cassuto, Umbert ​69n38, 75n56, 194n17, 195n22, 196n25 Chapman, Cynthia ​247n40 Chapman, Stephen B. ​330n89 Charlebois, Justin ​238n4, 240n15, 241, 241n16, 241n20, 242n21 Chavel, Isaac ​306n65 Chavel, Simeon ​12n20, 13n21, 15, 46n44, 62n14, 63n19, 70n41, 70–71n43, 71n45, 71n48, 72n52, 77n64, 79n66, 208n4, 261n15, 274n25, 275, 275n26, 276n29, 276n30, 289n13, 291n19, 295n34, 297n40, 298n40, 299n42, 301n53, 305n64, 305n65, 321n63, 321n64 Childs, Brevard S. ​87n6, 91n19, 104n52 108n63 Chopra-McGowan, Cathleen Kavita ​ 300n45 Coats, George W. ​7n5, 30n8, 31n11 Cogan, Mordechai ​140n50, 148n7, 155n40, 157n48, 160n58, 163n67, 165n75, 177n19, 185n54 Coggins, Richard J. ​174n3, 179n32, 180n35, 189n69 Cohen, Chaim ​290n15

Cohen, Menachem ​293n28 Cohen, Mordechai Z. ​67n33 Collins, John J. ​332n93, 334n101, 334n102 Connell, R. W. ​240n15, 241, 241n16, 241n18, 241n19, 241n20, 243n25 Cornill, C.  H. ​145n1 Cowley, A.  E. ​318n50 Crane, Ashley S. ​339n9 Creangă, Ovidiu ​242n22 Creason, Stuart ​290n16 Crenshaw, Kimberlé ​238n4, 240, 240n13, 242n21 Cross, Frank Moore ​43n39, 136n41 Curly, Edwin M. ​399n71 Curtis, Edward L. ​177n21, 184n49 Cushman, Beverly W. ​239n9 Darshan, Guy ​126n9, 128n17, 133n32, 134n38, 142n53, 209n7 Daube, David ​289n12 Davidson, Alan ​300n48 Davies, Graham I. ​27n1, 30n8 Davis, Kipp ​341n12, 351n62 Day, John ​143n55, 175n11 de Bruin, Leon ​323n67 de Matos, Amanda Dupas ​300n48 de Rossi, Giovanni B. ​193n14 Derrida, Jacques ​308n7, 313n30, 313n31 DeVries, Simon J. ​136n41 Dick, Michael ​214n26 DiFransico, Lesley R. ​298n41 Dillmann, August ​35n21, 42n38, 128n16, 271n11 Dimant, Devorah ​337n1, 341, 341n12, 341n17, 342n20, 343, 344n28, 344n29, 344n30, 344n31, 344n32, 345n33, 345n34, 345n35, 345n36, 345n38, 345n40, 346n45, 347n47, 347n49, 350, 350n56 Dirksen, Peter B. ​174n10 Dobbs-Allsopp, F.  W. ​314n34 Dodd, Charles H. ​310n17 Dolansky, Shawna ​250, 250n47 Dotan, Aron ​285 Douglas, Mary ​233n76 Dozeman, Thomas B. ​27n1, 53n2, 67n33, 71n48

Index of Authors

Driver, Samuel R. ​6n3, 11n18, 67n33, 73n54, 87n7, 87n8, 87n9, 87n10, 89n16, 89n17, 90n18, 91n21, 96n38, 104n53, 107n60, 108n61, 120n92, 125n6, 126n7, 126n8, 127n12, 127n14, 128n16, 129n23, 134n36, 150n14, 277n32 Durham, John I. ​108n63, 109n66, 197n33, 200n43 Dutcher-Walls, Patricia ​148n6, 150n13, 159n56 Ebeling, Jennie ​248n42 Eddine, Najiba Salah ​300n48 Edelman, Diana ​304n60 Edrei, Arye ​354n9, 361, 361n23, 361n24 Ehrlich, Arnold B. ​223, 223n45, 223n47, 224, 230, 287n8 Eichler, Raanan ​78n65, 175n16, 192n11, 209n7 Eilberg-Schwartz, Howard ​361n25 Eisen, Robert ​397n59 Elbaum, Jacob ​3392n41 Ella, Liraz ​78n65 Ellens, Deborah L. ​240n12 Elliot-Binns, Leonard E. ​45n42 Elman, Yaakov ​381–382n2 Epstein, Baruch Halevi ​388n21 Epstein, Jacob N. ​381n1 Erbele-Küster, Dorothea ​233n76, 240n12 Eshel, Esther ​158n51, 228n57 Farjun, Yoshi ​63n21 Fassberg, Steven E. ​202n51 Faust, Avraham ​174n4, 299n42, 299n45, 300n45, 304n59, 304n60, 304n61 Feder, Yitzhaq ​233n76, 293n26 Feinstein, Eve Levavi ​237n1, 249n43, 250, 250n46, 250n47, 251n48, 251n50, 253n55 Feldman, Liane ​33n19, 38n27, 39n29, 47n49, 49n54, 62n17, 209n9, 227, 227n56, 228, 228n58, 232n70, 239n8, 259n10, 261n14, 277, 277n35, 278, 279, 279n37, 279n38, 280, 280n39, 280n41, 281, 281n42 Finkelstein, Jacob J. ​209n7, 275n2 Firmage, Edwin ​260n11 Fishbane, Michael ​213n24, 274n25, 276n30, 309n12, 309n13, 334n102

439

Fleming, Daniel ​217n30 Fleurant, Josebert ​43n38 Florentin, Moshe ​193n14 Foster, Frank Hugh ​400n74 Foucault, Michel ​404n89 Fowler, Mervyn D. ​180n38 Fox, Everett ​272n18 Fox, Michael V. ​289n13 Frankel, David ​120n94 Frazer, R.  M. ​208n5 Frevel, Christian ​233n76, 256n3, 261n14 Friedman, Richard Elliott ​19n1, 19n2, 21n11, 130, 131, 131n27, 186n56 Friedman, Yehuda L. S. ​389n28 Fritz, Volkmar ​167n83 Frymer-Kensky, Tikva ​249n44, 250n45 Gafni, Chanan ​405n93 Gallagher, Shaun ​323n67 Ganzel, Tova ​346n45 Garroway, Kristine ​247n40 Gehman, Henry Snyder ​161n62, 163n67, 163n69, 165n76 Geiger, Abraham ​133n35 Gertz, Jan Christian ​10n17 Gesundheit, Shimon ​95, 95n35, 217n32, 288n10 Giffone, Benjamin D. ​174n6, 174n7, 177n22, 181n39 Gilat, Yitzhak D. ​361n23 Gilders, William ​355n10 Ginsburg, Christian D. ​193n14, 382n5 Ginsburg, H.  L. ​315n36 Goethe, Johann W. ​95, 95n34, 99, 99n46 Goldenberg, Gideon ​292n23 Gooding, David W. ​135n39 Goodman, Lenn E. ​386n15, 386n18, 399n71 Goodman, Mordechai Saul ​394n46 Gottlieb, Leeor ​74–75n56 Grabbe, Lester L. ​304n60 Gray, George B. ​43n38, 45n42, 46n42, 79n71 Gray, John ​134n35, 136n41, 140n50, 149n10, 150n12, 150n14, 155n40, 162n66, 163n69, 165n76 Graybill, Rhiannon ​242n22, 247, 247n39 Grayson, A. Kirk ​300n46

440

Index of Authors

Greenbaum, Florence Kreisler ​220n40 Greenberg, Moshe ​7–8, 8n10, 15n26, 111n75, 136n44, 276n30, 283, 283n46, 300n51, 303n57, 316n43, 324n72, 338, 338n2, 338n3, 339n6, 339n7, 347n48, 349n51, 350n58 Greenfield, Jonas C. ​228n57 Greenstein, Edward L. ​125n6, 127n12, 315n36 Grossfeld, Bernard ​193n14, 203n55 Grossman, Jonathan ​69n37 Gruber, Mayer I. ​292n20 Gryson, Roger ​193n14 Guillaume, Alfred ​304n60, 400n74 Guinn-Villareal, Erin L. ​288n9 Gurtner, Daniel M. ​128n15 Haak, Robert D. ​153n26 HaCohen, David Ben-Gad ​1, 20n4, 20n5, 20n6, 20n7 Hakham, Amos ​200n42 Halbertal, Moshe ​305, 305n65, 378n59 Hallo, William W. ​262n20 Hamori, Esther J. ​64n22, 64n23 Haran, Menahem ​54n3, 62n16, 72n51, 96n39, 98, 98n45, 101n50, 111n73, 115n84, 117n87, 117n88, 120n96, 121n98, 123n2, 131, 131n28, 133n32, 134n36, 145n1, 151n16, 167n83, 170n87, 175n16, 176n17, 244n30, 264n24, 299n43, 301n52, 303n57, 305n65, 308n8, 309n15, 327n75, 329n83, 331n92, 381n1, 395 Hardy, Humphrey ​59n10 Harlé, Paul ​225n50 Harshav, Benjamin ​260, 261, 261n16, 262, 262n18, 262n19, 268, 298n41 Hartford-Battersby, G. ​6n3, 7n9, 10n15, 11n18, 12n19, 90n18 Häusl, Maria ​309n9 Hayes, Christine ​277n31, 321n62, 322n65 Herczeg, Yisrael Isser Zvi ​65n25, 67n33 Herder, Johann Gottfried ​400n73 Hertzberg, Hans W. ​127n12 Hobbs, Trevor Raymond ​148n5, 150n11, 161n62, 163n67 Hoffman, Shuvi ​54n6, 63n19, 95n37

Hoffman, Yair ​400n74 Hoffmann, Hans-Detlef ​150n13 Hogeterp, Albert L. A. ​342n18 Holzinger, H. ​6n3, 7n8 Horowitz, Isaiah ​269n3 Horowitz, Wayne ​255n2 Houtman, Cornelis ​194n17, 195n18, 195n22, 196n25, 197n33, 199n41, 200n43, 202n50, 202n52, 292n23 Huizinga, Johan ​232, 232n71 Hundley, Michael B. ​180n37 Hurowitz, Victor Avigdor ​131n27, 137n47, 162n64, 186n56 Hurvitz, Avi ​134n37, 151n18, 332n97 Hyatt, James P. ​93n31 Ilgen, Karl D. ​400n73 Irwin, William ​212n22 Ivry, Alfred L. ​401n76 Jacob, Benno ​256n3 Jacobs, Sandra ​242n22 Jaine, Tom ​300n48 Janowski, Bernd ​256n3, 257n3, 257n4, 258n8, 265n26 Japhet, Sara ​173n1, 173n2, 177n20, 179n33, 183n46, 184n49, 184n50, 185n54, 186n58, 187n59, 188n65, 188n66, 189, 189n67, 189n70, 189n71, 332n94, 333n98, 333n100 Jastrow ​75n56 Jenson, Philip Peter ​244n30, 264n24 Jeon, Jaeyoung ​124n4, 174, 174n8, 175n16, 178n27, 186n59 Johnstone, William ​173n1, 174n5, 180n35, 182n43, 186n56 Jones, Gwilym H. ​136n41 Jonker, Louis C. ​173n1, 173n2, 174n3, 174n6, 180n34 Joyce, James ​208n5 Joyce, Paul M. ​338n2 Kagan, Itai ​197n28, 203n55 Kahana, Abraham ​396n57, 400n74, 400n75 Kamin, Sarah ​67n33 Kaminsky, Joel S. ​252n54, 286n2 Kaplan, Jonathan ​129n20

Index of Authors

Kasher, Hannah ​397n59, 397n60 Kasher, Menahem M. ​269n3 Kasher, Rimon ​339n6 Kaspi, Joseph ibn. ​196n26 Katzenelnbogen, M.  L. ​285 Kaufmann, Yehezkel ​123n2, 333n98 Kazen, Thomas ​293n26 Kearney, Peter J. ​256n3, 257n4 Keel Othmar ​282n45 Kellermann, Diether ​180n37, 272n15, 272n17 Kennicott, Benjamin ​193n14 Kermode, Frank ​234n78, 235, 235n79 Kiel, Yehuda ​388n21 Kimhi, David ​186n59, 202n50 Kislev, Itamar ​34n20, 35n21, 37n25, 37n26, 39n40, 42n38, 44n40, 45n42, 46n43, 175n15, 190n72, 274n24 Klawans, Jonathan ​237n2, 251n48, 266n29, 282n45, 354n7 Klein, Anja ​337n1, 338n1, 341n12, 342, 342n19, 342n21 Klein, Ralph W. ​177n21, 178n23 Kleinig, John W. ​181n42 Klostermann, August ​156n46 Knafl, Anne K. ​54n4, 54n6, 65n26, 69n38, 70n39, 70n41, 71n47 Knauf, Ernst Axel ​149n8 Knohl, Israel ​38n27, 48n50, 72n52, 123n2, 196n25, 220n39, 243n26, 259n10, 270n5, 367n37, 378n59 Knoppers, Gary N. ​135n40, 177n22, 178n28, 182n45, 184n49, 187n61, 188n63, 189n67, 312n26 Koch, Klaus ​259n10, 307n1 Koehler, Ludwig (KB) ​285, 288n9, 289n12, 290n16 Kopilovitz, Ariel ​127n13, 165n74, 167n80, 338n4 Koster, M.  D. ​193n14 Kratz, Reinhard ​54n5 Kreisel, Howard ​397n59, 399n68, 401n76 Krondorfer, Björn ​241n17 Kronholm, Tryggve ​289n12 Kugel, James L. ​65n24, 65n27, 307n1, 309n13, 335n112 Kugler, Gili ​80n72

441

Lam, Joseph ​286n2, 290n14, 290n16, 292n23, 292n24, 293n26, 293n29, 298n41 Lambert, David A. ​3, 306n66, 310n19, 311n20, 312n28, 314n35, 318n48, 318n49, 323n67, 323n70, 329n82 Lambert, Wilfred ​217n30 Landy, Francis ​229n62 Lange, Armin ​333n100, 335n111 Latour, Bruno ​312, 312n28, 317n45 Lawee, Eric ​391n37 LeFebvre, Michael ​320n58, 334n102 Leiman, Sid Z. ​381n2 Lemos, Tracy M. ​246n37, 298n41 Leuchter, Mark ​143n55, 239n6 Levenson, Jon D. ​258, 258n5, 263, 264, 264n23, 264n24, 350n55 Levin, Christoph ​149n10, 167n83 Levine, Baruch A. ​27n2, 32n12, 33n18, 36n24, 41n32, 46n42, 209n6, 266n30, 271n9, 272n17, 272n18, 329n84 Levinson, Bernard M. ​95n34, 99n46, 277, 277n33, 286n2, 311n24, 312n26 Levitt-Kohn, Risa ​151n18 Lewis, C.  S. ​282n45 Licht, Jacob ​79n70, 271n11 Lilly, Ingrid E. ​339n9, 342n21, 344n25, 345n37 Lim, Timothy H. ​310n16, 332n94 Lipka, Hilary ​237n1, 242, 243, 243n23, 243n24, 243n25, 243n26, 249n43, 249n44, 250n46, 252n52 Lipschits, Oded ​160n60, 174n4, 304n60 Liss, Hanna ​233n76 Liver, J. ​160n60 Lo Sardo, Domenico ​126n10, 128n15 Loew, Judah ​201n46 Loewenstamm, Samuel E. ​382n5 Lohfink, Norbert ​149n8 Long, Burke O. ​156n44, 158n54, 161n63, 162n65, 165n76 Lumby, J. Rawson ​135n39 Luria, Ben-Zion ​164n71 Lust, J. ​339n9 Luzzatto, Shmuel D. ​202n50 Lyle, Kristopher ​290n16 Lyons, Michael A. ​151n18

442

Index of Authors

MacDonald, Burton ​20n5 MacDonald, Nathan ​48n51, 49n52 Machacek, Gregory ​212n22 Macho, Alejandro Díez ​193n14 Mack, Hananel ​384n11, 385n11, 405n95 Madsen, Albert A. ​177n21, 184n49 Males, Akiva ​126n7 Mali, Hillel ​228n57 Malul, Meir ​262n20 Malul, Orah ​191n3, 192n7 Mandel, Paul ​333n100 Mandell, Alice ​296n38 Manekin-Bamberger, Avigail ​365n30 Marcus, Yosef ​358n19 Margaliyot, Rahel ​388n21 Margolis, Max L. ​406n94 Marquis, Liane M. (see also Feldman, Liane) ​31n11, 49n55, 50n56 Marti, Lionel ​233n76 Martínez, Florentino García ​341n12 Marx, Dalia ​130n24 Mastnjak, Nathan ​351n61 McCartner Jr., P. Kyle ​125n6 McEvenue, Sean E. ​263n21, 265n27 McKane, William ​156n46 McKenzie, Steven L. ​134n35, 136n42, 140n50, 150n11, 151n15, 152n22, 155n41, 157n47, 157n48, 161n62, 161n63, 163n67, 165n76, 179n30, 180n35 McNeile, Alan H. ​6n3, 7n9, 90n18, 256n3 Meek, Russell L. ​212n22, 213n23 Melamed, Ezra Z. ​202n50 Melzer, Arthur M. ​306n67 Meshel, Naphtali S. ​2, 211n15, 212n21, 233n76, 279n36 Meyers, Carol ​239, 239n10, 240 Michel, Patrick ​233n76 Milgrom, Jacob ​36n22, 37n25, 38n27, 43n39, 46n46, 49n52, 49n53, 49n55, 79n70, 127n12, 136n46, 151n18, 154n32, 155n43, 166n77, 166n78, 175n14, 180n36, 209n7, 210n14, 211n18, 219n38, 226, 226n55, 229n62, 230n63, 233, 233n74, 244n31, 245n33, 245n34, 251n48, 259n10, 260n11, 266n29, 272n16, 272n17, 281n43,

284n50, 286n3, 293n27, 293n28, 353, 353n2, 354, 354n5, 354n6, 355n10, 356, 356n12, 357, 357n14 Milikowski, Chaim ​382n2 Miller, Cynthia L. ​290n16 Miller, Marvin L. ​304n60 Miller, Patrick D. ​296n38 Miller, Yonatan S. ​37n26 Mizrahi, Elijah ​201n46 Mohr, Abraham Mendel ​388n21 Montgomery, James A. ​135n40, 161n62, 163n67, 163n69, 165n76 Moore, George F. ​87n11 Morag, Shlomoh ​273n22 Moran, William L. ​287n6, 318n48 Morgenstern, Julius ​15n27 Moss, Candida R. ​266n30, 267, 267n31 Mroczek, Eva ​334n103, 335n112 Muffs, Yochanan ​76n58, 76n62, 77n63, 286n3, 287n6, 294n32, 311n23 Muraoka, Takimitsu ​191n5, 226n54, 273n22, 318n50 Murphy, Kelly ​242n22 Na’aman, Nadav ​148n7, 150n14, 161n63, 162n64 Naeh, Shlomo ​367n37 Najman, Hindy ​310n19, 315n40, 335n112, 350n55, 404n89 Nehmad, Meir ​382n5 Newen, Albert ​323n67 Nicholson, Ernest W. ​310n16 Niditch, Susan ​312n29, 314n34, 327n75, 329n81, 333n100, 333n101, 334n103, 335n111 Nihan, Christophe ​48n50, 49n52, 233n76, 259n10, 312n26 Nissinen, Martti ​301n53 Noam, Vered ​357n15 Noth, Martin ​7n5, 33n18, 37n26, 43n38, 45n42, 91n19, 146, 146n3, 151n17, 167n82, 178n28, 181n40, 188n63, 189n68, 200n43 Oeming, Manfred ​304n60 Ofer, Yosef ​382n3 Olyan, Saul ​49n52, 239n5, 240, 240n11, 243n27, 248n41

Index of Authors

Orstav, Dodani ​62n15, 69n37, 72n50 Oswald, Wolfgang ​53n2 Pakkala, Juha ​332n95, 333n99, 334n104 Paran, Meir ​150n14, 152n19, 155n42, 194n17, 195n20, 196n27, 198n34, 203n54, 225, 226n53, 265n27 Pardee, Dennis ​287n5 Parry, Donald W. ​193n14 Paul, Shalom M. ​77n64, 209n7 Paz, Yakir ​223n46ƒ Pederson, Johannes ​299n42 Pfeiffer, Robert H. ​150n14, 400n74 Pola, Thomas ​21n9, 263n21 Popović, Mladen ​337n1, 342n18, 342n21 Popper, Karl R. ​313, 313n33 Porten, Bezalel ​287n6 Pralon, Didier ​225n50 Pressler, Carolyn ​249n44, 250n46 Pritchard, James ​300n47 Prockosch, Otto ​109n69 Propp, William H. C. ​7, 7n5, 66n30, 71n44, 127n14, 165n73, 193, 193n12, 194n17, 195n22, 196n25, 199n41, 201n49, 203n56, 205n60, 257n3, 257n4, 260n12 Provan, Iain ​161n63 Qapah, Yosef ​386n15, 386n18, 403n86 Qimron, Elisha ​191n2, 191n5, 197n31, 197n32, 200n45, 337n1, 340n10, 340n11, 350n57 Quick, Laura ​127n12, 129n21 Rabin, Chaim ​191n1, 191n2, 192, 192n10, 194n15, 196n26, 203n53, 222n43, 223n44, 224n49 Rabinowitz, Isaac ​161n63 Rabinowitz, Refoel N. N. ​382n5 Rainey, Anson ​210n15 Ravitsky, Aviezer ​396n57 Reed, Annette Yoshiko ​383n8 Rendsburg, Gary ​225, 225n52 Rendtorff, Rolf ​210n14, 229n62 Renz, Johannes ​296n38, 298n40, 299n45 Reviv, H. ​160n59 Robinson, Gnana ​152n22

443

Rofé, Alexander ​73n54, 75n56, 92n28, 123n2, 124n3, 125n6, 126n8, 126n9, 128n17, 130n26 Röllig, Wolfgang ​296n38, 298n40, 299n45 Römer, Thomas ​26n24, 151n17, 307n1, 310n18 Rooke, Deborah R. ​240n12, 242n22 Rosen-Zvi, Ishay ​361n25 Rosenberg, Joel ​261n15 Roskop, Angela R. ​27n1, 29n5, 30n8, 31n11, 36n22 Roth, Martha ​209n7, 214n26, 285n1 Routledge, Bruce ​305n62 Rudolph, Wilhelm ​176n17, 178n27, 178n28, 184n49, 184n50, 189n69 Sackson, Adrian ​398n66 Safrai, Ze’ev ​300n45, 304n60 Sagiv, Yonatan ​228n57 Sakenfeld, Katharine Doob ​287n5 Sanders, Seth ​275n28 Sapir, Yakov ​382n5 Sarna, Nahum ​65n25, 381n1 Sassoon, David S. ​382n5, 403, 403n83 Saunders, James A. ​310n18 Schäfer, Peter ​256n3 Schaper, Joachim ​244n30, 307n1, 308n5, 308n7, 315n37, 317n46, 324n72, 330n88, 331n90 Schectman, Sarah ​37n25, 129n20, 238n3, 241n17, 243n27, 244n29, 246n38, 248n41, 248n42, 251n49, 251n50, 251n51, 252n53 Schiffman, Lawrence ​226n55 Schipper, Jeremy ​244n32, 245n35, 246n36, 246n37, 260n12, 260n13, 268, 313n32, 320n61 Schippers, Mimi ​238n4, 241, 241n20, 241n21, 242n21 Schironi, Francesca ​208n5 Schmid, Hans Heinrich ​146n4 Schmid, Konrad ​146n4, 307n1, 345n41 Schmitt, Rüdiger ​298n40 Schniedewind, William M. ​309n11 Schorch, Stefan ​333n100 Schwartz, Baruch J. ​V–VI, 1, 17, 19, 19n3, 21n13, 24, 24n22, 25n23, 27, 27n1, 27n3, 28n4, 34n20, 50n55, 53, 54, 54n3,

444

Index of Authors

54n4, 54n5, 58, 62n17, 63n20, 63n21, 67n33, 69n37, 70n43, 71n45, 72n51, 78n65, 82, 82n79, 83, 83n1, 85n4, 86n5, 87n8, 88n13, 91n23, 101n48, 101n51, 107n58, 108n63, 111n73, 113n80, 115n83, 119n92, 123n1, 124n5, 141n52, 145, 146n2, 173, 192, 193, 199, 199n36, 207, 208, 208n3, 209n9, 222n42, 227, 233, 233n74, 238, 255, 255n1, 259n10, 260n12, 261n14, 264n21, 264n22, 267n32, 268, 269, 269n1, 270, 270n7, 270n8, 271n9, 284n49, 286n3, 288n10, 291n18, 292, 292n25, 293n27, 305n65, 306n67, 311, 311n21, 311n22, 311n23, 316, 316n44, 321n63, 329, 330n85, 330n86, 337, 338, 338n4, 339, 339n8, 346n42, 346n44, 351n62, 353, 353n1, 353n3, 354, 354n4, 355, 362 Seebass, Horst ​43n38 Seeligmann, Isac L. ​173n1 Segal, Michael ​341n16, 351n62 Segal, Moshe Z. ​192n6 Seligman, Adam B. ​232, 232n73 Seri-Levi, Ariel ​79n67, 80n72, 81n76, 81n77, 91n24, 109n66, 110n70 Sforno, Obadiah ​79n70, 387n19 Shapiro, Marc B. ​404n87 Shemesh, Aharon ​358n17, 364n27, 366n33, 367n37 Silman, Yochanan David ​53n1 Silver, Arthur M. ​92n27 Simon, Uriel ​403n85 Ska, Jean-Louis ​328n78, 335n107 Skinner, Andrew C. ​193n14 Slayton, J.  C. ​20n5 Smend, Rudolph ​145n1 Smith, Barbara Herrnstein ​262n17 Smith, Henry P. ​125n6 Smith, Jonathan Z. ​262n20, 299n42 Smith, Mark S. ​64n22, 71n46, 71n48, 258, 258n6 Smith, P. ​264 Smith-Christopher, Daniel ​349n52 Smoak, Jeremy ​233n76, 296n38 Soloveitchik, Haym ​306n65 Sommer, Benjamin D. ​54n4, 54n6, 63n20, 64n22, 64n23, 65n24, 65n27, 81n76, 108n64, 270n4, 277n33, 283n47,

283n48, 317n47, 321n62, 321n63, 351n60 Sonne, Yeshayahu ​402n80 Sonnet, Jean-Pierre ​331n91 Speiser, Ephraim A. ​272n18, 273n19, 290n16 Sperber, Alexander ​193n14, 203n55 Sperling, David S. ​287n4 Stackert, Jeffrey ​38n27, 41n34, 49n52, 54n4, 54n5, 54n6, 59n9, 59n10, 62n16, 69n37, 88n12, 88n13, 107n59, 108n62, 108n64, 114n81, 116n85, 117n89, 216n29, 217n33, 220n39, 233n74, 244n32, 245n35, 246n36, 246n37, 260n12, 260n13, 261n15, 261n16, 264n21, 267n32, 268n33, 296n36, 307n2, 316n42, 355n10 Stade, Bernhard ​149n10, 156n46 Stamm, J. J. (KBR) ​285, 289n12, 290n16 Stavrakopoulou, Francesca ​299n42 Steck, Odil Hannes ​265n26, 345n41 Steiner, Richard C. ​311n25 Steinberg, Naomi ​247n40 Stern, David ​129n19, 306n65 Stern, Elsie ​312n27, 332n96, 334n103, 334n105 Stern, Ephraim ​174n4, 304n60 Stieglitz, Robert R. ​133n34 Still, Bastian ​245n32 Stone, Michael E. ​228n57 Strack, Hermann L. ​382n5 Straus, Leo ​273n21 Street, James M. ​178n26 Strickman, Norman H. ​92n27 Svärd, Saana ​239n9 Szubin, Zvi Henri ​287n6 Šanda, Albert ​155n40, 156n46, 157n48, 161n62 Ta-Shma, Israel M. ​395n55 Tadmor, Hayim ​148n7, 155n40, 157n48, 160n58, 163n67, 165n75 Tal, Abraham ​193n14, 201n47, 204n58 Talmon, Shemaryahu ​129n18, 262n20, 382n2 Teeter, David A. ​341n17 Thames, John Tracy ​214n26 Thompson, Jeremy ​290n16

Index of Authors

Tigay, Jeffrey H. ​70n41, 296n36, 332n98 Tigchelaar, Eibert ​351n59 Timmer, Daniel ​267n32 Toeg, Aryeh ​271n10 Tooman, William A. ​343n24, 344n28 Tov, Emanuel ​128n17, 219n38, 339n9, 385n12 Tzoref, Shani ​213n24 Ussihkin, David  304n60 Van De Mieroop, Marc ​282n45 van der Toorn, Karel ​24n20, 308n5, 333n101, 404n89 van Peursen, Wildo ​385n13 Van Seters, John ​146n4, 173n2 Van Wold, Ellen ​314n35 Vanderhooft, David S. ​305n62 Vayntrub, Jacqueline, E. ​41n37, 308n7, 312n29, 314n34, 315n39, 318n53, 322n66, 323n68, 324n71 Viezel, Eran ​383n7, 392n43, 393n45, 394n46, 395n52, 398n65, 399n69, 402n81, 403n85, 404n87, 405n91, 406n94 von Rad, Gerhard ​65n24, 91n19, 136n44, 136n45, 141n51, 143n54, 146 Vriezen, Th. C. ​5n2, 14n24 Wade, Martha L. ​128n15 Waldman, Nahum ​273n19 Walker, Christopher ​214n26 Walsh, Jerome T. ​27n1 Warmuth, G. ​293n28 Washburn, Jody E. ​296n38 Watson, Wilfred G. E. ​129n20 Watts, James W. ​210n13, 212n21, 219n36, 233n75, 233n76, 328n79, 329n82, 355n10 Waxman, Mordecai ​270n6 Weber, Max ​321n62 Weber, Robert ​193n14 Weinfeld, Moshe ​136n45, 136n46, 150n14, 256n3, 287n6, 307n2, 330n89

445

Weiss, Meir ​311n23 Welch, Adam C. ​176n18, 180n34, 181n40, 184n49 Wellhausen, Julius ​6n3, 89n16, 99n46, 125n6, 126n7, 126n8, 140n50, 149n9, 150n14, 173n2, 177n21, 307, 307n1, 307n2, 307n3, 308, 308n4, 308n5, 308n6, 308n8, 309, 309n9, 309n10, 312, 312n26, 312n27, 313, 313n32, 316, 316n41, 318, 319, 319n54, 319n56, 327, 332n94, 335 Werman, Cana ​364n27, 366n33, 367n37 Wessely, Wolfgang ​229n62 Westerholm, Stephen ​310n18 Wevers, John W. ​193n14, 205n60, 228n60 White, Hayden ​208n2 Willi, Thomas ​179n33, 180n35, 182n46, 308n4, 310n18, 313n32, 333n100 Williamson, Hugh G. M. ​174n9, 179n31, 181n42, 188n64, 305n62, 334n102 Wilson, Ian ​180n38 Wright, David P. ​258, 258n8, 264n24, 266n30 Wright, Logan S. ​165n76 Würthwein, Ernst ​140n50, 151n17, 167n83 Wyatt, Nicholas ​26n24 Yadin-Israel, Azzan ​360n22 Yardeni, Ada ​273n22 Yee, Gale ​238n4 Zahn, Molly M. ​28n4, 337n1, 342, 342n22, 342n23, 344, 344n26, 344n27, 344n28, 348n50 Zakovitch, Yair ​305n64 Zalewski, Saul ​178n28, 179n32, 180n36, 181n40, 181n41, 182n46 Zevit, Ziony ​296n38 Ziegert, Carsten ​287n5 Zielinski, Thaddaeus ​208n5 Zimmerli, Walther ​338n2, 338n5 Zohar, Noam ​354n9, 361n24

Index of Subjects Aaron ​8n11, 10n15, 28, 33, 34–44, 48, 50, 52, 57, 71n44, 86, 101, 103, 112, 113n80, 124, 164, 194, 221, 244, 253, 274, 277– 281, 289, 313, 323, 325, 329 – Sons of ​39, 113n80, 164, 244, 274, 279– 281, 325, 329 Aaron ben Elijah of Nicomedia ​228n57 ‘Abdon son of Hillel of Pir‘aton ​297n39 Abel ​398 Ab(v)ihu ​35, 57, 162n66, 280–281 Abraham ​35, 57, 64, 65, 65n27, 73, 74, 75, 239, 260, 283, 319, 384 Abraham Abulafia ​388, 388n22 Abraham ben Isaac Shalom ​389n27 Abraham Ibn Ezra ​92n27, 202n50, 204n57, 271n11, 294n32, 392n40, 393, 393n46, 394–400, 394n46, 394n47, 394n48, 394n50, 395n52, 395n53, 395n54, 395n55, 395n56, 396n57, 397n59, 398n67, 399n69, 400n75, 403–404, 405n91 Abraham Joshua Heschel of Apt ​53n1, 269n2 Abraham Zachut ​387n19 Abram ​291n19 Achaemenid Empire (See Persian Empire) Adah ​383 Adam ​72n53, 143n55, 388 Aharon Yehuda L. Margaliyoth ​393n44 Ahasuras ​384n10 Ahaz ​148n7, 296n37 Ahaziah ​148, 160 Akiva, R. ​360, 378 Alexandrinus, Codex ​200n45, 228n60 Altar ​23–25, 93n32, 127, 153–154, 157–159, 164, 166, 173, 177, 179, 179n30, 183–184, 190, 196, 203, 228–229, 229n61, 229n62, 230, 230n64, 244, 278–279, 281, 297n40, 327–328, 332 Amalek(ites) ​10n17, 68n36

Ammon(ites) ​41, 42, 45 Amorites ​10n17, 40–45, 57–58, 74, 103 Ancient Near Eastern Socio-Historical Context ​71n48, 161, 171, 246n37, 275n28, 282, 328 – Hittites ​57, 58, 74, 103 – Hurrian ​133n34 – Mesopotamian ​30n8, 258 – Philistine ​154n34, 158n53, 166, 175 – Semitic ​133n34, 275n28 – Syriac ​385 Ancient Near Eastern Law ​207–209, 209n7, 214, 216n30 – Anatolian ​214n26 – Mesopotamian ​214n26 – Middle Assyrian ​214n26 Ancient Near Eastern Literature and Languages ​64, 162, 207, 216n30, 234, 255, 259–263, 268, 282n45 – Akkadian ​31n11, 155n39, 155n40, 273n19 – Anatolian ​214n26 – Arabic ​386n15, 396, 399–400, 400n73 – Aramaic ​130n25, 395, 395n55, 400, 400n74 – Babylonian ​255, 300 – Mesopotamian – Ugaritic ​165n76, 290n15 Angel of Elohim ​20, 22–25, 64–66, 65n25, 65n27, 66n28, 69n38, 70, 72–74, 76–81, 76n59, 77n63, 77n64, 78n65, 97, 112, 184, 347, 401 Anointing ​164, 197, 202n50, 214, 222, 252, 279, 283 Anthropromorphism ​54n6, 65, 71, 73n53 Aphek ​175 Arad, King of ​40–41 Archaeology ​20n4, 21n9, 174, 174n4, 299n45, 304 Ark of the Covenant ​78n65, 118, 137, 175–176, 271, 327

Index of Subjects

Athaliah ​148, 153, 156, 158, 158n54, 159, 167n83 Arad ​299n45 Aram ​384 Arameans ​148, 150, 169, 395–396, 395n54 Aristarchus ​208n5 Arnon ​40 Atonement ​112, 294n29, 354, 362–379 – Day of ​163n68, 354, 359, 362–379 Atrahasis ​258 Authorship ​316, 320, 381–406 – Mosaic ​385, 387, 392, 395, 404 Baal-Peor ​27, 43, 43n38, 45n42, 52, 291 Babel, Tower of ​72n52, 72n53, 192, 231 Babylonian Exile ​120n96, 244n32, 252n54, 308, 310n16, 332, 339n8, 345n39, 349, 349n52, 396 Bahya ben Asher ​15n26, 387 Balaam ​40–45, 41n37, 382–384, 383n7, 384n9, 388–390, 396, 399, 399n68 Balak ​40–42, 41n37, 45, 383, 383n9, 389n27 Bamot ​40 Baruch Halevi Epstein ​388n21, 392–393 Baruch Spinoza ​399, 399n71 Bashon ​40–43, 41n36, 45 Bathsheba ​178 Beer ​40 Beer-Sheba ​19 Beeri ​405n90 Bet Lei Inscriptions ​296n38, 298n40 Bela son of Beor ​384n9 Ben Yehuda, Eliezer (EBY ) ​285, 289n12, 290n16 Benjamin, Tribe of ​174, 174n6 Beor ​384n9 Beth Shemesh ​78n65 Bethel ​23–25, 317 Bezalel ​173, 194, 197–200, 205 Bildad the Shuite ​383, 395 Blaise Pascal ​400n73 Blindness ​244 Blood ​130, 156, 157, 166, 221–223, 226n55, 278, 283–284, 327, 354, 363– 364, 364n27 Book of the Covenant ​95–96, 95n35, 99, 116n87, 208–209, 216

447

Book of the Torah ​116–119 Bride-Price ​250, 250n45 Burial ​32, 169, 178n24 Burning Bush, The ​65, 65n27 Buz ​384 Cain ​398 Caleb ​31, 36 Canaan(ites) ​19–21, 20n4, 33, 40–41, 50, 72–76, 78, 80n74, 94, 109, 119n92, 140, 260, 271, 290, 294, 298n40, 386, 386n18 Carians ​159, 163n69 Census ​35, 42, 45–48, 48n50, 50–51, 157, 157n49, 165, 165n74, 167, 172 Cheribum (Kerubim) ​124, 137, 153n29, 175, 186n56, 271 Childbirth ​267 Chronicler, The ​157n49, 164–169, 173– 190 Circumcision ​242n22 Cloud, of Yahweh ​30, 39, 55, 59, 60–61, 65–66, 69n38, 70–72, 70n41, 80, 86, 92n28, 93, 107, 110–111, 111n74, 113, 113n79, 124 Code of Hammurabi ​209n7, 285n1 Codex – Alexandrinus ​200n45, 228n60 – Leningrad ​193n14 – Vaticanus ​228n60 Cognitive Metaphor Theory (See Cognitive Semantics) Cognitive Semantics ​290n16, 294n29, 298n41, 323n67 Commandments ​35, 62, 84n2, 85, 89, 89n16, 92–93, 95, 98n43, 99, 101, 101n48, 103, 110–111, 119n92, 217, 226n55, 296, 325, 335n110, 355, 358, 361, 377 Compiler ​11–12, 16, 24–25, 28n4, 58, 68, 69n37, 88, 88n13, 88n14, 89n17, 91n19, 91n20, 92n25, 95, 96n38, 97, 98, 98n42, 100, 101n52, 104, 104n54, 105n55, 106n56, 108, 108n65, 114, 114n81, 115n84, 121, 328 Conquest, The ​31n11, 50, 123, 131 – Of Canaan ​386n18 – Of Moab ​41n35 – Of Amorites ​43

448

Index of Subjects

Copying (See also Scribal Practice) ​26, 69n37, 74, 75, 75n56, 186, 209n7, 224, 225n52, 327, 328, 367 Corpses ​36, 38n27, 48–49, 49n55, 159, 347 Covenant ​37, 58, 62, 72n50, 76–78, 78n65, 84–85, 84n2, 87–89, 93n32, 94–100, 96n38, 98n43, 111, 111n76, 117n87, 119n92, 136n46, 158n54, 159, 271, 301, 315, 318, 327–328, 331n92, 345–346, 346n43, 348–350 Creation ​123, 131n28, 172, 208, 217n33, 255–268, 283 Critical Race Studies ​238n4, 240n13 Cult Centralization ​118, 177–178, 177n19, 177n22 Curse ​299n43, 324n72, 327–329, 331 Dagan ​217n30 David ​13, 136–140, 143, 154n33, 164, 173–174, 177–178, 178n28, 181–190, 181n41, 182n43, 186n55, 186n59, 294n29, 384n10, 401 – City of ​133, 137–140, 160n58, 169, 178–179, 178n24, 181–182, 185–187, 186n55, 187n61, 190 – House of ​150, 158 – Tent of ​178n27, 179n32, 186n59 David ben Shlomo Ibn Zimra ​387n19 David Moses Strashun ​403, 403n84 Dead Sea Scrolls (See Qumran) ​28n4, 346n43 Decalogue, The ​62, 89n17, 107 Defilement ​43, 237, 249–252, 353 Deities (ANE/Foreign) – Baal ​148–149, 154, 158n54, 159–160 Deuteronomist, The ​145–147, 149, 151, 170–171 Deuteronomistic History and Literature (DtrH) ​15, 98, 134n36, 136, 136n46, 145–147, 149, 151, 155, 162, 167n83, 170, 171 Dinah ​240n12, 384n10 Disability Studies ​244–246, 244n32 Dittography ​5n1, 46n42, 67n33, 73– 75 Divorce ​248–251, 248n42, 262 Dream ​25, 180, 180n35, 401

Eden, The Garden of ​72n52, 72n53 Edom(ites) ​17, 32, 36, 40, 41, 293n28, 383, 384n9, 395, 395n54, 400 Egypt(ians) ​5–17, 36, 36n24, 37, 65, 75, 79, 80n74, 83, 88n14, 260, 291, 293n28, 298n40, 341, 384n10, 386, 392 El Shaddai ​65n27 Elders – Manassite ​275–276 – Israelites ​71n46, 88n13, 106n56, 108, 110, 112, 124 Eleazar ​37–38, 44n40, 45 Eleazar b. R. Shimon, R. ​366 Eleazar b. R. Yose, R. ​366n34 Eli ​125–126, 130, 142, 163 Eliezer, R. ​361n23, 377, 378, 378n59, 379 Eliezer b. Elijah Ashkenazi the Physician ​ 389, 389n27 Elijah ​97, 97n40, 97n41, 288n10 Eliphaz the Temanite ​383, 393–395, 398n64, 402 Eliyahu ben Asher Halevi Ashkenazi [Eliah Levite or Eliyahu Bachur] ​ 387n19 Elohim ​19–21, 23–25 Embodiment ​64, 70, 79, 240, 242n21, 243, 254, 292, 317n47, 322–323, 326 En-Gedi ​13, 298n40 Enlightenment ​405 Enuma Elish ​258–259 Escher ​224, 224n48 Ethanim ​133, 133n34, 140 Ephraim ​347 Esau ​20–21, 21n12, 23n17, 25, 383, 385n11, 393–394 Etiology ​68–69, 68n34, 217n33, 261, 261n15, 265 Eve ​72n53 Exodus, The ​53, 66n28, 70n42, 80, 83, 208, 270, 281, 282 Fat ​125, 221, 221n40 Festivals – Emariot Zukru ​217n30 – New Moon ​164 – Succoth ​20n4, 133, 140, 374 Flood ​38, 208, 260, 397

Index of Subjects

First Temple Period ​120n96, 150n14, 166, 167n83, 170–172, 175, 188–190 Gad(ites) ​35, 50 Gaonim ​392n41 Genealogy ​169, 187, 253n55, 254, 298 Gender Studies ​237–254 Gersonides ​387n19 Gibeon ​135, 173–190 Gilgamesh ​275n28 Golden Calf, The ​15, 72n50, 72n51, 84, 96n38, 108–110, 112, 119, 119n92 Goshen ​6, 6n4, 319 Haddad ​383 Hagar ​21n10, 239 Halakha ​360–361, 392, 392n41, 393n45 Haran ​395 Harmonization ​32, 41n34, 59n10, 88, 89n17, 106n57, 108n65, 169n86, 219n38, 225n50, 271n10 Hayim Hirschensohn ​388n21, 391–393, 392n41, 392n42, 392n43, 393n45, 404 Hazerot ​30n6, 33 Hazael ​161, 161n63 Hellenistic Era ​28n4 Heterarchies ​239–240 Hezekiah ​120n96, 189, 291n17, 296n37, 404n88 Hezekiah b. Manoah ​194n16, 202n50 High Priesthood ​37, 37n26, 44n40, 45, 145–172, 194, 214–215, 219n36, 222– 227, 226n55, 237, 239, 239n6, 240, 243–254, 244n30, 245n34, 246n37, 251n49, 278, 283, 301, 316, 317, 320, 377 – Aaron ​37, 113, 280 – Eleazar ​37, 45 – Jehoida ​148, 150, 163 – Midian ​10 – Zodak ​182 Historiography ​143, 146, 208n2, 210, 231, 317 Hiyya, R. ​226n55 Hizquni ​15n26 Hizzequni ​294n30 Holiness Code, The ​216 Homeoteleuton ​74n56

449

Hor, Mount ​29, 30, 32, 34–37, 36n22, 40–42, 44–45, 47–50 Horeb ​16, 53–54, 54n6, 61–62, 66n30, 70n41, 81, 93n32, 96–97, 101n48, 105, 106n56, 108–110, 109n67, 109n69, 110n69, 110n73, 111–114, 111n73, 113n79, 116–117, 119–120, 119n119, 270, 277, 317, 320–321, 331 Hormah ​40–41 House of God (See also Bethel; Temple; Tabernacle; Sacntuary; Tent of Meeting) ​163, 188–189, 189n67, 317 Idolatry ​94, 158–159, 169, 358 Impurity ​48–51, 251n48, 158, 237n2, 244, 251n48, 252, 252n54, 256, 266–267, 293n26, 293n27, 198n41, 353–379, 358n19 – Corpse ​38n27, 48–49, 49n55 – Sexual ​163, 163n68 Inheritance ​275–276, 299n42, 331 Intermarriage ​94 Intersectionality ​237–254 Isaac ​57, 65, 73–75, 384 Isaac Abarbanel ​391, 391n37, 393, 393n45, 404, 405n91 Isaac ben Moses Arama ​389, 390, 391, 391n36, 393, 402n80 Isaiah di Trani ​293n28 Israel Schwartz ​396n57, 396n58 Iyye Abarim ​29–30, 40–42, 44, 50 Jabbok River, The ​20–22, 20n4, 21n9, 23, 25 Jacob ​1, 19–26, 51, 57, 65n25, 65n27, 73–75, 288n10, 293n27, 293n28, 295n33, 315, 318–319, 324, 384, 384n10 Jacob Ben Asher, R. ​225n51 Jamini-mīmāmsā-sūtra ​211n16 Jealousy ​94, 288 Jehoash ​145–172 Jehoiada ​148, 151–153, 155–156, 158– 160, 160n58, 162, 164, 169, 169n86 Jehoram ​178n24 Jehosheba ​148, 160, 163 Jehu ​148, 158–159, 297 Jericho ​29, 35, 45, 47n47

450

Index of Subjects

Jerusalem ​118, 137, 143, 148, 160, 161n63, 163, 170, 174n6, 176–179, 178n28, 179n33, 181, 182, 182n43, 183n47, 184, 187–189, 191, 243n28, 293n28, 301, 303n58, 308, 316, 346, 347, 349, 367 Jethro ​10, 10n16, 16, 111n73, 118n91, 119, 385n11 Jobab ​383, 383n8, 384n9, 394n49 Jonah ibn Janah ​202n50 Jordan, Valley of ​20n4, 21n9, 24, 35, 45, 330 Joseph ​6n4, 17, 88n14, 125n6, 297, 319, 384 – Bones of ​16 Joseph Albo ​387n19 Joseph b. David Ibn Yahya ​402–403, 402n79, 402n80, 403n82, 405n91, 405n92 Joseph b. Eliezer (Bonfils) ​392n40 Josiah Ben Joseph Pinto ​387n19 Joseph Caspi ​396–398, 397n59, 398n64 Joseph Kara, R. ​398n65 Josephus ​125 Joshua (character) ​31, 36, 44n40, 124, 186n57, 288, 328–329, 382, 382n4, 391 Josiah ​116–118, 159–160, 168, 296n37, 328 Josiah’s Reform ​120n96, 153n29 Judah, R. ​49n55 Judah Leib Ben-Ze’ev ​399–400, 400n72 Judah(ites) ​22, 25, 148, 159, 160, 160n58, 170, 178n24, 196n26, 201n46, 301, 319, 338, 346n43, 347, 403 Judaism ​285, 307, 307n, 307n2, 309 – Mysticism ​264n23 Kadesh ​29, 30n7, 31–32, 31n10, 32n14, 37 Kennicott Manuscript ​202, 204 Kibroth-hattavah ​79 Korah ​36, 38, 38n27, 50 Kuntillet ‘Ajrud ​298n40 Lachish ​299n45 Late Iron Age ​261, 261n15, 296n38 LXX (See Septuagint) ​46–47, 59–60, 71n44, 77n64, 92n28, 124n3, 125–126,

126n10, 128n15, 128n17, 130–135, 134n38, 135n39, 138, 138n49, 148n6, 156, 156n46, 157n48, 169n86, 187n62, 204, 219n38, 224–225, 224n49, 225n50, 229n61, 272n12, 272n14, 275n27, 299n43, 300n49, 339n9, 341n12, 383, 383n8, 384n9 Leprosy ​112, 217n33 Levi and Moshe Ibn Tibbon ​399n69 Levi b. Abraham ​399, 399n68 Levites, The ​38n27, 48, 49n55, 116, 118, 124, 129, 134, 134n36, 163, 164, 168, 181–182, 182n44, 183, 188, 188n66, 220n39, 315–316, 320, 327 Listenwissenschaft ​282n45 Lot ​64–65 Mahanaim ​20–23, 20n5, 21n9, 25 Maharal of Prague ​387n19 Maimonides, Moses ​273, 273n21, 293n28, 390, 390n35, 397n60, 400–404, 401n76, 402n78, 403n86, 404n87 Malbim [Meir Leibush ben Yehiel Michel Wisser] ​387n19 Manna ​39, 51, 51n58, 79 Manuscripts – Berlin ​366n34, 374n49, 374n50 – Cambridge (Lowe) ​363, 365n31, 377n54 – Kaufman ​357, 359, 363, 366n33, 371, 371n43, 377 – Paris ​382 – Parma de Rossi ​363, 365n31, 371n45, 377n54 – Vatican ​360 – Vienna ​366, 374 Maqlû ​216n30 Masculinity ​238–246, 238n4, 246n37, 253–245, 253n55 Masoretic Text (MT) ​23–25, 46, 59–60, 66n29, 70n41, 92n28, 125–127, 126n9, 126n10, 128n15, 128n17, 130–135, 157, 157n48, 165n76, 185n53, 204–205, 224n49, 225, 225n50, 271n12, 272n14, 288n9, 289n13, 339n9, 340n10, 344, 345n39, 347n48 – Proto-Masoretic ​130–131 Massah ​66, 69n38, 70n40, 79, 319

Index of Subjects

Mattan, Priest of Baal ​159–160 Mattanah ​40 Meir Arama ​390n34, 391n36, 403, 403n82 Meribah ​32, 66, 69n38, 70n40, 79 Meeting Tent ​34–35, 38–39, 44, 44n40 Meir, R. ​359, 371, 373, 378 Meir Simcha of Dvinsk ​387n19 Menahe ha-Meiri ​388, 388n24 Michal ​181 Midian(ites) ​10n16, 27, 28, 34–37, 37n25, 40, 42–52, 43n39, 45n42, 46n42, 49n55 Midrash ​67n33, 68, 68n36, 129, 129n18, 130, 130n25, 142, 218, 226n55, 269n3, 360–361, 385n11, 398 Mikra Bikkurim ​120 Minhat Shai ​195n21, 196n24 Miriam ​32, 112, 124, 217n33, 240n12 – Song of ​10 Mishnah (See Sources Index) ​355, 358– 371, 374–375, 377, 379, 403n86 Mishnaic Hebrew ​191, 192n6 Moab(ites) ​27, 29–30, 34–37, 40–45, 41n35, 41n36, 45n42, 46n42, 47, 47n47, 49n55, 50–52, 62, 119n92, 320–321, 325, 327, 330–331 Monarchy ​246, 239, 243 Monarchic Period ​173 Morality ​249, 251, 319, 323, 362, 369, 237, 244n32 Moshe Ben Jacob Albelda ​389n27 Moshe Ben Yosef di Tirani ​387n19 Moshe David Vally ​387n19 Moses Kimhi ​398n67 Moses Ibn Tibbon ​399, 399n69 Moses Isserles, R. (Rama) ​388, 389n26 Moses Judah Ben Aharon Kutna ​403n82 Mourning ​35, 38–39, 44, 44n40, 52, 109, 238, 238n3, 245–248, 245n34, 254, 328 Nabal ​13 Nadab(v) ​35, 162n66, 280–281 Naftali Herz Tur-Sinai ​400n74, 400n75 Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin ​200n43, 387n19 Nahaliel ​40 Nahmanides ​200n42, 389–390, 390n31, 393, 393n45, 404 Nahor ​384, 385n11 Natan Neta Ben Shlomo Shapira ​387n19

451

Nathan ​136 Nebuchadnezzar ​299 Negev ​40–41 Neo-Babylonian Period ​286, 304 Nissim Moses of Marseille, R. ​388, 388n23 Northern Kingdom ​22–25, 97n40, 97n41 Obed-edom ​138–140 Obot ​29, 30, 40–42, 44, 50 Oholiab ​197–199 Offerings (See Chart on ​236) – Burnt-Offering (‫​ )עולה‬158, 164, 166, 173, 179, 182, 184, 210, 210 n15, 211n18, 221, 227, 230, 227n56, 229n62, 230n64, 281, 329–330, 332, 356, 369, 397 – Cereal (‫​ )מנחה‬210, 210 n14, 210n15, 211n15, 211n17, 216n27, 219n38, 220n38, 229, 281 – Guilt (See also Reparation) ​330, 356, 366n33, 366n35, 370, 377–379 – Reparation (‫​ )אשם‬158, 158n53, 162n65, 166, 166n79, 169, 172, 210, 210n15, 215, 219n36, 219n38, 221, 377 – Purification / Sin (‫​ )חטאת‬158, 158n53, 166, 210, 210n15, 215, 221–224, 226– 227, 230, 278–280, 290, 290n14, 353– 379 – Well-Being (‫​ )שלמים‬158, 164, 210, 210n14, 210n15, 211n15, 214–215, 224, 229, 230, 230n64, 278, 281, 330 Oracle (See also Prophecy) ​282n44, 320n58, 339, 343, 348, 350 Orality ​28n4, 81, 117n87, 145, 307, 308n5, 308n7, 312n27, 312n29, 313– 314, 313n32, 314n34, 320n61, 323, 323n68, 324n72, 326–329, 328n78, 329n81, 331–332, 333n100, 334n103, 334n105, 392n41, 404 Origin Myth (See also Ancient Near Eastern Languages and Literature) ​255, 259n9, 265 Ornan ​178n28, 183 Passover ​270n8, 321, 358, 374 Patriarchs, The ​73–74, 208, 264n23, 310n19

452

Index of Subjects

Patriarchy ​239, 241, 242n21 Penuel ​20–25, 20n4m ​20n5, 21n9, 24n21 Persian Empire (Period) ​28n4, 239, 286, 287, 304, 304, 332, 334n102 Peshitta, The ​195–196, 199n38, 200–204 Phineas ​27, 29, 34, 37–39, 37n25, 37n26, 42, 43n38, 44–47, 50 Pisgah ​40–42 Plagues ​7–11, 8n11, 10n15, 13, 16, 16n29, 17, 31, 36–37, 36n24, 38n27, 42, 45, 46n42, 48, 51, 93, 294 – Blood ​93 – Firstborn ​8n11, 9, 11, 13, 16n29, 17, 36 – Pestilence ​8n11, 93 Pharaoh ​6n4, 7, 8, 9, 10n15, 11, 13, 17 – Rameses ​6n4 Philo ​46–47, 310n19 Post-Biblical Hebrew ​191, 289n12, 341, 342n23, 349 Post-Compilation Insertion (See Redaction) ​7n7, 55n8 Priestly Families ​237–254 Prophecy ​Oracle) ​54n4, 58, 70n41, 77n64, 86, 93, 108, 109n69, 111–120, 111n73, 113n79, 113n80, 114n81, 116n85, 117n89, 118n91, 124, 136n46, 143, 153n29, 158–159, 159n55, 175n12, 272, 274, 286–287, 292n25, 293n25, 296n35, 301, 307n1, 310n17, 313, 316– 319, 316n42, 330, 338–351, 345n41, 348n50, 351, 381, 383–384, 388, 390, 390n33, 391, 391n36, 392n40, 398, 400– 406, 401n76, 402n78, 405n90 – Of Ezekiel ​338–351, 338n2, 339n6, 346n45, 348, 349n52, 351n62 – Former Prophets ​124, 127, 145–151, 162, 167, 167n83, 170–172 – Of Gog ​338n5, 339n9 Prostitution ​237, 249–252 Pseudo-Rashi ​398n65 Queen of Sheba ​384n10 Qumran (See Dead Sea Scrolls) ​26n24, 125–126, 126n10, 130, 191, 213n24, 337n1, 341n17, 351n62, 364n27, 367n37, 385 Qumran Hebrew ​191

Rabbinic Hebrew ​376 Rafael Emanuel Hai Ricchi ​387n19 Radak ​157n48, 405n91 Ramban ​271n9 Rape ​218 Rashbam ​15n25, 64n23, 70n39 Rashi ​65n25, 67n33, 68n36, 70n39, 77n64, 155n41, 157n48, 202n50, 271n11, 273, 293n28, 294n30, 386–387, 390n30 Rava ​364n28 Reception ​37n26, 83, 87, 116, 124, 268, 306, 386–403, 403n85 Redaction ​11, 12, 16, 27–52, 28n4, 34n20, 41n34, 45n42, 59n10, 88, 146, 149n10, 151, 161n63, 167n83, 177n19, 256n3, 310n16, 338n2 Renaissance ​405n91 Rephidim ​30, 66n30 Reuben(ites) ​35, 50 Revelation (See also Sinai, Horeb) ​19, 39, 53, 53n1, 54–55, 58, 61, 62, 62n15, 62n18, 63–64, 63n21, 66, 69n38, 70–71, 70n41, 70n43, 71n48, 72n53, 76n61, 77–78, 77n63, 80–82, 83, 84, 87, 91–94, 97, 105, 107, 110–113, 119–120, 120n95, 135, 176, 178, 180, 180n35, 257, 261, 269, 270–274, 281–282, 308n5, 320–321, 321n62, 400–401 Rewritten Bible ​174, 337n1, 343n24, 344 Rome, Related to ​20n4, 28n4, 292n25 Saadia Gaon, R. ​386–387 Sabbath ​152, 152n20, 203, 212n20, 217n33, 255, 257, 358 Samaritan Pentateuch ​193n14, 194–197, 197n30, 197n32, 199n38, 199n40, 200– 201, 202n50, 203–204, 219n38, 225, 225n50 Samuel, The Character of ​13, 163, 382– 383, 389, 402–403 Samuel b. Meir ​194n16 Samuel Zanvil Sternberg ​403, 403n83 Sanctuary (See also House of God; Tabernacle; Temple; Tent of Metting) ​ 38n27, 49n52, 136, 166, 173–190, 222,

Index of Subjects

245n34, 255–268, 278–279, 316, 353– 355, 357–379, 357n14, 358n17, 358n19, 364n27, 366n36, 367n37 Sarah ​35, 239 Sarai ​21n10 Saul ​13 Scribal Practice ​10, 28n4, 29n4, 59n10, 60, 126, 132, 134n36, 136, 137, 158n51, 161–162, 171–172, 359n20, 395n52, 398, 223, 326 – Error ​46n42, 55n8, 67n33, 67n33, 74, 135, 197n28, 208, 347n48, 363n26, 371n43 Sea of Reeds, The ​40–41 Second Temple Period, The ​28n4, 124, 154n35, 160, 167n83, 168–169, 174– 175, 175n11, 175n12, 176, 176n17, 181, 183, 187–188, 190, 228n57, 243, 246, 333n100, 335n111, 335n112, 340n9, 341, 342n18, 347–351, 348n50, 367n37, 378, 385 Seed ​155, 252–253 Seir ​384 – Mount of ​20 Semen (See also Seed) 252 Septuagint, The (LXX) ​26, 125–126, 130– 131, 134, 137–138, 140, 142, 195–196, 197n29, 199n40, 200n45, 201–204 Sexual Beahvior ​37n25, 39, 43n39, 126, 163, 237, 237n1, 238n3, 241, 245n34, 249–254, 253n55, 358 Shechem ​24–25 Shem Tov Ibn Shem Tov ​387n19 Shiloh ​125–126, 143n55, 149, 1486n55 Shimon, R. ​364n27, 371–374, 371n45 Shlomo Molkho ​387, 388n21 Shohite ​383 Sihon ​40–41 Simeon b. Tzemah Duran (Rashbatz) ​ 388–399, 388n25, 399n70 Sinai, The Pericope of ​27, 29, 29n5, 32n13, 47, 53–82, 83, 86, 92–93, 98n42, 99–100, 106n56, 107n58, 109n66, 114, 120n95, 141, 163, 258, 261n14, 270, 271, 271n10, 291, 294, 317, 320–321, 330 Slavery ​7n7, 15, 36, 209, 209n7, 239, 248– 249, 260

453

Sodom ​64, 314 Solomon ​130–142, 158, 174, 176–181, 177n19, 177n20, 177n21, 178n26, 177n28, 180n35, 180n36, 183, 186, 190, 401, 405n90 Solomon Ben R. Shmuel ha-Tzarfati ​ 395n55 Solomon Tzvi Schück ​387n19, 403n82 Spies Narratives, The ​30–31, 32n13, 33, 36, 50, 78n65, 79, 79n71, 80n72, 81n77, 294, 384n10 Tabernacle (See also House of God; Temple; Tent of Meeting; Sanctuary) ​ 15, 38n27, 48–49, 49n55, 62, 62n17, 62n18, 83, 87n8, 101, 113n80, 114, 114n81, 123–143, 149, 153, 155, 157, 163–165, 168, 173–174, 177, 177n21, 178n26, 179–191, 187n60, 187n61, 189n66, 189n70, 191–205, 258, 264n23, 270–271, 270n8, 277, 282, 293n27 Tablets of the Covenant ​100 Tablets of the Testimony ​84n2, 85, 90n18, 98n42 Taberah ​79 Tannaim ​361, 361n25, 363n26, 366, 366n33 Targumim ​199n38, 200 – Cairo Geniza ​196, 203n55, 204 – Neofiti ​195–196, 197n28, 201–204 – Onkelos ​129, 193n14, 195–197, 201– 204 – Pseudo-Jonathan ​194–196, 201–204 – Samaritan ​193n14, 196, 204n58, 204,59 Tell Deir’ Alla ​20n4 Teman(ite) ​383, 393–394, 402 Temple ​71n48, 116, 118, 126, 130–143, 145, 147–172, 153n26, 153n29, 154n35, 155n40, 156n45, 158n51, 158n54, 160n60, 161n63, 162n64, 162n66, 163n68, 167n83, 173n2, 174–176, 181, 183–191, 186n56, 188n66, 189n66, 189n69, 189n70, 190n72, 243–246, 245n34, 252–253, 263–264, 264n23, 334, 349, 367, 405 – Ancient Near Eastern ​71n48, 161

454

Index of Subjects

Tent of Meeting (See also House of God; Tabernacle; Temple; Sanctuary) ​88n13, 101n48, 108, 109n69, 110, 110n73, 111n73, 112–114, 113n79, 113n80, 115n84, 116n85, 118–119, 121, 123– 143, 165, 175, 179–181, 180n36, 186– 189, 186n55, 186n59, 189n67, 189n69, 226, 270–271, 271n10, 271n11 Testomony (See also Witness) ​85, 85n3, 98n42, 99, 124, 327–328, 327n75, 331, 356 Threshing Floor ​133, 178n28, 183, 220n39 Tithe ​220n39 Tombs ​169, 178n24, 304 Toxicity ​292–295, 292n25, 293n27, 306 Transjordan, The ​35, 50 Trumpets ​154, 164–165, 168–169, 169n85 Tulul adh-Dhahab ​20n4, 21n9 Tzelofḥad ​275–276 Tzvi Hirsch Hayut ​387n19 Unleavened Bread ​11, 216 Urtext ​26n24 Uz ​383–384, 395, 395n54, 396, 402 Veil ​86, 101, 195–196 Vidal Ben Isaac ha-Zarfati ​393n44 Visions – Chariot ​341 – Dry Bones ​337–351, 339n7, 339n9 – Temple Vision, The ​214n26, 339n9 – War ​341 Vorlage ​132, 135, 156n46, 187n62, 224n49, 225n50 Vow ​19, 24–26, 157, 158n51, 192 – Nazirite, The ​378 Vulgate, The ​129n23, 193n14, 195–196, 199n38, 199n40, 200–204, 272n12

Wadi – az-Zarqa ​20, 20n4, 21n9 – Zered ​40 Weeping ​34–35, 34n21, 38, 44, 44n40 Widow ​248–249, 248n42, 251–252, 251n49 Wiederaufnahme ​134, 137, 148 Wilderness, The ​8n11, 21n10, 27–52, 31n11, 163, 174, 184, 189n66, 245n34, 271, 274, 319, 386, 395n55 – Of Paran ​29, 29n5, 30, 31, 31n10, 32, 32n13, 32, 48 – Of Sinai ​27, 29, 30, 32n13, 34 – Of Zin ​30, 31, 31n10, 32, 36, 48 Wisdom ​145, 243n25, 303n58, 314, 320, 320n61, 385n14, 388–389, 396 Witness (See also Testimony) ​72n53, 84, 148, 327, 349, 364, 387 Yehuda Ben Moshe Chalava ​387n19 Yehuda the Patriarch, R. ​360–361, 371– 373 Yehoiakin ​299–300 Yehoiaqim ​300 Yosef Ben Eliyahu Halevi ​393n44 Zadok(ites) ​168, 182, 243n28 Zadok-ha-Kohen Rabinowitz ​393n44, 403n82 Zechariah (character) ​169 Zedekiah ​300 Zeira, R. ​364n28 Zepho ​383 Zerahiah b. Isaac b. Shealtiel Hen, R. ​396, 396n57 Zev Wolf Einhorn ​387n19 Zielinski’s Law ​208n5 Zion ​120, 120n96, 316 Zionist ​392 Zophar the Naamathite ​383, 395

Forschungen zum Alten Testament Edited by Corinna Körting (Hamburg) · Konrad Schmid (Zürich) Mark S. Smith (Princeton) · Andrew Teeter (Harvard)

FAT I publishes works that give important momentum to Old Testament research all over the world. There are no religious or denominational preferences, and the series has no limits defined by certain positions. The sole determining factor for the acceptance of a manuscript is its high level of scholarship. Monographs, including habilitations, essay collections by established scholars and conference volumes on key subjects from the fields of theology and religious history define the profile of the series. FAT II makes a point of publishing outstanding works of scholars at the beginning of their career and welcomes explorative research. As in FAT I, there are no religious or denominational preferences, and the series has no limits defined by certain positions. In addition to dissertations and monographs by recent doctorates and established scholars, FAT  II publishes conference volumes on subjects from the fields of theology and religious history with an interdisciplinary focus. FAT I: ISSN: 0940-4155 Suggested citation: FAT I All published volumes at www.mohrsiebeck.com/fat1

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