Bible as a Human Witness to Divine Revelation: Hearing the Word of God Through Historically Dissimilar Traditions

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LIBRARY OF HEBREW BIBLE/ OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES

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

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

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

Editorial Board Richard J. Coggins, Alan Cooper, John Goldingay, Robert P. Gordon, Norman K. Gottwald, Gina Hens-Piazza, John Jarick, Andrew D. H. Mayes, Carol Meyers, Patrick D. Miller, Yvonne Sherwood

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THE BIBLE AS A HUMAN WITNESS TO DIVINE REVELATION

Hearing the Word of God Through Historically Dissimilar Traditions

edited by

Randall Heskett and Brian Irwin

Copyright © 2010 by Randall Heskett and Brian Irwin

Published by T & T Clark International A Continuum imprint 80 Maiden Lane, New York, NY 10038 The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX www.continuumbooks.com Visit the T & T Clark blog at www.tandtclarkblog.com All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher, T & T Clark International.

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

ISBN: 978-0567-02851-8 (hardback) Typeset and copy-edited by Forthcoming Publications Ltd. (www.forthpub.com) Printed in the United States of America by Thomson-Shore, Inc

Gerald Sheppard (April 26, 1946 – November 15, 2003)


CONTENTS Preface Acknowledgments Abbreviations List of Contributors

xi xv xvii xxi

Gerald T. Sheppard: A Biographical Sketch

xxiii

Part I HEARING THE WORD OF GOD THROUGH HISTORICALLY DISSIMILAR TRADITIONS PRIESTS FOR THE KINGDOM— TWO PRIESTHOODS FOR TWO REGIMES Walter Brueggemann

3

“IF YOU LISTEN TO MY VOICE…” (EXODUS 19:5): THE MYSTERY OF REVELATION Erich Zenger

15

DEUTERONOMY 29–34 AND THE FORMATION OF THE TORAH Randall Heskett

32

JEHOIACHIN AND JOSEPH: HOPE AT THE CLOSE OF THE DEUTERONOMISTIC HISTORY John E. Harvey

51

SEAMS IN THE BOOK OF ISAIAH: LOOKING FOR ANSWERS Paul D. Wegner

62

SCRIBAL CULTURE AND THE COMPOSITION OF THE BOOK OF ISAIAH Robert R. Wilson

95

AN INTERPRETATION OF THE DEATH OF ISAIAH’S SERVANT Stephen L. Cook

108

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The Bible as Human Witness to Divine Revelation

MICAH 7:8–20: RE-EVALUATING THE IDENTITY OF THE ENEMY James D. Nogalski

125

SOCIAL DRAMA IN THE PSALMS OF INDIVIDUAL LAMENT Norman K. Gottwald

143

ARE INDIVIDUAL COMPLAINT PSALMS REALLY PRAYERS? RECOGNIZING SOCIAL ADDRESS AS CHARACTERISTIC OF INDIVIDUAL COMPLAINTS W. Derek Suderman

153

GOD AS THE OBJECT OF ANGER IN THE PSALMS David John C. Zub

171

THE CONTRIBUTION OF ECCLESIASTES TO BIBLICAL THEOLOGY Peter Enns

185

THE DANIEL AND QOHELET EPILOGUES: A SIMILAR EDITORIAL ACTIVITY? (QOHELET 12:8–14 AND DANIEL 12:1–13) Pedro Zamora

202

JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH: A CASE OF HEARING THE ONE GOSPEL THROUGH HISTORICALLY DISSIMILAR TRADITIONS Frank D. Macchia

223

DIVINE ACTION AND BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION: HOW THE ORDINARY WORDS OF MEN AND WOMEN BECOME THE LIVING WORD OF GOD IN SCRIPTURE Michael T. Dempsey

235

Part II ADDITIONAL STUDIES “COLD DEAD HANDS UPON OUR THRESHOLD”: JOSEPHINE BUTLER’S READING OF THE STORY OF THE LEVITE’S CONCUBINE, JUDGES 19–21 Marion Ann Taylor

259

THE PORTRAYAL OF ASSYRIA IN THE BOOKS OF KINGS Marvin A. Sweeney

274

Contents SPEAKING OR SMOULDERING LIPS IN SONG OF SONGS 7:10 (ENG. 9)? Jennifer Pfenniger

ix

285

ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN APOCALYPTICISM AND THE ORIGINS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON OF SCRIPTURE David G. Meade

302

IN THE BOSOM OF THE BELOVED DISCIPLE: THE FOURTH GOSPEL’S NARRATIVE OPENNESS TO READERS Robert C. Fennell

322

The Published Works of Gerald T. Sheppard

337

Index of References Index of Authors

344 359

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PREFACE This volume is presented with respect and affection in honor and memory of Gerald T. Sheppard. Gerry Sheppard was a person whose work, teaching, and life affected and inuenced many. His publications were numerous and touched on several elds of study. In his over 100 reviews, essays, articles, and books, Gerry Sheppard engaged subjects as diverse as Pentecostalism, history of interpretation, hermeneutics, the canonical approach to the Old Testament, and the interplay between eschatology and politics. This volume celebrates his lifelong devotion to biblical and theological studies and his great breadth of intellectual interests. The contributors have attempted to honor his legacy by focusing on different ways in which the reader of the Bible can hear the word of God even if various historical traditions bear witness to that voice in a dissimilar fashion. Gerry’s longtime friend and mentor Brevard Childs often expressed his deep appreciation for Gerry’s article “Canonization: Hearing the Voice of the Same God through Historically Dissimilar Traditions,”1 and it was at his suggestion that it was chosen as the theme of this Festschrift. Sheppard focused on the formation of whole biblical books and how they functioned within the inter-testimony of scripture. He noted, for example, how the book of Daniel (9:2) calls attention to the book of Jeremiah as being among “the books” ()JCAD3, UBJKCJCMPJK). In his HarperCollins commentary on Isaiah, he advanced the idea that a “text” is a modern concept and Scripture is self-described as a “testimony.” Drawing on Michel Foucault, he described how using the modern term “author” created serious problems in reading ancient scriptures and obfuscated the scriptural function of the “designated writer.” He coined the phrases “canon-conscious” and “scripture-conscious redactions” to distinguish between any ordinary level of tradition history and later editorial levels, which betray consciousness of Scripture. He would say that Old Testament and New Testament writers like the apostle Paul were not conscious that they were writing Scripture. He was equally convinced, 1. Gerald T. Sheppard, “Canonization: Hearing the Voice of the Same God through Historically Dissimilar Traditions,” Int 36, no. 1 (1982): 21–33. 1

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however, that scripture-conscious editors would leave their “publisher’s notes” to give clues on how to interpret the Bible scripturally. Gerry maintained that it was often the case that these scripture-conscious editors would show biblical books to be commentary on Torah (Ps 1:1; Josh 1:7–8; Isa 1:10) or would place the Old Testament within the framework of three idioms of revelation—Torah, Prophets, and Wisdom (Pss 1–2 and 2 Sam 23:1–7). In Isa 8, for example, he showed how later editing semantically transforms the “torah” of the prophet (8:16) to be reminiscent of the Mosaic Torah (8:20). He suggested that the editors of the wisdom literature showed that wisdom is incomplete without hearing it in response to Torah and Prophets (e.g. Prov 30:3–6 answers a series of wisdom quests by citing Torah and Prophets; Qoh 12:13–14 cites from Torah as a solution to Qoheleth’s query). Sheppard called attention to these greater markers in the latter formation of Scripture and in so doing called many to a deeper understanding of Scripture.2 This volume represents just a small cross-section of Gerry’s wide and varied interests. Most of the essays in this collection address the same theme, “Hearing the Word of God Through Historically Dissimilar Traditions”; the rst of these treat this subject in relation to the Torah. In his “Priests for the Kingdom—Two Priesthoods for Two Regimes” Walter Brueggemann, for example, has written an essay on various historical problems within the book of Genesis, beginning with von Rad’s and Noth’s use of source criticism and his own understanding of how historically dissimilar texts can function within Scripture. Erich Zenger considers what it means to hear God’s voice and also describes how hearing God’s voice invokes messianic interpretation. Randall Heskett writes about how dissimilar traditions in Deut 29–34 have been woven together by scripture-conscious editing in order to frame a completed Torah.

2. See his, Wisdom as a Hermeneutical Construct: A Study in the Sapientializing of the Old Testament (BZAW 151; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1979); “Isaiah 1–39,” in Harper’s Bible Commentary (ed. James L. Mays et al.; San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), 542–70; “The Book of Isaiah: Competing Structures According to a Late Modern Description of Its Shape and Scope,” in Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers 1992 (ed. E. H. Lovering Jr.; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars, 1992), 549–82; “The Book of Isaiah as a Human Witness to Revelation within the Religions of Judaism and Christianity,” in Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers 1993 (ed. E. H. Lovering Jr.; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars, 1993), 274–80; “The ‘Scope’ of Isaiah as a Book of Jewish and Christian Scripture,” in New Visions of Isaiah (ed. Roy F. Melugin and Marvin A. Sweeney; JSOTSup 214; Shefeld: Shefeld Academic, 1996), 257–81. 1

Preface

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Several essays focus on the Neviim. In a study connecting Torahtraditions with the Former Prophets, John E. Harvey describes Joseph– Jehoiachin parallels, claiming that DtrH has framed Jehoiachin to be a new Joseph. Four essays treat subjects related to the interpretation and formation of books in the Latter Prophets. Robert R. Wilson and Gerry shared an interest in the prophetic word, as well as an association with Yale University, where Gerry attended some of Professor Wilson’s classes. In his contribution, Professor Wilson explores the impact that scribal culture had on the formation of the book of Isaiah. Paul D. Wegner describes seams in the book of Isaiah in its latter formation. Stephen L. Cook writes on “An Interpretation of the Death of Isaiah’s Servant,” describing the signicance of the Servant’s suffering. Showing the intertestimony between Isaiah and Micah. James Nogalski re-evaluates the identity of the enemy and YHWH’s afrmative response to deliver and restore. In the area of Ketuvim, three pieces take up Gerry’s interest in the Psalter. In his “Social Drama in the Psalms of Individual Lament,” Norman K. Gottwald has provided a social-critical reading of the Psalms that builds on the work of Erhard Gerstenberger and Gerald Sheppard. Derek Suderman discusses how the common tendency to dene prayer as direct address to, or dialogue with, God and then to identify individual complaints as prayers proves fundamentally problematic. David Zub describes how the book of Psalms is a resource that can help give voice to the formful expression of the anger that is so much a part of grief and the human experience. In wisdom literature, Peter Enns depicts how Ecclesiastes (Qoheleth), read in conjunction with other wisdom books, brings to the surface in a profound, theological, and startling sense numerous biblical theological possibilities, which ripely contribute to the conversation of biblical theology. Building on Sheppard’s work on the epilogue of Qohelet (12:8– 14), Pedro Zamora describes how the conclusion to the book of Daniel (Dan 12:1–13) functions similarly. In a testimony to Sheppard’s breadth, theologians Frank D. Macchia and Michael T. Dempsey draw connections between Sheppard’s work on “Hearing the Word of God Through Historically Dissimilar Traditions” and the work of Karl Barth to show how human words testify to divine revelation. Macchia’s article is entitled “Justication by Faith: A Case of Hearing the One Gospel Through Historically Dissimilar Traditions,” and Dempsey writes on “Divine Action and Biblical Interpretation: How the Ordinary Words of Men and Women become the Living Word of God in Scripture.” 1

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While Gerald Sheppard was best known as an Old Testament scholar, his fertile and industrious mind ranged far and wide across the intellectual landscape. This innate curiosity and sweeping interest are reected in the “Additional Studies” that conclude this work. In a fashion that celebrates Gerry’s work in the history of interpretation and his passion for the poor and oppressed, Marion Ann Taylor provides a striking account of Josephine Butler’s reading of the story of the Levite’s Concubine in Judg 19–21. Marvin A. Sweeney, with whom Gerry participated in the Society of Biblical Literature Isaiah seminar, provides a historical study of Assyria in 1–2 Kings. Jennifer Pfenniger’s essay on Song of Songs 7:9 (Eng. 10) suggests a new reading of this verse and offers a glimpse into what was Gerry’s nal area of research. In his contribution, David G. Meade explores how a growing apocalyptic ideology, and the literary output that resulted, led to the development of a “canon consciousness” within the early Christian communities. Robert Fennell writes about the form and function of passages which testify to the “Beloved Disciple” in the Fourth Gospel. Few scholars have responded to the questions of modernity with the originality and breadth reected in the work of Gerald Sheppard. Not only did he show the limits of historical criticisms but also their necessity in describing the formation of Scripture. The contributors and editors hope that this volume will enhance a dialogue that responds to modernity but moves closer to describing the form and function of Scripture. The editors are grateful to T&T Clark International/Continuum and to Anne Sheppard for helping to make this volume possible.

1

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Throughout the life of this project, Gerry’s wife, Anne Sheppard, was generous with her time and insight. Her assistance through personal meetings and many phone conversations was of enormous benefit to the editors. As this project was first developing, conversations with Gerry’s mentor at Yale, the late Brevard Childs, led to the choice of its theme. The editors wish to express their appreciation for Professor Child’s life of scholarship and mentoring that has extended to touch even this undertaking. Our wives, Kim Beckman-Heskett and Elaine Irwin, deserve thanks for their support and encouragement throughout the course of this project. The editors are grateful to Wanda Chin, Registrar of Emmanuel College in Toronto, who at a busy time of the year graciously responded to our requests for assistance. Jonathan Weverink and Natasja Vanderberg in the Advanced Degree office of the Toronto School of Theology, Euan Cameron of Union Seminary in New York City, and Anna Sousa and Jennie Jones of the Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations Department at the University of Toronto assisted with information about Gerry’s activities at their institutions. Thanks are also due to Katie Gallof, our editor at T&T Clark, and to our copy-editor, Duncan Burns of Forthcoming Publications, for their patience, support, and responses to questions during the editorial process.

1


ABBREVIATIONS AB ABRL ABS Agora ALUOS AnBib ANEP ANET Anton AOAT AOTC ARAB ATD AUSS BA BARead BBB BDB BETL BHS Bib BJRL BJS BKAT BN BTB BWA(N)T BZ BZAW CAH CBQ CBQMS 1

Anchor Bible Anchor Bible Reference Library Archaeology and Biblical Studies Agora: A Magazine of Opinion within the Assemblies of God Annual of Leeds University Oriental Society Analecta biblica Ancient Near East in Pictures Relating to the Old Testament. Edited by J. B. Pritchard. Princeton, 1954 Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament. Edited by J. B. Pritchard. 3rd ed. Princeton, 1969 Antonianum Alter Orient und Altes Testament Abingdon Old Testament Commentaries Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia. Daniel David Luckenbill. 2 vols. Chicago, 1926–27 Das Alte Testament Deutsch Andrews University Seminary Studies Biblical Archaeologist Biblical Archaeologist Reader Bonner biblische Beiträge Brown, F., S. R. Driver, and C. A. Briggs. A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament. Oxford, 1907 Biblioteca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. Edited by K. Elliger and W. Rudolph. Stuttgart, 1983 Biblica Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester Brown Judaic Studies Biblischer Kommentar, Altes Testament. Edited by M. Noth and H. W. Wolff Biblische Notizen Biblical Theology Bulletin Beiträge zur Wissenschaft vom Alten (und Neuen) Testament Biblische Zeitschrift Beiheft zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Cambridge Ancient History Catholic Biblical Quarterly Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series

xviii CC CD ConBOT COS CTM DibHam Dtr DtrH EBib ETL EvT ExpTim FAT FOTL FzB GBS HALOT

HAT HKAT HTKAT HTR HTS HUCA IBC ICC Int JANESCU JBL JEH JETS JQR JSJSup JSNTSup JSOTSup KAT KHC LD LHBOTS LSTS LXX

M Marc. 1

The Bible as Human Witness to Divine Revelation Continental Commentaries Cairo Damascus Coniectanea biblica: Old Testament Series The Context of Scripture. Edited by W. W. Hallo. 3 vols. Leiden, 1997–2002 Concordia Theological Monthly Dibre Hame’orot (Words of the Luminaries) Deuteronomist Deuteronomistic History Etudes biblique Ephemerides theologicae lovanienses Evangelische Theologie Expository Times Forschungen zum Alten Testament Forms of the Old Testament Literature Forschung zur Bibel Guides to Biblical Scholarship Koehler, L., W. Baumgartner, and J. J. Stamm. The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Translated and edited under the supervision of M. E. J. Richardson. 4 vols. Leiden, 1994–99 Handbuch zum Alten Testament Handkommentar zum Alten Testament Herders theologischer Kommentar zum Alten Testament Harvard Theological Review Harvard Theological Studies Hebrew Union College Annual Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Preaching and Teaching International Critical Commentary Interpretation Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society of Columbia University Journal of Biblical Literature Journal of Ecclesiastical History Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society Jewish Quarterly Review Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism Journal for the Study of the New Testament: Supplement Series Journal for the Study of the Old Testament: Supplement Series Kommentar zum Alten Testament Kurzer Hand-Commentar zum Alten Testament Lectio divina Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies Library of Second Temple Studies Septuagint MilÜamah (War Scroll) Adversus Marcionem

Abbreviations ModTheol MT

NCB NEchtB NJPS

NTSup OBO OBT OTE OTL Pneuma QD QM RA RB RevExp RevQ RRelRes SBLDS SBLEJL SBLSP SBLSymS SBS SBT SHS ST SWARC Tg. Ps.-J. ThTo TJ TOTC TS TynBul VT VTSup WBC WMANT WUNT ZAW ZDMG ZS ZTK

1

Modern Theology Masoretic text New Century Bible Neue Echter Bibel Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures: The New JPS Translation according to the Traditional Hebrew Text Supplements to Novum Testamentum Orbis Biblicus et orientalis Overtures to Biblical Theology Old Testament Essays Old Testament Library Pneuma: Journal for the Society of Pentecostal Studies Quaestiones disputatae Qumran MilÜamah (War Scroll) Revue d’assyriologie et d’archéologie orientale Revue biblique Review and Expositor Revue de Qumran Review of Religious Research Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series Society of Biblical Literature Early Judaism and its Literature Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series Stuttgarter Bibelstudien Studies in Biblical Theology Scripture and Hermeneutics Series Studia theologica Studies from the World Alliance of Reformed Churches Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Theology Today Trinity Journal Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries Texts and Studies Tyndale Bulletin Vetus Testamentum Supplements to Vetus Testamentum Word Biblical Commentary Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft Zeitschrift für Semitistik und verwandte Gebiete Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche

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CONTRIBUTORS Walter Brueggemann. Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia. Stephen L. Cook. Catherine N. McBurney Professor of Old Testament Language and Literature at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia. Michael T. Dempsey. Associate Professor of Theology at St. John’s University in New York City. Peter Enns, Ph.D. (Harvard). An independent scholar living in Lansdale, Pennsylvania. Robert C. Fennell. Assistant Professor, Systematic and Historical Theology at Atlantic School of Theology in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Norman K. Gottwald. Adjunct Professor of Old Testament, Pacic School of Religion in Berkeley, California and Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies at New York Theological Seminary in New York City. John E. Harvey. Instructor in Biblical Studies at Thorneloe University and Registrar at Thorneloe College School of Theology, both in Sudbury, Ontario. Randall Heskett. President of Boulder University. Brian P. Irwin. Assistant Professor of Old Testament/Hebrew Scripture at Knox College, a Presbyterian seminary on the campus of the University of Toronto. Frank D. Macchia. Professor of Systematic Theology at Vanguard University of Southern California in Costa Mesa, California. 1

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David G. Meade, Ph.D. (Nottingham). A retired New Testament scholar and United Methodist minister living in Rochester, New York. James D. Nogalski. Professor of Old Testament at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Jennifer Pfenniger. Adjunct Lecturer in Hebrew Language at Emmanuel College, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario. W. Derek Suderman. Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Conrad Grebel University College, a Mennonite college at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario. Marvin A. Sweeney. Professor of Hebrew Bible at Claremont School of Theology and Professor of Religion at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California. Marion Ann Taylor. Professor of Old Testament at Wycliffe College at the University of Toronto. Paul D. Wegner. Professor of Old Testament at Phoenix Seminary in Phoenix, Arizona. Robert R. Wilson. Hoober Professor of Religious Studies and Professor of Old Testament at Yale Divinity School in New Haven, Connecticut. Pedro Zamora. Professor of Old Testament and Rector at Seminario Evangélico Unido de Teología in El Escorial, Spain. Erich Zenger. Professor Emeritus of Old/First Testament, University of Münster, Münster, Germany. David John C. Zub, Th.D. (Emmanuel College). A theologian and ordained minister in the United Church of Canada.

1

GERALD T. SHEPPARD: A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Gerald Thomas Sheppard was born in Memphis, Tenn. on April 26, 1946 and died November 15, 2003 in the company of his wife Anne in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Gerry touched many lives through his scholarship, teaching, humor, and his relationships with students, colleagues, and friends. As a boy, Gerry once took rst place in a standing broad jump competition. The single-minded focus, coiled energy, and joy in achievement that he brought to athletics served him well in his intellectual pursuits and propelled him to outstanding academic achievement at every level. He began his college career at Bethany Bible College (now Bethany University), an Assemblies of God school in Santa Cruz, Calif. During his sophomore year, however, he switched to the elds of chemistry and physics at the nearby Contra Costa College where he quickly distinguished himself by winning the “Chemical Publishing Handbook Award in Qualitative Analysis.” Later, he returned to Bethany where he resumed his study of the Bible and became Student Body President. On completing his bachelor’s degree, Gerry enrolled at Fuller Theological Seminary where he won a “Layne Foundation Fellowship.” From Fuller, Gerry moved on to Yale Divinity School to study under Brevard Childs. While at Yale, he continued his pattern of academic success, once again receiving a “Layne Foundation Fellowship” and adding to it the “William F. Butler Fellowship.” While a doctoral student he served as a Teaching Fellow for Hebrew and Introduction to Old Testament and later as Instructor in Biblical Hebrew. Most notably, it was at Yale that Gerry became a valued conversation partner with Childs as the latter worked through the ramications of his developing canonical approach. It was at Yale that Gerry also developed into a creative biblical scholar in his own right. On completing his doctorate, Gerry accepted a position at Union Theological Seminary in New York City (1976–85) eventually rising to the rank of “Associate Professor of Old Testament.” Life in New York was expensive, and so even while enjoying the prestige of a position at Union, Gerry would spend his evenings working as a copy editor for a local publisher. Later, he would say that it was the material he read while “moonlighting” that contributed to his wide range of interests. 1

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While in New York, Gerry moved beyond the walls of Union to support other, often-neglected, Christian communities in the city. On one occasion he was invited to speak at a Pentecostal graduation ceremony at 125th St. in Harlem. As he was leaving his ofce with his Yale doctoral robe draped over his arm, a colleague asked him where he was going. On hearing Gerry’s answer, the colleague responded, “You must have a wonderful ministry with those people.” When Gerry nished speaking at the Pentecostal graduation, a man in attendance asked him where he taught. Hearing Gerry’s reply, the man replied, “You must have a wonderful ministry with those people”! In 1985, Gerry moved to Toronto with his second wife Anne and his two sons and stepdaughter. There he assumed the position of “Associate Professor of Old Testament Literature and Exegesis” at Emmanuel College in Victoria University at the University of Toronto, being promoted to full professor in 1987. Shortly thereafter, he was dually appointed to the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Toronto. In Toronto, he served as chair of the Biblical Studies department at the Toronto School of Theology and as Director of Advanced Degree Studies at Emmanuel College. Outside of the Biblical Studies department his wide range of gifts and interests allowed him to sit on dissertation committees in the departments of theology, history, philosophy, and English literature. In the ecumenical context of Toronto School of Theology, Gerry became deeply involved in Jewish–Christian dialogue. While he eventually joined the United Church of Canada, Gerry remained rst and foremost a Pentecostal. First ordained in the Assemblies of God, when that denomination joined the National Association of Evangelicals he moved to the Church of God in Christ, a primarily African-American, Pentecostal Church which, while “evangelistic” in its interests, nonetheless stood aloof from the “Evangelical” movement that was then dominated by dispensationalism and a brand of politics that Gerry eschewed. This reection on his own roots and his unease with aspects of the Evangelical movement in the United States resulted in some of his most engaging articles. In his “socio-theological dynamic” study, “Prophetic vs. Priestly Religion: The Changing Role of Women Clergy in Classical Pentecostal Churches,”1 he showed that the Pentecostal movement was founded on a “prophetic model” and how a later shift to a “priestly model” left blacks and women marginalized. In two other articles, “Pentecostals and the Hermeneutics of Dispensationalism: 1. Charles H. Barfoot and Gerald T. Sheppard, “Prophetic Vs. Priestly Religion: The Changing Role of Women Clergy in Classical Pentecostal Churches,” RRelRes 22, no. 1 (1980): 2–17. 1


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The Anatomy of an Uneasy Relationship” and “Word and Spirit: Scripture in the Pentecostal Tradition”2 he made a strong case that Pentecostals originally did not have the same interpretational, eschatological, and theological characteristics that typied Fundamentalists or Evangelicals. For similar reasons, he was always a Pentecostal and never charismatic. Despite his origins outside of mainline American Protestantism, Gerry had a signicant impact in ecclesiastical circles beyond Pentecostalism. With his move to Emmanuel College in 1985, Gerry’s ministry expanded to include the United Church of Canada. In that denomination, Gerry retained the passion for the marginalized that was a product of his Pentecostal roots. He despised religious elitism in all its forms—whether it be in those who claimed to have the “truth” or those who looked down on fellow Christians who were less educated or of a lower socio-economic status. As a member of the United Church’s Theology and Faith Committee, he helped draft the denomination’s then-controversial, but groundbreaking statement of afrmation of same-sex relationships. During this period he was a valued theological resource and sought-after speaker at many denominational gatherings. Gerry’s publications were immense. His C.V. ran to over one hundred items, including reviews, articles, books, edited volumes, concise commentaries, as well as encyclopedia and dictionary entries. Projects under way at the time of his passing would have added hundreds of additional pages of material to this corpus. He was perhaps best known and most cited for his published dissertation, Wisdom as a Hermeneutical Construct.3 Of this work, one leading voice on Wisdom literature once remarked that it was “one of the most important works on wisdom that I have read.” When the canonical approach of Gerry’s mentor Brevard Childs was assailed by one particularly bellicose critic, Child’s rebuttal was undergirded by appeal to Gerry’s article, “Canonization: Hearing the Voice of the Same God through Historically Dissimilar Traditions.”4 Although Childs did not live to complete his contribution to this Festschrift, he was at least able to express his appreciation of Gerry by selecting the subject of this article as the theme of the volume. 2. Gerald T. Sheppard, “Pentecostals and the Hermeneutics of Dispensationalism: The Anatomy of an Uneasy Relationship,” Pneuma 6, no. 2 (1984): 5–33; “Word and Spirit: Scripture in the Pentecostal Tradition: Part One,” Agora 1, no. 4 (1978): 4–5, 17–22; and “Word and Spirit: Scripture in the Pentecostal Tradition: Part Two,” Agora 2, no. 1 (1978): 14–19. 3. Gerald T. Sheppard, Wisdom as a Hermeneutical Construct: A Study in the Sapientializing of the Old Testament (BZAW 151; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1979). 4. Gerald T. Sheppard, “Canonization: Hearing the Voice of the Same God through Historically Dissimilar Traditions,” Int (1982): 21–33. 1

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In addition to producing his own original research, Gerry was passionate about resurrecting important works from the history of interpretation. In this vein, he published a series of reprints of seventeenth-century biblical works, each with contemporary hermeneutical essays: The Geneva Bible (1989), William Perkin’s commentary on Galatians (1989), and Joseph Hall’s commentary on Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs (1991).5 A source of frustration for Gerry was the time it took for journals to consider an article and subsequent requests for changes that reected a misunderstanding of his work. As a consequence, Gerry often preferred to publish by invitation or in more obscure refereed journals. Among his more signicant essays falling into this category are: “ ‘Two-Party’ Rhetoric amid ‘Postmodern’ Debates over Christian Scripture and Theology”;6 essays on biblical interpretation in Europe from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries;7 “Pentecostals, Globalization, and Postmodern Hermeneutics: Implications for the Politics of Scriptural Interpretation”;8 and “Issues in Contemporary Translation: Late Modern Vantages and Lessons from Past Epochs.”9 Unlike most Old Testament scholars, Gerry was not afraid to produce articles that grappled with contemporary 5. Gerald T. Sheppard, ed., The Geneva Bible: The Annotated New Testament, 1602 Edition, with Introductory Essays (Pilgrim Classic Commentaries; New York: Pilgrim, 1989); A Commentary on Galatians (1617) by William Perkins, with Introductory Essays (Pilgrim Classic Commentaries; New York: Pilgrim, 1989); and Solomon’s Divine Arts: Joseph Hall’s Representation of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs (1609), with Introductory Essay (Pilgrim Classic Commentaries; Cleveland, Oh.: Pilgrim, 1991). 6. Gerald T. Sheppard, “ ‘Two-Party’ Rhetoric Amid ‘Postmodern’ Debates Over Christian Scripture and Theology,” in Re-Forming the Center: American Protestantism, 1900 to the Present (ed. Douglas Jacobsen and William Vance Trollinger Jr.; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1998), 445–66. 7. Gerald T. Sheppard, “Biblical Interpretation in the 18th & 19th Centuries, Introduction to Part 4,” in Historical Handbook of Major Biblical Interpreters (ed. Donald K. McKim; Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1998), 257–80, and “Biblical Interpretation in Europe in the 20th Century, Introduction to Part 5,” in McKim, ed., Historical Handbook of Major Biblical Interpreters, 403–22. 8. Gerald T. Sheppard, “Pentecostals, Globalization, and Postmodern Hermeneutics: Implications for the Politics of Scriptural Interpretation,” in The Globalization of Pentecostalism: A Religion Made to Travel (ed. Murray Dempster, Byron Klaus, and Douglas Petersen; Carlisle: Regnum, 1999), 289–312. 9. Gerald T. Sheppard, “Issues in Contemporary Translation: Late Modern Vantages and Lessons from Past Epochs,” in On the Way to Nineveh: Studies in Honor of George M. Landes (ed. Stephen L. Cook and Sara C. Winter; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1999), 257–85. 1


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political realities, writing such provocative pieces as “The Politics of Biblical Eschatology: Ronald Reagan and the Impending Nuclear Armageddon”10 and “Does the Bible Categorically Condemn Homosexuality?—A Qualied ‘No’.”11 In 2001, the insightful “Biblical Wisdom Literature at the End of the Modern Age” returned to the area he rst explored in his dissertation two and a half decades earlier.12 At the time of his passing he was at work on a major commentary on Song of Songs and had completed drafts of two volumes on Pentecostal and Evangelical Hermeneutics. Even as he made his mark on academia, Gerry found it to be a place in which he was never entirely comfortable. He lamented the fundamental unhealthiness of an academic world that was based on criticism rather than praise. He struggled with the competitive spirit and jealousy that sometimes characterized the relationships among scholars. As a Pentecostal who was well-received in the academy, Gerry sometimes found himself misunderstood by both the Pentecostal and scholarly worlds. During times when this was the case, he found great comfort from a select group of fellow Pentecostal scholars (among them being James Washington, David Daniels, Murray Dempster, Frank Macchia, and Marvin Erisman), colleagues who understood the struggle that a Pentecostal might have in the academic world. One of the rst Pentecostals to earn a Ph.D. in the Religious Studies Department at Yale University, Gerry once remarked that he was drawn to wisdom literature because this provided a way of responding to his Pentecostal roots. Gerry’s creative mind was something that was not limited to academic work. Although few of his colleagues or students at Union likely realized it, while in New York Gerry partnered with Robert Benton, screenwriter for such lms as Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Superman (1978), and Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) to develop a screenplay for a lm on Jesus. Unfortunately, the appearance around the same time of Martin Scorcese’s The Last Temptation of Christ meant that the project was put on hold and never subsequently completed. While in Toronto, Gerry was also quietly producing material on biblical subjects for Reader’s Digest Books. 10. Larry Jones and Gerald T. Sheppard, “The Politics of Biblical Eschatology: Ronald Reagan and the Impending Nuclear Armageddon,” Theological Students Fellowship Bulletin 8, no. 1 (1984): 16–19; see also, “On Reagan, Prophecy and Nuclear War,” Old Westbury Review 2 (1986): 9–22. 11. Gerald T. Sheppard, “Does the Bible Categorically Condemn Homosexuality? A Qualied ‘No’,” The Alberta Report (March 11, 1991), 42–43. 12. Gerald T. Sheppard, “Biblical Wisdom Literature at the End of the Modern Age,” in Congress Volume: Oslo 1998 (ed. André Lemaire and Magne Sæbø; Leiden: Brill, 2000), 369–98. 1

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Although he did not supervise many doctoral students,13 Gerry was an inspiring teacher and mentor who made the Old Testament come alive. Many of his statements caught students off-guard. On occasion, he goodnaturedly referred to the New Testament as “a circumstantial clause built on the main predication of the Old.” Each year he told his Introduction to Old Testament class, “The New Testament was the second-greatest disappointment to the Church next to the death of Christ. What his early followers really wanted was for Christ to return to set up a kingdom of peace and justice.” In that same course Gerry would remark about the human testimony of Scripture, “God has a knack for asking what seem to be silly questions…‘Adam, where are you?’ ‘Cain, where is your brother Abel’—sometimes God wants us to know what he knows.” Another of Gerry’s declarations—“The Gospel stands out against morality. The purpose of the Church should be to call the bluff on any attempts of nding morality in the Gospel”—brought one freshman divinity student to tears and forced her, for the rst time, to come face-to-face with the concept of grace. As Principal Peter Wyatt of Emmanuel College put it, Gerry was “a formidable intellect” who was “large-souled and great-hearted.” Through most of his life, Gerry’s days were infused with humor. As a young man, he and friend Roger Flessing developed a stand-up routine that they performed at Assembly of God youth conferences and later at other Church and academic gatherings. He enjoyed having fun with words. While he was at Bethany College, he once came across a sign at the Assembly of God district ofces that read, “GOD CARES, JOHN 3:16.” Casting a furtive glance, Gerry changed it to read, “DOG RACES, JAN 16.”—an alteration that left denominational ofcials sputtering. At Emmanuel College in Toronto, humor was a staple in Gerry’s classroom. Echoing down the halls of the college, his laugh was unmistakable. 13. The roster of advanced degree students that Gerry supervised includes the following: John Course (“Speech and Response: A Rhetorical Analysis of the Introductions to the Speeches in the Book of Job [Chaps. 4–24]” [Ph.D. diss., University of St. Michael’s College, 1990]); Ruth Barrett (“House as a Wisdom Metaphor in Solomonic Literature” [Ph.D. diss., University of St. Michael’s College, 1993]); Daniel Epp-Tiessen (“Concerning the Prophets: True and False Prophecy in Jeremiah 23:9–29:32” [Ph.D. diss., University of St. Michael’s College, 1994]); Ronald Huggins (“Romans 7 and the Ordo Salutis: In the Nineteenth-Century American Revivalist Tradition” [Th.D. diss., Wycliffe College, Toronto School of Theology, and University of Toronto, 1997]); Dong-Chul Shin (“A Comparison of Form-Critical Units to the Paragraph Divisions of Ancient Manuscripts of Isaiah 1–2” [Th.M. thesis, Emmanuel College, Toronto School of Theology, and University of Toronto, 2000]); and Randall Heskett (“Messianism in the Book of Isaiah as a Whole” [Ph.D. diss, University of St. Michael’s College, 2001]). 1


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While Gerry enjoyed life and inspired others, a series of family tragedies contributed to personal illness that eventually resulted in his death at a time when he was at the height of his powers and full of contributions to make to both the academy and the Church. His death was a shock and the loss felt by his family, friends, colleagues, and students was immense. When Gerry taught the story of the binding of Isaac, he would often relate the Rabbinic story of how the angels snatched the soul of Isaac from the altar and took him to heaven to study Torah.14 It is the expectation of the editors and contributors to this volume that today Gerry is doing the same. May his memory be for a blessing.

14. Tg. Ps.-J. 22:19. 1


Part I

HEARING THE WORD OF GOD THROUGH HISTORICALLY DISSIMILAR TRADITIONS


PRIESTS FOR THE KINGDOM— TWO PRIESTHOODS FOR TWO REGIMES Walter Brueggemann

Critical Pentateuchal study in the twentieth century has been dominated by the work of Gerhard von Rad and Martin Noth. In 1938 von Rad had already published his dening, programmatic work on “The Hexateuch” wherein he identied the dominant themes of the “credo tradition” as Exodus and land entry.1 To that analysis of themes he added in his subsequent discussion the traditions of creation, ancestors, and Sinai. Von Rad’s primary interest was theological, as his essay no doubt arose out of the struggles of the Confessing Church in Germany and became the programmatic outline of the rst volume of Old Testament Theology wherein he exposited the several themes of “The Hexateuch.”2 In 1943, Noth followed von Rad with a more sober historical analysis of the traditions but with attention to the same outline of themes.3 1. While both von Rad and Noth took the older, long-dominant issue of source analysis seriously and were themselves well schooled in that perspective, source analysis was never their primary concern. As Hans Heinrich Schmid has observed, von Rad’s use of the term “Yahwist” was offered with a considerable ambiguity, sometimes referring to “the J source,” but more intentionally referring to the narrative credo confession of Israel’s Yahwistic faith.4 It is clear that von Rad’s own concern 1. Gerhard von Rad, “The Form Critical Problem of the Hexateuch,” in The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), 1–78. 2. Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology. Vol. 1, The Theology of Israel’s Historical Traditions (San Francisco, Calif.: HarperSanFrancisco, 1962). 3. Martin Noth, A History of Pentateuchal Traditions (trans. Bernhard W. Anderson; Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1972). 4. Hans Heinrich Schmid, Der sogenannte Jahwist: Beobachtungen und Fragen zur Pentateuchforschung (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1976). 1

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was very much the latter subject. In any case, the outcome of the work of von Rad and Noth was to commit critical scholarship for the foreseeable future to the study of a series of themes, each of which could be considered historically (so Noth) and each of which carried confessional afrmation for what became Israel’s “canonical” faith (so von Rad). The liability of such a perspective is that the materials slotted in the several themes were treated so discretely as to compartmentalize Israel’s faith. Consequently, the events of the dramatic whole of the entire narrative were minimized.5 In the following discussion, I will consider two texts that are located in quite different and distinctive themes of the Pentateuch, in order to reect on the heuristic value of interfacing dissimilar texts, especially texts that are situated in different themes. In offering this study, I am glad to express my great appreciation for Gerry Sheppard’s contribution to our common work and common life in the discipline; he was indeed a generative force among us that empowered many of the rest of us in our work. 2. The narrative account of Gen 47:13–26 is, of course, situated in the theme of “promises to the ancestors,” even though it does not serve that theme very well: It is generally accepted that in the history of Joseph the Yahwist has incorporated into his work a tale which was in all essentials already a nished and complete work. Every reader is well aware how neatly it fulls its present function of leading up to Israel’s growth to nationhood in Egypt. When we look more closely, however, we cannot fail to see that, despite this, it has a signicance of its own. Its transitional function in the history of Israel is wholly secondary to its original purpose. It is a story of divine guidance, a testimony to God’s providential care, nding its conclusion in a state of “salvation” in which all the earlier tensions of the narrative are resolved.6 *** This Joseph story, a masterpiece of narrative art, is traditio-historically a latecomer in the sphere of the Pentateuchal narrative. Its function as a connecting piece between the themes “promise to the patriarchs” and “guidance out of Egypt” makes this probable at the outset. The formulations of the “historical credo” that have been preserved contained no 5. The more recent critical work of Rolf Rendtorff and Erhard Blum has not departed from the general perspective established by von Rad and Noth, though they do try to overcome the source distinctions of the older scholarship. 6. Von Rad, “The Form Critical Problem of the Hexateuch,” 59–60. 1

BRUEGGEMANN Priests for the Kingdom

5

reference at all to the Joseph story but say only that “Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt” (so Josh. 24:4), presumably because of a famine, and thus the connection between the two themes is immediately established. Consistent with this, the Joseph story shows itself to be a traditiohistorically late construction by its discursive narrative style and by its combination of numerous individual narratives, which in their present context are no longer independent, into a systematically planned and purposively unied composition which represents the most comprehensive, self-contained complex within the entire Pentateuchal narrative.7

In fact, this narrative text is an odd t under the theme of “promise,” for the narrative is anti-promise and is more likely an overture to the Exodus narrative, a very different theme.8 Whereas the general theme of Gen 12– 50 is YHWH’s “promise of the land,” this text is more precisely about the loss and forfeiture to the land to Pharaoh, the great enemy of YHWH. The dramatic account of Joseph’s land management in this narrative exhibits that primal servant of Pharaoh—albeit an Israelite—effecting Pharaoh’s rapacious land policies with faithfulness, consistency, and discipline. Kass is surely correct to suggest that the entire narrative concerning Joseph attests to the “Egyptianization of Joseph,” so that the distinctive claim of Israel—and the God of Israel—are decisively overridden in the service of Pharaonic hegemony.9 Joseph, on behalf of Pharaoh, in turn seized from the hungry peasants rst their money (47:14), then their livestock, their means of production (47:16–17), and nally their land, which thereby passed into royal ownership in a trade for food of Pharaoh’s state monopoly (47:19).10 The outcome of the drama of exchange between the hungry peasants and the royal food monopoly is the complete transfer of land ownership:

7. Noth, A History of Pentateuchal Traditions, 208. 8. Noth observes: “This theme is loosely joined to the following theme of ‘guidance out of Egypt’ by the statement that eventually there arose a king in Egypt who did not know Joseph (Ex 1:8 [J]) and that at the same time the family of Jacob had grown into a numerous and mighty people (Ex 1:7 [P]; 1:9 [J])” (ibid.). 9. Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (New York: Free Press, 2003), 569–72. Kass (p. 629) comments: “The text turns its attention to Joseph’s activities as manager of the Egyptian land during the nal years of the famine. Here we see Joseph’s administrative genius at work, but in ways that make clear why that genius is not and cannot be the guiding power in Israel. For Joseph’s dealings in Egypt, and what these dealings show of his feelings about pagan earthly power, only conrm for the reader why Jacob feels little enthusiasm for both Egypt and his son’s successes, and why, in the sequel, he will undertake measures to counteract the Egyptianization of his nation.” 10. Ibid., 632–33. 1

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The Bible as Human Witness to Divine Revelation So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh. All the Egyptians sold their elds, because the famine was severe upon them; and the land became Pharaoh’s. (Gen 47:20, NRSV)

The new social arrangement engineered by Joseph causes the peasants to become state slaves (v. 21) who were subject to the new economic arrangement of tendentious rental arrangements (v. 23). The most remarkable element in the narrative report is the articulation of peasant gratitude that expresses appreciation for the rescue of their lives through the usurpatious policies of the state. This gratitude leads to a readiness to be slaves of Pharaoh: They said, “You have saved our lives; may it please my lord, we will be slaves to Pharaoh.” (Gen 47:25, NRSV)

The outcome is most astonishing, made all the more remarkable by the laconic tone of the statement and the fact that the narrative has no critical observation to make about this enslavement, but treats the report in a matter-of-fact, “business as usual” temper. What has happened to the peasant population is indeed momentous. The narrative of Gen 12–50 has heretofore been completely preoccupied with YHWH’s land promise and land gift to the ancestors. But here, in a way that contradicts all that has gone before in the narrative, the land is reclaimed for royal monopoly and away from any community of promise. It is evident, then, that this narrative prepares the way for the Exodus narrative to follow, and the harsh, violent contest between Pharaoh (and the gods of Egypt; Exod 12:12) and YHWH, in order to see who will rule the land and who will determine the future of the slaves. For our purpose of comparing dissimilar texts, we focus in this narrative account on two elements. First, in v. 20 it is reported as an inevitable outcome of Joseph’s administration that “all the land of Egypt belongs to Pharaoh…the land became Pharaoh’s.” That sweeping claim would seem to be total and unqualied, except that in the next verses that unqualied claim is twice qualied: Only the land of the priests he did not buy; for the priests had a xed allowance from Pharaoh, and lived on the allowance that Pharaoh gave them; therefore they did not sell their land… The land of the priests alone did not become Pharaoh’s. (Gen 47:22, 26, NRSV)

The comment concerning the priestly retention of land is passed over without interpretive comment or even any expression of curiosity. This provision may be simply, as v. 22 suggests, the acknowledgment that the priestly land was exempt from royal conscation according to older statute. But even if the exemption is a matter of Egyptian law, we may 1


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wonder why that particular law was respected by absolute royal power and why the state did not override that claim as it seems to have overridden many other social claims. One need not be excessively suspicious to entertain the thought that the royal exemption for the priests, in addition to being “good law,” could also have been “good politics.” Clearly royal power—in the ancient world as in the contemporary world—requires priestly legitimization and blessing of some sort. Consequently we may imagine that the priestly exemption was a tradeoff of land for legitimacy so that Pharaoh could claim the blessing of the gods for his monopolistic work. Evidently the Egyptian gods, in whose image Pharaoh ruled, were not inimitable to the practice of such usurpatious monopoly. It is clear in the Exodus narrative that is to follow that Pharaoh proceeds on the assumption of absolute authority, an absoluteness that surely required divine sanction. Thus we may imagine that the priestly exemption was at least indirectly a contribution to the political absoluteness that in turn evoked the Exodus rebellion among the slaves. The religious dimension of the narrative is understated; the notices of vv. 22 and 26, however, cause the alert reader to judge Pharaoh as the carrier of divine symbols in the interest of the monopoly of the state economy. In the face of the regime, the priests are not only economically dependent; they are also without any ground for protest against Pharaonic usurpatious policies. 3. When we come to Exod 19:3–6, we are in a world of another tradition. These verses initiate the Sinai tradition, a quite distinct theme for von Rad and Noth.11 Apart from the introductory vv. 1–2 that are from the P source, this material butts up against Exod 18; but Exod 18 is the conclusion of the rst part of the sojourn material, again a theme quite distinct from the Exodus tradition. Verses 3–6 are commonly regarded as a core element of the primary claim of the Exodus, and provide a way of linking the Exodus tradition to the Sinai tradition that von Rad took to be a late intrusion into Israel’s credo recital.12 The rubric of v. 3 suggests that the tradition intends to signal that this utterance on the lips of Moses is constitutive of normative 11. See Noth, A History of Pentateuchal Traditions, 59–62; von Rad, Old Testament Theology, 1:187–279. 12. On this text, see James Muilenburg, “The Form and Structure of the Covenantal Formulations,” in Hearing and Speaking the Word: Selections from the Works of James Muilenburg (ed. Thomas F. Best; Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1984), 112–18. 1

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lore, words that are to be utilized in time to come for the “telling” of Israel’s life with YHWH. This normative lore consists in two primary points. First, the statement recalls the Exodus tradition and places the Exodus memory at the very head of the Sinai covenant. This dening allusion to the Exodus is not unlike the reference to the Exodus in the introduction to the Decalogue in Exod 20:2. In both cases, the tradition is at pains to connect the two traditions, even though scholarship has kept them quite distinct. Second, with a transitional “now therefore” (9EH) the voice of Moses summons Israel to radical obedience in hearing and keeping, the rst offered with an innitive absolute. It is likely that the intensity of the innitive absolute with the rst verb also applies to the second verb, “keep,” even though the second verb has no explicit reinforcement by an innitive absolute. The formulation serves—in something like subsequent Deuteronomic fashion—to make the status of covenant people conditional upon Torah obedience. Thus vv. 4–5 serve to link Exodus and the Sinai covenant. This dual afrmation is followed in vv. 5b–6a with an acclamation that properly situates Israel as YHWH’s special people: Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation. (Exod 19:5b–6a, NRSV)

After the singling out of Israel for special status in v. 5ab, these verses move in the opposite direction to make a sweeping claim that all the land, and by implication all the people in the land, belong to YHWH and are YHWH’s subjects and creatures. Given that sweeping statement, the next phrase is again a surprise (v. 6). Even though all belong to YHWH, Israel is a second time singled out for special status and special responsibility in the general realm of YHWH’s sovereignty. That special status is to be amid all the peoples in the land, a “kingdom of priests.” The phrase suggests a sacerdotal function that is readily conversant with power; the following phrase, “holy nation,” again nicely links the sacerdotal adjective “holy” with the political term “nation.”13 The rhetoric is quite precise in juxtaposing a special religious status for Israel in an arena that is quite self-consciously political.14 It is not at all obvious what this special status for Israel portends. We may suggest, however, that the 13. It is important to notice that the term is JH8 (“nation”) and not ) (“people”), thus introducing a political dimension into the Sinai transaction at the outset. 14. The “treaty hypothesis” of George Mendenhall, a hypothesis formed in the mid-twentieth century, made clear that the “religious” tradition of Israel was from the outset cast in political categories. For all the critique and renement of Mendenhall’s thesis, this point remains unassailable. 1


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“priestly nation” is to evidence, testify to, and legitimate YHWH’s sovereignty over all of the land so that through Israel, YHWH’s claim over all the land will become evident even to those who are not under Torah and not in covenant. While these familiar verses are often taken in a quite intensely theological direction—especially in Christian interpretation with reference to 1 Pet 2:9–10—we should not miss the militant assertion of YHWH’s sovereignty over all of the land—“the whole land is mine”—a claim that is parallel to the rst commandment of Exod 20 that seeks to deny any other divine claimant to the land where Israel will live out covenant. 4. The juxtaposition of Gen 47:13–26 and Exod 19:3–6 clearly concerns dissimilar texts, the precise assignment made for this volume of essays. Whereas Gen 47 is in the ancestral traditions, Exod 19:3–6 links the Exodus tradition to Sinai. According to the accepted analysis of von Rad and Noth, moreover, these texts lodged in distinct themes have no special linkage to each other. The dissimilarity is further accented when Gen 47 is viewed, as is commonly the case, as a political-legal settlement between priests and Pharaonic power, whereas Exod 19 is commonly understood in acutely theological terms as an “ecclesial” provision. Given that they are genuinely dissimilar, there are two reasons for suggesting an interface between them. First, both texts make a sweeping claim for sovereignty over the land: So Joseph bought all the land (9>5 ) of Egypt for Pharaoh…the land (#C ) belongs to Pharaoh. (Gen 47:20) All the land (#C ) belongs to me. (Exod 19:5)

The Hebrew phrasing is parallel: (Gen 47:20) 9CA= #C 9 J9EH

(Exod 19:5) #C 9=< J=

Both texts assert unqualied sovereignty over all the territory. In the rst case, the narrator reports the fact of the matter. In the second, the claim is in YHWH’s own mouth. The claims are parallel. Second, priests gure prominently in both texts. In Gen 47:22, 26, the priests are exempted from the royal land conscation. In the second, the priesthood of Israel is given special status; in the subsequent traditions that special status yields promised land, but that is not explicit here.15 15. On the priestly endowment of “portion” as land and as communion with YHWH, see Gerhard von Rad, “ ‘Righteousness’ and ‘Life’ in the Cultic Language 1

10


Neither text is forthcoming about the relationship between (a) the sweeping claim of sovereignty over the land, and (b) the special role of the priests. I suggest that in both cases the function of the priesthood is to give social legitimacy to monarchal claims of sovereignty, though of course the high claim made for YHWH’s sovereignty in the second case could not explicitly state a priestly grant of legitimacy to YHWH, for YHWH is already fully legitimated in the faith of Israel. In terms of social reality, however, the status of special land for special rulers requires social legitimacy even if it is needed to reect an already granted theological legitimacy. It is my suggestion that these two statements are parallel and together exhibit the decisive contestation concerning sovereignty over the land. Genesis 47 is situated just outside the Exodus theme to ensure that the Exodus struggle occurs because of Pharaoh’s illegitimate claim of sovereignty over land and over slaves.16 Exodus 19 is situated just at the beginning of the Sinai tradition to dramatize the “regime change” that occurred in the exodus and to articulate the rightful rule of YHWH over the land. The two texts together bracket the Exodus tradition behind and before; in context the Exodus narrative may then be interpreted as a contestation over land between the two claimants, one of whom has all the land in Gen 47, the other who has all the land in Exod 19. It is easy enough then to conclude that the plague cycle of Exod 11:7–11 is designed to evidence YHWH’s sovereignty over the land of Egypt, albeit in negative and violent ways. It becomes clear in that narrative cycle that YHWH is free to cause whatever YHWH wills in the land of Egypt and that Pharaoh in turn is helpless to resist whatever it is that is evoked by YHWH over the land of Egypt. The conclusion to be drawn is that YHWH is the real ruler over the land and that Pharaoh is powerless to preside over the land. The immediate effect of this show of power by YHWH over the land is to make clear Pharaoh’s impotence even over the land he claims to rule, an impotence rooted in an illegitimate claim of sovereignty that his priests cannot effectively validate or legitimate.17 Thus the exodus constitutes a failure of his priests as it does of him.

of the Psalms,” in The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays (New York: McGraw–Hill, 1966), 243–66. 16. See Walter Brueggemann, “Pharaoh as Vassal: A Study of a Political Metaphor,” CBQ 57 (1995): 27–51. 17. Exod 8:18 dramatically asserts Pharaoh’s ultimate impotence: “They could not!” 1


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5. The study of dissimilar texts may be enacted simply by a comparison of the texts themselves, as I have done in the above discussion. In fact, however, this argument concerns more than a simple comparison and contrast. It includes an important interpretive assumption that should be made explicit. It seems obvious that the Gen 47 text is about a politicaleconomic-legal matter in which there is no mention of God (or Egyptian gods) and no overt theological issue. By contrast, the text in Exod 19 is fraught with theological claim and does not seem to relate to any political-economic reality in particular. Thus the dissimilarity is deep and to compare them is indeed like “apples and oranges.” But of course we are not innocent about texts that appear to be plainly political and economic (as in our rst text), nor are we excessively deistic about texts that are explicitly theological (as in our second text). Our interpretive awareness of the subtlety and complexity of texts is given in an aphorism of Karl Marx: The criticism of heaven is thus transformed into the criticism of earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics.18

By this statement Marx meant that any political-economic agenda is shot through with theological force, and that theological matters are inescapably permeated with political and economic leverage. Thus in our case, the text of Gen 47 is evidently political, economic, and legal—but we know it is saturated with theological claim, namely, that Pharaoh presides over the land, is entitled to all of the produce of the land, and is divinely legitimate in his reduction of the peasantry to slavery. This is an immense theological claim, one made regularly by high concentrations of power that practice exploitation and claim a “moral right” to do so. Marx’s aphorism thus invites us to read beneath the lines of political hegemony and economic usurpation to see an idolatrous theological claim, recognized as idolatrous in an exodus community because of the praxis of exploitation. The exodus tradition knew, long before the rediscovery of Marx, that the face of idolatry is not in religious practice but in the economic practice of the exploitation of the neighbor.

18. See David McLellan, The Thought of Karl Marx: An Introduction (London: Macmillan, 1971), 22. 1

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The matter is reversed in our second text. The articulation of YHWH in Exod 19 is fully and directly theological, for it speaks of covenantal obedience. As Marx had understood, a critique of religion entails a critique of law and politics. The claim of YHWH, theological as it is, in context is clearly a political claim that the land to which Israel is destined, in which Israel will obey YHWH’s Torah, is a land to be reordered according to the will and purpose of the new sovereign. Thus all the cultural, political, and theological conicts with “the Canaanites” to be accented by the Deuteronomists in time to come concern not merely theological claim, but also socioeconomic, political practices in relationship to the Lord of the covenant. It becomes clear, then, that both texts are political-economic and concern power in the land. Both texts, moreover, are theological and concern a claim of legitimacy represented by priests that is implied but not stated. The range of spheres of reality reected in Marx’s aphorism are all at work in both texts as they are in all texts. The exodus drama of Exod 1– 15 is staged—repeatedly staged—so that Israel may ever again re-perform the conict of sovereigns and know the outcome that is scripted in the tradition. The drama of conict and victory—which results in the drama, in the emancipation of all the slaves that had been subjugated—is designed for many re-enactments and many retellings: Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh; for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his ofcials, in order that I may show these signs of mine among them, and that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I have made fools of the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them—so that you may know that I am the Lord.” (Exod 10:1–2, NRSV)

6. The connection of divine sovereignty and land via priestly legitimacy in these texts poses an overriding question for biblical faith that continues to be the overriding issue in contemporary globalization. Both texts are about land theology, the way in which the specicity of the land is connected to the large rule of YHWH who emancipates slaves and commands neighbor love in the newly reorganized land. To that end I cite three texts: (1) In 2 Sam 3:12, Abner, the treasonable leader of the Saulide movement makes a proposal to David; Abner is ready to submit the remnant of Saulide power to Davidic control. The opening of the negotiation is with the terse question on the lips of Abner: To whom does the land belong? (#C J>=) 1


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In context, the issue is whether the land will be governed by Saul (Abner) or by David. I cite the text to indicate that this is always the question in ancient Israel and in the world more generally. It is the question posed in the contestation of the Exodus narrative between the two claimants to sovereignty, Pharaoh in Gen 47 and YHWH in Exod 19. The news celebrated by the women in Exod 15:21 is that the question of land possession has been answered; the land belongs to YHWH: And Miriam sang to them: “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.” (Exod 15:21, NRSV)

YHWH is fully sovereign over the land as David had become fully sovereign in human scale. (2) In the provision for Jubilee in Lev 25, the premise is that the practice of economic restoration is grounded in the awareness that the land belongs to YHWH and must not nally be possessed by any other: The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants. (Lev 25:23, NRSV)

The key phrase is #C 9 J=. The claim of the land, rooted in YHWH’s defeat of other claimants, becomes the ground for the radical ethic of the Jubilee. (3) Most familiarly, Ps 24 begins with a like claim: The earth is the Lord’s (#C 9 9H9J=) and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it; for he has founded it on the seas, and established it on the rivers. (Ps 24:1–2, NRSV)

The operative words at the beginning are #C 9 9H9J=. Here the claim is grounded in creation and not in the Exodus contestation. The upshot of the claim, however, is the same. YHWH’s sovereignty over land issues in a precise ethic (Ps 24:3–4). The conclusion of the psalm, moreover, is a celebration of the sovereignty of the one who governs the land. It is not unlike the great doxological procession of Exod 15:1–18 that celebrates the defeat of Pharaoh and all rivals for control of the land: Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in. Who is the King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle. Life up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in. 1

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The Bible as Human Witness to Divine Revelation Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory. (Ps 24:7–10, NRSV)

The psalm makes clear the connection between theological claim (24:1– 2), alternative ethic (24:3–4), and liturgical enactment (24:7–10). We may imagine that the priests who led the procession in these latter verses understood very well the liturgy of legitimacy that they repeatedly conducted.19 From the comparison of the dissimilar texts of Gen 47:13–26 and Exod 19:3–6, I have taken the liberty of citing 2 Sam 3:12; Lev 25:23, and Ps 24:1. I do so to evidence the rich heuristic value of considering dissimilar texts. I have no doubt Gerry Sheppard, with his rich capacity, had precisely such heuristic ventures in mind in his appreciation of dissimilarity.

19. On YHWH’s recovery of the land in priestly horizon, see Kalinda Rose Stevenson, The Vision of Transformation: The Territorial Rhetoric of Ezekiel 40–48 (SBLDS 154; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1996). 1

“IF YOU LISTEN TO MY VOICE…” (EXODUS 19:5): THE MYSTERY OF REVELATION* Erich Zenger

One of my fondest memories of Gerry Sheppard was of an intensive and stimulating dialogue we had at the IOSOT meeting in Oslo in 1998. I admired Gerry for his charism of combining literary analysis and theological interpretation in such a way that the biblical texts themselves begin to speak and, in doing so, initiate the kind of hearing in which the God-mystery opens itself to us. The following essay attempts to take up this specic biblical hermeneutic and apply it concretely to the theme of this Festschrift. I hope in doing so to honor his memory. 1. “Oh, that today you would listen to his voice” (Psalm 95:7) Sanhedrin 98a in the Babylonian Talmud contains the following midrash: (Once upon a time) Rabbi Jehoshua ben Levi met (the prophet) Elijah, who was coming down from heaven as a precursor of the Messiah, at the entrance to the cave of Rabbi Shimon ben Jochai… He asked Elijah: “When will Messiah come?” He answered him: “Go and ask him yourself!” “But where is he?” “At the gates of Rome.” “And how will I recognize him?” “He is sitting among the poor who are suffering from diseases, and all of them take the bandages off all their wounds at the same time and put new ones on; but each time he takes off just one bandage and puts a new one on (each in turn), for he says to himself: ‘It may be that (unexpectedly) someone will have need of me, and so there must be no delay.’ ” Then Rabbi Jehoshua ben Levi went to the Messiah and greeted him with the words: “Peace to you, my Lord and Master!” He answered: “Peace to you, son of Levi!” He asked him: “When will my Lord come?” The Messiah answered: “Today!” Then Rabbi Jehoshua ben Levi returned to Elijah, who asked him: “What did Messiah tell you?” He said: “Peace to you, son of Levi!” And Elijah asked again: “Did he promise you and your father the life of the world to come?” Then Rabbi Jehoshua ben Levi said * I wish to thank Linda M. Maloney for translating my contribution into English. 1


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angrily: “He lied to me; for he said: ‘Today I will come, and still he has not come!’ ” Then Elijah said to him: “You did not understand. What he meant was: Today, if you listen to his [i.e. God’s] voice (Ps. 95:7).”

The midrash has a twofold point. One emphasis is to show the Messiah as a fellow sufferer among the sick and the poor. The Messiah shares their life and so prepares himself for his coming as Messiah. The Messiah who will bring the reign of God does not come in some spectacular event that shatters and terries the world. He does not come as a gigantic, elevated king and wielder of power, but as one who has suffered in his own body the pains and needs of ordinary people, and therefore knows what they need. This is a critical rejection of all forms of messianic anticipation that desire the salvation of the world as a divine miracle or an apocalyptic battle conducted by a messianic king. A second point of emphasis is expressed in Rabbi Jehoshua ben Levi’s disappointment and anger: “He lied to me; for he said: Today I will come. And he has not come.” This disappointment expresses the misunderstanding that it is vital or sufcient to know the date and time of salvation in order to participate in it. By means of a reference to Ps 95, the midrash has the prophet Elijah say that what is vital is something quite different, and tell what that is. Elijah explains what the Messiah meant when he said: “Today I will come.” This is not a “today” in the sense of the calendar or the clock. It is a “today” lled with its own content: “Today, if you listen to God’s voice.” This is an allusion to the seventh verse of Ps 95, which is part of the composition made up of Pss 93–100, all of which hymn God’s rulership over the world and at the same time express longing that it may be realized.1 The psalm has two parts.2 The rst part is a hymnic praise of divine rule: 1a 1b 2a 2b

Come let us sing praise to YHWH, let us shout for joy to the rock of our salvation! Let us come before his countenance with songs of thanksgiving, and rejoice in him with songs.

1. On this, see Erich Zenger, “Theophanien des Königgottes JHWH: Transformationen von Psalm 29 in den Teilkompositionen Ps 28–30 und Ps 93–100,” in The Book of Psalms: Composition and Reception (ed. Peter W. Flint and Patrick D. Miller, Jr.; VTSup 99; Leiden: Brill, 2005), 422–39. 2. For an analysis and interpretation of the psalm, see Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, Psalms 2: A Commentary on Psalms 51–100 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 458–62; against the option for the original unity of Ps 95 adopted there, it seems to me more likely that the primary version is present in Ps 95:1–7c, which was then redactionally expanded by Ps 95:7d–11. 1

ZENGER The Mystery of Revelation 3a 3b 4a 4b 5a 5b 6a 6b 7a 7b 7c

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For YHWH is a great God, a great king above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the heights of the mountains are his also. His is the sea, he made it, and the dry land, his hands have formed it. Come! Let us bow down and bend the knee, let us kneel before YHWH, who created us. For he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the sheep of his hand.

This is a confession full of enthusiasm and positively ecstatic joy— holding fast to the message that the God of Israel is the God who sustains and rules over all creation. Be it noted that when this psalm was rst formulated and sung Israel was not a world power, nor was the God of Israel a, much less the, God whom the surrounding nations regarded and venerated as their own. The pathos of this psalm was therefore no legitimation of Israel’s power, but the passionate objection to the apparently superior power of the other gods and to the temptation in one’s own heart to trust in the seemingly mightier gods of the other nations. Thus the rst part of this psalm is a hymnic afrmation of the hope for the coming of the world-rulership of the God of Israel in spite of all doubt and all resistance. And the psalm also says an enthusiastic “yes” to Israel’s election and its being called into the service of the King of the universe: “Yes, he shall be our God and we will be led by him, our good shepherd; we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.” However, this festive hymn breaks off very suddenly. The praise falls silent and an individual voice cries out, provocatively draining the festal mood of the singing community of its magic: 7d Oh, that today you would listen to his voice!

This voice, in direct discourse, ings a word of God at the community that wants to celebrate and honor the King of the universe with festive worship, with prayers, songs, and sacrices, a word uttered with prophetic acerbity.3 To paraphrase, this voice says: “It is not prayers and sacrices I desire, but that you hear and obey. I do not desire a heart that is drunken with the idea of God, but a listening heart that opens itself to my words in order to learn and do my will.” The psalm continues:

3. For the function and relevance of quotations of divine words in the Psalms, see Andrea Doeker, Die Funktion der Gottesrede in den Psalmen (BBB 135; Berlin: Philo, 2002); for Ps 95, see pp. 249–58. 1


18 8a 8b 9a 9b 10a 10b 10c 11a 11b

“Harden not your heart as at Meribah, as on the day of Massah in the desert! There your ancestors tempted me, they put me to the test, although they had seen my works. Forty years I detested [that] generation, and I said: They are a people wayward in heart, they do not know my ways. Therefore I swore in my wrath: They shall never enter into my place of rest.”

What a contrast between the conclusion of this divine discourse and the confession of trust with which the rst part of the psalm had ended! 7b 7c

We are the people of his pasture, the sheep of his hand.

Against their expectation of being pastured by their good shepherd and led to restful waters, this shepherd sets his oath: 11b

They shall never enter into my place of rest!

Certainly this oath is not a dogmatic declaration by God; it is a kind of shock therapy with which God attempts to open their ears, closed or grown shut, so that they will nally hear, listen, and understand. A restored alertness is essential if the divine rule lauded in the psalm is to break into this world. Renewed hearing must not happen soon or sometime or other, but “today.” 2. “Hearing is better than sacrice” (1 Samuel 15:22) The basso ostinato of the biblical texts is that the primary and most important thing is hearing the word of God. Biblical religion is not an imagination of the divine, but the reception of history as word, listening to the speech of prophetic women and men, and attention to the instruction of the priests and the teachers of wisdom. Imperative appeals to “hear this word of YHWH” run throughout the whole First Testament. Even “heaven and earth” are called upon to listen as fellow witnesses to God’s speaking to Israel. “Hear this word,” “YHWH has spoken,” “The word of YHWH,” “Then the word of YHWH came to N.N.”—these are the repeatedly recurring formulas in the prophetic books4 that make it clear that Israel’s relationship to its God must be lived out primarily in

4. These formulas (“messenger formula,” “word-event formula,” “divine speech formula,” “formula to reinforce the words”) generally have a structurally relevant function in the prophetic books as well. 1

ZENGER The Mystery of Revelation

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listening and obeying. However, the truth that biblical religion is a religion of hearing is expressed with prophetic force when cultic sacrices, the fundamental acts of ancient piety, are devalued, and even rejected, in favor of the demand for hearing. Thus Samuel, in the narrative of the rejection of Saul (which is, from a number of points of view, not unproblematic), says to the king: Has YHWH as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrices, as in listening to the voice of YHWH? Surely, to hear is better than sacrice, and to heed than the fat of rams… Because you have rejected the word of YHWH, he has also rejected you as king. (1 Sam 15:22–23b)

The contrast between obedience and sacrice is, in fact, a proprium of biblical religion. It is articulated, often with ironic acerbity, in the so-called cult-critical passages of the First Testament. These are found not only in the prophetic books, but also in Israel’s Wisdom and prayer traditions. The book of Amos makes especially graphic use of this opposition when it has even YHWH say: I hate, I despise your liturgical festivals, and I cannot smell your worship services, I take no pleasure in your sacricial offerings, and I can no longer look upon the food offerings of your fatted animals. Take away from me the noise of your psalms, I can no longer listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everowing stream. (Amos 5:21–24)5

Qoheleth, who taught in Jerusalem around 300 B.C.E., polemicizes in like vein. He, too, emphasizes in the passage of his book that criticizes religion, 4:17–5:6, that the desire and ability to hear are the fundamental preconditions for fear of God, that is, a right relationship to God: Restrain your steps when you go to the house of God; draw near to listen and not, like the fools, to offer sacrices… Never be rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be quick to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven, and you upon earth;

5. On this, see Erich Zenger, “ ‘Ich nde Wohlgefallen an Liebe, nicht an Opfer’ (Hos 6,6). Ersttestamentliche Stellungnahmen zum Verhältnis von Kult und Ethos,” in Die diakonale Dimension der Liturgie (ed. Benedikt Kranemann, Thomas Sternberg and W. Zahner; QD 218; Freiburg: Herder, 2006), 16–30. 1

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The Bible as Human Witness to Divine Revelation therefore let your words be few… With many dreams come vanities and a multitude of words; but fear God! (Qoh 4:17–5:1, 6 [Eng. 5:1–2, 7])

This is the rst section in the book of Ecclesiastes in which Qoheleth speaks directly to his pupils or readers. That underscores the explosive force of his counsels. They are an unmistakable critique of sacrices and the Temple. They strike to the heart of ancient piety, in which biblical Israel also participated. In ancient times the worship of God included the presentation of sacrices with prayers sung or said out loud. Certainly there was criticism of sacrices and the cult in Israel before Qoheleth. We have already cited an example from Amos’s critique of worship, but similar polemics could be cited from other prophetic books, especially that of Isaiah and Hosea against the false notion that with sacrices one could purchase exemption from right action toward God and one’s neighbor (e.g. Isa 1:11; Hos 6:6). Similarly, in the book of Psalms we frequently nd the idea that prayer is more pleasing to God than sacrices (e.g. Pss 51:17–19; 69:31–32).6 Qoheleth takes up this line of criticism and intensies it: one should listen rather than sacrice as fools do. In place of longer and louder prayers, one should stand silently and humbly before God in order to make oneself available, in obedience, to the divine mystery. When Qoheleth says “draw near to listen,” he deliberately leaves open the question of what one should listen to. Most of his hearers or readers at the time would, as a matter of course, have thought of the Torah, which was read in worship. But probably Qoheleth’s perspective is much deeper, as the summary admonition at the end of the whole section 4:17–5:6 indicates: “but fear God!” In light of that, we could probably paraphrase Qoheleth’s advice thus: “When you go to the house of God, enter and try to be still, so that you may hear God, who wants to speak to you…”7 Qoheleth makes concrete, as an admonition for individuals, what the book of Jeremiah has the prophet say, in ch. 7, in an ironic speech in the Temple:

6. The antithesis between sacrice and listening to God’s word/Torah is developed especially in Ps 40:7–9. On this see Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, Die Psalmen. Psalm 1–50 (NEchtB 29; Würzburg: Echter, 1993), 256. 7. For the interpretation of Qoh 4:17–5:6, see especially Ludger SchwienhorstSchönberger, Kohelet (HTKAT; Freiburg: Herder, 2004), 309–23; Andreas Vonach, Nähere dich, um Gott zu hören. Glaubensvorstellungen und Glaubensvermittlung im Koheletbuch (BBB 125; Berlin: Philo, 1999). 1


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Thus says YHWH Sabaoth, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrices, and eat the esh. For in the day that I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to them or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrices. But this command I gave them, “Listen to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. Walk only in the way that I command you, so that it may be well with you.” Yet they did not listen or incline their ear, but, in the stubbornness of their evil will, they walked in their own counsels… (Jer 7:21–24)

3. “On Sinai/Horeb you did not see, but only heard!” (Deuteronomy 4:12) The Temple speech in Jer 7 alludes to the great encounter between God and Israel on the journey from Egyptian slavery to the land of life and freedom. At Sinai, as the book of Exodus narrates and Moses recapitulates in the book of Deuteronomy, in his solemn farewell discourse on the day of his death, the people did not see God’s form, but heard God’s voice. The narrative in Exod 19 paints an imposing backdrop for this ultimately indescribable event, when a whole nation hears the voice of the God who speaks in human language in order to reveal himself. Exodus 19 is an artistic narrative whose subject is the mystery of revelation.8 Verses 1–3a set the scene. Its theological perspective is provocative enough: this revelation takes place in the wilderness, in the midst of the journey from the house of slavery in Egypt to the land of life. This location may be connected with the “early history” of the God YHWH, developed by the application of religious-historical method, as protector deity of semi-nomads in the region between the North Arabian desert and the area east and west of the Arabah.9 More important for the narrative context is that the narrative locates this foundational event, which constitutes Israel as the people of God, on Israel’s path toward freedom—for in the view of the Bible, God’s revelation aims to establish freedom. Verses 3b–6 present a solemn message from God, partly stated in poetic parallelisms, which Moses is to deliver to the “house of Jacob.”10 8. See Christoph Dohmen, Exodus 19–40 (HTKAT; Freiburg: Herder, 2004), 44–81. 9. See Erich Zenger, “Der Monotheismus Israels. Entstehung – Prol – Relevanz,” in Ist der Glaube Feind der Freiheit? Die neue Debatte um den Monotheismus (ed. Thomas Söding; QD 196; Freiburg: Herder, 2003), 10–22. 10. The allusion is to Gen 46:27: the little group of seventy who went down to Egypt with Jacob has now become the great nation of the “children of Israel.” 1

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The message begins with a generalized formula recalling what YHWH had done for Israel at the Exodus from Egypt (v. 4). What is crucial is that this recollection, which pointedly summarizes the Exodus as YHWH’s miraculously sustaining and bringing Israel to himself, that is, into his presence,11 is the basis for the demand made on Israel in vv. 5–6, that is, the proclamation of Israel’s unique dignity among all the nations of the world that is linked to it. The why and wherefore of YHWH’s bringing Israel to himself is expressed in three deeply signicant statements that, taken together, emphasize Israel’s special relationship to YHWH through a play on words describing YHWH’s kingship and royal authority. First, through the Exodus, Israel has become the “royal treasure” or “crown jewel” (9=8D) of YHWH, King of the universe. Second, YHWH has chosen Israel to be “a kingdom of priests,” that is, a kingdom whose citizens are all “priests” because they have the privilege of special closeness to God.12 Third, Israel is the people of YHWH the king, which he has set aside as a “holy people” that will accept being hallowed for and through him, in accordance with the agenda: “You shall be holy, for I, YHWH your God, am holy!” (Lev 19:2). Here, at the very beginning of the great Sinai pericope in Exod 19– Num 10, we nd proclaimed Israel’s God-given and inalienable “essential characteristics.” Within this narrative, these characteristics are made most concrete, by the manifold rules of life in the Torah, to which the introductory condition in v. 5 refers: “if you listen to my voice and keep my covenant.” That is, Israel will realize its dignity as crown jewel, as YHWH’s priestly and holy people, when and insofar as it listens to God’s voice and does what that voice tells it to do. When Israel hears and listens to God, it will become what, from Sinai and through the God of Sinai, it is.13 Verses 7–8 depict the giving of this message from God to the people through Moses, the people’s reaction to it, and Moses’ consequent report to God. Verses 9–15 depict the preparations for the theophany described in vv. 16–19, toward which the narrative aims as its climax. The 11. Probably this is not the metaphor of the eagle, but that of the protecting wings of the vulture, which is probably also the background for the metaphor of the protection/shadow of YHWH’s wings in the Psalms. 12. The frequently stated opinion that v. 6 proclaims the rule of the priests over the nation (“you will be a kingdom whose rulers are priests”) is not very likely from an exegetical standpoint; nor is it correct to say that here the early post-exilic notion of theocracy in Judah is being legitimated, since in the Persian period there was no “rule by priests” in Judah. That emerged only in the Hellenistic period. 13. See especially Georg Steins, “Priesterherrschaft oder Volk von Priestern? Zu einem exegetischen Problem in Ex 19,6,” BZ 45 (2001): 20–36. 1


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theophany is the inbreaking of the Holy into this world, the encounter of YHWH with his people. The prescriptions for sanctication and the taboo laid on the mountain during the time of the revelatory event make it clear that this is something that shatters and transforms the profane “everyday,” an event to which one may only expose oneself after appropriate preparation and by setting aside every factor that might become an obstacle to it. The narrative, by its use of the very terminology of the Exodus in v. 17, indicates that ultimately the Exodus is all about Israel’s being led out to this encounter with the God of Sinai: “Then Moses led the people out to meet God.” The God-encounter proper is narrated in vv. 16–19 with an abundance of overlapping images used to express the ineffable. With the lens of religious-historical criticism it has been possible here to discern traditions about a storm- and weather-god (cloud, thunder, lightning), a God of battles and war (rising column of smoke), a volcano-god (earthquake, re), and a sun-god (appearance in the morning). But elements from cultic rituals and feasts (rites of preparation, festive clothing, procession, blowing the shofar) are also incorporated. Literary-critical exegesis previously derived from this its arguments for the separation of textual layers.14 I consider the whole to be a magnicent mixture of metaphors that serves as a narrative setting of the scene for the principal statement that is to follow in v. 19b. The powerful staging of the revelation, its beginning marked in v. 16 with the indication of time, “On the third day,”15 and its dramatic intensity developed by means of reinforcing repetitions,16 swings, at its climax, and without preparation,17 into a highly theological narration that steps outside the world of the imagery: “Moses would speak and God would answer him in a (human) voice” (v. 19b).18 That is the unique theological point: the biblical God speaks in 14. See the table setting out the different positions in Erich Zenger, Die Sinaitheophanie. Untersuchungen zum jahwistischen und elohistischen Geschichtswerk (FB 3; Würzburg: Echter, 1979), 207–10. 15. Important events frequently take place on the third day: for example, Abraham’s arrival at Mt. Moriah in Gen 22, and the resurrection of Jesus. 16. Verses 18 and 19a are in part literal repetitions of v. 17, but intensied by “very.” 17. Syntactically striking in the Hebrew text as well, vv. 19a and 19b are placed alongside one another without any link. Verse 19a is an element of the narrated event, while v. 19b, which follows asyndetically, lies outside the narrative and represents a commentary on the narrated event. 18. This must be the translation (it is reinforced also by rabbinic exegesis), and not “…and God answered him aloud ” (Luther) or “…and God answered him in thunder” (Einheitsübersetzung; NRSV) or “As Moses spoke, God answered him in thunder” (NJPS). 1

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a human way and with human words to Moses and his people. Still more precisely: the text even reverses the usual picture, in which God speaks and the human being is to answer. Here, instead, it says that Moses spoke to God and God answered him in a human voice—and not with some kind of oracular signs. Thus in the biblical sense God’s revelation is an answer and a response. That God’s revelation in the form of a human voice at the same time retains its mysterious character—because, after all, it is God’s voice—is then underscored by Exod 20:18–21, in a summary commentary on the event narrated in Exod 19–20. Exodus 20:18 is particularly signicant in the context of our brief reection19 on the mystery of revelation; it says: “And the whole people saw the voices/the thunder and the ames and the voice of the shofar and the smoking mountain.” Both in rabbinic interpretation and in recent Jewish and Christian exegesis there have been many speculations on how the individual elements of this verse can be understood as a recapitulation of Exod 19–20.20 What is especially surprising is that here the verb “to see” is connected also with objects that, strictly speaking, one cannot “see,” but only “hear.” In addition, the rst object is the plural “the voices/the (peals of) thunder,” even though previously in Exod 19 we nd only the singular of =HB. The discussion of these interpretations cannot be reviewed here. I will only present one explanation that is found in Mekhilta de Rabbi Ishmael (which reviews a number of different interpretations of this verse!), because this explanation lies within the horizon of the theology of revelation that is hinted at in Exod 19:19—and because it gives narrative support to the theology of revelation that is summarized in Ps 62:12. The corresponding passage in the Mekhilta reads: “And the whole people saw the voices (Exod 20:18)—a voice of the myriad of voices and a ame of the myriad of ames. And how many voices were there, and how many ames? It is not to be understood in this way; rather, what is meant is: They were heard by the human being according to his or her ability, for it says: ‘The voice of the Eternal in (according to) the ability (of each individual)’ (Ps 29:4).” This (anonymously transmitted) interpretation begins with the plural combinations at the beginning of Exod 20:18: “And the whole people saw the voices and the ames…” The 19. The statements in Exod 20:19–21 about Moses as mediator of revelation are no less important. 20. See Michael Konkel, “Was hörte Israel am Sinai? Methodische Anmerkung zur Kontextanalyse des Dekalogs,” in Die Zehn Worte. Der Dekalog als Testfall des Pentateuchkritik (ed. Christian Frevel, Michael Konkel, and Johannes Schnocks; QD 212; Freiburg: Herder, 2005), 11–42. 1


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interpretation rst rejects the idea that these two plurals could express merely the quantity of the divine voices and the divine ames. Instead, what is at stake is the mystery that the one divine revelation is given in manifold ways to each individual woman and man among the people of God assembled at Sinai—according to the ability and needs of the individual. This interpretation is supported by a reference to Ps 29:4: “The voice of YHWH—in power!” The psalm verse, which in its context refers to the power of YHWH’s revealing voice to harness chaos, is interpreted by Mekhilta in the sense of a theology of revelation that reects human beings as the recipients of revelation. The “power” of YHWH’s voice that is hymned in Ps 29:4 is now applied to the power of human beings who hear this voice as the voice of YHWH—according to their different abilities and opportunities. Because the biblical God speaks with a human voice (Exod 19:19) that is heard by people according to their ability, YHWH’s revelatory voice has an inexhaustible fullness of meanings and messages. This is classically formulated in the tractate Shabbat in the Babylonian Talmud (b. Šab. 88b): “R. Johanan said: What does it mean when it is written, ‘The Lord sends forth his word, great is the multitude of messengers’ (Ps 68:12)? Each individual word that came forth from the mouth of the Power (God) separated into seventy tongues. In the school of R. Ishmael it is taught: ‘(Is not my word like re, says the Lord) and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?’ (Jer 23:29). As (a rock) is shattered into so many fragments (by the) hammer, so also every word that came forth from the mouth of the Holy One, blessed be he, separated into seventy tongues” (Šab. 88b). That is the mystery of revelation. It happens through those who hear God’s voice—according to their ability.21 This is illustrated paradigmatically in the narrative about the encounter between God and Elijah on Mt. Horeb. God shows himself to Elijah in just that way that Elijah can “bear” in his situation: Elijah perceives him as “the voice of a thin sighing” (Luther: “a still, small voice”). Here a look at the Hebrew word is revealing: qôl demm daqq. The root dmm, which underlies demm, refers to the quiet after a storm (in a theophany, as also for Elijah after his rage). This quiet is not the alternative to doing, not the opposite of powerful action, but its enhancement and, as the rest of the chapter shows, the possible beginning of a new action. And the word daqq, something like thin, ne, emaciated (like the cows in one of Pharaoh’s dreams in the Joseph story), again shows the 21. See Erich Zenger, Am Fuß des Sinai. Gottesbilder im Ersten Testament (2d ed.; Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1994), 101–9. 1

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The Bible as Human Witness to Divine Revelation connection between God’s appearance and Elijah’s situation. Elijah sees God in the only way in which, in this situation, he is able to see and to endure God. Thin and emaciated—that is a good description of Elijah’s own situation. Thus the story in 1 Kings 19 reveals itself as one that tells of God’s solidarity especially with the weak, the despondent, the despairing. But this observation should not lead to a new denition of God, since God is no more fully described in the “voice of a thin sighing” than in storm, earthquake, and re. God appears to Elijah in the only way in which Elijah can see him.22

Moses, in the great paraenesis placed on his lips by the fourth chapter of the book of Deuteronomy, emphasizes that what happens at Sinai is fundamentally about hearing, and not seeing, and that what is seen at Sinai is only for the purpose of opening Israel’s ear: Do not forget the events that you have seen with your own eyes, and the words that you have heard.23 Do not let them slip from your mind all the days of your life! Make them known to your children and your children’s children! Do not forget the day when you stood before YHWH, your God, at Horeb. YHWH said to me: Assemble the people for me! I will let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me as long as they live in the land, and may teach their children so. You approached and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain was burning: Fire, up to the very heavens, obscurity, clouds, and darkness. YHWH spoke to you out of the re. You heard the voice of the words but saw no form. You heard only the voice.24 YHWH revealed his covenant to you, and he charged you to observe it: the Ten Words. (Deut 4:9–13)

Moses himself had to learn that what is at issue is hearing, not seeing God, as the book of Exodus relates. On the one hand the Sinai narrative shows Moses going up the mountain onto which YHWH has descended in re, and Moses there speaks with the Living One as with a gure bodily present. Therefore the biblical narrative can even say that when Moses entered the tent of meeting/tent of revelation “YHWH spoke to Moses face to face, as people speak with one another” (Exod 33:11). But in 22. Jürgen Ebach, Kassandra und Jona. Gegen die Macht des Schicksals (Frankfurt: Athenäum, 1987), 97–98. 23. Thus with the Einheitsübersetzung, explained by Georg Braulik, Deuteronomium 116,17 (NEchtB 15; Würzburg: Echter, 1986), 41: “49 the events and the words, double translation of Hebrew debrm, here applied to hearing and seeing.” 24. Contrary to what most translations assume, =HB in 4:12, in my opinion, does not mean “thunder,” “peal,” or “sound,” but “voice.” It also does not mean “voice of thunder” (thus Karin Finsterbusch, Weisung für Israel. Studien zu religiösen Lehren und Lernen im Deuteronomium und in seinem Umfeld [FAT 44; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005], 136 n. 83). 1


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contrast to this we have to consider and listen to the narrative that expressly refuses Moses the vision of God and points him toward hearing the divine mystery. When Moses asks YHWH two things: “Let me know your ways!” and “Show me your glory/your face!” the second petition is immediately rejected by God: “You cannot see my face. No one can see my face. You can only see my back” (Exod 33:20, 23, paraphrase). The rest of the narrative shows that the curious statement “You can only see my back” is to be heard, or read, as a positive response to the rst petition, “Let me know your ways!” For when Moses descends from the mountain YHWH comes down in the cloud and passes (shrouded in the cloud?) by Moses. What the narrative probably intends is that as Moses looks at this passing and sees only God’s back he hears how God in a sense exegetes himself by describing in solemn words his saving, forgiving, and judging acts.25 The things said of God in Exod 34:6–7 are, moreover, the statements most frequently quoted and reformulated within the Bible itself, which underscores their importance.26 In the context of the narrative in Exod 33–34 they are, to the extent that they are proclaimed by the God who is passing by Moses, the answer to Moses’ rst petition: “Let me know your ways.” In hearing these words, Moses is to realize who God is and what God demands of Moses and his people. 4. “All this we will do, and we will hear” (Exodus 24:7) According to the book of Deuteronomy, Israel is constituted as YHWH’s people by hearing, as stated in what is even today the central liturgical confessional text of Judaism, the so-called Shema Israel (Deut 6:4): Hear, O Israel, YHWH is our God; YHWH is One (or: YHWH is alone).

Just as Israel, in listening to the voice of God at Sinai/Horeb, became God’s people, in fulllment of the promise given to Moses (“If you listen to my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples,” Exod 19:5), so Israel will be newly constituted as 25. On Exod 34:6–7, see especially, Matthias Franz, Der barmherzige und gnädige Gott. Die Gnadenrede vom Sinai (Exodus 34,6–7) und ihre Parallelen im Alten Testament und seiner Umwelt (BWA[N]T 160; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2003); Ruth Scoralick, Gottes Güte und Gottes Zorn. Die Gottesprädikationen Ex 34,6f und ihre intertextuellen Beziehungen zum Zwölfprophetenbuch (Herders Biblische Studien 33; Freiburg: Herder, 2002). 26. In post-biblical Judaism Maimonides developed out of these statements about God the teaching of the thirteen ways of God’s working (Middot). The appeal to these thirteen Middot of God is at the center of the Jewish liturgy on Yom Kippur. 1

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God’s people in every generation if it hears the voice of the God of Sinai, especially the voice of the Torah. Every generation, in a sense, stands at the base of Sinai and must surrender itself, daring to hear. And where that hearing happens, Israel moves into the horizon of that today of which Ps 95:7 speaks. The book of Deuteronomy itself underscores that it is in the hearing of the Torah of Sinai, even at a distance from Sinai, that this Israel-constituting “today” comes to pass. Therefore Moses can say in the elds of Moab to Israelites who were not themselves at Sinai/Horeb as their ancestors had been: “YHWH, our God, made a covenant with us at Horeb. It was not with our ancestors that YHWH made this covenant, but with us who stand here today, with all of us, the living” (Deut 5:2–3). And although they themselves were not at Sinai, or at best were small children, Moses can continue: “YHWH spoke with you face to face out of the re” (Deut 5:4). Exodus 24:7 shows how and where this “hearing” takes place. In response to Moses’ reading of the Book of the Covenant, the people say: “We will do all this and we will hear” (Exod 24:7). Israel only really hears God by doing the Torah. The explicit characterization of Israel, at the end of the Pentateuch, as hearer of the word of God delivered through Joshua, the successor of Moses, is a fundamental feature of the tradition. The time of the long march from Egypt through the wilderness to the borders of the Promised Land is thus in a sense depicted as Israel’s great school for hearing, a metamorphosis from a not-listening to listening people of God. When Moses brings the Israelites in Egypt the message of their liberation, their reaction, according to Exod 6:9, was: “They did not listen to him, because of their broken spirit and their cruel slavery.” This note that “they did not listen” appears again and again during their journey through the desert.27 At the end, however, in Deut 34:9, we read: “the Israelites listened to him [i.e. Joshua] and did what YHWH had commanded Moses.”28 Now the entry into the Land of Promise can begin: they go in as hearers of the word. The biblical tradition has summed up its perception that right hearing is the precondition for the inbreaking of the realm of justice and peace willed by the biblical God in a glorious and almost fairy-tale story strongly shaped in its form and motifs by Egyptian tradition. This is 27. Num 14:22 speaks of the “not listening” of the Exodus generation as the reason for their death before the entry into the Land. 28. Deut 34:9 asserts the fulllment of what had been promised by YHWH himself in Num 27:20; at the same time, Deut 34:9 must be seen within the horizon of Deut 18:15. Since Deut 34:10–12 is a kind of colophon to the Pentateuch, we may regard the statement in Deut 34:9 about the Israelites’ “listening” as a programmatic closing for the Pentateuch. 1


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the programmatic overture with which the reign of the young Solomon opens in 1 Kings. The narrative is inspired by the tale, frequently encountered in Egyptian texts, in which the crown prince or young king goes to a temple near the royal residence where he has an encounter with God and then brings rich offerings to the deity. A classic example of this tradition is the so-called Sphinx Stele of Thutmose IV, which situates the crown prince’s dream of the god at the feet of the famous sphinx of Giza; there the god Harmachis promises him the rulership that belongs to him, over all Egypt, and when he awakens from the dream he proclaims a great cultic festival!29 The structure of this event is found also in the biblical story in 1 Kgs 3. The young Solomon travels from his city of Jerusalem to the pilgrimage sanctuary of Gibeon, 9 km to the northwest. He passes the night there, in the sanctuary, in order to receive a word from God through the liturgical action of incubation (sleeping in the temple). There God appears to him in a dream and offers to fulll a wish for him as he assumes the royal throne. Solomon does not ask, as we would expect from the Egyptian model, for a long life, wealth, and power over his enemies; instead, he says: “Give your servant a listening heart, so that he may rule your people well and know how to discern between good and evil!” (1 Kgs 3:9). He receives his answer from God: Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches, or for the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself the ability to hear what is right, I now do according to your word. See, I give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there has been none before you and none will come after you who is your equal. But I give you also what you have not asked: wealth and honor…and long life. (1 Kgs 3:11–12)

The listening heart is here the precondition for everything else. The metaphor of the “listening heart” is both Egyptian and Israelite. “Heart” is not a metaphor for feeling; rather, it is the organ of the intellect and the center of personal identity. In this conception the heart is that part of the human being in which all sense impressions come together, are stored, and are contemplated. From the “heart” then go forth all the person’s judgments and decisions. To that extent the “heart” is the place within the person that “hears” everything that comes from outside and reacts to it. But it was especially true—in Egypt and in Israel—that the heart was the organ through which God is “heard” and through which God “dwells within” the person. Thus the heart is the human organ of reception for discerning the order of the world and of life that is willed by God. 29. See “A Divine Oracle Through a Dream,” ANET, 449. 1

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In 1988, the Egyptologist Hellmut Brunner drew attention to an Egyptian text containing the expression “listening heart,” previously known only from the Bible. The following passage appears on a statue of Amenophis, son of Hapu, who was a master builder and high ofcial of Amenophis III, in the temple at Karnak: “I am truly outstanding among all the people, one with a listening heart, when he seeks counsel among what is strange like one whose heart was present.” Brunner comments on this passage as follows: “What Amenophis, son of Hapu, revered at a later period as a sage and ‘holy one,’ emphasizes as something most unusual is that his heart was able to give ‘counsel’ even in the face of things unusual, strange—that is, phenomena that had not yet been received into the traditional Egyptian worldview, but that in this period of such openness toward Asia and Nubia were appearing everywhere— that he understood how to classify such new and confusing phenomena so that he could react to them rightly—and he was able to do this because of his ‘listening heart.’ ”30 The “art of listening” is the core of what could be called Egyptian— and, analogously, Jewish—“education.” The conclusion of the Wisdom of Ptahhotep, which sings the praise of listening in more than a hundred verses, is applicable to both: Useful is listening to a son who hears. If hearing enters the hearer, the hearer becomes one who is heard. To listen well is to speak well, and the one who listens possesses what is useful. Splendid is listening to one who hears, listening is better than all else, for it manifests perfect love. How good it is for a son to grasp his father’s words! In this way he will reach old age, for one who listens is beloved of God, but the one who does not listen is hated of God. It is the heart that makes of its owner a listener or a non-listener. A man’s heart is his life, prosperity, and health. It is the hearer who listens to what is said, and one who loves to listen is one who does what is said.31

30. Helmut Brunner, Das hörende Herz. Kleine Schriften zur Religions- und Geistergeschichte Ägyptens (OBO 80; Freiburg: Universitätsverlag; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988), 4–5. 31. See “The Instruction of the Vizier Ptah-hotep,” ANET, 414. See also http:// maat.soatopia.org/ptahhotep_maxims.htm. 1


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Against this background the answer given in the midrash in tractate Sanhedrin to the question “when will Messiah come?”—“Today, if you listen to his voice”—acquires deep signicance: Today, if you love listening. Today, if you hear in your heart. Today, if you do what this voice of God says to you.

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DEUTERONOMY 29–34 AND THE FORMATION OF THE TORAH Randall Heskett

Back when I was an undergraduate student at Bethany Bible College, our Greek and Hebrew Professor, Dr. Rider, often commented about Gerald Sheppard, who at the time was teaching at the “liberal” Union Theological Seminary in New York City. When I later attended the S.T.M. program at Yale, Brevard Childs spoke very highly of Gerry, and when I asked him if there was anyone in the whole world who was a top-notch scholar of both Old Testament and Hermeneutics, he told me, “Gerry Sheppard is the only one who comes to mind.” Subsequently, Childs contacted Dr. Sheppard, suggesting that I study with him for my Ph.D.: “You will love Gerry, he is a reball,” Childs added. With that, I moved to Toronto, where Gerry at that time was teaching, becoming his graduate student and Teaching Assistant. Gerry arranged for me to have teaching responsibilities at the Toronto School of Theology; I do not regret for a moment making this move. Gerry understood my pedagogical needs. Our common interests and the experiences that we shared were rich. We had both graduated from Bethany College in California, both understood Pentecostal interpretation, and had a wide variety of shared interests. We both had studied several ancient Near Eastern languages. We shared interests in the history of interpretation, theology, ethics, sciences, and philosophy. We both loved cooking and even prepared several gourmet meals together. He once told me that his relationship with me was just as close as his relationship with Childs. In our daily conversations, weekly lunches, and even Christmas dinners together, Gerry helped me to understand the role that this wider context of disciplines played in the interpretation of Scripture, greater theological discourse, and the wholeness of life. Gerry’s mentorship even helped me to address the larger issues of my latest monograph, The Road to Wholeness, a topic on which Anne Sheppard noted that Gerry always wanted to write. A day does not go by where I do not either consult Gerry’s publications for help or simply ask myself how Gerry would have treated a certain problem that seems insoluble. As my mentor, later 1

HESKETT Deuteronomy 29–34

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colleague, and close friend, I miss him greatly. This paper demonstrates one way in which he taught me to describe how smaller units t into the greater perspective of the macrocosm. Throughout the history of interpretation, readers of Scripture with widely varying perspectives have used source-critical methodology to assign the date and “authorship” of Deuteronomy to time periods and gures other than Moses. Whereas de Wette argued source-critically that the writer of Deuteronomy was a “pious fraud,”1 fundamentalists used the same basic approach to assign the “authorship” of the death of Moses to Joshua, thereby creating (ironically) their own “J” source (J for Joshua).2 Form-critical approaches have given rise to the work of von Rad, who claimed that Deuteronomy’s original “paraenetic” function found its setting in the amphictyony cult,3 Weinfeld, who assigns the provenance of this book to the wisdom circles of the royal court of Judah,4 and George Mendenhall, who argues that the book of Deuteronomy takes on the very form of a Hittite suzerain–vassal treaty.5 The application of redaction criticism to Deuteronomy was a key element in the work of Martin Noth, who argued that the core of Deuteronomy consisted of chs. 12–26, with 4:44–11:32 serving as the original introduction to the law and 27:1–30:20 as the conclusion. Noth maintained that much of this material may have belonged initially to the Deuteronomistic History (Deuteronomy–2 Kings; hereafter DtrH). According to Noth, Deut 4:44– 30:20 is “Deuteronomic Law,” which is a separate complex of traditions whose entire literary growth “must be dated before Dtr.”6 In Noth’s words, “Deut. 1–3 (4) is not the introduction to the Deuteronomic law but the beginning of the Deuteronomistic historical narrative” after the communication of Deuteronomic law.7 1. W. M. L. de Wette, Lehrbuch der historisch-kritischen Einleitung in die kanonischen und apokryphischen Bücher des Alten Testaments (8th ed.; Berlin: Reimer, 1869). 2. See, for example, Gleason L. Archer Jr., Encyclopedia of Bible Difculties (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1982), 154. 3. Gerhard von Rad, Das Gottesvolk im Deuteronomium (BWANT 3/11 [= 47]; Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1929). 4. Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972). 5. George E. Mendenhall, “Ancient Oriental and Biblical Law and Covenant Forms in Israelite Traditions,” BA 17 (1954): 26–46, 50–70; “Covenant Forms in Israelite Tradition,” in The Biblical Archaeologist Reader (ed. Edward F. Campbell and David Noel Freedman; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1970), 3:25–53 (31). 6. Martin Noth, The Deuteronomistic History (trans. Jane Doull, John Barton, and Michael D. Rutter; JSOTSup 15; Shefeld: JSOT, 1981), 16. 7. Ibid., 14. 1

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While source criticism rightly called attention to the serious historical problems and naiveté of Mosaic “authorship,” it also introduced a rift between the biblical text8 and Moses’ scriptural function as the human gure who testies to revelation and who holds the entire Torah together. While form criticism sought to establish the original oral performance and to understand the aesthetics that governed the Gattung of various traditions, no matter how accurate, it atomized the biblical text into its various pre-biblical oral forms that preceded the scriptural form and function of the Torah as a whole. Most scholars would agree with Noth that the original Deuteronomic traditions originated in the time of Josiah and initially belonged to a DtrH. Nevertheless, Noth thought that the Deuteronomic law was the accumulation of traditional materials that developed over time and referred back to Moses. Purely on historical grounds, the “book of the torah” that Hilkiah found in the temple (2 Kgs 22:8) was probably the core tradition of “D” (Deut 12–26), which is usually associated with the reforms of Josiah and also serves as the stipulations of a treaty between God and Israel. However, the theory of a DtrH has a great potential to ignore the form and function of the Mosaic Torah, which reached its scriptural form after the book of Deuteronomy was separated from that “history” and added to the Tetrateuch in order to complete the Torah in postexilic era. The strength of source and form criticisms is that they isolate pre-biblical traditions and help us to understand how the many pre-biblical pieces may have been woven into the tapestry of the vast biblical text. Even redaction criticism, having the capacity to describe the form and function of Scripture, can also isolate pre-biblical traditions that pre-date Jewish Scripture. These older modern methods have sought to satisfy a modern appetite for history at the expense of ignoring the scriptural form and function of a completed Mosaic Torah that accompanied the establishment of early Judaism in the postexilic era. Since several scholars in the past twenty-ve years have tried to describe the Pentateuch as a whole, this essay seeks to focus on how Deut 29–34 illumines the scriptural function of the Torah. Although these chapters are often dismissed as “a miscellaneous collection of unrelated passages”,9 I aim to show the impact of scripture-conscious editing when these chapters were added to the biblical book of Deuteronomy, which in Hebrew is called )JC359 9= or simply )JC35. This 8. See Sheppard’s, “Isaiah,” in The HarperCollins Bible Commentary (ed. James L. Mays et al.; San Francisco, Calif.: HarperCollins, 2000), 489–97. 9. Brevard S. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 219. 1


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endeavour raises several questions: What impact does the postexilic, editorial addition of Deut 29–34 have upon the formation of the scriptural scroll of Torah as a whole and what in turn is meant by DtrH in the assessment of Israelite traditions that subsequently became part of Jewish Scripture? Moreover, what becomes of the book of Deuteronomy and its relationship to the Tetrateuch after it has been separated from that “history” and has been added as the last book of the Mosaic Torah (Genesis to Deuteronomy)? What are the implications for how the books from Joshua to 2 Kings in the DtrH came to be presented as biblical books of Scripture? Deuteronomy 29–34 seem to contain later material which reinterprets the earlier D core. Sheppard’s colleague, Brian Peckham, ascribes most of chs. 29–34 to late editors who build on Dtr1 (Dtr1 = Deut 29:1a, 9a, 11, 13–14; 31:1, 2a, 3a, 6). For example, Peckham suggests that the P source (P = Num 27:12–13, 15–23; Deut 1:3; 32:48–50, 51b–52; 34:1aAGb, 2–5, 7–9)10 and Dtr2 (Dtr2 = 29:1b–8, 9b–10, 12, 15–28; 30:1–20; 31:2b, 3b–5, 7–30; 32:1–47, 51; 33:1–29; 34:1a, 6, 10–12) provide later reworking of the earlier core.11 Peckham rejects Noth’s theory that there was an earlier D core that was incorporated into the DtrH. He argues that Noth’s theory of an original D tradition is incompatible with Noth’s insight that Dtr is the “author” of a history. Thus, for Peckham, the Dtr1 history is continuous from the beginning of Deuteronomy. The Dtr1 texts cited above in Peckham’s analysis are part of a Dtr1 history. For Peckham, Dtr2 (the exilic Deuteronomist) segments the book with interpretive commentary and is one whose editorial additions, corrections, and running commentary on Dtr1 make it seem as if it were an earlier D tradition.12 I do not have the condence of Peckham with regard to identifying which sources lie behind these later levels of editing; in this essay, I will show the impact of these later levels of tradition history. Whether or not the exact source designation and dating can be determined, later materials permeate the majority of Deut 29–34. Yet for what purpose? Peckham’s theory is most pertinent to my argument because, in his view, the book of Deuteronomy reached its present scriptural form in 10. Brian Peckham, History and Prophecy: The Development of the Late Judean Literary Traditions (ed. David Noel Freedman; ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 1993), 257. 11. See the tables in Brian Peckham, The Composition of the Deuteronomistic History (HSM 35; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1985), 95–140. 12. See Peckham’s detailed refutation of Noth in “The Composition of Deuteronomy 5–11,” in The Word of the Lord Shall Go Forth: Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman in Celebration of His Sixtieth Birthday (ed. Carol L. Meyers and M. O’Connor; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1983), 217–40. 1

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the postexilic era when the Torah/Pentateuch was established as the authoritative canon for Jewish faith and practice. In my opinion, Mendenhall convincingly demonstrates that the core of the Deuteronomic traditions is cast in suzerain–vassal treaty formulae that bind Israel to YHWH as its suzerain. Although Mendenhall would argue that Deut 32 reects this treaty ideology, I wish to argue that this material does not contain this treaty language but has been added to this Deuteronomic core.13 Deuteronomy 32 and its function within chs. 29–34 has striking impact upon the rest of Deuteronomy and the entire Pentateuch. Within these chapters, the later editors have provided “publisher’s notes” (Sheppard’s terminology, which I adopt here), which inform the reader of how to read Scripture and its function within the community of faith. Moses’ Song in Deut 32 was traditionally interpreted as early as Philo as Moses’ last will and testament just as 2 Sam 23:1–7 was viewed as David’s last will and testament. Now within the latter formation of the book of Deuteronomy, the editors have regarded this song to be J?33 5= = C J, “a testimony” or “witness against Israel” (Deut 31:19). Moreover, these editorial remarks tell us that “this song will confront them as a witness” (Deut 31:21) but for what purpose and to what subject does this song testify? Deuteronomy 31:26 equates this witness with the very Torah itself, when Moses as the designated (not historical) writer instructs the Levites to “place this book of the Torah beside the ark of the covenant of YHWH their [sic. ‘your’] God that it may remain there as a witness against you.” Similarly, Deut 31:28 states: “Take this book of the Torah and put it beside the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God; let it remain there as a testimony (5) against you.” Deuteronomy 31:30 claims that this is the testimony of Moses who “recited the words of this song, to the very end, in the hearing of the whole assembly of Israel.” Likewise, Deut 32:44–46 states: When Moses had nished reciting all these words to all Israel, he said to them: “Take to heart all the words that I am giving in witness (5H) against you today; give them as a command to your children, so that they may diligently observe all the words of this Torah.”

Therefore within the latter formation of Torah, these publisher’s notes portray Scripture itself as a human testimony to divine revelation and Deut 29:29 denes this revelation accordingly: “The secret things belong 13. See George Mendenhall, “Samuel’s ‘Broken Rîb’: Deuteronomy 32,” in A Song of Power and the Power of Song: Essays on the Book of Deuteronomy (ed. Duane L. Christensen; Sources for Biblical and Theological Study 3; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1993), 169–80. 1


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to the LORD our God, but the revealed things belong to us and to our children forever, to observe all the words of this Torah…” This verse then names the Torah as the very subject matter of God’s unique revelation to Israel. Torah then performs a dual function, most specically as the subject matter of the entire Tanakh/Old Testament, but also one of three idioms of revelation, which along with wisdom and prophecy provides a specic arena for revelation to operate (each idiom testifying to Torah as revealed subject matter). The inference here is that, if God had not revealed the Torah to Moses, it would have remained secret; that it was communicated to Moses gives it the status of revelation. As the designated writer, however, Moses testies to a revelation that now belongs to each successive generation. Not only do these words inform the reader about how to interpret Torah as both a category and subject matter of this revelation, but they also set the precedent for how each subsequent generation may read the rest of Scripture. Nevertheless, what would keep one from arguing that these later chapters of Deuteronomy were added merely to conclude )JC359 9= , but with no interpretive impact on the Tetrateuch? Why can we not simply argue that this Torah mentioned in this book speaks about Deuteronomy alone but not the postexilic Mosaic Torah? Although such a question can be easily answered by nonchalantly reading the Torah synchronically, we who have drunk from the well of modernity need historical-critical indicators to be convinced that the “torah” mentioned in Deuteronomy is indeed “intended” to be read as the postexilic Torah of Moses. First of all, the moment that one picks up a lexicon or makes historical claims, he or she has nullied any synchronic approach. Second, since modern scholarship has little or no problem assigning most of these concluding chapters of Deuteronomy—most specically the death of Moses— to later hands, such diachronic insight, which is often used effectively to disprove the historical authenticity of Mosaic “authorship”—and rightly so—also may provide one of the clues to reading the Pentateuch as a whole because the later editors may have incorporated Deuteronomy with the Tetrateuch to form one Mosaic Torah. How? The very fact that the death of Moses has been removed possibly from its original position in Num 27 and has been placed subsequently in Deut 34 shows the inclusion of Deuteronomy into a ve book Pentateuch. While Noth believed that these verses belonged to a later Deuteronomistic writer or editor, many scholars trace the verses about the death of Moses in Deut 34:7–9 to a later “Priestly” redactor who moved the material from Numbers to the end of Deuteronomy because they correspond to Priestly material about Aaron’s death and Joshua’s succession 1

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in Num 20:29 and 27:18–23.14 Von Rad argues that because of “the reference to Joshua, his charisma and his ofce,” this passage, which describes the death of Moses, “refers to Num. 27:18ff (P).”15 S. R. Driver acknowledges that the death of Moses is a later addition, but says that we cannot be sure if it belongs to a later JE or P.16 Moreover, while such references to “the plains of Moab” and “Mount Nebo” (v. 1) and to “Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” (v. 4) have led Mayes to assign these verses to Priestly additions, Olson calls these verses “post-Deuteronomic addition by a redactor who was editing the entire Pentateuch.”17 These verses provide publisher’s notes that describe Moses’ function in the Pentateuch. In an analogous way, the New Testament editors followed this model to provide similar “publisher’s notes” by removing the book of Acts from Luke and later adding John 21 while incorporating John’s account of the Gospel into the collection to round off those books that read together as four accounts or testimonies to the one Gospel (,"5" ."22"*0/ ,"5", ."3,0/ ,"5" -06,"/ ,"5" *8"//)/). This strategy emulates how the books of Moses, though separate in their macro-structure, testify to one Torah. Acts, like Deuteronomy, then, would be about and for the next generation. If the core chapters of Deuteronomy once did belong to the DtrH, they have indeed been detached from this pre-biblical tradition and now belong to a ve-book Torah. In essence, this designation of DtrH cannot function as a category within the scriptural or biblical context, but at best may be viewed as a pre-biblical tradition. Therefore, within the latter formation of Scripture, after Deuteronomy has been separated from the “history” and joined with the Torah, Josh 1:7–8 now names the Mosaic Torah as the revelation to which the testimony of the text bears witness and the subject matter to which the scriptural category of “Former Prophets” (Joshua–Kings) now provides witness and even commentary. Nevertheless, another problem arises out of modern scholarship: Can we call the Pentateuch a “Mosaic Torah” or “the Five Books of Moses” if modern-critical methods indeed show that Moses did not historically 14. For instance, the following: A. D. H. Mayes, Deuteronomy (NCB; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1981), 413; Lothar Perlitt, “Priesterschrift im Deuteronomium?,” ZAW (Suppl.) 100 (1988): 65–88; Dennis T. Olson, Deuteronomy and the Death of Moses: A Theological Reading (OBT; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), 166–67. 15. See Gerhard von Rad, Deuteronomy: A Commentary (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1966), 210. 16. See S. R. Driver, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Deuteronomy (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1895), 425. 17. See Olson, Deuteronomy and the Death of Moses, 166. 1


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“recite the words of this song, to the very end…” (Deut 31:30) and did not historically “nish writing down in a book the words of this Torah to the very end” (Deut 31:24)? First, we must acknowledge the sheer necessity of historical-critical methodology in the modern quest to describe origins and levels of tradition history. Yet, when scholars limit the meaning of Scripture to original “authors” and the intent of the “editors,” they often fail to describe the meaning of Scripture. Such attempts to impose the modern notion of “authorship” on the biblical text stem from a modern understanding of history and individualism. No wonder scholars made such source-critical allegations that the writer was a “pious fraud” or limited the meaning of Deuteronomy to form-critical efforts that culminated in assigning the provenance of this book to either the wisdom circles of the royal court of Judah or the oral setting of a suzerain–vassal treaty. If Moses was not the “author” of the Pentateuch and Deuteronomy was not originally connected to the rst four books, then Noth had no alternative but to determine Deuteronomic origins and their relationship to the books that follow. This modern notion of “authorship” may have spawned thousands of theories as to the various sources or oral forms that made up the Pentateuch, but no exegete from the modern era disputed that Moses could not have written about his own death and therefore could not be the “author” of the entire Pentateuch. Like the early supporters of the documentary hypothesis, fundamentalists obliviously shared the same epistemological category of those whom they condemned. Hence, they too had no other alternative but to apply source-critical theory in order to solve the problems of Moses’ death by assigning it to Joshua as another source and yet leave as much of their own conservative theory of Mosaic “authorship” intact as possible. Yet, they too never comprehended how they had sacriced Moses’ function of holding together the entire Pentateuch by acquiescing to one form of plural authorship. While in the pre-modern era the Talmud (Baba Batra 15a) speculated that Joshua wrote the words about the death of Moses and Ibn Ezra said that it must have come from a later writer, neither commentary applied the modern notion of authorship. These attempts to determine “authorship” became the inevitable result of the modern era, leaving no other alternative but to atomize the Torah into multiple authorships, depending on how many sources the various theories would allow the text to stretch18 to before it broke.

18. Frei’s term; see Hans W. Frei, “The ‘Literal Reading’ of Biblical Narrative in the Christian Tradition: Does It Stretch or Will It Break?,” in Bible and the Narrative Tradition (ed. Frank McConnell; New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 36–77. 1

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The paradox here lies in how both fundamentalists and liberals seemed to subject the biblical text to the same modern criteria of history and science. While one camp defends the historical Mosaic “authorship,” the other disregards it on similar epistemological grounds—and both agree that the death of Moses is not an autobiography (except for a few of what Sheppard called “sub-modern” conservative Christians and some Orthodox Jews who believe that Moses was given insight into his own death and did indeed write about it before he died). Through buying into the modern notion of authorship, literalistic interpreters had no other alternative but to step over the line into the same arena that spawned the liberal solution of assigning a portion of historical authorship to a gure other than Moses. Whether they chose two authors (Moses and Joshua), four authors (J-E-D-P), or more, each camp forfeited Moses’ function within the whole Torah. Just as such individuals as Spinoza, Bleek, Colenso, Graf, Kuenen, Simon, and Eichhorn each preceded Wellhausen, they all began their source-critical quest on the undisputable premise that Moses could not have written about his own death. Hence, they each subsequently built on other criteria such as divine names, priestly distinctions, anachronisms, chronological accuracy, contradictions, repetitions, and dislocation of narratives, and so on, thus expanding on this initial observation of Moses’ death.19 Literalistic interpreters, too, commenced with the death of Moses but eventually had to adjudicate whether or not the text could accommodate other sources. This scenario is striking: the irony turns on the fact that both Evangelicals and Fundamentalists originally found common ground in their view of Mosaic “authorship,” both beginning at the same place as did their liberal opponents by assigning authorship of Moses’ death to the penmanship of a source other than Moses. In making this modern-interpretive shift, many twentieth- and twenty-rst-century Evangelical scholars have not only assigned the death of Moses to another source, where both their modern-fundamentalist kin and liberal enemies unwittingly commenced, but they have even followed the steps of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century liberal schools to the degree that it is fashionable in many Evangelical circles now to use the nomenclature, “J-E-D-P.”20 Representing two sides of the 19. See Abraham Kuenen, An Historico-critical Inquiry into the Origin and Composition of the Hexateuch: (Pentateuch and Book of Joshua) (trans. P. H. Wicksteed; London: Macmillan, 1886), xxxix. Here he shows that Wellhausen was not a pioneer but a grand consolidator. 20. In 1978 Robert Gundry resigned from the Evangelical Theological Society in the wake of fundamentalist attacks over his use of historical-critical methods. In his “Historical Criticism and the Evangelical” (JETS 42, no. 2 [1999]: 193–210), 1


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same coin, each theological party inadvertently applied source criticism, and literalistic interpreters ironically bought into the very project that they so vehemently disdained, thus forfeiting the scriptural function of Moses within the scroll of Torah as a whole. If the successes of the modern era have yielded new problems and diminishing returns, then it is time for biblical scholarship to rethink the role of epistemology and the biblical text—especially in the area of “authorship.” What does it mean that Deut 29–34 so poignantly links Moses to the Pentateuch? In Deut 31, the editors speak of Moses in the third person as the one who “wrote” (3E). This phrase is probably related to the oral reading of the Torah or YHWH’s revelation through the prophets. Even the twiceused expression “you are my witnesses” (43:10, 12) is only found elsewhere in Josh 24 during the covenant renewal, where the people are called to witness the conditions of the Torah. The former things within the postexilic scroll of Isaiah preclude the Torah traditions (42:4, 24) and now serve as a conrmation of the word of God (40:8) and even the Mosaic Torah (42:21; 43). 27. See Exod 10:2; 12:24, 26–27; Deut 4:9; 6:2, 7, 20–21; 12:28; 23:8; 29:29; 31:13; 32:46. 1

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end the twelve prophets with an admonition to “Remember the Torah of my servant Moses, when I commanded him on Horeb the statutes and ordinances for all of Israel” (MT 3:22 [Eng. 4:4]). In conclusion, Deut 29–34 ts within a greater macrostructure, whereby the ve books of Torah hold together as a whole. For example, Gen 15:13–14 adumbrates the exodus event. The Toledot formula holds together the larger book of Genesis and connects it to the book of Exodus (Gen 24; see also 5:1; 9:18; 10:1, 32; 11:10, 27; 25:15; Exod 6:16, 19). Even the very sequence, beginnings, and endings of the books of the Pentateuch betray the forces of a sweeping editorial activity that brings ve books together into one Torah.28 The verses that refer to Moses as the designated writer, whom God spoke to face to face (Exod 37:11; Deut 34:10), and who nished writing the Torah to the end, also make a connection back to Exodus (Exod 24:3; 34:27; Deut 31:9). Most strikingly, the death of Moses was strategically moved from Num 27 to the end of Deuteronomy so that these nal verses would conclude the Torah with this conclusive event and thereby include this fth book with the Tetrateuch in order to compose one Torah. Therefore, these observations not only impact the scriptural function of the Pentateuch but provide evidence that the DtrH cannot exist within Scripture and is a pre-biblical tradition at best. The older source-critical models could only describe the pre-biblical Deuteronomic origins during Josiah’s reform and the original relationship of this so-called D core with the books that follow. Yet it failed to describe the form and function of Deuteronomy within the latter formation of the Pentateuch. While we must acknowledge the possibility of an original pre-biblical Deuteronomic core and that its original connection with Joshua–Kings may very well have formed what is termed the DtrH, we cannot afrm this as a biblical category. The DtrH does not exist within the latter formation of 28. Note the mention of the Joseph’s Death (Gen 50 and Exod 1), the twelve tribes (Gen 49; Exod 1:1–4), and the bones of Joseph (Gen 50:25; Exod 13:19) at the end of Genesis and beginning of Exodus. The sequence begins with Moses receiving the Torah at Sinai in Exodus. Exodus ends with Moses standing outside the tent of meeting and Leviticus begins with YHWH’s summons to Moses from the tent of meeting. Leviticus ends with Moses receiving the commandments at Mt. Sinai and Numbers begins at the wilderness of Sinai in the tent of meeting. Numbers ends with Moses in the plains of Moab and Deuteronomy begins with Moses beyond the Jordan. This succession represents a movement from Israel’s own land into slavery, through the wilderness experiences, and journey back to the promised land. See Brevard Childs, “The Old Testament as Scripture of the Church,” CTM 43, no. 12 (1972): 709–22. 1


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Scripture. Within this scriptural context, Josh 1:7–8 does not refer to the core traditions of Deuteronomy (even if this was the original referent). But now, looking back on a completed ve-book Torah as subject matter, it informs readers that, in all of the stories which follow, if the Israelites meditate on the Mosaic Torah, they will nd success and prosperity. Hence, within the scriptural context of the Former Prophets (Joshua– Kings), these stories, reecting back on the Torah, provide testimonies, meditations, or commentaries on the very Torah that functions as the subject matter of Scripture. Perhaps the most acrimonious rift in biblical scholarship—in which one camp questions the “authenticity” and historicity of the Mosaic Torah and the other strives to harmonize historically dissimilar traditions and defend the Bible as an inerrant referent to history—originated because both sides failed to understand what it meant to read the Pentateuch as Scripture. Modern scholarship had identied the various historically dissimilar traditions, anachronisms, chronological inaccuracies, and contradictions as problems instead of recognizing how these attributes fulll a scriptural function. Part of the beauty behind these so-called problems lies in the fact that the words on the biblical page truly are human but the revelation to which they testify is divine. Luther says that God’s word does not become good news as we understand it by virtue of its inclusion in a book. For him, “the Gospel really is not that which is contained in books and composed in letters, but [is] rather an oral preaching and a living word, a voice which resounds throughout the whole world and is publicly proclaimed.”29 The epistemological shift in the modern era distracted biblical scholars from their task of reading the Bible as such a human testimony. Therefore, scholarship was unable to appreciate what it meant for Moses, as the designated writer of the Torah, to function as such a witness to divine revelation. Moses’ role as mediator describes him as the human gure who testies to a revelation that would have remained secret to God if Moses had not related it to Israel (Deut 29:29; 31:26; 32:46). Hence, the very last verses of Torah name Moses as the prophet par excellence (Deut 34:10–12)—not to place him as the individual author, but to describe his scriptural function and to safeguard the Mosaic Torah from other competing Torah traditions (e.g. Ezek 40– 48). Therefore, the last chapters of Deuteronomy have semantically transformed the meaning of earlier traditions so that the ve books of Moses bear witness to the very revelation that has been named as Torah 29. Quoted in Roland H. Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (New York: Abingdon, 1950), 224. 1

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itself—a category which, on one hand, functions as an idiom of revelation like wisdom and prophets, and, on the other hand, serves as the subject matter of Jewish Scripture itself. These chapters also provided publisher’s notes that dened the very nature of biblical interpretation and set a precedent for the scripture-conscious editing of other biblical books. Since we nd historically dissimilar traditions left in tension throughout the Pentateuch, we must remember that Scripture functions as a human testimony to revelation. As Karl Barth so elegantly points out, with all of the elements that prove to be human, “Scripture as the original and legitimate witness of divine revelation is itself the Word of God.”30

30. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics. Vol. 1, Book 2, The Doctrine of the Word of God: Prolegomena to Church Dogmatics (ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1956), 502. 1

JEHOIACHIN AND JOSEPH: HOPE AT THE CLOSE OF THE DEUTERONOMISTIC HISTORY* John E. Harvey

A perennial question in the study of the Deuteronomistic History (DtrH) concerns its ending, 2 Kgs 25:27–30. What hope, if indeed there is one, does this conclusion provide? Noth argued that the close of the DtrH underlines the nal demise of the nation, and that the passage offered no hope whatsoever.1 Contrary to Noth’s interpretation is that of von Rad, who asserted that the passage adumbrates a restoration of the Davidic monarchy.2 Disagreeing with both Noth and von Rad was Wolff, who believed that the passage is to be understood in light of the repeated calls to repentance in the DtrH: Israel would prosper in exile if she repented.3 Subsequent interpreters have tended to side with one of these views.4 More recently there has been a shift away from such interpretations. Nobil has argued that the close of the DtrH marks an attempt by an exilic redactor to “round off” the enneateuch.5 This redactor did so by using * I am gratefully indebted to the late Gerry Sheppard for our many conversations concerning the inuence that early Pentateuchal writings had upon later writers. The hermeneutical theory that the present study presupposes owes its existence to such conversations. 1. Martin Noth, The Deuteronomistic History (JSOTSup 15; Shefeld: JSOT, 1981), 97–99. 2. Gerhard von Rad, Studies in Deuteronomy (SBT 9; London: SCM, 1953), 74–91. See also his Old Testament Theology (2 vols.; New York: Harper & Row, 1962), 1:334–47. 3. Hans Walter Wolff, “The Kerygma of the Deuteronomistic Historical Work,” in The Vitality of Old Testament Traditions (ed. Walter Brueggemann and Hans Walter Wolff; Atlanta, Ga.: John Knox, 1978), 83–100. 4. See the notes in Donald F. Murray, “Of All the Years the Hopes—or Fears? Jehoiachin in Babylon (2 Kings 25:27–30),” JBL 120 (2001): 246–47. 5. Marco Nobile, “Un Contributo alla Lettura Sincronica della Redazione Genesi—2 Re, Sulla Base del Filo Narrativo Offerto da 2Re 25,27–30,” Anton 61 (1986): 207–24. 1

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various names and turns of phrase that aligned the close of the DtrH with various portions of the preceding books, especially Genesis. Begg furthered Nobil’s observation by contending that the close of the DtrH affords a pro-Babylonian perspective: with Jeremiah, Dtr wanted Judah to submit to her Babylonian overlord so that she might prosper. Although Judah was bereft of land, king, and temple, God was still with her.6 In essay article I will complement the work of Begg by asserting that his pro-Babylonian interpretation is consonant with Dtr’s presentation of Jehoiachin as a new Joseph, who, like Joseph before him, was exalted by a foreign king. The implied question that the close of the DtrH raises is, “Will Judah prosper in Babylon even as Israel had prospered in Egypt?” Certainly a principal reason why scholarship has not come to a consensus regarding the interpretation of 2 Kgs 25:27–30 is that this passage is riddled with ambiguity. This is why most scholars have sought to support their interpretation by encouraging readers to interpret 2 Kgs 25:27–30 in light of one or another theme in the DtrH. Noth would have us interpret the close of the DtrH in light of the many passages that foretell a nal and certain demise of the nation. Von Rad would have us interpret the passage in light of the recurring promise to David: Judah’s hopes for a scion of David rested in Jehoiachin. Similarly, Wolff would have us understand Jehoiachin’s manumission as an invitation to Jehoiachin and the people to repent that they might prosper once again. While the hermeneutical problem is broached the same way by Noth, von Rad, and Wolff (i.e. interpreting the ambiguous particular in light of the general), each of them fails to do justice to the passage itself. Noth’s interpretation is remiss because it seemingly has little regard for Dtr’s writing skills. Given that Dtr was a tremendous literary artist, it is most odd that he would conclude his lengthy history in such a matter-of-fact manner with no theological comment.7 Von Rad’s contention that the pericope points, however laconically, to the continuation of the dynastic promise fails to do justice to the nal words of the pericope: “Day by day the king gave Jehoiachin a regular allowance as long as he lived.” Begg correctly notes that the formula HJJI J>J =< (“all the days of his life”) is used in the DtrH with reference to characters who had died (see Josh 4:14; 1 Sam 7:15; 1 Kgs 15:5–6).8 Von Rad’s interpretation also fails to explain why 6. Christopher T. Begg, “The Signicance of Jehoiachin’s Release: A New Proposal,” JSOT 36 (1986): 49–56. See also Begg’s “The Interpretation of the Gedaliah Episode (2 Kgs 25:22–26) in Context,” Anton 62 (1987): 3–11. 7. Begg, “Release,” 50. 8. Ibid., 53. In this regard, some have wrongly contended that the manumission of Jehoiachin implies the eventual re-establishment of the Davidic dynasty. For 1

HARVEY Jehoiachin and Joseph

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there is no mention of any extension of Jehoiachin’s privileges—whether in the present or the future, whether to his people or to his sons.9 Wolff’s interpretation is problematic simply because there is no mention of repentance by Jehoiachin.10 Contrary to Noth, the passage itself does not refer to the demise of the nation. Contrary to von Rad, the passage has nothing to say about the re-birth of the Davidic dynasty, for it closes with a dead and (narratively speaking) sonless Jehoiachin. Finally, contrary to Wolff, in no way does the passage suggest that Jehoiachin was repentant. Following Begg, my contention that by patterning Jehoiachin after Joseph in 2 Kgs 25:27–30 Dtr was encouraging a pro-Babylonian perspective does justice both to the passage itself as well as to its greater contexts. The Babylonians are presented “as the agents of Yahweh’s judgment on Judah” (see 2 Kgs 20:19; 24:3–4, 13).11 There is, similarly, a notable absence of any “explicit condemnation of Babylon’s treatment of Judah” (contrast this with the condemnation of Assyria in 2 Kgs 18– 20).12 More specic than these points is the assurance that Gedaliah gave to those who were tempted to ee to Egypt from Jerusalem: “Do not be afraid because of the Chaldean ofcials; live in the land, serve the king of Babylon, and it shall be well with you” (2 Kgs 25:24). Gedaliah’s assurance goes unanswered by what follows, for a certain Ishmael assassinated Gedaliah, and the people ed to Egypt out of fear for the Babylonians. I say a “certain” Ishmael for the use of this name is here an allusion the Ishmael of Genesis repute, and the implied reader is invited to reect on the host of other parallels between such gures. The few things that Genesis tells us of Ishmael parallel what we know of the Ishmael in 2 Kings. Both gures presumably had sympathies with Egypt: Ishmael of Genesis was the son of Hagar, Abram’s Egyptian maidservant (Gen 16:1, 3); and Ishmael of Kings led the people to Egypt (2 Kgs 25:26). Each Ishmael was “royal”: Ishmael of Genesis, the rst son of Abram, was to be “the father of twelve rulers,” and made “into a great nation”

example, see James A. Sanders, Torah and Canon (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1972), 14–15; Jon D. Levenson, “The Last Four Verses in Kings,” JBL 103 (1984): 353–61. 9. Begg, “Release,” 52. Donald F. Murray, “Of all the Years the Hopes—or Fears? Jehoiachin in Babylon [2 Kings 25:27–30],” JBL 120 (2001): 245–65, emphasizes this point: while Chronicles refers to Jehoiachin’s sons (1 Chr 3:17–18), the fact that the close of the DtrH does not mention them “simply sets the absence of any such reference into starker relief.” 10. Begg, “Release,” 51. 11. Ibid., 54. 12. Ibid. 1

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(Gen 17:20); and Ishmael of Kings was similarly “of royal blood” (2 Kgs 25:25). The two Ishmaels were equally fractious: Ishmael of Genesis was to become a “wild ass of a man” who was to “live in hostility toward all his brothers” (Gen 16:12); Ishmael of Kings similarly assassinated Gedaliah and the men of Judah and Babylon who were with him (2 Kgs 25:25).13 The Ishmael–Ishmael parallel is akin to the Joseph–Jehoiachin parallel that immediately follows. Almost every line of 2 Kgs 25:27–30 alludes to the Joseph story. As Pharaoh was to “lift the head” (( CE … J) of the cupbearer by releasing him from prison (Gen 40:13), so Evilmerodach the king of Babylon “lifted the head” ( CE … ?) of Jehoiachin by releasing him from prison (2 Kgs 25:27).14 The clause “lifted the head” is an association trigger insofar as it calls the reader’s attention to the only other instance in which it is used with reference to the manumission of a prisoner. Evil-merodach’s “speaking good” to Joseph similarly nds its reex in Pharaoh’s statements to Joseph: “See, I have placed you over all the land of Egypt” (Gen 41:41); “I am Pharaoh, and without your word no man will lift hand or foot in all the land of Egypt” (Gen 41:44). As Pharaoh positioned Joseph over Egypt (Gen 41:40–43), so Evil-merodach exalted the throne of Jehoiachin above those of other kings (2 Kgs 25:28). At this point the word play on the clause “lifted up the head” (2 Kgs 25:27) is akin to the way in which it is used in the Joseph narrative. As Joseph changed his clothes before meeting Pharaoh (Gen 41:14), and as Pharaoh gave Joseph a change of clothes (Gen 41:43), so upon being exalted by Evil-merodach Jehoiachin put aside his prison clothes (2 Kgs 25:29).15 Again, as Pharaoh provided Egypt with food through Joseph (Gen 41:55–57), so Jehoiachin was given food by Evil-merodach (2 Kgs 25:29). Finally, as Pharaoh then blessed Joseph with wealth (Gen 41:43), so Evil-merodach blessed 13. The conuence of the two Ishmaels accords with Dtr’s use of personal names elsewhere. The rape of Judah’s step-daughter becomes the pattern for the rape of Tamar the daughter of David (John E. Harvey, Retelling the Torah: The Deuteronomistic Historian’s Use of Tetrateuchal Narratives [JSOTSup 403; London: T&T Clark International, 2004], 56–57). Phinehas, who killed Zimri and Cozbi “at the entrance to the tent of meeting” for their cultic infraction (Num 25:6–8), anticipates Phinehas the son of Eli who lay with women “at the entrance to the tent of meeting” and was killed for this cultic infraction (1 Sam 2:22, 25) (Harvey, Retelling, 82). Again, the wealthy shepherd Laban the father-in-law of Jacob becomes the pattern for the wealthy shepherd “Nabal” (an inversion of “Laban”) the husband of Abigail and nemesis of David (ibid., 63–64). 14. Murray, “Jehoiachin in Babylon,” 253, 256, also notes this. 15. Murray (ibid., 257 n. 31) also notes this. 1

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Jehoiachin with an allowance (2 Kgs 25:30). That parallels exist, then, between Jehoiachin and Joseph is clear enough, but little has been written concerning the interpretive signicance of such parallels.16 As with many of the parallel stories that Dtr drew between Genesis– Numbers and his history, the Ishmael–Ishmael parallels exist to alert the reader to the fact that the Ishmael of 2 Kings was akin to the Ishmael of Genesis.17 This conclusion is based on the observation that when Dtr sought to use a Tetrateuchal pattern for purposes of parody or inversion, he did so by modifying the Tetrateuchal pattern accordingly, or by calling attention to his purpose in the given Deuteronomistic narrative itself or, as is often the case, in the ensuing narrative—and this is clearly not the case with Dtr’s use of the Ishmael pattern in 2 Kgs 25. What is true of the Ishmael–Ishmael parallels, may not, however, be true of the Joseph–Jehoiachin parallels, for Dtr may well have drawn such parallels precisely to make the point that, unlike the Joseph story, the favor that was bestowed upon Jehoiachin would not lead to the prosperity of the people. One cannot argue denitively one way or the other because the manner in which Dtr upset Tetrateuchal patterns often becomes clear in ensuing narratives, and given the fact that 2 Kgs 25:27–30 is the nal narrative in a very long history, there is no way of knowing whether Dtr drew the Joseph–Jehoiachin parallel in order to fulll or frustrate the Joseph schema (i.e. making Jehoiachin a new Joseph who saves the people in a foreign land, or making Jehoiachin only into a would-be Joseph who fails to save the people in a foreign land). In order to support this contention, I will use examples from the DtrH that show Dtr’s proclivity to frustrate Tetrateuchal patterns. Perhaps the most extensive parallel between the Tetrateuch and the DtrH is that between the divine punishment of Sodom and the murder of the Levite’s concubine (Gen 18–19; Judg 19–21).18 As Abraham requested the messengers to receive his hospitality, so the Bethlehemite urged the Levite to remain as his guest (Gen 18:1–5; Judg 19:1–9). More specically, as Abraham “saw” ( CJH) the messengers and ran “to meet them” ()E CB=), so the Bethlehemite “saw [the Levite]” (H9 CJH) and was glad “to meet him” (HE CB=, Gen 18:2; Judg 19:3). As Abraham 16. A notable exception to this is the essay by Jan Jaynes Granowski, “Jehoiachin at the King’s Table: A Reading of the Ending of the Second Book of Kings,” in Reading Between Texts: Intertextuality and the Hebrew Bible (ed. Danna Nolan Fewell; Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 1992), 183–86. 17. By “parallel stories” I mean stories that share common words and themes that, apart from such commonalities, have nothing to do with each other. 18. I have adapted the following from Harvey, Retelling, 90–91. 1

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then said to the messengers “let me fetch a morsel of bread ()I=EA)… afterward you may go on (HC3E CI ),” so the Bethlehemite then said to the Levite, “Eat a morsel of bread ()I=EA) and afterward you may go (H, “oracle”). 8. Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12, 3; Seitz, Isaiah 1–39, 24; Sweeney, Isaiah 1–39, 63; Childs, Isaiah, 11–12; Smith, Isaiah 1–39, 95–97; Williamson, Isaiah 1–5, 151. D. M. Carr notes that the chapter is not really a summary of the book since many elements are missing (“Reaching for the Unity of Isaiah,” JSOT 57 [1993]: 71–80), but it certainly summarizes the primary message of the book. 1

WEGNER Seams in the Book of Isaiah

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vocabulary and themes in Isa 1 and Isa 65–66, possibly even forming an inclusio.9 Some of the similar themes and vocabulary are listed in the following table:10 Figure 2. Similarities between Isaiah 1 and 65–66 Vocabulary/Theme “heaven and earth” people “rebelled/transgressed” survivors/not to destroy all of them “I have no pleasure/delight” “seek” sacrices, incense, bulls, lamb abomination “hear the word of the LORD” the woman Zion killing people “rebels” blessings and curses “forsake” abuse of the cult wicked put to “shame” “gardens” you have “chosen” wicked burn in re “re not quenched” Contrast: sons have revolted against me/they are offspring blessed by the LORD

Isaiah 1 1:2 1:2, 28 1:9 1:11 1:12 1:11, 12 1:13, 17 1:11 1:21, 26 1:21 1:23 1:27–28 1:4, 28 1:29–31 1:29 1:29 1:29 1:31 1:31

Isaiah 65–66 65:17; 66:1, 22 66:24 65:8; 66:19 66:4 65:1 65:3, 7; 66:3 66:3; 65:4 66:5 66:7–13 66:3 65:2 65:9–12 65:11 65:3; 66:3, 17 65:13; 66:5 65:3; 66:17 66:4 66:15–16, 24 66:24

1:2

65:23

Though there are signicant relationships between vocabulary and themes in Isa 1 and Isa 65–66, scholars may disagree whether these are sufcient to be considered an inclusio. Several key themes shared by Isa 1 and Isa 65–66 are that Zion will be puried by re (1:25, 31; 66:15– 17, 24), the wicked will be punished (1:24–25, 26–31; 66:16–17, 24), 9. Sweeney, Isaiah 1–39, 44; Childs, Isaiah, 22–23; Smith, Isaiah 1–39, 96–97. 10. Smith, Isaiah 1–39, 96–97. See also L. Liebreich, “The Compilation of the Book of Isaiah,” JQR 47 (1956–57): 114–38 (126–27); R. Lack, La symbolique du livre d’Isaïe (AnBib 59; Rome: Pontical Biblical Institute, 1973), 139–41; M. A. Sweeney, Isaiah 1–4 and the Post-exilic Understanding of the Isaianic Tradition (BZAW 171; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1988), 21–24; D. M. Carr, “Reading Isaiah from Beginning (Isaiah 1) to End (Isaiah 65–66): Multiple Modern Possibilities,” in New Visions of Isaiah (ed. R. F. Melugin and M. A. Sweeney; JSOTSup 214; Shefeld: Shefeld Academic, 1996), 188–218; A. Tomasino, “Isaiah 1.1–2.4 and 63–66, and the Composition of the Isaianic Corpus,” JSOT 57 (1993): 81–98; Childs, Isaiah, 543–44. 1

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and a righteous remnant will be spared (1:27; 65:8–9; 66:18–21). Also, both Isa 1 and Isa 66 build to a climax when Jerusalem is puried, but then end with verses highlighting the judgment of the wicked, an apparent anticlimax that seems at least to some scholars to be somewhat articial.11 1. The Introductions (Isaiah 1–39) The curious appearance of Isaiah’s full name (e.g. Isaiah, the son of Amoz) in both Isa 1:1 and 2:1 has prompted scholars to suggest multiple theories of the book’s formation. The biblical book most closely resembling this oddity is Zechariah (Zech 1:1, 7; 7:1), where the prophet’s full name is spelled out in both Zech 1:1 and 1:7. This feature is often used to divide the book of Zechariah, as Carol and Eric Meyer have done: This chronological heading is the rst of three such headings (1:1; 1:7; 7:1) in Zechariah. It serves, along with a formula indicating the transmission of a divine message…to indicate a major unit in Zechariah’s prophecies. Accordingly we have divided Zechariah 1–8 into three sections: Part One, 1:1–6; Part Two, 1:7–6:15; Part Three, 7:1–8:23.12

The redactional nature of these introductions is certainly plausible, but their repetitiveness seems awkward to modern readers. Some have suggested the multiple introductions are indicative of earlier groups of passages that circulated separately for some time—a view that goes back at least as far as John Calvin.13 Given the fact that there are clear markers in the book of Isaiah that resemble markers used to divide other biblical books into major sections, it would be worthwhile to examine these divisions more closely to see if they may relate to an overall unifying structure of the book. a. First Introduction (1:1) The rst introduction is similar to other prophetic books and contains the following elements: 11. Clements, Isaiah 1–39, 37; Whybray, Isaiah 40–66, 293; C. Westermann, Isaiah 40–66: A Commentary (OTL; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1969), 424–29; Sweeney, Isaiah 1–39, 86–87; J. Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 56–66 (AB 19B; New York: Doubleday, 2003), 311–17; Williamson, Isaiah 1–5, 151–55. 12. Carol L. Meyers and Eric M. Meyers, Haggai, Zechariah 1–8: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 25B; Garden City: Doubleday, 1987), 89. 13. John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Isaiah (trans. W. Pringle; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1947), 1:xxxii. 1

WEGNER Seams in the Book of Isaiah 1. 2. 3. 4.

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An introductory statement The prophet’s name Its recipients The date of the prophecies (i.e. during the reigns of which kings)

The two prophetic books that are most similar to the initial introduction of Isaiah are Amos and Micah. Interestingly, these are also traditionally thought to be eighth-century prophets.14 Only pre-exilic prophets used the verb 9KI (“to see or envision”) to describe how they received their prophecies (Amos 1:1; Mic 1:1; Hab 1:1), and this term is used in each of the introductions in the book of Isaiah. Only the books of Isaiah, Nahum, and Obadiah are called a “vision” (*HKI) in their introductions. There is general agreement that ch. 1 entails an introduction of some sort, but the extent of this introduction is more frequently debated. Is it the introduction for chs. 1,15 1–4,16 1–12,17 1–39,18 or the whole book?19 Chapter 1 appears to be a complete unit progressing from judgment to restoration, though the restoration will only be for a remnant of Jerusalem/Zion (“its repentant ones,” 1:27) and the wicked will be brought to an end (1:28, 31). The structure of the rst chapter appears in the following table:

14. There is still signicant disagreement about the dating. H. Wildberger suggests that the wording “Judah and Jerusalem” (1:1) is indicative of a postexilic date (Isaiah 1–12, 3; see also D. Jones, “The Traditio of the Oracles of Isaiah of Jerusalem,” ZAW 67 [1955]: 226–46). D. N. Freedman argues that the forms of the names of the kings suggest an earlier date (“Headings in the Books of the EighthCentury Prophets,” AUSS 25 [1987]: 9–26). 15. B. Gemser, “The Rîb- or Controversy-Pattern in Hebrew Mentality,” in Wisdom in Israel and the Ancient Near East, Presented to Professor Harold Henry Rowley (ed. M. Noth and D. W. Thomas; VTSup 3; Leiden: Brill, 1955), 120–37; L. G. Rignell, “Isaiah Chapter 1: Some Exegetical Remarks with Special Reference to the Relationship between the Text and the Book of Deuteronomy,” ST 11 (1957): 140–58; R. North, “Angel-Prophet or Satan-Prophet,” ZAW 82 (1970): 31–67. 16. J. D. W. Watts, “The Formation of Isaiah Ch.1: Its Context in Chs. 1–4,” in Society of Biblical Literature 1978 Seminar Papers (ed. P. Achtemeier; SBLSP 13; Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1978), 1:109–19. 17. G. B. Gray, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Isaiah I– XXVII (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1912), 1; Childs, Isaiah, 9. 18. C. von Orelli, The Prophecies of Isaiah (trans. J. S. Banks; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1889), 13; see also, Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12, 3. 19. E. J. Young, The Book of Isaiah (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1965), 1:27; Seitz, Isaiah 1–39, 24; Sweeney, Isaiah 1–39, 44; Childs, Isaiah, 11; Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 1–39, 175; Smith, Isaiah 1–39, 97. Williamson suggests both an introduction to ch. 1 and the book as a whole (Isaiah 1–5, 15). 1

Figure 3. Structure of Isaiah 1 PART ONE OF ISAIAH Introduction 1 (1:1)

1


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There are two critical elements within this structure: (1) the nal section (1:27–31) contains a detailed discussion of the punishment for those who reject the LORD, an image found consistently at the end of each major section of the book; and (2) the palistrophe concerning Jerusalem (called “the faithful city”) summarizes God’s plan for his people, a theme that occurs consistently throughout the rst part of the book. If this chapter is progressing toward a goal, then its climax would likely be the labeling of Jerusalem as “the city of righteousness, a faithful city”; however, this is followed by a clarication that only “the repentant ones” (or a remnant) will see this restoration (1:27) and the rest will be punished (1:28–31). The nal section (1:27–31) may refer back to vv. 18– 20, explaining that a choice must be made—obey God and live, or rebel and be devoured by the sword. I would suggest that vv. 27–31, which almost appear to be out of place, are a seam that summarizes the main thought of this chapter (Zion will be redeemed, a remnant will be spared, but the wicked will be punished) and prepares the reader for the next section. Isaiah 2–12 describes the restoration of Zion (1:27), only in much greater detail. b. Second Introduction (2:1) The second introduction, using wording consistent with Micah and Amos, states that Isaiah saw (9KI) “the word/matter” (C359) concerning Judah and Jerusalem. The Hebrew verb 9KI is commonly associated with visions (*HKI) or dreams ()H=I), but the prophets also used it as a term for messages from God. Clements summarizes a general consensus that has arisen concerning this second introduction: The appearance of a further heading in 2:1, albeit much briefer than that given in 1:1, provides some clear guide to the way in which the present book was put together. Undoubtedly this superscription originally formed an opening to a collection of Isaiah’s prophecies, rather than representing a deliberate repetition of the one that had been given earlier in 1:1. Moreover we may fairly condently assert that the heading in 2:1 is older than that in 1:1, and that the latter was added, either along with or subsequently to, the prefacing of ch. 1 to the whole Isaianic collection (at least as far as ch. 32*).20

Several scholars have offered a late date for this introduction21 and, again, there is signicant disagreement as to the extent of the introduction in 20. Clements, Isaiah 1–39, 38. 21. Jones, “Traditio,” 226–46; Wildberger, Isaiah 1–12, 83; Childs, Isaiah, 28– 29; Tomasino, “Isaiah 1.1–2.4,” 81–98; Sweeney, Isaiah 1–39, 95–96; Williamson, Isaiah 1–5, 9. 1

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2:1. Does it serve to introduce only 2:2–4,22 or does it introduce chs. 2– 4,23 2–5,24 2–10,25 or 2–12?26 Williamson makes a reasonable argument that: The occurrence of a similar form of heading at 13.1 clearly indicates that 2–12 is the outer limits which may be considered. Since we have already been led by the similar form of 1.1 to take note of this style of heading, it would seem that at the synchronic level this is indeed the stretch of text which is here introduced.27

Apart from questions on the extent of this introduction, there is also the question of why it was included here. Because of the similarity in content between chs. 1 and 2–3, Peter Ackroyd argued the new introduction was inserted at the beginning of ch. 2 by a redactor in order to indicate that 2:2–4 came from Isaiah.28 But why would such an indication be needed following the introduction in 1:1? Williamson offers a more plausible explanation: 2.1 was probably added at the same time as 13.1 as a structural marker in the exilic version of Isaiah and it was therefore intended to introduce such parts of 2–12 as were included within that form of the book. Although later additions, such as 4.2–6, have somewhat distorted this pattern, it remains the most attractive option to accept that the heading still functions to introduce the expanded and full text of 2–12.29

His structural argument seems strong even though he acknowledges a problem with 4:2–6; however, his exilic dating of this unit may not be integral to his arguments on its structure.

22. B. Wiklander, Prophecy as Literature: A Text-Linguistic and Rhetorical Approach to Isaiah 2–4 (ConBOT 22; Uppsala: Gleerup, 1984), 94. 23. Clements, Isaiah 1–39, 38–39; Sweeney, Isaiah 1–39, 45; Motyer, Isaiah, 50–51. 24. S. Mowinkel, Prophecy and Tradition: The Prophetic Books in Light of the Study of Growth and History of the Tradition (Oslo: Dybwad, 1946), 54; Young, Isaiah, 1:94; see also J. N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah Chapters 1–39 (NICOT; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1986), 114. 25. G. Fohrer, “Entstehung, Komposition und Überleiferung von Jesaja 1–39,” in Studien zur alttestamentlichen Prophetie (1949–1965) (BZAW 99; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1967), 116. 26. A. H. Bartelt, The Book around Immanuel: Style and Structure in Isaiah 2– 12 (Biblical and Judaic Studies 4; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1996), 235; Childs, Isaiah, 28; Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 1–39, 189. 27. Williamson, Isaiah 1–5, 163. 28. P. R. Ackroyd, “A Note on Isaiah 2,1,” ZAW 75 (1963): 320–21. 29. Williamson, Isaiah 1–5, 165. 1


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Several scholars have noted a structural unit in Isa 2–4 that begins and ends with the glorious future for Israel (e.g. 2:1–4; 4:2–6),30 but in the middle describes the present wickedness that Yahweh will need to purge (using the terminology of Isa 4:4). Childs may be correct in arguing that the theme of the “faithful city” introduced in Isa 1:21–26 is picked up in Isa 2:2, which then links these two passages together.31 If this connection is correct, then the righteousness found in Zion will be spread throughout the world as other nations come to learn about God’s law (2:3–4). Another interesting connection is that ch. 1 indicates that God’s people have abandoned the LORD (1:4), and therefore God responds by abandoning them (2:6). The inclusio pattern in Isa 2–4 intentionally draws a stark contrast between Israel’s present corrupt condition and the hope of its future purication.32 The next section engenders much less agreement. It is the view of this author that chs. 5–12 contain a palistrophe beginning with a description of Israel’s deled condition in the “Song of the Vineyard” (Isa 5:1–7) and progressing toward the “Song of Thanksgiving” (Isa 12:1–6) in which God is praised for his great deliverance of Israel. This palistrophe is depicted in Fig. 4:33 Figure 4. Palistrophe of Isaiah 5–12 A

Song of the Vineyard (5:1–7) B

Six Woe Oracles (5:8–23) C

An Uplifted Hand Oracle (5:24–30) D

C B A

The Isaianic Memoir (6:1–9:7)

Four Uplifted Hand Oracles (9:8–10:4) A Woe Oracle (10:5–11:16)

Song of Thanksgiving (12:1–6)

According to this structure, God’s deliverance is accomplished through the punishment described in the “woe oracles” and the “uplifted hand oracles.” The theme of Isa 5–12 is similar to the two earlier sections (Isa 1; 2–4) where God will use re to burn away Israel’s dross (1:25) and 30. Clements, Isaiah 1–39, 38; Oswalt, Isaiah, Chapters 1–39, 112; Sweeney, Isaiah 1–39, 89–90; Isaiah 1–4, 134–84; Motyer, Isaiah, 50–51; Childs, Isaiah, 28; Smith, Isaiah 1–39, 122. 31. Childs, Isaiah, 29. 32. Ibid., 35. 33. P. D. Wegner, An Examination of Kingship and Messianic Expectation in Isaiah 1–35 (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen, 1992), 88–89. 1

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water to purge away their lth (4:4). In the heart of this palistrophe lies the “Isaianic Memoir,” where Isaiah is called to announce God’s plan of purging and deliverance for his people.34 Therefore, both Isa 2–4 and 5– 12 describe in signicantly different ways the same progression of judgment to restoration. However, once again the restoration will not include all of Jerusalem/Zion, only the repentant ones (3:10; 4:2–3; 6:13; 10:20–23; 11:11–12, 16); the wicked will be thoroughly punished (3:11; 4:3–4; 8:19–22; 10:3–4, 23, 33–34; 11:11, 15). If the structure for Isa 2–12 I have proposed is correct, then there are two signicant problems for our theory of seams in the book of Isaiah. First, the introduction (2:1) suggests that this section begins in ch. 2 and continues through ch. 12, but as I have noted there are two very clear units within this section (Isa 2–4; 5–12). Second, there is no apparent seam at the end of ch. 12. Isaiah 12 is a “song of thanksgiving,” thanking God for the amazing deliverance he brought about, with no mention of purging or a remnant being spared, as found in the rst seam (1:27–31). Even more problematic, the seam that was anticipated at the end of the section in ch. 12 appears instead in 4:2–6. These verses perform a dual role: (1) they summarize the main theme of this unit, namely, that God will purge Jerusalem/Zion (“washed away the lth” and “purged the bloodshed,” 4:4), leaving only a remnant (“the survivors of Israel,” 4:2; “he who is left in Zion,” 4:3), and (2) they prepare the reader for the next major section, which in this case would be Isa 13–23. This preparation is quite interesting, for if 2:2–4 and 4:2–6 are intended to be read together, then nations will stream to Zion to hear about Israel’s God and “the fruit of the earth” (4:2) may refer to this remnant coming from the nations. 35 This verse continues, “the fruit of the earth will be for the pride and adornment of the survivors of Israel,” thus suggesting a remnant from Israel will be proud of, and adorned by, a remnant from other nations. If this is the proper interpretation of the passage, then these verses (2:2–4 and 4:2–6) prepare the reader for Isa 13–23 in that God’s purging, which started in Israel, will continue to other nations and a remnant will emerge from them as well. This brings clarity to 14:1–2 which states that strangers will join themselves to the house of Jacob and be an inheritance to Israel. The structure of this section differs from ch. 1 in that the seam is not at the end of the section in ch. 12, but appears in ch. 4. The message of the seam in Isa 4:2–6 follows closely the one found in 1:27–31, but further highlights the outcomes of this restoration. So how do chs. 5–12 34. Ibid., 63–215. 35. See also Williamson’s explanation (Isaiah 1–5, 308–10). 1


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align with this structure? The answer appears to lie in the structure and ow of thought in the central portion of Isa 2–4. Isaiah 2:5 says “the house of Jacob” is called to walk in the light of the LORD and then gives four results (each new section beginning with J ==I> H9H, “But he was wounded for our transgressions, / crushed for our iniquities //.” In both verses, the sounds of the pronominal elements also project an eerie awe: u-u-u-u, u-u-u-u. Through careful poetic composition, the chorus is expressing how, for them, the Servant has startlingly become the signicant-other of existence. At the nale of the strophe lies a confession of sin (v. 6). The narrators’ consciences have awakened because they have linked the Servant’s suffering directly to their own wrongdoing, selshness, and apathy. Our sins did this to him, our sins! To have made such a link is to have experienced a rush of empathy for the Servant in his miseries. The chorus is letting us know they have come to care deeply about the Servant’s fate, for which they realize their responsibility. 1

COOK The Death of Isaiah’s Servant

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The rise of conscience in v. 6 presupposes the reality of a new closeness between the chorus and the Servant. Our narrators have become preoccupied with the Servant’s intentions and actions, his very being. They have embraced him both as innocent sufferer and as friend, someone who has acted with nothing but their welfare in mind. In a core way, as we observe in the spiritual transformation of the chorus, our poem is about the rise of intimacy on earth. 3. A Social-Scientic Model Connecting Vicarious Sacrice and Human Intimacy I have been greatly helped in understanding the connection of servanthood and human relationship in the fourth Servant Song by the investigations of the French philosopher Georges Bataille into the meaning of religious sacrice.14 Bataille understands the sacrice of victims in the world’s harsh rites and strange myths as nothing other than a search for lost intimacy. In these rites and myths, a victim’s transformation into a sacrice radiates pure intimacy to all onlookers, re-establishing the profundity of living beings. In Bataille’s theory, the aim of religious sacrice is the aim of all religion: to confront a world of cold calculation. In this cold, at world— our own real world—social operations reduce everything and everyone to utilitarian terms. The drive to make a prot, to succeed, or to be on top, weighs down everyone, making us forget our common humanity. Pushed aside is our common need for mutuality, for human friendship. To feel our human crisis of avarice for yourself, look closely at the world’s treatment of the Servant. Twice in v. 3 the poem describes the Servant as 9K3?, “despised,” a Hebrew term for evaluating worth. People assign the Servant no worth because they believe him under God’s curse and of no use for them. Verse 3 ends by reporting, “We held him of no account,” of zero value based on a calculus of usefulness. “Struck down by God” (v. 4), his moral debts seemed to negate his importance for others. Utilitarian calculation is everyone’s standard for evaluating this gure. It is a poverty-stricken world where people are objects, evaluated in utilitarian terms. To make another person a thing is not only to dehumanize him or her but also to become estranged from one’s own true self. Eventually, of course, the poem prohibits this view of the Servant, this

14. Georges Bataille, The Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy (trans. R. Hurley; New York: Zone, 1991). 1

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view of the world. The chorus confesses their startling conclusion that the Servant’s agonizing ordeal renders the world’s normal logic impossible. If Bataille’s theory of sacrice is correct, the most powerful event in the poem is the chorus’ perception of the Servant as innocent, falsely accused. No economic or moral calculus can account for what he endures at the hands of his fellows. Far from a worthless sinner or a piece of scum, the Servant suffered and died undeservedly. Once this truth comes out, everything in the poem immediately changes. The Servant is no mere object, safe to ignore, but a subject, a signicant other, an intimate. The one everyone considered subhuman turns out to be their best friend on earth, a friend with everything to live for who gave it all up for them, protlessly. Discovering a friend like this can change one’s whole stance towards the world. It removes utility and calculation from the human equation, making everything new. The sacricial death of an innocent victim is a shocking, senseless act, Bataille emphasizes, but something blessed may come of it. Its potential lies in its very lack of sense and gain. Since the victim’s death is blatantly and horribly for nothing, it violently severs all connection between him and the cold, calculating world of mundane life. No longer can anyone consider the victim a commodity, an object, or a thing. In one blow, with his protless “consumption,” the world of avarice is short-circuited. The violent, protless consumption involved in the horrible excesses of sacrice necessarily overturns all cold calculations, withdrawing the victim from the order of things. The sacricial drama moves victim and witnesses together to a place where they nd a true intimate participation in each other’s existence. It brings them to a place where they rediscover their mysterious, human solidarity. The Servant’s violent immolation is a horrible but necessary means of renewing human mutuality on earth. Bataille illustrates his theory with the example of old Mexico’s Aztec sacricial rites. Between an Aztec captive’s consecration and death, the people sang, danced, and feasted with him. His captor treated him as his own esh and blood, publicly calling him son. In short, the Aztecs lavished attention on their sacricial victims. Their pains at intimacy have obvious parallels to the conduct of the chorus in our Servant Song. Verse upon verse of poetry is lavished on the Servant, as if the chorus is unable to contain their surprise and joy at the mystery of his self. As a modern, ethical people, we must immediately renounce the ancient Mexican practice of human sacrice. No matter how high the ideals of the Aztecs, their victims’ immolation was not voluntary. Nothing can justify their murders. I am similarly dismayed at the human 1


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sin that appears in Isa 53. Here in shocking clarity is portrayed the coldness and violence that curses all human life. His fellow human beings— people similar to you and me—victimize and kill the Servant. The Servant differs, however, from the prisoners the Aztecs sacriced. Unlike them, he puts himself in harm’s way out of a personal stance of other-centeredness. He voluntarily “makes his life an offering” (vv. 10, 12). His silent resolve (v. 7), voluntary submission to God (v. 12), and sense of weighty purpose (v. 11) make us hesitate before jumping to renounce his gift of intimacy in the drama of our poem. Aztec mythology relates how the gift of light would never have come to humanity without the voluntary sacrice of an ugly, leprous god named Nanauatzin.15 While the other gods made excuses, Nanauatzin committed himself to die in order to ood the grim, cold world with sunshine. Having worked up his courage, he cast himself, crackling and sizzling, into a ery hearth called teotexcalli. Immediately transformed into the sun, he rose in the east and spread rays of warmth in every direction. The goodness and will power of this brave little god, according to the myth, put all other deities to shame. The work of the Suffering Servant is no less virtuous and laudable. When all is said and done, the Suffering Servant undergoes the horrible ordeal that he must undergo if he is to undo the reduction of others to things, that is, to objects of use. The reader is rightly lled with remorse—even anguish—that intimacy and community have vanished from earth to the point where such extremes are necessary. It is not our place, however, to renounce the Servant’s gift of himself, his gift of intimacy. To reject this gift as too primitive, too bloody, or too much like a wretched Aztec rite is likely to rebuff the only means of making things new on earth. Our world is so cold, so at, and so full of avarice, the Servant cannot set it right without embracing the primal violence of his mission. Submission to deadly violence is the harsh price he pays for birthing a new world of intimacy, of human mutuality. To him, the price is worth it. 4. Inclusive Sacrice: The Death of Self-Orientation Let us continue to explore the fourth Servant Song in Isa 53, moving to the next two strophes in vv. 7–9 and vv. 10–12. These nal strophes of the poem move the Servant’s suffering to its awful conclusion and reveal its true signicance in God’s eyes: 15. See Jeffrey Carter, Understanding Religious Sacrice: A Reader (Controversies in the Study of Religion; London: Continuum, 2003), 165–66. 1


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He was oppressed, and he was aficted, / yet he did not open his mouth; // like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, / and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, / so he did not open his mouth. // 8 By a perversion of justice he was taken away. / Who could have imagined his future? // For he was cut off from the land of the living, / stricken for the transgression of my people. // 9 They made his grave with the wicked / and his tomb with the rich, // although he had done no violence, / and there was no deceit in his mouth. // 10 Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him with pain. // If he gives his life as a reparation-offering for sin () ), / he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days; // through him the will of the LORD shall prosper. / 11 Out of his anguish he shall see light; // he shall nd satisfaction through his knowledge. / The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, / and he shall bear their iniquities. // 12 Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, / and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; // because he poured out himself to death, / and was numbered with the transgressors; // yet he bore the sin of many, / and made intercession for the transgressors. //

With these nal strophes of the poem, the Servant’s ordeal emerges clearly as a ritual sacrice. Directly, v. 10 declares that he presents himself before God as an atonement offering, specically a reparationoffering for sin. Images in the surrounding verses, including the gure’s lack of any blemish (v. 9; cf. Lev 1:3) and his comparison to a lamb led to the slaughter (v. 7), reinforce this ritual interpretation of his work. Just as ritual sacrices, especially certain key types, aimed to make things right between God and Israel, the Servant, by means of his suffering, literally “bore the sin of many, / and made intercession for the transgressors // ” (v. 12, using the cultic, atonement diction of Exod 28:38; Lev 10:17; 16:22).16 His anguish serves to “make many righteous” (v. 11). These explicit images of sacricial ritual do not catch us off guard, for we have seen how Georges Bataille’s theory of sacrice has ready points of contact with our passage and serves well to illuminate its ritual, sacricial dynamic. Nevertheless, the concept of sacrice—the death 16. For discussion, see Heskett, Messianism, 187–89, 192. 1


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of an animal (never mind a human being) as an offering to God—will inevitably seem foreign and obnoxious in a sanitary culture where even a butcher’s shop feels uncomfortable. Contemporary citizens of the global north tend to balk at anything resembling the bloody rites of Aztec priests. As the celebrated cultural theorist, René Girard, has written: “The very concept of a deity, much less a deity who receives blood sacrices, has little reality in this day and age.”17 To grasp the mystery of our text, however, we must take a deep breath and begin to grapple directly with blood sacrice. We can immediately put aside ideas of primitive magic, bribing God for favors, and like notions, and turn instead to the sophisticated and intricate world of Israel’s priestly torah and its sacricial symbolism. We must start with the specic vocabulary of Isa 53:10, which describes the Servant’s death in technical priestly terms. Israel’s priestly instruction, as seen in books such as Leviticus, included a variety of specialized offerings, each designated with technical vocabulary, and Isa 53:10 reects a careful choice from among this range. The Servant’s death is not just any sacrice but an ) , a “reparation offering.” As mentioned in this essay’s introduction, such an offering atones for sacrilege, that is, failure to respect God’s burning sanctity. This is signicant, for in the book of Isaiah, Israel’s primary ailment, and the reason for its exile, is its uncleanness in the face of God’s transcendent holiness (see Isa 6:5, 11–12). The reparation offering also pertains specically to cases of unrecognized sin, where experiences of God’s wrath awaken consciousness of sin and force a vigorous self-reappraisal. The people of Israel in exile, like the chorus of witnesses in our poem, are startled to experience God’s chastening and scourging (53:5). In this experience, they recognize the magnitude of their sin and its awful repercussions (53:4a, 6). Among ancient Israel’s sacrices, the reparation offering aims to make people come to grips with their wrongdoing through giving up and turning over a precious part of their lives. The guilty provide this type of sacrice when they realize their guilt, take responsibility for it, and undo all their grasping for advantage, for personal prot. Taking responsibility for sin is central to Isa 53’s poetry. The Servant’s sacrice shocks people into realizing their embedded selshness. By getting to know the Servant and his experience, the chorus begins to realize their personal guilt: “We have all gone our own way,” taken their own self-centered course, they admit (v. 6). This has had a violent, 17. René Girard, Violence and the Sacred (trans. P. Gregory; Baltimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977), 6. 1

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murderous effect on others. One in particular was tortured (v. 7), beaten bloody (v. 8), and thrown in a grave with the wicked (v. 9). All this happened despite the Servant’s innocence, since he had never hurt a soul (v. 9). With this deeply profound realization, the witnesses of the Servant’s death understand his paradoxical, vicarious sacrice as a reparation offering () ) overturning their avarice. They accept blame for their part in the world’s alienation and estrangement (v. 10). The Servant’s death as their representative somehow offers up a part of their very selves to be consumed protlessly, thus transforming them. “By his bruises we are healed,” they confess (v. 5). As a healing, transformative event, his death not only substitutes for one that they deserve but also provokes, as a profound effect, the demise of that within them that holds them back from wholeness. The Servant’s suffering death, in other words, entails what theologians call an inclusive place taking. In his death, those who understand and identify with him in some profound sense die as well. How precisely do we who witness and embrace the Servant’s ordeal die with him? I believe the mystery of servanthood, as Second Isaiah upholds it throughout its poems, provides the answer. When a true servant of God puts love for neighbor rst, giving the self a back seat, the neighbor’s need for self-protection and self-promotion vanishes. The neighbor’s self is sufciently upheld by the unconditional love of the servant-friend that self-centeredness begins to wither and die. Upheld by the friend’s determined other-centeredness, his protless, gratuitous devotion, the neighbor is pushed to let go of self-concern and turn outward in friendship, love, and intimacy. The focus on “our own way” of 53:6 vanishes. We “die” with the friend. Close study of the theories of scholars such as John Macmurray and Georges Bataille, cited above, has helped me to see this. In the Servant Songs of Isaiah, we have the ultimate gift of freedom from the prison house of self-concern. The Servant puts not just any neighbors before himself but his enemies, that is, those who perpetrate an unforgivable disdain and violence against him that cries out for revenge (see Isa 50:6–7). As the Servant makes his sacrice, the chorus of witnesses realizes that the narcissistic world in which they have been living is upside down. As he dies, the Servant’s ordeal converts them from judgmental scoffers to frail, self-convicted human beings (53:5–6). He includes them in his death and they embrace a death-judgment for their self-centeredness and cold calculations. Due to the Servant’s work, self-orientation and self-righteousness die within the souls of those who identify with him in his death. Since the 1


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Servant is not just wounded, but submits fully to death (53:9, 12), he denitively defeats the tyranny of self to the profound benet of humanity. The atoning work of the Servant is no symbolic contrivance, by means of which God lets sinners off the hook. No one goes scot-free in our poem, though lives are healed and sins are forgiven. Rather, the sacricial event of our text is a means of establishing Second Isaiah’s ideal of servanthood, of widespread other-centeredness on earth. Through his ultimate, archetypal act of other-centeredness—giving up one’s life in love for those consumed with hate—the Servant paves the way for others to join him in his form of life. These are the “offspring” or “seed” of the Servant that 53:10 mentions and that the remainder of Isaiah’s book interprets.18 Concisely put, I am arguing that those who embrace the Servant’s uniquely sacricial death are amazed to discover in it both their own self-orientation and its death-sentence. Transformed by this realization, they begin life anew, fully human, fully free, as servants of the Lord, the Servant’s “offspring” of 53:10. 5. The Suffering Offspring of the Servant of the Lord (Isaiah 53:10) Since, as I have suggested, Isaiah’s Servant of the Lord is an archetypal gure, that is, a meditation on true servanthood, the ideal he embodies has found many valid instantiations within concrete existence throughout the centuries. The Servant has reached out from the Bible to grasp the lives of Jews, Christians, and others, bringing readers to a new understanding of themselves and the direction of their lives. Isaiah 53:10 has proved correct in its promise directed to the Servant, “He shall see his offspring.” This happens each time true servanthood comes to expression in a human life on earth. Permit me to offer two representative examples. The rst comes from within the Hebrew Bible itself, specically from the book of Daniel’s vision of ideal gures who closely embody the Servant’s virtues. Daniel 11:33–35; 12:2–3 presents what is perhaps history’s rst known explicit incarnation of Isaiah’s ideal form of servanthood. The passage uses the language of Isaiah’s Servant of the Lord to portray the suffering and martyrdom of wise Jews under Antiochus IV 18. For treatments of the Servant’s seed/offspring, see the references listed in n. 8 above, and Henri Blocher, Songs of the Servant: Isaiah’s Good News (Vancouver, B.C.: Regent College Publishing, 2005), 75–76. 1

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Epiphanes in the second century B.C.E. Isaiah’s servant-image of ministry clearly inspired the model of quiet faithfulness that these Jews embraced during the Maccabean conict. Specic language drawn from Isa 53 is unmistakable in Dan 11:33– 35; 12:2–3.19 Like the Servant of the Lord, who acts “wisely” (=C 5) similar to the one found in Ps 13. This is followed by a petition, which includes a statement of motivation (“Remember how short my time is…”). The expression of trust that follows is more implied than stated within vv. 49–50, which calls upon God to remember the “steadfast love of old, which by your faithfulness you swore…” The poem ends with a succinct statement of praise: “Blessed be the LORD forever. Amen and Amen.” Each psalm contains a complaint that hints at the reason for the complaint. In Pss 13, 22 and 89 the complaint concerns “enemies.” The prayer in Ps 88 is made by someone who is desperately sick with an unnamed malady. Each poem implies that God could alleviate the suffering if God chose to do so. Finally, each poem expresses the corollary to this belief: if God is with us when we prosper, we suffer because God 6. The intertextual relationship of the psalm with the New Testament (Matt 27:46; Mark 15:34) will not be dealt with in this essay. For a discussion of the cross as lament in suffering and thanksgiving, see John Reumann, “Psalm 22 at the Cross,” Int 28 (1974): 39–58 (39). 1

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abandons us. This expression of abandonment is considered to be unjust and each prayer articulates anger at God for God’s abandonment. This expression of anger over God’s abandonment says something, therefore, about God’s presence. 2. The Refuge The book of Psalms does not stand alone in scripture. The validity of any claim to canon that these poems have is dependent upon their reference and relationship with the rest of the scriptures. This relationship is established by direct reference to other texts or by using formulaic devices and metaphors found in the Hebrew texts. The prayer is therefore placed within a framework that is supported by a common tradition and belief system, which is expressed in accessible language. One of the references commonly used to describe God throughout the Hebrew scriptures is “refuge”: The LORD is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold and my refuge, my savior; you save me from violence. (2 Sam 22:2b–3) Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge. (Ps 57:1) [The branch of the LORD] will serve…as a refuge and a shelter from the storm and rain. (Isa 4:6) O LORD, my strength and my stronghold, my refuge in the day of trouble. (Jer 16:19)

Other references to God as “refuge” can be found in Ruth 2:12; Prov 14:31 and 30:5; Zeph 3:12; Deut 32:37; Judg 9:15; Nah 1:7, and, of course, throughout the book of Psalms. It is clear that there was a common understanding of the notion that God is a refuge, a source of protection for the believer, and that certain words (38 >, DH?>, 9DI) conveyed this notion to the pray-er and to those listening to the recitation. There is a sense conveyed by this metaphor and its correlative images (rocks that protect from the elements; a shield that protects from the swords of enemies) that the “refuge” is a place to which one can run when there is no place else to go. When the pray-er has reached the limit of his or her own resources and the elements of the surrounding environment have apparently conspired against all hope of personal recovery, then the 1

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pray-er bolts for the cover of the refuge. This colloquial statement serves as an admission and a conrmation of the fragility of life. The perilous nature of life constitutes another common feature of the four laments examined here. Though none contain an overt expression of God as a refuge, there are expressions of God’s “steadfast love” (5DI) in 13:5; 88:11; 89:1–2, 14, 24, 28, 33, and 49. These statements stand as an afrmation of God’s past intercession and a trust in God’s ability to be seen in benevolence and protection—to be a “refuge.” However, the pray-er of these four psalms has experienced the total frailty of life and the chaos of impending destruction. He or she has ed to the cleft in the rock, but has found no refuge. The pray-er has reached out with every expectation of salvation and safety and has found none. When one prays with the expectation that prayers are always answered, and receives no apparent answer, anxiety is provoked. To the pray-er, there are only two possibilities: the pray-er has unconsciously sinned, perhaps by seeking refuge apart from God (such as in Deut 32), and is suffering just punishment for the sin; or God has capriciously abandoned the pray-er. Both possibilities offer a burden of anxiety, for they speak of either personal responsibility or of an unjust God. 3. The Anxiety of Job All four psalms examined here explore an experience of abandonment, with Ps 88 doing so in a way that is reminiscent of the title character in the book of Job. Job 3 is a lament of extraordinary suffering in which the central gure questions the event of his conception and asks: “Why is light given to one in misery, and life to the bitter in soul?” (3:20; also Jer 15:10–21). Later, in 23:8–9, Job describes God’s apparent absence from his life: If I go forward, he is not there; or backward, I cannot perceive him; on the left he hides, and I cannot behold him; I turn to the right, but I cannot see him.

Finally, in ch. 31, Job lays open the facts of the case in a manner that implies God’s absence: “If I have done anything to deserve my torment, show it to me. But I have not sinned, and therefore my punishment is not just. Oh that I had one to hear me!” (31:35). The character of Job is engaged in lament based on the belief that the world is founded upon some kind of cosmic justice. To the characters of the book of Job, God’s universe is created with a quid pro quo (reward and punishment) system that Tsevat refers to as “the principle of 1

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retribution.”7 Job’s experience is cognitively dissonant: he knows that God’s creation is based upon a principle of retribution; he knows that God is just; and Job knows, with equal certainty, that he has not sinned in any way that merits the “punishment” that he is experiencing. In trying to reconcile the three incompatible aspects of his situation, Job tries every manner of rationalization that he can manufacture. Job’s situation expresses an irreconcilable dilemma that Tsevat represents in a triangle:

In this schema, G = God, J = Job (who represents “the upright man”), and R = the principle of retribution, or the justice of creation. In this book, the friends cancel “J”: Job must have sinned while God cancels “R”. The pertinent point here is that in his struggle to come to terms with his situation, Job comes very close to cancelling “G.” The human belief in the principle of retribution is so intense that humanity will consider the notion of God’s non-existence before letting go of the notion of cosmic quid pro quo. Job considers the injustice of his situation as proof of God’s absence, and the absence provokes Job’s anger. His keening lament throughout the book is as much a lament for the loss of his reality as it is a lament for the loss of his children, health, and wealth. It is this dilemma that confronts the pray-er of the psalms of lament. The book of Job proposes that the principle of retribution is not always a factor in God’s world. Instead, it is suggested that there is some form of randomness in the world that is the price of creation. The notion of “the just God” simply cannot be reconciled with human reality.8 The four 7. Matitiahu Tsevat, “The Meaning of the Book of Job,” HUCA 37 (1966): 73–106. 8. Ibid., 104. Tsevat does not exclude the possibility of God’s activity in the world, but asks that the possibility of God as self-limiting, though not necessarily limited, be considered: “The Book of Job…presents the purest moral theory in the Bible… [I]t would be a grave error to interpret its denial of divine retribution as constituting a legitimate excuse for man from his obligations to establish justice on earth. Justice is not woven into the stuff of the universe, nor is God occupied with its administration but it is an ideal to be realized by society and in it… [Job] does not exclude the possibility of God’s obligating Himself to abide by human standards in 1


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psalms and Job reect this abiding crux. The experience of cognitive dissonance (inconsistency among aspects of knowledge, feelings, and behavior) creates intense anxiety. The aetiology of that anxiety is connected to the loss of those things that provide security, stability, and joy in human existence (e.g. safety, loved ones, wealth, and health). The anxiety that results from the loss of such things can give rise to grief which in turn can be expressed in anger. 4. The Formfulness of Grief 9 Brueggemann asserts that the form of the lament psalm is consistent with its function, which is to evoke rehabilitation and restoration. Brueggemann also asserts that the use of the form in Israel and elsewhere acknowledges that grief itself is formful. The contemporary characterization of grief also acknowledges a form that corresponds to the psalmic expression of grief:10 (1)

Denial: Israel’s speech begins with the covenantal address, which calls upon the pray-er’s understanding of history. In the absence of history, the modern supplicant expresses denial.

(2)

Anger: How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever. (13:1) My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (22:1) O LORD, why do you cast me off? (88:14) How long, O LORD? Will you hide yourself forever? (89:46)

(3)

Bargaining: …I will sleep the sleep of death, and my enemy will say, “I have prevailed.” (13:3) I will tell of your name…in the midst of the congregation I will praise you. (22:22) Do the shades rise up to praise you? (88:10) Remember how short my time is… (89:47)

regard to specic occasions and contexts… God, while often the author of the standards for human conduct is Himself bound by them only in exceptional cases.” 9. Walter Brueggemann, “The Formfulness of Grief,” Int 31 (1977): 263–75. The taxonomy that follows is from E. Kubler Ross, On Death and Dying (New York: Macmillan, 1969). 10. Brueggemann, “The Formfulness of Grief,” 268–70. 1

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The Bible as Human Witness to Divine Revelation Depression: But I am a worm, and not human. (22:6) I am counted among those who go down to the Pit: I am like those who have no help… (88:4) …you have covered him with shame… (89:45)

(5)

Acceptance: I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me. (13:6) From you comes my praise in the great congregation… (22:25–31) Blessed be the LORD forever. (89:52)

This comparison of the psalms with a contemporary taxonomy of grief indicates several aspects about the psalms of lament and their authors. First, we can see that the accessible, even simple language of the psalms in no way indicates an ignorant or unsophisticated authorship. On the contrary, to express the complex aspects of grief in personal and colloquial language while maintaining the generalized quality of the psalms is an act of genius. Second, the psalms of lament serve as an acknowledgment of the subjective reality of grief. These poems validate the pray-er’s feelings and fears. There is no indication that the pray-er’s feelings are invalid. Those feelings are concerned with a loss of social standing and self-worth, a sense of being oppressed by enemies or a disease, and a sense of abandonment and isolation. Third, a sense of the normalcy of these feelings is communicated without arguing with the content. Although sophisticated in both theological and human understanding, the prayers are not intended as theological treatises. The psalms of lament do not communicate what people think, but what they feel. Psalms are a formulaic prayer, and prayer expresses the subjective reality of life that includes the manifestation of anxiety caused by cognitive dissonance: I am suffering; God makes sinners suffer; but I have not sinned in such a way as to deserve this. Therefore God has treated me unjustly—God has abandoned me: “My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?” The psalms of lament validate the subjective reality of human suffering, which includes a sense of separation and isolation from community and even from God. At some point in the process of grief, a legitimate human response is anger. Anger is directed against that agent which is seen to be responsible for loss and suffering. This will include the source of the condition itself, whether the “enemy” or the illness. But if the dominant myths and values of the community of faith include the notion that God is imminently involved in all human affairs, that God is the 1


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administrator of justice, or even that God could will the end of the suffering and the restitution of that which is lost, then the object of the anger will be God. Whether this is theologically right or wrong is irrelevant to the function of the psalms of lament. Their existence is inspired by the reality that people will feel—and must express—anger toward God when it is perceived that God is the cause of suffering or is refusing to alleviate it. Sheppard points out that there is a compellingly political aspect to prayer, which is even more apparent when prayer is spoken out loud and intended to be overheard, as was probably the case in the Temple cult of Israel.11 The psalms of lament were intended to be heard by God and by those people in close proximity. These psalms may have been, then, an implicit appeal to the congregation to act on God’s behalf in alleviating the suffering or enacting justice. This association between the apparent absence of God and being isolated by the community is made in the psalms, for there are references to the community permitting, even enabling, the suffering: “They surround me like a ood all day long.… You have caused friend and neighbor to shun me; my companions are in darkness” (88:17–18). One of the functions of the psalms of lament is to name the source of suffering within the community in a generalized way. In this way, the problem is “out in the open” for the discernment of the community and for their possible action and activity. There is some indication that the rst level of that activity is in the saying of the prayer with the sufferer. Psalm 22, for instance, demonstrates the possibility of collective response in the changing of the person/object of the verse: One: All: One:

You who fear the LORD, praise him! For…he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him. From you comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will pay before those who fear him. (Ps 22:23–25)

It is apparent that the pray-er is not talking to God, but rather to the congregation that is near. In the same way, indirect address identies those who may have enabled the suffering, or who are doing nothing about it (88:18). This may have served a certain shame value in the community that exhorted others to help, or which identied those who stood in the shadows as poor examples of faithful living. In either case, there is 11. E.g. 1 Sam 1:12–19. G. T. Sheppard, “ ‘Enemies’ and the Politics of Prayer in the Book of Psalms,” in The Politics of Exegesis: Essays in Honor of Norman Gottwald (ed. David Jobling, Peggy L. Day, and Gerald Sheppard; Cleveland, Oh.: Pilgrim, 1991), 61–83. 1

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a real expectation that some form of transformative action will occur as a result of the prayer. The suffering will stop, restitution will be made, and the community will renew the former position of the supplicant. God’s face will again be turned toward the sufferer. The chaos of suffering will be ended and the order of God’s creation will be restored. By laying the situation before the community, an expectation for activity must be considered. Words have the power to demand a response. In expressing anger at God the supplicant does the same thing. Any address to God, even in anger, makes an afrmation about God: God can transform the suffering into a state of renewal or reconciliation with the world.12 God as the object of anger proclaims faith in God’s ability, even in God’s desire, to sustain those who are faithful in God. A connection is therefore made between those psalms and passages that identify God as the object of anger, and the imprecatory passages and psalms that call for God’s justice to be seen in the punishment of enemies: But you, O LORD of hosts, O just Judge, who test the thoughts and the mind, let me see Your retribution upon them, for I lay my case before you. (Jer 11:20) Condemn them, O God; let them fall by their own devices… (Ps 5:11) Through You we gore our foes; by Your name we trample our adversaries… (Ps 44:6) …a blessing on him who seizes your babies and dashes them against the rocks! (Ps 137:9)

It is in statements such as these that the criterion for seeing God’s justice is established.13 It is essential to understand the Israelite notion of retribution. In their self-understanding as God’s chosen people they sought for the continuation of their race, and therefore they demanded that God not permit the perpetuation of anything that could destroy the chosen people. The enemies are representative of the powers of chaos that threaten the order of creation that God established with that covenant.14 God is called upon to restore order. The expression of anger toward God afrms the belief that God is imminent and capable of rehabilitating a right relationship: 12. Brueggemann, “Formfulness of Grief,” 266. 13. Sheila Carney, “God Damn God: A Reection on Expressing Anger in Prayer,” BTB 13 (1983): 116–20. 14. Ibid., 116. 1


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But You, O LORD, are enthroned forever, Your throne endures through the ages. Why have You forgotten us utterly, forsaken us for all time? Take us back, O LORD, to Yourself. (Lam 5:19–21)

5. Incomplete Agony: Anger in Contemporary Liturgy It seems to me that Christianity does nothing to promote anger, and anger is my only way out of self-hatred.15

Modern Christian liturgy appears to have evolved in a way that does not make this afrmatory address about God.16 Our understanding of the relationship between God and human beings has been inuenced strongly by Stoicism, which leads us to believe that reason is the highest (and emotion the lowest) manifestation of Creation. For instance, Phil 4:4–13 (“… for I have learned to be content with whatever I have…”) and 1 Thess 4:13 (“… so that you do not grieve as others do who have no hope…”) are indicative of Stoic inuence and an understanding of a passionless, impassable, wholly transcendent God. It is difcult to reconcile this view of God with the God described in Mark 15:34 and Ps 22. There, God is a familiar, close gure, an intimate God toward whom we may express our grief in all of its stages. This is the God who does not seem to be recognized in the modern Church. As Sheila Carney puts it, “The psalms have often been called a school of prayer. If this is true, then it must be said that Christians, in recent years at least, have been quite selective in their approach to the curriculum.”17 She goes on to point out that the Liturgy of the Hours and the common Lectionary edit and omit several psalms in such a way as to eliminate afrmations about God through the personal expression of anger. An Inclusive-Language Lectionary: Readings for Year B, for instance, contains Ps 22, but the prayer is split. Verses 1–18, which Christians have adopted as prophetic of the Passion, is used for Good Friday. Verses 25–31 are set for the fth Sunday after Easter, and

15. An excerpt from an unpublished poem written by an incest survivor, provided by Tracy Trothen. At that time, Dr. Trothen was a Ph.D. candidate at the Toronto School of Theology. Today she is Associate Professor and Head of Theological Studies at Queen’s Theological College, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. 16. Erhard S. Gerstenberger, “Enemies and Evildoers in the Psalms: A Challenge to Christian Preaching,” Horizons to Christian Preaching 4, no. 5 (1982–83): 61–77. 17. Carney, “God Damn God,” 116. 1

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presented outside of the context of lament as a psalm of praise. Psalm 88 is entirely absent.18 The Service Book for The United Church of Canada does include imprecatory psalms and psalms expressing anger at God in the “Table of Lessons.” However, acknowledgment of the legitimate expression of anger, including anger toward God, is absent from the liturgical resources. For instance, there is no reference to anger made in the section entitled, “The Burial of a Child,” which is veiled in a passionless language of transcendence: “May the words of thy Son our Saviour, which reveal his love for little children, speak peace to their troubled hearts…”19 In the section entitled “Intercessions,” reference to grief and suffering is expressed in terms of sorrow, perplexity, loneliness, etc.20 These prayers acknowledge every aspect of grief except for the aspect of anger. It is curious that this aspect of grief is somehow forgotten or deemed inappropriate for the ears of the congregations. This is not to say that members of the Church ignore the subjective reality of experiencing anger. Many participants in Christian communion, ordained and lay, endeavor to celebrate creation in all of its manifestations. The point is that the formal liturgy of the people who confess to the event of Jesus Christ does not boldly meet this aspect of humanness. Why this is so is difcult to identify. Perhaps there is a real threat in praying these psalms because it brings us face to face with the violence and anger within us.21 Perhaps it is because the Church, while it still clings to its Constantinian status, is more closely identied with the “enemies” of the psalms than with the complainant.22 What is essential is that this gap in our awareness be identied and addressed. The North American experience is shaped largely by a philosophy that assumes the world to be constantly improving and that those who are not 18. An Inclusive-Language Lectionary: Readings for Year B (Atlanta: Cooperative Publication Association by John Knox Press, 1987). 19. The United Church of Canada, The Service Book (Toronto, Ont.: Canec, 1986). 20. This section goes through aspects of suffering where the worship leader says, “For all those who…” and the people answer, “We beseech thee to hear us, O God.” When a Divinity student at Queen’s Theological College in Kingston, Ontario rewrote the prayers to say, “For all those who are angry…,” another quipped, “Let them come back when they’ve settled down!” 21. Carney, “God Damn God,” 117. 22. For one view of the church’s anxiety-provoked avoidance of anger, see Christopher Levan, “Homosexuality and the Ironies of a Constantinian Church,” in Theological Reections on Ministry and Sexual Orientation (ed. Pamela Dickey Young; Burlington, Ont.: Trinity, 1990), n.p. 1


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visibly participating in the wealth and opportunity of our society are responsible for their own suffering. This modern form of the principle of retribution, which is really a form of Pelagianism, is more ofcial than spontaneous. We do not live optimistically, but in fact increase the negative effects of our consumptive behavior by hoarding more than is necessary against the possibility of failure. When we take property, food, and money out of circulation it leaves less for the homeless, hungry, and impoverished of the world. Victim blaming, combined with this anxietyprovoked acquisitiveness, produces in our society a genuine inability to recognize suffering. Anger, which is a normal aspect of all forms of suffering, is encountered defensively and is misappropriated as a criticism and a direct threat to the “God-given” benets of the social order.23 On both the systems and individual level, anger is too often seen as a prelude to disintegration rather than to the event of resurrection and reunion that are foundational to our witness of God. So foreign is the experience of human anger and suffering to the liturgical expression of the church that dozens of secular self-help groups thrive in North American society, fullling the necessary function of formful lament and thanksgiving that the church has abandoned. The manifesto for many of these groups is almost psalmic. Some of these groups (e.g. Alcoholics Anonymous), which often meet on church premises, are often charged rent for fullling what should be part of the church’s social mission. Loving relationships, including the relationship between human being and God, can only become whole in the full expression of experience. When an aspect of human experience is denied expression, the result is disintegrative: grief is invalidated while frustration, bitterness, and disabling emotional festering are provoked. It is one of the best-kept secrets of Christianity that a primary tool for formal expression of anger within the community of faith lives within the psalms of lament. In the eighteenth century, for instance, Abigail Abbot Bailey kept a diary that documented her spiritual journey through years of abuse by her husband, and his incestuous violation of their eldest daughter. It is a masterpiece of intertextual paraphrase. In a compelling version of Ps 55, she wrote:

23. An interesting contrast might be made here between the institutions that are developed within a culture that have appropriated a pagan concept of the “immortality of the soul,” and therefore try to erect “eternal” institutions” (e.g. the Constantinian Church) with practices that are based upon a condence in the Christian anticipation of the resurrection. 1

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The Bible as Human Witness to Divine Revelation …who is this cruel oppressor? This grievous rod in the hands of the High and Lofty One, by whom I am thus sorely chastised? It was not an enemy; then I could have borne it. Neither was it he that hated me in days past; for then I would have hid myself from him. But it was the man mine equal, my guide, my friend, my husband!24

The witness of the psalms of lament to suffering in human beings is as pertinent today as when they were rst written. As Bailey’s tortured reections indicate, Ps 55 is the prayer for the victim of family violence. Perhaps Ps 88 is accessible to the person suffering with an incurable disease, who feels abandoned by friends and family who are afraid of the disease. It might easily be the prayer of the abuser under the divine hand of judgment. In some cases, Ps 22 would be more appropriate at a child’s funeral than the safe familiarity of Ps 23. Psalm 13 might be recited with passion by someone caught in the headlights of injustice. Faith is a dialogue demanding of both human being and God: “Turn, O LORD! How long! Show mercy to your servants” (Ps 90:13). As Brueggemann points out, “being condent of God does not lead to passive acceptance…[but] to a vigorous pressing of the issues…”25 It is the work of the church to transform the disintegrative suffering of the world into the suffering of becoming—the suffering of one struggling to Golgotha and communion with God.26 This can only be done by acknowledging all expressions of humanness, including the expression of anger in grief—even anger at God. The book of Psalms is a resource that can help us give voice to the formful expression of the anger that is so much a part of grief and the human experience.

24. A. A. Bailey, Religion and Domestic Violence in Early New England: The Memoirs of Abigail Abbot Bailey (ed. Ann Taves; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), 73. 25. Brueggemann, The Message of the Psalms, 113. 26. The material in this nal section owes much to a lecture by Douglas John Hall (formerly of McGill University, Montreal, Quebec) delivered at a symposium on suffering and Christian response held in Kingston, Ont., Canada on March 8, 1991. 1

THE CONTRIBUTION OF ECCLESIASTES TO BIBLICAL THEOLOGY Peter Enns

I would rst like to offer a word of deep appreciation, not only for the opportunity to contribute to this volume, but to Gerald Sheppard himself and his legacy of sensitive and constructive reection on the study of Scripture. His work on Ecclesiastes specically, namely, the theological value of the epilogue,1 and most decidedly in the area of a wisdom hermeneutic,2 were a breath of fresh air to me as I began thinking seriously of the role of Israel’s diverse wisdom tradition in how we think of Israelite religion and the contemporary Christian use of Scripture. I hope this essay reects something of the debt I and all students of Scripture owe him in helping us see the thoroughly human character of Scripture, and how the word of God can be heard, not despite, but actually through the historically dissimilar traditions contained therein. 1. Introduction Since the latter half of the twentieth century, the task of Biblical Theology has been variously dened and has seen various articulations. A perennial topic of this discussion is the place of those portions of Scripture that are not as overtly amenable to a biblical theological paradigm. Often the focus of such discussions has settled on Israel’s wisdom tradition, namely, the books of Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, and Job, as well as others texts that bear marks of wisdom inuence. The awkward t of the wisdom tradition with Biblical Theology has certainly been a function of the narrow redemptive-historical focus of this eld of study. In recent decades, however, a welcome effort has been expended to broaden the biblical theological task to include these otherwise stubborn books. 1. Gerald T. Sheppard, “The Epilogue to Qoheleth as Theological Commentary,” CBQ 39 (1977): 182–89. 2. Gerald T. Sheppard, Wisdom as a Hermeneutical Construct: A Study in the Sapientializing of the Old Testament (BZAW 151; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1979). 1

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Of these three biblical wisdom books, Ecclesiastes presents the greatest challenges for Biblical Theology. This is due not only to the absence of redemptive-historical characteristics, but to the very nature of book’s contents. Contradictions within the book challenge any attempt to articulate a consistent theology (e.g. 1:18 and 2:13; 5:11 [Eng., v. 10] and 10:19; 7:3 and 8:15). Equally challenging are the tensions between Qohelet’s thought and the “mainstream” biblical witness of the Old Testament (e.g. death [3:19–20], righteousness [7:16], God’s judgment [9:1–2], and pleasure [2:10, compare to Num 15:39]). Qohelet is clearly not a company man, and much of his relentless heterodoxy focuses on his rather dim view of God, namely, what he perceives to be God’s unpredictable and unjust behavior (an aspect of Qohelet’s theology that does not receive as much attention as it should). Qohelet’s overall frustration and even anger toward God are announced quite plainly at the end of 1:13: “It is a grievous task God has given to humanity to occupy him.” This task refers to the previous sentence, namely, Qohelet’s wisdom-investigation of all that is done “under the sun.” He announces himself in v. 12, and in v. 13 he explains his task and gives the pessimistic evaluation, all in summary fashion. Not only is his task grievous, but it is one that God has given to humanity. One might say that for Qohelet, God poses a theological problem. He does not seem to be so much concerned whether God is just, can be trusted, and so on. Nor does he seem eager to defend God’s justice, as one might in a theodicy. He seems already to have made up his mind. For these (and other) reasons, Ecclesiastes presents us with a wonderful opportunity, precisely because of its independent spirit, to engage the broader task of Biblical Theology and the contribution of Ecclesiastes. Toward that end, we can only offer some preliminary, but hopefully helpful, observations. 2. Toward an Understanding of Biblical Theology It is no perfunctory move to observe that exegesis is the bedrock of Biblical Theology. Central to exegesis is an understanding of a given text in the context of (1) its historical setting, and (2) the author’s thoughts in a book as a whole. Of course, often we know very little of the original setting of a passage or book. Moreover, it is often the case that a distinction needs to be made between the context of the instigating event/utterance and the context of the nal form of the larger corpus of which that text is a part. This is notably the case with the formation of the Pentateuch, but also affects every other segment of the Old Testament (former and latter prophets, psalms, wisdom). At any rate, in exegeting particular 1

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passages we are already engaged in doing Biblical Theology in a true sense. Exegesis is not a preliminary, neutral step. Rather, the very questions we bring to any text are already informed by a variety of implicit factors that reect the limited nature of all human knowing (e.g. cultural setting, theological categories, etc.). Put simply, exegesis has a circular dimension, although the exegetical exercise also helps us be more critical of some of our pre-commitments. The image, then, as others have said, is more of a hermeneutical spiral than a circle. The task of Biblical Theology is to put the exegetical pieces of the whole together. This synthetic task begins with Biblical Theology on the book level, which is how the term Biblical Theology has often been understood. It is assumed, and rightly so, that any book has a theological integrity of its own (regardless of its oral or literary pre-history), and the task of exegesis is to try to bring that theology to the surface. In that sense it is “biblical” rather than applying dogmatic or other types of categories onto the ancient text (although realizing, again, the complex issue of how our own context informs us in our exegetical task). With Ecclesiastes, the relationship between the parts and the theology of the book as a whole is a bit more complex than we might nd in other books, due to its tensions and ambiguities, and in view of the essentially positive evaluation Qohelet receives from the frame narrator in 12:9–11.3 Hence, it is necessary for interpreters to be much more intentional in moving back and forth between the trees of exegesis and the forest of Biblical Theology. With an understanding of the theology of the book of Ecclesiastes— which is to appreciate and embrace the theological tensions within the book and with dominant strands of Old Testament theology—we can consider the biblical theological dimension of the book on the broader canonical level.4 Such a move assumes that the books of Scripture can 3. Space does not permit a discussion of the role of the frame narrator in the book of Ecclesiastes, but I am of the opinion that the closing verses of the book (12:9–14) offer a positive evaluation of Qohelet’s theology while also encouraging the reader to move beyond Qohelet’s pessimistic, despairing observations. I lay out my reasoning more fully in “)5 9=< and the Evaluation of Qohelet’s Wisdom in Qoh 12:13, or The ‘A is So, and What’s More, B’ Theology of Ecclesiastes,” in The Idea of Biblical Interpretation: Essays in Honor of James Kugel (ed. Hindy Najman and Judith Newman; JSJSup 83; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 125–37, and “Ecclesiastes 1: Book Of,” in Dictionary of the Old Testament: Wisdom, Poetry, and Writings (ed. Tremper Longman III and Peter Enns; Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP, 2008), 121–32. The point is that Qohelet’s view of things cannot be swept away as a heterodox foil to orthodox Israelite faith. The frame narrator does not allow this option. 4. Readers of the present volume will no doubt hear strong echos of Sheppard’s own work on theological diversity in Scripture in my thoughts in this essay. I refer 1

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and should be in conversation with one another. This is my assumption as well, although I would quickly add that this canonical conversation can just as easily be lled with tension as harmony. In fact, this is to be expected, since a canonical conversation does not aim to obliterate the distinctives of any particular book—even one as difcult to pin down as Ecclesiastes. I do not assume, therefore, that harmony is preferable to tension, especially when dealing with Ecclesiastes, although I have no predilection to exaggerating diversity. The reason I have come to embrace the tensions between Ecclesiastes and other portions of Scripture is because exegetical integrity demands it. If we impose a unity (which is not to say that all unity is imposed), we will nd ourselves in the unfortunate position of eviscerating both exegesis and theology by defending forced readings of those texts that mitigate against such supercial unity. Rather, I would prefer—as best as I can—to allow the parts of Scripture to play off of each other. Such a conversation allows the various biblical voices to speak from the context of their own historical particularities. A Biblical Theology in the broader sense of the word is really an attempt to capture the nature of this biblical conversation. And since it is a theological conversation, it is also understood that any biblical theological construction we may offer must remain open to further clarication, which is to say Biblical Theology is a journey as much as it is a destination. Even though we all approach Scripture with preconceptions, we must at the very least be hermeneutically self-conscious enough to know how those preconceptions affect our understanding of Scripture. This is very different from saying that our preconceptions should not affect us. They always do. But by being aware of the hermeneutical process we will, hopefully, be more open to allowing that process to be engaged, critiqued, and corrected if need be. So, for example, we may all have a notion of what wisdom is, and then judge Ecclesiastes on the basis of that notion. That is ne as an entryway to the hermeneutical spiral, but there must also come a point where a reading of Ecclesiastes should affect one’s preconceived notions of wisdom, especially since it is biblical (i.e. all the canonical books)5 wisdom that is being discussed. With Ecclesiastes, the specically to Sheppard’s “Canonization: Hearing the Voice of the Same God through Historically Dissimilar Traditions,” Int 36 (1982): 21–33. 5. With the inclusion of Ben Sira and the Book of Wisdom, the deuterocanonical wisdom books of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions, the intracanonical conversation is even more complex. In these books we see evidence of a shift in the nature of wisdom in the Second Temple period, where torah and wisdom are 1


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overarching theological issue that comes into play is one’s theology of God and whether or not a text worthy of being called “God’s word” would feature some of the things Qohelet says, things that offer such a different perspective from other Old Testament books. The problem, however, is that even our doctrine of God (especially our doctrine of God) should be driven by the witness of Scripture as a whole rather than by our own theological preferences and the inevitable privileging of certain texts that follows. The voice of Scripture can easily be muted when an ecclesiastical confession or tradition determines Scripture’s proper interpretation rather than being in conversation with Scripture, that is, when an external authority becomes the truth rather than being subject to the Scripture, the alleged source of truth. In such cases, Biblical Theology, and with that a proper understanding of Scripture, is cut off at the knees. Misplaced notions of what God does or does not do or allow can adversely affect our ability to hear the very obvious tensions that the author of Ecclesiastes seems intent to lay before us and that are afrmed by the frame narrator. A rigid and constricting view of what is appropriate for God to do can, ironically, hinder the biblical theological task. All of this reects my conviction that we must be ever diligent to allow Scripture to take us where it will, to be willing to explore new avenues and to take theological risks, if that seems warranted by the text. Consequently, a Biblical Theology that involves Ecclesiastes will not see its task as alleviating tension in favor of a theological unity that, supposedly, is more consistent with God’s character. Rather, it will explore the unique contribution a book like Ecclesiastes offers to our understanding of what the Bible as a whole is saying about God and humanity. In its broadest sense, I understand Biblical Theology to come to its nal statement in the person and work of Christ and in the life of the body of Christ, the church. Christians confess Jesus as God’s nal declaration of who he is by which all previous declarations (the Old Testament) receive their ultimate context of interpretation. This is not to say that we now can dismiss Qohelet’s struggles in light of the gospel, as some Christian interpreters, contemporary and otherwise, have implied. In fact, the complete opposite is the case. We now bring the voice of Ecclesiastes into conversation with the gospel, realizing in somewhat paradoxical fashion that, in Christ, we see the climactic (and therefore conjoined in ways not evident in the Hebrew Bible (e.g. Sir 24) and rehearsals of sacred history are seen as wisdom-activities (Sir 44–50; Wis. of Sol. 10–19). In other words, with these wisdom books, wisdom has taken on a dynamic redemptivehistorical dimension. 1

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nal) revelation of God, while also realizing that the God presented in Ecclesiastes may help us understand better what that nal revelation means. What does a Christian understanding of Ecclesiastes entail? It is not an exercise in “seeing Jesus” in every verse of Ecclesiastes. Nor is it an exercise in comparing and contrasting Ecclesiastes and the gospel to see where the former falls short, or worse, reading Ecclesiastes in such a way that brings it into happy alignment with preferred theological categories. Rather, it is allowing the gospel to orient us to the types of questions we bring to Ecclesiastes, as well as seeing how the theological contours of Ecclesiastes contribute to our understanding of Old Testament theology as a whole and what the God presented in Ecclesiastes later did in Christ. The fact that Ecclesiastes is at best alluded to only once in the New Testament6 presents us, however, with the possibility that Ecclesiastes did not work itself into the rst Christians’ theological reections. Genesis, Psalms, Deuteronomy, and Isaiah were very popular texts for drawing out the signicance of Jesus the Messiah vis-à-vis the Old Testament story, but Ecclesiastes is at best an echo. Still, the essential absence of Ecclesiastes from the New Testament is by no means a deterrent for its implicit value for the biblical theological task. It is, rather, an invitation. It is the church’s obligation, in view of the biblical theological trajectories already set by the New Testament writers, to bring all of the Old Testament into this larger theological conversation. Although the Christian canon consists of “two parts,” the Old Testament and New Testament, the biblical theological task is brought into sharper relief if we articulate the relationship between the testaments somewhat differently. The New Testament can be understood as a commentary on the Old Testament in light of the person and work of Christ. In other words, the New Testament explains Christ in light of Israel’s Scripture while at the same time modeling how Israel’s Scripture is now to be understood in light of that reality. The reality of the coming of Christ puts all of Scripture (the Old Testament) in a fresh light by placing it in the broadest redemptive-historical context. The event complex that towers over and gives nal denition to all others is the death/resurrection/ascension of the Son of God, which resulted in the creation of a new people of God, made up of Jew and Gentile together, who are now not divided by law but united by the grace of YHWH through faith in his messiah. 6. Rom 3:12 may echo Eccl 7:20. The “frustration” of creation in Rom 8:20 may echo Qohelet’s “absurd” (NBUBJP UIK of Rom 8:20 is the word used in the LXX translation of Ecclesiastes for =39). 1


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To illustrate the point, it may help to think of the New Testament as analogous to developments in Judaism. For Jews the reality of the exile, followed by essential banishment in their own home land under foreign rule, then the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, are all events that needed to be understood in light of Israel’s Scripture. These events were then brought to bear in their re-interpretation of Scripture. The resulting theological efforts for classical Judaism were eventually the Talmud and other important Jewish works such as the midrashim. (Note that I am leaving out of the picture here other, earlier developments in Judaism such as those of the Qumran community and other early Second Temple literature.) Judaism is a response of a people to its own Scripture in light of changing circumstances. The New Testament is, in this sense, a Christian Talmud. I am not suggesting that the Talmud and New Testament are interchangeable, and we can all walk hand in hand into an interfaith sunset. To be sure, Classical Judaism still found its ultimate purpose in Torah observance (with necessary adjustments) whereas the rst Christians understood God’s purposes now to be summed up in the Messiah. I am suggesting, however, that both share a similar hermeneutical posture, that of rethinking Scripture in light of paradigm-shifting events. Both faiths answer a similar question of self-denition at the intersection of ancient Scripture and contemporary events that forced a posture of tremendous theological creativity and innovation. For Christians, however, that contemporary event is not exile but the death and resurrection of the Son of God: “Now that Jesus has come, how do we understand what it means to be the people of God?” That question necessarily and invariably becomes a deeply hermeneutical one, as God’s antecedent word must be drawn into the answer. To be “God’s people,” after all, implies an understanding of the inviolable relationship between Jesus and his fulllment of Israel’s Scripture. This is why the Old Testament is cited well over 300 times, and is alluded to at least 1000 times, in the New Testament.7 To put it yet another way, postbiblical Jewish and Christian literature are both exercises in Biblical Theology, of bringing the past to bear on the present and vice-versa. For Christians this task is one where all of Scripture is brought under the authority of the risen Christ and where the work of Christ is understood more deeply on the basis of Israel’s Scripture. Moreover, the fact that the New Testament, especially those books that deal explicitly with the post-Easter church (i.e. everything but 7. My source for these statistics is Barbara Aland et al., eds., The Greek New Testament (4th rev. ed.; Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1993), 887–901. 1

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the Gospels), is so focused on the belief and praxis of the church indicates that the biblical theological task is not complete until one has understood its implications for the reconstituted people of God. In other words, bringing Scripture to bear, in Christ, on the life of the church is the nal dimension of Biblical Theology. It addresses the question, “How are we today the people of God?” This is precisely the same question asked in Scripture at various junctures, for example, the Chronicler living in the postexilic period and Paul living at the outset of the postresurrection period. It is the very practical question of “who are we” that gives Scripture itself its developmental, progressive, trajectories. The climax of those trajectories is seen not only in how Christ brings them to their nal expression, but in how those trajectories are realized in the body of Christ, the church. The application of God’s antecedent revelation in an “in Christ” way is an extension of the biblical theological work evinced in Scripture itself. This is what the Christians today have in common with the New Testament writers. They, too, are living in the post-Easter universe; both live in the same eschatological moment. The church, therefore, puts itself under apostolic authority by following the lead of the New Testament writers by further developing the biblical theological trajectories begun under the Spirit’s guidance. Such an approach to a Biblical Theology of Ecclesiastes will help us see how the various hermeneutical horizons interplay while also giving necessary supremacy to God’s nal statement in Christ. I wish to avoid, though, a facile notion of supersessionism, which could imply that the Old Testament is of no theological value. It certainly is of indisputable value, as the New Testament itself shows again and again by its very persistence in engaging the Old Testament. However, if we learn anything from the New Testament’s commentary on the Old Testament, it is that the Old Testament does not ultimately stand on its own. In view of the resurrection, it must now be rethought in light of the gospel, that which the Old Testament authors strained to see but could not (1 Pet 1:10–12; Heb 1:1–3). This is what it means, in principle, to understand Ecclesiastes or any other Old Testament book Christianly. In what follows, we will explore the intersection between Ecclesiastes and Biblical Theology by focusing on Ecclesiastes in the narrow context of biblical wisdom. Further explorations would need to broaden the circle to include the contribution Ecclesiastes makes to the broader redemptive-historical impulse of the Old Testament. A nal exploration would engage how Ecclesiastes can be in conversation with Christ and the church as described in the New Testament. In order to remain focussed on the topic that is the theme of the present volume, the latter two cannot be addressed here, although investigating the relationship 1


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between Ecclesiastes and the other wisdom books (Proverbs and Job) will already suggest important and promising theological trajectories. 3. Ecclesiastes and Wisdom in Biblical Theological Conversation As mentioned above, comparing and contrasting Ecclesiastes to Proverbs and Job results in broadening our denition of biblical wisdom rather than privileging one expression as standing guard over another. To put it another way, we must allow the descriptive task to inform our prescriptive conclusions. That is, without wishing to overstate the case, the legacy of any theological task that attempts to be faithful to Scripture. How, then, can Ecclesiastes contribute to our notion of wisdom? This can be seen in observing the innerbiblical conversation between the three biblical wisdom books. The difculty is that these three books are quite different from each other. On one level it may be legitimate to ask whether the term “wisdom” can really do justice to these three books. But as I see it, we should neither allow the diversity of these books to cast doubt upon their belonging together, nor should the common label “wisdom” justify seeking an articial unity. I would prefer to maintain the conventional designation and then ask what it is about these books that permits the common designation. Can we, therefore, offer a denition of “wisdom” that is both sufciently broad yet meaningful enough to hold the biblical wisdom books together? The following denition of wisdom can provide one entryway to that discussion: Wisdom is concerned with mastery of life. How one masters life, amid all the ups and downs—when things go well and not so well—is a denition that captures an important element of wisdom literature. The biblical wisdom books each contribute to the discussion in their own way. We bear in mind, however, that these books do not function as “how-to” books or Christian owner’s manuals. It is common to think of Proverbs, for example, as the book we run to that “tells me what to do.” This is not how wisdom literature works. A “howto” approach can be particularly problematic in reading Ecclesiastes, for it encourages readers to go to the supposedly “less skeptical” passages, such as the carpe diem passages (e.g. 2:24–26), to nd some safe guidance and jettison the “less favorable” passages (which is most of the book). But this does not capture the force of these carpe diem passages. They are not Qohelet’s more sober moments that are worthy of emulation but notes of resignation, as can be plainly seen in each instance.8 8. For example, note Qohelet’s pessimistic summations of these passages: 2:26; 3:14, 22. See, too, 3:9, which casts a dismal view of the “times and seasons” outlined 1


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Proverbs Following the path of wisdom is more than citing a few passages. The nature of wisdom, God’s wisdom, is deeper and subtler than this. On the surface, Proverbs seems to be a book of “wise sayings to live by,” a tendency seen, for example, in publications of the New Testament that include Proverbs and Psalms, implying that the point of these books is somewhat obvious or more immediately accessible than others. But a close reading of Proverbs shows that the issue is much more complex. Proverbs 26:4–5 illustrates the point succinctly: 26:4

Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself.9

26:5

Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes.

Already here we get a hint of the complexities involved in handling wisdom literature. Proverbs is not a rulebook that simply tells you what to do. These are both wise sayings, to be sure, even though they give contrary advice. It is because they are both wise sayings that it takes wisdom to know how—indeed, when or even if—to apply them. It takes wisdom to discern what situation calls for which proverb. Wisdom requires that we read not just the proverb but read the situation. Such situational elements are not hidden in a few corners of Proverbs. Consider, for example, what Proverbs says about riches. Simply scanning the passages below will illustrate. 10:15

The wealth of the rich is their fortied city, but poverty is the ruin of the poor.

18:11

The wealth of the rich is their fortied city; they imagine it an unscalable wall.

The rst half of each proverb is the same, but the second half of each tells a very different story. For some, wealth as a fortied city is a security against poverty, for others a source of arrogance. The applicability of the proverbs is context dependent. Consider also the following pair:

in 3:1–8, a portion of Ecclesiastes that is typically misunderstood as offering a sense of solace and comfort, popularized by the well-known 1960s folk song “Turn, Turn, Turn” (written by Pete Seeger and performed by the Byrds). 9. Unless otherwise indicated, the biblical quotations that follow are from the NIV. 1

ENNS The Contribution of Ecclesiastes 10:16

The wages of the righteous bring them life, but the income of the wicked brings them punishment.

11:4

Wealth is worthless in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death.

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In 10:16, we see that wealth is more or less neutral and that its benet depends on the quality of the person possessing it, whether righteous or wicked. In 11:4, any benets of wealth are neutralized “in the day of wrath.” Only righteousness can deliver from death: 11:28

Whoever trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will thrive like a green leaf.

Here we see that one’s downfall is in trusting riches. The righteous, however, will survive, although there is no mention whether the righteous have wealth. As in 10:16, wealth seems to be neutral and what counts is one’s character. But then in 19:4 we see an endorsement of wealth regardless of other factors. 19:4

Wealth brings many friends, but a poor man’s friend deserts him.

What Proverbs has to say about wealth is diverse and demands a mature understanding of the circumstances of the individual. One cannot isolate one of these statements and make it of absolute validity, applicable to each and every situation. Neither can these statements be harmonized to say the same thing. Wealth can be a sign of blessing or it can be abused to the individual’s peril. Which proverb applies right now? It depends— and it is these two words that help us get to the heart of the situational dimension of Proverbs. This raises the issue of biblical authority, which is not only relevant for Proverbs and wisdom, but other portions of the Old Testament such as the Psalms. In what sense is Proverbs authoritative? The issue as I see it is more the nature of that authority. We should observe that Proverbs has a largely descriptive quality rather than being overt commands. To be sure, this is wisdom and so not merely observations, but the text has an implicit prescriptive function—still, the mode of presentation is signicant. Both their descriptive form and diverse content suggest that “authority” for the book of Proverbs must mean more than just “do what it says,” “obey this verse because it is in the Bible.” Proverbs, because of its atomistic character, is one book of the Old Testament that seems to invite prooftexting, but the fact of the matter is that it is precisely Proverbs that, when properly understood, seems to be designed to resist prooftexting. Proverbs are not meant merely to be “cited” or “read” in 1

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order to harvest the information content: they are meant to be pondered, lived with, meditated on, and acted upon. It is necessary to do so in order to understand them. Their meanings are not obvious, nor is their relevance. They can be general, vague, obscure, and so it takes effort to know how to use them. Proverbs, in other words, is not just a book of wise sayings to make the simple wise (1:4). It is also a book for wise people (1:5) who are on a life-long journey to gain more and more wisdom in order to attain a more god-like life—or, as I suggested above, to master life. It may help to come at this by using creation as a metaphor. To master life means to live according to the order in the universe that God has laid down, the order that reects his nature, his wisdom. Wisdom is order, just like creation. Genesis 1 speaks of God ordering the chaos. Wisdom, likewise, is God’s order, not on the cosmic level, but on the level of everyday life. This is one way to understand such passages as Prov 3:18– 20 and 8:22–31, where creation and wisdom are closely connected concepts. The purpose of wisdom literature is to pull back the curtain to let us catch a glimpse of the pattern, the order that God has laid down for life, even if our perception and understanding of that order are incomplete. The wisdom quest, according to Proverbs, is to seek diligently this order that God has established and to conform our lives to it. In doing so, one is living in such a way where mastery of life is being realized more and more. Job How, then, does Job t into this denition of “mastery of life?” Job is one who is struggling to discern this order. Unlike Proverbs, the book of Job does not focus on explicating this order more clearly through wise observations. Rather (and this is true of Ecclesiastes as well), Job focuses on the intersection of divine order and human experience and the tensions between the two. Job is a complex literary and theological work. For the purpose of eshing out the relationship between Ecclesiastes and Proverbs and Job, however, I will restrict my focus to the theological tension represented by the speeches of Job’s four friends. In brief, Job’s friends say what one would expect an orthodox Israelite to say. Anyone grounded in the teaching of Proverbs or Deuteronomy would immediately recognize the validity of their words. Take the following four representative examples: Job 5:17–18 (Eliphaz): Blessed is the man whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty. For he wounds, but he also binds up; he injures, but his hands also heal. 1


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Job 8:20–22 (Bildad): Surely God does not reject a blameless man or strengthen the hands of evildoers. He will yet ll your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy. Your enemies will be clothed in shame, and the tents of the wicked will be no more. Job 11:13–20 (Zophar): Yet if you devote your heart to him and stretch out your hands to him, if you put away the sin that is in your hand and allow no evil to dwell in your tent, then you will lift up your face without shame; you will stand rm and without fear. You will surely forget your trouble, recalling it only as waters gone by. Life will be brighter than noonday, and darkness will become like morning. You will be secure, because there is hope; you will look about you and take your rest in safety. You will lie down, with no one to make you afraid, and many will court your favor. But the eyes of the wicked will fail, and escape will elude them; their hope will become a dying gasp. Job 36:5–7 (Elihu): God is mighty, but does not despise men; he is mighty, and rm in his purpose. He does not keep the wicked alive but gives the aficted their rights. He does not take his eyes off the righteous; he enthrones them with kings and exalts them forever.

Much of what undergirds the comments of Job’s friends is the belief that the universe is ordered. It is God’s universe and things happen for reasons; actions have consequences. Is this not what we read all through Proverbs or the Law? Job’s circumstances, which we see, are actually consequences. They have causes, even if we don’t see them. For some, the observations of Job’s friends are neutralized because they reason from consequence to cause rather than from cause to consequence. Because they infer due cause, whereas Proverbs and Deuteronomy move from cause to consequence, one might be tempted to render invalid the observations of Job’s friends. This strikes me as a supercial objection. Job’s friends are perfectly within their “biblical right” to say what they do. Since God is just, Job’s friends reason that, if certain behaviors lead to certain consequences, the presence of those consequences must be a result of certain behavior—lest the justice of God and the truth of Scripture be called into question.10 10. We might recall here John 9:1, when Jesus heals the man born blind, and was asked “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents?” Jesus puts such thinking to rest, but it is worth noting that the question was raised somewhat naturally. The notion that some negative circumstance (such as suffering) is a result of sin seems to be a perfectly reasonable reaction. Jesus’ response should not be seen as correcting the errant theology of his readers vis-à-vis biblical teaching, but as a realignment of Old Testament expectation. 1

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Job’s friends are not absolutely wrong in making this reverse connection from consequence to deed. But they lack wisdom in that they merely prooftext, that is, they make a supercial appeal to a theology of retribution such as we nd in Proverbs or Deuteronomy (note, the appeal is supercial, not the theology of retribution). It is not wrong to appeal to traditional categories (the frame narrator of Ecclesiastes does this very thing in 12:13–14 with his admonition to “fear God and keep his commandments”). But, you have to appeal to them wisely, keeping in mind the “it depends” factor. Job’s friends needed to exercise wisdom to know how—indeed, if—these categories applied to Job in this instance. There are circumstances concerning Job that they are not aware of, which are outlined in the chs. 1–2. Readers know why Job is suffering: the accuser challenges God to test whether Job is really a worshipper of God or whether he is a fair-weather believer. We know this, but Job and his friends never do. Instead, the book goes into great detail describing how Job and four of his friends struggle to interpret Job’s suffering. Job’s friends understand the traditional categories of wisdom, but they fail in applying them rigidly to Job (in a “how-to” or “owner’s manual” way). For Job, condence in the functionality of the traditional categories is precisely what is now in question. He does not doubt that bad actions lead to bad consequences. The problem for Job is that he is experiencing the latter, but has not engaged in the former. He is having a theological/ faith crisis. So how is Job a wisdom book? It, too, concerns mastery of life—how to live well. The specic problem being addressed is the all-too-common experience where the biblical portrait and the everyday world do not align. The divine pattern of conduct is not reected in one’s experience. Although they are very different kinds of books, Proverbs and Job share at least one important aspect, that the wise God has ordered the world not only physically but socially/behaviorally. Proverbs helps us see this order, if only in glimpses. Job is wrestling with the common human experience where the divine order is not reected in the human drama. It is worth repeating that nowhere does Job reject the pattern on the basis of his experience. Rather, his agony reects his commitment to assuming the validity of the pattern. This disconnect is, as I said, what fuels Job’s distress. Ecclesiastes How then does Ecclesiastes address the issue of wisdom and the mastery of life? Like Job, the issue in Ecclesiastes is the disconnect between the divine pattern and human experience. Our author, however, is relentless 1


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in not letting God off the hook. Job’s sufferings, both physical and emotional, are deep, but he is silenced, in the end, by God’s voice. Qohelet’s God is distant (4:17–5:6 [Eng. 5:1–7]) and hardly worth the effort to bring into the conversation, and so Qohelet does not bother; he simply accuses. It is not until we get to the frame narrator’s conclusion (12:9– 14) that we see the solution offered to Qohelet and those who might participate in his despair. 1. Qohelet is wise (12:9–10); 2. Qohelet’s words are not meant to be comfortable (12:11); 3. although Qohelet is wise, do not go beyond his words (12:12); 4. the proper response in view of, not despite, Qohelet’s wisdom is the traditional Israelite categories of “fear God and keep his commandments” (12:13–14). There is no answer given to Qohelet as we see given to Job, from God’s mouth, stunning the complainer to silence. Rather, the complaints are afrmed as wise, but the reader is challenged to move beyond this state, even against all reason, to one of fear of God and obedience to his commands, that is, to continue being a faithful Israelite regardless of the absurdity. Rather than “how dare you question me,” as we see in Job, here we read “Yes, it is tough, but follow God anyway.” Despite the differences between Job and Ecclesiastes, they are united in one overarching notion, namely, that, at the end, it is all about who God is and what is required of his people. But whereas the book of Job offers a defense of God’s character, no such thing is found in Ecclesiastes. No attempt is made to dull the scalpel of Qohelet’s incisive observations. The reader is simply told to keep going, not by ignoring the pain but by looking right at it. As Winston Churchill reportedly said, “If you are going through hell, keep going.” Job’s complaints receive their answer from God out of the whirlwind, although, in a way, it was no answer—at least not the one readers might expect (“Well, you see Job, let me explain. An accusing member of the divine council came up to me and challenged me, and I just couldn’t let it rest”). Still, at least Job got an answer. The readers of Ecclesiastes, however, are left to ponder how “fear and obedience” can actually bring meaning to life in the face of Qohelet’s relentless skepticism concerning the very system that he spends roughly twelve chapters undermining. To that question they get no answer. They are only told Qohelet is wise, to fear and obey despite the circumstances (12:13), and to know that God will set all things right (12:14).

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One should sense at this point how inadequate the frame narrator’s answer would be for Qohelet himself! Throughout his monologue he has been pecking away at the very notion that the frame narrator here declares with condence. Qohelet has been saying, “Life is unjust, and therefore God is unjust. So why bother?” The frame narrator responds by acknowledging Qohelet’s observations as nothing less than wise, but then says in effect, “Bother anyway. God is just. Obey him.” But this is precisely where the strength and wisdom of Ecclesiastes can be seen, not despite the despair but through it. In Proverbs and Job, there is still the expectation that all things nd their nal answer in the wise God. Qohelet offers no such resolution, but the readers are told to fear and obey anyway, not because he has seen the just God, but as a precondition to seeing the just God. 4. Conclusion This is the unique way in which Ecclesiastes contributes to the wisdom conversation of Proverbs and Job. For Proverbs, things are not necessarily crystal clear, but the wise God is seen in the pattern of conduct laid out for humanity. Job’s struggles are a function of his ultimate trust in the pattern; his despair comes as a result of his inability to see how his sufferings follow from his behavior. Qohelet has given up on the viability of the pattern altogether, and so shows no hesitation in giving God an earful. The frame narrator’s evaluation, to put it yet another way, is “Good point, Qohelet—but—fear and obey anyway.” Against such a posture of faith in the face of the utter impossibility of faith there is no defense. The frame narrator’s nal two verses are a cold slap in the face, not of childish cynicism, but against a true, legitimate, “wise” despair that comes from peering into the darkest well of absurdity of the human drama. Qohelet has plumbed the depths, but the answer remains the same. To master life is not a program of several steps, where each success leads to others. Life is hard. All three wisdom books make this point in their own way, and Ecclesiastes takes it as far as it will go. One hears, perhaps, a distant echo of the famous saying, attributed (falsely?) to Tertullian “I believe because it is absurd,” or countless others who have obeyed even when it truly renders asunder every shred of commonsense they have. To live wisely, to master life, is to expect to be redressed by the most challenging circumstances imaginable—and to emerge steady and sure. In this sense, Ecclesiastes is indeed wisdom literature. Even in the face of undeniable evidence to the contrary, where every shred of 1


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evidence says that God is either absent or unjust, wisdom reigns. Such a view of Ecclesiastes can also bring to the surface numerous biblical theological possibilities, where Ecclesiastes ceases simply being an example of bad theology and can be seen as a profound, if also startling, piece of theology in its own right, ripe to contribute to the biblical theological conversation.

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THE DANIEL AND QOHELET EPILOGUES: A SIMILAR EDITORIAL ACTIVITY? (QOHELET 12:8–14 AND DANIEL 12:1–13)* Pedro Zamora

12:8 “Hardly a breath…!” says the Preacher, “All is a breath, hardly a breath!” 9 But there was a benet in which the Preacher was wise: He constantly taught the people knowledge, pondering, investigating and coining many proverbs. 10 The Preacher worked to nd authoritative words and what is written earnestly, that is, words of truth. 11 The words of the wise are like goads / custodians, and like nails / (night) guards rmly xed are the masterpieces given by any of the masters. 12 Thus, besides these, listen my child: The writing of many books has no end, and much study exhausts the esh. 13 The end of the address just heard is as follows: Fear God and obey his commandments, for this is the sum of man, 14 because, as regards all deeds, God will bring judgment, including all that is hidden, be it good or evil. (Author’s translation)

Although it could just be a literary device, there is no doubt that Qoh 12:8–14 functions as an editorial epilogue to the book. It clearly speaks of the designated writer in third person, summarizes his work, and offers a synthesis and some conclusions. Out of this a key question arises: What * This essay is an updated version of a portion of my doctoral thesis, published as Fe, política, y economía en Eclesiastés. Eclesiastés a la luz de la Biblia hebrea, Sira y Qumrán (Asociación Bíblica Española 38; Estella: Verbo Divino, 2002). I dedicate it to the memory of G. T. Sheppard in gratitude for his teaching and friendship, and also to his wife Anne. I wish to thank my colleague Dr. Mark Abbott for translating this essay. 1

ZAMORA The Daniel and Qohelet Epilogues

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is the purpose of the editorial epilogue with respect to the message of the book as a whole? Another book in the Writings, Daniel, may not end with an editorial epilogue, but does speak of the “sealing” of the book (e.g. 12:4, 9) in a way that raises a question about the verses’ relation to the rest of Daniel and thereby resonates with Qohelet’s epilogue. My work analyzes the epilogue of Qohelet and the end of Daniel, and comparing the two, seeks to show traces of similar impulses and editorial interests in both. 1. The Fundamental Issue of the Qohelet Epilogue Some authors see a break between the message of Qohelet and that of its epilogue,1 while others afrm a total and perfect continuity;2 still others establish a complex ideological relationship between the book and the epilogue.3 What all of these positions make clear, however, is that the relationship between the epilogue and the book needs to be given more attention than in many other books of the Hebrew Bible. Shields maintains that, although partially favorable towards Qohelet himself, the epilogist is unequivocally critical to the sages as a group. It appears that the epilogist may thus have employed Qohelet’s words in order to reveal the failure of 1. For an overview of the problematical relationship between book and epilogue, see J. Vílchez, Eclesiastés o Qohélet (Estella: Verbo Divino, 1994), 413–21; C. L. Seow, “ ‘Beyond them, my son, be warned’: The Epilogue of Qohelet Revisited,” in Wisdom, You Are My Sister: Studies in Honor of Roland E. Murphy, O. Carm., on the Occasion of his Eightieth Birthday (ed. M. L. Barré; CBQMS 29; Washington, D.C.: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1997), 125–41; and J. M. Auwers, “Problèmes d’interprétation de l’épilogue de Qohélet,” in Qohelet in the Context of Wisdom (ed. A. Schoors; BETL 136; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1998), 267–82. 2. For example, A. G. Shead, “Reading Ecclesiastes ‘Epilologically,’ ” TynBul 48 (1997): 67–91, who provides a statistical study of the presence of the epilogual vocabulary in the rest of the work. 3. For example, F. J. Backhaus, “Der Weisheit letzter Schluss! Qoh 12,9–14 im Kontext von Traditionsgeschichte und beginnender Kanonisierung,” BN 72 (1994): 28–59; M. V. Fox, “Frame Narrative and Composition in the Book of Qohelet,” HUCA 48 (1977): 83–106; D. Georgi, “Die Aristoteles- und Theophrastausgabe des Andronikus von Rhodus: Ein Beitrag zur Kanonsproblematik,” in Konsequente Traditionsgeschichte. Festschrift für Klaus Baltzer zum 65. Geburstag (ed. R. Bartelmus et al.; OBO 126; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993), 45–78; G. T. Sheppard, “The Epilogue to Qoheleth as Theological Commentary,” CBQ 39 (1977): 182–89; and G. H. Wilson, “ ‘The Words of the Wise’: The Intent and Signicance of Qohelet 12:9–14,” JBL 103 (1984): 175–92. 1

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The Bible as Human Witness to Divine Revelation the sages and warn their prospective students to adhere to the commands of God. The book of Qohelet thus functions as a tract designed to discredit the wisdom movement, using the sage Qohelet’s own words in order to do so.4

According to Shields, the editor of Qohelet considered the content of the book proper to be categorically negative and unacceptable for any believer whose foundation is the Torah received as Sacred Scripture. Therefore, the epilogue constitutes the only source of true teaching in the entire book of Qohelet, and in this manner acquires a primordial function. At the opposite extreme we nd Fox, who concludes: The distance the epilogist sets between himself and Qohelet is protective rather than polemical… Qohelet, for his part, is not made into an unreliable persona; he does not self-destruct. Qohelet is a persona: it is the author’s voice we hear speaking through the mask. To be sure, Qohelet shows an awareness of the uncertain basis of his knowledge, but this awareness is part of his message and does not undermine his reliability. There is little doubt that the author means us to take Qohelet’s words seriously—his pessimistic, querulous reections as well as his afrmations of ethical-religious values. In any case, there is no ideological conict between Qohelet’s teachings and the epilogue. Both express the author’s views, but with different tones and emphases.5

In other words, Fox maintains that two literary personae, Qohelet and the epilogist, each communicate the voice of a single author and that this is an appropriate instrument to express a sophisticated and nuanced message. These two examples identify the fundamental issues that exist with regard to the epilogue, namely, its purpose and function within the book as a whole. Put another way: Is Qoh 12:8–14—independent of its possible redactors—a true corollary of the book, or is it a kind of simple postscriptum or corrective appendix that has little or nothing to do with the rest of the book? This question has theological implications, for how one answers will determine how one will interpret the theological contribution of the book within the Hebrew canon.6

4. M. A. Shields, “Ecclesiastes and the End of Wisdom,” TynBul 50 (1999): 117–39 (117). 5. Fox, “Frame Narrative and Composition,” 315. 6. For a complete study of the main theological implications of the different readings of the epilogue, see Auwers, “Problèmes d’interprétation de l’épilogue de Qohélet.” 1


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2. The Epilogue: Resizing Qohelet in the Framework of the Canonical and Theological Task One specic cause of the controversies about the epilogue is that its explicit Torah character contrasts with the marked secular7 tone of the main body.8 In this regard, it is worth noting that in the main body of the book the themes of the “fear of God” and “judgment” appear already. Where they appear, however, they do not stand in isolation, but have been capably connected with the natural physical limitations of man (e.g. 3:14, 17). Common interests that connect the epilogue and the body of Qohelet can also be seen in the reference to “his commandments” (HJEH4>, 12:13), and the statements related to fear and judgment in 8:4–6, a text that is a secular version of the epilogue’s conclusion.9 For this reason I believe that even the version most explicitly Torah-like seeks expressly to connect with the fundamental assumptions of the main body of the book. It should also be pointed out that if the editor, more Torahlike in the epilogue, has respected the secular and scientic character of the editorial prologue (1:1–11), it is due to his intention to recognize two perfectly distinct autonomous realities—the Creation and the Torah— whose respective inherent limits make them both necessary.10 This seems to be reected in the epilogue where there is a clear praise of science— albeit scribal-sapiential science (12:9–11)—which at the same time establishes its limits (12:12). Alongside this, the necessity of the Torah is afrmed in a way that shows that it is not a source of ultimate knowledge, which will only be given in judgment, about which little is known (12:13–14). It is essential to point out that science is also taken seriously 7. Throughout this essay my use of “secular” is in keeping with Qohelet’s focus, “under the sun,” that is, from the “saeculum.” The geological and historical hymn of 1:4–11 is the best token to this focus. 8. For example, James Crenshaw, Ecclesiastes (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987), 189–90; Kurt Galling, Die fünf Megilloth (HAT 18; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1969), 124–25; Aarre Lauha, Kohelet (BKAT 19; Neukirchen–Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1978), 220–22; and Walther Zimmerli, Das Buch des Predigers Salomo (ATD 16/1; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1962), 249–50. This observation, however, requires much nuancing, because the epilogue lacks a specic claim to inspiration or particular divine illumination—including the “second epilogue” (12:12–14), which is more circumspect than is usually perceived. 9. In this text God is like the king, and man is before God as the subject before a king who has sovereign authority (L. Alonso-Schökel, Eclesiastés y Sabiduría [Madrid: Cristiandad, 1974], 53). 10. I have treated in depth the secularist and scientic character of the prologue in my Fe, política, y economía en Eclesiastés, 27–77. 1

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in the epilogue and its limits are established only according to its own epistemological bases; the same occurs with the Torah. My translation of the epilogue attempts to reect the balance between its secular character and its circumspect Torah-like tone. A key to this understanding is the interpretation of CEJH (12:9), which the versions translate as an adverb (“besides” or “moreover”). However, I believe it is essential to keep in mind the importance of the root CEJ elsewhere in Qohelet, where all of its forms mean “benet,” “advantage,” or “gain.” Such usage responds to one of the explicit and fundamental questions of the work about the outcome of human projects in general (1:3 and 6:11: “What does man gain?”), or of the homo faber/œconomicus (3:9: “What is the prot to the high ofcial?”), or also of the homo spiritualissimus (5:15: “What is to be gained by one who toils for the wind/spirit?”),11 or additionally of the homo sapiens (6:8; also 2:13; 7:12: “What is the advantage of the wise?”). Therefore, the use of the root CEJ in Qohelet serves throughout to distill the true meaning of the catchphrase of 1:2, that sharp political-economic and philosophical-religious critique of all human efforts to produce a “plus” in any eld (economic, labor, religious, etc.). Consequently, when one arrives at its corollary, it is impossible to separate the catchphrase )J=39 =39 of 12:8 from the question about the “benet” or “gain” (*HCEJ / CEHJ). This is the reason for my translation of CEJH as “benet” or “gain” and the inclusion of 12:8 in the epilogue, taking the introductory copula of 12:9 as adversative. If my translation is correct, it would emphasize the editor’s laudatory tone beyond what is usually perceived. Moreover, it would also highlight the epilogue as an absolutely positive response to the question of the book about the “benet.” Against the vacillations about the benet that “words/affairs” ()JC35, 1:8) report,12 there is a palpable benet in Qohelet’s research: his teaching to the people. This at the same time raises the question about the meaning of this teaching. Before focusing on that, however, we need emphasize the signicance of a single fact: Qohelet, immersed in a critical personal task, could hardly perceive any benet except the necessity of enjoying the gift of God (2:24–26). Now, however, the editor presents a vicarious function of his arid and 11. In my opinion, the use of IHC in Qohelet is ironic: on the one hand it is used in its materiality (“wind”) against those who are caught up in human affairs, but on the other hand it is employed ironically against those new religious groups for whom reality is penetrated by spirits. I offered a thorough treatment of the theme of the “spirit” in Qohelet in my Fe, política, y economía en Eclesiastés, 241–75. 12. In the book of Qohelet as a whole, )JC35 should be understood as studies, analyses, speeches, or any other form of “wisdom/science” (9>). 1


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apparently sterile sapiential work: the people have been the main beneciary. It is certainly interesting that this benet of Qohelet’s wisdom would not be for himself but for the “people” ()), who receive his teachings. Such a fact is not surprising, however, if we think of the vigorous criticism that Qohelet aims against all form and pretense of power and knowledge, and if we take into consideration that his own name points in this same populist direction. Commentators often point out this democratic aspect of qoheletian wisdom, while at the same time speculating about its more social signicance, inquiring about themes and the possible existence of schools, forms of teaching (in private or public circles), possible peripatetic inuences on this teacher, and so on.13 It is also noteworthy that Qohelet does not use other more restrictive terms like “assembly/congregation” (=9B, 95) or “community/ commune” (5IJ, 9CH3I) that have a more restricted sense and a more religious connotation (assembly of the faithful, community of disciples or followers, etc.). All of this can lead one to deduce that from the editor’s perspective Qohelet taught everyone, possibly with a special emphasis on the “common people” and not only to his disciples or to a community of followers and sympathizers. It can be observed that Qohelet becomes increasingly “popular” throughout chs. 3–12, so that the powerful king and rich landowner gure at the beginning of the book completely disappears by the epilogue.14 That is, this popular function of Qohelet, or at least the closeness to the people that the epilogue attributes to him, does not appear suddenly but as a corollary of the process of transformation into a true master-scribe whose professional labor is now described in detail and, curiously, from its most secular and strictly professional side (12:9–10b: “Pondering, investigating, and coining many proverbs…”), even though it could have an undeniable religious transcendence.15 As noted already, 13. According to A. Bonora (El libro de Qohélet [Barcelona: Herder, 1994], 203), Qohelet was a master disseminator of the wisdom that received peripatetic inuence. He also perceives traces of his academic activity in the scholastic method employed throughout the main body of the work: “the master invites to debate, to analyze and verify a sentence or a saying, a widespread opinion, a common place.” This is a method that Bonora sees reected in the use of the three verbs in 12:9b. 14. See E. S. Christianson, A Time to Tell: Narrative Strategies in Ecclesiastes (JSOTSup 280; Shefeld: JSOT, 1998), for whom the book of Qohelet is structured around the progressive unveiling of its protagonist. 15. The translation of Qohelet as “preacher” followed by Jerome and Luther, responds quite well to the popular character of its protagonist. Another alternative would be “commoner,” if by such one understands a popular or charismatic leader of the community. Such a rendering, however, loses the aspect of teaching. Vílchez (Eclesiastés o Qohélet, 425–31) offers a good presentation of the proposed interpre1

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the epilogue does not speak to us at all, at least not explicitly, of an inspired or illumined activity, but of one based strictly on scribalsapiential science, underlining once more the editor’s interest in the more secular and technical aspects of this activity. Without a doubt the detailed description indicates that it is mainly through literary activity that the preacher forms the people. For all intents and purposes, if the activities of 12:9b on rst glance may be limited to oral activity, 12:10b (3HE > play with a semantic ambivalence that justies the double translation that I employ. Hence the rst, which in the Hebrew Bible means “goad,” also meant “guardian” or “gatekeeper” in Post-Classical Hebrew (already present in Qohelet), while the second could be read as the plural of C>> (“guard duty”) in place of the Masoretic plural of C> >. Incidentally, C>> can have the clear priestly connotations of the temple watch (e.g. 1 Chr 26:12; Neh 7:3; 13:30; CD 4:2; 1QM 2:2; see M. Jastrow, Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature [New York: Pardes, 1950], 856). This reading is important not only because it would conrm the connotation of “xing” of the previous translation, but also points to a pretense of legitimate authority (over the interpretation of the Torah?). 1


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sharpness but the xing or nailing of the mentioned material.19 Here in v. 11—and also in v. 10 although more elliptically—the editor raises his praise a step above the mere secular or professional activity well described in 12:9 and marks Qohelet’s work with a special aura by using a language that suggests that the result encompasses a special literary corpus. Thus he rst places Qohelet’s words on a par with a known and authorized collection ()J>I9 JC35, “Words of the Wise”) and then insinuates that there already exists a demarcation for this corpus (whose compositions are “like goads, and like nails”), which distinguishes it from the rest of the literary-exegetical production that may follow, anticipating in this way the scope established by 12:12. The same can also be deduced from the use of “words of the wise” in Proverbs, where they appear in the same editorial context (1:6; 22:17) and seem to refer to a more or less dened corpus.20 Furthermore, “words of authority and what is written correctly, that is, words of truth” point to the drafting or xing of authorized texts. More to the point, these locutions seem to go beyond a mere xing of “proverbs” ()J=>) referred to in 12:9—Could it be an oblique reference to the book of Proverbs?21—and point to a creative outcome that forms part of the CEHJ (“benet”) that the qoheletian activity has left behind. This afrmation to a great extent is grounded in the understanding of #AIJC35, not so much as “benecial words” as found in most versions, but as it is deduced from the study of the use of #AI in Qohelet and Qumran: “valuable/valid (authorized?) words.”22 It is very 19. Lohnk, “Les épilogues du livre de Qohélet,” 88, points out that the EH?H3C5 spur the animals to movement, while the EHC> > holds them in place in order to give them guidance. That is to say, on the one hand there is a stimulating creation, but on the other an intent to x the interpretation (supposedly of the Torah). As I understand it, this is the pretense that will stimulate the process of the xing of the Torah itself. Therefore, I believe that it is the exegetical interest that will nally drive the stabilization of the text, and from there traditum and traditio may no longer be so easily differentiated. 20. In addition to the two quotations from Proverbs, another parallel mention of “the words of the sages” does not appear in the entire Hebrew Bible except in Qoh 9:17, whose exhortation “the words of the sages heard in quietness” seems to refer the reader to Prov 22:17 (“Incline your ear and listen/obey the words of the sages,” or rather, “Incline your ear and listen—Words of the Sages—and apply your heart to my wisdom…”). That is to say, this quote seems to reect the necessity of a time of withdrawal from the habitual tasks and the dedication of oneself to meditation and reexion on the texts of the sages, texts that seem already to constitute a collection. 21. Wilson, “ ‘The Words of the Wise,’” 178–83. 22. In addition, we should take into account the following data. First, J. Targarona Borràs, Diccionario Hebreo-Español (Barcelona: Riopiedras, 1995), includes for our term the meanings “interest,” “benet” and “value.” Second, in Mal 3:12 and 1

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possible, therefore, that the epilogue is really a reection of the xing process of the teachings of the teachers of Judah, who had a hand in the stabilization of the scriptural text. If my argument is correct, it is possible to perceive in Qohelet a reection of the dawn of canonical consciousness.23 It is risky to try to pin down whether this text contains an explicit reference to the formation of Sacred Scriptures, or only a separate exegetical corpus. The impression is that there is a clear amalgamation of both, and that at this stage they cannot be totally differentiated. In fact, what is sometimes presented as a contradiction between 12:9–11 and 12:12–14, is in reality a faithful reection of the following process. On the one hand, the work of the sages-scribes who compile and order the materials is foundational to their main contribution, which is to update and apply the Torah. On the other hand, this more hermeneutically oriented creative activity will reinforce the process of textual stabilization of the Torah, hence both directions are reected already in 12:9–11. Beneath this bidirectional development lies another process of growing differentiation between Torah and interpretation, between traditum and traditio, and this is precisely what we nd in 12:12–14. In these verses, consistent with 1:8, there is a criticism of the permanent composition of )JCAD (“books”), among which are doubtlessly included those that offer a permanent reinterpretation of the Torah from the most diverse and random elds of knowledge. It is difcult to decide to what extent such criticism attempts to end various interpretations, written or oral, but the direction of this part of the epilogue is clear: to deny the possibility of a true increase in the ultimate science (knowledge of the ultimate). This, in turn, conveys a narrower view on the Torah than that pretended by the ontological focus on the rise. Consequently, the process of scripturalization will be driven by the tension between these two views. Curiously, this process is rational at its foundation, since it presupposes establishing a rational base of differentiation between revelation and its human interpretation. It should be kept in mind that this recognized body of sages dominated Isa 54:12 #AI appears in an adjectival position similar to ours where its obvious meaning is “valuable.” Third, the possibility needs to be considered that the author could have been thinking of a play on words between #AIJ?3 (“precious stones”) and #AIJC35 (“precious words”). That is, in reality he would have been thinking of “words of great value,” which is conrmed precisely by the use of the verbs 4> and B3. 23. See G. T. Sheppard, Wisdom as a Hermeneutical Construct: A Study in the Sapientializing of the Old Testament (BZAW 151; Berlin: de Gruyter 1980), 110, who follows I. L. Seeligman, “Voraussetzungen der Midraschexegese,” in Congress Volume: Copenhagen, 1953 (VTSup 1; Leiden: Brill, 1953), 150–81. 1


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secular knowledge, and such was their popular and ofcial credibility that many of their activities and decisions lacked even an explicit biblical foundation.24 If this is so, it means that the formation of the Scriptures has among its vital impulses a scientic and secular character that gave it greater credibility thanks to the great recognition enjoyed by the sages who participated in it. Is it so unusual, then, that these sages would be capable of creating or integrating a work like Qohelet? Is it so surprising that Qohelet would have been conceived of as an attack of a clearly secular nature against pretences of political or religious power and go on to acquire a great religious transcendence? Is it not for this reason that the epilogue does nothing more than place itself in the main direction of the work, drawing out somewhat more explicitly this important religious transcendence? What has been said up to this point should be considered in the light of the context of the epilogue in a period of literary blooming—be it the Medo-Persian or Hellenistic period—driven above all by the multiplication of teachers and the diversity of literary works that threatened profoundly to affect the cohesion of the people, and thereby Judaism as well. This background requires a clarication and connects with Qohelet’s concern about the scientic and technological enterprise itself. If the qoheletian criticism undermines all basis of any attempted developmentalism, including hermeneutical development, it may be afrmed that the epilogue of Qohelet not only points to the “closing” of the Canon, as Sheppard suggests,25 but that it is the work itself that provides the theological ammunition to those in favor of a closing of the canonization process and its denitive separation from the hermeneutical and exegetical process, at least as it concerns its written format. To be sure, such closing and separation is best done based on the authority of one of the recognized teachers and, as we have presented, on his authority in secular and even scientic subjects. It is also worth remembering that in this context the “people” are a very important reference point in that the entire process of scripturalization or canonization reects the pretence of superiority over them, and for this reason they are not the only thing that serves as a stable foundation for the religious institutions. Therefore, the teachers of yesteryear, those who were considered servants of the people, offered a stable religious foundation due to their 24. Thus points out A. Guttmann, Rabbinic Judaism in the Making: A Chapter in the History of the Halakhah from Ezra to Judah (Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 1970), 9, for the so-called Sopheric period. Later teachers, such as Jesus ben Sira, will appeal more explicitly to the Scripture. 25. Sheppard, “The Epilogue to Qoheleth,” 185–89. 1

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relative immunity to political interference. As a result of this, their inuence among the people grew enormously and along with it the idea of Sacred Scripture.26 Accordingly, it is not strange that there is a demonstrated interest in presenting Qohelet as one of those sages that had obtained widespread credibility among the people and who had contributed not only to the alphabetization but also the scripturalization of the people. To summarize, if earlier we spoke of the editor afrming the professional activity of Qohelet, it could be said more precisely that the editor puts Qohelet on a pedestal in the pantheon of the sages, specifying that this pantheon is unique and remains segregated from the rest of the sages and teachers who, during the time of the editors, continue to perform the same work and claim the same attributions and capabilities. Indeed, it is worth asking whether Qohelet is not a collective name representing this body of sages that was able to transform the spirit received from the Torah in a profoundly secular impulse, and vice versa, such that the secular drive received from paganism was channeled towards the Torah. In any case, it seems clear that the epilogue does nothing more than highlight the distinctly ambivalent character of the work. We turn now to the interesting clues of a similar editorial activity in the book of Daniel.27 3. The “Closing” of Daniel The previous observations about the epilogue of Qohelet nd a very interesting echo in the conclusion to the book of Daniel (12:1–13) which seems to reect an editorial activity marked by the same tension between the two fundamental impulses detected in the epilogue of Qohelet. 3.1. The Book of Daniel In Daniel, the “sage” or “scholar” (the participle =J in the Hebrew section, )JC (“from juice of pomegranates”). Out of this, he proposes that Song 7:10 (Eng. 9) be rendered: “thy palate is like good wine, giving vigor to lovers, stirring the lips of the sleepers (with desire).”3 The virtue of such a reading, he suggests, is to leave the MT intact and provide in )J5H5= a somewhat explanatory parallel to )J?J (“sleepers”). In a similar fashion, the NEB regards J5H5= as plural, but understands it in the abstract sense of )J5H5 (“love,” “love-making”), translating “caresses.” The NEB retains the consonants of J5&H+5! but vocalizes it as J5"H+5!, producing the phrase: “and your whispers like spiced wine owing smoothly to welcome my caresses.” Like the NEB, Ginsburg (insisting that the male lover speaks all of Song 7:10 [Eng. 9]) associates (I with speech rather than mouth or palate, and J5H5= with a more forcible and striking illustration of the nature of both the wine and the woman’s speech. He explains: “Her voice is not merely compared to wine, valued because it is sweet to everybody; but to such wine as would be sweet to a friend, and on that account is more valuable and pleasant.”4 His translation of 7:10 (Eng. 9), therefore, reads: “and thy speech as delicious wine, which to my friend ows down with mellowed sweetness, and causes slumbering lips to speak.” Hitzig has attempted to make sense of the reference to J5H5=, by proposing that the presence of J5H5= in the following verse, J=H J5H5= J? HEBHE (Song 7:11 [Eng. 10]), has created a vertical dittographical error.5 The RSV proceeds similarly, deleting J5H5= entirely and translating: “and your kisses like the best wine that goes down smoothly.” 2. Michael V. Fox, The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), 163. 3. Robert Gordis, The Song of Songs: A Study, Modern Translation and Commentary (TS 20; New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1954), 97. 4. Christian David Ginsburg, The Song of Songs, Translated from the Original Hebrew with a Commentary, Historical and Critical (London: Longman, 1857), 181. 5. As noted by Marvin H. Pope, Song of Songs: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 7C; Garden City: Doubleday, 1977), 641. 1

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While none of the above attempts to decipher and contextualize the use of J5H5= in Song 7:10 (Eng. 9) may be rejected out of hand, not one satisfactorily accounts for the Hebrew text as it stands. The likelihood of Delitzsch’s and Fox’s proposals is limited by the fact that they are recognized nowhere else in the Song. The RSV accepts Hitzig’s unlikely dittographical hypothesis, even though the result is the disavowal of an entire Hebrew word. Ginsburg’s suggestion to replace the pleasing effects of a lover’s “mouth” with a friend’s “speech” does little to address the fundamental concern over taking the so far exclusive female epithet J5H5= to refer to a male. Gordis’ pluralized and abstracted understanding of “my caresses” for “my love” does engage the dilemma involving the masculine and feminine second person address within the same phrase, yet lacks persuasiveness in the discontinuity of the imagery created by the “palate” giving vigor to lovers while they are asleep. Before any of the above theories are accepted, it must be asked whether there is another way of understanding the MT—one that both makes sense within the context and maintains the exact form as it has been transmitted. 2. The Repercussions of ( 289

object sufxes. He states, “a short vowel is lengthened, if the syllable becomes open,” for example, 5"J% (“he knew”) shifts to H+5%J (“he knew him”). He includes the clarication: “in the Piel…a short a-vowel in forms like 5>2!=: is reduced: H+5>!=: (she taught him).”6 Second, according to Seow’s chart of attested forms of object sufxes used with perfects, (–

represents the second feminine singular object form employed with a masculine singular perfect verb.7 Third, Seow makes clear that in the third person masculine singular perfect of all III-hê verbal patterns, the nal weak radical is lost before the object sufx. The addition of a second feminine singular sufx to a third masculine singular Piel perfect verb 9 represents something that modies the manner in which the male lover will nally come to his beloved. HALOT offers several categories under the entry for lmed, including expressions of “temporality” (e.g. CB3=, “in the morning,” Amos 4:4; C>=, “when it rains,” Jer 10:13; )HJ9 IHC=, “in the cool of the day,” Gen 3:8), and expressions of exact relationships (e.g. C=, “in riches,” 1 Kgs 10:23; BHE>= “for sweetness,” Ezek 3:3).11 “Rightly” or “in rightness,” then, would express the timing or exact relationship in which the male lover comes for, and accepts, his beloved’s love. Finally, as acknowledged by Gordis’s apocopated plural argument outlined above (Section 1), the word J5H5 in Song 7:10 (Eng. 9) seems to signify an abstract sense of “love,” rather than the specic address “my beloved” used at times throughout the Song to denote the women’s 10. BDB, “)JC&7J> ,” 375. 11. HALOT, “=,” 508. 1

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acknowledgment of her lover. The former use of J5H5 is demonstrated also in Song 1:2, where the woman states, “your love ((J55) is better than wine,” and in 1:4, apparently by the Daughters of Jerusalem, “we will exult your love ((J55) more than wine.” The male lover also employs this more general use of 5H5 in 4:10: “how sweet is your love ((J55), my sister, a bride; how much better is your love ((J55) than wine.” The rst two phrases of 7:10 (Eng. 9), therefore, which are most easily understood as being spoken together by the anonymous narrator, now read: Narrator:

He waits for you like good wine: Coming for love in rightness.

It remains, however, to ask what relevance this new consideration of (= J5H5= (=H9 refers primarily to 3H9 *JJ or (= J5H5= (=H9 and 3H9 *JJ is especially apparent where translators or commentators use the plural “kisses” (instead of the usual “mouth,” “palate,” “speech”) for (= J5H5= (=H9 and 33H5 )J?J JEA (as Delitzsch does), essentially viewing them as parallel structures describing the effects of good wine (and thus the lover’s palate). If, however, as argued above, the translation “causing to speak” for 33H5 is dependent upon a Poel (and thus causative) conjugation of 335 II (“speak”), the present form 33 H+5!, does not represent an exact counterpart to (= H+9 (e.g. a masculine singular active Qal participle), but rather, a third person masculine singular perfect conjugation of the Poel stem meaning “he/it caused to speak.” In short, one cannot honor the Poel causative force, while concurrently upholding a Qal participial form. If the causative force is adopted, then an accurate translation of 335 II in its Poel perfect conguration, and in its Song 7:9b context, should read: [And your mouth, like the best wine]35 going to my love smoothly. It caused to speak the lips of sleepers.

This rendering incorporates the correct causative Poel force of the proposed verb in the perfect conguration which makes the Poel stem possible. It appears that many translators honor the proper participial form of (= H+9 only to coerce a kind of parallel participial translation for 33 H+5!, which is unsupported in the Hebrew unless the desired Poel stem is dropped and the nal phrase translated in the Qal, “speaking the lips of sleepers.” Finally, if the above complications are overlooked, and the wine analogy followed through to the nal phrase, “causing to speak the lips of sleepers,” the question remains: Does it make sense to think that only the “best” wine causes the lips of sleepers to speak? Despite the view of Pope that the gure of speech refers to the powerful and stirring (even ritualized) effect that “the best” wine has upon “lips of sleepers,” it remains that good wine—even “the best”—does not achieve this effect faster or more easily than substandard wine. Similarly unconvincing is Stadelmann’s view that the wine is “of superior quality” because it

34. Delitzsch, Commentary on the Song of Songs, 131. 35. Note the hypothetical use of this rst phrase (as argued against in section 2) to demonstrate further what is usually read, and hence the necessity for the root 335 to carry a Poel force, yet Qal participial form. 1

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“ows smoothly” down the throat, whereas “a more astringent wine leaves a certain bitterness in the mouth.”36 Although it is possible to understand 33H5 by reference to 335 II and the idea of making movement or causing to speak, the results are only marginally more satisfying than those achieved by reference to 335 I. Some scholars go further, however, and identify a reference to 3HK in Song 7:10 (Eng. 9), a possibility that we will now consider. 6. 33H5 as Related to the Hebrew Root 3HK, “To Flow” It has been suggested that the meaning for 33H5 in Song 7:10 (Eng. 9) is derived not from the root 335 but from 3HK. Ewald notes this possibility when he proposes that the protosemitic root 3H5 develops into the Hebrew consonants 3HK, and Aramaic, 3H5. Accordingly, the meaning of both verbal forms is identical: “to ow.”37 Fox makes the same observation when he supports his translation of Song 7.10b (Eng. 9b)—“dripping on scarlet lips”—by stating that “DBB in mishnaic Hebrew… means ow or drip (= Aramaic DWB, cognate to Hebrew ZWB), meanings appropriate to this context.”38 Murphy, however, supports a direct relation of the Hebrew consonants 3H5 to their protosemitic notion of “to ow,” and suggests that the occurrence of 33H5 in Song 7.10b (Eng. 9b) derives from 3H5 rather than 335.39 Such a proposal ts well morphologically, since a close reading of 33 H+5! suggests that it represents the less well-attested Polel stem associated with middle ww Hebrew roots, and thus displays one of three possible congurations: a Polel innitive construct, a Polel second person masculine singular imperative, or a Polel third person masculine singular perfect formation. All three carry the causative force associated with the Polel stem. However, since Ewald, Fox, and Murphy ascribe to 3H5 a meaning identical with 335 I, “to trickle, ow, drip,” they reproduce the 335 I results listed in section 3, although now demonstrating the Polel innitive construct option of 3H5, for example, Murphy’s “owing smoothly for my lover.” For Ewald, Fox, and Murphy, then, viewing 33H5 as either a Polel stem of the second ww root 3H5 or Poel stem of the geminate root 335 I is inconsequential—both carry a causative meaning of “to ow,” and generate essentially the same results in relation to 335 I above. If this is 36. Stadelmann, Love and Politics, 184. 37. Heinrich Georg Augustus Ewald, Das Hohelied Salomos übersetzt und mit Einleitung, Anmerkungen und einem Anhang (Göttingen: Deuerlich, 1826), 118. 38. Fox, The Song of Songs, 163. See section 4 above regarding Fox’s rendering of “scarlet.” 39. Murphy, The Song of Songs, 183. 1

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the case, however, both readings are vulnerable to the same objections leveled against 335 I. Neither commentator, though, contemplates fully the spectrum of semantic possibilities that becomes available through the change of the middle radical (i.e. H instead of 3). Fully considering such possibilities, however, is an essential rst step before resorting to the non-Hebrew roots 335 I or 335 II. 7. 33H5 as Related to the Hebrew Root 3H5, “To Pine” As mentioned earlier, the root 3HK, which Ewald and Fox equate with the protosemitic root 3H5, is also found in Lam 4:9. There the context is the depravity caused by the famine in Jerusalem. The LXX, reading the verb 3HK, translates the verse as follows: TETH. The slain with the sword were better than they that were slain with hunger: they have departed (FQPSFV RITBO), pierced through from want of the fruits of the eld.

For the issue at hand, the Hebrew in the second part of the verse is most important: J5 E3H?E> )JCB5> H3HKJ )9. The LXX translates H3HKJ with the Greek verb FQPSFV RITBO According to Bauer, SFX means “ow” or guratively, “overow with” or “have more than enough of something,” as in HI_O S FPVTBO HB MB LBJ= NFMJ (“a land owing with milk and honey”). The prex FQP, meaning “from” or “away from” gives the verb a sense of “ow away from,” hence the LXX’s “depart.” While the LXX’s translation reects the usual understanding of 3HK, that is, “ow,” the Vulgate appears to interpret the verb differently: Quoniam isti extabuerunt consumpti. “Extabuerunt,” here corresponding to the Hebrew verb H3HKJ, is translated “waste away entirely, vanish, disappear.” The English translations appear to follow in a similar fashion, interpreting H3HKJ )9 to mean “for these pine away” (KJV), “who pined away” (RSV, NJPS), “these wasted away” (NEB), and “who wasted away” (REB). Gesenius lists 3HK as indeed having another meaning “to pine away, to die” (based on Lam 4:9).40 He links this second denition to the Aramaic cognate 3H5 (“to ow, to ow away, to become liquid”) and Arabic dwb (“to pine away with hunger or sickness”). Both Gesenius and BDB also cite a native Hebrew verb 3H5, “to pine away, languish.” It is listed as occurring only as a Hiphil feminine plural participle in Lev 26:16 (A? E3J5>), apparently describing a kind of disease which causes one’s soul or life to pine away. 40. William Gesenius, Gesenius’s Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures (trans. and ed. S. P. Tregelles; New York: John Wiley, 1879), 240. 1


300

Interestingly, the verb form 33H5 in Song 7:10 (Eng. 9) attests morphologically to a second causative rendering of 3H5, either a Polel imperative second masculine singular “you cause to pine!,” a Polel innitive construct “causing to pine,” or Polel perfect third masculine perfect “he causes to pine.” Employing both the previous reconguration for (

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