Divine Prerogative and Royal Pretension: Pragmatics, Poetics and Polemics in a Narrative Sequence about David (2 Samuel 5.17-7.29) (JSOT Supplement Series)

JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT SUPPLEMENT SERIES 264 Editors David J.A. Clines Philip R. Davies Executive...

Author: Donald F. Murray

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JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT SUPPLEMENT SERIES

264

Editors David J.A. Clines Philip R. Davies Executive Editor John Jarick Editorial Board Robert P. Carroll, Richard J. Coggins, Alan Cooper, J. Cheryl Exum, John Goldingay, Robert P. Gordon, Norman K. Gottwald, Andrew D.H. Mayes, Carol Meyers, Patrick D. Miller

Sheffield Academic Press

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Divine Prerogative

and Royal Pretension Pragmatics, Poetics and Polemics in a Narrative Sequence about David (2 Samuel 5.17-7.29)

Donald F. Murray

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 264

Copyright © 1998 Sheffield Academic Press Published by Sheffield Academic Press Ltd Mansion House 19KingfieldRoad Sheffield SI 19AS England

Printed on acid-free paper in Great Britain by Bookcraft Ltd Midsomer Norton, Bath

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 1-85075-930-8

CONTENTS List of Figures Acknowledgments Abbreviations

9 11 13

Chapter 1

THE PRAGMATICS OF POETICS 1: DEFINING AND DELIMITING CONTEXTS 1.1. Defining the Title, Delimiting the Subject 1.1.1. What Are Divine Prerogative and Royal Pretension? 1.1.2. Why Pragmatics, Poetics and Polemics? 1.1.3. The'p'-words as Defining my Close Reading 1.2. Delimiting the Text to Be Read 1.2.1. The Story of David in Samuel 1.2.2. 2 Samuel 5.17-7.29 within the Story of David in Samuel 1.2.3. Delimiting the End of the Unit 1.2.4. Delimiting the Beginning 1.2.5. Structure and Cohesion of the Unit 1.3. Prospect: Deferring the Difference

17 17 17 20 24 25 25 26 27 28 30 33

Chapter 2

THE PRAGMATICS OF POETICS 2: DEFINING THE TEXT TO BE READ 2.1. What Text? 2.2. Text, Translation and Notes 2.2.1. Hebrew Text 2.2.2. English Translation 2.2.3. Notes on the Text

37 37 39 41 46 49

6

Divine Prerogative and Royal Pretension

Chapter 3

DAVID DEFERENT WITH YAHWEH? 2 SAMUEL 5.17-25

85

3.1. Contextualizing the Text 3.2. A Close Reading of 2 Samuel 5.17-25 3.2.1. What Is the Question? 3.2.2. Verses 17-21 3.2.3. Verses 22-25 3.3. Narrative Structure and Technique in 5.17-25 3.3.1. Verses 17-21 3.3.2. Verses 22-25 3.3.3. The Two Episodes Related 3.4. Poetics and Ideology in 5.17-25

85 86 86 87 98 103 103 106 108 109

Chapter 4

DAVID DIFFERENT WITH YAHWEH: 2 SAMUEL 6 4.1. Contextualization 4.1.1. Title and Theme 4.1.2. Narrative Connections: Plot, Scene, Time 4.2. A Close Reading of 2 Samuel 6.1-23 4.2.1. Verses 1-11 4.2.2. Verses 12-20a 4.2.3. Verses 20-23 4.3. Narrative Structure and Technique in 2 Samuel 6 4.3.1. The 'Similar Motion' System in 6.1-20a 4.3.2. The 'Contrary Motion' System in 6.1-20a 4.3.3. The Michal-David Episode 6.16, 20-23 4.4. Summary: Theme, Rhetoric and Ideology in 6.1-23

112 112 112 112 113 114 131 139 145 147 150 153 156

Chapter 5

DAVID AND YAHWEH—FROM DIFFERENCE TO DEFERENCE: 2 SAMUEL 7 5.1. Contextualization 5.1.1. Title and Theme 5.1.2. Narrative Connections: Scene, Time, Plot 5.2. A Close Reading of 2 Samuel 7.1-29 5.2.1. Verses 1-17 5.2.1.1. Verses 1-3 5.2.1.2. Verses 4-7 5.2.1.3. Verses 8-lla

160 160 160 160 162 162 163 167 176

Contents 5.2.1.4. Verses llb-16 5.2.1.5. Verse 17 5.2.2. Verses 18-29 5.2.2.1. Verses 18-21 5.2.2.2. Verses 22-24 5.2.2.3. Verses 25-29 5.3. Rhetorical Structure and Technique in 2 Samuel 7.1-29 5.3.1. Verses 1-17 5.3.1.1. Verses 1-3 5.3.1.2. Verses 4-7 5.3.1.3. Verses 8-lla 5.3.1.4. Verses llb-17 5.3.2. Disputatory Structure of 7.1-17 5.3.3. Rhetorical Structure of 7.18-29 5.4. Ideology of Polemic in 7.1-29

1 185 199 199 200 205 207 211 211 212 212 215 215 218 224 226

Chapter 6

YAHWEH AND DAVID AT HOME AND AT WAR: PLOT AND THEME IN 2 SAMUEL 5.17-7.29 6.1. Reader's Orientation 6.2. Plot and Thematic Development within 2 Samuel 5.17-7.29 6.2.1. Chapter 5, Verses 17-25 6.2.2. Chapter 6, Verses 1-23 6.2.3. Chapter 7, Verses 1-29 6.3. Ideological Polemic in 2 Samuel 5.17-7.29

231 231 232 232 233 239 245

Chapter 7

YAHWEH AND DAVID THROUGH DIFFERENCE AND DEFERENCE 1: A TRANSTEXTUAL CONTEXT TO THE POLEMIC IN 2 SAMUEL 5.17-7.29 7.1. Retrospect and Orientation 7.1.1. The Polemic against melek-ship 7.2. Royal Ideology in the Ancient Near East 7.2.1. Sources of Evidence 7.2.2. Ancient Near Eastern Royal Ideology in Overall Plot and Theme 7.2.3. Ancient Near Eastern Royal Ideology in the Polemic of 2 Samuel 7 7.2.3.1. Verses 1-3

247 247 249 249 250 252 261 261

8

Divine Prerogative and Royal Pretension 7.2.3.2. Verses 4-7 7.2.3.3. Verses 8-1 la 7.2.3.4. Verses llb-17 7.2.3.5. Verses 18-29 7.3. Concluding Remarks

263 265 269 277 278

Chapter 8

YAHWEH AND DAVID THROUGH DIFFERENCE AND DEFERENCE 2: AN INTRATEXTUAL CONTEXT TO THE POLEMIC IN 2 SAMUEL 5.17-7.29 8.1. Reader's Orientation 8.2. The Term T3] nagid in the Hebrew Bible 8.2.1. General Survey 8.2.2. The Term TE nagid in Samuel 8.2.2.1. 1 Samuel 9.16,10.1 8.2.2.2. 1 Samuel 13.14 8.2.2.3. 1 Samuel 25.30 8.2.2.4. 2 Samuel 5.2 8.2.2.5. 2 Samuel 6.21 and 7.8 8.3. Synthesis

281 281 281 281 284 285 289 291 295 297 298

Chapter 9

YAHWEH AND ISRAEL: DEFERENCE OF DIFFERENCE 9.1. Orientation: What Is the Difference? How Is It to Be Deferred? 9.2. Polarities of Governance: Between melek and nagid 9.2.1. Foreshadowings of Compromise in Samuel 9.2.2. Polemical Polarization in 2 Samuel 5.17-7.1 la 9.2.3. Polemical Compromise in 7. llb-29 9.3. Ideological Polemic and the Deference/Deferral of Difference Glossary of Some Technical Terms Bibliography Index of References Index of Words Index of Authors Index of Subjects

302 302 304 305 307 310 311 317 320 331 345 349 351

LIST OF FIGURES 1. Retroverted Textual Readings for 2 Samuel 7.15b// 1 Chronicles 17.13b 2. Textual Readings relative to iTliT "OIK in 2 Samuel 7.18-29 3. Retroverted Textual Readings for 2 Samuel 7.23/7 2 Chronicles 17.21 4. Semantico-structural Paralleling in 2 Samuel 5.17 5. Parallels between 1 Samuel 7.7 and 2 Samuel 5.17 6. Interrelation of Opening Sequences in 2 Samuel 5.17-19, 22-23 7. Plot and Rhetorical Structure in 2 Samuel 5.17-21 8. Plot and Rhetorical Structure in 2 Samuel 5.22-25 9. Parallels in Linear Plot Structure between 2 Samuel 5.17-21 and 5.22-25 10. Parallel Structure of 2 Samuel 6.20bpy and 6.21aa 3.5 11. Parallel and Contrastive Elements in the 'Similar Motion' System in 2 Samuel 6.1-20a [2. 'Similar Motion' Progression Structure in 2Samuel6.1-20a 13. 'Contrary Motion' Progression Structure in 2Samuel6.1-20a L4. Structure in Episode 3, 2 Samuel 6.16b, 20-23 15. Chiastic Parallelism between 2 Samuel 7.5b and 7.1 Ibp L6. Syntactico-Rhetorical Parallels between 2 Samuel 7.la, 2 and 7.12 17 Direct Parallelism between 2 Samuel 7.5b and 7.13a 18 Parallels between Joshua 7.8 and Ezra 9.10 19 Parallels between 2 Samuel 7.13b-14a and 7.24 20 Rhetorical Structure in 2 Samuel 7.5b-7 21 Parallel Expressions in 2 Samuel 7.12-16 22 Narrative and Disputatory Structure in 2 Samuel 7.1-17

74 74 81 90 90 99 107 107 108 143 148 151 151 155 186 191 192 204 206 213 217 221

10


23. Recursive Structure in 2 Samuel 7.5b-1 Ib 24. Parallels between 2 Samuel 7.5b, 7b, 1 lb|3 25. Schema of Ideological Polemic in 2 Samuel 7.1-17

222 224 228

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS An author owes, as every author of an academic book knows, many debts of gratitude to colleagues, friends, fellow scholars and institutions of various kinds. First I am indebted to the scholarship of my academic teachers in ways impossible to quantify. Then I am deeply obliged to the published scholarship of many others over many generations, a debt very imperfectly acknowledged in the citations and bibliography. More often than not I cite a work only in order to disagree with it, a proceeding that may unfortunately mask the many times I have been positively influenced by the same work. I must confess to being guilty of this academic misdemeanour in relation to Kyle McCarter's Anchor Bible Commentary on Samuel. Inevitably I have not a few disagreements with McCarter on the text and interpretation of the portion of Samuel in question in this book, and I have found it necessary to say so, sometimes at length. That in itself is an inverted tribute to the significance of his commentary. But I wish to acknowledge here, what may not be apparent to the reader from this perforce negative engagement with his ideas, that I have gained, and continue to gain, great profit from McCarter's detailed and insightful commentary. Then there are also many other works that have contributed to my thinking in a lesser degree, in particular, a large number of articles and chapters of books on 2 Samuel 7, which I have read over the years of my research. But since they do not directly impinge on the text of this book, they have not been cited, either in the notes or the bibliography. My indebtedness to several institutions should be recorded: I have had a small research grant each from the Universities of Southampton and Exeter, and also from the British Academy. In addition, the two universities have each granted me, at different times, a short period of study leave to pursue the research and writing of this book. My thanks also go to the Ecole Biblique and the Albright Institute in Jerusalem, and the Pontifical Biblical Institute library in Rome, who each made me

12


welcome for brief study visits, and to Tyndale House in Cambridge for a longer visit. When a book has been as many years in gestation and in writing as this one has, there are many individuals who have supported or contributed to its production. My fear is that, in duly recording here my indebtedness to some, I will unintentionally slight those whose names do not spring to memory as I write, but whose contribution has been no less worthy of acknowledgment. To all I express my grateful thanks. Nonetheless, I ought to record special thanks to the following, who have read and commented on drafts of one or more chapters at various times: Dr (now Professor) Ian Markham (an early draft of Chapter 5), Professor Alan Millard (Chapter 7), Fern Clarke (Chapters 3-6), and especially to Dr David Horrell and the Revd David Friend, who both cheerfully read drafts of most chapters. Also to Professor David Clines of Sheffield Academic Press, who with admirable promptness gave me the benefit of his invaluable editorial experience, and to Dr Jonathan Barry and Professor Ian Hampsher-Monk, who pointed me to some helpful material on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century political history. For help with the proofs I thank David Friend, Geoffrey Bowstead and the Revd Adrian Lee, whose eagle eye for the Hebrew saved a number of errors slipping through. To Geoffrey Bowstead I am also greatly indebted for the invaluable and thankless task of preparing indexes. Needless to say, none of them is responsible for the final form of the book, and errors and infelicities that remain are entirely my own responsibility. I wish also to acknowledge the vigilance of Vicky Acklam and Sheffield Academic Press in seeing the book through the press. Finally, since I express my general indebtedness to my parents in the dedication, I take this opportunity to thank my wife for all her understanding and support in all the vicissitudes of preparing and writing this book.

ABBREVIATIONS

1. Bibliographical

AB AfO AfOB AHw AnBib ANET

AnOr AOAT ARAB ARE ARI ArOr ARW BA BBB BDB

BHS BWANT BZ BZAW CAD

CAT CBQ ConBOT CTA

CTAT EBib

Anchor Bible Archivfiir Orientforschung Beihefte zur AfO Wolfram von Soden, Akkadisches Handworterbuch (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1959-81) Analecta biblica James B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 3rd edn, 1969) Analecta orientalia Alter Orient und Altes Testament D.D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia J.H. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt A.K. Grayson, Assyrian Royal Inscriptions (2 vols.; Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz, 1972-76) Archiv orientdlni Archiv fiir Religionswissenschaft Biblical Archaeologist Bonner biblische Beitrage Francis Brown, S.R. Driver and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907) Biblia hebraica stuttgartensia Beitrage zur Wissenschaft vom Alien und Neuen Testament Biblische Zeitschrift Beihefte zur ZAW Ignace I. Gelb et al. (eds.), The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (Chicago: Oriental Institute, 1964-) Commentaire de 1'Ancien Testament Catholic Biblical Quarterly Coniectanea biblica, Old Testament A. Herdner (ed.), Corpus des tablettes en cuneiformes alphabetiques decouvertes a Ras Shamra-Ugarit de 1929 a 1939 (Paris: Imprimerie nationale Geuthner, 1963) Critique textuelle de I'ancien testament Etudes bibliques

14 EHAT FRLANT

GKC HKAT HSM ICC IRSA

JBL JSOT JSOTSup JTS KAI NRSV

OBO Or RB RIM -EP -AP SAHG SARI SEA TAB TDOT ThWAT

VT VTSup WMANT ZA ZAW

Divine Prerogative and Royal Pretension Exegetisches Handbuch zum Alten Testament Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (ed. E. Kautzsch, revised and trans. A.E. Cowley; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910) Handkommentar zum Alten Testament Harvard Semitic Monographs International Critical Commentary E. Sollberger and J.-R. Kupper, Inscriptions royales sumeriennes et akkadiennes Journal of Biblical Literature Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series Journal of Theological Studies H. Donner and W. Rollig, Kanaandische und aramdische Inschriften (3 vols.; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1962-64) New Revised Standard Version Orbis biblicus et orientalis Orientalia Revue biblique The Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia - Early Period - Assyrian Period A. Falkenstein and Wolfram von Soden, Sumerische und Akkadische Hymnen und Gebeten J.S. Cooper, Sumerian and Akkadian Royal Inscriptions Svensk exegetisk arsbok The Times Atlas of the Bible G.J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren (eds.), Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament G.J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren (eds.), Theologisches Worterbuch zum Alten Testament (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1970-) Vetus Testamentum Vetus Testamentum, Supplements Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament Zeitschriftfur Assyriologie Zeitschrift fiir die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 2. Other Abbreviations and Symbols

[ ]

4QSama-b CN

Numerals enclosed in square brackets give the reference numeration of English Bibles where this differs from that of the Hebrew Bible Qumran MSS of Samuel from Cave 4 class noun

Abbreviations DN ET LXX MT OL PN Targ. Jon.

15

name of a deity, divine name English translation The Septuagint Greek version of the Bible. Superscript letters (thus: LXXA) refer to particular MSS traditions (for details see the editions). The Masoretic Hebrew text of the Bible Old Latin translations personal or place name Targum Jonathan

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Chapter 1

THE PRAGMATICS OF POETICS 1: DEFINING AND DELIMITING CONTEXTS 1.1. Defining the Title, Delimiting the Subject I take it that what readers want above all from an opening chapter of a book is a good idea of what they might be in for in reading the rest of the book. Of course already the title should have given some basic indication of what the book is about. But titles are designedly brief, and intentionally intriguing: the former quality may produce density of reference, the latter a certain coyness, and thus neither quality necessarily makes for transparency of meaning. Five 'p'-words—what do they tell the reader about this book, other than that its author has a weakness for alliterative titles? The book as a whole provides the full answer to what I intend by the terms, but readers deserve some preliminary account, in order to assess whether the book is going to do the kind of thing they are looking for. 1.1.1. What Are Divine Prerogative and Royal Pretension ? In order to explain these terms I need to start with yet another term beginning with 'p', but a more everyday one: 'power'.1 To the best of 1. As with any everyday term, if one starts to probe what we mean by 'power', it soon reveals itself as multivalent and context-dependent. What we are dealing with here is the range of meaning the term may have in the context of social, notably sociopolitical and religiopolitical, relationships in community. Weber ventured as a broad definition, 'Macht bedeutet jede Chance, innerhalb einer sozialen Beziehung den eigenen Willen auch gegen Widerstreben durchzusetzen, gleichviel worauf diese Chance beruht' (1947: 28), rendered in English as '["power"] is the probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance, regardless of the basis on which this probability rests' (1978: 53). It is clear from this definition that Weber saw conflict as at least latent within power.

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my observation, societies whose world-view sets relationship to a god/ gods as fundamental, take it as axiomatic that the source of any human power is the god(s). This power is as manifold in its expression as the different needs of the society demand. Typically it is manifest, for example, in the prowess of a warrior, the efficacy of a priest, the clairvoyance of a prophet, the perceptiveness of a wise person, the authority of a ruler. Each manifestation of power is believed to have been devolved upon its possessor by (an appropriate) god. This understanding leads to the situation whereby, when society recognizes the presence of this power in a person, such a person is authorized to act on behalf of the god(s), at any rate within the sphere delimited by the particular manifestation of divine power recognized. Thus the warrior may lead for the god(s) in battle, the prophet may utter messages of the god(s), the wise person may reveal the counsel of the god(s), and so on, in the general assurance that the activity of each will be accepted as a legitimate exercise of the divine power, and will evoke an appropriate response from the community. But even from this very brief and purely heuristic account of differential claims to divine power within such a society it is easy to see the potential for conflict. What if the warrior-leader claims divine inspiration to one course of action, the prophet a divine message directing another, and the revered wise person divine counsel pointing to yet a third? Clearly, ideally this should not happen, especially where all claim legitimation from one and the same god, but in practice it does. When it does, who is to prevail, and by what process will that be determined? In such a situation of conflict society must decide, explicitly or implicitly, by design or by default, who ultimately speaks and acts on behalf of the god(s), where the supreme power of mediation between god(s) and humanity lies. Accordingly, partisans in such a conflict can be expected to attempt to persuade the community to support one side or another. Hence not only does the recognition of divine power in a person or group accord such a person or group authority in the community commensurate with others having different manifestations of the divine power, but it opens up to one person or to one group the possibility of lording it over all these others, by laying claim to primacy of mediation, to being the supreme deferent2 of divine power and authority to the community. 2. For the meaning of this term, and my use of it in my discussion, see below §1.3.

1. The Pragmatics of Poetics 1

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Power and authority have always been prized above all things by some, and in societies that accord unquestioned legitimacy to human authority believed to be divinely empowered, it should come as no surprise to find that the sources of divine power and the marks of divine legitimation are the objects of human quest, the cause of earthly conflict and disputation, and the subject of mis-worldly manipulative acts. To add to acknowledged lordship effective control over its divine source of legitimacy is to entrench one's authority beyond any normal challenge. Those for whom such a situation prevails enjoy the highest form of prerogative: the indefeasible right to exercise authority over all others, to act without human restraint or challenge.3 Now through his requisitioning of the Shiloh ark to his monarchic capital, as presented in the narrative sequence we shall consider in detail below, David sought 3. Definitions of prerogative reflect the presuppositions of the term's definer. Thus, in a seventeenth-century England racked by political turmoil and controversy over the nature and extent of monarchic prerogative, Locke in his Second Treatise of Government defined prerogative non-royally as 'th(e) power [soil, of the executive] to act according to discretion, for the publick good, without the prescription of Law, and sometimes even against it' (Locke 1988: §160, 375), and again 'Prerogative can be nothing, but the Peoples permitting their Rulers, to do several things of their own free choice, where the Law was silent, and sometimes too against the direct Letter of the Law, for the publick good; and their acquiescing in it when so done' (Locke 1988: §164, 377, emphasis as published). In the century before Locke the royalist Sir William Staunford had defined it as 'a privilege or preeminence that any person hath before another whiche as it is tolerable in some, so it is most to be permitted and allowed in a prince or soveraine governor of a realme', with the further entailment that 'the lawes do attribute to him all honour, dignitie, prerogative and preeminence, which prerogative doth not oncly extend to his own persone, but also to all other his possessions goods and chattals' (Staunford 1979: Folio 5). It is notable that, despite their difference of approach, both hold prerogative to be definable solely as a matter of civil law and polity. On the other hand, the high royalist understanding of prerogative in its strongest form anchored the notion in the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings, summarized by Figgis under the following four propositions: (1) monarchy is a divinely ordained institution; (2) hereditary right is indefeasible; (3) kings are accountable to God alone; (4) non-resistance and passive obedience are enjoined by God (1922: 5-6). Figgis had earlier noted (1922: 4-5) that propounders of the doctrine in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries drew justification for some of its claims from the Davidic kingdom. In essence, then, prerogative is the power to act without any external restraint or direction. Within the frame of reference relevant to our discussion, as such it belongs by right to God alone, and if it inheres in any human agency, it does so only as devolved by God.

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precisely to create, both for himself and for his descendants, this state of affairs in Israel. Yet if a persuasive challenge to the alleged divine legitimation of such prerogatived authority, in whole or in part, can be mounted, then those elements of the prerogative whose legitimacy are thereby demolished are shown up as nothing but pretension, the unwarranted exercise of and/or claim to power or privilege without due authority. What demolition more effective than a case irrefutably argued by the divine legitimator himself, to which the chief pretender to prerogative fully defers? The final section of our narrative sequence, 2 Samuel 7, develops exactly this situation between Yahweh and David. Here in unambiguous terms is established the supremacy of the divine prerogative of Yahweh, who, for his own purposes, himself devolved upon David specific power and authority, and here further undertakes to keep devolving it upon his descendants in perpetuity. But at the same time David's overweening royal pretensions are exposed and decisively rejected by Yahweh, to be totally conceded by the king in his prayer. This account of Yahweh's will for David and for Israel is presented as a sovereign word of Yahweh mediated through the prophet Nathan. Moreover, the way it supersedes and refutes Nathan's earlier, royally coerced, affirmation of David's will patently marks this prophetic word as supreme in its authority over the king. How 2 Sam. 5.17-7.29 develops and seeks to resolve the conflict involved we shall see in detail in Chapters 3 to 6 below. How the text under discussion draws on wider contexts of meaning we will consider in Chapters 7 and 8. Finally, what further questions it gives rise to we will reflect on in our last chapter. 1.1.2. Why Pragmatics, Poetics and Polemics? The book's particular orientation to this question 'how?' explains the presence of the remaining three 'p'-words in the title. The terms 'pragmatics', 'poetics' and 'polemics' label distinguishable, yet closely interrelated, aspects of how the text works as a text. Linguistic pragmatics4 deals with language in use, language as a

4. For a general orientation into various approaches to linguistic pragmatics the reader is referred to Leech (1983), Coulthard (1985), Green (1989), Blakemore (1992). For an extended account of language use as joint action of speaker and listener, writer and reader, which seeks to go beyond what it sees as the limitations of linguistic pragmatics, see Clark (1996).


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means of communication.5 Accordingly, basic to its concerns are the reciprocal relations of a speaker and hearer, or writer and reader. Pragmatics understands that meaning depends upon context, and shows that the context of meaning is more than the sum of the meaning of the words in a text (its semantics) and their grammatical interrelations (its syntax). Thus it occupies itself with questions of what makes a piece of text as a whole intelligible to a reader.6 It is much concerned with how the text creates and builds its own context of meaning, by means of reference back and forth within the text itself, by reference to other text taken as available to the reader, and by reference to supposed states of affairs in the world assumed to be known to the reader. From the complex interplay of these various forms of contextual reference the reader constructs the implicatures7 of the text, and thus decides what the writer intended to say.8 5. I am aware of Derrida's attempts, notably in the set of essays and responses collected together in English translation in Derrida (1988), to deconstruct 'communication', 'context', 'intention' and other terms and notions employed in linguistic pragmatics (without his referring, to my knowledge, specifically to this discipline under this label). However problematic and open-ended such notions prove to be when probed (cf., e.g., 'But are the conditions [les requisits] of a context ever absolutely determinable?' Derrida 1988: 2), they are in this respect no different from any others used in human discourse. One notes that the problems he exposes do not seem to deter Derrida or his followers from writing and publishing text. In any case, as a pragmaticist I intend to use these notions in a context I believe sufficiently determinable by my readers for adequate communication to occur! 6. Most linguistic pragmatics deals with spoken much more than with written text, but since our concern here is with written text, it is to the latter that I will confine my remarks. 7. The term 'implicature' (see Glossary) is used in pragmatics to refer to what a hearer/reader takes to be the intended implication of an utterance or set of utterances. Thus it is much less formal a notion in linguistics than strict material implication is in formal logic. 8. Pragmatics demonstrates that a hearer's/reader's construction of authorial intention is an ineluctable part of interpreting text, and that this construction is context-bound. To give a very simple illustration, the utterance 'it's cold in here' will be variously construed, depending on who is speaking to whom in what context, either as an instruction or a request to close windows, or to turn on the central heating, or as an admiring compliment on the efficiency of a refrigerator, or an indication that the death of the utterer is near, etc., or indeed as some combination of these or of other possibilities. Each of the indicated interpretations is, in the appropriate context, an implicature of the utterance.

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Pragmatics, then, seeks to make visible how a reader constructs meaning from a text, starting with the initial assumption, constantly being tested and reinforced in the process of reading, that the text is cohesive, that is, that it is capable of rendering up coherent meaning. Pragmatics thus explains the process of reading as one in which readers reconstruct what they assume an envisaged author9 intended to convey. Now the mechanics of this process are of interest to the linguist and the psychologist, but not ordinarily to most readers, who are adept at doing it without the need to know what precisely it is they are doing. But where one is attempting to read, as we will be, a text whose context of meaning is very different from those upon which our subliminal reading processes have been developed and honed, there are advantages in our asking explicit questions and seeking explicit answers to questions we normally are not aware of asking and answering as readers. Chapters 3-5 below will show how linguistic pragmatics can help to formulate our questions clearly, and whether and how the text can give us answers to them. If pragmatics thus looks at what makes text cohesively intelligible, bringing to light some of the normally subliminal psychological processing involved in a coherent reading of it, poetics looks at what makes it affective, that is, what gives it the power to sustain interest, to involve the reader emotionally and intellectually. Thus poetics is concerned with questions of structure and style in text, with the artistic deployment of its linguistic elements to create a rhetoric. This does not, however, mean that only intentionally artistic texts are susceptible to poetic study. All text has poetics, whether used consciously or subliminally, whether well or badly executed. Ideological texts in particular deploy poetics in pursuit of an effective rhetoric of persuasion. It is accordingly in the interests of readers of such texts to be aware of the poetic devices by which the envisaged author is seeking to manipulate 9. I use the term 'envisaged author' to cover the pragmatic notion that any intelligible piece of text has one or more human author(s), whether present (as normally for oral text) or not (as normally for written text). I reserve the term 'implied author' for those instances where written text explicitly or implicitly makes the reader aware of a directive authorial mind. Broadly speaking, the 'envisaged author' is an element of a text's pragmatics, the 'implied author' may be a feature of its poetics. Corresponding to each of these are 'envisaged reader', the target audience envisaged by an author, and 'implied reader', a figure explicitly or implicitly addressed by written text, but notionally standing outside the immediate world it creates.


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them. Thus I shall seek in my close reading of the stretch of text we are concerned with here, to draw the reader's attention to how it deploys poetic devices as instruments of persuasion. I shall give some account of 'close reading', after we have considered the remaining 'p'-word, 'polemics'. Whereas the preceding two 'p'-words in my subtitle designate recognized divisions of academic study, each with its own developed methodology and terminology, the third, 'polemics', has not, to my knowledge, been used in the same way to mark out a particular field of study. I am using it here to refer to the ideological dimension of our text, with particular emphasis on the element of ideological conflict10 the text generates, conflict between a view I take the text to be promoting, and another (or others) which it seeks to undermine. The conflict concerns the scope and nature of the Davidic monarchy over Israel, in particular, the proper relationship of the king (melek) to Yahweh, and to Israel as Yahweh's people. Thus the polemics of our text are made effective through its rhetoric of persuasion, an aggressive but subtly developed rhetoric, kept latent in the earlier part of the text, to be made patent in the final section. Since this polemic is directed into an ideological situation, much of which is taken as known to the text's reader, but which is no longer known in the same way by modern readers, Chapters 7 and 8 below will be devoted to explicating this presupposed background, so far as the information available to us allows. But given that ideological conflict is bound up with conflicts of power in society, laying bare the polemics in our text also cannot well avoid attempting some identification of what individuals or groups are implied as espousers of the positions depicted, and speculating on what the envisaged author hoped to gain by his11 text. My final chapter will sketch out some suggestions on these issues.

10. 'Ideology' and 'ideological' are terms which can be freighted with particular meaning, especially in the way Marxist analysis has used them to denote systems of (allegedly) false belief, imposed by ruling elites as instruments of oppression. I use them in this work in a much more general sense, to denote a more-or-less cohesive set of ideas, beliefs or views, which a text or texts evince or presuppose, with no necessary implication as to their truth-value, or as to their representing the views of anyone other than the author(s) of the text(s) in question. 11. I use the masculine form here and throughout, on the culturally strong pragmatic presupposition that our author was male.

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1.1.3. The 'p '-words as Defining my Close Reading These three 'p'-words of the subtitle, then, make explicit the three most important dimensions shaping my reading of the text. My 'close reading' in Chapters 3-5 will accordingly identify and interpret the discourse signals by which the author seeks to direct his envisaged reader to construe the text in the way he intends, and explore so far as relevant the external references which constitute a presupposed context of meaning: these are the main pragmatic dimensions of the text. It will also identify operative stylistic and structural features which give the text rhetorical impact: the poetic dimensions of the text. From both of these considerations will emerge a reading of the message of the text, of its ideological intent: the polemic dimension of the text. The order in which I have listed these dimensions reflects no more than a practical order of consideration, and that only very roughly. The three terms designate dimensions of the text that are reciprocally interdependent, and any idea of a rigid hierarchy of successive methodological operations is quite inappropriate.12 Finally, under this head, let me make clear that I lay no claim in my reading to be doing something entirely novel or exclusive to me. So far as each is appropriate to the text in hand, all readers in the process of reading any text address themselves to these dimensions of it, mostly at a sublimal level. The best I can claim is to have consciously addressed myself to all three in our text in a more systematic way than I have seen elsewhere. Some readers of this text have reflected in detail on its poetics,13 many have considered, one way or another, its polemics,14 and all have, to varying extents, discussed its pragmatics, without any of them necessarily labelling what they did with any of these technical terms. My intention here is to integrate all three approaches into a holistic reading of the entire stretch of text delimited in my title, in order in 12. I still vividly remember how bizarre I found the rigidly hierarchical and unidirectional exegetical system propounded over 20 years ago by Richter (1971), a system which still seems to exercise an unacknowledged influence over a recent study (Kleiner 1995) I have just reviewed for JTS (Murray 1998). 13. None more painstakingly and exhaustively than Fokkelman (1990); on 2 Sam. 7 see also Eslinger (1994). 14. Whereas the polemical 'message' of 2 Sam. 7.1-16 has been a constant focus of scholarly attention in books and articles far too numerous to cite here, few have seen this passage as part of a wider stretch of text having a polemical intent. An earlier more integrated approach, but from a point of view quite different to mine, may be found in Carlson (1964).


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particular to lay bare its ideological polemic, since I believe that that is its most fundamental and supreme raison d'etre. Hence my flagging the major ideological conflict fuelling this polemic in the book's lead title, as divine prerogative versus royal pretension. 1.2. Delimiting the Text to Be Read If the reader is now adequately informed from the 'p'-terms in my title about what she or he can expect this book to do, it still remains to show why I have chosen to discuss a particular stretch of text delimited as 2 Sam. 5.17-7.29. The next section of this chapter thus will demonstrate how this stretch constitutes a definable unit within the story of David in Samuel. The final section in this chapter, picking up on our general observations from the first section, will sketch out in terms of the chapters to follow, what it is about this particular unit that makes it sufficiently interesting for extended discussion. 1.2.1. The Story of David in Samuel The storyline in Samuel, despite its encompassing events spread across something like a century of text-world time, displays a notable degree of continuity. From the birth and early life at Shiloh of Samuel, the text moves through an account of the enforced peregrinations of the Shiloh ark, consequent upon Israel's defeat by the Philistines, then returns to narrate a subsequent victory over the Philistines led by the now-mature Samuel. Samuel holds centre stage in the inauguration of Saul as king of Israel, and continues to figure prominently in the account of Saul's rejection by Yahweh. But from his first foreshadowing as Yahweh's replacement for the flawed Saul, David quickly comes to dominate the narrative of Saul's ill-starred reign, replacing Samuel as the focal point for religious sympathy in the story. The continuity of the story once David enters it is even closer. From his youthful introduction to Saul's entourage, through his career as a renegade from Saul's murderous jealousy, to the denouement of events which sees him installed as king of Judah and Israel, the reader follows a cohesive storyline which brings to fruition Yahweh's intention for his chosen servant. Nor in the subsequent narrative of David's kingship are there points of such obvious discontinuity as to interrupt the smooth flow of the narrative, at least until we reach the final chapters of the text. Thus once on the throne, David consolidates his position both internally and externally, with the establishment of a royal capital and royal shrine, the

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begetting of royal progeny, the defeat of major external enemies, and the neutralization of rival claimants. However, danger for David develops from dissensions among the royal progeny, dissensions which inexorably entangle the king in a web of family and court intrigue and revenge. The jealousies and ambitions aroused lead to two major rebellions, which put in jeopardy David's rule. Both are successfully suppressed, thanks to decisive and ruthless action by David's general, Joab. Up to this point the story is sufficiently sequential chronologically and coherent thematically to draw the reader forward without difficulty. Only when the reader reaches the final four chapters of Samuel is the forward-moving continuity of the storyline manifestly broken by text which reads less straightforwardly than hitherto. Part narrative, part lists, part psalmic poetry, these chapters are in themselves neither temporally progressive, nor clearly located temporally within the story of David's life. It is quite evident that this section does not deal with just one occasion in the story of David, nor do most of its constituents relate to incidents in David's career at the point reached by the narrative in 2 Samuel 20, but manifestly backtrack to several different earlier stages. While this observation about the connection of 2 Samuel 21-24 to the rest of the text is sufficient in itself to raise interesting questions of how and why this material breaks with the otherwise regular linear continuity of the narrative, these chapters are not my concern here. 1.2.2. 2 Samuel 5.17-7.29 within the Story of David in Samuel My interest is rather in an earlier stretch of text, 2 Sam. 5.17-7.29, which does not present the reader with the same kind of problem, since, on a first reading at any rate, it fits quite smoothly into the temporal and thematic continuities of the story of David in Samuel.15 David has already been installed as king of Judah (2 Sam. 2.1-4) and, after various political machinations (2.5-4.32) which we need not detail here, also of Israel (5.1-3). Moreover, he has acquired for himself a royal capital (5.6-9). Not surprisingly at this point, the Philistines, whom the reader of Samuel knows to be longtime enemies of Israel, and to whom the reader also knows David to have hitherto owed politico-military allegiance, launch a pre-emptive attack against David. In two divinely led 15. The following discussion deals only with the cohesiveness qua story of the events as narrated in Samuel, and draws no implications about their historical reality or their historical interconnections, if any.


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and decisive thrusts David repulses the Philistines (5.17-25), thereby creating for himself a breathing-space in which to prosecute his religiopolitical agenda. First, he brings into his new capital the ark (6.1-23), and then projects for it a splendid new housing (7.1-3). But Yahweh's robustly negative response to this initiative counters David's moves with a further unfolding of his agenda for David and Israel (7.4-16), humbly embraced by the chastened king (7.18-29). With this dialectic interlude over, the breathing-space comes to an end, and David must now get down to a systematic military consolidation of his kingdom against external enemies (8.1-15), as well as the fulfilling of an obligation to Jonathan which at the same time conveniently neutralizes any potential Saulide threat to his rule (9.1-13). Given then that we can see how 2 Sam. 5.17-7.29 fits smoothly enough into the general continuity of the David narrative in Samuel, why single out in this study just this stretch of text for a close reading? 1.2.3. Delimiting the End of the Unit No difficulty is encountered in ending16 the stretch of text with 2 Sam. 7.29, the verse which concludes David's prayer of response to Yahweh's speech provoked by David's broaching with the prophet Nathan his projected new housing for the ark. For what follows after 7.29 in our text in no way relates directly to the exchange between Yahweh and David in 2 Samuel 7. In fact, the summary in 2 Samuel 8 of David's victories against all his major rivals throughout his reign might have been included at one of several other points in the text with no less cohesion17 than it shows in its present position. Thus it could have been 16. In making and arguing for this claim I do not rule out that, for different reasons and with a different focus, one might argue for a wider stretch of text, including 2 Sam. 8, as a meaningful unit. Thus, e.g., Flanagan (1988: 361-63) sees a chiastic structure in 2 Sam. 5.13-8.18, in which 5.13-16 corresponds to 8.15-18, 5.17-25 to 8.1-14, 6.1-23 to 7.1-29, a unit whose purported temporal progression conveys a decisive increase in David's power. However, to my mind the heightened inversions Flanagan alleges to underlie these chiastic correspondences are so oblique and subtle as to suggest that they owe more to the sophistication of modern reflective reading than to the intentions of ancient authors. Thus a more obvious comparison for 5.13-16 than 8.15-18 is 3.2-5, as I indicate below (§1.2.4). I believe I can show more direct, concrete and persistent lines of connection within the unit I am delimiting here, than Flanagan produces for his wider unit. 17. In arguing that locating 2 Sam. 8 at certain other points within the story of David would not diminish its cohesiveness, I recognize that any such relocation

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linked with the account of the Philistine victories in 5.17-29, a connection facilitated by 8.1 recounting a decisive victory over the Philistines.18 Or it might have been included between 2 Samuel 9 and 10, or between 2 Samuel 12 and 13, both locations where the text signals some temporal discontinuity.19 However that may be, it does not need to follow directly on from 2 Samuel 6 and 7. Then further, this lack of immediate continuity is reflected in the style of 2 Samuel 8. First, the use of the rather vague indicator 'after this' (p "HriK 8.1) to locate temporally the narration taken up in 2 Samuel 8 informs20 the reader here, as it has done also earlier in 2 Samuel 2.1, that what follows is not the immediate chronological sequel21 to the preceding. Then also the different style of narration, compact and summarizing in contrast to the circumstantially expansive and dialogically enlivened narrative that immediately precedes in 5.177.29, reinforces the signal given by p "Hntt, that 2 Samuel 8 is moving the story into a different phase. 2 Samuel 7.29/8.1, then, marks a boundary point within the story of David in Samuel. 1.2.4. Delimiting the Beginning The reasons for beginning the unit with 2 Sam. 5.17 require a little more demonstration. First, several features of the text in 5.4-5.16 indicate that this also is a significant transition point in the story of David in Samuel:

would nonetheless alter the precise nature of its cohesion, and its significance within the ongoing story. But these considerations do not materially affect the point I am making here. 18. Of course, such a location would have greatly affected the dynamic of our stretch of text, but that is a different, though related, issue. 19. Both 10.1 and 13.1 begin with the temporally disjunctive p nn« TH, 'some time later', and introduce narrative with no direct continuity with the preceding. 20. My point here rests solely on what the text explicitly or implicitly conveys to the reader, not on what may have been the order of events in a historical David's time. 21. This chronological imprecision of the expression and its loose connecting of episodes in narratives is also observable in most other instances of the use of p nn«, notably in Judg. 16.4; 2 Sam. 10.1; 13.1; 21.18; 2 Kgs 6.24; cf. also Joel 3.1 [2.28]. Only in 1 Sam. 24.6, 9 [5, 8] does the expression mark stages within the same episode, thus giving the p a more precise and immediate reference.


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(1) Chapter 5.4-5 interrupts the storyline with a summarizing statement about the length of David's kingship, which is both retrospective and prospective. Thus the reader is for the moment lifted out of the flow of events as they unfold, to be given a glimpse of the full panorama of David's royal career. (2) Chapter 5.10 is a second summarizing statement, which offers the reader an appraisal of the story of David as it has been told, which the reader can recognize both as apt comment on what he or she has read so far, and as a foreshadowing of the story's future progress. (3) Chapter 5.12 is a third summary statement, this time informing the reader of David's own perception of how firmly established is the favourable position to which Yahweh has brought him. (4) Chapter 5.13-16 follows up with a list of David's new wives and concubines, and of the male issue he fathered when ensconced in Jerusalem. The wording of 14a strongly suggests that what follows is a listing of all David's male issue born after he established himself in Jerusalem, and thus summarizes information spanning an undefined period into the future. (5) A comparison of 5.3, 10-16, 17 with 3.1-5, 6 show a similar technique of pause and appraisal before moving the narrative on. Chapter 3.1 reflects prospectively on the inexorable rise of the fortunes of David and the inexorable fall of those of the house of Saul. To this 3.2-5 appends evidence of the burgeoning house of David by listing the six sons born to David, and to the women of importance he has married, at Hebron. Then 3.6, in picking up on 3. la, ends the brief pause and moves the narrative forward into the territory surveyed in advance by 3.1. Similarly, but more weightily, 5.1022 and 5.12 reflect on the heights David has now reached under the guidance of Yahweh. Between them 5.11 sandwiches external attestation in the form of Hiram's embassy, and 5.13-16 appends internal evidence, with a list of sons born in Jerusalem to David, which no longer needs to cite their mothers: it is now enough that they are David's offspring. Then 5.17 picks up on 5.3b to move the narrative into its next stage.

22. Note also the use of a similar idiom in both 3.1b and 5.10a to describe David's progress, a form of the verb "[^H + adjective.

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Clearly, then, this combination of retrospective and prospective summaries and appraisals imparts to the narrative a strong sense of having reached a significant plateau, where it pauses to survey both the distance it has already travelled as well as the way further forward. This perceptible halt to the forward movement of the story of David contrasts strongly with the almost breathless progress of the narrative hitherto. Then second, with 5.17-25 on the other hand, the story gets under way again with incidents which in themselves are a logical development from what the narrative has earlier told about David's and Israel's relations to the Philistines, but which are nevertheless not an inevitable turn the narrative has to take at this point. For since David's apprisal of Saul's death in 2 Samuel 1, the Philistines have played no role in the story, having been mentioned only twice, and that merely in passing (2 Sam. 3.14,18). The narrative in the meantime has been occupied with the inner-Israelite politics which placed David on the thrones of Judah and Israel. All this means that the reader has not been primed to expect the pre-emptive Philistine attacks in 5.17-25. Thus the narrative here enters upon a new episode of the same story, one which recognizably marks a new stage in the continuing narrative. These considerations are sufficient, then, to show how 2 Sam. 5.4-16 creates a major pause in the forward flow of the David story in Samuel, whereas 5.17 initiates a new development in the story, thus making it a boundary point within that narrative flow. But I have already established above that 7.29 is also a clear boundary point in the story, at the other end of our stretch of text. If we now add to these arguments which establish 5.16/5.17 and 7.29/8.1 as boundary markers within the story of David the further observations that the stretch of text (5.177.29) which they demarcate does not itself contain pause markers of equivalent weight, and that it does not at any point within it so clearly change direction, then we have a good prima facie case for treating this stretch of text as a narrative unit. 1.2.5. Structure and Cohesion of the Unit The stretch we have thus delimited, however, falls into three easily definable subunits: (1) David's repulsion of the two Philistine attacks (5.17-25); (2) David's bringing of the ark to Jerusalem (6.1-23); (3) Yahweh's projected house for David versus David's projected house for Yahweh (7.1-29). Given that these three subunits have often


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been treated by scholars in relative isolation from one another,23 the case for treating this stretch as in itself a cohesive unit still needs to be made. Here it will suffice to marshall enough evidence of significant links between the three subunits to indicate that this claim has a reasonable basis in the text, and to leave it to the close reading of the text carried out in Chapters 3-5, and the overall discussion of the whole stretch in Chapter 6, to vindicate the claim in detail. Our first line of evidence consists in links made within the narrative logic of the subunits, that is, that a subsequent subunit presupposes as existing a situation whose coming into being is narrated by a preceding subunit: (1) David's plan to rehouse the ark within Jerusalem, the starting point for the subunit 'house for David versus house for Yahweh' (7.1-29), clearly presupposes the relocation of the ark to Jerusalem narrated in the preceding subunit (6.1-23). In that preceding subunit David set up the ark in a tent (6.17a), but by 7.2 he has come to regard this housing as incongruously meagre. (2) These two subunits are further linked through the connection of 7.la to 6.20a. Chapter 6.20a informs us that, having blessed and dismissed the people (6.18b-19), David returns to bless his own household. But he is baulked in the execution of this intention by the fateful meeting with Michal at the very gates of his house (6.20b-23). Chapter 7.la then takes up with David installed in his house, but with no mention of his having blessed it. The motif of the blessing of David's house does however return, but not until the end of the section (7.29), where it has undergone a highly significant transformation as a result of the intervening business. Whereas these narrative logic links between 7.1-29 and 6.1-23 lie on the surface of the text, those between 6.1-23 and 5.17-25 are rather more implicit, and require reader's knowledge of things narrated a little

23. Usually 2 Sam. 6 has been isolated from both 5.17-25 and ch. 7, to which practice Seow (1989), who links 2 Sam. 6 with 5.17-25, is a recent exception. In particular, 2 Sam. 7 has endlessly been discussed with little or no reference to the preceding texts, Carlson (1964) being a notable exception. Indeed, I myself also began my research on 2 Sam. 7 alone, only somewhat belatedly recognizing its interdependence with what has immediately preceded it.

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earlier, as well as much earlier, in the text.24 In particular, the reader needs to be aware (1) that the ark had been a revered religious object at the influential Israelite shrine of Shiloh (1 Sam. 3-4); (2) that the ark had been captured by the Philistines, but had been returned, under divine duress, to a small town in the JudaeoBenjaminite countryside bordering on Philistine territory, where it had remained for many years (1 Sam. 4.1-7.2); (3) that later David had become a vassal of one of the Philistine lords (1 Sam. 27-30), a relationship not formally terminated in the subsequent narrative up to 2 Sam. 5.17. From this knowledge the reader can readily draw the following pragmatic implicatures: (1) The Philistines were hardly likely to leave their supposed vassal to consolidate unmolested his position as an independent king of Judah and Israel. (2) To remove the ark to Jerusalem was inferably advantageous to David, not only in the internal religio-politics of Israel, but also as a significant gesture of independence from the Philistines. (3) This removal could only have proceeded when David was safe from Philistine attack. Thus these pragmatic implicatures drawing on elements from the earlier story show how the narrative of David's decisive repulsion of Philistine attacks in 5.17-25 is an essential logical prelude to that of his removal of the ark to Jerusalem in 6.1-23. Our second line of evidence consists in suggestive verbal and ideological links between the subunits, or in the conspicuous absence of such a link where it might be expected. Here I will cite four indicative examples: (1) The apparently incidental statement in 5.21 about David and his army taking up (DNCZn) as trophies the divine images abandoned by the defeated Philistines resonates in the subsequent narrative when 6.3,4,13 use the same verb of David's and the people's 24. Of course, some of the points that follow could be pragmatic, rather than textual, presuppositions, and it is not in the end possible to make a clear-cut distinction. However, the fact that all the points listed are narrated or directly implied by the text of Samuel strongly points to their being textually presupposed here.


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taking up the ark from its place of sequestration. (2) More striking still is the close similarity in language of 5.20 and 6.8, both centring around the verb flS 'break out, burst through' in a naming aetiology, which thus pregnantly compares David's reactions to the two divine actions made parallel to one another. (3) The reader is twice told, in precisely the same words, within the short subunit 5.17-25 that 'David consulted Yahweh' (in ^NBh mrrn) over fighting the Philistines (5.19a, 23a). But the following narrative about the no-less-important matter of the removal of the ark to Jerusalem records no consultation of Yahweh's will by David, a silence made eloquent when Yahweh suddenly turns David's plans vexingly awry (6.7-11 a). (4) However in ch. 7, on the issue of rehousing the ark in a cedar temple, the reader now finds David calling in the prophet Nathan for 'consultation', but David's obliquely coercive approach and Nathan's servilely perfunctory response lead to no genuine disclosure of the divine will, which only comes from the ensuing robust intervention by Yahweh himself. The full implications of these connections, merely summarized above, and of other relationships between these three subunits not mentioned here will be developed in detail in the following chapters. However, the foregoing considerations should have sufficed here to establish that the text of Samuel demarcates 2 Sam. 5.17-7.29 as a cohesive unit within the David story, and that, in singling out this particular stretch of text for our extended study, we are being led by the text's own rhetorical and literary indicators. 1.3. Prospect: Deferring the Difference Before turning to the subsequent chapters in this book, my readers are owed one final piece of general explanation. They will probably have noted already from the table of Contents that the titles of most of the book's chapters use a particular set of 'd'-words, variants of the terms 'deference' and 'difference', either as noun or corresponding adjective. When they come to read the discussion they will find that the corresponding verbs are frequently used. There are two main considerations which govern my use of this set of 'd'-words. In the first place the set neatly articulates a thematic development fundamental to the stretch of text under consideration, that is, that concerned with the vicissitudes in

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the relationship between Yahweh and David during its course. Hence the appearance of these terms in the titles to the three chapters of close reading. In the first section of the text (5.17-25) David is, to all appearances, fully deferent with Yahweh, whom he sedulously consults and punctiliously obeys, as our close reading of this section in Chapter 3 ('David Deferent with Yahweh?') will show. However, Chapter 4 ('David Different with Yahweh'), on the second section of our text (2 Sam. 6), brings to light a nagging sense of difference and alienation between Yahweh and David, as David's monarchic ambitions come more and more to dominate his actions. This difference Yahweh dramatically unmasks in 2 Samuel 7 (as read in Chapter 5 'David and Yahweh: From Difference to Deference'), and thus brings the king to a thoroughly deferential confession of the divine pre-eminence. But—and this is the second reason for my choice of these 'd'words—through this thematic development of deference and difference, the text projects a particular ideological view. In its advocacy of an indefeasible divine prerogative to which all human pretension to power, not least that of Davidic monarchy, must defer, the text seeks to maintain, untrammelled and inviolable, the divine difference from humanity. But at the same time the text promotes as supreme a particular deferent (conduit, medium) between divinity and humanity, namely prophecy, itself a particular form of divine empowerment of humans, to which even kings must defer. The background to this ideological stance is sketched in Chapters 7 and 8 below ('Yahweh and David through Difference and Deference 1, 2'), and the stance itself is probed in my final chapter ('Yahweh and Israel: Deference of Difference'), where some implications of this ideology are considered. Thus the reader needs to be aware that in my chapter titles and the discussion they epitomize, the verb 'defer' and/or its grammatical transforms as appropriate may have any of three different senses: (1) to put off, leave aside to another time, or to no envisaged time; (2) to submit acquiescently to another; (3) to carry something down, through, or over, to something or someone else, to mediate it. Admittedly, this last sense is now archaic in English, but using it in my discussion allows me to draw together in one set of cognate terms important ideological strands in our text, strands which constantly relate deference in all three senses with difference. For clearly deference inevitably implies difference.25 To put something off is to recognize, tacitly or explicitly, a 25. Readers may detect Derridean overtones in the observations in this


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difference, and also to make a temporal difference. To submit acquiescently to another is to admit a difference in power and prestige. To carry something through to another is to acknowledge a difference needing to be bridged. But each sense of 'defer' also in some way seeks to efface the difference in question. In putting something off one is seeking to avoid difference by postponing facing and dealing with it. In subordinating oneself to another one is attempting to obliterate difference through self-effacement. In mediating something to another one is trying to reconcile difference. Each of these strategies is apparent in 2 Sam. 5.17-7.29. Thus in 5.17-25 David is deferent (acquiescently submissive) with Yahweh, because by so doing he gains from the powerful divine warrior-king strategic victories over his main rival to hegemony in the region. But this merely defers (puts off) to 2 Samuel 6 David's own pursuit of his intentions to boost his monarchical power and prestige through control of the ark and its god, manifestly a deep underlying difference with Yahweh. Yahweh also defers (puts off) dealing with this difference to 2 Samuel 7, where he exposes it by deferring (mediating) to David an authoritative statement of his will. David's total deference (acquiescent submission) to Yahweh thence effaces the difference. But the question arises as to whether this is a reconciliation of difference, or just another deferral (postponement) of it. We will return to this question in the final chapter. There are two chapters to which the preceding account does not directly apply. The first is the very next one. Its content is described by paragraph. A persistent element in Derrida's deconstruction of language and meaning is the interdependence of difference and deferral (postponement). If I have understood him, his contention is that signification depends upon difference, yet the establishing of any difference is endlessly deferred (put off) by a never-ending network of differences. Derrida coined the term differ once, from the verb differer, 'to differ' and 'to defer', to be susceptible of both the senses 'difference' and 'deferral', because the French noun in standard use, difference, means only the former. On this as a deconstruction of a key element in Saussure's linguistic theory, cf. Derrida (1976: 23, 52-53, 56-57, 62-63, 66, etc.); and in extenso Derrida (1973: 129-60). My discussion avails itself of further ambiguities in the English verb 'to defer' and cognate nouns and adjectives, not directly available in French. The English verb 'to defer = to put off, postpone' is in French differer, but 'to defer = to submit acquiescently to another' is in French deferer; the latter verb also has the juridical meaning of 'to refer a case to another judicial instance', which is a restricted and specialized example of the sense 'to carry down, through, over'.

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a different 'd'-word, the verb 'to define', as in the title to the present chapter. Its purpose is to define closely a Hebrew text to be read in the subsequent chapters, the text whose ideological polemic I have characterized by the 'p'- and 'd'-words discussed above. Hence along with a Hebrew text there is a set of detailed notes discussing major textual points, which seek in particular to articulate the relationship between text and rhetoric, and also an English translation. Thus, while the chapter is integral to the argument and useful to the reader, it would be tedious to read through as a whole. It will probably be more congenial for the reader to refer back to it in relation to points that arise in the chapters of close reading, where I have in fact included frequent crossreferences. But she or he may find it useful first to read the introductory paragraphs to the chapter, explaining how the chapter integrates into the overall project of the book, and to read through the translation, before passing on. The other is Chapter 6, in the title of which I have abandoned 'd'words for a different kind of wordplay. Here the expressions 'at home' and 'at war' make crossplay between their literal senses relevant to the plot of our stretch of text, where, however, the reverse order might have been expected, and a figurative sense of each relevant to the thematic development within our stretch of text, to which the order of the expressions in the chapter title has more appropriateness. This chapter summarizes the discussion from Chapters 3-5, and as such some readers may find it useful as an introductory conspectus on my overall reading of our text.

Chapter 2

THE PRAGMATICS OF POETICS 2: DEFINING THE TEXT TO BE READ 2.1. What Text? Many readers may be wondering why a chapter to establish a Hebrew text of 2 Sam. 5.17-7.29 is included in a book mainly devoted to a literary-ideological reading of the text. The justification I offer for the tedium of text-critical discussion is simply that a close reading of a text must be concerned with what text to read, as the most fundamental pragmatic issue involved. True, the issue may be avoided by electing to read one existing form of the text, say, the BHS text. But in arbitrarily choosing to ignore all other versions of the text one is choosing to ignore the fact that each version is itself a reading of the text, produced within its own set of operative contextual intentions and constraints. That this is so is clearest in the case of the version of our text to be found in Chronicles, which is sufficiently similar in a number of respects to count as a version of the same text as we are dealing with, but is sufficiently dissimilar in other respects for it to be evident that both how and why it came to be as it is depend on factors particular to its own context. Thus in what is at many points undeniably a closely related account, besides having frequent variations in wording from the Masoretic Hebrew of 2 Sam. 5.17-7.29, 1 Chronicles 13-17 has significantly reordered material, and prefaced or interspersed it with other material, in part found elsewhere in Samuel, in part peculiar to Chronicles. Hence this produces a significantly different 'reading' of the text, even in those parts of it which are closest to 2 Sam. 5.17-7.29. Now it is no part of my brief in this book to give a detailed account of 1 Chronicles 13-17 as a text.1 These few brief observations are 1. On the handling of material in Chronicles in general see the study by Willi (1972).

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intended only to show that to bring any part of this stretch of text to bear on the textual reading in 2 Sam. 5.17-7.29 entails taking proper cognizance, both of how the relevant part of 1 Chronicles 13-17 contributes to its rhetoric, and how the 'parallel' part of 2 Sam. 5.177.29 does the same in the stretch of text of which it forms part. To these factors I have tried to give due consideration in my discussion below. But what applies in a high degree to Chronicles applies also to the translated versions, if in variable and different degrees. Every translation is an interpretation, a 'reading', produced in its own particular context with its own set of intentions and constraints. Harder to detect as these are, again one ought where possible to take appropriate account of them in using a translation as evidence for a putative form of Hebrew text. Thus, besides the more obvious forward relationship between the reading(s) of the text, understood as a set of intelligible symbols in some degree objectively determinable (i.e. in text-critical terms), and one's 'reading' of the text, understood as an ultimately subjective interpretation of the overall meaning of the set (i.e. in literary-rhetorical terms), there is a less obvious reverse relationship. That is to say, what we actually read as the putatively objective set of symbols is to a significant degree determined by our expectations about the set fostered by our 'reading'.2 Of the many possible implications of this statement only one is relevant to what I want to say here. This is that textual criticism therefore cannot simply operate purely at the micro-level of the word, phrase or sentence. For there is a rhetorical dimension to any particular reading (text-critical), namely its unique contribution to what the stretch of text is saying and how it is saying it (i.e. to the 'reading' in literary-rhetorical terms). Hence I contend that an essential part of making a decision about a textual reading is consideration of how it fits

2. Obviously, I cannot here attempt to mount a general argument to justify this claim. Let me merely illustrate what I mean with two everyday features of our reading practice: (1) the fact that readers often do not notice minor misspellings of words in text because they subliminally read what the context has led them to expect; (2) readers consciously and readily correct other evident slips on the basis of the contextually required meaning, as, e.g., the text of The Times leader this morning (3 July 1997) read, nonsensically, 'the Chancellor's pension' in a context that clearly required 'the Chancellor's promise'. For a further illustration of a different kind see textual n. 5 below.


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into the overall discourse of the stretch of text in question.3 Inevitably, deciding this is a matter of 'reading', of interpretation. Hence this chapter affords me the opportunity, in determining the text to be read, to give due attention to rhetorical considerations in relation to other textcritical evidence, and thus to show why they must be among the determinants of the text to be read. This discussion therefore both anticipates my close reading of the text in the following chapters, and informs it, as the numerous cross-references between this and the three following chapters indicate. Since, as I have already stated above, a translation is an interpretation, one way of mediating my 'reading' of the text is to offer a translation of it, as I do below. But the nature of this particular exercise means that it enforces choices about meaning and forms of expression, choices which inevitably exclude other justifiable, even desirable, forms of expression with their particular nuances of meaning. Thus the translation given below is intended as no more than indicative of the range of meaning I discern in the text, and it will be found at times that my close readings in the following chapters include variant renderings, which are better calculated to bring out the point I am making at that particular juncture in the discussion. 2.2. Text, Translation and Notes I note here the conventions I have applied to the presentation of the text and the translation: (1) Both text and translation indicate the normal chapter and verse divisions. Chapter numbers appear in bold on the line, and verse numbers in superscript immediately before the first word of each verse. In the Hebrew text both sets employ Hebrew numerals, whereas both employ Arabic numerals in the English translation.

3. I note that McCarter in his primer on textual criticism sets a pragmatic consideration very like this as 'an important positive criterion' among a set of 'other rules' governing textual criticism: '(c) the appropriateness of a reading to its context' (1986: 74). It is not always apparent how he applied this criterion in reaching his own textual decisions for his Anchor Bible commentary on Samuel (McCarter 1980, 1984).

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(2) The major Masoretic verse divisions are indicated by the normal signs in the Hebrew text. In discussion I use these divisions to define parts of verses, according to the following schema: from the beginning of the verse to 'athnah is designated 'a', from 'athnah to silluq 'b'; subdivisions of each of these by zaqeph qaton are designated by a, (3, y, as necessary. Where possible I have marked these in the English translation by use of the appropriate superscript English and Greek letters immediately before the relevant part of the text. Only 'b' and P, y parts of the verse have been so marked in the translation, since it is obvious that anything from the beginning of the verse up to the 'b' is 'a', and anything from the beginning or from 'b' to P is a, and so on. I trust this system will allow non-Hebraists to determine which parts of verses are under discussion. Occasionally the foregoing system based on the Masoretic accentuation defines as the smallest subdivision a fairly lengthy stretch of text, which precision of reference demands should be further subdivided. Thus very occasionally in references to the text I append a subscript Arabic numeral to the Greek letter to delimit a smaller subdivision. It would be more confusing than helpful to incorporate these markers into the text and translation printed below. Readers should be able to guage from the relevant contexts which portion of text is being thus delimited. (3) The notes on the text are indicated, both in the Hebrew text and in the translation, by a superscript Arabic numeral immediately after the relevant single word, or final word of the relevant phrase. The notes follow one numerical sequence for the whole stretch of text. (4) Text to be omitted from the Masoretic Hebrew text has been put into square brackets [ ], text to be added, into curly brackets { }. Round brackets ( ) are used in the translation to mark some of the more interpretive wording necessary in rendering the Hebrew into English.

2. The Pragmatics of Poetics 2 2.2.1. Hebrew Text

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2.2.2. English Translation 2 Samuel 5 17The Philistines heard that David had been anointed as king1 over Israel ^so all the Philistines went up to search out David. b But David heard about it and went down to the fortress.2 18Meanwhile, the Philistines had arrived ând deployed (their forces)3 in the valley of Rephaim. 19David consulted Yahweh, asking him, ^'Shall I go up against the Philistines? YWill you deliver them over to me?' bYahweh said to David, 'Attack, Pfor I shall certainly deliver the Philistines over to you.' 20So David came at them through Baal Perazim4 and David struck them down there, and said, 'Yahweh has surged over my enemies before me like a surge of (storm)-water,' bcalling the name of ihat place Baal Perazim (? = 'lord of storm-bursts'). 21They abandoned there their divine images, band David and his men carried them off.5 22 Then the Philistines came up once again band deployed (their forces) in the valley of Rephaim. 23David consulted Yahweh ând he said, 'You must not attack. bSwing around towards their rear6 and approach them from the front of Bakaim.7 24But see to it that you act decisively, as soon as you hear the sound of marching8 in the tops9 of the bakatrees7 (or on the summits9 of Bakaim7), bfor by then Yahweh will have advanced ahead of you ^to fight against the Philistine forces.' 25David did exactly as Yahweh had instructed him, and he struck down the Philistines from Geba (?Gibeah)10 to the approach to Gezer. 6 !David mustered together again11 all the elite fighters of Israel, thirty12 thousand of them. 2Then David began the journey, and all the people who were with him, Pfrom Baal13 Judah,14 bto take up from there the ark of God ôver17 which was invoked there15 the name 'Yahweh of Hosts16 enthroned on the cherubim'. 3They mounted the ark on a new ox-cart, Pwhen they took it up from the house of Abinadab in Gibeah (or on the hill).18 bUzza and Ahio Abinadab's sons ^were leading the cart,19 [4aa]20 p{Uzza was walking}21 beside the ark of God, band Ahio was walking ahead of the ark. 5At the same time David and all the house of Israel danced and made music before Yahweh ^with all kinds of {instrument }s of wood and with songs,22 bwith harps, lutes, timbrels, ^sistrums and tambourines.23 6They had reached the threshing-floor of Nakon24 bwhen Uzza reached out25 to the ark of God and took hold26 of it ^because the oxen made it topple.27 7But Yahweh's anger blazed out against Uzzah, ^so that God struck him down there [..],28 and he died there âlongside the ark of God.29 8David was left fuming ^because


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Yahweh had made a surge against Uzzah; bthe place is called Perez Uzzah ('surge against Uzzah') ^to this day. 9David became afraid of Yahweh that day, bas he pondered, 'How is it possible for the ark to come to me?' 10So David, (now) unwilling30 to offer the ark32 of Yahweh sanctuary with himself31 in the city of David, bdiverted it instead to the house of Obed Edom, a man of Gath. nThe ark of God remained in the house of Obed Edom the Gittite for three months. bThen Yahweh blessed Obed Edom and all his household.33 12It was reported to the king David: 'Yahweh has blessed the household of Obed Edom and all his possessions ôn account of the ark of God.' Y{David resolved, 'I will bring back34 the blessing to my own house.' }35 bSo David went to fetch up the ark of God from the house of Obed Edom to the city of David with joyful celebrations. 13When the bearers of the ark had moved36 six paces, bDavid sacrificed a bull and a fading.37 14At the same time David strummed vigorously38 before Yahweh, bdressed in a linen ephod. 15So David and all the house of Israel ^were bringing up the ark of Yahweh, bwith ritual shout and horn-blast. 16This is how it turned out:39 when the ark of Yahweh ^was entering the city40 of David b Michal the daughter of Saul, looking out of the window, saw the king David twirling about and strumming hard41 before Yahweh, ând she despised him in her heart. 17They brought in the ark of Yahweh and set it in its appointed place ^within the tent David had pitched for it, band David offered holocausts and shared sacrifices42 before Yahweh. 18 When David had finished Coffering the holocausts and the shared sacrifices, bhe blessed the people pin the name of Yahweh of Hosts.43 19 David gave to all the people, the vast crowd of Israel,44 to man and woman alike, one round of bread, one portion of meat(?),45 pand one cake of pressed raisins apiece. bThen all the people went each to his own home, 20and David returned to his home to bless it. bMichal daughter of Saul came out to meet David, ând said {by way of salutation},46 'How he has got himself honour today, the king of Israel who—has made constant exposure47 of himself today to the watching serving-girls of his lackeys, Yjust like one of the dancing-men!'48 21 David replied to Michal, 'As subject of Yahweh {I dance49—blessed be Yahweh}50 who has chosen me above your father and your father's house pto commission me as leader51 over the people of Yahweh, over Israel!—band I make joyful music as subject of Yahweh. 22Yes, and I shall 'abase' myself52 even more than this, ô the point of becoming lowly in my own eyes.53 bBut with the serving-girls of whom you

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speak, with them let me increase my honour!' 23Michal the daughter of Saul phad no child bto the day of her death. 7 !It was when the king was installed in his (own) house—bfor Yahweh had given him respite around him from all his enemies—2that the king said to Nathan the prophet, p'Look here54 now, YI am installed in a cedar-house, bbut the ark of God pis installed inside tent-skins!' 3 Nathan said to the king,55 P'Every thing you have in mind go56 and do, b for Yahweh is with you.' 4But it happened that night bthat the word of Yahweh came ^to Nathan saying, 5'Go and say to my subject, to David57, P'Thus has Yahweh spoken: b'Is it that you will build me a settled housed 6For I have never settled in a house, pnot since the day I brought up the Israelites from Egypt58 Ytill the present day, bbut I have been moving about în a tent-dwelling.59 7In all my dealings with all the Israelites, was there ever a word that I spoke60 with any of {? any (one) f r0 maii} the tribes of61 Israel pwhom I appointed to tend my people, Israel,57 saying, b"Why have you not built me a cedarhouse?" '" 8So this is what you shall say to my subject, to David,57 "Thus has Yahweh of Hosts spoken: ^'7 it was who took you from the sheepfold Yfrom (following) behind the flock bto become leader ôver my people, over Israel.57 9I was with you everywhere you went, pand I cut down all your enemies before you, bso as to make62 you a reputation as great âs63 the reputation of the greatest in the world, 10so as to establish62 a place (of safety)64 for my people, for Israel,57 and to plant62 him (securely), so that he may dwell62 in his place. ^He will no longer be afraid, bnor oppressed any more by evildoers, âs he was in former days, nfrom the time65 I appointed judges over my people Israel. ^Thus have I given you respite from all your enemies.66 bMoreover, Yahweh68 (hereby) announces67 to you pthat a house (is what) Yahweh6* will make69 for you. 12{So it will be that}70 when your days are complete and you sleep with your fathers, ^1 will raise up after you your own offspring (lit. 'your seed Ywhich will come forth from your body')71, band I will firmly establish their72 kingship. l3[He12 will build73 a house for my name, band I will firmly establish his royal throne74 in perpetuity.] 14I will be a father to them, pand they will be sons to me, bso that, when they commit iniquity, ^1 will punish them with the same punishments as humankind (lit. 'with the rod of men Y and the strokes of humankind');75 15but my gracious loyalty will not depart76 from them, bin the way that I took it from Saul ^who preceded


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you.77 16But your78 royal house will remain sure in perpetuity before me:78 byour78 throne ^will be firmly grounded to endure.' "' 17In accord with all these words ând all this vision bso Nathan spoke to David. 18 Then David the king went ând installed himself before Yahweh, band said: 'Who am I, my lord Yahweh,79 and what is my house, ^that you have brought me to this point? 19But this is a mere trifle to you, my lord Yahweh,79 P(for) you have also spoken of the distant future concerning your subject's house, band this is the instruction of humankind(??),80 my lord Yahweh.79 20What more can {your subject} [David]81 say to you,82 bsince you know your servant,83 my lord Yahweh?79 21On account of your word84 and according to your intentions ^you have done this great thing bin making (them) known to your subject. 22 Accordingly, you are great, my lord Yahweh:79 bfor none is like you, and there is no god beside you, âs everything85 we have heard (testifies). 23And is there any nation86 like your people, like Israel, â single nation on earth bwhom a god came to redeem to himself as a people, to establish a reputation for himself, in performing great and awesome wonders to drive out nations before your people, whom you redeemed to yourself from Egypt? 24You firmly established87 your people Israel as your own people in perpetuity, band you, Yahweh, became their God. 25So now, my lord Yahweh,79 êstablish88 in perpetuity the word which you have spoken concerning your subject and concerning his house, band do as you have said, 26so that your name ^"Yahweh of Hosts, God over Israel",90 may be for ever great.89 bSo your subject David's house pwill be secure before you. 27For you, Yahweh of Hosts, God of Israel, have revealed this to your subject: P"a house I will build you".91 bAccordingly your subject has taken heart ^to offer to you ythis prayer. 28And now, my lord Yahweh,79 you are God, ând your words are certain.92 bYou have spoken to your subject ^this promise of good. 29And so be pleased to grant93 your subject's house the blessing ôf always being before you: bfor you, my lord Yahweh,79 have spoken, pand by your blessing Ywill your subject's house be blessed in perpetuity.' 2.2.3. Notes on the Text Compare 1 Sam. 15.1; 2. Sam. 2.4, 7; 1 Kgs 19.15, and so on. Though the consonantal text allows the possibility of reading an infinitive construct here (so Syriac and a Targumic text as also in 2 Sam. 2.4, 7), the idiom 'verb ncto, PN as object, CN with *?, noun specifying sphere of

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action with Î?' is guaranteed by examples involving "VXh 1 Sam. 9.16; 10.1; 1 Chron. 29.22; and K'rtfp 1 Kgs 19.16; compare also Isa. 61.1. Instead of misnn ^K TT1 (5.17bp), 1 Chron. 14.8bp reads K2T1 DiT'3St7, presumably 'he went out to face (i.e. to oppose) them', the expression 'ISi? N2T clearly having this sense in 2 Chron. 14.9a [10a]. As this usage appears to be confined to these two Chronicles texts, it looks here like a case of the Chronicler substituting a suitable but very general phrase for the specific but somewhat problematic reading in 2 Sam. 5.17. If so, the Chronicler appears to have taken the opportunity thus to heighten the contrast made with the second confrontation: cf. DiT~inN n^f! tf?, 'you shall not go up against them (directly)', 1 Chron. 14.14a|3, and n. 6 below. 3

$CD] niphal in a military context occurs here, v. 22 below, and Judg. 15.9. None of the three contexts is sufficiently explicit to make its meaning clear, though we note that each concerns troops in pursuit of a significant individual enemy (David here and 22 below; Samson in Judg. 15.9). 1 Chron. 14.9b,13a(3read ICDtfSTl, 'marauded, plundered', ? cf. LXX cruverceaav eiq ir|v KOiAa8a/ev IT] KoiA,a6i here and 22 below. Despite this interpretation, the view that £>D] niphal means 'raid, plunder' does not appear to be justified from the contexts of its usage: (a) it is hard to see why a band with a specific mission to capture or kill a targeted individual should be deflected into general plundering raids; (b) even if this practice might be explained as a means of their support in the field, no narrative point is served in mentioning so purely ancillary an action, either in Judges 15 or in our present context. Given the general sense of 2ftD] niphal as 'be loose, spread out' the usage may indicate rather the division of troops into a number of smaller units which spread out in search of the quarry. ICDtC'D''! in Chronicles could then be explained either as a misreading of 1t£to]1 (so McCarter 1984: 151), or as the misconceived substitution of a more common for a rarer term. 4

LXX EK TCOV ETtavco SioKOTtoov appears to have read D^lSf^] *?1?QQ. More apposite to the context than McCarter's supposition (1984: 151) that this envisages breaches in the wall of a city—what city?—is to take 8iaKO7ccov to refer rather to gorges in the surrounding hills, from which


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water would surge out in the flash floods of the rainy season. See my discussion in ch. 3 nn. 23-24, below. 5

LXX TO\) of MT, in view of the rest of 5.23. However, several considerations tell against this: (1) the ex hypothesi loss of DH^lp^ is not readily explicable in terms of the standard scribal errors; (2) the proposal does not explain the reading in Chronicles; (3) in any case, it is doubtful whether Drwip1? provides a clear antithesis to DiTinK ^K as desiderated: for this one might rather have expected Dl}]1?. This last consideration, in conjunction with the reading in Chronicles, is also against the view that DnKIp1? is simply an addition intended to make the contrast (cf. CTAT, 241). I suspect that from a straightforward reading n^fl tib, first DiT^J) il^n $b was generated by dittography; and then from that, in the (pre-)Vorlage of LXX 2 Sam. 5.23 and in the Vorlage of 1 Chron. 14.14ay, DiT"inR *7« H^H ^ resulted by haplography between DrrÛ and Dmn« *7«. In the Vorlage of LXX 2 Sam. 5.23 the latter reading eventuated in the contextually more intelligible Dn^lp^ nÛfl K1? = OVK avcxfhiaei eiq owavcriaiv atticov, whereas in 1 Chron. 14.14ay a different process of further haplography within DmnN *?« (cf. MSS of 2 Sam. 5.23 MT) led to the reading DmnK n^^n K1?. Finally, both the lost non and the original dittograph DiT1?!? were restored in these texts, giving rise to DnîJQ 30H in the Vorlage of LXX 2 Sam. 5.23 and in MT 1 Chron. 14.14ay. This

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admittedly complicated process is highly conjectural, but in providing a plausible explanation of all the main readings it strongly supports the balder text of MT 2 Sam. 5.23. Finally, the observation that rhetorically nÎtfl $b simpliciter nicely balances the nÛ of Yahweh's response to David (2 Sam. 5.19ba) in the first encounter with the Philistines provides a further reason to stay with the reading of MT here. On the poetics of this balanced contrast see §3.2.3, p. 100. 7

Without the article in v. 23, D'fcOD is most naturally taken as a place name (so McCarter 1984: 155-56). However, in the next verse ''GJKI D^fcOUn plays on the common reference of Q'fcOD, probably to some kind of tree (contra McCarter 1984: 155-56), a grove of which, growing in the locality, perhaps gave the place its name. Note that, as with the narrative of the first incident, the name of the locale of this incident thus also becomes significant for the action. D^fcCQil, 1 Chron. 14.14, is probably assimilation to the form in v. 15. 8

In accordance with its immediate context I take Hli^ here to refer to Yahweh's theophany in battle, on the basis of 7S3X II to K2T in Judg. 5.4; Ps. 68.8 [7]; Hab. 3.12-13; all of a saving divine theophany in battle. LXXLMN read wu cyuvaeiajj-OD 'of the hurricane', that is, probably reading n~]I?O. It is possible that n~l#0 may be a genuine alternative reading, since "1170 occurs in theophanic contexts; note especially Zech. 9.14; Isa. 29.6; Jer. 23.19 = 30.23, and the storm wind in general is a common form of divine theophany in the Hebrew Bible (Exod. 15.8,10; Ps. 18.16 [15], etc.). For the probable role of a storm theophany in our text see the discussion in §§3.2.1, 3.2.2, especially n. 23. However, the similarity of the two Hebrew words suggests that one may be a 'misreading' of the other. Given that hearing the noise of a 'hurricane' blowing in a grove of trees makes for a more direct conceptualization of the theophanic metaphor than that of hearing the sound of the divine warrior's 'marching' in the same, on the principle difficilior lectio potior I assume that it is JTltfO which is therefore the misreading of rniES, and accordingly retain the latter. 9

As my translation indicates, the construing of D^ZOn ^\K~\ here is ambiguous, perhaps intentionally so. CDfcO, 'head', may denote the summit of a rise or the top of a tree, hence D^fcOSn ^N"! can equally be either 'in the tops of the bakd1 -trees', or 'on the summits of Bakaim',


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with the definite article in the latter case retained in a place name which originates from a common noun, as with, for example, niD3n (see the instances cited in n. 18 below). Given the likelihood of the place name arising from a grove of eponymous trees growing on the summit(s) of a hill or group of hills overlooking the vale of Rephaim, either interpretation is possible. For the poetics of this see §3.2.3, pp. 101-102. 10

LXXa7io Tapacov 1 Chron. 14.16bp pjnriD, 'from Gibeon'. Since Geba lies about 6 miles north-north-east of Jerusalem, whereas Gibeon lies about the same distance north-north-west, Gibeon has been the preferred reading of most moderns, as fitting better into the topography of the text, since the valley of Rephaim lies to the west and south-west of Jerusalem. But (1) the reading pjn3 may easily have arisen from, and then been preserved by, precisely this kind of subliminal readerly processing; (2) given the general meaning of IH3, 'rounded, convex', and its use elsewhere as a place name associated with hills, it is possible that 'Geba' here designates yet another town of this name, not referred to outside of this context; (3) however, a reading nins, 'Gibeah', though not attested in any of the texts, is also possible, given the general confusion of place names from the root IH3 (cf. 1 Sam. 13-14!). Indeed, this last possibility would better fit both our context and its topography than either of the foregoing. For 6.3(4) below almost certainly locates a Gibeah at Baal Judah = Kiriath Jearim, which is itself in a direct line between the plain of Rephaim and Gezer, the extremes given by 5.17-25 for David's action, and in the vicinity of both Baal Perazim and Bakaim as determined by our discussion: see n. 18 below, and ch. 3 nn. 23, 24, 40, and compare the front end-paper map in TAB. Given the significance of Gibeah in Baal Judah, as the locale from which the ark is removed to Jerusalem in 2 Samuel 6, a rhetorically forceful point would be made by a reading which noted David driving the Philistines from precisely there back to their heartland. n

lir, 'again' is supported by all the main witnesses, but has been excised by many as not making sense here, on the grounds that it has been attracted from 5.22 into the opening of 6.1 owing to (1) the graphic identity of *]D»1 = *]0fon 6.1 with ^0*1 = Ôi'l 5.22; (2) the frequency of "111? with the latter verb; (3) the influence of the similar opening to 5.22; compare, for example, Wellhausen (1871: 166),

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McCarter (1984: 162). However, for the possible significance of T1D here, see below §4.2.1, pp. 114-116. 12

LXX coq ep8o|UTiKOVTa, 'about 70 (thousand)', that is, DTatf for MT DÊ?, one of the numerous numerical disparities between MT and LXX text traditions. 13

MT rmrr ^mo LXX cmo TCOV otp%ovtcov Io\)6a Targ. Jon. tmpQ n~nrp ITHl Peshitta mn gbf dyhwdh all take Ûl to refer to people. The notion of David's having invited notable citizens to join in his ceremonial removal of the ark to Jerusalem is in itself quite intelligible, but, given the all-Israel significance of the act especially for his newly acquired rule over the North, it would be rather pointed for the text to imply that Judaeans only were invited, which is, in any case, excluded by "TtOtzr rPlto 5aa. Further, such a construction of the text leaves DCZJQ 'from there' with no contextual referent, since it can hardly refer back to 5.25, because (a) 6.1 begins a new episode and thus adverbial anaphora back to the preceding episode would be opaque; (b) in any case "1W "]tQ 1JJ {nJJnJQ 5.25 does not provide a perspicuous referent for D2J. It is accordingly better to take rmiT ""înQ as a place name. However, since in all other instances of place names of the form 'Baal PN' ^m is singular, I read miiT ^ma and take ' in MT ^ma as a dittograph from rmrP (with Wellhausen, Driver, etc.). This will then be another variant of the name for the place also called rfpin 'Baalah' Josh. 15.9, 10, 11, 29; 1 Chron. 13.6; ^JO mp 'Kiriath Baal' Josh. 15.60, 18.14; Dnir mp 'Kiriath Jearim' Josh. 9.17; 15.9; 1 Sam. 6.21; 7.1-2; 1 Chron. 13.5-6. Thus I see no reason (pace Wellhausen, McCarter, etc.) to delete the D in "Pino, since the reading of MT shorn of the "• dittograph is intelligible, and this view proposes the minimum of textual corruption. 14

1 Chron. 13.6 reads mirr1? "itiN D'~)IT mp *7K nrfrjn. This seems to be an expansive text intended to make clear the identity of the place involved, perhaps particularly because only the name Kiriath Jearim was used in the narrative about the deposit of the ark there (1 Sam. 6.21; 7.1). Since Chronicles does not include the latter narrative, this expansion may be part of the author's source, rather than his own work. On the other hand, this version makes Baalah/Kiriath Jearim the goal of David's 'going up' here rather than its starting point. But this is a


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logical necessity of the ordering of the narrative in Chronicles, which presumably locates David in Jerusalem still (cf. 1 Chron. 11.4-9; 11.10-12.41 [40] is a lengthy backtracking parenthesis) when he assembles the leaders and people to bring up the ark (13.1-5). Whereas the Samuel narrative envisages this act as a direct outcome of David's campaign against the Philistines, set in motion on his way back to Jerusalem, the Chronicler's account has postponed the campaign to between the abortive and the successful attempts to bring the ark to Jerusalem (14.8-17). 15

Many MSS read Dtf? here, a reading I accept, for reasons which will become clear. 1 Chronicles 13.6 has this phrase at the end of the sentence following D'O'HDn, in the place where VÛ, not represented in 1 Chron. 13.6, appears in 1 Sam. 6.2. On this positioning, and without VÛ, the preferred referent for "ICJK in Chronicles must be miT not "pIK (as, e.g., in NRSV). But by reading Dtp sense can hardly be made of the phrase. Hence it is tempting to suppose a haplography with the following 1 and read IQtp, 'whose name is invoked'. But this alone is still awkward, and it would be better either to read DttJ, 'who is invoked there', with a number of MSS, or, better still, to suppose haplographic omission of 1ft£> and read (ITDT'l) D£> 1Q$, 'whose name is invoked there'. This DC? then picks up on the earlier D$Q and refers to the shrine at Baalah 'to bring up from there the ark of God, that is Yahweh, enthroned on the cherubim, whose name is invoked there'. The resultant emphasis on D$ here in Chronicles fits with the emphasis put on Baalah/Kiriath Jearim by the repetition in 13.5, 6 and the ponderous form of identification in 13.6. The point is to make clear that, despite its name, this shrine where the ark was kept was devoted to the cult of Yahweh. Now it seems to me that the same point is being made in a more condensed wording in 2 Sam. 6.2, where the town is only called rmiT 'T'in, and that this is the point of HD here. As so often, Chronicles makes rather more of something left implicit in Samuel-Kings. 16

mtQJ$ is absent from 1 Chron. 13.6b, but is attested to by the versions here. It is also absent from 1 Chron. 16.2b, 17.25, but again attested by the versions in the parallel passages 2 Sam. 6.18b; 1.21 a. The title mtO2J mrr, 'Yahweh of Hosts', only occurs in Chronicles in 1 Chron. 11.9 (// 2 Sam. 5.10); 17.7, 24 (// 2 Sam. 7.8, 26; but cf. 27). Other instances in Samuel-Kings have no Chronicles parallel.

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17

The placing of V1?!? here at the end of a longish relative clause produces distant and awkward pronominal anaphora to ]TM via "itfK, but is probably due to D2? occupying the slot that V1?!? might otherwise have occupied. The versions support the invocation of the divine name 'over' the ark as in MT here, as against the somewhat different representation in 1 Chron. 13.6b: see n. 15 above. 18

MT niOJQ is usually rendered 'on the hill', but it could just as easily be construed as a place name 'in Gibeah'. For the article with this term as a place name see Judg. 19.13-16; Judges 20 passim, etc. I suggest above n. 10 n#33 as a possible reading in 5.25, and take it as a reference to the place indicated here. Such a reading would make the places cited in 5.25 as the limits of David's drive against the Philistines thoroughly pertinent to the narrative in the present chapter. 19

The Chronicles parallel is considerably shorter here: (1) 1 Chron. 13.7 does not read inN&n, runn "ltf«, or mrntf sri, all of which are attested by LXX 2 Sam. 6.3; (2) there is no equivalent to any of 2 Sam. 6.4, not even to the part attested to by LXX. The lack of the explication 'the sons of Abinadab', which leaves the two drivers named inadequately defined for the reader, as well as the lack of the circumstantial clauses locating each in relation to the ark (2 Sam. 6.4 as restored), clauses that provide further significant explicatory information, strongly indicate that the Chronicles text is abbreviating detail not germane to its purpose. 20

The text enclosed in square brackets is not to be found in LXXB here, and is an obvious dittograph of text from 6.3, which results both in questionable syntax in 6.4a (distant anaphora for the suffix in lilRfen), and in an illogical utterance 'they took it (scil. the ark of God 6.3a) up from the house of Abinadab on the hill along with the ark of God'! 21

The words in curly brackets, or something like them, appear to have been lost: (1) Syntactically, the combination p"lN D# rftatfn HN QTT^Kn, '(Uzza and Ahio... were driving) the cart with the ark of God', strikes one as very unidiomatic and unlikely in Hebrew: a much more likely way to put this in Hebrew is ITÛ DM^n ]1"l« "I0K n*?3i?n n«, 'the cart on which was the ark of God'. (2) From the narrative point of view, as MT and the versions stand, the text makes a point of locating


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the position of Ahio vis-a-vis the ark, but does not do the same for Uzza. Yet in vv. 6-7 it is Uzza's position next to the ark (note ]1~IN DU QTI^Kn 7bp precisely as in 4a(3) which proves fatal for him, whereas Ahio and his position play no further role in events and are not mentioned after 4b. Thus, narratively speaking, it is virtually certain that the text included a statement locating Uzza in terms similar to the existing one that locates Ahio. (3) Rhetorically, the force of 7b(3 is much enhanced if the identical phrase in 4ap has already brought Uzza into close but unthreatening proximity with the ark. LXXL reads Km o£a between aw ir\ Ki(3coTco and Km 01 a8eX(|)oi awoi) (i.e. between 4a(3 and 4b), and adds also (KQI) EK 7cX,ayicov between eujtpoaGev and TTJ) Kaiao%eiv a\)TT|v is derived from the textual tradition found in MT 1 Chron. 13.9 (so Rehm 1937: 26, 27), but rhetorically this is a weaker text than MT 2 Sam. 6.6. For the latter makes a point, not only of Uzzah's stretching out towards (^K not Û, pace McCarter 1984: 164) the ark in order to take hold of it, but also of his actually grasping hold of it. McCarter's translation of 6.6b 'Uzzah put his hand on the holy ark to steady it' (1984: 161, my emphases) is a justifiable rendering of neither the locution ^/^K T Fl^tt?, nor the locution n NIK. 27

Read 1M with LXX; compare Targum, Syriac. MT IBQtf, read both here and in 1 Chron. 13.9, poses some difficulties of construal: (1) the pronominal anaphora is uncertain, since the only explicit contextual referent, 'David and all the house of Israel' from 6.5a mediated via IKin 6a, is somewhat distant. (2) A logical alternative referent is the two drivers Uzzah and Ahio, but Uzzah has been mentioned alone in 6b, and Ahio not since 4b, prior to 'David and all the house of Israel' in 5 a, rendering such a reference even more problematic for the reader. (3) If "Ipnn were the intended object of the verb, it is lacking the usual object marker fltf. Thus I take "lp3n as intended subject of the verb, and, as there is no justification for giving QQ$ an intransitive meaning such as 'stumble', I read 1CDQ& as third masculine singular verb with third masculine singular object suffix referring to DTI^Nn "[TIN. 28

MT ^H ^ is very dubious: LXXB has nothing corresponding, but LXXAL has em (it]) TcpOTieteig 'for rashness', ? reading "l^n ^D, which assumes haplography in MT of 1 with the following no"*"). But it is not easy to see how this word may be derived from the root n^CJ, which has rather the opposite sense. Targum Jonathan appears to have read something similar, interpreting the root with the Aramaic meaning 'go wrong, err'. 1 Chronicles 13.10ap reads ^S IT n'PEJ 10K 'Pinnm

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fTWI, 'he struck him down because he stretched out his hand against (?towards) the ark', which many assume here as the original, and of which MT ^fin ^V are the fragmentary remains: cf. NRSV here. The Syriac '/ d'wSt 'ydh wmyt perhaps reflects a simpler reading IT n^ttf *?J? to much the same effect. However, on purely textual grounds it is difficult to see how such a straightforward text, if original, should have become so mutilated. Then second, on discourse grounds, while the explanation given by this clause fits well into the Chronicles' account of this incident, it does not cohere well with the account in our present text: on this see below §4.2.1, pp. 125-26. Finally, in terms of the rhetoric of the texts, DTT^Kn D$ ITID^ 2 Sam. 6.7a(3 evocatively parallels 111 DCZJ DD'1 5.20a2 (see below §4.2.1, pp. 127-28). This nuance is lacking in Chronicles, which does not read DC2J in 1 Chron. 13.10ap, and which in any case reverses the order of the two passages, thus losing the irony of the reference back. I suspect, given this parallel and the absence of anything corresponding in LXX B , that îZ?n *?!? is the mutilated remains, either of ~I$K *?$ inadvertently copied here from 6.8ap, or of a textual conflation from 1 Chron. 13.10a(3. 29

LXX adds evcomov to\) OEOD; 1 Chron. 13.10b reads D^N '3S1? instead of DVfttfn ]T1K DS. Pace Wellhausen (1871: 168) I stay with MT here, since it is difficult to see why in the one case HIT "OS1? should have dropped out, or in the other it should have been replaced by D^ QTfptfn ]T"!K. In any case, the latter is a more graphic representation, which links better with v. 4. 30

1 Chronicles 13.13 TOil 8*71, terser and less characterful, perhaps intentionally avoids attributing unworthy motivation to David. 31

This is the only biblical instance of the preposition ^K with "110 hiphil. I take it as the transitive equivalent of ^K ~110 in the sense of 'to turn aside to find refuge or sanctuary with someone', an ironic usage in the context. 32

LXX adds 8ia0r|Kr|n here is potentially ambiguous, since the term often refers to a specifically military group, 'the army, troops', there is nothing in 6.2-5 to sustain this particular semantic reference against the term's more common general meaning. On the other hand, this more general reference is in fact contextualized for our text by ^tOfcr IT3 *?D, 'all the house of Israel' 6aa, 15aa. 18. Note that, on the other hand, third person plurals are used in vv. 3-4, where the pronominal anaphora is most naturally referred to 'David and all the people with him' 2a. The verbs, however, could conceivably be read as indefinite third plurals, recounting the actions of unnamed cultic attendants, of whom there may have been more than the Uzza and Ahio subsequently named in 3b. This latter reading is, however, simply a different nuance of reading, since pragmatically on either reading it would be assumed that the actual handling of the ark was performed by duly accredited attendants, but at the direction of David and those with him. 19. If identity had been intended, the expected form of 6.2ace would have been either mirr toa "D*?'! lQp'1, 'then they arose and left Baal Judah', or ~[^1 Dp"1! rmrr ^ma ^tnto-a Him ^Dl 111, 'then David and all the picked troops of Israel arose and left Baal Judah'.

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that 'all the picked troops of Israel' were highly appropriate participants in it, if not the only appropriate participants. Hence the designation 'all the people who were with him' (2aa) implicates the participation of others besides the elite troops. Who else is comprehended is however left to general contextual and pragmatic considerations to determine. From the preceding text the reader will readily suppose that David's 'men' (5.21b) will also have been involved, given that this ceremony follows immediately on their victories over the Philistines. Then on general pragmatic grounds it is easy to assume that such a ceremony will have given a prominent role to representatives of Israelite tribes, such as officiated earlier at his anointing as king (5.3). This readerly assumption is later confirmed by the expression 'David and the whole house of Israel' (^fcnfer m ^Dl TIT) 5aa). Both pragmatic and wider contextual knowledge are presupposed for the explication of 2af3ba. It is evident enough from what is said here that the ark of God has been at Baal Judah. What is not directly evident from the text, however, is why David should, immediately following his victory over the Philistines,20 gather a company at this place for the purpose of the ark's removal. But if the reader knows that the ark was at Baal Judah precisely because that is where the Philistines allowed it to remain, knowledge available from the early chapters of Samuel,21 then David's removal of it from there immediately after his resounding double victory over the Philistines takes on a triumphal aspect. Indeed, the participation in the ceremony of the 30,000 picked troops of Israel will then have served to parade the magnitude of his triumph with an ironic precision. For according to the narrative in 1 Sam. 4.1011, 30,000 was the number of Israelite foot soldiers killed when the Philistines captured the ark. Then further, if the reader knows that Baal Judah/Kiriath Jearim was in the line of David's rout of the Philistines

20. That historically grounded objections may be made to the order of events here is for us beside the point, since the present narrative order, whether in fact historical or not, had to be plausible to its envisaged readers, who no doubt had a considerable knowledge from tradition about the narrative's events, participants and locale. 21. The envisaged readers for 2 Sam. 6 need not have been solely dependent on the account in 1 Sam. 6.21-7.2 for this knowledge, since it might have been available in other forms of tradition. But however that may be, the passage in Samuel, besides being the only source of such knowledge available to the modern reader, is an operative intratextual context, as subsequent discussion will show.

4. David Different with Yahweh: 2 Samuel 6

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as given in 2 Sam. 5.25b,22 and that their being driven to the outskirts of Gezer thus clears them well away from this town, both elements of pragmatic knowledge bound up with the scenic locale of 2ap.bct, then, following his victory, David's project is seen to be an eminently practical possibility, and that for the first time since the ark arrived at Kiriath Jearim.23 But the reader's perception of the nature of the triumph to be celebrated is given a new dimension by the defining clause added to the designation 'the ark of God' (OTlS^n ]!"!«). In the ark cult at Baal Judah/Kiriath Jearim (cf. 'there', D2J, 2bp)24 the God of the ark was worshipped under the title 'Yahweh of Hosts25 enthroned on the cherubim' (D'aiDn 3GT mtUS mrr 2b(3).26 The title YHWHSeba'ot invokes Yahweh as divine king,27 but more particularly, as the contexts of its usage indicate, Yahweh as the divine warrior-king enthroned over the ark in the shrine, whence he may be summoned to assert his regal authority over his enemies by bringing his people victory.28 22. This claim stands whichever of the alternative readings for MT D33Q is adopted (though it should be observed that the much-favoured reading pinÔ, 'from Gibeon', does set up a line rather to the north of Kiriath Jearim). In this respect 5.25b prepares for 6.2-5. 23. The references to Philistine occupation and oppression of Israel that occur between 1 Sam. 7 and 2 Sam. 6 are at any rate susceptible to this interpretation, if they do not demand it. 24. For the textual reading see above Ch. 2 n. 15, p. 55. 25. On the construing of the combination niiOU HIIT as a construct relationship, see Zobel (1987-89: cols. 879-80), Mettinger (1982a: 127-28); and for the interpretation of mias, see Zobel (cols. 880-81), Mettinger (1982a: 123-27), and the literature cited there. 26. This cultic title of Yahweh was not however original to Kiriath Jearim, but evidently came there with the ark, since the title is used in 1 Sam. 4.4 in connection with the ark at Shiloh: 30" m«3S miT rVQ ]TI« HN Um IN&n rfrti DWH ifTBh D'TTDn, 'the people sent to Shiloh to take up from there the ark of the covenant of Yahweh of Hosts enthroned on the cherubim'. Compare also the separate occur-

rence,in a psalm with northern provenance (cf.ephraim,benjamin and manasseh 80.3[2]), of the two constituent expressions niKD^ DTI^N mrr, 'Yahweh God (of) Hosts' (80.5, 20[4, 19] cf. m«3S DTftN 8[7], 15[14]) and D'STOn 3KT, 'enthroned on the cherubim' (Ps. 80.2[1]): probably a poetic break-up of a stereotyped liturgical phrase. 27. For the association of the title mfcQ^ mrr, 'Yahweh of Hosts', with the ark and its royal connotations, see in general Zobel (1987-89); Mettinger (1982a; passim, 1982b: 19-28); Seow (1989: 11-15). 28. In 1 Sam. 4.3-4 the ark of 'Yahweh of Hosts enthroned on the cherubim' is

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Now our text has already made quite a point of emphasizing how David's victories over the Philistines are Yahweh's victories (5.17-25). Hence in taking the ark in ritual procession from Baal Judah to Jerusalem, David is parading the cultic emblem of the victorious divine warrior-king through exactly the scenes of his latest triumphs.29 Moreover, these triumphs are over the Philistines, whose capture of the ark as a trophy of victory, as a result of earlier victories over Israel, had led to its eventual deposit precisely in Kiriath Jearim/Baal Judah. Thus this procession is also a ritual repossession30 of his territory, now freed from Philistine control, by the returning divine warrior-king.31 brought into battle following a defeat at the hands of the Philistines. Psalm 80 invokes God under the same title, appealing for a saving epiphany (80.2-3, 8, 20[12, 7, 19]) in a situation of probable military distress (80.13-16[12-15]). In Ps. 99 the continuing rule of the king Yahweh 'enthroned on the cherubim' (99.1) is accompanied by the kind of fear among the nations (DÔU 1MT) and perturbation in the natural order which elsewhere accompanies the progress of the divine warriorking: cf. Exod. 15.11-18; Ps. 48.3-9[2-8]; Judg. 5.4-5; Ps. 18.8-20[7-19]. Psalm 18 displays, in close order, elements of this ideology which occur in a more dispersed way in our narrative text: Yahweh hears the psalmist's plea I^DTIQ, 'from his temple', and rides to the psalmist's rescue on a cherub U)~D b# DDT1 (18.11[10]), manifesting himself in the phenomena of a rainstorm (18.12-16[11-15]). So here victories achieved through rainstorm theophanies (5.20,24) are now being celebrated by Yahweh of Hosts as the god enthroned on the cherubim. 29. The journey from Kiriath Jearim will have taken the procession down from the hills overlooking the valley of Rephaim on to the plain and across it towards Jerusalem. I am convinced that had we as precise a knowledge of the locales indicated in 5.17-25 as is presupposed by the text, that Baal Perazim and the heights of Bakaim (? and Geba/Gibea) would turn out to be on this route. The route implied in Ps. 84 as taken by pilgrims to the sanctuary of the divine king Yahweh of Hosts (84.2-8[l-7]) is no doubt the same journey, at least in part: cf. the vale of Baka (84.7[6]) with Bakaim (2 Sam. 5.23-24), and the reference to the autumn rains (84.7[6]) with the rainstorm imagery (5.20, 24). 30. Compare the ritual claim of the warrior-god to (re)possession of territory in Ps. 60.7-10[5-8] = 108.7-10[6-9]. 31. Thus I would maintain that while McCarter (1983: 274-75) rightly notes points where the analogy Miller and Roberts (1977: 10-17, esp. 16-17) draw between 2 Sam. 6 and Mesopotamian accounts of 'the return of an image to its sanctuary' fails, he wrongly excludes from 2 Sam. 6 any notion of divine return, in favour of his own analogy with the inauguration of a god in a newly founded national shrine. Revealingly, McCarter says 'Throughout 2 Samuel 6 the destination of the ark is referred to as "the city of David" (vv 10,12,16)...' (1983: 274; my emphasis). As his own citations betray, however, the text makes no explicit


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In fact, two clear points of connection with that earlier narrative of the progress of the ark emerge from the following verse: 'they mounted the ark of God on a new ox-cart when they took it up from the house of Abinadab in Gibeah' (TOfen n0"in rfol? *7N DYl'PKn ]TIK PIN "QDT1 niOIQ inrDN IT3Q 6.3a). The new ox-cart recalls the provision made by the Philistines to allow the ark to return to Israelite territory (1 Sam. 6.7), and the house of Abinadab in Gibeah (or 'on the hill') was where the ark was deposited at the end of that narrative (1 Sam. 7.1). This narrative in 1 Samuel 5-6 recounted how, following 'the very great slaughter' (IRQ n^Ti: HDQH 'nm 4.10) of Israelites, 'the hand of Yahweh' (5.6, 7, 9, cf. 11; 6.3, 5, 9) inflicted on the Philistines 'a very great disaster' (IKO rftn: n&inft 5.9, cf. 11), forcing them to allow the ark's return. Thus the journey from Eqron on the new cart was the beginning of a triumphant progress for Yahweh God of the ark, a progress in which the lords of the Philistines reluctantly played the role of the defeated (6.12). But this progress came to an end at the borders of nominal Israelite territory, the new cart was destroyed (6.14) in premature celebration (6.19-20), and the ark languished32 in obscurity at Kiriath Jearim (6.21-7.2) until Yahweh's decisive defeat of the mention of a destination until 6.10, and prior to this the only implicit reference to one is 'to me' in the immediately preceding verse (**?$ 6.9). Yet, on McCarter's view of the text, so belated a mention of the ark's goal is hardly to be expected. In fact, the ark's destination could have been mentioned as early as 6.2b, e.g. 'to bring up from there to the city of David ("111 TD [^]) the ark of God...' Or again mention could easily have been introduced after 3a thus: 'they took it up from the house of Abinadab in Gibeah to take it up to the city of David' ("VU [^N] irftun'? TTI). Thus it is the very suppression of any mention of a destination until 6.10 that is significant, in a way McCarter has not perceived, for the ideological thrust of the text. As we shall see, the entry of the ark into Jerusalem and the inauguration of David's new shrine at the end of the ark procession are not the climax of David's action. Meanwhile, the procession with the ark manifests the triumphal return of Yahweh to repossess his territory from Philistine domination. 32. The narrative that ensues (1 Sam. 7.3-14), an account of a decisive victory over the Philistines (7.13-14) inspired by Samuel and accomplished by a stormtheophany of Yahweh (7.9-10), in effacing the earlier Israelite defeat of 1 Sam. 4 (cf. 7.12 with 4.4), foreshadows David's decisive double victory, similarly won. Note also the closely similar form of introduction of each battle sequence: see Figure 5 above, p. 90. Yet remarkably, Samuel, who grew up as a dedicated cultic attendant in the ark-shrine at Shiloh according to 1 Sam. 1.24-28; 2.11, 18-20; 3.121, apparently completely ignored the ark, on the occasion of the above victory, and also throughout the rest of his life.

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Philistines through David (2 Sam. 5.17-25) could allow the victory march to resume in yet more triumphant vein. The verb 'they took up' ("int^n 3a|3), used of the ark here though not in that earlier ark narrative, reinforces the sense of victory celebration, through a link with the nearer context. In 5.21b, David and his men 'took up' (DNtiH), that is, captured, as trophies of war the divine images abandoned by the Philistines. Now David and the people with him 'take up' the ark as another trophy of victory. Its parade however, is not as booty captured by David, but as booty liberated by him from Philistine control. Yet the reader may note that the ark, whose freedom from Philistine control is here being publicly celebrated, thereby passes under the control of its liberator. Any readerly tendency to explicate the third plural pronominal anaphora of the two verbs in 3a as directly involving David and the people with him in handling the ark is corrected by 3b-4. Some textual corruption here in MT notwithstanding,33 twice within a short compass special cultic attendants for the ark are mentioned. First, they are named and identified as the sons of Abinadab (3ba),34 in whose house at Baal Judah the ark had been installed, thereby authenticating their appropriate cultic status.35 Then, both are carefully located in relation to the ark as it proceeds on its journey (4a3b): Uzza walking alongside,36 Ahio in front. By being named first in each case, Uzza is rhetorically 33. For the textual evidence, see above Ch. 2 n. 20, p. 56. 34. Neither is mentioned in the earlier ark narrative, where an Eleazar son of Abinadab is installed as attendant for the ark in Kiriath Jearim (1 Sam. 7.1). The identity of Eleazar and Uzza is quite possible (cf., e.g., Azariah and Uzziah as alternative names for the same king of Judah), but remains conjectural. We lack a sufficient basis to judge whether this kind of name variation would have been perspicuous to the envisaged reader. In any case, it matters little or nothing for the understanding of this narrative, where the relevant pragmatic assumptions about the status of the two are clearly implicated in the immediate context. 35. Clearly, 6.2 delineates Baal Judah as a shrine to Yahweh of Hosts, to whom was dedicated there a cult centred on the ark (T^.-.OD trip] "I2JK, 'over which was invoked there...). Thus 6.3-4 implicates that Uzza and Ahio were duly consecrated attendants of the ark, and appropriate superintendents of its journey. These implicatures must be given due weight in connection with what ensues in vv. 6-7. 36. For discussion of the reading, with relevant pragmatic and poetic considerations, see Ch. 2 n. 21, pp. 56-57. Note further that on a later occasion in Samuel when the ark makes a journey, it was again accompanied by two priestly attendants, Abiathar and Zadok (2 Sam. 15.24-29).


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foregrounded, in preparation for his further appearance in the action in vv. 6-7. But nor are David and his retinue merely relegated to the fringes of the ceremonial procession: 'David and all the house of Israel play and dance before Yahweh' (5aa) on all kinds of wooden instruments, blown and struck (5a[3b). Here again the combination of some textual uncertainty and our lack of pragmatic knowledge of such ceremonies leaves the modern reader more hazy about what is going on than the envisaged reader need have been. However, it is a reasonable conjecture that there was a more or less established ritual for a ceremonial procession of the ark, and from our text (cf. also vv. 14-15 below) it would appear tc have involved music and dancing,37 the instrumental music evidently limited to non-metallic38 instruments. The plural participle Dpn&Q makes 'all the house of Israel' fully participant in the enthusiastic celebrations, but the compound subject phrase with 1111 first nonetheless emphasizes David's leading role. The cultic nature of the celebrations is highlighted by the addition or IliT "OS1?, 'before Yahweh',39 the first, 37. As well as involving dancing and the playing of instruments (6.5, 15: for the latter activity cf. Jer. 31.4), the activity in a celebratory context referred to by pnto may also include singing, as is evident from 1 Sam. 18.7, and cf. also the inclusion of the 'festal shout' (nullD 6.15b). The activity was clearly enthusiastic and uninhibited, particularly where strong drink was involved, as Exod. 32.6; Jer. 31.4-5 implicate. A Yahwistic cultic setting is either explicit in (Exod. 32.5-6), or closely linked with (Jer. 31.6), these latter-cited texts. 38. Whereas (on my text) v. 5 refers to wooden instruments only, v. 15 below includes the shofar, made from the horn of domestic animals. But is that already an adaptation to the practices of its new home? To attempt to explain the exclusion of metal instruments is beyond the scope of the meagre information we possess, but it may be significant that in the Deuteronomic tradition the ark is a simple wooden box (Deut. 10.1-3), without the gold overlay given it in the priestly tradition (Exod. 25.10-13, etc). Further, the vehicle on which it is transported in Samuel is evidently a simple wooden ox-cart (1 Sam. 6.14). Admittedly, in 1 Sam. 6 the vehicle was made by the Philistines, but under instruction from 'the priests and diviners' (D'OHD D^QDpl 1 Sam. 6.2), and the similarity with the new ox-cart in 2 Sam. 6 strongly suggests that this was the ritually appropriate mode of transport. It is not unlikely that in the more urbanized liturgical and ideological environment of the Jerusalem temple, the simplicities of this older rural ritual were replaced by a more costly and elaborate royal ritual, in which gold and other metals played a lavish role. 39. The expression doubtless belongs to the semantic field of 'having an audience with a great person', where the physical contiguity of client and patron is an essential element in the personal transaction, but the relative status of each is at the same time maintained: the client 'appears before' the patron. Thus in the Hebrew

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rather low-key,40 use of a phrase destined to become thematic in this chapter.41 What David and Israel are doing here is thus represented as done in Yahweh's presence, with the implicatures of its being done by his leave, in his interests and for his pleasure. The phrase next recurs in v. 14 below, where the now priestly-garbed David strums enthusiastically 'before Yahweh'. All proceeds as expected, until the procession reaches the threshingfloor of Nakon (6a). The text assumes knowledge of the locale in question, not available to us.42 The point of its mention clearly lies in its spatial-cum-temporal location of what occurred at this stage in the journey. At this very spot (note the repeated HD, 'there', 7apba), near to Jerusalem, shortly before the anticipated end of the journey, the triumphal progress was brought to an abrupt and inauspicious end, by an unlooked-for eventuality. Uzza, walking beside the ark, stretched out and grasped hold of it (6ba),43 because the oxen made the ark totter on the cart (6bp). Now the envisaged reader must surely have been intended to assume that, as a duly consecrated cultic attendant, walking Bible the phrase mrr 'B^ is used very frequently of ritual and liturgical acts, very often but not exclusively performed at a recognized shrine, to express (1) the orientation of the actions as performed in the interests of Yahweh; (2) the associated sense of an actual audience with Yahweh thereby created; (3) the relative status of Yahweh and of the worshipper as the powerful and the dependent respectively. 40. No particular rhetorical stress falls on the phrase in 6.5, apart from a certain resonance with ]T"1N 'lEb, 'before/in front of the ark' in 4b. 41. It recurs with increasing rhetorical prominence in 6.14a, 17b, 2la, 21b. 42. This is the only mention of the locale in the Hebrew Bible. It is widely supposed that it lay on the outskirts of Jerusalem. While this is possible, there is no clear indication to this effect in our text. One piece of evidence, however, pertinent to its locale is the explicature derivable from Isa. 17.5 that the valley-plain of Rephaim was a corn-growing area. A threshing-floor is thus quite likely to have been located on a rocky eminence within, or close to, the valley's confines. 43. The Hebrew 5 TITK implies taking a good grasp on something, not merely making contact with it, for which II Ml is the appropriate expression: cf. Exod. 19.12-13; Lev. 5.2-3, etc. Moreover, use of the wayyiqtol 13 TnWT in our text specifies this as an accomplished act. However, ]1"l^n DK NIK1? IT HN NTi? rf^Kh, 'Uzza stretched out his hand to take hold of the ark' (1 Chron. 13.9ba), implies that Yahweh intervened before Uzza. actually touched the ark. This is why 1 Chron. 13.10ap, consistently, cites only Uzza's stretching out his hand as the grounds of Yahweh's action. But to import this explanation, as many do, into 2 Sam. 6.7ap, where Uzza has actually grasped hold of the ark, is to make our text quite inconsequential, citing Uzza's unimportant mediate action rather than his operative final action as the reason for Yahweh's intervention.


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beside the ark as it trundled on an unsprung cart pulled by oxen along rough roads,44 it was Uzza's express duty to prevent the ark from falling off or otherwise coming to harm. Why else was he walking beside it (4ap)? Thus, contrary to the standard modern view of this incident,45 the envisaged reader would not see anything untoward in Uzza's action. Accordingly, when 6.7 relates that Yahweh became angry with Uzza and struck him down there46 so that Uzza died there beside the ark, this ought to take the reader by surprise, since nothing in the narrative so far has suggested that death would follow the handling of the ark,47 let alone its handling by a duly authorized attendant. Far from it! The ark was handled at the start of its journey ("DDTI.. .intftzn 3ap), patently by Uzza and Ahio (3b), and that with undeniable impunity. Furthermore, as a result of the present incident David will have it deposited (lilCD1'! lOb: actual handlers unspecified) in the house of Obed Edom, also with impunity. Finally, at the journey's eventual end the reader will see the ark installed 022T'1..}$ ."O TH indicates one ritual performed at the beginning of the resumed journey, not a repeated action. 70. Outside this text and its // in 1 Chron. 15.27, ~Q "IlStf occurs only of Samuel at Shiloh in 1 Sam. 2.18, using the same expression (2.18b "13 TEN "nan ID]) as here, and of the priestly family of Ahimelech at Nob 1 Sam. 22.18, where the expression is 13 -JISK Kfffl (cf. without 13, 1 Sam. 2.28 of the Elides, 14.3 of the Elide Ahijah). 1 Sam. 2.18, 28 taken with 3.1-2 make clear the ark connection, and 14.3, 22.17-18 the priestly significance of the garb. The fact that, in the one other text which links the ark and the wearer of the linen ephod (1 Sam. 3), the wearer at first fails to recognize the voice of God, imparts intratextual irony to our present text.

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of Israel' with David in the festive bringing up of the ark, and describes in terms of an action in progress ('bringing up..with cultic acclamation and sound of the horn', ~1D1$ 'Tip! rfi?l"lfQ...D''Î7Q) what was summarized punctiliarly in 12b ('he brought up... with joy', nnftfcD...i7ir>i). Thus in 14a, 14b and 15, with their subject-verb inversion and participles, and their descriptive detail, the narrative's plot movement is perceptibly becalmed, in order to give the reader a vivid impression of the scene. The tableau is held for a moment longer in 16abai.2, to focus on a new aspect of the scene (16ba3.4p). Just as the ark enters the city of David, the very moment when David's project is being crowned with success, 'Michal the daughter of Saul', looking out of the window, sees 'the king David' with the ark. This element in the narrative, although new, is not in itself surprising. On the contrary, it is a version of a stock scene to conclude battle accounts, which depicts the women waiting at home, in joyful and expectant welcome, for the return of their victorious warriors, laden with booty.71 From its outset, our narrative has set up the ark procession as David's triumphal progress (6.1-2) to celebrate his victory over the Philistines (5.17-25), and within this perspective the ark, liberated from Philistine control, is a spoil of battle. Thus that David's chief wife72 should play her expected73 part in proceedings 71. The actual biblical examples all modify the basic stock scene in various ways. The version we have here is that of (an) aristocratic woman/women looking out of a palace window. Judges 5.28-30 makes of this a taunt, a sardonic portrayal of growing doubts mingling with anticipations of fine booty in the minds of the aristocratic Canaanite women waiting for their men's return, but all in vain as the hearer/reader already knows. 2 Kings 9.30-31 turns the same basic scene into a proud act of defiance, as Jezebel confronts her treacherous enemy Jehu as though welcoming him home as an auspicious victor bringing her booty. A humbler version of the stock scene, in which ordinary women kept busy at home by their daily tasks share the spoils with the victors, is reflected in Ps. 68.13-14[12-13], and probably also lies behind a similarly worded taunt on Reuben in Judg. 5.16. To my mind this stock scene is more demonstrably the implied background to the text here than the hypothetical sacred marriage ritual proposed by Porter (1954: 164-67). 72. Though never explicitly stated, Michal's status as chief wife is a clear implicature of the following points in the story of David: (1) she is David's first wife, and the daughter of his predecessor; (2) David made her return to him a condition of his negotiations with Abner over transfer of the allegiance of the northern tribes to David (2 Sam. 3.12-16); (3) she is a wife who can castigate her husband for unbecoming behaviour (6.20); (4) her barrenness (6.23) is of moment. 73. For a highly perceptive, yet in significant respects rather different, reading


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ought only to add to the auspiciousness of the occasion. The reader's unease about her part, however, is first engendered by the stiff formality in how Michal and David are related here, quickened by what Michal saw, and finally confirmed by how she reacted to what she saw. First, then, identified by her patronymic 'daughter of Saul', rather than by her marital status 'wife of David', or by both designations together,74 Michal is projected as distanced from David. The reader's still inchoate sense of a cold formality in relations grows firmer at her seeing in him 'the king David', not 'David her husband', or even simply 'David' tout court. Moreover, the CN-PN word order as against its reverse makes David's status, not his mere identity, the salient feature in Michal's present perception.75 Then further, Michal sees 'the king David' not simply 'strumming away' (~O"DQ) as the reader has already been told (14a), but first and foremost 'flinging himself about' before Yahweh (mrr ^S1? "p-DDI TTSD TH "JÔn HK fcOHl 16ba).76 The reader recollects that David is dressed in the priestly kilt (14b), a garb which, as the envisaged reader can be expected to know, provides of the poetics and ideology of the role of Michal in this text see Exum (1991: 18496; 1992: 85-91). On my reading, although 'isolation' soon emerges as an important feature in the delineation of Michal in this text, that delineation begins here with no more isolation than is to be expected from her conventional role. 74. The use of the patronymic in referring to the wives of Israelite kings appears to have been normal, hardly surprising given the status of the families from which they were usually drawn, and its use no doubt facilitated distinction between the different wives of the same king. But in these contexts the woman's status as wife of the king is either explicit in the context or a strong implicature. Thus in our present context, where she is reintroduced into the narrative in person in connection with David, the lack of reference to Michal as David's wife (contrast 2 Sam. 3.14) is a significant silence. For a discussion of the use of patronymics in the Hebrew Bible see Clines (1972). 75. The PN-CN order "[^QH 111, 'David the king', is far more frequent in this and analogous combinations. In this case the CN is an unstressed element in a petrified formula, a conventional acknowledgment of the PN's right to title, = our 'King David'. In the reverse form 11"! ~]^QH, 'the king, David', however, both terms have greater rhetorical force, since the CN predicates its office of the PN, rather than merely attributing it to him incidentally. 76. It should be noted that both "1D1DQ and ttDQ are intensive forms, to convey whose force in a different language requires some form of periphrasis. Moreover, I have used the different occasions I have referred to the latter verb in my discussion to give a variety of renderings, in order to suggest something of its possible range of meaning.

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scanty covering for the male torso. Hence in 16ba, poetics powerfully combine with pragmatics to point up the reaction of Saul's regal daughter to all the colour and movement of King David's dramatic entry into Jerusalem: 'she despised him in her heart' (rn^D 1^ nm 16bp). The rhythmic shortness of the phrase, in marked contrast to the longer clauses preceding it, and its intense assonance77 give it the pointedness of a dagger, a rhetorical thrust enhanced by its being kept to the end of this long sentence. Michal has gone chillingly out of character from the woman awaiting with joyful anticipation the victor's triumphant return home! Thus the reader has been momentarily translated from down below with David, to up there with Michal, to see the action from her vantage point. But to be made here to see from her vantage point is not yet to take her point of view. Nonetheless, through the eyes of Michal the brief scene cleverly fosters the reader's inchoate estrangement from David's point of view, that estrangement which has already been engendered by earlier being made privy to his secret thoughts (9-10, 12). The reader will later listen in on an exchange between the queen and king (20-22), where Michal's words serve to throw David's motives further into doubt. Those down below, however, are too far away and too caught up in the action to catch the steely glint of cold disdain in Michal's gaze. The ark is brought into the city (17acci), with nothing inauspicious evident to the celebrants, and duly installed by its bearers78 in the shrine prepared79 for it by David (ITac^Py): 1QPQ2, 'in its place'80 carries the 77. In modern pronunciation there is assonance between 1, 3 and T in Qm, and of the ^s and 2s in 113^3 V?. How differently this may have sounded in ancient pronunciation is impossible for us to say, though one assumes that there must still have been considerable assonance, given the repetition of the same consonants. 78. The referents of the plural verbs IND'I and l^'l are presumably the same as those for mrr ]T1N "WH in 13a, i.e. the ark-bearers who remain entirely anonymous in this second episode. 79. The reflective reader is tempted to ponder on when David made this preparation. Syntactically, it is possible to read HO] in 17ay as a preterite 'which David pitched for it (at that time)'. But the discourse logic implied by the placing of the preceding phrase 17a(3 'in its place in the midst of the tent' makes the pluperfect, 'which David had (already) pitched for it', the more natural way to construe 17ap\ In that case, the most easily made assumption is that David had got the tent and socle ready when he first planned to bring the ark to Jerusalem. But when was this? The narrative consecution of 6.Iff. to 5.25 strongly suggests that the events nar-


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suggestion that the ark finds its true home there. Its new home is inaugurated81 by David's82 offering sacrifice 'before Yahweh' (17b),83 thus effectively identifying Yahweh's presence in David's shrine with the rated in 6.1-10 were an immediate sequel to David's victory over the Philistines, even to the point of implying that David had not returned to Jerusalem in the meantime, but collected the ark on his return from the outskirts of Gezer. That being the case, David's preparations would have to have antedated the Philistine attacks narrated in 5.17-25. But since the story of David says nothing explicit about this issue, we are drawing out what is no more than a weak contextual implicature of 6.17a. In other words, our narrator is content to hint at David's longer-standing plans here, without insisting on the point. The question is resolved in the Chronicles account, where David's preparation (1 Chron. 15.1b) is placed after the victories over the Philistines, and before the removal of the ark from the house of Obed Edom. 80. As against, say, in "b ^Dri 1EN DlpQH, 'in the place which David had prepared for it', which the text might easily have read (cf. 1 Chron. IS.lba). DIpD, 'place', here probably refers to some kind of pedestal or socle on which the ark was installed. But this is a pragmatic reference for DlpQ defined by this particular context, and not an inherent semantic meaning of the term: cf. the points I make against claims that DlpQ in 2 Sam. 7.10 means 'shrine, temple' in Murray (1990, esp. 299-302). 81. The whole context here is directly focused on David's new tent-shrine for the ark and its inauguration, and only indirectly and by implication with the city of David. Note that in fact 6.17 does not mention the city of David, though it very easily could have read 'they brought the ark into the city of David and set it, etc.' ('131 ucn m TI> mrr ]1"i« n« IKm). Thus, although the bringing of the ark by our David into his city is undoubtedly implicated by our narrative as being highly significant for Jerusalem, in making his analogy with Mesopotamian texts concerning the inauguration of new royal cities, McCarter (1983: 274-77) is seduced into rather misrepresenting the focus of our text, in the interests of his alleged parallels. The questions of what a historical David may have done and why, should not be either confused or conflated with those of what the David of our text did and why. One cannot project directly from answers to the latter set of questions to answers to the former set. 82. This could be understood as 'David had sacrifices offered', with the text implicating that there were priests on hand to carry out the ritual slaughter of the large number of animals, especially for the D^Q1?^ offering evidently presupposed by 6.19. But as we have already seen above (6.14) and will see again in 6.18-19, David is in any case presented as a priestly celebrant presiding over the whole ritual. 83. mrr lysb, 'before Yahweh', with n^ll) rh>V is surprisingly rare: elsewhere I have noted only Judg. 20.26b; 2 Chron. 1.6; and probably Jer. 33.18b by implicature from "ysbto in 33.18a.

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ark installed there at David's behest. The inauguration rites include not only the '

14

5

15

initiation of action

cf. cf. cf.

If goal reached y complication _8_

9

10

TT

David'saporia ark deposited cultic inauguration dispersal

6a 6b-8 9-1 Oa Wb-lla

16a lacking lacking

lacking

17b-19a

lacking

19b.20a

17acf.

Figure 11: Parallel and Contrastive Elements in the 'Similar Motion' System in 2 Sam. 6.1-20a


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where no such complication arises. There, instead, narrative space is devoted to the cultic inauguration of the ark in its new home (element 10). But this latter plot element is given no place in the first episode, where the depositing of the ark in the house of Obed Edom is thus represented as a temporary expedient in inauspicious circumstances. The above tabulation has not included 6.lib, 12a. This is because, although 1 Ib and 12a clearly correspond to one another, they do not fit the parallel motion structure, since they occur at opposite ends of their respective episodes, lla at the end of the first, 12b at the beginning of the second. So placed, they forge a link between the two episodes. The resumption of the ark's journey is possible only if the divinely interposed obstacle to its continuation is perceived to be removed by Yahweh. lib narrates Yahweh's act of blessing on the house of Obed Edom, which 12a, in reporting the matter to David, attributes to the presence of the ark there. This is taken as the requisite divine initiative which removes the obstacle to the fulfilling of the initial task and thus allows the journey to resume, as it does in 12b. Thus, bringing this function of 1 Ib and 12a into the reckoning, the parallel plot progression in 6.1-20a may be represented diagrammatically as in Figure 12, p. 151. The two horizontal sets represent the two episodes, with linear plot progression moving left to right in each case. Parallel elements have been set opposite each other in the vertical plane, and the two sets have been joined by setting the contiguous link elements lib and 12a between the two sets.105 This yields a diagrammatic representation of the similar motion of the two episodes, showing the six elements which articulate this structure in each, as well as the five which fall outside it. It can thus be seen that the similar motion structure carries the basic story of the progress of the ark, from its cultic conveyance after removal from the shrine at Baal Judah until its diversion into the house of Obed Edom, and then its resumed cultic conveyance until its installation in the city of David: a two-stage journey in which the stages essentially run in parallel. But, as we have seen in our close reading, there is much more to this narrative than is articulated by this simple structure on its own. The complexity arises from another structural

105. Thus it is merely the exigency of a diagram setting parallel elements opposite one another in the vertical plane which causes the link-line to run right to left. To help counter any diagrammatic implication that this in any way reverses linear plot progression, the link-line is shown as broken.

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system, by means of which the two episodes run in a contrary motion to one another. 4.3.2. The 'Contrary Motion' System in 6.1-20a We noted in the preceding section that lib and 12a closely correspond with one another, both in content and expression. But we earlier observed that 6.1-2 and 6.18-20a also showed a set of marked correspondences. Thus we can now see that the beginning of each episode in 6.1-20a corresponds to the end of the other. This would suggest that the plot movement of the one episode moves in a contrary motion106 to the other, whereby the first episode starts with a state of initial rest and ends with a state of complication, whereas the second episode begins with the state of complication and concludes with a state of rest. Exploring 6.1-20a further in the light of this reveals another structure of correspondences between the two episodes, which articulates the stages of such a contrary motion system. And just as we did for the structures identified in 5.17-25 above, so here we may again most suitably represent this structure in 6.1-20a diagrammatically with a parabola whose vertex points downwards (Figure 13, p. 151). In this system the correspondences between elements in the two episodes are as a rule antithetic, for example, 1 assembling of participants versus 1' dispersing of participants, 2 initiatory action versus 2' concluding action etc. The corresponding elements are normally quite proportional to one another, with the notable exception of elements 7 to 7' and 8 to 8'. The observable disproportion in these instances is due to the fact that narration of an obstacle-beset complication (7, 8) requires more space than narration of obstacle-free progress (7', 8'). Furthermore, although the contrary motion system can clearly be seen to operate throughout the narrative, it is also evident that it is at times accommodated to other narrative demands. Thus 3', the invocation in blessing of Yahweh of Hosts, the god of the ark (18b), occurs, as in narrative logic it must, between 18a and 19a, the two parts which make up element 2', David's completion of the sacrifices and distribution to the people. Or again, the two central elements in the second episode, 5' cultic attendants on the ark's journey, and 6' ritual accompaniment to 106. Thus in the diagram below, to move in turn from one set of corresponding elements in the two episodes to the next produces such a contrary motion, either converging if one begins at the extremities of the parabola, or diverging if one begins at its vertex.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

participants assembled

action initiated

ark removed

cultic attendants

ritual progress

goal reached

complication

David's aporia

ark deposited

cultic inauguration

dispersal

Figure 12: 'Similar Motion' Progression Structure in 2 Sam. 6.1-20a

Key: 1 participants assembled 2 action begun 3 god of the ark named 4 ark removed from shrine 5 cultic attendants on journey

10 place of deposition blessed 9 journey aborted 8 David's aporia 7 obstacle to completion interposed 6 ritual accompaniment on journey

10' blessing reported 9' journey resumed 8' aporia dispelled 7' chance of fresh obstacle averted 6' ritual accompaniment on journey

Figure 13: 'Contrary Motion' Progression Structure in 2 Sam. 6.1-20a

1' participants dispersed 2' action concluded 3' god of ark invoked for blessing 4' ark installed in new shrine 5' cultic attendant on journey

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the ark's journey, occur in the same narrative order as 5 and 6 in the first episode, rather than in the reverse order, in accord with a strict working out of the 'contrary motion' system. Moreover, both the latter are instances of direct rather than antithetic correspondence,107 and a direct correspondence also characterizes 10 and 10', the two elements at the vertex of the parabola, the turning point of the whole narrative. Structures are employed flexibly to serve narrative exigencies. Examining the correspondences which articulate the contrary motion structure in 6.1-20a show that, while it also deals with the ritual journey of the ark, it does so with a very strong focus on the role of David. In this structure 15 out of the 20 items focus around David, and whereas there are 23 separate references to the ark in 6.1-20a, there are some 30 to David.108 But these figures are merely a superficial reflection of the fact that the whole story is told from the point of view of David's involvement in the matter. Nor is this merely that, because tradition recorded that it was David who brought the ark from Baal Judah to Jerusalem, he must needs play a role in the narrative. Chapter 6.1 coordinates the ensuing narrative, through the opening wayyiqtol verb, with the preceding narrative, albeit in a way not immediately clear, as another in a coherent set of David's actions. The focus on David continues by highlighting his initiative in the removal of the ark (mûn1?... "l^l Dp"H 6.2). The subsequent shift of focus away from David to the ark attendants in 3-4 and 6-7, necessitated by the plot, is itself broken into by a brief refocus on David in 6.5, before 6.8 once again restores him to the centre of attention, a position that David monopolizes for the rest of the narrative to 6.20a.109 107. Note that there is thus an 'intersection' of the parallel and contrary motion systems at these points in the narrative. 108. I have included pronominal anaphora in the above figures, but have counted the two instances of directly coordinated verbs (2aa, 12b) as one reference only: if these were counted separately the figure for David would increase by two. I have included 16a in the count, but not 16b (which I assign to episode 3): including the latter would add another two references to David. The figure of 30(32) references to David in episodes 1 and 2 includes the Lucianic plus in 6.12b, which contains three. 109. Only momentarily in 17a is there the slightest shift away from David. As I indicated in my close reading above, there is also a change of point of view in 6.16, but this verse belongs with the third episode, which we are not considering at this point, and in any case the verse serves in the end to strengthen the overall focus on David, as we shall see below.


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Furthermore, the climax of the second episode is not reached in David's depositing the ark in his tent-shrine in Jerusalem (17), but rather in his bestowal, actual and attempted, of the blessing of the god of the ark (18-20a). Just how central to this narrative of the ark is the theme of blessing by the god of the ark may now be observed. Thus how Yahweh is invoked through the ark-cult as the divine warrior-king YHWH Sebd'ot is pointedly noted when David removes it from Baal Judah (2bp). Yet this title for Yahweh reappears again in the text only when David, having installed the ark in his royally sponsored shrine, bestows blessing on the people in the name of YHWH Sebd'ot (18b-19). The theme continues right to the end of the second episode, where David seeks separately and particularly to bestow the blessing on his own royal household (20a). But this thematic emphasis has already been carefully built up earlier in the narrative, right at the narrative's turning point in 11-12, the juncture of the two episodes:110 (1) the sheer repetition between lib and 12a alone makes the issue of blessing salient at this point; (2) the crucial link between the blessing and the ark, implicit already in the cause-effect narrative logic operating in lla.b, is rhetorically stressed by the phrase explicitly acknowledging it (QTI^Kn "pIN "Tnin, 'on account of the ark' 12a) being kept back to the end of the report to David; (3) the climactic quest to bring the ark-blessing to his own household (20a) has been quite specifically foreshadowed in the Davidic interior monologue ensuing from the report (the Lucianic plus in 6.12). Thus the 'similar motion' system in episodes one and two carries the basic story of the vicissitudes in the ark's progress, whereas the 'contrary motion' system carries the thematic narrative of David's attempt to gain control of the god of the ark and of his blessing. 4.3.3. The Michal-David Episode 6.16, 20-23 We saw above that 6.16b, 20b-23 have no structural function within either of the two systems, the 'similar motion' or the 'contrary motion', which articulate the first two episodes in 6.1-20a. In fact, structurally this third episode has its own integrity, demarcated by the inclusio between the extremes of the episode, 16 and 23, represented by the 110. See above §4.2.1, §4.2.2, pp. 130-33.

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enclosing circle in the following diagrammatic tabulation (Figure 14, p. 155). Within this envelope the speeches of both Michal and David (20-22) are each dominated by the remaining two constituents of 16b. Michal, consumed with contempt for the way David has demeaned the royal status she cherishes, disdains to cloak her scorn under a conventional greeting (20). David, goaded by Michal's frustration of his plan as much as by her vituperation, disdains her contempt (21-22). What Michal saw David doing and how she responded to what she saw thus comes into fateful collision with David's account of his actions. Michal's withering look through the window in the upshot withers none but herself, in her cherished status as queen and presumed destiny as queen mother. But her proud refusal to yield to the momentum of David's project and dutifully play her expected part in proceedings provokes her husband into unintentional and oblique betrayal of his real motives. Thus, notwithstanding its own structure different from those that articulate the first two episodes, the third episode is seamlessly worked into the narrative of the ark's journey. Syntactically 16b is integral with 16a, and 20b contextually presupposes 20a: yet both 16a and 20a are integral in each of the systems which articulate the first two episodes.111 Then further, 16 is clearly integral to 20-23, since the character who briefly enters the scene in 16 does not come into her own until 20-23, and the terms of the altercation between Michal and David in 20-22 presuppose the earlier scene. Yet, as our close reading has shown, the brief stock scene (the woman waiting at the window for the hero's return) used to introduce Michal in 16, while it dovetails her into the narrative as a natural participant at that point,112 in fact, through its deformation, foreshadows further untoward development. That development then occurs within a complementary stock scene (the woman 111. In fact, while 16a fits into both the parallel motion and contrary motion systems, since it duplicates the function of 17a, it is not essential to either system. Thus its main purpose is to integrate 16b, as a further complication whose own denouement comes in 20b-23, into the denouement of the basic plot about the removal of the ark to Jerusalem. The function of 6.20a is different from that of 6.16a, in that, taken with 19b, it forms the conclusion to the narrative's second episode (12-20a), but at the same time, taken with 20ba, it initiates the action of the third episode (20-23). Thus it is appropriate to count 20a in both the second and third episodes. 112. On this see in detail above §4.2.2, pp. 134-35, with n. 71.

Figure 14: Structure in Episode 3, 2 Sam. 6.16b, 20-23

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coming out to welcome the returning hero), also tellingly deformed in order to dramatize the rift between wife and husband, and through this to throw into question David's professed devotion to Yahweh. In terms of plot development, then, this third episode in the narrative serves to disrupt David's plan once again, just as did the death of Uzza in episode one. This disruption, however, will not now prevent his bringing the ark to its physical goal, an aim virtually achieved at the time Michal appears on the scene as a passive if hostile witness to proceedings (16). Instead, it will obstruct David's consummating the politico-religious aim of his plan, by aborting David's attempt to channel the blessing of the ark on to his household (20).113 Thus the seamless weaving of this episode into the story of the ark's journey furthers the thematic development of the David story in the stretch of text with which we are concerned in this book. For, as we have seen, the issue of the ark-blessing emerged as central precisely at the turning-point (lib, 12a) in the narrative of the journey of the ark in episodes one and two. And we shall see that it is not resolved until the final section of our text in 2 Samuel 7, where David emphatically cedes all possibility of its control to Yahweh. The Michal-David episode in 6.16, 20-23 is then, in basic plot, a sequence about Michal and her fateful estrangement from David, an estrangement which symbolizes the divine rejection of the house of Saul. Thematically, however, it focuses on a David whose scheming to secure monarchic status and blessing betrays a growing estrangement from Yahweh. 4.4. Summary: Theme, Rhetoric and Ideology in 6.1-23 It is now time to bring together the individually articulated frames of our detailed discussion to form an overall picture of the ideological rhetoric in this section of our text. The narrative sequence in 2 Samuel 6 begins at a high point for David, victorious over his major enemy, and able to celebrate the victory for himself and for Yahweh, with the triumphal procession of the ark. In the face of such public acknowledgment of Yahweh's role in the victory, that David did not consult 113. It is probably no mere accident that this further complication is foreshadowed in the second episode at precisely that point in the 'parallel motion' system which corresponds to the introduction of the complication in the first episode. I do not maintain that this was necessarily a conscious authorial decision, since, according to modern psychology, subliminal decisions reflect subconscious intentions.


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Yahweh over the removal of the ark does not immediately obtrude itself on the reader. How could Yahweh fail to be favourable to the ark's rescue from obscurity, to become the centre piece of the new Israel he was creating through David? Was the ceremony not being carried out in due form by all Israel before the approving presence of Yahweh himself (miT ^^sb 5)? Such readerly assumptions and/or reflections about David's project are encouraged by the orderly progress of the narrative down to 6.5. However, just when it is on the point of culmination, David's plan is frighteningly undercut by Yahweh's unexpected and inexplicable onslaught against Uzza. David's oblique likening of Yahweh's intervention to his overpowering surge against the Philistines (5.20) is very revealing, for it suggests that behind his angry perplexity is a barely articulated sense of cohesion in both divine acts. Yet, unlike the first, the second clearly did not serve David's interests as he perceived them. Hence David's fear of Yahweh is seen to stem from an inchoate realization that Yahweh's will and power, far from being at his disposal, may even be set against him. But this is a momentary insight, and once the shock of Yahweh's outburst had abated, David only too easily falls to calculating within himself what is in his own interest. This part of the narrative (6.9-12) derives much of its rhetorical force from its betraying David's interior monologue, exposing to the implied reader thoughts David dare not articulate. In this way his bringing of the ark to the city of David is repeatedly shown to have been selfishly motivated C'PK 9a, V^K lOa), supremely so in his resolve, as melek (12aa), to commandeer from Obed Edom the ark-blessing vouchsafed by Yahweh (12ay). Nowhere in this internal reflection is there manifested the slightest concern for the interests of Yahweh and his people. Not surprising, then, that at this juncture also David fails to consult Yahweh. On the contrary, David presumptuously exercises to the full his monarchical prerogative of priesthood 'before Yahweh', leading the arkprocession (14a), celebrating the installation rites (17b), and bestowing the blessing upon the people in the name of Yahweh of Hosts (18b). Moreover, the presumption is apparently vindicated by the successful conclusion of the procession. But above and beyond this smoothly proceeding exercise of melek-ship over cult and people, a regal onlooker disdains the melek's behaviour (16). This imports into the very midst of the otherwise cosy scene an alien and hostile view of

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David's actions. Thus, even as the implied narrator is disposing the implied reader not to side directly with Michal, these actions are revivifying the reader's barely allayed doubts about what David is up to. Then, on the threshold of its consummation, the blessing of his own household, David's covert intention in the triumphal relocation of the ark is thwarted by Michal's scathing victor's welcome. Her sardonic ascription of honour to David as melek over Israel once again puts that role into question for the reader in a deeply disturbing way. In our text David is cast in this role only at times when his behaviour is most in doubt for the reader. His explosive reply to Michal's 'greeting', in demolishing the lofty regal status from which she taunts him, betrays the deep contradiciton between his public behaviour and his private inclinations. Is he after being the ndgid over Yahweh's people he professes, or the melek over his subjects Michal presumes? Are his actions so emphatically 'before Yahweh' as he affirms (21), or is he actually more concerned with how he stands in his own eyes and those of his subjects (22)? His final disdainful riposte to Michal, a thrust of deadly sharpness double-edged in the verbs 'be low' (^p) and 'be honoured' (~QD), is ominously reminiscent of another similarly pointed response elsewhere in Samuel: 'those who honour me I will honour, but those who despise me will be laid low' (ftp1' 'm "nDK H3DD O 1 Sam. 2.30bp). So Yahweh informed the house of Eli, indicted for setting self-interest above their service to Yahweh, that the blessing of an unconditioned divine commission in perpetuity (1 Sam. 2.28, 30a) is not an unconditiona/ blessing. Similarly, in grasping now after the regal honour he covets, David is running a grave risk of treating Yahweh with contempt, and thus losing the blessing of a royal house in perpetuity Yahweh is preparing to bestow. Thus the alienated Michal's sardonic detachment is used to force the scheming David now to betray himself by impetuous speech. In 2 Samuel 6 the absence of the consultation of Yahweh, the lack of the hearing and responding to the divine word, features which so characterized 2 Sam. 5.17-25, becomes potently thematic. For in dramatizing the estrangement between Michal and David, these virulent exchanges in fact expose the extent of the estrangement between David and Yahweh. Yes, David can stiffly enunciate, in the theologically correct terms, the role for which Yahweh has chosen him (21), but even then only to make of it an unanswerable taunt against the Saulide Michal. But there


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is far more passion evident in his riposte (22) to Michal's jibe against his royal honour. This covert pretension to the status of melek over against the role of nagid marked out for him by Yahweh, unintentionally betrayed by him in this scene, David pursues into the last section (2 Sam. 7) of our stretch of text.

Chapter 5

DAVID AND YAHWEH—FROM DIFFERENCE TO DEFERENCE: 2 SAMUEL 7 5.1. Contextualization 5.1.1. Title and Theme The theme of David's difference with Yahweh, which we found to emerge more and more insistently in 2 Samuel 6, comes dramatically to a head in 2 Samuel 7. The king's attempt to finesse Yahweh with his oblique proposal to build a splendid house for Yahweh, looks to have succeeded when a deferential Nathan replies with unconditional divine approval (7.1-3). But Yahweh himself now enters the game, and insists on playing it out with all cards face up. First he trumps David by roundly rejecting David's proposal (7.4-7). Then, switching to his strong suit, his prior initiative in all that concerns David and Israel (7.81 la), Yahweh plays his ace, the house he will make for David in perpetuity (7.11b-17). David, who has no strength left in his hand, concedes the game to Yahweh, acknowledging the supremacy of the divine power and will (7.18-29). This final section of our text, then, exposes David's difference with Yahweh, showing it as rooted in his royal pretension, and resolves it by a robust assertion of the divine prerogative, to which David totally defers. 5.1.2. Narrative Connections: Scene, Time, Plot Chapter 7 opens with a scene having a different, but not discontinuous, locale from the close of 2 Samuel 6. In 7.la we are told that David is at home in his house. Now it was on the very threshold of his house that Michal aborted David's intention to bestow the blessing of the ark on his household in the final scene of 2 Samuel 6. Thus scenically 7.la could be read—tacitly assuming temporal continuity with the last scene of ch. 6—as David now having as it were pushed past Michal and ensconced himself within his house. However, already somewhat

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against such a reading is that the preceding episode actually concluded with a supra scenam and extra temporem narratorial statement about Michal's lifelong barrenness (6.23). Such an episode close-out tends to dampen readerly expectation of immediate scenic and temporal continuity in what follows. But in fact the temporal relation between the close of 2 Samuel 6 and the opening of 2 Samuel 7 is not immediately apparent. The explanatory parenthesis, 7.1b, inserted between la and its syntactical continuation in 2, is susceptible of different readings. It could be just reminding the reader of the situation already established by 5.25, that is, the one which has obtained throughout the events of 2 Samuel 6, and thus not necessarily implicate any temporal discontinuity. On the other hand, the comprehensive terms of la ('from all his enemies round about', ITHOQ V^N 'PDQ) rather suggest a more developed situation than 5.25, requiring time and effort to effect, not here reported on. This impression of an implicated lapse of time is reinforced in 7.2. For David's realization of the incongruity between the ark's simple tent and his elaborate cedar palace to be convincing,1 a greater lapse of time must be involved than would have been possible between his installing the ark in the tent prepared for it and entering his house later on the same day. Thus a timelapse between the events of 2 Samuel 6 and 2 Samuel 7 is evidently, if rather obliquely, implied in 7.1-2. No attempt to make it explicit is made, not even by the use of a relatively vague indicator like 'some time later' (p """TIN: contrast 8.1). The immediacy of the operative plotcum-thematic continuity with the preceding is not to be sacrificed to the distancing involved in too definite a temporal linking. In terms of plot, by reopening the question of the housing of the ark, 7.2 establishes significant continuity with 2 Samuel 6. As we saw in our previous chapter, the plot sequence in 6.2-20 revolved around the removal and rehousing of the ark. In the context of 2 Samuel 6 that issue was apparently definitively resolved by David's ceremonial installation of the ark in the city of David 'in its (proper) place' (IQlpQ^ 6.17). But here in 2 Samuel 7, ostensibly in the light of further reflection, yesterday's proper cultic setting is now thought so unfitting, that David plans to rehouse the ark yet again.

1. Here simply reading the text at face value: on further implicatures in David's statement-question, see the close reading, §5.2.1.1 below.

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5.2. A Close Reading of 2 Samuel 7.1-29 A cursory reading is sufficient to show that the text of 2 Samuel 7 falls naturally into two nearly equal parts: vv. 1-17, David's intention to build a temple for the ark, and the oracle from Yahweh provoked thereby; vv. 18-29, David's prayer in response to Yahweh's oracle. It is appropriate, therefore, to divide our reading into two major sections, corresponding to these two units.2 Further inspection of the text indicates that these major parts readily divide into subunits. Thus within 7.1-17 we have in 1-3 the exchange between David and Nathan on the rehousing of the ark, and in 4-17 Yahweh's oracular response to this, which further resolves itself into three well-defined speech segments, 47, 8-1 la, llb-16, rounded off by the concluding narrative statement 17. David's prayer is not so definitely articulated into sub-units, but we may justifiably see 'accordingly' (p ^) in 22 as introducing an intermezzo in praise of Yahweh's incomparability, and 'so now' (nnui) in 25 as resuming from 18-21 the main theme of the prayer, Yahweh's promise to David. Accordingly, this points to three subunits in the prayer: 18-21, 22-24, and 25-29. 5.2.1. Verses 1-17 Viewed scenically, this first part of the final section of our stretch of text divides into three: the opening scene between the king and Nathan (1-3); the second, the oracle communicated the same night by Yahweh to Nathan (4-16); and the third, Nathan's conveyance of the oracle to David (17). However, this third is not a scene in any dramatic sense, since all we are given is the briefest narratorial summary of the action. Nor is there any more dramatic action proper to the long second scene. Such action as there is is purely skeletal to the speech, and is again conveyed by a quite summary and conventional narratorial statement (4). Only the first scene has any action worthy of the name, and that only just: the king engages in a short verbal exchange with the prophet Nathan. 2. Most discussion of 2 Sam. 7—the bibliography of which is almost endless—has been focused on identifying a historical or theological kernel, which is then discussed within a putative religio-historical context, in isolation from the rest of its given textual context. My reading will demonstrate just how cohesive and integrated a text 7.1-29 is, apart from 13a(b), on which see the detailed discussion in §5.2.1.4, especially pp. 194-99.

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From this brief summary it is evident that 2 Samuel 7 effects a rapid and marked shift away from plot action towards verbal exposition. In the first scene (1-3) David's bare dozen words convey the feeling of an argument already in progress. His manipulative question and Nathan's toadying reply are then engulfed in the flood tide of Yahweh's rejoinder. The reader is swept along by its robust rhetoric to its climax in the dynastic promise. Hence what structures the reader's experience of this text is the segments into which this magisterial argument divides, rather than its ancillary scenic divisions. These segments in Yahweh's speech are formally marked off by the oracle formulae in 4-5a and 8aa, and, in 1 Iba, by the performative introduction to a solemn pronouncement in third person form. 5.2.1.1. Verses 1-3 The episode begins with a somewhat complex construction: a protasis consisting of TP1 plus a temporal "O clause 'and thus it was when...' (la), answered by a wayyiqtol apodosis 'that the king said...' ("IQNVI "j^QH 2aa). But the two parts of this construction are separated by a parenthetic x-qatal clause '—at the time Yahweh had given David rest...—' (Ib). We will look at these two syntactical constituents in turn. First, the protasis-apodosis. It is the function of the protasis 'when the king was settled (HK1T) in his own house (rvn)' (Ib) to give relevant context for the apodosis, 'the king said to Nathan the prophet...' (2aa). Yet this information is almost immediately duplicated in David's opening words to Nathan 'I am settled (ntfr) in a cedar house (DT"IN rYQ)' (2ay). Now in fact, as we shall see, David's ensconcement in his splendid palace is quite material to the conclusion to which he wants to lead Nathan, and thus these latter words are an ineluctable part of his utterance. But in that case why did the text not dispense with this redundant la, and make Ib the protasis to v. 2, thus: 'when Yahweh had given the king rest.. .the king said...' ('131 -pl±> mrr rnn O sm)? The rhetorical reason for the anticipation of 2ay by la is to give particular salience to the repeated terms, 'be installed, dwell' (HEP), and '(fixed permanent) dwelling, house' (fPH). For the related notions of permanent residence (H2T) and a fixed abode (m) are of central thematic importance in this final section of our text. Now for the parenthesis '—Yahweh had given him rest roundabout from all his enemies—' (Ib). As noted above, this assertion would appear, without any additional narrative support, to widen the scope of

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David's security beyond what was established in 5.17^25. In the given context, therefore, the reader must assume that the crushing of Philistine aggression spelt the end of all hostile activity against David, at least for the time being. Thus the function of the parenthesis in its context is to provide information relevant to the state of affairs being set out in the protasis-apodosis. David, it explains, can be installed in his own house in this way, and can properly exercise his mind on rehousing the ark, because he is not engaged with the paramount kingly activity of fighting wars. He may thus turn his attention to another fitting preoccupation for a melek, the appropriate housing of the tutelary deity.3 That this is indeed the intended ideological context for what is being narrated here is made further evident by the singular and insistent way in 1-3 David is referred to solely by the CN 'the king': three times in short order, once in each verse, David is thus denominated (f^Dn la, 2acc, 3aa). The one who but a moment before, in textual terms, proclaimed his God-given role as nagid over against Michal's defence of melek-ship (6.20-21), is now paraded before the reader as through and through acting the melek. The point is further subtly made by the contrast in the introduction of Nathan, who is given his PN in addition to the CN 'the prophet' designating his function. A royal palace may house more than one prophet, but only one king. The king's address to Nathan opens with an imperative 'look here' (nisn 2ap),4 which connotes a degree of argumentative impatience.5 But

3. On the wider ideological background to this line of thought see Ch. 7 below, and for the role of Ib in a Deuteronomistic reading of 2 Sam. 7 see my Claim for Power (forthcoming). 1 Chron. 17.1 omits this parenthesis, evidently because in the ideology of Chronicles the assertion it makes is appropriate only to Solomon; cf. 1 Chron. 22.9, and note how 1 Chron. 17.10a|3 = 2 Sam. 7.1 lap has been reformulated. 4. nisn here is altogether more robust than the H]n of 1 Chron. 17.1ba: the Chronicler avoids imputing to David any suggestion of truculence, as being out of keeping with the presentation of David in Chronicles. 5. As is well illustrated by Moses' use of it twice in remonstrance with Yahweh in Exod. 33.12-13 thus: 12 ... 'Look here (ntt~l), you keep saying to me, "Bring up this people", but you haven't made known to me who is to go with me, despite your having said, "I know you by name, and you have also found favour in my sight". 13Well then, if I really have found favour in your sight, reveal your way to me so that I may know you, and continue to find favour in your sight. After all

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here its normal aggressiveness is somewhat softened by the particle W, in this context perhaps best represented by 'I say' or 'now', as in 'I say, look here...' or 'Look here now...' There is thus an intriguing combination of truculence and ingratiation in this address to Nathan, suggestive of a subtext behind the surface discourse. Furthermore, David's utterance is oblique, since he presents Nathan with no more than the bare premises of an a fortiori-type argument (2apyb). Logically, this obliquity makes the argument's conclusion ambiguous,6 but pragmatically it is clear enough what David intends: namely, that he should build a housing for the ark at least equal in splendour to his own cedar palace.7 Yet David's argumentative opening 'look here now' (N] rwi), combined with the obliqueness of his words, belie something deeper, less straightforward. Why need the king argue with Nathan? Why does David not say in so many words what he has in mind? So far in our text Nathan has said not a word. Nor does anything in the text subsequently suggest that Nathan had any knowledge of the king's plan prior to David's broaching it here. In other words, there is nothing to support an implicature that it is Nathan who needs to be persuaded by the king. Who, then, is it who needs persuading? Since 'the king' initiates the discourse, and in the absence of any other possible addressee in the context, it can only be with his own reflections and anticipations that David is arguing so truculently. In his combative approach to Nathan David in fact reflects his own unease, either about the action he plans to take, or its motives, or both. Accordingly, his strategy in initiating the exchange with Nathan is to use the monarch-menial relationship to extract from the court prophet overt divine approval for his plan, in

(HK1), this nation is your people.' Compare also 2 Sam. 15.27-28: The king said to Zadok the priest, 'Don't you see (reading nntf nt*i"in with MT; alternatively, with LXXB Wl, or with LXXL iron, 'look here, you'), return to the city... Look (rran), / will wait...' 6. Logically, the argument could as cogently lead to the conclusion that David ought to abandon his splendid palace for something more in keeping with the ark's humble surroundings! But the contextual pragmatics effectively suppress this as a possible implicature. 7. Klostermann (1887: 156 note on v. 3) therefore supposes that our text has been shortened, to omit the details of David's plan which David must have told to Nathan. But this supposition reads the text too matter-of-factly, failing to recognize the rhetoric behind the ellipsis of our text.

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order to override his own unspoken and perhaps barely acknowledged misgivings.8 In whose interests is the plan? David intends Nathan to see it as being in the interests of Yahweh, and to respond accordingly. But the reader who has just read 2 Samuel 6 is likely to suspect David of at least as strong an interest in promoting his own royal estate. In other words, the real, unstated, argument is 'whereas 7 "the king" dwell in an appropriately splendid house, the shabby tent-skins that shelter the ark, symbol of the royally sponsored god Yahweh, demean that status'. David's use of the term 'tent-skins' (i"UTT 2b(3) is polemically coloured, to suggest both meagreness and impermanency.9 When he comes to refer to this below, Yahweh will substitute the quite differently coloured 'tent-dwelling' (pta ^K 6bp). Nathan responds with courtly alacrity to the king's implicit verbal signals. The latter has barely time to catch his breath before the prophet in three staccato phrases (3a0b) has eagerly given the divine imprimatur to what David proposes.10 Nathan too remains coyly allusive, unconditionally committing Yahweh to underwrite a plan explicit only in the mind of the king: 'everything you have in mind' ("]33^3 "ICON *?D 3a(3)! Yet this continued eschewing of open statement between king and prophet, prophet and king nags at the back of the reader's mind. Moreover, this particular readerly anxiety is reinforced by another, also only 8. This reading, and similar subsequent readings in this and the following chapter, is of the actions and motivations of the characters called David and Nathan in this text, and is not to be read as asserting anything about a historical David or a historical Nathan. 9. The term is metonymic in a way similar to our 'canvas' or 'tarpaulin', terms in English which, in comparison to 'tent' or 'marquee', similarly nuance ideas of meagreness and impermanency. 10. Herrmann (1953-54: 58 = 1986: 137) sees this as analogous to 'der Hymnus der Beamten' in the Egyptian 'royal novel': but more significant than the mere discrepancy in numbers about which Herrmann is so exercised, between just one official here and the many there (1953-54: 58 = 1986: 136), is that, unlike the Egyptian officials, Nathan is here identified as a prophet (7.2), and thus his response to David is given an altogether different significance from theirs to the Pharaoh. Herrmann's later reconsideration of this text actually flattens out the role of Nathan in 2 Sam. 7 to one fully comparable to the Egyptian officials: 'We find also in this frame the fundamental principles of the Jerusalem kingship like "I will be his father and he shall be my son"—and this is announced by a prophet and ministry in the king's house comparable to the Egyptian officials standing around the king in his palace' (1985: 125).

5. David and Yahweh

167

subliminally perceived at this point. There is no tangible evidence that Nathan consulted Yahweh before giving the king this complaisant reply.11 Rather, a royal functionary has here responded with obligatory total deference to the unstated intentions of the melek. In this brief opening scene, then, 'the king' appears fully in control of his royal destiny. Under no threat from external enemies, he is firmly ensconced in his house of houses, and able, through his court prophet, to command the instant support of his tutelary deity, whom indeed the king now expects to accept without demur the luxury the royal hand can provide. In the light of Nathan's perfunctory acquiescence, the argumentativeness of David's approach to the prophet looks grotesquely inappropriate. Revealingly, the king had expected from Yahweh's ostensible spokesman a resistance to his plan that, at first, failed to eventuate. The anticipated resistance, however, does soon materialize, though not in the way expected. 5.2.1.2. Verses 4-7 Yahweh himself, all the time pursuing his own agenda as it turns out, rapidly manifests how little complaisant he is towards the king's plans, how little acquiescent he is in the role David has for him in his kingdom. 'That (very) night' Nathan receives, all unsolicited, a hard-hitting oracle from Yahweh. Spare as the narrative framework is, it must needs make the point that Yahweh holds his hand no longer. The piling up here of three utterances (4b, 5aa, 5a(5) enunciating the reception and mediating of a divine oracle highlights their complete absence in v. 3, retrospectively calling into complete question the authority of Nathan's earlier response. Thus, in contrast to Nathan's servile reply in v. 3, where his glib assurance to David is underwritten by nothing other than his royal office, 4b-5a make elaborately and formally clear to the reader that it is only what now follows that is invested with the divine authority. They only are spokespersons for Yahweh who have received, directly from Yahweh, a message totally independent of the human pressures bearing upon its deferent! Moreover, Yahweh's identification of the addressee of his oracle as

11. Nathan's concluding "[QJ> mrP "D offers a glibly conventional assurance of divine approval and help, such as does not even require the lips of a prophet to utter: cf. Saul in 1 Sam. 17.37, the woman of Tekoa in 2 Sam. 14.17, etc. The contrast to the formally prophetic style of Nathan's subsequent discourse is marked.

168


'my subject,12 David' dramatically changes the relationships depicted hitherto between David and Nathan, and between David and Yahweh. No longer is David 'the king' tout court to Nathan as court functionary, able to demand divine imprimatur from the latter as of royal right. Now David is put in his place as a menial in Yahweh's court, David by name, who must listen submissively and respectfully to Nathan as Yahweh's spokesman delivering Yahweh's message. Rhetorically, Yahweh conveys this subtly but clearly, by using the x-CN x-PN string 'to my subject, to David' (5aa), which separates out, and thus makes more pointed, the relational term.13 Moreover, Yahweh stresses the point by reiterating the same string in 8aa below. What is the message that has been so portentously prefaced? In full, the message occupies the next eleven and a half verses, and falls into three clear segments. But these segments are stages in the development of one cohesive argument, whose unity and direction are foreshadowed in its five opening words: 'is it that you will build me a settled houseT (TDCft m '*? HiDD nn«n 5b). There are three features of this brief initial utterance important to note. First, its lively question-form14 gives the utterance concentrated rhetorical force.15 The speaker's clear rejection of its implied proposition 12. The Hebrew term ~QI? (and its female equivalents nnDEJ/TIOK) broadly represents the designee as subject to the will of another, whether enforced (1) legally, i.e. the designee is a slave, or indentured or hired servant; or (2) politically, i.e. he or she is a subject of a sovereign power; or (3) by conventional social code, i.e. she or he is assigned/takes the role of a submissive inferior. I take the political-cumsocial senses to be operative in our text. For detailed treatments of the term see Riesener (1979), Ringgren (1984-86), and the bibliographies cited there. 13. The string, in giving the CN first place, and in repeating the grammatical operator x with the following PN, gives stronger emphasis to the CN than does the reverse order, and also accentuates the PN's being a member of the specified class. For a detailed discussion see Murray, 'An Unremarked Rhetorical Marker in Biblical Hebrew Prose' (forthcoming). 14. The Chronicler's transformation of 7.5b into a negative statement (1 Chron. 17.4b) changes the underlying rhetoric quite profoundly, as part of an overall change to the thrust of this text. See my discussion in Claim for Power (forthcoming). 15. In English we term 'rhetorical' questions such as this, where speakers are not making an ordinary inquiry for information, where in fact they assume that they already know the answer, that the answer is self-evident, and therefore they do not expect the addressee actually to answer. The sheer conventionality of this designation, however, tends now to obscure for us the fact that this type of question is

5. David and Yahweh

169

is formulated as a question precisely in order to involve the addressee, to exert immediate psychological pressure on him to reject the proposition along with the speaker. It further vividly expresses the speaker's surprise that the proposition implied in the question could ever have been entertained in the first place. Moreover, it serves as a strong combative statement of topic for a more extended dispute. David is left in no doubt as to Yahweh's attitude to the proposition implied in the question, and is clearly under rhetorical pressure to see the matter the same way. This pressure is increased by the disputatory argumentation in vv. 6-7, to which the rhetorical question in 5b acts as introduction. A telling compactness of utterance is its second feature. The proposition implied in the question is quite obviously the proposition which has been obliquely hinted at in vv. 2-3, first by David, and then by Nathan. Yahweh abruptly brings an end to this conspiracy of indirection between king and prophet. His curt opening question, in articulating for the first time in the text the nub of David's project, uncompromisingly disparages it. This lapidary utterance derives much of its impact from its terse dismissal of the preceding indirection, and from its brutal contradiction of the perfunctory divine approval accorded an unstated royal initiative. That the very first words uttered by Nathan as Yahweh's messenger to 'my servant, David' should so comprehensively confound the last (and only) words uttered by 'Nathan the prophet' to 'the king' is irony indeed. Then thirdly, the particular rhetorical shaping of 5b ('is it that you will build me a settled houseT; TQefr rra ^ ran HH^H) is well adapted to its role as a topic sentence to the whole of Yahweh's discourse. For in biblical Hebrew prose most positional stress falls on the the first and the last units in any utterance, ranked one and two in that order. Thus in 5b 'is it that you' (nnîl) is positionally the most stressed unit, a rhetorical emphasis magnified here by the use of the syntactically otiose pronoun. Then 'settled house' (TU^Sh n^D) at the end of the utterance is the next most stressed speech unit.16 By comparison 'will employed precisely because it is rhetorically forceful. I have attempted to convey the degrees of emphasis in the English translation by the use of bold italics for the primary stress on 'you', and ordinary italics for the secondary stress on 'settled house'. See the ensuing discussion. 16. Within the utterance 5b, I consider nnKH one speech unit, since (a) the interrogative i"l as proclitic goes closely with the word to which it is joined; (b) the ilHK

170


build me' (^ noi) is quite unstressed, with 'me' (enclitic 'abad', ThWAT, V: 982-1012. Rost, Leonhard 1926 Die Oberlieferung von der Thronnachfolge Davids (BWANT, 3.6; Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer). 1965 Das kleine Credo und andere Studien zum Alien Testament (Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer). 1982 The Succession to the Throne of David (trans. Michael D. Rutter and David M. Gunn; Sheffield: Almond Press).

Bibliography

329

Schmidt, Ludwig 1970 Menschliche Erfolg und Jahwes Initiative: Studien zu Tradition, Interpretation und Historic in Oberlieferungen von Gideon, Saul und David (WMANT, 38; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag). Schroder, Otto 1921 Keilschrifttexte aus Assur—historischen Inhalts (Wissentschaftliche Veroffentlichung der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft, 37; Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs). Schulz, Alfons 1920 Die Biicher Samuel II (EHAT, 8.2; Miinster: Aschendorff Verlagsbuchhandlung). Scriba, Albrecht 1995 Die Geschichte des Motivkomplexes Theophanie (FRLANT, 167; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht). Seow, C.L. 1989 Myth, Drama, and the Politics of David's Dance (HSM, 46; Atlanta, Scholars Press). Seux, Marie-Joseph 1976 Hymnes et prieres aux dieux de Babylonie et d'Assyrie (Paris: Les Editions du Cerf). Smith, H.P. 1899 A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Books of Samuel (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark). Soden, Wolfram von 1965-81 Akkadisches Handworterbuch (3 vols.; Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz). 1974-77 'Zwei Konigsgebete an IStar aus Assyrien', AfO 25: 37-49. Sollberger, Edmond 1956 Corpus des inscriptions royales presargoniques de LagaS (Geneva: Librairie E. Droz). Sollberger, E., and Jean-Robert Kupper 1971 Inscriptions royales sumeriennes et akkadiennes (Texts in translation; Litte'ratures anciennes du Proche-Orient; Paris: Les Editions du Cerf). Spinoza, Baruch de 1670 Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (Hamburg: H. Kunrath). n.d. Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (trans. R.H.M. Elwes; London: George Routledge & Sons). Staunford, Sir William 1567 An Exposicion of the Kinges Prerogative (repr.; New York: Garland Publishing, 1979). Streck, M. 1916 Assurbanipal und die letzten assyrischen Konige bis zum Untergange Niniveh's (Vorderasiatische Bibliothek, 7.2; Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs). Tadmor, Hayim 1981 'History and Ideology in the Assyrian Royal Inscriptions', in J.M. Fales (ed.), Assyrian Royal Inscriptions: New Horizons (Orientis Antiqui Collectio, XVII, Rome: Istituto per 1'oriente, centro per le antichita e la storia deU'arte del vicino oriente): 13-33.

330 Thenius, Otto 1842 Ulshofer, H.K. 1977


Die Bucher Samuels (Kurzgefasstes Exegetisches Handbuch zum Alten Testament; Leipzig: Weidmann, 2nd edn, 1864). 'Nathan's Opposition to David's Intention to Build a Temple in the Light of Selected Ancient Near Eastern Texts' (Unpublished PhD dissertation accepted by Boston University Graduate School).

Vaux, Roland de 1967 'Le roi d'Israel, vassal de Yahve', in idem, Bible et Orient (Paris: Les Editions du Cerf): 287-301. 1972 'The King of Israel, Vassal of Yahweh', in Damian McHugh (trans.), The Bible and the Ancient Near East (London: Darton, Longman & Todd): 152-66. Waltke, Bruce K., and M. O'Connor 1990 An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns). Weber, Max 1947 Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, I (Grundriss der Sozialokonomik, 3; Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 3rd edn). 1968 Economy and Society (ed. Giinther Roth and Claus Wittich; Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, repr. 1978). Weippert, Manfred 1981 'Assyrische Prophetien der Zeit Asarhaddons und Assurbanipals', in J.M. Fales (ed.), Assyrian Royal Inscriptions: New Horizons (Orientis Antiqui Collectio, 17; Rome: Istituto per 1'oriente, centro per le antichita e la storia deH'arte del vicino oriente): 71-115. Wellhausen, Julius 1871 Der Text der Bucher Samuelis (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht). Whitelam, Keith W. 1979 The Just King (JSOTSup, 12; Sheffield: JSOT Press). Whiting, R.M., Jr 1987 Old Babylonian Letters from Tell Asmar (Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago Assyrian Publications, 22; Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press). Willi, Thomas 1972 Die Chronik als Auslegung: Untersuchungen zur literarischen Gestaltung der historischen Uberlieferung Israels (FRLANT, 106; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht). Winckler, Hugo 1889 Die Keilschrifttexte Sargons nach den Papierabklatschen und Originalen (2 vols.; Leipzig: Eduard Pfeiffer). Zobel, H.-J. 1987-89 Titans sebd'ot', ThWAT, VI: 876-92.

INDEXES INDEX OF REFERENCES OLD TESTAMENT

Genesis 4.5 4.25 6.22 9.9 11.4 12.20 14.24 15.4-5 15.4 15.5 15.13 17.6 17.7 17.8 17.9 17.10 17.19 22.17 24.27 26.4 29.14 30.16 31.36 34.5 35.11 35.12 39.19 44.18 46.26 48.4

126 188 103 190 206 131 138 189 189 188, 189 69 189 189, 190 189, 190 190 190 190 188 141 188 295 141 126 89 189 190 126 126 190 190

Exodus 1.5 1.11-12

190 69

1.21 3-4 3 3.7 3.9 3.11 4.1 4.12 4.15 4.22 5.1 5.2 5.23 6.11 7.6 7.20 12.28 15.1-18 15.8 15.9 15.10 15.11-18 15.11 15.13 15.17 15.20-21 18 18.10 18.21-22 18.25-26 19.11 19.12-13 20.15 20.18-19

71, 188 286 286 286 286 202, 286 286 286 286 286 286 202 286 286 103 103 103 269, 297, 313 52 138 52 120 205 269 269 140 174 141 184 184 70 124 313 313

20.22 23.28-30 25.10-13 28.43 32.6 33.12-13 33.12

313 82 123 190 123 164 68

Leviticus 5.2-3 6.10

124 138

Numbers 3.25 4.5-6 4.15 11.10-25 14.17 16.15 16.30-33 21.2 25.13 31.36

68 234 234 174 207, 208 126 131 94 190 138

Deuteronomy 1.8 1.16 3.24 4.7-8 4.7 4.20 4.32 4.37 5.26 5.28-33

190 184 77, 205 205 69 287 69 190 205 313

332


7.5 7.6-7 7.21 8.2 8.15 9.5 9.26 9.29 10.1-3 10.8 10.14-15 10.15 10.21 12.3 16.18-18.22 16.18-20 17.8-13 17.14-20 17.18 18.1-8 18.8 18.15-22 18.20-22 18.22 21.8 26.3 27.26 30.18 31.25 32.9 33.29

97 205 205 80 80 83 77, 205, 287 287 123 234 205 190 80, 205 97 313 313 313 313 72 313 138 313 315 316 205 70 83 70 234 287 205

Joshua 3.3 7.7 7.8 9.17 15.9 15.10 15.11 15.29 15.60 18.14 22.8 23.9 24.12 24.18

234 77 203, 204 54 54 54 54 54 54 54 138 170 82 82

Judges 2.3 2.16-19 3.10 4.7 4.9 4.14 4.17 4.18 4.22 5.4-5 5.4 5.12 5.16 5.28-30 5.30 6.9 6.14 6.22 6.27 6.34 8.30 8.31 9.2 9.37 9.38 11.29 11.30 11.34 14.6 14.19 15 15.9 15.14 16.4 16.22 19.13-16 20 20.18 20.23 20.26 20.27 20.28

82 184 288 94 94 94 140 140 140 120 52, 101 140 134 134 138 82 288 77 103 288 190 205 295 78 202 288 94 140 288 288 50 50 288 28 77 56 56,93 92,93 92,93 92, 137, 201 92, 201 93,94

Ruth 1.1 4.4 4.9

184 84, 209 131

4.12 4.14 1 Samuel 1-6 1.3 1.9-13 1.9 1.11

1.12 1.22 1.24-28 2.11 2.18-20 2.18 2.28 2.30 2.35 3-4 3 3.1-21 3.1-2 3.3 3.13 4-6 4 4.1-7.2 4.3-4 4.4

4.10-11 4.10 4.12-19 4.12 5-£

5 5.2 5.3 5.6 5.7 5.9 5.11 5.23 LXX 6 6.1-7.2

196 141

314 130 63 171 130, 131, 188 63 194 121 121 121 133 133, 158 158 291 32 133 121 133 171 70 234 121,235 32 119 119,121, 130, 131, 201 118 121 234 64 121, 130 234 130 66, 97, 285 308 121 121 121 121 51 123, 125 118

Index of References 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.5 6.7-12 6.7 6.8-10 6.9 6.10 6.12 6.13 6.14 6.15 6.17 6.19-20 6.19 6.20 6.21-7.2 6.21-7.1 6.21 7 7.1-3 7.1-2 7.1 7.2 7.3-14 7.3-4 7.7 7.8-10 7.8 7.9-10 7.10 7.12 7.13-14 8-12 8 8.6-7 8.7-9 8.9 8.10 8.11-18 8.11 8.22 9.1-10.16 9.1-14 9.1-2 9.1

9.3-6 130 55, 121, 123 9.6-14 9.15-10.9 121 9.15-16 121 9.15 234 121 9.16-17 308 9.16 121 121 121, 308 234 121, 123 9.17 125 9.18-19 308 10.1 121, 125 125-27, 234 125, 234 121 234 54,130,291 10.1 LXX 10.2-10 119 10.5-6 308 10.6 54 54, 121, 122, 10.7 10.8 130, 234 10.9 234 10.10-13 121 10.10 235 10.14-16 89,90 10.16 64 10.17-25 285, 291 10.17-19 121 10.18-19 64 10.20-24 121 10.22 121 10.24 305, 314 10.25-26 287, 305 10.25 314 11.1-11 305 11.6 307 314 12 12.12-19 307 12.13 307 13-14 146, 305 13.7-14 305 13.7 285 13.8 287 13.10-14 287

287 287 299 285 84, 209, 285, 287 285 50, 282, 283 285, 286, 288, 290, 291, 297, 305 285, 288 287 50, 282, 283, 285, 286 290, 291 296, 297 305 142, 286 63 288 288, 296 288, 289 289 63 288 288, 296 287 287 287 287 305 291, 305 92 283, 307 146 306, 307 288 288 305, 314 305 305, 314 53 193, 289 289 289 299

333 13.10 13.11 13.12 13.13-14 13.13 13.14

14.3 14.13 14.18 14.22 14.36-37 14.37 15.1-35 15.1 15.2 15.11 15.24-27 15.24 15.34 16.13 17.28 17.37 17.45-52 17.45 17.48 18.2-5 18.6-7 18.7 18.8 18.9 18.18 18.19 18.27 18.29 19.12 20.1 20.7 20.12 20.13 20.15 20.23 20.31 22.1-2 22.1 22.2

65, 289 289 289 289, 305 289, 306 66, 70, 282 289, 291, 296, 297, 300 92, 133 133 92 89 92 92 193 49 130 126 193 289 146 288, 296 126 167 63 130 63 291 140 123 126 291 202 145 291 291 291 88 126 209 209 194 194 291 114,291 88,89 115

334 22.4-5 22.5 22.6 22.8 22.17-18 22.17 22.20 22.23 23.1-12 23.2 23.3 23.4 23.5 23.6-12 23.6 23.8 23.9 23.10-12 23.11-12 23.11 23.13-14 23.13 23.14 23.15 23.17 23.18 23.25 23.27-24.3 24.1 24.2-3 24.3 24.3 24.4-8 24.6 24.9-16 24.9 24.10-22 24.17-22 24.21 24.22 24.23 25 25.5-8 25.9-13 25.10 25.13-22 25.13 25.18-22

Divine Prerogative and Royal Pretension 88 109 89, 114 209 133 209 92 88 92 92 114 78, 92, 94 114 93, 109 92 115 92 92 93 92,93 291 114, 115 87 88 128 146 87,89 115 89 291 115, 116 87, 115, 116 291 28 291 202 294 292 294 190 89, 146 142 292 292 202 292 115 63

25.20 25.23-24 25.24 25.25 25.26 25.27 25.28-31

63 292 292 292 292 65, 292 292, 300, 305 25.28 71, 188,29294, 300 25.29 88, 292, 293 25.30 66, 142, 282 290-93, 297, 300, 306 25.31 292, 293 25.32-35 292 25.32 65, 142, 300 25.39 89, 141 26 115 26.2 87, 115, 116 26.9 28 26.17 202 26.19 202, 287 26.23 88 27-2 Sam. 1 129 27-30 32 27.1-4 88 27.1 87 27.2 115 27.3-4 88 27.4 87 27.5 88 28.6 92 30.7-8 93 30.8 92,94 30.9 92, 115 30.10 115 30.24 138 31 295

2 Samuel 1 2-4 2.1-4 2.1 2.4 2.5-4.32 2.5

30, 295 295 26, 295 92 49 26 274

2.7 2.22 3.1-5 3.1 3.2-14 3.2-5 3.6-21 3.6 3.12-16 3.14 3.18 3.19^.1 3.22-39 4 4.1 4.4 5 5.1-12 5.1-3 5.1-2 5.1 5.2-3 5.2

5.3-4 5.3

5.4-16 5.4-5 5.6-12 5.6-9 5.7-9 5.7 5.9 5.10-16 5.10 5.11 5.12 5.13-8.18 5.13-16 5.14-16 5.14 5.16 5.17-7.29

49, 274 78 29 29, 235 235 29 295 29 134 30, 135 30 235 295 295 89 295 46 257 26,85 295 295 306 174, 282, 283, 290, 291,295-97, 300, 306 122 29, 85, 89, 297, 306, 312 28, 30, 85 29 253 26 88 89 88,89 29 29, 55, 232 29, 140 29, 229, 232, 245 27 27,29 229 29 30 20, 25-28,

Index of References

5.17-7.11 5.17-6.8 5.17-29 5.17-25

5.17-21

5.17-19 5.17-18 5.17

5.18 5.19-20 5.19

5.20

5.21

30, 33, 35, 37, 38, 232 245, 247, 257 307 46 28 27,30-35, 53, 86, 87, 103, 105, 109, 110, 112-14, 120 122, 129, 134, 137, 150, 158 164, 180 231-34, 245, 252, 255 313 86, 87, 103 107, 108, 111,143, 232 99 98,115 28-30,32, 50, 87-92, 97,98, 103106,115, 131, 132 232, 245, 254 91,92,97, 104, 105 108 33, 52, 88, 92-94, 98, 100, 103105, 108, 129, 233 33, 60, 9497, 102-105, 108, 113, 120, 125, 127, 128, 157, 232, 235,255 32, 96, 97,

5.22-25

5.22-23 5.22

5.23-25 5.23-24

5.23

5.23 LXX 5.24 5.25

6-7 6

6.1-7.3 6.1-23

102, 104 6.1-20 105, 114, 115,118, 6.1-11 122 86, 93, 95, 6.1-10 98, 106-108, 6.1-4 6.1-2 111, 143, 232 99 53,98,106, 6.1 108, 114, 115 108, 109 6.2-20 98, 100, 108, 6.2-6 109,113, 6.2-5 120, 232 6.2 33,51,52, 92, 98, 100 101, 106 109, 129, 233, 254 51 6.3-4 100, 101 103, 120 6.3 54, 56, 86, 97, 102, 10 108, 113, 6.4 116, 119, 136, 161, 232 64 6.5-10 6.5 28, 31, 34, 35, 46, 53, 62,87,91, 98, 102,11013, 116, 11 20, 142, 14 156, 158 6.6-8 160, 161 6.6-7 166, 210, 6.6 226, 231, 233, 235-37, 239, 254, 308, 313 6.7-11 6.7-8 179, 180 6.7 210, 226 27, 30-32, 112,113

335 147, 149-52, 155, 253 113,145, 151,234 113,137 113 113, 134 146, 147, 150 53,54,11417, 136, 13 146, 152 161 125 116,117 64, 101, 11 118, 122 130, 146, 152, 153, 176,201, 236 117, 122 133, 152 32, 56, 97, 117, 121 122, 125 234, 236 32, 56, 59, 60,97, 124 125, 236 67 57-59, 62, 67, 123, 12 133, 152 157,201, 234, 238, 243 234 122, 123 125, 152 59,117,124, 125, 234, 236 33, 235 127, 128 60, 67, 96, 124-27, 235, 236

336 6.8-10 6.8

6.9-12 6.9-10 6.9

6.10-22 6.10

6.11-12

6.11

6.12-20

6.12-17 6.12

6.13-20 6.13-15 6.13 6.14-20 6.14-15 6.14

6.15 6.16

Divine Prerogative and Royal Pretension 235 33, 67, 96, 125-28, 133, 152,235 157 128, 136, 235, 236 98, 128, 129 157, 234-36 47 67, 98, 120, 128, 129, 132, 157, 234-36 131, 149, 153 91, 130, 131, 146, 149, 153, 156, 189 114,131, 146, 151, 154 63 61,63,91, 120, 131-34, 136, 139, 149, 152, 153, 156, 157,211, 236, 238, 245 246 63 32,61,125, 133, 136 309 123 57,61,124, 133-35, 137, 157, 201, 234, 238 117,123, 133, 134 62-64, 120, 136, 138-40, 152-54, 156, 157,213,

6.17-19 6.17

6.18-20 6.18-19 6.18

6.19-20 6.19

6.20-23

6.20-22 6.20-21 6.20

6.21

236, 237, 6.21 LXX 243 6.21-22 133 31,64,124, 125, 136, 6.22 137, 152-54, 157, 161, 201, 226, 237-39,243 6.23-7.15 146, 147, 6.23-25 150, 153 6.23-24 31, 137, 146, 6.23 153 55, 64, 130, 132, 139, 146, 150, 157, 176, 211,237, 6.25 245 7 143, 146 64, 129, 138, 139, 143, 146, 150 31,114,139, 146, 153, 154, 156, 213 136, 154, 237 132, 164 31,66,114, 132, 134, 138-41, 143, 148, 152-54, 156,211, 7.1-29 237-39, 245, 297 62-66,75, 7.1-17 124, 128, 142, 148, 158, 178, 194,201, 7.1-16 226, 237-39, 7.1-7 241, 243, 7.1-3 244, 282, 284, 296-98, 300

244,245 144, 154, 178, 202, 244 66, 143, 144, 158, 182, 237, 238, 244, 298 48 143 143 129, 134, 138, 139, 141, 143, 145, 153 161, 237, 239 143 11,20,27, 28,31,3335, 74, 76, 77, 83, 87, 110, 111, 116,156, 159-64, 166, 179, 185, 211,226, 231, 239, 244, 248, 250-52,261, 270, 278, 279,281, 300, 301, 303-305,314 27, 30, 31, 211,226, 239 162, 198, 218,221, 223, 228, 229 24 233 27, 160, 16264, 175, 200, 210, 212, 220,221, 228, 239,

Index of References

7.1-2 7.1-29 7.1

7.2-16 7.2-3

7.2

7.3

7.4-17 7.4-16 7.4-8 7.4-7

7.4-5

240, 246, 7.4 253, 261 161, 185, 200, 212 7.5-16 162 31,146,160, 7.5-11 161, 163 164, 184, 7.5-10 190, 191, 7.5-7 201,211, 212,219, 228, 239 276 169, 200, 204, 208, 210, 223 245 31, 161, 163 66, 171, 18 187, 191, 201, 202, 7.5 211,212, 219, 228, 239, 242, 243, 261, 263 164, 166 167, 173 177, 179, 199, 204, 208,211, 223, 224, 7.6-7 233, 243, 260, 262, 267, 278 300, 314 162, 223, 7.6 251,258 27, 162 162 160, 167 212, 251 262, 263 7.7 163, 167, 199,211, 212, 220, 224

162, 167 177, 243, 300 176, 253, 261 220, 222, 229 67 173, 175-78, 180, 184, 187, 191, 193, 196-99, 208,212, 213,216, 220, 222, 228, 229, 233, 240, 245, 262, 263, 269, 300, 309 72,77,16771, 175-79, 185-88, 191, 192, 197, 201, 202, 209,211, 215,216, 218-20, 22224, 228, 240, 242, 263, 270, 314 169, 171, 173, 177, 192, 219, 220, 223, 314 166, 171-74, 184, 201, 205, 212, 216,218, 219, 222, 240 170-75, 180, 188, 190, 197, 209, 211,214, 219, 222, 224, 229,

337

7.8-16 7.8-11

7.8-10

7.8-9 7.8

7.9-10 7.9

7.10-11

7.10

240,241, 263-66,310 246, 294, 300 69, 160, 162 176, 177, 181,186, 187, 193, 204,215, 219, 220, 222, 223, 228, 242, 244, 246, 265, 266, 268, 294 178, 180, 185, 269, 300, 307 175, 177, 180-82,241 55, 64, 67, 130, 142, 163, 168, 171, 174, 176-79, 190, 199, 203, 211,215, 216, 222, 224, 229, 240, 241, 265, 267, 282, 284, 297, 298, 300,314 180-82,298 69, 70, 178 84, 203, 205 222,241, 266, 267 183, 184, 215, 241 67, 69, 88, 137, 177, 181, 183, 184, 215, 216, 222, 241, 243, 267, 269

338 7.11-29 7.11-17 7.11-16

7.11-12

7.11

7.12-16 7.12-15

7.12

7.12 7.13-16 7.13-14 7.13

7.13 LXX 7.14-17 7.14-16

7.14-15

Divine Prerogative and Royal Pretension 310 7.14 160, 215 162, 181, 7.15 185, 194, 195, 204, 242, 246, 7.16-7.29 298 7.16 194, 197, 198, 228 69-71, 76, 164, 170, 184-88, 190, 192, 193, 195, 196, 209,215, 7.17 216, 219, 220, 222-24, 242, 269, 270, 294 185, 190, 199,217 7.18-29 72, 188, 196, 197, 216 71,72,18891, 193-96, 198, 216, 7.18-21 219, 221, 223, 230, 7.18-19 242, 244, 272 7.18 298 195 206 72, 76, 82, 162, 170, 7.19 191-99, 216, 221, 242, 244, 270, 272 72 7.20-21 109 7.20 195-98, 219, 221, 223, 7.21-24 228, 230, 7.21 243 193-96, 242, 275, 276

73, 193, 203, 7.22-24 221,273-75 73-75, 193, 7.22 244, 273, 274 49 7.23-24 7.23 71, 75, 76, 185, 194-98, 7.23 LXX 7.24 209, 212, 215, 216, 7.25-29 221, 242, 244, 269, 272, 294, 7.25-27 298, 306 7.25-26 103, 162, 7.25 199,211, 215,221, 224, 230, 240, 243, 300, 314 7.25 LXX 27, 160, 162, 7.26-29 197-99, 224, 7.26 229, 230, 243, 277, 300, 314 162, 200, 7.27 224 202, 204, 205 74, 199-203, 208, 226, 7.28-29 229, 243, 7.28 244, 246, 211 74, 77, 79, 202, 203, 7.29 210, 225, 229, 243, 244, 246 204, 205 74, 78, 79, 203, 204 8 243 79, 80, 200, 8.1-15 8.1-14 204, 208, 8.1 210, 225, 229, 246

162, 200, 205, 225 74, 76, 162, 202, 205, 208, 277 205 79-82, 205 81,82 82, 206 162, 200, 207, 225, 277 83, 210, 243 209 68,71,74, 76, 83, 162, 200, 207-10, 225, 229, 244, 246 82 207 55, 64, 78, 83, 130, 208, 209, 226, 244 55,64,71, 83, 84, 130, 170, 208-10, 229, 244, 246 225 74, 84, 208, 210, 225, 229, 244, 246 27, 28, 30, 31,74,83, 110,132, 210,211, 225, 226, 229, 244-46, 278, 280 27,28 27 27 28,30,116, 161

339

Index of References 8.13 8.15-18 8.17 8.18 9 9.1-13 10 10.1 10.2 10.9 11-20 12 12.5-6 12.7-15 12.9 12.13-14 12.15 13 13.1 13.21 14.4-17 14.7 14.15 14.16 14.17 14.24 15.24-29 15.27-28 16.2 16.11 16.13 17.1-17 17.12-16 17.23 17.30-39 18.28 19.13 19.14 19.24 20 20.19 21-24 21.1 21.3 21.8 21.18 22.8 22.17

206 27 309 309 28 27 28 28 274 115 308 28 126, 127 109 70 193 146 28 28 126 225 282 225 225, 287 167, 225 146 122, 309 165 282 189 57 219 195 146 267 141 295 295 70 26 287 26 109 287 145 28 126 58

22.23 23.1-13 23.13-17 23.13 23.14 24.11-14 24.16 1 Kings 1.26 1.35 1.48 2.4 2.24 2.26 2.45 2.46 5.17 5.19 5.21 6.12 7.8 8.15-26 8.15-21 8.15-20 8.16 8.16 LXX 8.17 8.18 8.19 8.20 8.23-26 8.23-25 8.23 8.26 8.44 8.48 8.51 8.53 9.5 10.9 11.2 12.15 14 14.7-14 14.7-11 14.7 16

106 110 91 88 88 109 58

170 282-84 141 83 71,188 76,77 73 73 72 72 141 83 71,188 276 83 199, 276 68, 174, 285 284 72 72 72, 189 72,83 276 276 205 83 72 72 287 76, 77, 287 72 141 285 83 305 304 299 284, 299 305

16.2-4 16.2 17.7 19.15 19.16 21.18

299, 304 284, 299 285 49 50 300

2 Kings 6.5 6.24 7.13 8.6 8.7 9 9.1-10 9.6 9.12 9.30-31 17.34 19.14-15 19.15 19.19 20.5 20.18 21.14 23.3 23.22 23.24

285 28 138 131 64 305 304 283 283 134 205 201 210 207 282 189 287 83 184 83

1 Chronicles 1.18 2.3 6.2 11.4-9 11.9 11.10-12.41 11.15 11.16 13-17 13.1-5 13.1 13.4 13.5-6 13.5 13.6-7 13.6 13.7 13.8

72 72 64 55 55 55 88 88 37,38 55 282 57 54 55 57 54-56, 64 56 57,58

340 13.8LXX 13.9 13.10

13.11 13.12 13.13 13.14 14.8-17 14.8 14.9 14.10 14.11 14.12 14.13 14.14 14.16 15 15.1-24 15.1 15.2 15.12-15 15.13 15.16 15.18-19 15.18 15.19-24 15.19 15.20 15.21 15.22 15.24 15.25 15.26 15.27 15.28 15.29 16 16.1 16.2 16.3 16.5 16.20 16.38 16.42 16.43 17 17LXX

Divine Prerogative and Royal Pretension 57 58, 59, 124 59,60,124, 125 96 60 60 60, 130 55 50 50 92 96 51,97 50 50-52, 92 53 130 61 71, 137,188 125, 234 125 125 58 61 130 58 58 66 130 66 130 61 61 61,133 58 62-64, 66 130 64 55 64,65 130 68 130 58 146 73, 74, 77 77

17.1 17.2 17.4 17.5 17.6 17.7 17.8-9 17.8 17.8 LXX 17.10 17.11 17.12 17.12 LXX 17.13 17.13 LXX 17.14 17.16 17.17 17.18 17.19 17.20 17.21 17.21 LXX 17.22 17.23-24 17.23 17.24 17.25 17.26 17.27 17.28 17.29 19.10 22.7 22.8 22.9 22.10 22.19 25.1 25.6 26.4-8 26.5 26.15 27.16

67, 146, 164 67 72 67,68 68, 184 55 68 69 69 70,71,164 72, 190 72 72 74 75 75 74,76 74, 76, 77 76, 78, 79 74, 76, 78, 79 74, 78, 79 78-81 81 82 83 74,82 55,83 55, 76, 78, 84, 210 74, 76, 78, 84 74, 76, 78, 84 78 76,78 115 72 72 164 72,76 72 58 58 130 130, 131 130 282

28.3 28.5 29.14 29.16 29.22 29.23

72 72,75 202 72 50 75

2 Chronicles 1.6 1.9 5.12 5.13 6.5 6.7 6.8 6.9 6.10 6.17 6.34 6.38 6.41 6.42 11.11 13.8 14.9 17.13 17.13 LXX 19.11 28.7 29.25 30.21 31.12 31.13 32.21 35.8 35.9

137 83 58 58 284 72 72 72 72 83 72 72 76 76 282 75 50 73 73 282 282 58 57 58 58, 282 282 282 58

Ezra 7.27 9.10

141 203, 204

Nehemiah 3.33 4.1 4.9 6.16 9.7 9.10

89 89 89 89 205, 210 206

341

Index of References 9.32 13.13

207 138

Job 28.22 29.9 29.10 33.16 36.10 36.15

205 282 282 209 209 209

Psalms 2 18 18.8-20 18.8 18.11 18.12-16 18.16 18.17 18.32 18.50 22 22.2-3 22.4-6 22.7-9 28.9 33.12 35.10 35.27 39.8 40.17 44.2 44.5 45.3-10 45.18 48.3-9 60.7-10 61.5 61.8 66.20 68.8 68.10 68.13-14 70.5 71.19 72 78.60

312 120 120 126 120 120 52 58 205 205 225 225 225 225 287 287 205 205, 208 207 205, 208 205 210 312 205 120 120 201 201 73 52, 101 287 134 205, 208 205 312 68

78.62 78.71 78.72 79.1 80 80.2-3 80.2 80.3 80.5 80.8 80.13-16 80.15 80.20 84 84.2-8 84.7 84.7 86.8 86.10 89

89.4 89.9 89.18-36 89.20-38 89.21 89.29 89.35[3 89.37-50 89.39-52 89.40 89.48-50 94.5 95.14 99 99.1 104.1 105.13 106.5 106.9 106.40 108.7-10 108.12 113.5 132 132.8 132.9

287 174, 287 174 287 120 120 119 119 119 119 120 119 119,120 120 120 101 120 205 205 242, 276, 312 276 205 242 221 222 276 276 242 222, 276 276 242 287 287 120 120 205 68 287 80 287 120 101 205 245, 269, 272, 312 76 76

132.11 132.15 136.16

72, 190 139 80

Proverbs 28.15 28.16 29.4 29.14

282 282 282 282

Isaiah 7.3 8.23-9.6 9.2 9.5-6 17.5 19.25 22.14 28.17-19 28.21 29.6 29.7 37.14-15 37.15 37.16 37.20 39.7 44.28 45.5 48.19 61.1 63.11 63.12-13 63.12 63.17 64.7

300 183 138 312 124 287 209 94,95 94,95 52 89 201 201 201,210 207 189 174 205 189 50 174 80 206 287 207

Jeremiah 2.6 2.7 2.8 3.15 5.13 10.6 10.16 10.21 14.10 14.22

80 287 174 174 313 205 287 174 70 210

342 20.1 22.1-23.6 22.22 23.1-4 23.18-32 23.18-22

23.19 23.21-22 24.34-36

26.11 27.7 30.23 31.4-5

31.4 31.6 31.31-34 32.20 32.24 32.38-40

33.14 33.18 34 38.21^10.8 38.28

50.6 51.19

Divine Prerogative and Royal Pretension 282 174 174 174 313 313 52 315 174 205 170 52 123 123 123 183 206 64 206 83 137 174 63 63 174 287

Ezekiel

34 34.1 34.23 36.8-15 37.15-23 37.24 37.26-27

Jonah

297 174 174 183 183 174 206

4.3 4.9

207 126

Micah

5.3 6.8 7.14 7.18

174 70 287 205, 287

Daniel

1.7

205

9.15

206, 207

Hosea 2.16 13.4

80 205

Joel 2.17

Habakkuk 2.22 3.12-13

73 52

Haggai

1.4

170

Zechariah

3.1 4.2

287 28 287

Amos 2.10 7.15

80 70

Obadiah 9.5-6

312

4.7 9.14 11.4 11.8 11.16

202 52 174 174 174

Ecclesiasticus 12.11 210

OTHER ANCIENT REFERENCES

Egyptian Texts AMENHOTEP III Mortuary inscription 257 n. 29

NEFERHOTEPI Great Abydos Stele 32-43 268 n. 71 39-40 278 n. 107

HATSHEPSUT Karnak Obelisk South 1. 8, West 11. 1-2 261 n. 43

SENWOSRET (SESOSTRIS) I Atum Heliopolis inscr ARE I §502 11. 6 264 n. 57

Speos Artemidos 11. 35-36 261 n. 43 MERIKARE ARE I §403

257 n. 29

SETII A/?£III§105 255 n. 19 TUTHMOSIS III A/?£II§§418,425-30 255 n. 19 Poetical Stela 257 n. 29

TUTHMOSIS IV ARE II mi 255 n. 19 Hittite Text Tudhaliyas's treaty with Ulmi/Duppi-Tesub 274 n. 93 Mesopotamian Texts ADAD-NIRARI III RIM-AP 3 A.O.104.2.1.4 257 n. 31 ADAD-NIRARI V Treaty with Mati'ilu 275 n. 96

343

Index of References ASHURBANIPAL Cylinder B V 44 -46 255 n. 22 Prunkinschrift 6 stele S 2 37-45 277 n. 106 Tontafelinschrift 5obv9-10 272 n. 86 14obvII 26-34, rv 51 257 n. 32 ASHURNASIRPAL Hymn to Ishtar 266-68 11. 26-27 267 n. 70 CURSE OF AGADE 94-148 259 n. 39

prophecy: Langdonl914pl.III 11. 20-21 273 n. 90 GUDEA Cylinder A cols 1-12 258 n. 33, 258 n. 35 Cylinder B cols xxii-xxiv 8 278 n. 108 HAMMURAPI R1M-EP 4 E4.3.6.1411.8-9, 1611.9-10 265 n. 61 KUDUR-MABUK R1M-EP 4 E4.2.13.3 277 n. 104

EANATUM SARI I La 3.1,2 256 n. 24 SARI I La 3.5, 6, 8 256 n. 25

E4.2.13.10 11. 22-24 11. 28-47

ENANATUM SARI I La 4.3 263 n. 52

E4.2.13.16 11.6ff

ENUMA ELISH vi 49-79 256 n. 24

LUGALZAGESI SARI I Urn 1A

256 n. 26 277 n. 104 272 n. 85

NABOPOLASSAR Langdon 1 256 n. 28

1 col. Ill 11. 47-49 273 n. 87

4

256 n. 28

NEBUCHADNEZZAR II Langdon 9 iii 56-59 272 n. 83 NUR-ADAD IRSA IVB8c

256 n. 27

RIM-EP 4 E4.2.8.4

256 n. 27

SAMSU-ILUNA IRSA IVbC7b-d 256 n. 27 RIM-EP 4 E4.3.1 passim 265 n. 61

E4.2.13 passim

265 n. 60 £4.3.7.3,5,7 256 n. 27 265 n. 60

264 n. 58 ESARHADDON Assur A iii 42-IV 6 258 n. 35 vii 16-25 278 n. 110 Assur B vii 26-34

253 n. 13

Babylon A-G ep. 111.22-23 265 n. 62 ep. 39 11. 6-9 272 n. 84 K2401 rev 15'-36' 271 n. 80

NABONIDUS Langdon 1 i16-39 258 n. 33 2i2 265 n. 63 2119-12 271 n. 81 2ii23 271 n. 81, 272 n. 86 2 ii 24-25 274 n. 91 4 ii 26-27 274 n. 92 4 u 48-57 258 n. 33 6i5 265 n. 63 7 vii 6-10 273 n. 88 8 vi 6-36 258 n. 33

E4.3.7.3 11.13-21 11. 82-92 11.107-23

263 n. 53 263 n. 53 268 n. 71

E4.3.7.5 11. 67-83

268 n. 71

E4.3.7.7 11. 30-47, 63-79 11.128-38

266 n. 66 268 n. 71

E4.3.7.8 11. 77-89

268 n. 71

SARGONII Bullinscr95

253 n. 16


344

Cylinder inscr 53-56 253 n. 15 Wincklerl p. 128 11. 154-55 260 n. 40 SENNACHERIB Schroder II no. 122 28-30 = Luckenbill Assur 1.2 28-30 259 n. 37, 260 n. 40 Luckenbill ch.VIAl 1.92 279 n. 113 ch.Vm a-e 259 n. 37

TUKULTI-NINURTAI RIM-AP 1 A.O.78. 11-16 259 n. 37 1111.82-84 257 n. 32, 259 n. 37 TUKULTI-NINURTA II RIM-AP 2 A.0.101.U80 255 n. 20

CTA4(IIAB) IV 28-30 29 30

256 n. 24 62 n. 38 62 n. 38 62 n. 38

MESHA Gibson I no.!6;£4/Ino.l81 257 n. 30 11.14,19,32 255 n. 19 PANAMMU

UR-NAMMU Hymn on Ekur Castellino p.1061.10 264 n. 59

Gibson lino. 13 1.9 255 n. 19 11.12-15 268 n. 71

URNANSHE SARIIL&1.6

no. 14 11.1-2

256n. 25

255 n. 19

SHALMANESERI

EbelingXXI.l 11.27-34 269 n. 75 SULGI Castellino hymn C1.3 255 n. 22

Klein Hymn X 53-55

264 n. 59

TIGLATHPILESERI A/?/2p.29§105(77) 279 n. 112 RIM-AP 2 A.O.87.1 ii 36-39 vi 85-90 vii60,71 vii71-75 viii 17-38 viii 35

255 n. 20 256 n. 25 256 n. 25 257 n. 32 269 n. 75 278 n. 109

URU'INIMGINA (URUKAGINA)

SEFIRE STELAE

5A/VILa9.14q 264 n. 58

Gibson II no. 7 1.14 etpassim 275 n. 96

WARAD-SIN

no. 9

RIM-EP 4 E4.2.13.16 11.42-44

277 n. 104

ZIMRI-LIM ARMXIttno.m, XXVI no. 234 258 n. 33, 259 n. 38 rev.7-10'

275 n. 96

TELL FEKHERIYE INSCRIPTION Aramaic text 11.6-12 270 n. 79 1.8 196 n. 73 Assyrian text 11.8-12,15-18 270 n. 79 1.11 196 n. 73

262 n. 46 ZAKKUR STELE

West Semitic Texts 4Q FLORILEGIUM 1.7 69n.66 1.10 70n.69

Gibson II no. 5

257 n. 31

col.A, 11.13-17

255 n. 19

INDEX OF WORDS HEBREW Notes (1) In some instances, it is the root rather than the form that occurs in the text which is indexed. (2) Where an index entry includes a transliteration, page references to this form are included here as well as in the Transliterated Hebrew index. K

mrr T», 76 n. 79, 202, 207 n. 103, 210 ^n« 'ohel, 82, 201 n. 85, 247 pOOl bnK, 68 n. 59, 166, 171-72, 212, 214, 216 n. 119,218

tnN, see rfyn infl, 178 nQK, 66n.49, 141, 144,237-38 "pK, 114n. 4 13 TEK, 133n. 70 [mrr/D'H^n] jriN, 55 n. 15, 56 n. 17, 56 n. 21, 58-60 nn. 25-29, 119, 121, 124 n. 40, 124 n. 43, 125 n. 45, 125 n. 47,126 n. 49, 131 nn. 65-66,133, 136 n. 78, 137 n. 81, 153, 202 3

rra bayit, 54, 60, 70-72, 75-76, 84, 117-18,121,131,139,146,163, 168-69, 171-72, 175, 178, 186-220 passim, 222-23 (esp. n. 126), 226-29, 263, 294, 306 fD'TDai JT3, 75 n. 78, 194-95, 216 IT3 linked with 3D\ 163, 171-72, 178 n. 38, 182, 190, 202, 212, 214, 216 n. 119,219,247

DTO3, 52 n. 7, 52 n. 9, 101 (esp. n. 40), see also baka'

TO nn, see nor D«na 'jio, 95,105,127 nvr 'E HK 0pa, 109 n. 52 !T13 b'rtt, 206 n. 101, 275-76, 306 -[ID, 84 n. 93, 131, 139, 141, 210, 292 n. 32, see also b'rakd 3

x-|m n« nb3,84n. 91,209n. 111,210 n. 115,288 1

131, 78 n. 82, 173 n. 24, 203 -131 131, 68 n. 60, 171, 173, 207 n. 104, 310 -131 linked with mrr, 70 n. 69, 79 n. 84, 82 n. 88, 84 n92, 207, 210, 225, 286 n. 17, 293 n. 34, 294, 300

n Tan, 70 n. 67, 187 n. 56, 209 n. 111 •»'n, 119n. 28, 171 n. 19 TH T/W), 132 n. 67, 135 n. 75, 200, 244 n. 13, 306 "131 D^pn, 82 n. 88 T^nnn hithallek, 68 n. 59, 171 n. 19, 172, 212, 214, 240, 247


346

i rrm, 63 n. 39, 70 n. 68, 71 n. 70, 188, 190, 293

p nn« vn, 28n. 19 T

ITIT, 72 n. 72, 188-90, 195-98, 216, 230 n. 133

n ion hesed, 73 n. 76, 193, 274

•f7Q, 67, 70, 131-32, 135, 140, 163, 164, 179,190,200-201,212,232, 244-45, 247, 249, 268, 294, 298, 306, see also "[^(H), see also melek nifton mamlakd, 72 n. 74, 290 n. 29, 298, 306 31? N^D, 210 n. 113 Dlpn, 69 n. 64, 88 n. 4, 136 n. 80, 183 nn. 45-46, 269 n. 72, see also DID ntDQ,49n. 1,285-87

ro'xinvân USGJD, 306 n. 6

rnn, 126 nn. 50-51

j

rotOX prrftK] mrr YHWHS'ba'ot, 55 i 16, 64 n. 43, 83 n. 90, 119, 138-39 146, 153, 176-77, 201 n. 84, 208-209, 241

•pa1? mrr mr, 101 3D"1 ydSab, seerf2

T33, 50, 66, 178-79, 247, 249, 265, 282, 285-86, 293, 298-99, see also ndgid rftm nah"ld, 269 n. 72, 286 ]-D3, 58 n. 24, 194,209,218 Rfo], 32, 97 n. 34, 122, 133 n. 70, 136 n. 78 0

D

"7K-IET 11QH ^D, 138n. 85 KOD kisse, 72 n. 74, 75 n. 78, 194-95, 242, 272, 298 «?

Til n« 0p±>, 87, 89 n. 7, 91 n. 9, 91 n. 12,97,99, 115-16 '•?, 170 n. 17, 187 n. 55, 192 n. 68, 220

chnxh, see D'TIU iu mrr 'DS1?, 60 n. 29, 62 n. 38, 85, 92 n. 14, 109 n. 52, 123 n. 39, 125 n. 45 133, 135, 137 n. 83, 142, 144, 157 201, 208 n. 109, 226, 238, 243, 298, 306 'Qtf7, 72 n. 73, 170 n. 17, 191-92, 195, 199

"iro, 52 n. 8

y -DP, 67 n. 57, 75-76 nn. 78-79, 78-79 nn. 81-84, 141, 168 n. 12, 176, 179, 202, 203, 207, 209 n. 110, 210, 225, 227 n. 131,237,240 tf7\?hKhw IS, 70 n. 67, 72 n. 74, 75 n. 78, 82 n. 87, 194-95 (esp. n. 72), 197, 201 n. 85, 206 n. 101,207, 209 n. 110,226 ITU, 53 n. ll,66n. 52, 78 n. 81,98, 114, 116,203,225 WlVriTU, see HTr pa

'PBn *?S, 59 n. 28 x--|&n + x-Q^y, 295 n. 38 m rm/ntoJ>, 70 n. 69, 75 n. 78, 187-88 (esp. n. 58), 209, 220

Q

^DQ, 69 n. 66, 115 n. 9, 161, see also

••cnto

S

pS, 50 n. 4, 95 n. 23, 127 n. 53, 235 nti> pS, 121 (esp. n. 53)

Index of Words

347

^tOET 'DSBrcniD ['PDQ?], 68 n. 61, 172

^

n. 21, 173 n. 23, 174 n. 25, 174 n.

mitt, 52 n. 8, 61 n. 36, 101, 133 n. 69

2o, ZtO n. o4

3 m« ..."?» n^2J, 59 n. 26, 124 n. 43 BSCJ, 70 n. 67, 184 n. 48, see also *V30

^

D'Rinn *mr\, see D'ton

T5^'275

n

& Dlpa DTfo, 69 n. 64, 183 n. 45 DC DID, 205 n. 99

D"f«n mm, 77 n. 80, 203

!ZJ

mn'D *?»tD Sa'al bYHWH, 33, 92 n. 14, 247, 254 TRANSLITERATED HEBREW

Note In some instances, it is the root rather than the form that occurs in the text which is indexed. 'am, 287 baka', 52 n.9 bayit, 214, 222-23 (esp. n.126), 226, 247, 263 b'rakd, 141, 292 n.32 b'rtt, 275-76 go'c/,209n.lll hesed,274 hithallek, 247 fa'we, 298 mamlaka, 290, 298, 306 w«te*, 23, 85, 110-11, 132-33, 142-44, 157-59, 164, 167, 179-82, 200, 228-29, 238-46, 247-49, 252, 257, 281-316

moSel, 282 n.5 mdSf, 288 nagid, 142, 144, 155, 158-59, 164, 179-80, 183, 187, 215, 222, 229, 238-46, 247-49, 266, 280, 280-316 nahald, 286, 287 'oAe/,247 'old, 138 ro'

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Priesthood and Cult in Ancient Israel (JSOT Supplement Series)

Property and Family in Biblical Law (JSOT Supplement Series)

Creation in Jewish and Christian Tradition (JSOT Supplement Series)

Jerusalem in Ancient History and Tradition (JSOT Supplement Series)

Retribution and Eschatology in Chronicles (JSOT Supplement Series)

Law and Ideology in Monarchic Israel (JSOT Supplement Series)

Story of King David: Genre and Interpretation (JSOT Supplement)

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