'Every City Shall Be Forsaken': Urbanism and Prophecy in Ancient Israel and the Near East (JSOT Supplement)

JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT SUPPLEMENT SERIES 330 Editors David J.A. Clines Philip R. Davies Executive...

Author: Lester L. Grabbe | Robert D. Haak (eds.)

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JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT SUPPLEMENT SERIES

330

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

Sheffield Academic Press

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'Every City shall be Forsaken' Urbanism and Prophecy in Ancient Israel and the Near East

edited by Lester L. Grabbe and Robert D. Haak

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 330

Copyright © 2001 Sheffield Academic Press Published by Sheffield Academic Press Ltd Mansion House 19 Kingfield Road Sheffield SI 19AS England www.SheffieldAcademicPress.com

Printed on acid-free paper in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire

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

ISBN 1-84127-202-7

CONTENTS Preface List of Abbreviations List of Contributors

7 9 13

LESTER L. GRABBE Introduction and Overview

15

JOSEPH BLENKINSOPP Cityscape to Landscape: The 'Back to Nature' Theme in Isaiah 1-35

35

ROBERT P. CARROLL City of Chaos, City of Stone, City of Flesh: Urbanscapes in Prophetic Discourses

45

ROBERT B.COOTE Proximity to the Central Davidic Citadel and the Greater and Lesser Prophets

62

JULIE GALAMBUSH This Land Is my Land: On Nature as Property in the Book of Ezekiel

71

LESTER L. GRABBE Sup-Urbs or only Hyp-Urbs? Prophets and Populations in Ancient Israel and Socio-historical Method

95

S. TAMAR KAMIONKOWSKI The Savage Made Civilized: An Examination of Ezekiel 16.8

124

6

'Every City shall be Forsaken'

JOHN KESSLER Reconstructing Haggai's Jerusalem: Demographic and Sociological Considerations and the Search for an Adequate Methodological Point of Departure

137

BEN D. NEFZGER The Sociology of Preindustrial Cities

159

MARTTI NISSINEN City as Lofty as Heaven: Arbela and other Cities in Neo-Assyrian Prophecy

172

JOHN D.w. WATTS Jerusalem: An Example of War in a Walled City (Isaiah 3-4) Index of References Index of Modern Authors

210 216 223

PREFACE The present volume arises out of the work of the Prophetic Texts and their Ancient Contexts Group, a Society of Biblical Literature Group unit founded and chaired by Ehud Ben Zvi. (The two co-editors of the volume are members of the international steering panel for the Group.) The papers from the first session organized by PTAC (when it was still a Consultation, at the 1998 SBL meeting in Orlando) have now been published in a volume. Ehud Ben Zvi and Michael H. Floyd (eds.), Writings and Speech in Israelite and Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy (Symposium Series; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000) In that volume Ben Zvi emphasizes that the purpose of the PTAC Group is to foster dialogue and genuine communication by providing a forum for the expression of and interaction between a wide variety of approaches. This second volume (arising from the papers presented at the 1999 SBL meeting in Boston) exemplifies Ben Zvi's stated purposes, containing an international set of contributions and a number of different approaches to the question of urbanism and prophecy.


ABBREVIATIONS

AB ABD ABL AfO AHw ANET

AOAT ARM AV

BARev BASOR BIS BN BZAW CAH CBQ CBQMS ConBOT CRRA1 CSSH CT

El FOIL FRLANT HSM HUCA ICC IEJ IRT

Anchor Bible David Noel Freedman (ed.), The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992) R.F. Harper, Assyrian and Babylonian Letters (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1892-1919) Archiv fiir Orientforschung W. von Salen, Akkadisches Handworterbuch, I James B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950) Alter Orient und Altes Testament Archives Royales de Mari Authorized Version Biblical Archaeology Review Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research Biblical Interpretation Series Biblische Notizen BeiheftezurZAW Cambridge Ancient History Catholic Biblical Quarterly Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Monograph Series Coniectanea biblica, Old Testament Comptes rendus de Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale Comparative Studies in Society and History Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets in the Bitish Museum Eretz Israel The Forms of the Old Testament Literature Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments Harvard Semitic Monographs Hebrew Union College Annual International Critical Commentary Israel Exploration Journal Issues in Religion and Theology

10 JANESCU JAOS JBL JBQ JEA JJS JNES JNSL JSOTSup JSPSup KAR KAV MDP NCB NEB NEAEHL

NICOT NRSV OBO OBT OLA OLP Or OTG OTL PEQ RB RIMB RLA SAA SAAS SBLDS SEA SJOT SOSup TCS TDOT VT VTSup

'Every City shall be Forsaken' Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society of Columbia University Journal of the American Oriental Society Journal of Biblical Literature Jewish Biblical Quarterly Journal of Egyptian Archaeology Journal of Jewish Studies Journal of Near Eastern Studies Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha, Supplement Series Keilschrifttexte aus Assur religiosen Inhalt Keilschrifttexte aus Assur verschiedenen Inhalt Memoires de la delegation en Perse New Century Bible New English Bible E. Stern (ed.), The New Encyclopedia of Achaeological Excavation in the Holy Land(Jerusalem: The Israel Exploration Society and Carta; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993) New International Commentary on the Old Testament New Revised Standard Version Orbis biblicus et orientalis Overtures in Biblical Theology Orientalia lovanensia analecta Orientalia lovaniensia periodica Orientalia Old Testament Guides Old Testament Library Palestine Exploration Quarterly Revue biblique Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamian (Babylonian Kings) Reallexicon fur Assyriologie State Archives of Assyria State Archives of Assyria Studies SBL Dissertation Series Svensk exegetisk drsbok Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament Symbolae Osloenses, Supplements Texts from Cuneiform Sources G.J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren (eds.), Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament Vetus Testamentum Vetus Testamentum, Supplements

Abbreviations WBC WMANT YOS ZAW ZDPV

Word Biblical Commentary Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament Yale Oriental Series Zeitschrifi fur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Zeitschrift des deutschen Paldstina-Vereins

11


LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Joseph Blenkinsopp is John A. O'Brien Professor Emeritus at the University of Notre Dame The late Robert P. Carroll was Professor of Hebrew Bible and Semitic Studies at the University of Glasgow Robert B. Coote is Professor of Old Testament at San Francisco Theological Seminary and the Graduate Theological College Julie Galambush is Associate Professor of Religion at the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia Lester L. Grabbe is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Early Judaism at the University of Hull Robert D. Haak is Associate Professor of Religion at Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois John Kessler is Professor of Old Testament at Tyndale Seminary in Toronto S. Tamar Kamionkowski is Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, Wyncote, Pennsylvania Ben D. Nefzger is Professor of Sociology at Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois Martti Nissinen is Academy Research Fellow of the Academy of Finland at the University of Helsinki John D.W. Watts is retired Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky


INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW Lester L. Grabbe

1. The Concept of Urbanism/Urbanization The study of cities and their development has been one important focus of anthropology from an early period.1 Any library with even a basic collection on sociology and anthropology is likely to include a sizable section on urbanism, and a large number of journals relate in some way to the subject, all the way from Town Planning to Urban Anthropology. 1. The term 'urbanism' is used mainly of city life as a specific social phenomenon, i.e., the study of cities as such. A subtle distinction is sometimes made between 'urbanism' and 'urbanization', the former being a top-down approach that investigates city-centered societal processes, schemes of role differentiation, historical typologies of cities, and the like (i.e. city life as a specific social phenomenon), while the latter is about movements to cities and modes of settlement (i.e. the process of becoming urban). The term 'urban anthropology' tends to be used of studies and field work carried out in cities. On these terms see, e.g., Alan Barnard and Jonathan Spencer (eds.) Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology (London: Routledge, 1996), pp. 555-56; Thomas Barfield (ed.), The Dictionary of Anthropology (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1997), pp. 479-82; Charlotte SeymourSmith, Macmillan Dictionary of Anthropology (London: Macmillan, 1986), pp. 3738, 283-84. See also views found in Oscar Lewis, 'Some Perspectives on Urbanization with Special Reference to Mexico City', in Aidan Southall (ed.), Urban Anthropology: Cross-Cultural Studies of Urbanization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973), pp. 125-38, especially 125 (revision of 'Further Observation on the Folk-Urban Continuum and Urbanization with Special Reference to Mexico City', in Philip M. Hauser and Leo F. Schnore [eds.], The Study of Urbanization [New York: John Wiley, 1965], pp. 491-517); W.D. McTaggert, 'The Reality of "Urbanism"', Pacific Viewpoint 6 (1965), pp. 220-24, especially p. 220 note *; M.G. Smith, 'Complexity, Size and Urbanization', in Peter J. Ucko, Ruther Tringham, and G.W. Dimbleby (eds.), Man, Settlement and Urbanism (London: Gerald Duckworth, 1972), pp. 566-74, especially pp. 568-69; Paul Wheatley, 'The Concept of Urbanism', in Ucko, Tringham and Dimbleby (eds.), Man, Settlement and Urbanism, pp. 601-37, especially p. 623 n. 1.

16


Already in 1893 Emile Durkheim2 proposed that the city represented a special environment, but in many ways the pioneer of urban studies was Friedrich Engels with his studies on the working classes in Manchester in the nineteenth century.3 Yet both had been anticipated by Adam Smith, who had already addressed the issue of the city in his Wealth of Nations.4 Considering Max Weber's voluminous studies, it is hardly surprising that he investigated the subject in a monograph.5 Weber saw essential differences between the ancient city, which he characterized as still being organized along kinship (or pseudo-kinship) lines, and the medieval city, which was theoretically a community of equals.6 The subject of urbanism covers many different aspects. In exploring the subject, we need to keep in mind that some doubt exists as to whether there is such a thing as urban sociology as a separate entity.7 The first question—and one of the most difficult—is the definition of 'urban': what is a city? There follow further questions, such as how cities and urban areas originated, how they developed over the centuries, the different configurations and structures found in different regions and periods of history, the relationship to rural areas. It quickly becomes clear that uniform answers to these questions have not been given by anthropology; on the contrary, most aspects of urbanism have been the subject of dispute or at least major differences in interpretation through the twentieth century, nor is there a consensus now on many aspects of the question. It is important that biblical scholars be aware 2. The Division of Labour in Society (transl. W.D. Halls, with introduction by Lewis Coser; Contemporary Social Theory; London: Macmillan, 1984); ET of De la division du travail social: etudes sur I 'organisation des societes superieures (1893). 3. The Condition of the Working Class in England (London: Panther, 1969 [1892]). 4. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (ed. Edwin Canaan; London: Methuen, 1925 [1776]), book 3, chapters 3-4. 5. The City (trans. D. Martindale and G. Neuwirth; London, 1958) (ET of Die Stadt [1921]) = Economy and Society (eds. G. Roth and C. Wittich; Berkeley: University of California, 1978 [1968]), pp. 1212-72. 6. See Grabbe (pp. 98-99 below) for a further discussion. 7. See the discussion by Philip Adams, 'Towns and Economic Growth: Some Theories and Problems', in Philip Adams and E.A. Wrigley (eds), Towns in Societies: Essays in Economic History and Historical Sociology (Past and Present Publications; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), pp. 9-33; also, Peter Saunders, Social Theory and the Urban Question (Hutchinson University Library; London: Hutchinson; New York: Homes & Meier, 2nd edn, 1986), p. 15.

GRABBE Introduction and Overview

17

that few 'assured results' of anthropological scholarship exist in this area. Many of the studies on urbanism relate to the modern industrial city and are thus of limited value for biblical studies—though it should be noted that biblical scholars have not always recognized this distinction but have been significantly influenced by studies of the modern city, which often differs radically from the preindustrial city, especially the city in the ancient world. Perhaps one of the most cited studies is that of V.G. Childe.8 Its influence seems rather surprising, both because it was given in only a short article and because in many ways it needs a good deal of refinement, as subsequent studies have shown.9 Yet his criteria are frequently cited by contemporary writers in discussing urbanism in the ancient world. The 'folk-urban continuum' was a thesis developed by Robert Redfield.10 For post-urban society this posited a dichotomy with the rural on one side and the urban on the other, though in fact the urban was simply seen as the opposite of the rural rather than being developed in its own right. This model has been widely criticized as caricaturing the actual social realities to be found in real cities and villages, though Redfield was in fact creating a heuristic abstraction rather than giving the results of empirical research. A model for the preindustrial city with wide influence was developed by Gideon Sjoberg.11 He argued that the preindustrial city had many common characteristics, whether found in the ancient, classical, or medieval worlds. Sjoberg has been criticized for theorizing in the abstract rather than founding his model on primary historical data. Critics have also pointed out that many of the characteristics he assigns to the preindustrial city also apply equally to traditional rural society.12 8. 'The Urban Revolution', Town Planning Review 21 (1950), pp. 3-17. See further pp. 163-64 below for the discussion by Ben Nefzger; cf. also my own comments (pp. 99-100, 111 below). 9. E.g. see Wheatley, 'The Concept of Urbanism', p. 612; S.W. Miles, 'An Urban Type: Extended Boundary Towns', Southwest Journal of Anthropology 14 (1958), pp. 339-51. 10. The Folk Culture of Yucatan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1941); The Primitive World and its Transformations (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1953); Peasant Society and Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956). 11. The Preindustrial City, Past and Present (New York: The Free Press; London: Collier-Macmillan, 1960). See also Ben Nefzger, 'The Sociology of Preindustrial Cities', pp. 159-71 (164-66) below. 12. For a critique, see Paul Wheatley, '"What the Greatness of a City Is Said to

18


Perhaps the most recent major study of the city in history is by Aidan Southall.13 He uses the model of modes of production to characterize four types of cities through the ages, each type belonging roughly to a particular historical time period. These are A. B. C. D.

Asiatic Mode: unity of town and country Ancient Mode: ruralization of the city Feudal Mode: antagonism between town and country Captalist Mode: urbanization of the country

They correspond roughly to the cities in the ancient Near East, the cities of the classical world (Greece and Rome), medieval cities, and modern cities. If this model is followed, it has some major implications for how the city in ancient Israel is studied and characterized.14 2. Summary of Papers Joseph Blenkinsopp ('Cityscape to Landscape: The "Back to Nature" Theme in Isaiah 1-35') gives a reflection on a theme found at various places in Isa. 1-35 (which is conceived of as a literary unit, whatever its tradition history), that cities will return to a state of nature. The return to nature is presented both positively and negatively. Recent study suggests that most urban areas in ancient Israel and Judah were quite small, though Samaria is likely to be an exception to this view. The urban socioeconomic elite was only a small group but controlled trade and luxury goods. The Samaritan ostraca testify that the flow of goods from rural to urban was a one-way traffic, and the urban elite exploited their position. The prophetic message contains a critique of the urban way of life, represented by an anti-urban animus, including the return of cities to a state of desolation and nature, the fall of Babylon, the unnamed city of Isa. 24-27, and Edom. The biblical story begins in a garden and ends in a city (including Gen. 1-11 which ends with the building and overthrow of Babel). The reversal to an original state of nature is seen positively in Isa. 2 and Hos. 2. A rural Utopia is painted in Isa. 32.15-20. The wilderness, scrub land, and fertile land are presented Be": Reflections on Sjoberg's Preindustrial City', Pacific Viewpoint 4 (1963), pp. 163-88. 13. The City in Time and Space (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 14. On this question, see further Grabbe (pp. 106-107 below).


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in contrast to the city. This is a scenario very different from the new Jerusalem, showing that the prophets could envision the future in more than one way. Robert Carroll ('City of Chaos, City of Stone, City of Flesh: Urbanscapes in Prophetic Discourses') observes that the city is one of the main foci of the Hebrew Bible, especially in the Major Prophets. His paper concentrates on Isa. 24-27 and Jeremiah 7. In Isaiah is a massive mythicizing of Zion, with the city the focus of many different positive and negative images. The city of Isa. 24-27 has been interpreted in many different ways, though it could be any city that one wants to criticize—a sort of shadow city. In Jer. 7 'this place' seems to vary between temple, city, and land, perhaps a deliberate ambivalence. The discourses on the city are meditations on the theme: new Jerusalem equals old Babylon. This leads to two possible lines of argument for reading the texts. The first is the 'two cities' route, in which Zion is contrasted with the 'city of chaos' (this being Babylon or possibly Nineveh). One can compare Augustine's 'city of God' versus the 'city of men'. The second line of argument treats the city as part of the symbolic geography of the Bible. This means that each city is an aspect of the city of humans, which may be positive or negative at any particular time. This way of reading Jer. 25 and 27 carries the implication that Jerusalem is equivalent to Babylon. It is not just a simple dichotomy, however, because Ezek. 16 has three cities. The 'city of chaos' in Isaiah is as much Jerusalem as any other city, and Jerusalem is the 'faithless city' of Isa. 1.21-26. Isaiah (and the whole Hebrew Bible) balances this perspective by one of Jerusalem as a transcendental reality—as a holy city. The same city is both holy and unholy, housing holy and unholy people together. In conclusion, all cities of the Bible represent one city, the 'city of men'. The only city of God is Jerusalem, but it is a very human city. In the Hebrew Bible (unlike the New Testament) there is no city outside the human sphere. Robert Coote ('Proximity to the Central Davidic Citadel and the Greater and Lesser Prophets') spends much of his time on the growth of the Latter Prophets (into 15 'divans', equivalent to the 15 present prophetic books). The divans of the Latter Prophets fall into two distinct groups distinguished by length (i.e. the Hebrew division of Major and Minor Prophets). Despite this diversity, both groups share most significant features, especially the central message about the salvation of the central Davidic citadel and the restoration of the Davidic monarchy over

20


Israel. The prophetic corpus has a dual focus: (a) the fall of Samaria, with the corresponding deliverance of Jerusalem under Hezekiah; and (b) the fall of Jerusalem and deportation of the Davidic house, with the corresponding restoration of the Davidic house and citadel. All the divans have one or both these foci. Both types of divan use the same rhetorical argument, in which God's threat to the David citadel is turned into deliverance, and employ the rhetorical devices of Israel's wrongs being countered by greater wrongs on the part of the foreign nations, and of the prophetic drama (in which the prophetic complaint is appropriated by the Davidic court because of how it has been punished). This development in tandem can be illustated by examples, the first comparing Hosea and Isa. 2-12 and 28-32, and the second comparing Isa. 2-39 with Micah. Considering the similarities between the structure of the different divans, what accounts for the difference in length? It may well be the relationship of the reputed prophetic author to the center of Davidic power: the authors of the longer divans (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel) are all alleged to have a reasonably close relationship, whereas the prophetic figures in the shorter divans do not. This analysis, in which the Davidic 'urban' citadel is the only factor, differs from the frequent suggestion of a distinction by an urban-rural background. Julia Galambush (This Land Is my Land: On Nature as Property in the Book of Ezekiel') writes on the nature of nature in Ezekiel, including both the land and various 'natural' categories that serve as social symbols. The concept of land is itself a social construct. With regard to the first symbol, animals, Ezekiel is consistent in seeing wild animals as a threat to the social order. There is some distinction between wild and cultivated plants, but the main concern is whether the plant in question is under control. Even a vine, if out of control, is a negative symbol. The land is both a geographical and a political entity, but is especially seen in human and social terms. The land bears the sins of its inhabitants, sitting in a state of desolation, and the 'bloody city' has been judged (22.1-12). When the land is restored, this includes both rural and urban areas. The negative image of the city in the first part of the book is balanced by a positive image in the second half. The city, like the land, indicates divine control. The goal of creation is the social order. Walled cities are favored over the open countryside. Ezekiel has similarities with some of the other prophets in preferring the cultivated (as does Jeremiah, though Jeremiah has a place for nature in the settled order; Deutero-Isaiah thinks nature is good if used for human welfare).


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Ezekiel is unusual in giving no view of nature other than a utilitarian and anthropocentric one. The river of Ezek. 47 especially demonstrates this in originating from the city. Ezekiel reflects the exilic situation and the dispute over ownership of the land. Yhwh owns all land—but not the land. The land is presently only a desire of the exiles and is in a wild state, inhabited only by 'wild animials'. Only when the exiles possess it will it become the proper cultivated land. Lester Grabbe ('Sup-urbs or only Hyp-urbs?') is primarily concerned about method in applying social scientific insights. Biblical scholars are too quick to embrace various theories from social and cultural anthropology without exercizing the normal healthy skepticism they would use for any theory in their own field. When it comes to urbanism, statements are made and conclusions drawn uncritically and contrary to basic common sense. Archaeology has given us a great deal of information about ancient Israelite society. It shows that older estimates about population size are most likely far too large. Samaria in the Northern Kingdom and Jerusalem in the Southern Kingdom, along with a few other sites, were the main urban areas. There are many biblical statements about cities and society. These do not indicate the sharp rural/ urban divide that so many scholars assume. The critiques found in the biblical text often involve cities—Jerusalem, Samaria, Babylon—but there are few if any that are critiques of cities qua cities. Jerusalem is criticized along with Judah, Samaria with all Israel, Babylon as pagan or the enemy of Israel or the enemy of God. When many of the supposed sociological analyses are examined closely, they show rather a theological critique—often based on modern prejudices and concerns— rather than a true socio-historical study. Tamar Kamionkowski ('The Savage Made Civilized: An Examination of Ezekiel 16.8') considers the imagery of the young woman Jerusalem in Ezek. 16 who was originally a foundling with many of the characteristics of the 'wild child'. The precise meaning of 16.8 has been much disputed, though many would argue that it contains an explicit metaphor for sexual intercourse between Yhwh and Jerusalem. Investigating this question takes much of the article, but it is answered in the affirmative. However, once the passage is read in this light there is an interesting parallel with the wild man Enkidu who is tamed by a woman in the Gilgamesh epic. This taming is done by introducing him to civilized habits such as clothing, washing, anointing, and the pleasures of sex. This is precisely what Yhwh does with the young woman who has

22


grown up wild in Ezek. 16. This may reflect Ezekiel's ambiguous attitudes toward urban life: wealth and high status are bestowed by Yhwh on Jerusalem, but it is ultimately these that corrupt her. The period prior to the establishment of Jerusalem as the capital is viewed as both a time of impurity and a time of alluring innocence. The metaphor is better understood against the backdrop of a tale of civilization rather than one of adoption and marriage. Jerusalem's exposure to urban life leads to her corruption. John Kessler ('Reconstructing Haggai's Jerusalem') begins by surveying various analyses of Judean society in the Persian period, using three models as a way of grouping the different approaches. His categories are 'the conflict model' (P.D. Hanson, Morton Smith, R.G. HamertonKelly, P.R. Bedford, and N.K. Gottwald in one version, seeing the conflict as theological or ideological; J.P. Weinberg and H. Kreissig, along with O. Margalith and R.P. Carroll, present the conflict as economic and concerned with land tenure; and T.L. Thompson and T.M. Bolin focus on ethnic, political and theological conflict), the 'populous exilic Yehud model' (H.M. Barstad, with similarities in E. Janssen, H. Kreissig, and to some extent E.-M. Laperrousaz), and the 'demographic decline model' (C.E. Carter and E. Ben Zvi, and M. Broshi to a lesser extent). The lastmodel which, using a carefully elaborated demographic methodology, sees a sparsely populated Jerusalem in 520 BCE is the most convincing reconstruction. Furthermore, the situation presupposed in the text of Haggai corresponds well with the image of an underpopulated, economically deprived Jerusalem. Ben Zvi proposed little literary activity in Persian I but situated the bulk of it in Persian II. However, certain factors may attenuate Ben Zvi's caution and suggest that more literary activity should be allowed for Persian I, not only Persian II. This might help explain the diversity of biblical literature. In addition, the text of Haggai itself manifests a wide variety of theological streams of tradition. The rebuilding of the temple near the beginning of Darius I's reign by a small, diverse and struggling Judean population facilitated population growth, economic development and literary output in Jerusalem. Thus, 520-516 BCE may be as critical a moment in the emergence of Second Temple Judaism as the events of the mid fifth century BCE. Ben Nefzger ('The Sociology of Preindustrial Cities') is mainly concerned with looking at some recent sociological theories about cities and urbanism. Noting that there is no classical definition of 'city', he adopts the definition that defines urbanism as a way of life, that is, the


23

subculture of persons who reside in cities. Cities developed about 3500 BCE out of three requirements: a surplus of food and other necessities, an increase in technology, and the rise of forms of social structure other than family and kinship. The rest of the article is taken up with an investigation of different theories of city. The first is Gordon Childe who came up with a list of 10 ways in which cities differ from villages. Gideon Sjoberg put forward a much more detailed characterization of preindustrial cities, divided into ecological, economic, and social organization. Louis Wirth wrote an essay, based on twentieth-century American industrial cities that has been very influential. He argued that cities led to increasing sophistication and rationality, but this is countered by the negative effects of depersonalization, substitution of formal for informal social control, and segmentation in one's personal life. Wirth's analysis has been widely criticized, not least by Claude Fischer. Fischer identified three major theories of urbanism. The 'determinist theory' is based on Wirth and suggests social and personal disorders as a product of urbanism ('urban anomie'). This theory is widely challenged. The 'compositionalist theory' sees little direct effect of urbanism; rather, the differences between urban and rural behavior is due to the composition of the different sub-populations. The 'subcultural theory' (Fischer's own view) largely follows the compositionalist but argues that the urbanism does have some disorganizing influence on city dwellers. Rather than destroying social groups and subcultures (as the determinists believe), the city promotes the emergence of new ones, especially through the concentration of population. Fischer's theory is impressive but is based on recent American industrial cities. Although an attempt has been made by Rodney Stark to apply it to early Christianity, it is suggested that Fischer's theory is worthy of application as an investigative and interpretive tool to study ancient Israelite cities. Martti Nissinen ('City as Lofty as Heaven: Arbela and other Cities in Neo-Assyrian Prophecy') aims to look at urbanism in a broad perspective by locating cities on the 'mental maps' of their inhabitants. Although there have been many studies of cities as spatial, political, and social entities, cities also constituted symbolic, theological, and ideological contructs, which the Neo-Assyrian prophecies help to document. Arbela was an important center for the goddess Ishtar who had a major position in the pantheon during the reigns of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal, the city being a focus of the special relationship between the king and the goddess. Ishtar would sometimes remove

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herself to the 'Palace of the Steppe' in Milqia outside Arbela, usually at a time when the king was at war. Her return to Arbela with him in triumph symbolized victory over the powers of chaos. A number of texts mention Ashur, Nineveh, Calah, and Arbela (the four 'doorjambs of Assyria'); this is not just a list of four cities but actually a synechdoche for the entire country of Assyria and Esarhaddon's 'eternal' rule over it. Each of these cities has particular honors and functions, and the goddess is manifested in some form at each, but Arbela comes first. Special attention in the texts is devoted to Babylonia, a subordinate nation at this time. The gods of Esaggil, the temple of Marduk, appear in the prophetic texts. Sargon and Sennacherib had treated Babylon badly, but Esarhaddon embarked on a course of reconciliation which was completed under Ashurbanipal. Esarhaddon's setting of the substitute king ritual in Akkad honored that city and was part of the effort to reconcile the whole of Babylonia to Assyrian rulers. Harran was also especially honored by Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal, though it was the source of an oracle against the former. A Dara-ahuya is also mentioned once in the prophetic oracles, but little is known about it. The basic view in Mesopotamia is that cities were where civilized activity took place. Cities were symbolic of royal power. The prophets are associated with cities because cities were where temples usually were, but also because they belonged to the symbolic world of prophecy. John Watts ('Jerusalem: An Example of War in a Walled City [Isaiah 3-4]') begins by noting the importance of walled cities, of which Jerusalem is an example. Isaiah 3-4 gives an excellent picture of Jerusalem at the time. It describes the internal structures of the city and also its needs: supplies and personnel. It also describes its weaknesses: incompetent rulers, violence and oppression, exploitation of the weak, the problems of affluence, the breakdown of society as a whole. The book of Isaiah describes two sieges, of Ahaz in the Syro-Ephraimite war and of Hezekiah in 701 BCE—both unsuccessful—but is silent about the siege of Jerusalem under Zedekiah. The Persian restoration is mentioned in Isa. 49-54, 60, 62. Isaiah 3-4 is a literary unit independent of the larger book and foreshadows the treatment of Jerusalem in the book of Isaiah as a whole. 3. Major Themes and Discussion As will be clear to anyone who has read the papers or even just the preceding summaries, the studies in this volume take a wide diversity of


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approaches. Since it was the intent to allow different ways of tackling the subject, this variety demonstrates that the subject of urbanism and prophecy extends far beyond the brief contents of this volume. Nevertheless, a number of themes and topics arise from the papers for treatment from a more holistic perspective. Some of these topics show a common approach by different writers but, as will soon be clear, what we sometimes find is sharp disagreement. Although the papers themselves do not carry on a debate with one another, this is an opportunity to create one, or at least to explore the implications of the agreements and disagreements. Moreover, a proper discussion of the topic requires that the areas not covered by the papers be also considered: these gaps ought to be acknowledged and comment made on how discussion of them might change the picture arising from the papers actually produced. 4. Theology/Ideology of the City The most important theme running through these papers—or at least the one most commented on by contributors—is that of the theology or ideology of the city. In modern times we tend to think of cities as a matter of geography, population, building, social and economic structures, and similar physical characteristics. Many of the scholarly studies on ancient cities take the same approach and discuss matters of definition, especially asking whether a particular social or economic structure is essential or whether a minimum population should be specified. These concerns receive some attention among the papers of this volume (cf. Nefzger, Grabbe, Blenkinsopp); for example, Kessler sets out to investigate the particular characteristics of Jerusalem in the early Persian period. In examining several different models (proposed mainly by biblical scholars rather than social anthropologists) the question of population and literary activity are particularly important, though both these have social and economic implications, and finally even religious implications for the development of Judaism. Thus, even Kessler does not confine himself just to a physical or social description of the city. The concentration of most other writers who discuss the question is on the idea that a city can entail much more than the physical and literal aspects. Cities are not just physical entities but constructs of the human mind. Cities are part of a 'mental map' created by their inhabitants and others (Nissinen), a part of the 'symbolic geography' of the ancient

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writers (Carroll). This takes us quickly away from populations and architecture into the deep waters of theology, ideology, anthropology, cosmology, and mythology. Space is one of the fundamental concepts of the mythical worlds found widely in religion, beliefs, and worldviews. Sacred space is perhaps the first and most obvious concept to come to mind, but the question goes much wider than that, encompassing the cosmological wordview underlying this idea of symbolic space and mythical geography. Anthropologists have written a good deal on cosmology, the assumption being that the cosmological views of preindustrial peoples (but not only them) determines to a lesser or greater extent their societal structures and their interpretation of the world.15 At the most basic level, religious rites may be carried out in a space marked off by taboos about who may enter it and under what conditions because this space in some way symbolizes the divine realm.16 Temples, priests, ritual purity, sacrifice, and cults are ubiquitous. 5. The Ideal of Jerusalem Jerusalem has long ceased to be just an obscure settlement of people in an out-of-the-way site in the Judean hill country, constituting the Palestinian grid reference 172131 on the atlas. We are all aware that thousands of lives may be sacrificed for a few yards of shell-pitted, mudchurned wasteland on the battlefield, but few cities in history have exercised such an enormous symbolic and ideological hold over such a multitude of people as Jerusalem. Jerusalem is not just a city but a religious idea, and the same applies to some other cities mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. God has his dwelling there. The temple mount forms 15. On cosmology, some relevant studies are Kees W. Bolle, 'Cosmology: An Overview', in Mircea Eliade (ed.), The Encyclopaedia of Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1987), IV, pp. 100-107; Claude Levi-Strauss, Mythologiques: Introduction to a Science of Mythology (4 vols.; New York: Harper and Row, 1969-81) (ET of Mythologique [1964-71]); Fredrik Earth, Cosmologies in the Making: A Generative Approach to Cultural Variation in Inner New Guinea (Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). 16. See, e.g., Seth D. Kunin, God's Place in the World: Sacred Space and Sacred Place in Judaism (Cassell Religious Studies; London: Cassell, 1998); see also the discussion and bibliography in my Judaic Religion in the Second Temple Period: Belief and Practice from the Exile to Yavneh (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 129-35.


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a nexus between earth and heaven. God has placed his name on that site and no other. The Jerusalem below is only the mundane representation of the Jerusalem above, a Jerusalem described in various early Jewish texts (2 Bar. 4.2-4; 4 Ezra 7.26; 13.36; cf. Rev. 21.10-27; Tob. 13.1618; 1Q32, 2Q24, 4Q554-55, 5Q15, 11Q1817), though not in the Hebrew Bible (but cf. Ezek. 40^8).18 It is therefore surprising that the subject of Zion and Zion theology did not receive extensive treatment from any of the contributors (though Carroll alludes to it, and Grabbe takes it up at somewhat greater length), but it is one that has been widely debated within scholarship on biblical prophets. Many scholars once subscribed to the view that belief in the inviolability of Zion was not only widely held during the last century or so of the kingdom of Judah but was even proclaimed by no less a figure than Isaiah himself. This view has been challenged but the issue is hardly settled.19 Regardless of Isaiah's views on the subject, most would accept that there were circles or at least individuals during the eighth and seventh centuries BCE who held to the concept that Zion as the seat of God's throne would be divinely protected against all attackers, with God as the divine warrior fighting on their side against their enemies. If there was a Zion tradition, however, it would affect how people looked at Jerusalem. Holders of the belief in the inviolability of Zion are not likely to be criticizing the city in a fundamental way. This is not to suggest that such believers may not have also thought that there were problems to be solved and wrongs to be righted. Although not treating the Zion tradition as such, a number of the 17. On these texts from Qumran, see Michael Chyutin, The New Jerusalem Scroll from Qumran: A Comprehensive Reconstruction (JSPSup, 25; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997). 18. C.T.R. Hay ward, The Jewish Temple: A Non-Biblical Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 1996). 19. The interpretation has been strongly opposed by, e.g., Ronald Clements in such writings as Isaiah and the Deliverance of Jerusalem: A Study of the Interpretation of Prophecy in the Old Testament (JSOTSup, 13; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1980) and his commentary Isaiah 1-39 (NCB; London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980). He acknowledges dependence on the literary analysis of Hermann Barth (Die Jesaja-Worte in der Josiazeit [WMANT, 48; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchen Verlag, 1977]) for deciding which words in the book of Isaiah can be assigned to Isaiah of Jerusalem and what is likely to be later addition. Clements has been criticized byJ.J.M. Roberts; see his review of Clements in JBL 101 (1982), pp. 442-44.

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contributors deal specifically with Jerusalem as a theological entity. Kasmionkowski shows how Jerusalem, in the guise of a young woman first rescued by and then espoused to Yhwh, is depicted from a theological perspective. The 'David citadel' (Coote) is not just a fortress but a national institution which ultimately connects with the divine as the location of a sacred omphalos and the place which God himself chose by a divine sign (cf. 2 Sam. 24.16-25). Such examples show a strong theological dimension that goes beyond Jerusalem as one city among many in the ancient world. As will also be discussed below, the whole of idea of the city as the environment of civilization is an ideological concept that transforms the mundane settlement of a group of people in a particular place. 6. The Development of Scripture Two writers address the question of how the topic of the urban center has implications for the growth of the prophetic corpus (Coote) or even the development of Scripture in general (Kessler). Coote suggests that the length of prophetic writings ('divans') is specifically determined by how close the (alleged) authors/prophets were to the central Davidic citadel. In other words, those prophets who supposedly had close relations with the Jerusalem monarchy, with its Davidic king, were accorded large books, whereas those who had no such ostensible connection received only 'minor' status. The matter is not quite this simple, as he makes clear, since the prophetic corpus had a complex development, but in broad terms this characterization seems plausible. Similarly, Kessler asks how the population of Jerusalem may have affected literary activity. The number of 'literati' and the economic support they received would have been essential to the ability to produce literature, especially with regard to recording and developing the religious tradition. The number of literati would have been small in any case,20 though Kessler is right to note that not all such individuals 20. Kessler cites Ehud Ben Zvi, 'The Urban Center of Jerusalem and the Development of the Literature of the Hebrew Bible', in Walter E. Aufrecht, Neil A. Mirau, and Steven W. Gauley (eds.), Aspects ofUrbanism in Antiquity from Mesopotamia to Crete (JSOTSup, 244; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), pp. 194-209. Cf. also my discussion of those undertaking the composition of literature in Priests, Prophets, Diviners, Sages: A Socio-Historical Study of Religious Specialists in Ancient Israel (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1995), pp. 198-200,217-21.


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would have been in Jerusalem. In his opinion a small but important corpus of texts arose in the early Persian period (Persian I), followed by a larger number in the later period (Persian II). The vicissitudes experienced by Jerusalem were a major factor in the writing and editing of these literary texts, many of which eventually ended up as a part of the Hebrew canon. 7. What Is a City? In most of the papers here, there is very little discussion of definition: what is a city? Most comment is given by Nefzger who surveys some of the main theories about city origin and development among preindustrial cities (cf. also Grabbe, though I admittedly discuss the question only as it relates to my larger aim). Netzger demonstrates that ideas about the cities have changed considerably since the writing of classic definitions like those of Gordon Childe and Louis Wirth.21 What becomes clear is that—despite not including a formal discussion of definition—most of the contributors are working with some sort of underlying assumption about what a city is, without stating it explicitly. As will become obvious in the discussion below, these unstated but very real presuppositions about cities do affect some of the conclusions reached by several contributors. Did ancient Israel and Judah really have cities? If so, how many? How big? How were they organized? The model of the city presupposed—but often undeclared—by many scholars is one of the main points of my own paper. This lack of discussion is understandable because most contributors want to get on with investigation of the topic at hand without wasting a lot of time on issues that may be difficult to resolve, anyway. Yet the very intractability of the question concerning what constitutes a city in ancient Israel should give a clear signal that we cannot work as if the matter is settled. We cannot assume a particular model without further discussion. One can rightly object that since there is still a major anthropological debate on the definition of city, biblical scholars can hardly hope to resolve the question. This is perfectly true and imminently reasonable, but this simply means that we cannot operate with an agreed definition because none exists. What becomes evident is that 21. See also Grabbe (pp. 95-123 below) for a critique of some of these writers and other bibliography not mentioned by Nefzger. However, Nefzger's article and mine are complementary in that he covers some material not mentioned by me.

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many scholars who write in this area are also unaware of the state of debate among anthropologists. Biblical scholars cannot start from a consensus because there isn't one. 8. A Rural Critique of the City? The question of definition quickly leads us to another main issue: how we are to understand the city in its context. Biblical scholars have not infrequently operated with an explicit or implicit model of the 'consumer city' (cf. Blenkinsopp). The concept of a city that extracts the agricultural surplus and consumes it has a long history, going back at least to Max Weber.22 According to Weber, there were three ideal types of city: the consumer city, the producer city, and the merchant city (though he also noted that most cities would represent mixed types). This model was accepted and reinforced by the classical scholar Moses Finley.23 The concept has now been investigated further by classical scholars,24 including a symposium devoted to the question: Roman Urbanism: Beyond the Consumer City.25 As so often, a core truth can easily be distorted unless some major qualifications are added to the conceptualization. Cities did not just consume; they created the economic stimulation and the markets which meant that the peasants also benefited from the presence of the city. We should also not forget that the country people took up produce (or money to buy consumables) to Jerusalem for their families and themselves to consume during the annual festivals. A number of the contributors talked about a dichotomy between 22. The City (n. 5 above). 23. The Ancient City: From Fustel de Coulanges to Max Weber and Beyond', Comparative Studies in Society and History19 (1977), pp. 305-27; reprinted in Finley, Economy and Society in Ancient Greece (ed. with introduction by Brent D. Shaw and Richard P. Sailer; London: Chatto & Windus, 1981), pp. 3-23; The Ancient Economy (London: Hogarth Press, 2nd edn, 1985), pp. 123-41. 24. See the essays in John Rich and Andrew Wallace-Hadrill (eds.), City and Country in the Ancient World (Leicester-Nottingham Studies in Ancient Society; London: Routledge, 1991), especially by Robin Osborne and Wallace-Hadrill. Note also the remarks of Keith Hopkins, 'Economic Growth and Towns in Classical Antiquity', in Philip Abrams and E. A. Wrigley (eds.), Towns in Societies, pp. 3577, especially pp. 72-75. 25. Helen M. Parkins (ed.), Roman Urbanism: Beyond the Consumer City (London: Routledge, 1997). Note especially the sub-title of the volume.


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urban and rural, or urban/rural mentality, or critique of the urban or something similar (Galambush, Kamionkowski, Nissinen, cf. Coote); however, the best illustration of the differences of approach can be seen by comparing Blenkinsopp and Grabbe. Both of us looked at some of the same passages but with a rather different interpretation in some cases. Blenkinsopp's overall view is that (some of) the prophets critique from a rural perspective and mentality which is suspicious of the urban. I argue that most of these passages are either not such a critique or that they are capable of another interpretation. This disagreement is hardly surprising because such a dichotomy between rural/urban has been assumed by some older sociological and anthropological works. For example, Marx and Engels had seen town and country as having separate and opposed interests.26 Nevertheless, this idea has been considerably criticized in recent studies. The ambivalent attitude to the urban environment is mirrored in some of our literary sources,27 Among classical writers, Varro can speak of a moral distinction between 'rustics' and 'urbanites' (Rerum rusticarum 2.1.1), while Cicero castigated the luxury of urban living in contrast to the morally superior life in the country (Pro Roscio Aermino 75).28 We must read these in context, however, for the very life pronounced decadent was also the life lived by the writers themselves—at least, part of the time—for life in the city was an important part of their lives. The other side of the coin is treating urban life as civilized and cultivated, with comparison of the crude and unrefined rustic life (hence, 'urbanity' as a compliment, and 'rustic' as a term of opprobrium). The country elite were usually willing to spend money to make their villas as refined and luxurious as anything in the city. Most recent study has emphasized that there was generally no sharp urban/rural distinction in antiquity. Indeed, Adam Smith had already

26. The German Ideology (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1938), p. 8; ET of Die deutsche Ideologic (1845-46). They state, 'The division of labour inside a nation leads at first to the separation of industrial and commercial from agricultural labour, and hence to the separation of town and country and to the conflict of their interests.' 27. For a discussion of the subject in English literature, see Raymond Williams, The Country and the City (London: Chatto & Windus, 1993). 28. For a brief survey of some of the different attitudes among Roman writers, see Wallace-Hadrill, 'Elites and Trade in the Roman Town', in Rich and WallaceHadrill (eds.), City and Country in the Ancient World, pp. 244-49.

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expressed the view that the relationship of town and country was 'mutual and reciprocal'.29 The general view is that the opposition arose with regard to medieval cities.30 Already Weber had stated, 'the associational character of the city and the concept of a burgher (as contrasted to the man from the countryside) never developed at all or existed only in rudiments.'31 The wealth of the elite was not based on commerce and capitalistic enterprises but came primarily from the land.32 The concept of an urban elite—in opposition to a rural elite—comes from the model of the medieval city, whereas the elite in antiquity was undifferentiated, dividing its time between the estates from which it obtained its wealth and the political activities that tended to be conducted in the city.33 Many of our data are derived from the Greek and Roman context but, if anything, the ancient Near Eastern situation held together the urban and rural even more tightly.34 In the context of ancient Israel and Judah, with only a few genuine urban areas, the situation was unlikely to be any different. Capital cities of necessity housed the main administrative apparatus, with the bureaucrats living off the taxes collected by the state. Similarly, the temple and cult were funded by tithes and offerings from the people, with the priests forming one of the few specialized divisions of labor. As the seat of both government and religious leadership, Jerusalem would have been open to any criticisms concerning either of these spheres. Nevertheless, the concept of significant rural/ urban alienation does not fit either what is known from other areas of the ancient Near East nor the primary data. My critique receives support from several of the papers in this collection. Coote's study suggested that the differences between the various books ('divans') of the prophetic corpus was to do with proximity 29. An Inquiry, book 3, chapters 3-4. 30. See Grabbe (pp. 103-107 below) for further discussion. 31. Economy and Society, p. 1227 (= The City, p. 81); see in general his comments on pp. 1217-18 and 1226-34. 32. Weber, Economy and Society, pp. 1217-18; Finley, The Ancient Economy, pp. 52-60, 188-91. This is not to say that trade and commerce played no role in the wealth of the elites; see the essays of Osborne and Wallace-Hadrill in Rich and Wallace Hadrill (eds.), City and Country in the Ancient World; Helen M. Parkins, 'The "Consumer City" Domesticated? The Roman City in Elite Economic Strategies', in Parkins (ed.), Roman Urbanism, pp. 83-111. 33. On this, see further the discussion in Grabbe (pp. 107-108 below). 34. See especially the model and discussion in Southall, The City in Time and Space, pp. 15-17,23-53.


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to the Davidic citadel, a different concept from a rural/urban critique. Galambush makes the point that both the destruction and the restoration of the land includes the rural as well as the urban areas. Kamionkowski concludes that, according to Ezek. 16, urban life eventually leads to corruption; however, as will be noted below, the corruption comes from civilization—since what Jerusalem receives is not exclusively urban but also to be found in the countryside. In other words, the division is not between urban and rural but between rural/urban and wild; civiliation encompasses rural as well as urban but is opposed to the uncultivated. This important distinction between the civilized and the wild or wilderness is noted by several contributors (Blenkinsopp, Galambush, Kamionkowski, Grabbe). This is a basic mental concept that anthropologists have found in many different cultures around the world. It is found in ancient Mesopotamia, as well as many modern preindustrial societies.35 This is not, as just noted, a division between urban and rural, as some writers have suggested; on the contrary, the rural and agrarian are part of the same entity, the civilized. The difference is between cultivated and uncultivated, but not between urban and rural. Therefore, when Jer. 2 and Hosea speak of the wilderness tradition, this is not a critique of the urban in opposition to the rural. 9. Conclusions: Anthropology or Theology? However, to return to the more important issues, my main point has not been whether some passages may show a rural/urban critique or contrast as Blenkinsopp and others argue. This was only an example on which to focus methodological comments and criticisms. Undoubtedly, there were considerable differences of approach and attitude among the prophets (even if 'the prophet' is still too often seen to represent an undifferentiated group36), and I am willing to accept that some prophets might have attacked the city as entity in its own right. I have not yet seen it demonstrated, but it is theoretically possible. (Readers will no doubt make up their own minds after reading and comparing the two articles.) My point was really different, though, focusing on the fundamental question of methodology and involving the following related challenges to current scholarship.

35. For documentation, see Grabbe (pp. 114-15 and nn. 68-69). 36. See my comments in Priests, Prophets, Diviners, Sages, pp. 98-118.

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(a) Scholars need to be clear about the presuppositions on which they work. If one has a particular view about what a city is, that needs to be stated, yet writers operate with an unstated presupposition that predetermines their conclusions to a lesser or greater extent. One cannot assume a rural/urban dichotomy in ancient Israel; it has to be demonstrated. The problem is that many scholars assume such a scenario without actually trying to address the issue; indeed, one wonders if they even recognize it. The mere existence of cities (although there were probably very few, by any definition, in ancient Israel) does not allow one to assume a sharp rural/urban division nor a number of the other presuppositions about Israelite society that so often seem to go with it. (b) What many scholars label 'sociological analysis' is nothing more than an exercise in theological judgment and even an exercise in modern concerns rising out of preoccupations of the 1960s liberal challenge to the establishment. Thus, ancient Israelite society has imposed on it such models as rich/poor = oppressor/oppressed or urban = bad/rural = good. It is not my purpose to argue whether these concepts are defendable in modern theological discussion but whether they are justifiable presuppositions on which to discuss Israelite society. I argue that they are not and that they should be recogized for what they are. They are certainly not a legitimate application of the social sciences to understanding the society of Palestine in the first millennium BCE. Coming to grips with an ancient society by the correct application of social scientific methodology is hard enough in its own right. The last thing we need is for theological wolves in the guise of sociological lambs trying to convince us that granny had big teeth and a long, hairy snout all along. This is in no way to denigrate theological study of the texts nor to dismiss those who devote themselves to the hermeneutical task of trying to apply ancient texts to the contemporary situation. But theological analysis is theology, and hermeneutics is hermeneutics: neither is sociological analysis, and neither can provide historical conclusions. Several of the papers in this volume provide very helpful theological or ideological studies. These can be used in the socio-historical task, but they are not a substitute for it.

CITYSCAPE TO LANDSCAPE:

THE 'BACK TO NATURE' THEME IN ISAIAH 1-35

Joseph Blenkinsopp

Von diesen Stadten wird bleiben was durch sie hindurchging, der Wind. 1 (Bertold Brecht: Vom armen b.b.)

The purpose of this paper is to invite reflection on a theme of frequent occurrence in Isaiah, but one less frequently discussed. Several passages in Isa. 1-35 predict that particular cities, or an anonymous city, or cities in general, will go back to nature, will be depopulated and become a habitat for wild animals. This scenario is presented both negatively and positively, that is, either as the outcome of divine judgment or as a Utopian ideal. Correspondingly, nature can be seen as either unfit for human habitation or as the ideal environment and the antithesis of the city. The discussion does not require us to settle questions of authorship or authenticity. Some of the passages to be discussed may well have been spoken or written by an eighth-century BCE polemicist called Isaiah, but it will be enough for our purposes to assume that chs. 1-35 have enough inner consistency to be read as a text, and that it is reasonable to take this text as the product of a cumulative and incremental interpretative process within a particular tradition, however broadly defined. Before taking a look at this text, we must take note of the social and political situation that generated the literature of social protest which the biblical texts attribute to Amos, Micah and Isaiah and date to the eighth century BCE. The view is now widely shared that, notwithstanding the biblical description of a highly developed state system at the time of David and Solomon, the two Israelite kingdoms only reached a degree of political organization and developed an administrative 1. 'Of these cities there will remain only that which passed through them, the wind.'

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apparatus appropriate to a nation state about two centuries later.2 This is arguably the case with Judah, but for Israel it ignores the achievements of the Omri dynasty in the first half of the ninth century. These included the foundation of a new capital city, the establishment of close commercial ties with the Phoenician cities, territorial expansion east of the Jordan, a peace settlement with Judah which may have been for a while a vassal of Israel, and a significant contribution to halting the western progress of the Assyrians at Qarqar in 853. Also, Omri has the distinction of being the first Israelite whose name unquestionably appears in monumental texts from outside the two kingdoms (the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III and the Mesha stele). In the context of that time and place, Israel therefore qualifies as a state comparable to others in the Syro-Palestinian corridor. Relevant to our discussion are the indications in the texts and the archaeological record of considerable urban development at that time. Samaria was built from scratch as a new capital by Omri, and other urban centers were expanded, including Razor (stratum VIII), Dan (strata III and II) and Megiddo (stratum IVa).3 In the following century, apparently during the reign of Hezekiah, Jerusalem underwent a comparable expansion, with the occupation of the western hill which came to be known as the mishneh or Second City (2 Kgs 22.14; Zeph. 1.10), and defensive measures including a new wall and the Siloam tunnel to secure the city's water supply.4 That is as far as the 2. The minimalists who reject the biblical accounts of the United Monarchy have been vigorously opposed by W.G. Dever. The most recent of his statements at the time of writing is 'Archaeology, Urbanism, and the Rise of the Israelite State,' in W.E. Aufrecht et al. (eds.), Urbanism in Antiquity from Mesopotamia to Crete (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1997), pp. 172-93. 3. On the Omri dynasty generally see G.W. Ahlstrom, The History of Ancient Palestine (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2nd edn, 1994), pp. 569-606 and J. Blenkinsopp, 'Ahab of Israel and Jehoshaphat of Judah: The Syro-Palestinian Corridor in the Ninth Century', in J.M. Sasson (ed.), Civilizations of the Ancient Near East II (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1995), pp. 1309-19. On the individual sites see the relevant articles in E. Stern (ed.), The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land (Jerusalem: The Israel Exploration Society & Carta; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993). 4. It is widely assumed that the expansion was in part due to an influx of refugees from the former Kingdom of Samaria, now divided up into four Assyrian provinces, and perhaps also from those parts of Judah handed over to the city states of Ashdod, Ekron, and Gaza after the collapse of Hezekiah's rebellion against Sennacherib (ANET, p. 288). See M. Broshi, 'The Expansion of Jerusalem in the Reign of Hezekiah and Manasseh', IEJ 24 (1974), pp. 21-26; A.D. Tushingham, The

BLENKINSOPP Cityscape to Landscape

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archaeological data, always subject to revision as they are, can take us. When we use the language of urban development with reference to the ninth or eighth century BCE Israelite kingdoms we need to qualify it with an informed sense of the social realities of that time and place. Most of the 150 or so 'cities' of Judah (inclusive of Simeon and Benjamin) in the Joshua lists (15.1-63; 18.11-28; 19.1-9) were no more than farmsteads or hamlets measuring a few thousand square meters maximum and with no more than a hundred or so residents.5 At the other end of the spectrum are administrative centers in which most of the space would be occupied by palaces, temples, fortifications and storage areas. Sargon II claimed to have deported 27,290 individuals from Samaria after the conquest of that city (ANET, p. 284), but if Crowfoot was even close in calculating the size of the city as no more than 75 dunams (i.e. 7.5 hectares) the numbers are either greatly exaggerated, or have been incorrectly transcribed (perhaps originally 2729), or represent population drawn from the surrounding countryside. In any case, excavation was limited to the royal enclosure on the summit of the hill. Even on a major site like Hazor, not a royal city, most of the area was covered with administrative buildings and storage facilities with relatively little evidence of private residential quarters. Much of the walled area in Samaria and Jerusalem, the principal targets of prophetic diatribe, would have been occupied by palaces, temples, public buildings, and residences for court and temple personnel, merchants, craftsmen, and others parasitic in one way or another on the court, in addition of course to a great deal of space for storage, stabling and the like. The urban socioeconomic elite, constituting only a minuscule percentage of the total population, controlled trade and monopolized Western Hill under the Monarchy', ZDPV95 (1979), pp. 39-55; N. Avigad, Discovering Jerusalem (Nashville, TX: Thomas Nelson, 1980), pp. 31-60. 5. The survey of the Judean hill country carried out by A. Ofer over an area of about 900 sq.km. south of Jerusalem came up with 235 inhabited sites of 1000 sq.m. or more and an estimated total population of 23,000 in Iron IIC (eighth century); see A, Ofer, 'Judean Hills Survey', in E. Stern et al. (eds.) NEAEHL, III, pp. 815-16. Population estimates for Israelite Iron Age sites are notoriously speculative due to the predilection of archeologists working in these regions for monumental architecture and the relative absence of adequate floor plans. One exception is Iron II Tell en-Nasbeh (Mizpah), a mid-size site, with an estimated population of 1,000 maximum; see J.R. Zorn, 'Estimating the Population Size of Ancient Settlements: Methods, Problems, Solutions and a Case History', BASOR 295 (1994), pp. 31-48.

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luxury items. We get some idea of the quantity and quality of such goods during the Neo-Assyrian period from accounts of tribute paid to the imperial power, luxury items inventoried in Assyrian records (gold and silver, ivory products, boxwood, precious garments, purple-dyed woolen goods, etc.), and denunciations in prophetic books. The archaeological contribution is meager, understandably so since anything of value has been targeted by thieves ancient and modern. The Samaria ivories, discovered in fragmentary condition in the excavation of 19081910, provide a rare glimpse into the lifestyle at the Samarian court in the ninth and eighth centuries, and recall Amos's denunciation of the idle rich lying on beds inlaid with ivory (Amos 6.4) and Ahab's 'ivory house' (1 Kgs 22.S9).6 The Samaria ostraca, apparently used to label shipments of oil and wine from different villages and farms in the Samarian countryside to the court, provide an equally rare illustration of the symbiotic relationship between city and countryside.7 In a society in which wealth circulated equitably through the population as a whole (if that has ever happened), the city-countryside relationship would be mutually beneficial, but the ostraca testify to a one-way flow of goods from the countryside to the city. It seems that the urban monopoly of disposable wealth, of education, and especially of literacy, proved to be an irresistible temptation to exploit the relationship. Prophetic denunciations give a fair idea of the various ways in which this was being done: excessive taxation and payment of tribute in kind, confiscation of land for insolvency, forced labor, indentured service to amortize debt, and (perhaps worst of all) the manipulation of a centralized judicial system which was gradually taking over functions hitherto entrusted to tribal elders. As defenders of a traditional and basically illiterate peasant way of life, the eighth-century prophets were also aware of writing as an instrument of control and oppression; witness Isaiah's condemnation of 6. On the ivories see J.W. Crowfoot and Grace M. Crowfoot, Early Ivories from Samaria (Samaria Sebaste 2) (London: Palestine Exploration Fund, 1938); N. Avigad, 'Samaria', NEAEHL IV, pp. 1304-1306. On luxury items in general A. Mazar, Archaeology of the Land of the Bible 10,000-586 BCE (New York: Doubleday, 1990), pp. 503-14 and D.W. Jamieson-Drake, Scribes and Schools in Monarchic Judah: A Socio-Archeological Approach (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1991). The demand for ivory goods explains why the Syrian elephant was hunted to extinction by the seventh century BCE. 7. For the ostraca see the bibliography in Avigad, 'Samaria', p. 1310. The juxtaposition of old, tribal place names with others of a different kind may indicate the gradual replacement of traditional tribal structures with those of the state.


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those who issue wicked decrees and draft oppressive regulations (Isa. 10.1) and Jeremiah's tirade against the false pen of legal scribes who were turning the law into a lie (Jer. 8.8). I take the latter to include manipulating the law for their own purposes. The denunciations in Isa. 1-35, Amos and Micah are not, however, limited to matters of social injustice or obviously immoral conduct. They include such activities as lying on beds inlaid with ivory, listening to recreational music and, with respect to women, walking with mincing steps (Amos 6.1-7; Isa. 3.16-26). While these do not in themselves constitute serious infractions of the social order, they exemplified for the writers a characteristically corrupt urban way of life. This form of prophetic 'culture hostility' (Max Weber) was rooted in the deliberate primitivism of such groups as Nazirites and Rechabites who eschewed alcoholic drinks, the grooming that they took to be characteristic of urban living and, in the case of the Rechabites, even living in houses.8 Whatever designation is considered appropriate for Isaiah and the others (prophet? poet? polemicist? dissident intellectual?), there are fairly clear indications that they stand within the nebiistic tradition of these 'primitives',9 and that this tradition has helped to form their attitude to city living. In Isa. 1-35 one of the forms in which anti-urban animus is expressed is the prediction that the city will return to nature. Its inhabitants will be slaughtered or, if lucky, deported, and it will be turned into pastureland for sheep (5.17), cattle (27.11), and wild donkeys (32.14). In the vision of the heavenly throne room, the seer hears that cities will lie deserted without inhabitants, houses without occupants, and the land will be left a desolation (6.11). The picture is filled in later: On the soil of my people thorns and briers spring up,10 in every happy home,

8. On Nazirites see Judg. 13-16; Num. 6.1-21; 1 Sam. 1.11 in the longer version reconstructed from LXXB and 4QSama. Rechabites: 2 Kgs 10.15-16; Jer. 35.1-19. 9. Hos. 9.7-8; 12.10; Amos 2.11 in which nebi'im are linked with nezirim. Perhaps the frequent denunciation of drunkenness in the four prophetic books under consideration is a faint echo of the rejection of alcohol by both Nazirites and Rechabites. 10. Thorns and briars' (qos veSdmtr) is a recurrent topos wherever ecologica degradation is an issue in these chapters (5.6; 7.23-25; 9.17; 10.17; 27.4).

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'Every City shall be Forsaken' and in the bustling town; for the palace is abandoned, the city once crowded is deserted, the citadel and watchtower have become open fields for ever, the joy of wild asses, pasture for flocks ... (32.13-14)11

The contemplation of the prehistoric ruins scattered around the land, an object of ethnological curiosity for a Deuteronomic scholiast (Deut. 2.10-12, 20-23; 3.11), served to drive home the same lesson (17.9). In Isaiah, however, the mood is not elegiac and the scene invoked is nothing like a Poussin landscape or Goldsmith's deserted village. There is nothing elegiac about Sodom and Gomorrah either. The tradition of the destruction of the twin cities, one of the few native historical traditions to appear in these chapters, also served to make the same point (1.9-10; 13.19). The image is deployed at greater length and with more detail in the massa' babel (13.1-22), the first of the nine massadt in chs. 13-23. The relevant passage reads as follows: Babylon, most glorious of kingdoms, the proud splendor of the Chaldeans will be like Sodom and Gomorrah when overthrown by God. Never will it be inhabited nor settled for ages to come, no Arab will bivouac there, no shepherd tend his flock, but wild cats will have their lairs there, owls make their nests in the houses; ostriches will dwell there, there satyrs will dance; hyenas will howl in its forts, jackals in its pleasant palaces. Its appointed time is at hand with not many days to wait (13.19-22).12 11. All translations are taken from my Anchor Bible commentary, Isaiah 1-39: A New Translation with Introduction with Introduction and Commentary (AB, 14; New York: Doubleday, 2000). 12. There is some uncertainty about the animal taxonomy in this and similar passages. With respect to the siyyim and 'ohim, translated 'wild cats' and 'owls' above, NRSV plays it safe with 'wild animals' and 'howling creatures' respectively while M. Gorg, ' "Damonen statt "Eulen" in Jes. 13, 21', BN 62 (1992), pp. 16-17,

BLENKINSOPP City scape to Landscape

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Similar threats are aimed at an unnamed city in the next section of the book (chs. 24-27). Exegetes have expended a great deal of energy in attempting to identify this anonymous city and date its destruction, the attempts ranging from the Neo-Assyrian to the Hasmonean period. The issue will not be discussed here, but on the assumption of a connection between chs. 13-23 and 24-27, the latter may be read as a kind of universalizing and eschatologizing commentary on the named cities in chs. 13-23 among which Babylon is pre-eminent. The anonymous city may therefore be taken to be a paradigmatic, emblematic, and symbolic Babylon. As symbol of the evil empire par excellence, Babylon was in the course of time replaced by Edom, which served as a cryptogram for Rome in Jewish texts from late antiquity, for example, the Mekilta of R. Ishmael and the Targum on Isa. 34.9 ('the streams of Rome will be turned into pitch'). So when he comes to Edom, the Isaian author pulls out all the stops. Yahweh has a day of vengeance, a year of reckoning for Zion's complaint. The streams of Edom will be turned into pitch, her soil into brimstone, her land will be burning pitch, night and day it will burn unquenched, its smoke will go up for ever. From age to age the land will lie waste, never again will people pass through it. The hawk and the hedgehog will claim it as their own, owl and raven will make it their abode ... Thorns will spring up in her palaces, nettles and thistles in her forts; it will become the haunt of jackals, the abode of ostriches;

proposed 'demons' for 'ohim, though the context seems to require an animal species, and demons don't usually make nests. George Buchanan Gray, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Isaiah I-XXVII (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1912), p. 237, suggested more colourfully 'yelpers' and 'shriekers'. Some commentators prefer to translate se'lrim more prosaically as 'goats' rather than 'goat demons/satyrs' but dancing, while in order for satyrs, would be an unusual activity for goats. A scribal annotation to the poem (14.22-23) adds the qippod, probably 'hedgehog' as Ibn Ezra and Modern Hebrew, rather than 'porcupine' (Bishop Lowth), 'bustard' (NEB), 'screech owl' (NRSV), or 'bittern' (AV).

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'Every City shall be Forsaken' wild cats will gather with hyenas, the satyr will call to his mate, there too Lilith will alight, there find a place for herself; there the owl will nest, lay her eggs, hatch them, and give them shelter; there too the kites will gather, not one without its mate (34.8-11, 13-15).

The situation, then, is that all elements—earth, water, and air—are thoroughly polluted, resulting in a total ecological disaster. The soil is soaked in blood, animal fat, and burning pitch. The land is uninhabited and rendered uninhabitable by human beings. The only land animals are hedgehogs and jackals and, significantly, all winged creatures mentioned are ritually unclean.13 The satyrs that we left dancing on the site of ruined Babylon are here accompanied by Lilith, well known in Jewish folklore as Adam's first wife, the dark shadow of the Queen of Sheba, a winged female incubus, and a mortal danger for women in childbirth and men who sleep alone.14 She is here installed as queen of this spooky realm of death in place of the king and princes who ruled in the city and are no more to be found (v. 12). Those with an eye trained to detect the more subtle intertextual clues may pick up a hint to another level of meaning in 34.1 Ib omitted from the translation given above. It reads: 'Yahweh has stretched over it (Edom) the measuring line of chaos (qav-tohu) and the stones of turmoil ('abne-bdhtiy. The language is identical with the rhetorical questions Job could only answer with silence—Who stretched the line over it? Who laid the cornerstone of the world? Tell me if you are so clever! (Job 38.5-6). This is creation language, and the implication is that Yahweh is engaged in a work of uncreation. As life forms were created for all three environments, so all three—dry land, water, air— are here polluted; as human beings were commanded to increase and multiply, so here their very existence is rendered impossible; as living creatures were created according to their kind, here only the unclean 13. qd'dt - hawk, cf. Lev. 11.18 and Deut. 14.17; yanSup = a species of owl, cf. Lev. 11.17 and Deut. 14.16; 'oreb = raven, cf. Lev. 11.15 and Deut. 14.14; dayyd = kite, cf. Deut. 14.13; batya'dnd, = ostrich, cf. Lev. 11.16 and Deut. 14.15. 14. Both lQIsaa (rrr'r'?) and the Targum have the plural, presumably with the meaning 'night hags' or even 'nightjars' (as NEB), birds whose secretive habit might qualify them for inclusion, assuming that they were known in the Middle East. But the verbs are in the singular in MT and there is no reason to emend.


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among them can thrive. The same associations echo through the opening poem of the misnamed Isaian Apocalypse. The doomed city is Chaos Town (kiryat tohu, 24.10), and ecological disaster is inseparable from the moral corruption of society: The earth lies polluted beneath those who dwell on it, for they have trangressed laws, disobeyed statutes, violated the perpetual covenant. (24.5)

This is the berit 'olam of Gen. 9.8-17 which the author of the poem associates with the laws of Noah forbidding the pollution of bloodshed (cf. the Greek concept si miasma). Other allusions to the early history of the human race and dispositions for the damaged postdiluvial world will be picked up by a close reading of this introductory poem, including the drastic reduction of the earth's human population (24.6), the dispersion of the new humanity (24.1), and perhaps also the drunkenness of Noah (24.7-11). Taking the broad view, we can say that the biblical story begins in a garden and ends in a city. Like Enkidu in Gilgamesh, the first human beings are expelled from the garden, a paradisal wilderness, into the city. The building of cities is attributed to the tainted line of Cain (Gen. 4.17), and the forward movement of the narrative of human origins stalls with the misguided attempt to build a city, and the temple that legitimates it, in the land of Shinar (Gen. 11.1-9). But the reversal of what we might call urban civilization to a condition of nature can also be viewed in a positive light, reflecting a strain of Utopian thinking particularly in evidence in Hosea's idealization of Israel's prehistory in the wilderness. One form it assumes is the eschatological horizon of the abolition of war, the retooling of weapons of war into agricultural implements, or universal disarmament (Isa. 2.4), and an end to the destructive violence which was no less a feature of social and political relations then than it is now (11.9). When to this is added the prospect or fantasy of peaceful co-existence between human beings and animals (cf. Hos. 2.20), and in the animal world between predator and prey—wolf with lamb, leopard with goat, lion with calf, bear with cow (11.6-9)—we recognize again the dream of returning to the lost paradise, the peaceful kingdom, the first creation when neither animal nor human being killed for food (Gen. 1.29-30; 9.3-6). One of these Isaian authors presents his version of a rural Utopia: wilderness will be turned into fertile land which will be as common as scrubland, and it will be a realm of justice and peace. Once the city disappears, it will be the permanent home for the people of Israel

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happily sowing their seed beside the waterways while ox and ass roam free (32.15-20). This theme of the transformation of the physical and moral environment, to be brought about by the spirit of God ('.. .until a spirit from on high is poured out on us', v. 15a), is expressed with the help of terms denoting distinct ecologies, all contrasting in different ways with urban civilization. Wilderness (midbar) is terrain without water, unsuited for cultivation of any kind, and inhabited only by certain species of animals adapted to extremely harsh conditions.15 It can therefore serve to describe the situation on the site of the destroyed city (14.17; 27.10; 51.3; 64.9). At the other extreme is fertile land (karmel),land naturally good for growing crops and grazing herds, and therefore an apt description of the promised land ('eres hakkarmel, Jer. 2.7) and the antithesis of midbar. In between is scrubland (ya'ar), including but not limited to forest, potentially serviceable for raising crops and grazing but only after much labor (7.2; 9.17; 10.19, 34; 22.8). These terms, all three contrasted with the city, denote conditions of existence rather than just distinct ecologies. Once the city has disappeared there will be a transformation within the natural environment in which midbar will be turned into karmel and the latter will be as abundant as ya 'ar, normally much more in evidence than cultivable land (cf. 29.17). This environment will then be the setting for a just and equitable social order, with an end to warfare and social conflict. Karmel, therefore, remains as the ideal rural Utopia, an anxiety-generated dream rather like the nineteenth-century quest for a New Harmony far from the satanic mills of an oppressive and humanly destructive urban society. We find a somewhat similar scenario at 30.23-25: the towers of the city fall and give way to an idyllic scene of the farmer sowing his grain, pampered oxen and donkeys, and abundant water; a scenario very different, therefore, from the new Jerusalem as the goal of world pilgrimage, and a reminder that prophets could think up more than one way of envisioning the future.

15. midbar therefore often occurs with siyyd, 'parched land', and tarabd, 'desert' (35.1,6; 51.3); hence the frequent promise of transformation by providing water (35.6; 41.18-19; 43.19-20) and cf. transformation in the reverse direction, 50.2.

CITY OF CHAOS, CITY OF STONE, CITY OF FLESH: URBANSCAPES IN PROPHETIC DISCOURSES

Robert P. Carroll

I will take away your cities of stone and I will give you cities of flesh, wherein shall dwell justice and right-doing and peace shall take up residence there forever (fragment of Pseudo-Jeremiah the Acropolite)

The topos of the city in the Hebrew Bible is huge and only proportionately less huge when we limit our scrutiny to the prophetic discourses of the Bible. By way of introduction to what is a vast array of references, allusions and meditations on the city I would like to start with two appraisals of the city of Jerusalem, one from ancient times, undatable but perhaps coming from fourth-third century BCE, and on from the end of the twentieth century in the CE (1996). Between these two citations from different millennia may be found sufficient material to engage the imagination and also to set the scene and background to my own thoughts on reading the prophetic discourses for what they have to say about the city. How the faithful city has become a whore, she that was full of justice, right lodged in her, but now murderers. Your silver has become dross, your wine mixed with water. Your princes are rebels, companions of thieves, every one loves a bribe and pursues gifts. They do not defend the orphan nor allow the widow's case to reach them. Therefore the Lord, Yhwh of hosts, Mighty One of Jacob, says: 'Hoy, I will exhale my anger on my foes, avenge myself on rny enemies.'

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'Every City shall be Forsaken' I will return my hand over you, Refine away your dross as with alkali, removing all your alloy. I will restore your rulers as at first, your counsellors as in the beginning. Afterward you shall be called the City of Right, the faithful city (Isa. 1.21-26). For the past thirty years, political decision makers have set as their objective the wholesale alteration of the image of Jerusalem, and they have succeeded in fashioning an environment consonant with the desires of the Jewish collective. In so doing, they have altered Jerusalem's character to such a degree that it is no longer the city that has for generations been etched on the imagination and consciousness of hundreds of millions of people. The character of this once-distinctive urban entity has been so blurred that those entering the city do not feel they have reached their destination: the compact city, perched on a hilltop and bordered on all sides by deep valleys, its houses and walls composing a single block, standing out from the surrounding pastoral scene. That city is no more. Suburbs now sprawl from the approaches to Jericho, in the east, to the hills bordering the coastal plain, in the west, and along the watershed from Ramallah, in the north, almost to Hebron, in the south.1

I could devote the whole paper to doing a literary, cultural and ideological-critical analysis of the strong stylistic and substantive differences between the differing views of Jerusalem represented by Isaiah ben Amoz in ancient times and Meron Benvenisti in modern times. I shall not, however, provide such an account because it would be too easy to do and, besides, readers can all do it for themselves, if they so choose. What I would want to say about these two very different extracts which I have chosen for introducing this paper and for focused attention is that they are both about Jerusalem the city and that both concern themselves with what they perceive to be the changes which have come over Jerusalemmaking the city so different from what it used to be. One viewpoint sounds more like an architect's or town planner's analysis and the other viewpoint more like a moralist'snostalgia for an imagined idyllic past and an equally imagined idyllic future, but both accounts seem to regret the current state of the city. While they have something in common and much that is very different, I do note the consistency of the whine over so very many centuries that nowadays 1. Meron Benvenisti, City of Stone: The Hidden History of Jerusalem (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), p. 142.

CARROLL City of Chaos

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things in the city of Jerusalem have gone to hell in a handcart! Little seems to change over the millennia in attitudes towards the state of the city of Jerusalem and at the time of any specific moment of writing or instantiation of the human gaze at that ancient and modern city the judgment seems always to be critical. Now for a moment of truth or realistic assessment: there is simply far too much material on the city in the Hebrew Bible and especially in the discourses which are constitutive of the prophetic scrolls for any one piece of writing to encompass them all adequately. Having made that obvious point, I would further want to say that in very general terms it has to be said that one of the main foci of the Hebrew Bible is its focus on 'cities' or, if you prefer, 'the city'. From city-builder Qain to Qoheleth (Eccl. 9.13-16) or from Gen. 4.17 to 2 Chron. 36.23—that is the aleph (alpha) and taw (omega) of the Hebrew Bible—the city is one of the great focalizations of the Bible, along with foci on such related topics as land and people—elements which are inevitably tied into and associated with the word-field (Wortfeld) of cities. A city built on a hill cannot be hid—nor for that matter can it be protected from destruction either. It can, of course, with time be hidden from time or from the human gaze of strangers by the destructive power of invasive forces, by the erosion of the elements or by time itself. Such generalities apart, I should also say that when it comes to the particularities of the prophetic texts in the Hebrew Bible, it is also the case that most of the prophetic texts seem to focus on cities, especially Jerusalem—aka Zion, Daughter Zion, temple mount—not to mention Samaria, Bethel, Sodom, Nineveh, Damascus, Babylon and many more cities besides. The multiple discourses constituted by the scrolls of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel are especially focused on cities and the city, which seem to be one of the most dominant foci of these scrolls. The two main groups of texts which will form the central focus of this paper are Isa. 24-27, with a nod in the direction of the whole scroll of Isaiah, and Jer. 7, with the necessary acknowledgment of all the other parts of Jeremiah that focus on the city. If I limit myself to these two scrolls it is because I need to draw the line of practicality somewhere and I cannot possibly deal with all the discourses on the city to be found in the prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible. There are far too many such discourses for anything less than a book-length treatment.

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'Every City shall be Forsaken' 1. Isaiah 24-27

The so-called 'Isaiah Apocalypse', or whatever readers would wish it to be called, raises so many interpretative questions that I shall only focus on the role played in it by the topos of 'the city' and leave any discussion of the proper categorization of the genre of the collection of poems in Isa. 24-27 for critics of my writings.2 I am, however, not so naive that I would have readers believe I just chose Isa. 24-27 at random. On the contrary, I have chosen to focus on it because it raises some fundamental and interesting questions about how we should read these prophetic texts and especially in relation to the topic of discourses about the city. But where shall I start in reading Isa. 24-27? Should it be with the trope of 'the city of chaos' (qiryat tohu) in Isa. 24.10-13 or with 'cities of ruthless nations' in 25.3 or even with the triumphal song of 26.1-6 'we have a strong city.. .the Lord YHWH has brought low the lofty city...' or what about 'the city of joy' in 32.14 (jubilant town ['allizdh]cf. 22.2) or the 'populous city' uninhabited in 32.14? The dialectic or double helix of city-discourses in the scroll of Isaiah seems to move back and forward between motifs and tropes of the destruction or dismantling of lofty, powerful cities, leaving them abandoned as places where animals now roam (27.10-11; cf. 5.17) and figures of reestablished cities, rebuilt and reinhabited (cf. Cyrus in 44.26; 45.13; see also 33.20). In other words, the scroll of Isaiah looks like a palimpsest of multiple discourses about the history, life, times and opinions of the city [of Jerusalem?] put together over many centuries. In the presence of Ehud Ben Zvi 3 1 must emphasize that phrase 'looks like', insisting on the textual or literary nature of this judgment and refusing to allow it to be turned into an assessment of the text as historical statement, reference or allusion. The scroll also reads like a switchback text in which the fate of cities fluctuates and a city—which city may not be important—is represented as being destroyed or rebuilt with a certain monotony from 1.7 ('your cities are burned with fire') to the creation of 2. I am strongly inclined to dismiss the 'apocalypse' designation of Isa. 24-27, but I am very conscious of the fact that so many scholars have written on these texts using that term. As long as the text and texts about the text are recognized as being discrete entities, following the fashion of scholarship need not be a great crime, offence or sin. 3. He was chair of the oral session at which this paper first saw the light of uttered speech.


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new heavens and a new earth with a Jerusalem created for joy (65.1719). We may for simplicity and convenience's sake isolate negative notions on one side and positive notions on the other side, attributing one set of positive figures to representations of Jerusalem-Zion and the other set of negative figures to an admixture of representations of Zion and also to other cities. Perhaps readers should try to think in terms of a massive mythicizing of Zion process going on in the course of the scroll/ text, so that the figure of Jerusalem is the focus of all these images, both positive and negative? I think there is a huge paper to be written on the topos of the city in the Isaiah scroll (see Frick)—of which this is not that paper!—but here I would just like to make a small contribution to the beginnings of such a major enterprise. All readers and interpreters of the so-called Isaiah Apocalypse of chs. 24-27 are faced with tricky hermeneutical questions: is there one or more cities referred to in these chapters? Are the positive images figures of Zion and the negative figures images of other cities? Or does ZionJerusalem as city somehow participate in both the positivity and the negativity of the discourses? I could give you a roll-call of scholarly opinions, but what would that demonstrate? My ability to read and my capacity for wasting more time than is wise reading the opinions of other writers on the prophets? Examples may be multiplied without necessity to illustrate something or other about current scholarship, but listing and counting scholarly opinions is a self-referring, narcissistic bad habit of current biblical scholarship which I shall indulge in as little as I possibly can because I do not think that it constitutes knowledge in itself. The discursive contextualization of Isa. 24-27 is represented as being a time when Yhwh will lay waste the earth ('eres, 'land'), so that all classes of people will be rendered similar to each other (24.2; cf. 3.1-5). Within the larger context of depiction and further details of what this laying waste to the earth will entail in 24.4-13, the loss of wine to drink appears to be the most dominantly negative feature (vv. 7, 9, 11; contrast 25.6). Such a motif is so common in the prophetic discourses that one may read it here as a trace and echo of all the prophetic material on invasion and destruction where invasive destruction is comparable to the gathering of the vintage (cf. Jer. 48.32-33). The devastating effects of the lack and loss of wine—or is the wine just plain awful and therefore undrinkable (24.9)?—characterize 'the city of chaos'. But what or which or who is this city of chaos? Is it the fortified city of 25.2, the palace of aliens which has become a city no longer? Or is it a

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city other than Zion-Jerusalem and other than the strong fortified city of 26.1? In other words, are we dealing with one (mythic) city here, with two cities or with more than two cities? A tale of one city or a tale of two cities—or of a number greater than two but less than what? In my judgment, I would rather the questions remained on the table than were answered because at least that way the debate can continue rather than be concluded prematurely and without adequate evidence for such an answer. For readers who wish for the questions to be answered I shall offer just a few opinions here in order to prove that I too can consult the commentaries. When it comes to answering these questions everybody may cite and support their favourite commentators and parrot their opinions as an answer. Ronald Clements says it is a type of 'Vanity Fair', 'any city at any time', a typical or representative function.4 Otto Kaiser has it as 'the city, which is given here as an example of the fate of all cities'.5 Alec Motyer goes all religious and abstract, in an Augustinian fashion, on the text and writes: The 'city of tohu" lives without the ordering, life-giving hand of God, opting for life on its own, within itself, depending on itself... Humankind's great world city is 'the city without meaning'—a veritable Babelredivivus (Gen ll:lff.)... Thus Isaiah looked through the Babylon he knew (13:Iff.) to the ongoing spirit of Babylon ever-present in world history (21:1-10), and finally to the ultimate Babel where at length humankind's self-sufficiency would bring their whole world about their ears. 6

Marvin Sweeney has a very useful discussion of all the usual points of view before settling for Babylon as the identity of the city: 'Two cities best fit this role insofar as they represent the power of the nations to rule the earth and to take Israel into exile: Nineveh and Babylon.'7 Hans Wildberger calls it 'nothing city', differentiates between it and the various other cities referred to in the text and comments: 'A qryt thw 4. R.E. Clements, Isaiah 1-39 (NCB; London: Oliphants), p. 202. 5. O. Kaiser, Isaiah 13-39: A Commentary (OTL; London: SCM Press, 1975), pp. 184-85. His brief discussion of the identity of the city (pp. 173-79, esp. pp. 17677) is a useful guide to scholarly opinionation: e.g. Babylon (Marie-Louise Henry), Carthage (Procksch), a Moabite city (Eissfeldt and other writers). 6. J.A. Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press), p. 201. 7. M.A. Sweeney, Isaiah 1-39 with an Introduction to Prophetic Literature (FOTL, 16; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996), pp. 311-30 (318).


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(nothing city) would thus have to be a city that had just experienced the reintroduction of the primordial chaos'.8 My own guess at the city's identity—and as with the so called 'songs of the suffering servant' in chs. 40-55 I do not think that the question of identity can be answered from the text nor is it all that important in chs. 24-27—would be any city you care to use these poems against because they look like all purpose poems to me. Use them in good health, may be the author's sentiment because they will suit any situation of oppression—whether Babylon or Berlin, Cairo or Chicago, Jerusalem or Jakarta—and will do for all occasions. Not identity but function should be the governing exegetical and interpretative principles for reading these poems because the writer has left their identities concealed by omission of name and identity. Yet at the same time I would want readers to feel the density of the texture of the discourses about the city and to imagine the cultural context of such discourses shaping how they should be read and felt. Because there is a strong affective aspect to these discourses in the Isaiah scroll, I cannot believe or imagine that whenever or wherever they were produced they did not have built into them a strongly chauvinistic sense of emotional charge about Zion-Jerusalem, a charge reciprocated in the reading/hearing of them by their audiences. The representation of the long history of Jerusalem's mixed fortunes in the Isaiah scroll, moving from the images of a deserted landscape and urbanscape—the bigger questions about whether Jerusalem should be thought of as a city, a town or an urban area I shall leave to the experts on cities in the Bible and the ancient world of the Near East—wherein lay burned-out cities, to the Utopian vision of a rebuilt city in a new heavens and a new earth where all the nations would gather to learn of Zion's torah and to which the wealth of nations would flow looks to me like a bird's eye view or a tapestry of a city's ideal and all-too-real history. Isaiah is the scroll of the city, whatever historical echoes and traces may be detected in it, and the unrolling of the scroll is unfolding the history of the city's fate and fortunes. The city of chaos in the socalled Apocalypse looks then like a shadow city, though whether that should be a shadow thrown by Jerusalem—the other side, the lefthand side or the dark side of Jerusalem as it were—or an amalgam of the 8. H. Wildberger, Isaiah 13-27: A Continental Commentary (trans. Thomas H. Trapp [ET of Jesaja, Kapitel 13-27, 1978]; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997), p. 486.

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cities of Jerusalem's enemies must remain an open question because the text never produces a closure for the identity of that city. Of course, the very strong images of Moab in 25.10-12, especially the appallingly awful imafe oh moab as a swinner in the shiteof yhwhs displeasure may suggest that it is a Moabite city which is constituted as the shadowimage of Jerusalem. Over against Jerusalem stand all the other cities as shadow-images of the holy city and as cities against which Yhwh's wrath is permanently exercised. Yhwh's wrath is permanent against every other city, but only temporarily exercised against Jerusalem. Perhaps such an approach may be to read far too much into such texts or to ignore the tendency of the text to focus on Jerusalem, so that even shadow-cities should be treated as an allusion to or a conjuring up of images of Jerusalem by default. 2. Jeremiah 7 I wanted also to consider Jer. 7 in this paper because I have long been aware of the somewhat tentative nature of the discourse in the so-called Temple Sermon about the topos 'this place' (hammaqqom hazzeh), in itself a highly ambiguous phrase. A close reading of the 15 verses of the so-called Temple Sermon would suggest at least three distinctive references for the term: the temple territory, the city and the land itself. I know that many years ago when I was working on a little-known commentary on Jeremiah I found myself regularly confused by the phrase 'this place', especially in relation to its possible referent.9 Temple, city, land, of course, it may be argued are interchangeable or even interlocking in that each presupposes the others, like Chinese boxes or babushka dolls. In the text itself 'place' refers to the temple arena in v. 2, but by v. 7 it is equivalent to the land given to the ancestors (as also in v. 14) and of course the analogy with Shiloh makes 'place' the equivalent of 'town'. Perhaps, but if so then the term 'city' must be granted a wider range of reference than just the collection of houses, shrines and palaces surrounded by a wall. It is also arguable that the ambiguity is built into the reference so that adherents of all three possibilities may read as they wish. The looser the term of reference the greater the range of hermeneutical possibility. That certainly was my impresson and experience when reading Jeremiah and writing my 9. See R.P. Carroll, Jeremiah: A Commentary (OTL; London: SCM Press, 1986), pp. 206-12.


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commentary all those years ago. There did seem to me to be in the text of Jeremiah a deep ambiguity (ambivalence as well?) or, perhaps even, a deliberate attempt at ambiguousness or vagueness which would facilitate looseness of referentiality. The vagueness I would link to the shadow-side city of Isa. 24-27 in the sense of an all-purpose reference term. Now we all know that if the Bible had been much more specific and concrete in its language uses then it would have died out as a resource many centuries ago, so vagueness of reference is not in any sense a new idea or useless carrier of signification. It is the basis for constant change, development and transformation in the interpretative processes. The vaguer the signifier-signified the better because it facilitates much greater gap-filling and increases the range of choices available to interpreters and readers. Elsewhere in the Jeremiah scroll the city of Jerusalem appears in symbolic stories: for example, in 19.1-2, 10-13 the use of the phrase 'this place' seems to refer directly to the city of Jerusalem and yet the text as we currently have it is a palimpsest of different narratives and topoi, including a piece on the fire-cults associated with the topos Topheth and an extract from the polemic against the cult of Baal and quite a number of other intertextual linkings with the discourses of the Jeremiah scroll (19.1-13). Here Jeremiah is both associated with the city and represented as a figure active in the city and as the one determining its fate. The ceramic flask (baqbuq) emptied out and broken is made to represent divine action against the city, a city emptied of its inhabitants by deportation and broken by its invaders as one might casually drain a flask and then smash it. In the editorial or narratorial comment on the action of the story, the place becomes 'this city and...all its towns' (19.15). Of course the invaders did not just come against the city but against the land with all its towns and the buildings in those towns, so that 'place' may easily indicate shrine, town and country. Jeremiah may destroy Jerusalem as easily as a man empties and breaks a flask or he may have Babylon destroyed as easily as a man might tie a scroll to a stone and fling it into the sea/river (Jer. 51.59-64), so may cities be effectively destroyed in prophetic discourses. But the rhetorical devices used in the text ought to be noted because these prophetic discourses are very porous and capable of considerable extension of meaning and development.

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3. Implicatures of the above Data Now what do I want to do with these differing rhetorical devices which manipulate the topos of 'the city' in the prophetic discourses? I suppose I would like to start a discussion about rhetoric and discourse as they appear in the prophetic scrolls. I am not much concerned with notions of historical or extra-textual referentiality—though I am not against such moves in theory, only in practice!—because I do not feel safe with the instant or straight transfer of imagined meaning from the text to a place imagined to be outside of the text. I feel neither safe nor happy with such history-laden interpretative moves because I do not think that the Bible is that kind of book or, perhaps it is only because I have lost any faith I ever had in the Bible as a history book (if that is the kind of faith I ever had in the Bible—it is now far too long ago that I started studying the book, so I do not remember what and how I thought about it those 40 years ago) that I must confess to a feeling of lack of safety in such an approach to reading it. But within the texts themselves I can see how the discourses of the city might be made to work as meditations on a textured-textual theme within texts. Beyond that I would not care to go, but I do think that there is fair mileage to be got out of that much. I would like to argue much further for the Babylon-Jerusalem identification and to explore the ramifications of such a point of view. I am very conscious of the fact that in reading the book of Isaiah on the topic there is much to be said for it, especially if we venture beyond the 'city limits' of chs. 24-27 and incorporate the rest of the book into our deliberations. For example, in the poem on the rebuilding of Jerusalem in 54.11-17 there are clear echoes and traces in the discourse which indicate that the rebuilt 'New Jerusalem' (as it were) is represented in the poem in terms drawn from the 'Old Babylon'.10 So for me as a reader of Isaiah I would have to say: the New Jerusalem is but the Old Babylon writ (built) large. The symbolism and metaphysics which flow from this observation may well be unpalatable for the conventional ecclesiotheological readers of the Bible and may not serve the ecclesiastical hegemony of the Guild of Biblical Studies, but they are food and drink to my way of thinking and an exciting item for current biblical 10. See C. Westermann, Isaiah 40-66: A Commentary (OTL; London: SCM Press, 1969), pp. 38, 278, with his reliance on the work of F. Stummer, 'Einige keilschriftliche Parallelen zu Jes. 40-66', JBL 45 (1926), pp. 171-89.


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hermeneutics. For example, all false dichotomies and falsifying dualities between heathen and holy, homeland and diaspora, saved and lost, pagan and city-dweller, elect and rejected, Jacob and Esau must be scrapped in our thinking. The towers of Jerusalem, so loved and praised by the psalmists in mythological terms (e.g. Pss. 46, 48), are but the tower of Babel relocated and redescribed to fit the predilections and prejudices of the elect (cf. Gen. 11.1-9). As Leonard Cohen's song has it and, in my opinion, expresses a rather similar point well stated: Jerusalem of blood Jerusalem of amnesia Jerusalem of idolatry Jerusalem of Washington Jerusalem of Moscow Let the nations rejoice Jerusalem has been destroyed.'!

Leaving that last point aside because neither time nor space will allow a proper and full discussion or development of the notion of the twinsouls-of-one-city which would have been Babylon-Jerusalem, I shall attempt to finish this paper with a more general and lighter handling of the data in the book of Isaiah. There are two rather different lines of argument I would like to advance here and then attempt to go down either or both of the roads which lead from them towards a more complex reading of 'the city of chaos'/'this place' tropes in the prophets. The biblical data will support either or both approaches, but it is for readers to determine which they themselves prefer. a. The Two Cities Route Taking Zion-Jerusalem as the reference or interpretation of 'the strong city' of 26.1 in contrast to the city of chaos of 24.10—whatever referent or meaning may be assigned to it, perhaps Babylon or, failing which, Nineveh. Then we have here the beginnings or echoes and traces of that much later and much favoured trope of the two cities—the city of humankind and the city of God—or as Augustine stated the matter in his famous work The City of God: 'By two cities I mean two societies of human beings, one of which is predestined to reign with God for all eternity, the other doomed to undergo eternal punishment with the 11. Leonard Cohen, Book of Mercy (London: Jonathan Cape, 1984): #25; see also #27 ('thieves of holiness') and much else beside in the book.

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Devil.' 12 Our old friend the binary opposition of good city (our city) and bad city (their city)—an ancient version of 'four legs good, two legs bad'—or Jerusalem and its enemy's city, be that enemy Nineveh, Babylon, Rome or wherever has reared its ugly head! The citation given above from Alec Motyer's commentary says it all: 'a veritable Babelre divivus...the ongoing spirit of Babylon ever-present in world history (21:1-10)...'13 It makes the point, though speaking personally I have considerable difficulty with this reading of Babylon, as it hardly encompasses the notion explicit in Jer. 29.7 where praying for the Sdlom of Babylon is enjoined on the Judean deportees to that land as the key to their own salom. As a Book of Cities the Bible focuses on so many cities that I think it would be a great shame to limit ourselves to this bifurcated representation of Jerusalem-Babylon in permanent opposition as if the happy cooperative involvement of the heroes and heroines of Daniel, Esther and all those other diaspora-novella personalities with Babylon and Persian cities were at all compatible with this fundamentally dualistic, Manichaean limitation. For Jews in exile I suspect that every city was Jerusalem in some sense and that for the prophets in Jerusalem itself it was every city but the one it ought to have been. b. The City as Symbol Route I would prefer those readings which pick up on the anonymity aspect of the city in Isa. 24-27 and which would therefore allow for reading Jerusalem as the city of chaos as well as being the city of Salem (elsewhere in the Bible). In the Bible there is only one city, but it has multitudinous representations, manifestations and instantiations. Of course in topographical terms there are hundreds and thousands of cities in the Bible (cf. Isa. 25.3 'cities of ruthless nations'), but in the symbolic geography of the Book we may see each and every city as one aspect of the city of humankind.14 Whether that be the city of dreadful night or the city of peace and harmony or the city of chaos or the strong city or whatever, 12. City of God, 15.1. 13. The Prophecy of Isaiah, p. 201. 14. On the notion of symbolic geography in the Bible see D.F. Pocock, 'North and South in the Book of Genesis', in J.H.M. Beattie and R.G. Lienhardt (eds.), Studies in Social Anthropology: Essays in Memory of E.E. Evans-Pritchard by his Former Oxford Colleagues (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), pp. 273-84. Readers might prefer to refer to Jerusalem in terms of the mythological geography instanced by Pss. 46 and 48.


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each city may be at any one time either faithful or whorelike, peaceful or warlike (or perhaps all these different incarnations at the same time). Taking such a symbolic reading of the city trope then leads on to readers making the obvious equation that Jerusalem equals Babylon in the symbolic geography of the Bible.15 Some time ago I wrote a piece on Jer. 25 where I argued for the reading that the text represents the Babylonian emperor Nebuchadrezzar as Yhwh's servant and contrasted it with the stuff in Jer. 50-51 where the said Nebuchadrezzar is represented as the Beast, that is the dragon (LXX), scourging Israel and acting as chief dishwasher of the nation (51.34).16 There I argued that the equation Babylon equals Jerusalem (or vice versa) was certainly a distinct possibility in terms of the text, but that I did not think the writers of the text had gone as far as to make that point explicitly. The equation can be made by modern readers of the Bible who having worked their way through the whole Bible— whether the Hebrew Bible or the Christian Bible is not important— should be able to see the obvious (cf. Rev. 11.8). Working with my discussion of these possible equations of symbolic-mythological geography John Hill goes that little further and definitely equates the two in his very fine study of Babylon in the book of Jeremiah: ...it still must be said that a metaphorical approach does produce the kind of equation Carroll requires for a synchronic reading. The present study's interpretation of 29:5-7 shows how an identity of Jerusalem with Babylon emerges. In Carroll's terms, Jerusalem does equal Babylon. A recognition of the role of metaphor opens up a different interpretive possibility.17

Elsewhere in that study he makes a similar point: The most significant feature of [29] vv. 4-7 for the present study is that metaphorical identity established between the figures of Babylon and Judah. Babylon is the place in which the Deuteronomic blessings are to 15. On this equation see especially J. Hill, Friend or Foe? The Figure of Babylon in the Book of Jeremiah MT (BIS, 40; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1999), esp. pp. 146-53. 16. R.P. Carroll, 'Synchronic Deconstructions of Jeremiah: Diachrony to the Rescue? Reflections on Some Reading Strategies for Understanding Certain Problems in the Book of Jeremiah', in J.C. de Moor (ed.), Synchronic or Diachronic? A Debate in Old Testament Exegesis (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1995), pp. 39-51, esp. pp. 46-50. 17. Hill, Friend or Foe?, p. 202 (emphasis in original); see also pp. 148-56.

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'Every City shall be Forsaken' be realised, and the place in which Yhwh is accessible to the community in its worship.18

In my judgment and following my own preference for reading the text the way I prefer to read it, I would want to say that each and every city may be Jerusalem depending on context and situation addressed. If I had the space I would attempt to produce a convoluted set of arguments which would seek to show that Jerusalem is many, even all, cities and that that one city in the biblical narratives may be addressed under the conditions of repentance as Nineveh (Jonah) or under the conditions of refusal to help the poor as Sodom (explicitly in Ezekiel; cf. Isaiah, Jeremiah) or whatever city writers may choose to make it. This would not be to deny whatever textual reality you might wish to grant to each topographical cipher, but it would be to assert the claim that towns, cities, places have their metaphysical or metaphorical values within the system of symbolic or mythological geography to be found in the Hebrew Bible.19 But there are very many different ways of doing this symbolic-mythological geography: Ezek. 16 offers a tale of three cities as three sisters (Jerusalem, Samaria, Sodom: a possibility which Alec Motyer does not allow for in his either-or dichotomous discourse about cities nor Augustine in his Manichaean reading of humankind's city) where you can see the equivalent to Isa. 19.25, only in terms of cities.20 Speaking personally, I delight in Ezekiel's notion of the restoration of Sodom and find that it is too broad and comprehensive an idea for most theologians writing on the Bible to be able to handle or to incorporate into their imagined biblical theologies (it is an idea bigger than their own heads). But a trope such as the redemption of Sodom must speak strongly against any postbiblical notion of Babylon as somehow standing for some imagined 'city of men' established against god (whatever might be meant by that curious phrase in Motyer's theologically controlled Augustinian exegesis). 18. Hill, Friend or Foe?, p. 153. 19. Pocock refers to 'the symbolic geography of the Hebrews' as 'the presentation by a people of moral values by geographic references, a kind of moral geodesy' ('North and South', p. 275). 20. Elsewhere I have written about Ezek. 16 and the three sister-cities; see R.P. Carroll, 'Whorusalamin: A Tale of Three Cities as Three Sisters', in B. Becking and M. Dijkstra (eds.), On Reading Prophetic Texts: Gender-Specific and Related Studies in Memory of Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes(BIS, 18; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996), pp. 67-82.


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So I would want to read the trope of 'the city of chaos' as referring to Jerusalem as much as to any other city in the book of Isaiah and as a fitting metaphorical description of the faithless city denounced in Isa. 1.21-26. Even though biblical theologians may refer to 'the thought of Jerusalem as a transcendent reality' in the book of Isaiah,21 I would want to balance such an abstract notion with its opposite trope, also from the Isaiah scroll, of 'city of chaos'. For how is it possible for human beings to live in one city if not in the other city too? We are such a mixture of good and bad, that our cities partake of what we are too. Dreams and fantasies of transcendence are invariably rooted in our all too materialistic existence as flesh and blood, air-breathers: this too, too solid human flesh is embedded and embodied in too, too solid cities, hence the holy chaos of the biblical city where we all live and move and have our being (even the biblical desert dwellers may relate on occasion to the city; cf. Jer. 35). If the Isaiah material on the city is then linked to what the Isaiah scroll has to say about the 'holy city' (Isa. 48.2; 52.1), the equation of 'city of chaos' and 'holy city' makes the Jerusalem is Babylon equation easier to see and understand.22 Reading my way through the Isaiah scroll from beginning to end it is not clear when or how the fallen, faithless, corrupt city of so much of the scroll has become the holy city of chs. 48 and 52. Perhaps the holiness of the city has been effected by the sheer persistence of survivors in it: 'and he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, every one who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem' (4.3). The holiness of the survivors of the great fire and purgation which has purified the 'daughters of Zion' will in itself purify the city and render it holy.23 Holy cities are where holy people dwell and vice versa, unholy cities house unholy people. And yet, the same city—holy and unholy—may house together and at the same time holy and unholy people: for there is a sanctification of 21. For example, N.W. Porteous, 'Jerusalem-Zion: The Growth of a Symbol', in Porteous, Living the Mystery: Collected Essays (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1967), pp. 93-111 (107). 22. I shall leave unstated any discussion of what meanings might be attached to Isa. 48.1-2, but curious readers are referred to the standard commentaries on Isaiah at this point. 23. In the context of Isaiah one would expect the trope 'daughters of Zion' to refer to the women of 3.16-4.1, but it might in 4.2-6 conceivably refer to the outlying villages surrounding the (mother) city of Jerusalem.

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abomination also itemized in the scroll of Isaiah. Those who sanctify and purify themselves to go into the gardens, following one in the midst, eating swine's flesh and the abomination and mice shall come to an end together, says Yhwh.' (66.17). The city of the Holy One of Israel—whatever may be meant by such a cryptic phrase24—is, I fear, a most strange place indeed (as befits the strange work of Yhwh in Isa. 28.21). In conclusion I would want to say that all the cities in the Bible represent different phases of the one city—the city of humankind (or the city of man/men to use biblical discourse uncontaminated by modern ideological political correctness discourses). There is no city of god unless it be Jerusalem, an all too human city. From a biblical point of view the city has its foundations and beginnings in that city built by Cain, so if there is to be a city designated as 'the city of god' it will partake of Cain's portion in the story. The city is where killers live or hide out, where folk kill and are killed—but only a fool would imagine that killing could not take place out in an open field—see Cain's story—or even outside the city. Deuteronomy wisely legislates for killings in the open country outside the towns with a ritual regulation for averting the danger which is said to arise from such occasions of the shedding of blood (Deut. 21.1-9) and Cain's killing of Abel made necessary and inevitable the building of cities for refugees doomed otherwise to wander without respite or refuge. While the city is always the city of men (and women), of humankind, it may at times be considered also to be the city of god (as metaphor). In the Hebrew Bible, unlike in the New Testament, there is no city outside the human sphere which may descend in due course from heaven nor is there a Jerusalem which is from above (Gal. 4.26) or at the end of history (contrast Rev. 21.1-4), there is only the human-all-too-human city of humankind where justice and peace may reside, along with murderers and the lovers of bribes who also live there, oppressors and oppressed together. There are only cities of stone and of chaos, of peace and of flesh, where the sons and daughters of men and women have their all too palpable human existence, where they live and die, love and are 24. The phrase is a cliche in the book of Isaiah. It also is most curious in that it is associated with Jerusalem yet carries a trace and echo of Israel in it. Again the standard commentaries may be referred to for enlightenment, but readers in search of knowledge ought not to hold their breath when searching the commentaries for illumination.


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loved, kill and are killed, hope and despair. In other words, the very places where we all live, move and have our being. Jerusalem-Babylon is the mother and father of us all.

Further Reading Aurelius Augustinus, Concerning The City of God against the Pagans (trans. Henry Bettenson, with introduction by David Knowles; Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1972). A. Graeme Auld and Margreet Steiner, Jerusalem I: From the Bronze Age to the Maccabees (Cities of the Biblical World; Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 1996). Meron Benvenisti, City of Stone: The Hidden History of Jerusalem (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996). William P. Brown and John T. Carroll (eds.), 'The City', in Interpretation: A Journal of Bible & Theology 54/1 (2000), pp. 1-68. Robert L. Cohn, The Senses of a Center' in Cohn, The Shape of Sacred Space: Four Biblical Studies (AAR Studies in Religion, 23; Chico: Scholars Press, 1981): 63-79. Frank S. Frick, The City in Ancient Israel (SBLDS, 36; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1977). Peter Hall, Cities in Civilization: Culture, Innovation, and Urban Order (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998). Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York: Random House, 1961). George Klein, The Atheist and the City: Encounters and Reflections (trans. Theodor and Ingrid Friedmann; Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990). Paul Lampl, Cities and Planning in the Ancient Near East (Planning & Cities; London: Studio Vista, nd.). Henri Lefebvre, Writings on Cities (selected, translated and introduced by Eleonore Kofman and Elizabeth Lebas; Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1996). Lewis Mumford, The City in History: Its Origins, its Transformations, and its Prospects (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1961). Jerome Murphy O'Connor, The Holy Land: An Archaeological Guide from Earliest Times to 1700 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986). Francis E. Peters, Jerusalem: The Holy City in the Eyes of Chroniclers, Visitors, Pilgrims, and Prophets from the Days of Abraham to the Beginnings of Modern Times (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985). Norman W. Porteous, 'Jerusalem-Zion: the Growth of a Symbol', in Porteous, Living the Mystery: Collected Essays (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1967), pp. 93-111. Angel Rama, The Lettered City, Post-Contemporary Interventions (ed. John Charles Chasteen; Durham & London: Duke University Press, 1996). Richard Sennett, Flesh and Stone: The Body and the City in Western Civilization (London: Faber & Faber, 1994). Robert L. Wilken, The Land Called Holy: Palestine in Christian History and Thought (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992).

PROXIMITY TO THE CENTRAL DAVIDIC CITADEL AND THE GREATER AND LESSER PROPHETS

Robert B.Coote

The corpus of the 'Latter Prophets' in its present, Persian-period form, comprises 15 individual divans which fall into two types, the greater and the lesser. These two types are surprisingly discrete, none of the 15 divans having what could be called an intermediate length. True, the lesser divans vary in length among themselves by as much as a factor of nine (Zechariah and Obadiah). However, the shortest of the greater divans (Isaiah) is more than five times longer than the longest of the lesser divans (Zechariah), and the average length of the greaters (which vary from their mean by no more than one-eighth) is nearly 16 times greater than the average length of the lessers. If a shorter text as reflected by the Greek of Jeremiah is used for calculation, these numbers change little: the greaters would vary even less among themselves, while on average their length would still exceed that of the lessers by a factor of 15. This picture of two discrete divan types is complicated and at the same time confirmed by the joining, by whatever process, of the 12 lesser divans into a single longer divan, the Twelve, which, reaching four-fifths the mean length of the greater divans, appears to belong to the category of the greaters. Other than length, what distinguishes the two types? The answer to this question might help to explain why the two types exist as such. Here, however, we meet a second surprise. Besides length, there are few if any significant features that the two types do not share or, in the case of some of the shorter divans in the Twelve, at least entail. Both types of divan assert the salvation of the central Davidic citadel and the restoration of the sovereignty of the house of David over political Israel. This includes Ezekiel among the greaters and Micah among the lessers, both of which present the restored Davidic citadel as

COOTE Proximity to the Central Davidic Citadel

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displaced from the Jerusalem center (Mic. 4.8, despite the continuing existence of the shrine of Yahweh on Zion), and even though Ezekiel envisions the temple as separate from 'the city'. Indeed, this ultimate promotion of the house of David and its citadel virtually defines the canonical corpus of the 'Prophets': the continuance of the house of David is a pervasive theme, at the heart of the 'Former' as well as the 'Latter Prophets', and distinguishes the 'Prophets' from the Torah, which makes no reference to David and leaves the explicit naming of the monarchic beneficiary of Scripture to the 'Prophets'. The Torah defined the cult and 'nation' without reference to David; the 'Prophets', on the other hand, defined both as perpetually Davidic. The end of a practical expectation of a Davidic monarchic restoration brought the process of the formation of this corpus of 'Prophets' to an end during the fifth or fourth century BCE. Both types of divan are composite, that is pseudepigraphic, in some cases as a result of a quite lengthy process of composition. Pseudepigraphic formation applies to all but the shortest of the divans—Obadiah, Jonah (wholly pseudepigraphic, but evidently not composite), Nahum, and Haggai. The corpus as a whole has two primary historical dual foci: (a) the fall of Samaria—the 'Israelite' regime opposed to the house of David's sovereignty over 'Israel'—and the answering deliverance of Jerusalem in Hezekiah's time; and (b) the fall of Jerusalem and deportation of the house of David in Jehoiachin's time and the answering restoration of the house of David and its citadel. Those individual divans whose written development began at least as early as Hezekiah's reign (Hosea, Amos, Micah, and Isaiah, which I call not the 'classical' or 'eighth-century prophets', but the 'fall-of-Samaria prophets') span both these dual foci. The rest focus on the Babylonian devastation of the Davidic citadel and exile of the house of David and their restoration. These can include an implicit Josianic prelude (Jeremiah, Nahum, Zephaniah, and possibly Ezekiel, as well as probably Amos among the earlier divans) which recapitulates the Davidic claim to sovereignty articulated under Hezekiah. The earlier dual focus of the corpus, the fall of Samaria contrasted with the rescue of Jerusalem in Hezekiah's time, spotlights the issue of Davidic sovereignty exactly as did the Hezekiah edition of what became the Former Prophets in the Deuteronomistic History: for the first time since the revolt of political Israel against the house of David's rule in the tenth century BCE, the house of David could press a credible revanchist claim to recover its onetime

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sovereignty over 'Israel' and to impose the rule of Jerusalem over 'Israel'.1 Both types of divan employ mainly the same basic argument or rhetorical form: God's threat to or punishment of the Davidic citadel is transformed into its deliverance, and that by two primary rhetorical devices, both based on God's 'comparative' justice. While both these devices are seen now in their Persian-period form, both are based on long-employed arguments. Their importance for the 'prophetic' divans can hardly be overstated. The first device depends on the rhetorical convention, if not judicial principle, that in judgment the greater wrong counterbalances, without necessarily legitimating, the lesser wrong. The threat to the Davidic citadel is reversed with the discovery that the wrongs of the opponents of the house of David, not least their persecution of the house of David, are greater than the wrongs of the house of David itself. Thus the so-called oracles against foreign nations—more properly 'oracles against alien warrior elites and/or their citadels'— form one of the two main rhetorical pivots of this essential reversal. The importance of this pivot is demonstrated by, among other things, its use at several stages of composition, in the greater and lesser divans as well as the Twelve, as in, for example, Isa. 13-21; 23-27; 33-34; 37.21-35; 47; and 63.1-6, as well as Joel 3^; Amos 1.3-2.3; Obadiah; Mic. 1.2; 5.5-15; 6.1-2; Nahum; Hab. 2; Zeph. 2-3; and Zech: 9-14. The other rhetorical device, related to the first but more profound, is the characteristic drama of the 'prophets', the individuals in whose names the particular divans are identified. By whatever descriptive term either the text or we may use, these individuals—where they come into view—are appointed ('called') by God, spurned and sometimes oppressed by their addressees, including the Davidic court, and thus, as the weaker persecuted by the stronger, compelled to complain on their own behalf, only to have their complaint appropriated by the very court they have addressed once that court becomes, by the carrying out of God's judgment, the weaker in comparison with the stronger alien war riors and citadels. This set of rhetorical moves may be warranted by 1. Baruch Halpern and David S. Vanderhooft, 'The Editions of Kings in the 7th-6th Centuries BCE', HUCA 62 (1991), pp. 179-244; Robert B. Coote, 'Th Book of Joshua: Introduction', in Leander E. Keck and others (eds.), The New Interpreter's Bible (12 vols.; Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998), II, pp. 558-77. As stated, the distinction between greater and lesser divans applied to the final products of the Persian period, not to earlier stages of development.


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different means in different divans, in which usually the divinely authorized spokesperson comes to personify in some way the Davidic court in exile; but whatever the means, the device is fundamental to the corpus and is evident in all three of the greater divans and at least three of the lesser, namely Amos, Micah, and Habakkuk. It is this device that most contributes to the house of David's neutralizing, appropriating, and homogenizing of public oracular endorsements and critiques of their policies or sovereignty from diverse sources.2 Moreover, because both devices depend on reading and manipulating preserved texts against the backdrop of historical developments, together they underlie the composite, pseudepigraphic character of the divans. The divan of Hosea stands apart from the corpus not least because in Hosea neither of these primary devices of reversal plays a significant role. Composite development can be readily identified in Hosea, even if in only a few passages with any certainty, but this divan may come closest to showing what a substantial 'prophetic' divan, consisting almost entirely of poetic speeches of an excited speaker on political conditions and circumstances, looked like before its development along the lines found in the other divans. In contrast to the other divans, in Hosea the spokesperson, or 'prophet', is identified so closely with the dramatic role of God as apparently to preclude the spokesperson's characteristic later identification with court addressees responsible for the preservation of the divan. In addition to these general characteristics, a comparison of greater with lesser divans shows numerous resemblances that confirm the basic likeness of these two types. Some of these are well known but can be seen in a new light. Let us look very briefly at two examples, first one comparing Isaiah with Hosea, and then one comparing Isaiah with Micah. Hosea falls rhetorically into two parts, chs. 1-3 and chs. 4-14. The integrity of each part can be shown based on two sets of deliberate puns that develop the main theme of punishment and rescue twice, the first series (chs. 1-3) based on the name 'Israel' and the second (chs. 414) on 'Ephraim'. This two-part form should be compared with the two 2. The collections of seventh-century BCE Assyrian prophecies exemplified in Simo Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies (State Archives of Assyria, IX; Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1997) illustrate how a court could appropriate diverse sources. These texts, however, are not limited to the words of individual 'prophets' and thus are not divans proper, but the kind of source that might be drawn on for developing divans.

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main sets of poetic oracles attributable to early 'Isaiah', contained within chs. 2-12 (incorporating, e.g., 2.6-21 minus assumed revisions and accretions) and approximately chs. 28-32 (incorporating, e.g., 29.18) respectively, as they might have appeared adjacent to each other in an early 'divan of Isaiah' prior to subsequent development. In both Hosea and Isaiah, development has occurred in such a way that the first sets of oracles in both divans (Hos. 1-3; Isa. 2-12) show a remarkable similarity: both are based from beginning to end on the birth and naming of three offspring of the prophet (Immanuel in Isaiah assimilated to the two sons of the prophet), and the unfolding of their significance in a series of puns which in both cases represent three steps—a negative meaning, an ambiguous meaning, and a positive meaning. This is a basic literary and rhetorical feature of the first part of both divans, the scope of whose development (three chapters in Hosea, 11 chapters in Isaiah) matches rather well the ratio of the overall length of these two divans in their final form.3 A second example involves an important similarity between the greater Isaiah and lesser Micah. That both include the oracle regarding the raising of Zion and the suppression of war in Isa. 2.2-4 and Mic. 4.1-4, with nearly the same wording, is well known. Less recognized is that in both divans this oracle plays the same rhetorical role in marking a transition from God's threat to Zion to God's deliverance of Zion, in both cases involving a decision of Hezekiah. This is more obvious in Micah, in which the most dramatic turn occurs with the denunciation of Zion in 3.12 followed immediately by an apparent sudden and unmotivated reversal in 4.1. The reason for the reversal is of course made clear within the corpus of Latter Prophets as a whole: when Jeremiah is threatened with execution for denouncing the Davidic citadel, certain rural elders point out that Micah had done the same thing, and that Hezekiah, rather than putting Micah to death, had 'feared' Yahweh and that therefore Yahweh had changed his mind (Jer. 26.16-19). In other words, the repentance of Hezekiah lies behind and secures the most conspicuous—not to say remarkable—reversal in the divan of Micah. The same device can be seen in Isaiah, with one difference, but a difference which turns out not to count for much: in Isaiah, the 'turning point' is placed not in the middle, but near both ends of Isa. 2-39. In its 3. I am assuming a stage in the composition of the divan of Isaiah consisting of chs. 2-55, later supplemented by chs. 1 and 56-66, ch. 1 including some material credibly attributable to Isaiah of Jerusalem.


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present, final form this section is scarcely 'pre-exilic', since it refers to the Babylonian exile in ch. 39. Whether the device of Hezekiah's repentance in the divan of Isaiah originally predates the exile of the house of David we can leave undecided. Regardless, the entire section chs. 2-39 is organized around two poles, one at the structural center of chs. 2-12 and the other at the end, in chs. 36-38. These poles contrast Ahaz's disobedience at the command to ask a sign and his failure to 'trust' (7.10-14, etc.) with Hezekiah's obedience and 'trust' (36.4, etc.) The comparison is invited by the placement of both these sons of David 'by the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Fuller's Field'. The story of Hezekiah climaxes with a manipulation of the source shared with 2 Kgs 18-20 to place Hezekiah's question, which Ahaz refused to ask, 'What is the sign (that I shall go up to the house of Yahweh [the Davidic citadel]?', at the first end of the narrative, with only the cause of the Babylonian exile as explained at this point in the divan intervening. The response to Hezekiah's request for a sign is the lengthy pronouncement of Isa. 40-55, concluding with '[this] shall be an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off'.4 Thus in Isaiah as in Micah, the entire 'historical' sequence from Hezekiah to the restoration from Exile hinges on the trust and, in Isaiah, the lack of trust, of Hezekiah, the son of David who was known as having revived the Davidic claim of Israelite sovereignty following the fall of Samaria. Here I have mentioned only two rather straightforward examples of the numerous ways in which the greater and lesser 'prophetic' divans develop in tandem and without any recognizably significant difference based on the distinction of type. In sum, it cannot be a coincidence that clearly two kinds of divans make up the corpus of the Latter Prophets, but in all significant regards and with respect to numerous ancillary literary features they show no comparable division into two types. The two types differ mainly in length, that is in terms of the degree of

4. For the influence of 'Second Isaiah' on the composition of the divan of Isaiah, see the excellent study by H.G.M. Williamson, The Book Called Isaiah: Deutero-Isaiah's Role in Composition and Redaction (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), and particularly the discussion pp. 189-209. Williamson focuses on the matter discussed here on pp. 203-206, where by drawing attention to the integral place of Hezekiah's prayer in ch. 38 he confirms the importance of the house of David's return to the citadel's temple. Because Williamson's main concern was the parallels between Isaiah and 2 Kings in this section, he did not notice the probable connection with the sequel in Second Isaiah, which he concluded was doubtful (p. 209).

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elaboration of certain themes within a rhetorical framework, which, as regards its most significant features, is in each case the same, and this despite the fact that the three greater divans were ostensibly composed and elaborated in three quite different ways. What then does distinguish the two types of divan, the greater and the lesser, and for what reason do these two types exist? I can see no way to give a straightforward and definitive answer to these questions, but I think some observations may point in the right direction. We start with the guess that the lesser divan, as apparently the more prevalent and more flexibly defined type, may be taken as given, and an explanation for the distinction should focus on the greater divan. What is it, we might ask, that Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel have in common that the lesser divans appear to lack? One answer that suggests itself is that each of the greater divans originates with a portrayed individual who stands extremely close to the center of power in the Davidic citadel: Isaiah the court counselor with direct access to the royal person; Jeremiah the close associate of the sons, both friendly and unfriendly, of the principle leaders of Josiah's reform—the most extreme statement of Davidic centralization in the 'Prophets'—and possibly the son of the priest of the reform; and Ezekiel a priest of the citadel temple itself. With all three individual figures, their divans elaborate on their 'biography' to highlight their place and role near the center of Davidic power, epitomized by the Davidic citadel and its temple, not simply to justify their 'prophetic' role. This elaboration depended on a credible core tradition, prior to elaboration, placing each figure in a regular capacity at the center of Davidic power. It was the reputed proximity of such figures to the center of power, as conceived by the succession of scribes that composed these divans, that recommended their divans for elaboration into the class of greater divans, whose distention embodied and represented both a greater and an intensified authority.5 Is it known that the traditional figures behind the lesser divans did not have such positions at the center of Davidic power? Not always, obviously. But conversely, in no case does a lesser divan develop such a 'prophetic' portrait. In some cases the difference is quite clear. The figures of Hosea and Micah, for example, have never been so identified. Jonah is based fictionally on an Israelite rather than Davidic figure. 5. On the urban legitimization of elite rule, see, e.g., Gideon Sjoberg, The Preindustrial City, Past and Present (New York: The Free Press; London: CollierMacmillan, 1960), pp. 224-31.


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There is no reason to believe that Amos was a Davidic courtier.6 In a few lesser divans, it appears that the figure might have had such a position. Zephaniah is identified as a royal offspring, but nothing further is said about him, and about his political relation to the Davidic citadel nothing can be certain. The clearest instances of figures close to power would seem to be Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. With these, however, it may be significant that their divans were added at the end of the development of the Twelve, quite possibly when that collection was already approaching the length of a greater divan, and so did not themselves suggest or prompt development into greater divans on their own account.7 The fact that the divans of the traditional figures of both Jeremiah and Ezekiel are longer than that of the figure of Isaiah even though they developed over a much shorter period of time might also suggest that such documents could develop not only in tandem but in competition, if the indications that Jeremiah and Ezekiel represented respectively some form of subsequent 'Levite' and 'Zadokite' priestly camps in opposition to each other have any validity. The suggestion that the greater divan as a distinct type capitalizes on the authority of figures known to have had a peculiar proximity to central Davidic citadel power may recall Wilson's distinction between central and peripheral prophets, with which it differs, however, by addressing not the question of different social types of prophets in general, but the position of particular traditional figures specifically in relation to the Davidic citadel.8 Furthermore, it differs from the oft voiced suggestion of a distinction between prophets with urban and rural backgrounds in dealing with the Davidic 'urban' citadel only.9 6. Max E. Policy, Amos and the Davidic Empire: A Socio-Historical Approach (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), argues that he was; see my review in the Journal of Religion 70 (1990), pp. 626-27. 7. Alternatively, Zechariah and Malachi together may have begun to develop into a greater divan, but the development would have been short-circuited by their incorporation in the Twelve and the demise of the royal house of David. 8. Robert R. Wilson, Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980), especially pp. 32-86. Needless to say, the distinction between greater and lesser divan does not correspond to Wilson's distinction between the Ephraimite and Judean traditions. For an alternative analysis of some of the social features of 'intermediaries' highlighted by Wilson, see Scott D. Hill, 'The Local Hero in Palestine in Comparative Perspective', in Robert B. Coote (ed.), Elijah and Elisha in Socioliterary Perspective (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992), pp. 37-73. 9. On this point as well as the shortcomings of Wilson's scheme, see especially

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The suggestion made here clearly cannot be applied predictively. That is, it does not tell us that the divan of such a figure will inevitably develop into a greater divan. It does however provide a basis for understanding why some divans developed in this way and some did not. The mystique of the representative power of such figures differed little from the mystique of the corner office close to the corporate CEO or organizational director in our own time.

Robert P. Carroll, 'Prophecy and Society', in R.E. Clements (ed.), The World of Ancient Israel: Sociological, Anthropological and Political Perspectives (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 203-25, particularly pp. 216-17.

THIS LAND is MY LAND: ON NATURE AS PROPERTY IN THE BOOK OF EZEKIEL*

Julie Galambush

It is widely recognized that ancient Near Eastern cultures saw in creation stories the struggle of the god or gods to assert order over chaos, and that this 'order' included not only the natural order, but also a divinely appointed social order, which latter tended to be defined as the social order of the society in which the creation story was produced.1 Divine control was embodied within established political, religious, and social structures, including their rituals, personnel, and monuments. A certain circularity obtains here: ancient cosmogonies were written in part to re-enforce existing power structures, with the storyteller's preferred power structure articulated through the story as the embodiment of divine order. The book of Ezekiel does not contain a cosmogony as such. Within the text's narrative world the created realm exists already and the divinely appointed social order, while embattled, has long been articulated. Certainly the plot of Ezekiel includes a certain Chaoskampf; Yhwh struggles to reassert his authority and impose the order of his lordship over creation. Indeed, the vision of Yhwh's victory and his enthronement in chs. 40-48 includes elements drawn from the creation stories of Israel and its neighbors.2 Ezekiel, however, is not concerned * This essay is a revision of a paper presented in the Theological Aspects of the Book of Ezekiel Seminar at the November, 1999 Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature and published in the 1999 Seminar Papers. 1. See discussions in B.W. Anderson, 'Introduction', in B.W. Anderson (ed.), Creation in the Old Testament(IRT, 6; Philadelphia: Fortress Press; London: SPCK, 1984), pp. 1-24; R.J. Clifford and J.J. Collins, 'Introduction', in R.J. Clifford and J.J. Collins (eds.), Creation in the Biblical Traditions (CBQMS, 24; Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1992), pp. 1-15. 2. See, e.g., J.D. Levenson, Theology of the Program of Restoration of Ezekiel 40-48 (HSM, 10; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986), p. 29; R.J. Clifford, The Cosmic

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with how the world itself came into existence, but rather with reforming a world gone awry. What is created over the course of Ezekiel is precisely not the world in any natural or original state. The desired and created world of Ezekiel is the world mended and emended. In this paper I shall focus, however, not on the divine work of re-creation as the the Chaoskampfof Ezekiel, but on the arena whereon this divine struggle takes place: the already-created world. Specifically, I propose to examine the status of what modern people would call the natural world—that stuff upon and over which the divine struggle takes place. This essay concerns the nature of nature in Ezekiel. In The Land is Mine: Six Biblical Land Ideologies, Norman Habel explores the ideological significance of the land as a social construct in the Hebrew Bible.3 The current study will include not only the land, but various 'natural' categories such as plants, animals, and even weather, since all are to a certain extent ideological constructs, symbolic categories that fulfil specific functions within a social system.4 After surveying representations of the natural world in Ezekiel, I shall address the question of how such symbols function as social symbols, that is, how they express the needs, desires, and assumptions of the people for whom the writing attributed to Ezekiel (and perhaps the person of the prophet himself) carried authority in its earliest settings. I shall assume that some form or substantial precursor of the current book was written in sixth century Babylon by a representative of the Jerusalem priesthood, though as Stephen Cook has demonstrated, the concerns reflected by the book's narrator are consistent with those of both a sixth-century prophet-priest and a later priestly hierarchy.5

Mountain in Canaan and the Old Testament (HSM, 4; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972), pp. 158-60. 3. N. Habel, The Land is Mine: Six Biblical Land Ideologies (OBT; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995). 4. For discussion of nature as a system symbolizing social norms and tensions, see M. Douglas, Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology (New York: Pantheon, 1970), and F. Jameson, The Political Unconscious (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981), pp. 111-12. 5. S.L. Cook, Prophecy and Apocalypticism: The Postexilic Social Setting (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), pp. 85-121. Two recent studies, I. Duguid, Ezekiel and the Leaders of Israel (VTSup, 56; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994) and K.R. Stevenson, The Vision of Transformation: The Territorial Rhetoric of Ezekiel 40-48 (SBLDS, 154; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996) demonstrate from different

GALAMBUSH This Land Is my Land

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1. Animals Animals function as surprisingly complex signifiers within the text of Ezekiel. 'Wild' animals (either specific species such as jackals or nvn understood as 'beasts') play a variety of roles, both positive and negative. Interestingly, the term iTTI is used both of wild animals and of the 'living beings' identified with cherubim in Ezek. 10. That is, the category may represent either something from the supernatural realm and understood as a divine agent or something from the natural world as distinct from either the divine or the human realms. Both 'wild animals' as a group and also specific examples of wild animals pose a threat to settled human life. Thus, the war-ravaged land is given over to 'evil' animals (nin rPTT) as a sign of its uninhabitable condition (14.15) and human enemies are likewise metaphorically depicted as wild animals (35.12). The category 'wild animal' thus signifies a presence inimical to settled human habitation, that is, to the socially ordered world. The wild animal, like the wilderness with which it is associated, is the polar opposite of both the people and the livestock of the settled realm. As a force of (hostile) nature, wild animals may be 'sent' by Yhwh as punishment (5.16-17) along with pestilence, famine, fire, and the sword. Literally, famine and disease are frequent effects of war (as well as being weapons of warfare), and ruined houses and towns may well become home to scavenger animals. Symbolically, however, the stock images of military destruction—fire, pestilence, wild animals, famine, the sword (5.16-17; cf. Lev. 26.14-23; 2 Chron. 20.9)—evoke a picture, not of a specific kind of military destruction, but of the destruction of order and the takeover of chaos. If wild animals inhabit houses then the 'natural' order, in which people inhabit the houses and wild beasts the wilderness, has been inverted. The image of the wild animal serves an additional metaphorical function as a figure for hostile humans. Predatory and unscrupulous humans—both foreign and Israelite—are represented by the figure of the wild animal. The soldier who invades the land is every bit as much a wild animal as the jackal who comes afterward to scavenge the ruined countryside. Pharaoh is a sea monster (32.1-16) and the Edomites make plans to devour Israel (35.12), images that play on the connection perspectives a plausible congruence between the narrator's social agenda and an exilic setting.

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between the suspect otherness of the foreigner and the perception of wild beasts as outside of and hostile to the settled world. Not only foreigners, but even Israel's own leaders, when corrupt, may be depicted as man-eating lions, as jackals (13.4), and as wolves (22.27). These political and religious authorities prey on the people (cf. images of sheep in ch. 34) and are accordingly identified through the metaphor as hostile to the social order. While they are elements working from within the social order, they nonetheless function as agents for the 'outside', the world of forces inimical to settled life. Destructive Israelite officials are 'wild beasts' because their actions mimic those of marauding outsiders in their effect on the social order. Indeed, the damage done by the wild beasts within renders the community vulnerable to attack, first by hostile foreign armies and finally by roaming scavengers of the field. This identification between 'wild beast' and 'hostile force' is so strong that at times, as in 34.28 where 'animals of the land' are paralleled by marauding nations, the distinction between human and animal invader fails. The topos of the wild animal functions as a wide-ranging symbol applicable to any force perceived as a hostile and predatory other. Wild animals, variously referred to as rPTT, jHKn DTI, iTl&n IT FT, and iTTI nm ('mind', 'animal of the land', 'animal of the field' and 'evil animal'), are defined almost exclusively as predators and scavengers (only in 31.6, 13, and 38.20 do they carry a neutral connotation). Perhaps the most telling aspect of the signifier 'wild animal' is the opposition created between the categories 'wild animal" (HTT) and i~IQi"D, which in Ezekiel refers exclusively to livestock. The term, which can designate wild or even all animals (cf. Prov. 30.30, in which the lion is the mightiest nQ!"Q, is limited in Ezekiel to animals domesticated for human use. Livestock are paired with humans as a unit (nQi~Ql DIN), and as such are opposed by the wild beasts (14.17). Wild and domestic animals represent chaos and order respectively, animals of the wilderness versus animals of the arable land. Like other embodiments of chaos in the Hebrew Bible, however, wild animals are perceived as hostile to Yhwh's purposes only when they are outside his control.6 Like foreign armies, wild animals are an embodiment of chaos that may be coopted to perform Yhwh's (avenging) will. Wild animals may be used by Yhwh to punish Israel; they are 'sent' 6.

Cf. Leviathan in Job 41, who is depicted as virtually a pet to Yhwh.


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against the inhabited land, which is then 'given' over to them as their domain (e.g. 5.17; 14.21). The wild animals are even dignified to play a ritual role as they feast upon the sacrificed bodies of Yhwh's enemies (39.17). Still representing forces outside the ordered or settled domain, here the wild animals are assigned a place within an inverted ritual system in which they play a role analogous to Israel's priests. Like priests, whose special sanctity allows them to consume food offerings in the Jerusalem temple, so here wild animals appear as un-priests, agents whose diametrical opposition to the realm of purity and order qualifies them to partake of the unclean sacrifice. Like the foreign nations, however, so also the wild beasts, as embodiments of chaos, serve only temporarily as divine agents of destruction. Yhwh may command the forces of chaos but cannot become their permanent ally. Ultimately, even as the invading foreigners are 'punished' for their zeal in the role Yhwh has assigned them, so also the wild beasts must be cleared away in favor of domestic animals and settled land. Thus, when Yhwh establishes the covenant of peace with Israel in 34.25-29 he first banishes wild beasts from the land, thereby both protecting the order of the settled world and also extending it, allowing the Israelites to live 'in the wild and sleep in the woods' (34.25). Israel for its part is Yhwh's 'flock', animals that are good by virtue of being owned and thus incorporated into the ordered world. Strikingly, under Yhwh's new covenant no wild animals at all remain in the land. Rather than assigning wild things to the wild places and orderly things to the ordered, the covenant is made solely with and for Israel. Yhwh makes peace with the animals only by eliminating them; the wild places will be appropriated by Israel as God's metaphorical flock and by Israel's own, literal livestock. Ezekiel's strong identification of wild beasts with hostile and chaotic forces is not reflected in the Hebrew Bible as a whole. Only Lev. 26.6 shares the trope of 'evil beasts' as something to be either banished from or sent into the land according to Israel's obedience or disobedience respectively (cf. Gen. 37.20, 33; 2 Kgs 17.25). In Gen. 2 the term rrn m&n covers all land animals, as members of creation and even as potential 'partners' for the lonely human. Psalm 148 calls on the wild animals (rrrt) together with the cattle to praise Yhwh and in Hosea 2.20 [18], a verse that probably underlies Ezekiel' s covenant of ch. 34, Yhwh creates peace, not by cutting off wild animals, but by cutting a covenant with them. Hosea's new covenant does not abolish the wild animals, but assigns them their proper place within Yhwh's ordered

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world. While images of wild beasts as agents of destruction or as signs of devastation do occur outside Ezekiel (e.g. Jer. 12.9; Exod. 23.11), only in Ezekiel does the wild beast persistently signify a hostile and threatening other to be excluded from the realm of Israel, a land reserved for domesticated animals and obedient citizens. Ezekiel is unique in expanding the 'otherness' of non-domesticated animals into a signifier of otherness itself. Wild animals may be human or beast, Israelite or foreign, but they invariably threaten the integrity of the social order and the settled land. 2. Plants

If wild beasts signify a threatening otherness in Ezekiel, what can be said of plants as an aspect of wild nature? The representation of plants follows a trajectory related but not identical to the representation of animals in Ezekiel: domesticated plants represent order and moral good; weeds represent forces hostile to Israel or to the prophet himself; domesticated plants that have 'gone wild' represent rebellion against Yhwh. At first glance this schema seems analogous to that underlying the representation of animals: domesticated equals good, wild equals bad. On closer examination, however, one can see that plants play a different role from animals in the book's symbolic world. In the first place, in contrast to representations of animals, relatively few references are made to 'bad' or wild plants (weeds) in Ezekiel. Twice Ezekiel refers to enemies as 'briars and thorns' (2.6; 28.24), an image straightforwardly depicting hostile humans in terms of noisome plants. Far more prominent in Ezekiel is the image of the unnatural plant, desirable in itself, but whose luxurious growth symbolizes overarching ambition or pride. Israel is a straying vine (ch. 17) or a towering one (19.10-14), a plant properly domesticated that has run wild. Here wildness represents, not the inherent and threatening otherness embodied by the wild animals, but rebellion by something or someone properly set under authority. Interestingly, while both Isa. 5.1-2 and Jer. 2.21 employ the conceit of Israel as a vineyard (rather than as a vine) whose produce is disappointing to Yhwh, Ezekiel focuses on the vine as fabulously successful, but rebellious (cf. the thriving but rebellious woman of ch. 16). While the plant is not threatening in and of itself, its choice of selfassertion is perceived as threatening, and the plant must therefore be destroyed. Similar to Israel the unruly vine, powerful foreign nations


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are depicted as mighty trees. As such they give shelter to many but are subject to the vice of pride.7 Both Egypt and Assyria, which presume in their power to rival Yhwh, are threatening not in themselves but in their attitude—a refusal to know their place. Yhwh, of course, will not tolerate such affronts to his sovereignty and will therefore destroy the haughty trees. The offending vines and trees differ from the wild animals considered above in that they are not properly wild but have merely 'run wild'. This distinction yields interesting differences. First, the overly abundant vines and trees do not, as did the wild animals, threaten the order of the settled realm. Unlike the presence of man-eating lions, wolves, or scorpions, no devastation of land or people is implied in the unbridled growth of the trees. The trees and vines do not choke out crops or invade homes. On the contrary, the tree of Assyria is beneficial to wild birds and animals, and 'beautiful in its greatness' (31.8). Yhwh himself claims to have created Assyria's beauty, a beauty unrivaled even by 'the cedars in the garden of God' (31.8-9). Trees and vines thus have an implicitly positive rather than a negative connotation. Yhwh created Assyria's beauty but Assyria grew proud and Yhwh accordingly had the unruly tree cut down. Israel has grown recklessly toward one monarch after another, ignoring Yhwh's claims, and it must therefore be destroyed. The trees and vines of these metaphors represent the rulers of the nations and as such are depicted as the proper objects of divine sponsorship. Foreign kings are not Yhwh's rivals in these passages, but servants. The disobedience of favored servants represents a very different kind of threat than that posed to the countryside by invading armies or wild beasts. Yhwh's concern is still with order, but now disorder takes the form of a challenge to divine honor. Yhwh will therefore destroy the offending vines and trees, but he will also plant. After the vine, Israel, has been uprooted it will be replanted as a great tree. 'I myself, emphasizes Yhwh (twice in 17.2) 'will plant it on a high mountain'. The resulting tree will be 'noble' and fruitful. Yhwh will not be denied the traditional 'garden of God', but neither will he allow its trees to compete with him in glory. When his own tree has been planted, says Yhwh, 'All the trees of the field will know that I am Yhwh. I bring low the high tree, I make high the low tree; I dry up the green tree and make 7. Ironically, Israel is ridiculed in ch. 15 as a vine that fancies itself a tree. Not so, says Yhwh. If you were a tree, I could at the least get some use out of your wood after cutting you down!

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the dry tree flourish' (17.24). The vines and trees exist specifically as markers valorizing Yhwh's potency. Trees, if they are to be high, must by their very height point toward Yhwh as source and owner of their glory. Other trees, 'all the trees of the field', supply a validating gaze, admiring the trees that belong to a higher authority. Trees and vines are thus status markers. They may be defective (or 'disobedient') in this role and require correction or elimination, but they are properly positive signifiers revealing the control of Yhwh. The role of trees and vines as markers of Yhwh's potency and sovereignty, implicit in the chapters describing the punishment of the unruly plants, becomes fully articulated in the image of the miraculous trees of ch. 47. After Yhwh has established his temple and throne on the high mountain of Ezekiel's vision, a stream begins to flow from beneath the threshold of the temple. The background of the stream as a symbol of renewed fertility under the rule of the divine monarch has been well documented.8 The stream of Ezek. 47 recalls that of Gen. 2 as it supports the growth of fruitful trees. Together trees and stream form a garden. The garden appears as the special holding of monarchs and divine beings in various ancient Near Eastern cultures.9 The god is the ensurer of earth's fertility and the king is the god's regent. The growth of trees in Ezek. 47 forms a recognizable trope indicating Yhwh's power to restore fertility to the land. The trees' supernatural abilities of producing fruit in all seasons while also bearing medicinal leaves underscores the power of Yhwh, whose presence in the temple suffices to produce such abundance. The status of trees and vines as elements of wild nature would seem to be irrelevant to, if not actually excluded from, Ezekiel's symbolic matrix. Ezekiel's emphasis on trees as signifiers indicating rebellion against or acceptance of divine authority stands in striking contrast with the symbolism of trees elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible. While it is outside the scope of this paper to undertake a thorough discussion of the symbolic function of trees in the Bible, it will be sufficient to observe that nowhere else is the image of the tree invested with overtones suggesting a tendency toward pride and rebellion against divine authority.10 On the 8. See, e.g., Clifford, Cosmic Mountain, pp. 100-102, 158-60; S.S. Tuell, The Law of the Temple in Ezekiel 40-48 (HSM, 49; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992), pp. 69-71. 9. See H.N. Wallace, 'Garden of God', ABD II, pp. 906-907. 10. The closest equivalent would seem to be the boasting bush of 2 Kgs 14, and


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contrary, trees frequently evoke images of human rootedness in divine law: just as the well-nourished tree produces abundant fruit, so the disciplined and obedient person is both prosperous and productive (Ps. 1; Jer. 17.7-8). Alternately, divine wisdom is depicted as a tree, as an object that is strong and sustaining (Prov. 3.18). While the literal use of trees for idolatrous worship (either as Asherah poles or as lumber for image-making) might seem to open the way for personification of trees as moral agents implicated in Israel's infidelity, no such negative personification takes place. Rather, as in Jer. 7.20, trees form part of the land that may be either blessed or blighted, depending on the conduct of its inhabitants. Curiously, Ezekiel seems to share the perspective of other prophets and of the Deuteronomistic editors in regard to the role of actual trees in non-Yahwistic ritual: the worship of 'wood and stone' is a temptation to which Israel was ever vulnerable, but the trees themselves are objects devoid of moral value or culpability (Ezek. 20.32; cf. Deut. 12.2; 16.21). It is in his personification of trees that Ezekiel seemingly departs from literary tradition, creating a unique trope of the tree as a properly domesticated plant that willfully grows out of control and that must be subdued. Compare this perspective with, for example, images from Ps. 96.12 and Isa. 44.23; 55.12, in which personified trees sing for joy and clap their hands in celebration of Yhwh's sovereignty. In Ps. 148.9 the trees are called on to praise Yhwh. What is more, the trees are grouped together with heavens, earth, sea, and field, or with mountains and hills as examples of nature resounding with Yhwh's praise. When the trees join with hills and fields to sing, clap, and give praise to Yhwh, they do so specifically to exemplify the response of the natural world to its divine sovereign. The trees that clap their hands function metonymically for the realm of nature, all of which is understood, in a sort of natural theology, to reflect the glory of Yhwh. Here, of course, nature reflects the divine presence in an active rather than passive way; personified hills and trees are depicted as sentient beings whose recognition of Yhwh's power is manifested as joy. This personification of the trees as unambiguously united with Yhwh's purposes and perspective forms a stark contrast to Ezekiel's image of the rebellious tree.11 cf. Jotham's fable in Judg. 9.8-15 in which virtuous trees refuse to let pride sway them from their appointed stations. 11. The prohibition against cutting down fruit trees during siege warfare (Deut. 20.19-20) provides an interesting mix of perspectives, first countermanding the

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This personification of trees is clearly shaped to a different end than is Ezekiel's. In Ezekiel the trees (and also vines) are personified specifically as servants, indeed, as metaphoric representations of human beings (e.g. Assyria or the king of Judah). The personification of trees as representations of specific individuals or communities precludes their consideration as 'natural' objects. Trees serve as object lessons exhibiting qualities either of obedience or, more frequently, of disobedience. Ezekiel's representation of trees and vines draws directly on human agricultural experience: the cultivation of plants may yield either satisfaction or frustration. Appearing only as metaphorical objects of Yhwh's satisfaction or frustration with the human community, and not as objects in their own right, trees and vines lose the potential to represent any aspect of wild nature, except to reinforce the preference for domesticated nature over wild nature.12 3. The Land Elements of weather, wind and storm, light and darkness, are seen in Ezekiel as thoroughly under Yhwh's control and appear as tools of punishment to be used against either Israel or its enemies, depending on the direction of the divine wrath (e.g. 19.12; 38.22). The dichotomies between wild and domesticated that obtained in the depiction of animals or between obedient and rebellious that typified depictions of plant life, do not appear here. The weather is not, like plants and animals, personified, nor is it ever depicted as outside Yhwh's control. This unambiguous view of the weather as a tool of Yhwh may reflect ancient traditions of Yhwh as a storm god, but may equally well derive from (and the two possibilities are not mutually exclusive) the ongoing human experience that while both plants and animals have ambiguous status in terms of their susceptibility to human control, the weather is

destruction of fruit trees on the grounds that trees are not humans, to be laid siege to, but then giving permission to use as timber any trees that do not yield fruit. What at first seems to assert the independent right of a tree to its life turns out to reflect a concern that extends only to those trees needed to sustain human life. 12. The prophecy of 20.45-48 against the forest of the south forms an interesting problem. Yhwh announces to the forest that he will light a fire to consume it, both the green trees and the dry. No explanation is given for this action; no trespass is charged to the forest, nor does the text provide any hint as to whom the forest might represent.


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entirely and unambiguously beyond any human coercion. Ironically, such a deep cultural certainty about the 'otherness' of weather may serve to anchor it firmly in the human imagination as belonging to the divine realm, while the tantalizing partiality of human control over the plant and animal realms renders these more susceptible to personification and to depiction within moral categories. Wild animals are unlike 'our' animals, and their otherness is projected as hostility to the settled realm. This projection of human fear onto the wild animal (which is then fantasized as evil and threatening) is sympathized with, if not shared outright, by the deity, who promises to 'banish wild beasts' from the land. The human struggle to cultivate (good) crop plants while limiting the growth of (bad) weeds is likewise projected onto Yhwh. Yhwh the farmer tends his crops, which in turn either fulfil or frustrate his intent. The human community's struggle to control plants and animals is projected into the divine realm through metaphors in which Yhwh too struggles for control. The elements themselves, however, as objects outside of human control, are seen as uniquely under divine direction and thus excluded from the realm of ongoing struggle. Thunder and lightning, wind and rain function exclusively as tools by means of which Yhwh may bless or curse the people as he sees fit. The role played by the earth itself—the realm of nature as a whole— receives little notice in Ezekiel. Instead, concern is focused on the land of Israel. Ezekiel makes constant reference to the condition of the land CfHN), a term with a semantic range in Ezekiel encompassing both the political and the geographical territory of Israel. In addition to references to the land, Ezekiel frequently employs the phrase nQ~IN t7N~l2T, an elocution unique to Ezekiel that seems to designate Israel as 'homeland'.13 The term HQ"IN, which elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible covers everything from soil to dry land, in Ezekiel refers exclusively to the land of Israel. This extraordinary usage focuses the text on land as 'the land belonging to Israel', an emphasis that has political overtones, given both Babylonian domination of the land and Ezekiel's tendency to define 'the house of Israel' exclusively in terms of the exilic community (see, e.g., 3.4-11; 36.8,16). For the most part the land of Israel figures in Ezekiel as a site of destruction and injury (e.g. 7.2; 21.7-8 [2-3]); as such, the land symbolically represents its inhabitants as they undergo the devastation

13. See discussion in J.G. Ploger, 'HQ1K' , TDOT, I, pp. 88-98.

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resulting from Israel's sin. As Elaine Scarry has argued, injury in warfare is both a means of establishing military victory and a literal display of power—visual evidence of harm inflicted by the victor.14 The condition of the human body during and after war represents the condition—physical, political, and perhaps most importantly, ideological—of the body politic.15 In Ezekiel's representation of the conflict between Yhwh and the people, the site of injury is not so much the individual body as the land itself. Destruction is visited upon the land through the depletion of its inhabitants, the burning of its towns, and the harm done to its ecology. Damage wrought through both military activity and ecological disaster serves in the text as a kind of war wound, a visible injury testifying to the power of the victor—in this case, Yhwh—and to the consequent extension of his power over the lives of the conquered people. The desolation of the mountains depicted in ch. 6 and of the land in ch. 7 are calculated to serve notice to the sinful people ('then they will know' [6.14; 7.9]) of Yhwh's authority over them. Drought likewise becomes an anthropocentric phenomenon that exists to display Yhwh's anger over human wrongs. Images of the land as the site of destruction predominate in Ezek. 124, that section of the book reflecting the build-up of tension prior to the destruction of Jerusalem reported in ch. 33. The land is repeatedly depicted as 'sinful' or 'bloody' and therefore deserving of divine punishment. The 'sinful' land metonymously represents its sinful inhabitants, as is clearly shown in passages such as ch. 7, an oracle purportedly directed against the land of Israel (^"lET HQIN). After an opening in which the personified land (f "IN) is informed that its doom is coming as Yhwh judges its ways, the oracle continues urging upon the addressee that the punishment has arrived in force. By v. 7, however, the feminine figure who has thus far functioned as the implied audience of the oracle is identified as the 'inhabitant of the land' (JHN 32JT). The personified land gives way to the persona of the land's 'inhabitant', possibly the frequently personified city of Jerusalem, which in turn stands for the people as a whole. The personified land turns out to be an evanescent vehicle representing the land's human inhabitants. The personification of the mountains in ch. 6 is similarly ephemeral. What begins as an oracle announcing to the mountains the end of their 14. E. Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 116. 15. See Scarry, Body, p. 114.


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idolatrous altars quickly transmutes into an oracle against the idolaters themselves ('I will scatter your bones around your altars', v. 5). As in ch. 6, here also the land is metonymous for its inhabitants. The oracle of 14.12-23 describing the fate of a land that 'acts faithlessly' is particularly telling in this regard. Here, as in 7.3, the land itself is said to have sinned, and punishments are accordingly visited against it: famine rages while humans and domestic animals are 'cut off (v. 13). Moreover, wild animals are sent to ravage the land 'so that it is made desolate, and no one may pass through because of the animals' (vv. 15, 21). Here both sin and punishment are depicted in terms specific to the land; it is the land that has sinned and the land that will undergo devastation. This view, in which the land is culpable for the sins of its inhabitants and then suffers the consequences of their actions, superficially shares a perspective similar to that expressed in Lev. 18.25, 28, in which the land, unable to bear the pollution caused by its inhabitants, reacts by vomiting them out. A related dynamic is at work in Jeremiah, where the land undergoes torment as it is ravaged by divinely sent drought and depopulation. As Habel has demonstrated, the images of Leviticus and Jeremiah reflect ideologies in which the land is understood to have rights that are defended by Yhwh.16 The innocent land demands or receives restitution because of injury inflicted by its inhabitants. In Ezekiel the tables are turned. The land is not a victim, but party to its inhabitants' actions; it is guilty and therefore suffers for its own actions at Yhwh's hands. The personae of land and people are fused at every level, and the land's welfare is defined exclusively in terms of human needs and desires. The land is struck, not by 'drought', but by 'famine'; that is, the disaster is not environmental but social. Humans and domestic animals are cut off from the land and, as punishment, wild animals are allowed to roam there (14.12-15). Rather than the perspective seen in Leviticus and Jeremiah, in which the land stands apart from or even opposed to the human project, here the land is conceived as essentially human space, space-for-me, which is violated to the degree that it is rendered unfit for human habitation. Ezekiel's depiction of the land's reversion to nature as horrific obscures the alternative perspective, namely that a land where 'no one may pass through because of the animals' (14.15, 21) need not be seen as ruined. Nor is the consideration that the land might actually benefit

16. Habel, Land, pp. 75-114.

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from such 'devastation' a retrojection of modern biophilia. In Leviticus 26 the land is made 'desolate', with people removed and cities destroyed, but the same land whose condition 'appalls' the neighbors as unfit for human settlement is in fact enjoying (il^"l) a well-deserved rest (cf. 2 Chron. 36.21). The 'destroyed' land is not ruined but rather unencumbered, liberated from the burden of human habitation. The land is devastated only from the most narrowly pragmatic human perspective. Ezekiel's land is not granted the same subject status that it has in both Leviticus and Jeremiah. Rather than existing as an independent entity that reacts (as it turns out, in protest) to the actions of its inhabitants, here the land as the sinful object of devastation is metonymous for its inhabitants; their actions are its actions and its punishment is their punishment. It is this identification between the moral status of land and people in Ezekiel that allows the land to serve as the 'site of injury' in the conflict between Yhwh and his people. In Jeremiah the land is a victim whose injury Yhwh will avenge. In Ezekiel the land, representing the body politic, is the body whose injury displays Yhwh's power. In the second half of Ezekiel, chs. 25-48, the land appears primarily as an object of restoration. As the object of divine restoration the land is 'rehabilitated' following its punishment, and so reintegrated into the ordered cosmos as the settled realm. Like the domestic animals and plants, the land is sutured back into the cultural landscape of human and divine control. The once-devastated land blooms with new fertility, waste places are planted, ruined towns rebuilt (see, e.g., 36.8-12, 2238). As indicated by the pairing of waste land and ruined town, both of which will be 'restored' by Yhwh, 'land' is understood to be coterminous with sown and settled land. This privileging of the settled over the wild is extended to the point that the land is 'promised' not only fertility but urban development! The personified land finds itself equally blessed by trees and by towns. The growth of fruit trees and the growth of cities are all but indistinguishable as indications of the land's welfare. Whereas earlier the land was personified as the embodiment of its inhabitants and punished for its sinfulness, now land, cities, flocks, and people serve equally as objects of restoration and markers of divine possession and control. Yhwh simultaneously restores the land's fertility, its security from invasion, and its human population. In the 'covenant of peace' of 34.25 the wild animals are removed and domestic animals multiplied. The


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fact that the metaphor blurs the distinction between Israel as flock and Israel as flock-owner or between wild beasts as human or as animal predators, is fully appropriate. Yhwh's 'showers of blessings' on the land serve to benefit Israel as a settled territory and to eliminate all threats of reversion to wilderness. Yhwh himself is depicted through the traditional image of the shepherd of his people, but also as a returned exile who both rebuilds the towns and replants the fields of Israel (36.36). The restored land's goodness is certified by its desirability. The narrator posits the valorizing gaze of an anonymous onlooker. In 36.34-36 'those who pass by' are reported to say, 'This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined towns are now inhabited and fortified'. Desolate land is replaced by its perceived opposite: tilled land as fertile as the very garden of God. Desolate cities are similarly replaced by their opposite: populous, walled cities. It is striking that this miraculous renewal is not imagined as an unprecedented paradise, but rather as restoration per se; that is, the re-establishment of life in Israel before the exile. The land, while abundantly fertile, is still 'worked' land requiring human effort for the yield of its produce. The towns are fortified towns, and though their safety is established by the divine removal of enemies it is maintained by the more conventional means of strong walls. The restoration of the desolate land is thus equated with restoration of the entire matrix of a mixed urban-agrarian economy. The land will be 'blessed' by a return to the status quo ante. Ezekiel's unusually strong preference for the settled realm over the wild results in a somewhat paradoxical attitude toward the urban center. A prophet whose anguish over and rage against the city of Jerusalem dominate the first half of his prophecies, Ezekiel is called upon to judge 'the bloody city', where blood is shed, where sabbath is profaned, where father and mother, widow and orphan are abused (22.1-12). The evils of Jerusalem, personified as Yhwh's unfaithful wife (16.1-43; 23), are depicted in lurid detail; ultimately, nothing short of her destruction will satisfy Yhwh's rage against her (cf. Samaria in 16.46-52; 23.1-10). Such extravagant tirades against Jerusalem and its inhabitants, however, while seemingly indicating antipathy toward the urban center, must be balanced against favorable images of cities in the second half of the book. In Ezekiel's images of restoration, cities feature prominently as metonymous for the nation's well being. Yhwh's blessing on the land

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of Israel consists in the land being 'tilled and sown', the population multiplied, and 'the towns...inhabited and the waste places rebuilt' (36.9-10). The rebuilding of ruined cities is presented as a sign whereby the nations 'will know that I, the Lord, have rebuilt the ruined places' (36.36). Divine power is manifested through the building of cities. The most dramatic manifestation of the city as a positive icon is, of course, the vision of the city and temple in chs. 40-48. An integral part of Ezekiel's vision of a divinely ordered world, the city, like the temple, the miraculous stream, or the boundary lists, gives concrete representation to divine authority. Indeed, the book of Ezekiel concludes with the name of the restored city: Yhwh is there. Ezekiel's wholesale condemnation of the actual city of Jerusalem coupled with his vision of the city as an emblem of divine presence, while initially perplexing, may be understood as an extension of the fusion in Ezekiel between land and inhabitants. Just as the land functions as the 'site of injury' whereon the punishment of the people will be displayed, so also the city itself, that is, the city as infrastructure, will be 'punished' for the misdeeds of its inhabitants. The destruction of the city is visible evidence of the punishment of the people. In this context, an interesting parallel develops between the city, personified as a woman, and the trees and vines which represent various unruly rulers. Like the rulers, the city falls into the category of things properly under divine control and sponsorship, but instead ranging wildly out of control. The city, then, like the land itself, serves as an indicator of divine control. The city, personified as Yhwh's wife, was made 'perfect' by Yhwh's splendor, and should have been a visible emblem of his glory (16.14). So also, the rebuilt cities of the restoration and the temple city of Ezekiel's vision serve primarily as signifiers of divine power and authority. 4. Castles in the Air: Creation as Property in the Book of Ezekiel The nature of nature in Ezekiel is a subject fraught with ambiguity, from Ezekiel' s opening vision by the bn] Chebar—the river that is in fact a canal—to his concluding vision in which the Dead Sea is changed from a natural wasteland into a supernatural venue for the fishing industry. The ideology outlined above, in which the established culture forms the goal and apex of 'creation' is, of course, not original to Ezekiel. Creation, in the ancient Near East, meant the creation of the


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socially ordered world and so by definition entailed the privileging of inhabited over barren land and of domestic over wild animals. In a world where the founding of a great city could be represented as the goal of creation, the relative value of walled cities over open countryside would have been obvious.17 To the extent that Ezekiel's outlook is merely consistent with a widespread cultural preference for the realm of human activity over wild nature, the book, while providing an excellent example of this ideological stance, has little of interest in its perspective on the wild and sown realms. Ezekiel's lack of a mode by which to apprehend wild nature in anything like its own right may be read as simply an extension of a symbolic system according to which perceived order is good and perceived disorder, bad. But Ezekiel's extension is neither an inevitable nor an insignificant extension of a wider cultural phenomenon; the role played (or rather, not played) by wild nature in Ezekiel is distinctive, perhaps even diagnostic as an expression of the author's social location. A brief sampling of depictions of nature in Jeremiah and Deutero-Isaiah, two rough contemporaries of the historical Ezekiel, will serve to set Ezekiel's perspective in relief. The usage of nature imagery in Jeremiah shows considerable overlap with that in Ezekiel. Faithless people are punished by attacking wolves and lions (5.6) or are themselves depicted as such (12.8-9). Israel is planted as Yhwh's vineyard but defies him by growing wild (literally 'foreign', "ID]; 2.21). Drought is sent as divine punishment against the people (14.1-6). Jeremiah exhibits the same practical preference for fruitful land over desert and for tame animals over wild as does Ezekiel, but with important differences: While Jeremiah freely employs images drawn from nature to embody forces that threaten human welfare, this anthropocentrism is balanced by a sense of wild animals and of the land itself as having value apart from their utility in the settled realm. The snows of Lebanon and the mountain streams, for example, are cited as models of constancy (18.4). The earth, languishing under conditions of drought and warfare, is not, as in Ezekiel, bearing a well-deserved punishment, but an innocent victim of human crimes. The land mourns (4.28; cf. 14.2-6) and the prophet is instructed to mourn on its behalf (9.10). The land is a precious possession of Yhwh, injured by human abuse, rather than an object of divine wrath in its own right. 17. For a helpful discussion and bibliography regarding the valorization of wild nature in the Hebrew Bible see G.M. Tucker, 'Rain on a Land Where No One Lives', JBL 116 (1997), pp. 3-17.

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Like Ezekiel, Deutero-Isaiah expresses a utilitarian sensibility according to which nature is good when it is useful for human welfare. Thus, Yhwh's gift of water flowing from the bare heights to the valleys and on into the wilderness (41.18-20) is wonderful because it serves the needs of the poor. But in Deutero-Isaiah the divine gift of water is a blessing, not only to humans or their livestock, but to the wild animals as well. 'Wild animals', says Yhwh, 'will honor me, the jackals and ostriches, for I give water in the wilderness' (43.20). This acknowledgment of an independent and positive relationship between Yhwh and wild nature is not so fully developed as that reflected in Job with its reminder that rain is sent on the land where no one lives (38.26), nor yet as that of Ps. 104 with its catalogue of creatures who look to Yhwh for their sustenance. Still, both Jeremiah and Deutero-Isaiah, writing in the context of the Babylonian exile, include positive images of wild nature as such. Nor does either Jeremiah or Deutero-Isaiah project a sinful land made to suffer for its wicked excesses. Ezekiel is not distinctive among biblical texts in its utilitarian and anthropocentric strains; Ezekiel is distinctive in admitting no other view. The strongest potential exception to the rule of Ezekiel's exclusion of wild nature would seem to be the miraculous stream of ch. 47. This apparent exception, however, will serve to prove the rule. The stream, as discussed above, derives from the restored temple. On its banks it sustains equally miraculous trees, and the combination of abundant water with abundant fertility marks the renewed landscape (as was predicted in 36.35) as Eden, the garden of God.18 The trees are remarkable both for their growth and for their exceptional utility, deriving from their ability to bear their fruit in all seasons while simultaneously producing medicinal leaves. The stream, in addition to sustaining the life of the trees, extends across the land to flow into the Dead Sea. Here the supernaturally fresh water demonstrates its own medicinal properties; it 'heals' (NEH; cf. 2 Kgs 2.22) the Dead Sea waters, rendering them fresh. The newly healed waters promptly join in exhibiting their fertility: 'Wherever the river goes, every living thing that swarms will live and there will be very many fish' (v. 9). Indeed, the Dead Sea coastline will become a series of fishing ports, with variety like that of the 'Great Sea', the Mediterranean. The enlivening water will transform the barren landscape into one of superabundant fertility. The line 18. On Eden imagery in Ezek. 47, see Clifford, Mountain, pp. 100-102, and Levenson, Theology, pp. 25-36.


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between wonder and utility is indeed thin here, perhaps even nonexistent. Although no words denoting delight or wonder are expressed, the image is so remarkable it is fair to assume that wonder and delight are intended as the response of an implied reader. This passage may come as close as one gets to a validation of wild nature in Ezekiel; nonetheless, the implied wonder is tied quite explicitly to the stream's extraordinary utility. The stream does the impossible: not only does it make salt water fresh, it thereby creates a thriving fishing industry on the Dead Sea. The supernatural trees likewise respond directly to human need, eliminating with their monthly crops the ancient, natural cycles of plenty and want. Most telling in this vision of Utopian fulfillment is the fate of the marshes bordering the Dead Sea. Following description of the newly 'healed' waters and their variety of freshwater fish the author adds an aside: 'But its swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they are to be left for salt' (v. 11). The miracle is firmly bounded by social and economic considerations—or perhaps it is extended by them. That is, the re-creation of fresh water and fisheries stops miraculously short of interfering with already established routines of human commerce. By divine providence the renewal of nature preserves just those bits of the old and salty world that suit human purposes. The transformation accomplished by Yhwh's powerful indwelling in the world yields a land of roses without thorns. Ultimately, the renewing stream of 47.1-12 performs the same function as the boundary lists that immediately follow. Both serve to map out a new and perfected Israel. The path cut across the land by the healing river is neither more nor less 'natural', neither more nor less an aspect of creation, than are the boundary lines laid out in the remainder of the book. Streambed and property lines equally manifest the divine will. Ordered nature and ordered society are equally inscribed onto a landscape whose contours signify possession. The land as the object of restoration in Ezekiel is pre-eminently an object of possession. Together with its plants and animals the land must either reflect divine control and possession or defy them. Within such a scheme wild plants and wild animals are defined as hostile or rebellious. Existing outside the realm of possession—and here divine and human possession are coterminous—means existing in opposition to the divine will; finally, it means not existing at all. This plot whereby the land is successively inscribed as an object of divine possession is of course an ironic one. The invisible backdrop to the plot of Ezekiel is the

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text's historical context, the intolerable fact that the land is not an object of possession, but of desire. Ezekiel is written in Babylon, its narrator, the exiled priest of a ruined temple, a leader of a disenfranchised elite and representative of a dispossessed god. The inability of Ezekiel or his social group to assert control over the land of Israel may be said to constitute the non-dit, the suppressed contradiction underlying the plot of Ezekiel. The land placed so assiduously under divine control is a cipher for its diametric opposite—the land as the unobtainable object of human desire. It is as an object of frustrated desire that the land is labeled 'other', untamed and (from the exiles' perspective) unowned. The creation that should, through its walled cities and set boundaries, stand as a visible monument to the divine will has broken loose. The battery of negative personifications—wild animals aggressively threatening the settled realm, cultivated trees growing wildly out of control, the land itself rebelling against divine authority—expresses outrage and anxiety over loss of control. The conflict between the narrative demarcation of the land as divine and human property and the reality of the land as an embodiment of the exiles' lack creates an unresolvable tension within the ideological structure of Ezekiel. The continually expressed tension between domesticated and wild, obedient and rebellious, owned and estranged mirrors the tension between the exiles' self-perception and their reality, and the conflict between themselves and the current residents of the land. The community in exile, which Ezekiel identifies as 'the house of Israel', consisted of the privileged classes of his society, those who would ordinarily have secure claim to social and political control—in a word, hegemony. Given this contradiction between assumed and actual power, the book's distinctive concern with control over the land comes into clearer focus. The exiles' own desire to repossess the land finds expression through constant reference to the divine perspective, according to which the exiles are the rightful human owners of the land. At the same time that the desire for land tenure is projected as the goal of divine order, a corresponding anxiety is projected onto those still in Jerusalem as a predatory desire to gain title to the exiles' land. The fantasized inhabitants say of the exiles, 'They have gone far from the Lord; to us this land is given for a possession' (11.15). This projection of the exiles' anxiety as the homelanders' opportunism is quickly answered by divine reassurance: 'I will gather you from the peoples, and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered,


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and I will give you the land of Israel' (11.17). The inhabitants of Jerusalem, on the other hand, are designated 'those whose heart goes after their detestable things', and who will suffer divine judgment (11.21). Following Jerusalem's destruction the narrator again projects the survivors' thoughts: 'Abraham was only one man, yet he got possession of the land; but we are many; the land is surely given us to possess' (33.24). This apparently reasonable argument (divine judgment did, after all, leave the remnant holding the land) is again met with a withering response from Yhwh: 'As I live, surely those who are in the waste places shall fall by the sword; and those who are in the open field I will give to the wild animals' (33.27). The projected voice of Yhwh intervenes to provide a judgment consistent with the exiles' interests. The exiles' anxiety over their dispossessed status is removed even before it can be voiced. The land as the object of frustrated desire exists below the surface of the text as a kind of phantom topic, continually driving the plot and continually denied. The exiles' desire to possess 'their' land (36.17), negatively projected onto the current inhabitants, finds narrative resolution through the character of Yhwh. Yhwh, defending his own inalienable right to the land, simultaneously secures the land for the dispossessed community of the exiles. The exiles' separation from the land is depicted as Yhwh's own, and Yhwh's struggle to conform nature to his will and assert his universal overlordship validates and symbolically fulfils the community's desires. Ezekiel's exceptionally strong preference for the ordered world over wild nature—extending even to the point of wild nature's exclusion— seems, in context, to reflect sociopolitical tensions. In Ezekiel's sociohistorical context those with traditional claim to the land, including those who like himself represent the deity and whom he identifies as 'the whole house of Israel' (11.15), are dispossessed, while the 'inhabitants of the waste places' (33.27) have taken control. Divine outrage over unruly vines and wild animals mirrors the exiles' sense of violated ownership and authority. From the narrative perspective the land has reverted to 'wildness'; that is, to the control of those defined as outsiders. The hostile 'other' has turned the land to 'wildness': it is no longer controlled by the traditionally authorized custodians of divine order. From this ideological stance it is immaterial whether or not the actual land could best be described as 'devastated'. Although widespread destruction, particularly of urban centers, had clearly occurred,

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the reduced and relatively impoverished population might well have been enjoying the new opportunities for land ownership and social reorganization. Ezekiel's 'myth of the devastated land' parallels what Robert Carroll has called the 'myth of the empty land', a narrative program that presents the land as 'empty' and therefore ripe for the exiles' return.19 To posit a land that is 'devastated', 'empty', or both is to posit both need and warrant for the return of the ruling classes and the displacement of those whose control is defined as chaos. Walter Benn Michaels's work on Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables gives a provocative analysis of the role played by literary texts in expressing and resolving anxiety over land tenure.20 According to Michaels, disputed real estate often appears in romance literature21 as an expression of social conflict. In particular, Michaels points to a conflict between 'legitimation of property by labor' and the claim of the aristocracy, a 'claim to land that is unimpaired by the inability to enforce that claim'.22 This unresolvable conflict—the paradox of a dispossessed aristocracy—is resolved through romance literature as 'the text of clear and unobstructed title'.23 The book of Ezekiel seems to fall easily into this category, as the disputed status of the land is resolved by a visionary assertion of divine right, and by a subsequent reallocation of land to its inalienable owners. Commenting on his use of the romance genre for The House of the Seven Gables, Hawthorne quipped that although the book concerns the accumulation of real estate, he constructed it 'by laying out a street that infringes upon nobody's rights, and appropriating a lot of land which had no visible owner'. He built the House of the Seven Gables, in short, 'of materials long in use for constructing castles in the air'.24 In Ezekiel, of course, the disputed land

19. R.P. Carroll, The Myth of the Empty Land', Semeia 59 (1992), pp. 79-93. 20. W.B. Michaels, The Gold Standard and the Logic of Naturalism: American Literature at the Turn of the Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987). 21. 'Romance' is used here in the sense of wish-fulfillment literature, in which good triumphs over evil. For definitions and discussion of the genre, see N. Frye, The Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957), pp. 37, 186-205; Jameson, Unconscious, pp. 110-12. 22. Michaels, Gold Standard, pp. 92-93. 23. Michaels, Gold Standard, p. 89. 24. Preface to The House of the Seven Gables, quoted in Michaels, Gold Standard, pp. 88-89.


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is real, not fictive, and it is only the land's return to its divine-rightful owner that is fictional. Political and theological tensions have long been seen to underlie the program of restoration in Ezek. 40-48.25 It is possible, however, to read the book as a whole as articulating the historical 'plot' desired by a specific social group. Such a plotting would accord with Fredric Jameson's description of the aesthetic act as 'an ideological act in its own right, with the function of inventing imaginary or formal "solutions" to unresolvable social contradictions'.26 That the composition of the book of Ezekiel was 'an ideological act in its own right' seems self-evident. In Ezekiel's case the 'unresolvable social contradictions' are those engendered by the circumstances of exile, contradictions centering on the alienated status of the land. The land, in Ezekiel, is properly that realm whose ownership should display the authority and control of Yhwh, an authority most tangibly expressed through the hegemonic presence of Yhwh's designated representatives. In reality, Ezekiel faces the awkward situation of having authority without agency. Ezekiel possesses detailed knowledge of which land is properly owned by which historical group within Israel, but it turns out that the land is quite perversely occupied by.. .well, by others. The exiles' frustrated claims to the land are projected onto Yhwh as a frustration of his own power. So Yhwh also, despite a quite indisputable claim to the land, finds himself in a situation of embarrassing land poverty. In light of this fundamental contradiction within Ezekiel's social and theological worlds, the category of the natural world, the world as it is related to its divine master, becomes problematic indeed. The unspoken reality underlying any 'theology of creation' in Ezekiel must be that the supreme creator God has no toehold in the land— indeed in any land. Like Abraham bargaining with the Hittites, Yhwh must maneuver from a position of weakness (however well disguised) in order to possess the land. In Yhwh's case the problem is not so much to establish legitimate claim (God's claim is nothing if not legitimate) but a claim that is credible under the historical circumstances of exile. As an ideological act, the book of Ezekiel enacts the hegemonic return of Yhwh and, by extension, of a status quo ante in which the exiles

25. Duguid (Leaders} and Stevenson (Vision of Transformation) provide helpful readings of the ideological agenda represented by Ezekiel's vision. 26. Jameson, Unconscious, p. 79.

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exert social and political control.27 The exiles' need for return is, as Carroll has argued, specifically a need for hegemonic return,28 a return to control that becomes projected in Ezekiel as a need for the reenthronement of divine authority. Within the narrator's sociopolitical horizon, the land of Israel has become 'wild', outside control and given over to elements whose presence is perceived as threatening to the ordered world. Yhwh's dilemma of possessing unlimited rights but uncertain power over creation fuels a dynamic in which the natural world is constantly dichotomized according to whether it is perceived as within or without the control of Yhwh. The 'idolatrous' mountains are cursed; the faithful mountains are blessed; animals are either 'evil beasts' or they are domestic flocks. When Yhwh is in control the trees bear miraculous fruit and eminently useful leaves; when the trees renounce Yhwh's authority they are fit to be destroyed. The natural world is friend or foe, blessed or cursed, supportive or hostile, depending on the perceived extent of Yhwh's control over it, and this control is, in turn, seen to correspond with the natural world's absorption into the settled realm. In the exiles' political context, where power and place have been disrupted, the created world emerges as above all contested property. The land anxiety of the narrator and his fellow exiles is expressed through its opposite: an assertion of unassailable divine right coupled with unshakable control.

27. This conclusion is not intended to contradict that drawn by Duguid, who elucidates reforms anticipated in the new social order (p. 140). These reforms, while real, represent a re-shuffling of power within the ruling classes that serves to re-legitimate their control over temple and land. 28. Carroll, 'Myth', pp. 81, 89.

SUP-URBS OR ONLY HYP-URBS? PROPHETS AND POPULATIONS IN ANCIENT ISRAEL AND SOCIO-HISTORICAL METHOD*

Lester L. Grabbe

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a biblical scholar in possession of a social scientific agenda will be in want of his senses. Sober scholars with nous and ability—who make wise investments and dabble knowingly in the stock market, or who enthrall students with their wit and wisdom, or who support a wife and/or husband and kids on an academic salary, or who can at least walk down almost any street without falling over or bumping into too many lampposts—suddenly become as silly as school girls when the phrase 'social sciences' enters their vocabulary. Evidently there is some sort of cachet in reading a paper that is ostensibly sociological in nature. In fact, it is not hard to write such a paper. Just fish out a theory found in an elementary textbook or— preferably—one that is starting to make the grounds as a respectable topic (one can think of the current fad for finding honor and shame under every olive tree in the Mediterranean). Take this theory, pick a set of unsuspecting biblical data, read the theory into the data, throw in some half-understood sociological vocabulary and—presto!—another sociological article on your curriculum vitae. Now, far be it from me to criticize the use of sociology in one's study. I confess to shoving the word 'social' and 'sociological' into as many of my writings as possible for quite a few years now. And I do believe in the efficacy of leavening biblical studies with insight from the social sciences as much as we can. But why is it that so many biblical scholars become totally bereft of common sense when they start to mess around in sociology or anthropology? Just to take one example: * This paper was originally written for oral presentation, and the demotic style has been retained here in the published version in the hopes that it will better make the point intended.

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'Every City shall be Forsaken' But the late tenth century BCE [sic], Israelite society and economy were stratified and highly specialized. The gradual shift from a simple villagebased, agrarian, 'acephalous' kinship structure to an urban 'industrialized' and entrepreneurial society is complete.1

'Highly specialized'? 'Industrialized'? 'Entrepreneurial'? Hyperbole? The subject for this colloquium includes the concept of 'urbanism'. This is a perfectly respectable subject in anthropology and sociology and a great deal has been written on it. So why has so much rubbish been written by biblical scholars on the same topic? The terms 'urban', 'urbanism', and related terminology have been rather specifically defined among sociologists. Because the terminology takes in such a broad concept, there is an inevitable fuzziness, but the social studies I have read do not usually make the odd assumptions so often made by biblical scholars. The main problem is—dare one suggest—that biblical scholars are too often influenced by modern urbanization and attempt to apply this model to a society organized in a quite different way. (I have a further, more invidious suggestion to make, but I shall delay it to the end of this study.) There are three areas where I believe some past studies by biblical scholars have gone wrong: 1.

2. 3.

Misconceptions about the use of, and the misapplication of, sociological models. Overestimation of the extent of urbanization in ancient Israel and Judah, specifically the period of the monarchies. Misconstruction of the consequences following from urbanization in ancient Israel and Judah.

This paper has essentially three aims: the first is to deal with the question of method in the use of the social sciences in general, as well as the more specific question of applying the urbanization model to ancient Israel and Judah; the second is to ask what the texts say about prophets and the city; and the third is to look at the results of the textual 1. William G. Dever, 'Archaeology, Urbanism, and the Rise of the Israelite State', in Walter E. Aufrecht, Neil A. Mirau, and Steven W. Gauley (eds.), Urbanism in Antiquity, from Mesopotamia to Crete (JSOTSup, 244; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), p. 185. To be fair to Dever, he is engaging in polemics here, which has probably led to his using exaggerated language in a way that he might not otherwise do. He also puts 'industrialized' in quote marks, though he does not indicate what the significance of this is. Nevertheless, such a description can only be misleading.

GRABBE Sup-urbs or only Hyp-urbs? 97

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study in the light of the alleged urbanization model examined in the first part of the paper. 1. Social Scientific Models and Urbanism Perhaps you are thinking I am just indulging my own idiosyncracies in this unprovoked and completely irresponsible attack on a respectable discipline. Actually, although my unease with the concept of urbanism arose from a common sense scrutiny, I find that professional anthropologists have voiced similar concerns. For example, Paul Wheatley commented: 'Urbanism' is one of the most protean of terms... In any case, it is not particularly profitable for a social scientist to attempt to discuss the nature, the essential quality, of urbanism. That is a metaphysical question more amenable to philosophical enquiry than to the empirical methods of the social sciences.2

The study of 'urbanism' has had a long development. Already in 1893 Emile Durkheim3 proposed that the city represented a special environment, but in many ways the pioneer of urban studies was Friedrich Engels with his studies on the working classes in Manchester in the nineteenth century.4 Yet Adam Smith had already addressed the issue of the city in his Wealth of Nations.5 Considering Max Weber's voluminous writings, it is hardly surprising that he dealt with the subject in a monograph (see below). The past half century has seen an explosion of studies on the question, of which only a few of the more immediately relevant ones can be mentioned here.6 Perhaps one of the most cited studies is that of V.G. Childe.7 Its influence seems rather surprising, 2. 'The Concept of Urbanism', in Peter J. Ucko, Ruth Tringham and G.W. Dimbleby (eds.), Man, Settlement and Urbanism (London: Gerald Duckworth, 1972), pp. 601-37, quote from p. 601. 3. The Division of Labour in Society (trans. W.D. Halls, with introduction by Lewis Coser; Contemporary Social Theory; London: Macmillan, 1984); ETof De la division du travail social: etudes sur I'organisation des societes superieures (1893). 4. The Condition of the Working Class in England (London: Panther, 1969 [1892]). 5. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (ed. Edwin Canaan; London: Methuen, 1925 [1776]), book 3, chapters 3-4. 6. See also the article of Ben Nefzger elsewhere in this volume (pp. 159-71 below). 7. The Urban Revolution', Town Planning Review 21 (1950), pp. 3-17. His 10

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both because it was given in only a short article and because in many ways it needs a good deal of refinement, as subsequent studies have shown. Yet his criteria are frequently cited by contemporary writers in discussing urbanism in the ancient world without apparently recognizing the problems.8 An influential model has been that of Max Weber. He proposed the threefold division of the 'consumer city', 'the producer city', and the 'merchant city'.9 The 'consumer city' is one which extracts the agricultural surplus of the countryside and lives on it. The concept of the 'consumer city' as the category into which ancient cities fall has been picked up in various forms and seems to be the implicit model behind the view of cities by some researchers on ancient Israel; the path from this to the idea of a 'parasitic city' is a short one and often taken.10 The problem is that Weber's use of ideal types has often been misunderstood. These ideal forms were not meant to correspond to specific criteria are (1) the first cities were more extensive and more densely populated than any previous settlement, (2) the urban population differed in composition and function from that of any village, (3) producers paid a surplus in the form of a tithe (to the temple) or tax (to the court), (4) presence of monumental public buildings, (5) those not engaged in food production are supported from the surplus by being dependent on the temple or court, (6) the invention of systems of recording and calculation, (7) invention of writing and development of the sciences of arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy, (8) other specialists gave new direction to artistic expression, (9) surplus paid for important raw materials not available locally to be imported, and (10) membership was based on residency rather than kinship. 8. For criticisms of Childe's thesis, see, for example, Wheatley, The Concept of Urbanism', p. 612; S.W. Miles, 'An Urban Type: Extended Boundary Towns', Southwest Journal of Anthropology 14 (1958), pp. 339-51. 9. Found in The City (trans. D. Martindale and G. Neuwirth; London, 1958), pp. 68-70 (ET of Die Stadt [1921]) = Economy and Society (eds. G. Roth and C. Wittich; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978 [1968]), pp. 1215-17. 10. See the criticisms of E.A. Wrigley, 'Parasite or Stimulus: The Town in a Pre-industrial Economy', in Philip Abrams and E.A. Wrigley (eds.), Towns in Societies: Essays in Economic History and Historical Sociology (Past and Present Publications; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), pp. 295-309. Moses Finley (The Ancient City: From Fustel de Coulanges to Max Weber and Beyond', Comparative Studies in Society and History 19 [1977], pp. 305-27; reprinted in Finley, Economy and Society in Ancient Greece [ed. with introduction by Brent D. Shaw and Richard P. Sailer; London: Chatto & Windus, 1981], pp. 3-23) explicitly noted that the term 'consumer' in 'consumer city' needs to be divorced from modern concepts of consumerism (p. 21).

GRABBE Sup-urbs or only Hyp-urbs?

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cities; rather, Weber himself states that most cities have been a mixture of these ideal types. Weber saw essential differences between the ancient city, which he characterized as still being organized along kinship (or pseudo-kinship) lines, and the medieval city which was theoretically a community of equals. Even a city such as ancient Rome was structured by tribe, and anyone who became a Roman citizen was a citizen of the city (not the empire) and had to become a member of one of the Roman tribes.11 Weber's model was taken up and further developed by Moses Finley,12 and the Weber-Finley hypothesis has been highly influential among scholars of the classical world. However, some recent studies have now moved past that conceptualization, sometimes by critiquing it and sometimes by building on it. 13 One such study is a deliberate attempt to progress 'beyond the consumer city'.14 As so often, a core truth can easily be distorted unless some major qualifications are added to the conceptualization. Cities did not just consume; they created the economic stimulation and the markets which meant that the peasants also normally benefited from the presence of the city. Also, we should not forget that the national religion focused on the temple in Jerusalem (even when country shrines existed) so that Jerusalem provided an important cultic service to those outside the city, as 11. For Weber's discussion of the Roman city and its relationship to the medieval city, see The Agrarian Sociology of Ancient Civilizations (trans. R.I. Frank; London: NLB, 1976), pp. 336-66 (ET of 'Agrarverhaltnisse im Altertum', Handworterbuch der Staatwissenschaften [1909]). 12. 'The Ancient City', Economy in the Ancient World (London: Hogarth Press, 2ndedn, 1985), pp. 123-49. 13. See the essays in John Rich and Andrew Wallace-Hadrill (eds.), City and Country in the Ancient World (Leicester-Nottingham Studies in Ancient Society; London: Routledge, 1991), especially those by Robin Osborne and Wallace-Hadrill; TJ. Cornell and Kathryn Lomas (eds.), Urban Society in Roman Italy (London: UCL Press, 1995). Note also the remarks of Keith Hopkins, 'Economic Growth and Towns in Classical Antiquity', in Abrams and Wrigley (eds.), Towns in Societies, pp. 35-77, especially pp. 72-75. A recent defense of the thesis was given by C.R. Whittaker ('Do Theories of the Ancient City Matter?' in Cornell and Lomas [eds.], Urban Society in Roman Italy, pp. 9-26), though David J. Mattingly ('Beyond Belief? Drawing a Line Beneath the Consumer City', in Helen M. Parkins [ed.], Roman Urbanism: Beyond the Consumer City [London: Routledge, 1997], pp. 21018, especially p. 211) notes that he was more struck by Whittaker's recognition that the model was seriously flawed than by his defense of it. 14. Parkins (ed.), Roman Urbanism. Note especially the sub-title of the volume.

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well as those within. This included the annual festivals when the country people took up produce (or money to buy comestibles) to Jerusalem for their families and themselves to consume during the celebrations (Deut. 14.22-26). One might expect that there would be a religious difference between the rural and city areas. This may be true in some respects, but this 'common-sense' view is in fact not a necessary conclusion. For example, J.A. North has recently cast doubt on the frequent assumption among Roman scholars that certain sorts of religion were 'rural' in character—that one can speak of a 'country religion' in republican Rome.15 This is not the place to investigate the question in detail, but what might seem to be a supporting argument for a rural/urban divide needs to be looked at carefully before accepting it. A model about the preindustrial city with wide influence was developed by Gideon Sjoberg.16 He argued that there was a model of the preindustrial city that could be found in the ancient, classical, and medieval worlds. His thesis has been summarized as follows: the spatial arrangement of the city is dominated by the significance of the city's centre as 'the hub of governmental and religious activity more than of commercial ventures'. Around this centre the elite group residences are concentrated and the lower class and outcaste groups are relegated to the cities' periphery...the class structure was marked and there is little opportunity of social mobility...economic activity is poorly developed and the most common form of economic organisation is the guild, typically community-bound; little standardisation is found in prices or currency and the marketing procedure is consequently fluid; the political structure is dominated by the upper class, who hold all the key governmental posts; the sovereign leaders base their authority upon appeals to tradition and to absolutes; similar rigid hierarchical patterns are found in religion and education; religion is highly important and the day-to-day behaviour of the people is largely governed by religious injunctions.17

This description may seem to strike a chord with many readers (e.g. the idea of an urban elite), but this is partly because it coincides with

15. J.A. North, 'Religion and Rusticity', in Cornell and Lomas (eds.), Urban Society in Roman Italy, pp. 135-50. 16. The Preindustrial City, Past and Present (New York: The Free Press; London: Collier-Macmillan, 1960). 17. T.G. McGee, 'The Rural-Urban Continuum Debate, the Preindustrial City and Rural-Urban Migration', Pacific Viewpoint 5 (1964), pp. 159-81, quote from pp. 170-71.


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pre-conceived ideas rather than empirical data. Indeed, Sjoberg has been criticized for theorizing in the abstract rather than founding his model on primary historical data. Critics have also pointed out that many of the characteristics he assigns to the preindustrial city also apply equally to traditional rural society; that is, the picture he draws applies to all of preindustrial society and is not a means of differentiating town from country.18 Sjoberg's model has been picked up directly or indirectly by later writers, and has apparently influenced certain views among biblical scholars. It has also contributed to belief in a dichotomy between the urban and rural in ancient Israel. A supposed dichotomy between rural/ urban is not a new or isolated idea but has been widely assumed, even by some older sociological and anthropological works. (For example, Marx and Engels had seen town and country as having separate and opposed interests.19) Nevertheless, this idea has been considerably criticized in recent studies. Even the Marxist historian G.E.M. de Ste. Croix, who used the city/countryside divide as a part of his analysis, nevertheless recognized that the original situation in ancient Greece was generally one of no fundamental difference between those who lived in or near the urban centre of the polls and the peasants who lived in the countryside, even if

18. For a critique, see Paul Wheatley, '"What the Greatness of a City Is Said to Be": Reflections on Sjoberg's Preindustrial City\ Pacific Viewpoint 4 (1963), pp. 163-88; Sylvia L. Thrupp, The Creativity of Cities: A Review Article', CSSH 4 (1961-62), pp. 53-64, especially pp. 60-63; Adrian Southall, 'The Density of RoleRelationships as a Universal Index of Urbanization', in Adrian Southall (ed.), Urban Anthropology: Cross-Cultural Studies of Urbanization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973), pp. 71-106, especially pp. 92-98; McGee, 'The Rural-Urban Continuum'; Philip Abrams, 'Towns and Economic Growth: Some Theories and Problems', in Abrams and Wrigley (eds.), Towns in Societies, pp. 25-27. Wrigley ('Parasite or Stimulus', p. 296) has pointed out that Sjoberg's model is informed by the idea of a parasitic city, on which concept see p. 98 above. 19. The German Ideology (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1938), p. 8; ET of Die deutsche Ideologic (1845-46). They state, 'The division of labour inside a nation leads at first to the separation of industrial and commercial from agricultural labour, and hence to the separation of town and country and to the conflict of their interests.' As noted by Abrams (Towns and Economic Growth', p. 14) this principle is then ignored by Marx and Engels and seems to play little or no part in their analysis.

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'Every City shall be Forsaken' the latter tended to be noticeably less urbane (less cityfied) than the former.20

The 'folk-urban continuum', along with the related 'rural-urban continuum', was a thesis associated with the name of Robert Redfield.21 For post-urban society this posited a dichotomy with the rural on one side and the urban on the other, though in fact the urban was simply seen as the opposite of the rural rather than being developed in its own right. Redfield was in fact creating a heuristic abstraction rather than giving the results of empirical research. Apart from this, which led to some misunderstandings, he was criticized for giving moral values to his model, with the urban entity characterized in negative moral terms.22 This and related models have been characterized as follows: In fact, the so-called 'theories of contrast' are of so general a nature that they can be of little analytical use in the study of processes of change, while they are often too inaccurate to be reliable guides in the study of societies in equilibrium.23

20. The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World from the Archaic Age to the Arab Conquests (London: Gerald Duckworth, 1981), p. 9. Ste Croix's main concern is his analysis of the town-country relationship as one of exploitation of the countryside by the propertied classes of the city. But the propertied classes gained most of their income from property in the country, not trade or business as in many modern cities, as he himself acknowledges (pp. 120-33). 21. The Folk Culture of Yucatan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1941); The Primitive World and its Transformations (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1953); Peasant Society and Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956). 22. For a critique of Redfield, see Francisco Benet, 'Sociology Uncertain: The Ideology of the Rural-Urban Continuum', Comparative Studies in Social History 6 (1963-64), pp. 1-23; Leonard Reissman, The Urban Process: Cities in Industrial Societies (London: Free Press of Glencoe, 1964), pp. 122-38; Oscar Lewis and Philip M. Hauser, 'The Folk-Urban Ideal Types', in Philip M. Mauser and Leo F. Schnore (eds.), The Study of Urbanization (New York: John Wiley, 1965), pp. 491517 (part A by Oscar Lewis is also found in revised form as 'Some Perspectives on Urbanization with Special Reference to Mexico City', in Southall [ed.], Urban Anthropology, pp. 125-38); R.E. Pahl, 'The Rural-Urban Continuum', Sociologia Ruralis 6 (1966), pp. 299-328; McGee, 'The Rural-Urban Continuum'; Wheatley, 'The Concept of Urbanism' (n. 2 above), pp. 603-605. Cf. also Eugen Lupri, 'The Rural-Urban Variable Reconsidered: The Cross-Cultural Perspective', Sociologia Ruralis 7 (1967), pp. 1-20, and the reply by Pahl, 'The Rural-Urban Continuum: A Reply to Eugen Lupri', pp. 21-29. 23. Wheatley, 'The Concept of Urbanism', pp. 604-605.


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It is not surprising that others have argued that this dichotomy is problematic and that city-dwellers and peasants have much more in common than Redfield suggests. The ambivalent attitude to the urban environment is a familiar theme found among classical writers themselves. Varro can speak of a moral distinction between 'rustics' and 'urbanites' (Rerum rusticarum 2.1.1), while Cicero castigated the luxury of urban living in contrast to the morally superior life in the country (Pro Roscio Aermino 75).24 We must read these in context, however, for the very life pronounced decadent was also the life lived by the writers themselves—at least, part of the time—for life in the city was an important part of their lives. The other side of the coin is treating urban life as civilized and cultivated, in comparison with the crude and unrefined rustic life (hence, 'urbanity' as a complement, and 'rustic' as a term of opprobrium). The country elite were usually willing to spend money to make their villas as refined and luxurious as anything in the city. Most recent study has emphasized that there was generally no sharp urban/rural distinction in antiquity. Indeed, Adam Smith had already expressed the view that the relationship of town and country was 'mutual and reciprocal'.25 The general view is that the opposition arose with regard to medieval cities.26 In the ancient world there were few settlements comparable to our modern cities. Perhaps one of the few of these was Rome. Even the city-states of ancient Greece did not have the social and economic organization that we associate with modern urban centers in which agrarian matters play only a small role in the economy, and people work and live in isolation from the countryside. Most ancient cities were still intimately connected with the rural hinterland and depended heavily on it for food and other support, and usually for its economy.27 Only those cities with ports could be easily provisioned 24. For a brief survey of some of the different attitudes among Roman writers, see A. Wallace-Hadrill, 'Elites and Trade in the Roman Town', in Rich and Wallace-Hadrill (eds.), City and Country in the Ancient World, pp. 244-49. 25. Wealth of Nations, book 3, chapter 1 (p. 355). 26. The classical statement of this is perhaps to be found in Henri Pirenne, Les villes et les institutions urbaines (2 vols.; Paris: Felix Alcan, 1939), first presented in an article in 1895. For a critique, see A.B. Hibbert, The Origins of the Medieval Town Patriciate', in Abrams and Wrigley, Towns in Societies, pp. 91-104. See also Southall, The City in Time and Space (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 21-22, 89-124. 27. Ste Croix, Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World, pp. 9-16.

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from any distance; all others depended on land transport which severely restricted the quantities that could be delivered and the distance from which they could come.28 Many of our data on ancient cities are derived from the Greek and Roman context but, if anything, the ancient Near Eastern situation held together the urban and rural even more tightly.29 In the context of ancient Israel and Judah, with only a few genuine urban areas, the situation was unlikely to be any different. Capital cities of necessity housed the main administrative apparatus, with the bureaucrats living off the taxes collected by the state. The temple and cult were funded by tithes and offerings from the people, with the priests forming one of the few specialized divisions of labor. As the seat of both government and religious leadership, Jerusalem would have been open to any criticisms concerning either of these spheres. Nevertheless, the concept of significant rural/urban alienation does not fit either what is known from other areas of the ancient Near East or the primary data.30 On the question of the relationship of the city and the country, Finley makes a related point: The true city in classical antiquity encompassed both the chora, the rural hinterland, and an urban centre, where the best people resided, where the community had its administration and its public cults. The two were conceptually so complementary that even the absolute Hellenistic monarchs acknowledged the 'freedom' of the chora belonging to the newly created Greek cities of the eastern regions; city-land was exempt from t h e

.the royal domanial rights over all land in the kingdom.Interestingly, Strabo (4.1.5 prerequisite for urban life. 28. Finley, The Ancient Economy, pp. 126-29; Ste Croix, The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World, pp. 11-14. 29. See especially the model and discussion in Southall, The City in Time and Space, pp. 15-17,23-53. 30. This directly contradicts Norman Gottwald's assumption of 'the basic division and tension, the crucial conflict of interests' between the city and the countryside (The Tribes ofYahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 12501050 BCE [BibSem, 66; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2nd edn, 1999], pp. 461-62, 467-73). Gottwald quite rightly emphasizes that this is a stark contrast for purposes of argument and must be carefully researched and nuanced; nevertheless, one must ask on what basis it was put forward in the first place and why so little attention was given to actually testing it against the data. 31. The Ancient Enconomy, p. 123.


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Similarly, Andrew Wallace-Hadrill concludes a study, which attempts to see greater commercial activity among the Roman elite than has often been accepted previously, with a recognition of the essential unity of town and country: None of the evidence here discussed undermines the proposition that agriculture was dominant in the economy or that agricultural interests were dominant among a landowning political elite. Nor does it suggest the emergence of an urban bourgeoisie that regarded itself as economically, socially and culturally distinct from the landowners. But it may come some way towards explaining how towns and trade could flourish in a world dominated by agricultural interests, and why a situation of antagonism and conflict between bourgeoisie and landowners did not arise.32

Volkmar Fritz seems to agree with this interpretation, at least in its overall formulation. He distinguishes between two types of cities, the 'residential city' and the 'administrative/military city'. The latter were settled by professionals, but such cities were a minority; most cities were residential: The inhabitants of the cities were mostly farmers; it was only in the cities which had limited administrative or military function that members of the standing army were accommodated in buildings especially constructed for the purpose... As farmers, the inhabitants cultivated fields and gardens in the vicinity of the city. In order to carry out their agricultural activities, the men left the city in the morning, and returned in the evening within the protection of the walls... The wealth denounced by Amos was limited however to the capital cities and the few centres of administration. The ancient Israelite residential city is by contrast extremely homogeneous in nature with minimal differences among the population. In ancient Israel the city thus offered a form of security for the farming population. It reflected the world of the farmers and thus by no means constituted a contrast as in the case of 'town and country'.33

This model of Israelite towns can be illustrated by two examples. The first is fifth-century Athens before the Peloponnesian Wars.34 The bulk of Attic inhabitants, including the Athenian citizenry who were mainly 32. 'Elites and Trade in the Roman Town', in Rich and Wallace-Hadrill (eds.), City and Country in the Ancient World, pp. 267-68. 33. The City in Ancient Israel (BibSem, 29; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), pp. 177, 189. 34. S.W. Miles, 'An Urban Type: Extended Boundary Towns', Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 14 (1958), pp. 339-51.

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farmers, lived in the countryside. They would attend assemblies and take part in political activities as they had time, and come to town for the major festivals. But the city itself was sparsely populated, mainly by political and religious personnel (who also had rural estates) and artisans: The country was fully conversant with, indeed integral to, the center, which served as political, religious, and commercial seat for the inhabitants of Attica'.35 A second example concerns the Yoruba towns of Nigeria in the mid-twentieth century.36 Despite the large size of many of these towns, they were mainly agricultural entities. In the 1952 census more than 70 percent of Yoruba men were farmers while even in Ibadan, the regional capital of a million inhabitants, over 50 percent of the population were farmers. As Peter Lloyd states, 'It is thus almost impossible to speak of Yoruba country in terms of a rural-urban dichotomy.'37 A recent study by Aidan Southall draws on the Marxist models of types of production to distinguish the various sorts of cities.38 He uses the model of modes of production to characterize four types of cities through the ages, each type belonging roughly to a particular historical time period. These are A B C D

Asiatic Mode: unity of town and country Ancient Mode: ruralization of the city Feudal Mode: antagonism between town and country Captalist Mode: urbanization of the country

As he argues it, these different city types have tended to be characteristic of certain historical periods, corresponding roughly to the cities in the ancient Near East, the cities of the classical world (Greece and Rome), medieval cities, and modern cities. First are the 'pristine cities', characterized by the Asiatic mode of production, in which there is an essential unity between town and country. The Asiatic mode of production has been much discussed and criticized, yet it seems to have a certain validity for much of the ancient Near East until the coming of

35. Miles, 'An Urban Type', p. 346. 36. Peter C. Lloyd, 'The Yoruba: An Urban People?', in Southall (ed.), Urban Anthropology(n. 18 above), pp. 107-23. 37. Lloyd, The Yoruba', p. 109. 38. The City in Time and Space; see especially pp. 15-19 for an outline of his thesis which is then developed over the rest of the book.


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the Greeks.39 This embraces the civilizations of ancient Sumer and apparently ancient Mesopotomia in general. It is also here that ancient Israel is likely to fit, though Southall does not discuss it specifically. The next relevant mode is that of the classical world (based on the 'ancient mode of production') in which the city is ruralized. The next sort, 'the feudal' city which is characterized by opposition between town and country, does not come along until the Middle Ages. The last model, 'the capitalist mode' is characterized by the urbanization of the countryside, but this is a late development and not really relevant for the discussion of ancient Israel—though it must be said that some Old Testament scholars seem to be importing some such ideas when they discuss the economy of ancient Israel. The 'elite' have been alluded to several times. How often have you heard the term 'urban elite' or 'highly urbanized' or the like applied to ancient Israel?40 (Apparently something cannot be just 'urbanized'; it must always be 'highly urbanized'.) The elite or upperclasses, far from being 'highly urbanized', usually derived their power and economic base from their ownership of agricultural land. They may have had residences in the city but, as noted above, it is common even for peasants to live in villages and towns. Country residences have generally been the case with the elite of Europe even up to recent times. Already Weber had stated, 'the associational character of the city and the concept of a burgher (as contrasted to the man from the countryside) never developed at all or existed only in rudiments.'41 The wealth of the elite was not generally based on commerce and capitalistic enterprises but came primarily from the land.42 The concept of an urban elite—in opposition to a rural elite—comes from the model of the medieval city, whereas the elite in antiquity was undifferentiated, dividing its time between the 39. For a discussion with bibliography, see Grabbe, Judaism from Cyrus to Hadrian (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992; London: SCM Press, 1994), pp. 20-23. See also Southall, The City, pp. 133-34. 40. This may in part be a heritage from Sjoberg. 41. Economy and Society, p. 1227 (= The City, p. 81); see in general his comments on pp. 1217-18 and 1226-34. 42 . Weber, Economy and Society, pp. 1217-18; Finley, The Ancient Economy, pp. 52-60, 188-91. This is not to say that trade and commerce played no role in the wealth of the elites; see the essays of Osborne and Wallace-Hadrill in Rich and Wallace Hadrill (eds.) City and Country in the Ancient World; Helen M. Parkins, 'The "Consumer City" Domesticated? The Roman City in Elite Economic Strategies', in Parkins (ed.), Roman Urbanism, pp. 83-111.

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estates from which it obtained its wealth and the political activities that tended to be conducted in the city.43 In antiquity the few who gained wealth through trade (in those cases where trade was not a state monopoly as it sometimes was) almost inevitably invested it in agricultural land, the traditional wealth of the elite.44 We now come to the crucial question of what constitutes a city or how to define 'urban' in antiquity. A whole paper could be devoted to this topic alone without beginning to cover the debate among anthropologists about it. There is no agreement about what constitutes a city or an urban area, and different researchers have used different criteria.45 Some have used 'central place theory' as a way of addressing the question.46 Most interesting—and bringing a bit of irony into the discussion—are those who argue that the city is not an object for sociological study; that is, the city has no special characteristics that set it off from other aspects of society.47 Despite these difficulties, it would be useful to consider one factor often used as at least one criterion of urbanization: namely, population size, since this particular characteristic is often focused on when discussing urbanization in the ancient Near East. Estimating the populations

43. See the previous note. 44. This has been argued at length by Finley, The Ancient Economy; see, e.g., pp. 144-45, 183-96. Cf. Wallace-Hadrill, 'Elites and Trade in the Roman Town'; Parkins, The "Consumer City" Domesticated?', p. 90. 45. Wirth and Childe were among the first to come up with widely used criteria (see n. 8 and Nefzger's article in this volume [pp. 159-71 below]). A useful discussion is given by John Friedman, 'Cities in Social Transformation', CSSH 4 (196162), pp. 86-103, especially pp. 88-92; Southall, 'The Density of Role-Relationships as a Universal Index of Urbanization', in Southall (ed.), Urban Anthropology, pp. 71-106. 46. This theory was first developed by W. Christaller, Central Places in Southern Germany (trans. C.W. Baskin; Englewood-Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1966); ET of Die zentralen Orte in Siiddeutschland: eine okonomisch-geographische Untersuchung fiber die Gesetzmdssigkeit der Verbreitung und Entwicklung der Siedlungen mil stddtischen Funktionen (1933). See the critique of Chistaller in J. Beaujeu-Garnier and Annie Delobez, Geography of Marketing (trans. S.H. Beaver; London: Longman Group, 1979), pp. 107-21 especially pp. 111-12 (ET of Geographic du Commerce [1977]). 47. See the comments of Philip Abrams, 'Towns and Economic Growth', pp. 9-14.


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of ancient towns and cities is, however, a difficult task.48 Van De Mieroop expressed an appropriate skepticism when he wrote: It is not easy to determine the area of settlement in a city at any moment in time, because no city has been completely excavated... The number of inhabitants per hectare of settlement is essentially impossible to establish. Comparison with contemporary, or early twentieth-century AD Middle Eastern cities provides a guideline, but the variation there is enormous, and the applicability of the figures is doubtful. Most scholars have adopted a figure of 100-400 persons per hectare, but this is inappropriate as the range is too wide and as 'the use of later statistics begins from an assumption we should be setting out to prove' ,49

Van De Mieroop discusses the estimates for some of the Mesopotamian cities such as Nineveh, showing the great variation in estimation between one scholar and another (e.g. Nineveh is given 120,000 inhabitants by the book of Jonah [4.11], whereas modern scholarly estimates range from as high as 300,000 to as low as 75,000).50 Nevertheless, some discussion of the various factors and the figures they yield if used to estimate the population is appropriate. Older estimates often accepted the testimony of the biblical text and of Josephus who quotes 'Hecateus' that Jerusalem about 300 BCE had 120,000 inhabitants—a figure precisely the same as that given for Nineveh by Jonah.51 The book of 2 Maccabees says that the army of Antiochus IV killed 40,000 inhabitants of Jerusalem and enslaved a similar number in 48. Best documented is probably Greco-Roman Egypt. For a useful survey, see Richard and Robert D. Alston, 'Urbanism and the Urban Community in Roman Egypt', JEA 83 (1997), pp. 199-216. A fundamental study is Roger S. Bagnall and Bruce W. Frier, The Demography of Roman Egypt (Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy and Society in Past Time, 23; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). 49. Marc Van De Mieroop, The Ancient Mesopotamian City (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 94-97, quote from pp. 95-96. His quoted phrase is from J.N. Postgate,Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy in the Dawn of History (London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 79-80. 50. Van De Mieroop, The Ancient Mesopotamian City, p. 97. 51. Apion 1.22 §197. It has often been debated as to whether this Hecateus was the same as the Hecateus of Abdera quoted in Diodorus Siculus (40.3.1-7). The recent study by Bezalel Bar-Kochva (Pseudo-Hecataeus, On the Jews: Legitimizing the Jewish Diaspora [Hellenistic Culture and Society, 21; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996]) confirms that the 'Hecateus' quoted by Josephus is a Jewish writer of about 100 BCE and not the genuine Hecateus of Abdera known via Diodorus.

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168 BCE, suggesting a population of at least 80,000 but possibly more (2 Mace. 5.14). Strangely, the population was slain and enslaved all over again only a few verses later (vv. 23-26). Josephus's statement that the smallest village in Galilee had 15,000 inhabitants (War 3.3.2 §43), and that about 1,100,000 were killed in the final siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE have also been taken at face value to estimate the population of the country at that time (War 6.9.3 §420): hence, the view of Albright and others that a million people or even more lived in Israel and Judah in the eighth century BCE.52 In recent years, however, scholars have taken a more systematic approach based on quantitative analysis of archaeological data. The result has been a general trend to revise population estimates downward, with more recent scholarly estimates tending to be lower—often much lower—than older ones. For example, Magen Broshi in a study about a quarter of a century ago worked on the principle that population estimates should be about 40 persons per dunum.53 This led him to produce estimates for the population of ancient Israel and Second Temple Palestine much lower than those of some of his predecessors who had relied on biblical data, Josephus's figures, and other more subjective criteria.54 Nevertheless, the most recent calculations have been even lower. Broshi himself, along with Finkelstein, in a joint article has used the figure of 25 persons per dunum.55 William Dever has summarized some of the estimates for the assumed united monarchy of Israel in the tenth and ninth centuries BCE.56 Like Broshi and Finkelstein, he uses 100 persons per acre (about 25 per dunum) to estimate the population of Jerusalem in the ninth century to be about 2500 people, the only larger city being Razor with 3300. Dever mentions that 52. See Magen Broshi and Israel Finkelstein, 'The Population of Palestine in Iron Age II', BASOR 287 (1992), pp. 47-69, especially p. 54. William Dever ('Archaeology, Urbanism, and the Rise of the Israelite State', p. 182) mentions estimates of Albright and others of 900,000 for the period of the divided monarchy. 53. 'La population de 1'ancienne Jerusalem', RB 82 (1975), pp. 5-14. A dunum is 1000 square meters or one-tenth of a hectare; since approximately 2.5 acres make a hectare, a dunum is one-fourth of an acre. 54. He cites A. Byatt, 'Josephus and Population Numbers in First Century Palestine', PEQ 105 (1973), pp. 51-60, who tends to accept Josephus's estimates uncritically. See also n. 52 above. 55. Broshi and Finkelstein, 'The Population of Palestine in Iron Age II'. 56. 'Archaeology, Urbanism, and the Rise of the Israelite State', pp. 172-93, especially pp. 182-84.


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some have used larger estimates for population density and one has the impression that, even though sticking with the lower figure here, he might himself favor a larger figure.57 However, the recent study by Charles E. Carter confirms that 25 per dunum is a maximum, and a lower figure is probably more appropriate, especially in capital cities with unsettled public areas.58 Dever follows Shiloh in accepting a population of 150,000 for the ninth-century states of Israel and Judah. He argues that approximately 20 settlements met the criteria to be labeled 'urban'. In working out criteria to determine when a site was a city or urban, Dever follows V.G. Childe. Childe's article,59 was a seminal one and is often cited,60 and it would be invidious of me simply to quote another specialist to cast doubt on Dever's position. Nevertheless, Childe has been criticized, and some of his criteria are thought to be more useful than others, while some are considered very problematic.61 So far it has not been possible to find universally agreed-on criteria to determine what is a city or an urban area, but some would regard a population of 5000 to be the absolute minimum to call a settled area a city in any period.62 By this criterion, not a single one of Dever's 20 'cities' for the tenthcentury BCE would be a city. My purpose in this section has been to point out the complicated nature of the question about urbanism, urbanization, and so on, in the ancient world. It has not been my intent to take up one or more of these writers and propose a new model for understanding the ancient city. The matter is too large and too disputed to do so here, in any case. On the contrary, these studies illustrate several factors that must be taken 57. Dever, 'Archaeology, Urbanism, and the Rise of the Israelite State', p. 180. See Y. Shiloh, 'The Population of Iron Age Palestine in the Light of a Sample Analysis of Urban Plans, Areas and Population Density', BASOR239 (1980), pp. 25-35, for the figure of 50 persons per dunum, though this is smaller than the 250 per acre (= 62.5 per dunum that Dever cites as 'more typical'). 58. The Emergence of Yehud in the Persian Period: A Social and Demographic Study (JSOTSup, 294; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), p. 198; for a full discussion one should see his entire chapter 4. 59. Already discussed on pp. 97-98 above. 60. 'The Urban Revolution', Town Planning Review 21 (1950), pp. 3-17. 61. See n. 8 above. 62. Cf. Charles L. Redman, The Rise of Civilization: From Early Farmers to Urban Society in the Ancient Near East (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman, 1978), p. 215.

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into account if any sensible parameters are to be set for references to the city in ancient Israel. The following general points can be made about cities in the ancient world, keeping in mind that cities in the Greek and Roman world differed at certain points from those in the ancient Near East, while those in Israel may not have conformed to the situation in Mesopotamia: (1) Ancient cities were quite different from our experience in the modern world. With few exceptions, there were not huge urban complexes, and except for a few cities such as Rome and Alexandria those labeled cities were relatively small entities of a few thousand inhabitants. This was especially true in Iron Age Palestine. (2) There was not the dichotomy—much less the opposition— between the city and the countryside that we experience in many cases (though not all) today. The city usually depended heavily on local agriculture, since transport of food by land was very difficult and costly.63 Much of the economic base and wealth of the elite came through agriculture, specifically local land holdings. Although it was not unusual for the upperclass to spend time in the city for political reasons, this does not necessarily make them all 'absentee landlords'; on the contrary, many devoted a lot of time to their estates. The concept of the 'consumer city' is still widely accepted, though more and more researchers are coming to find it simplistic. Even where the city did not have an important economic function, its social, cultural, and religious services are not to be overlooked. The concept of the 'parasitic' city is usually a caricature. (3) The term 'urban elite' is not really applicable in that the elite were not confined to the city or different from the landed gentry. An 'urban elite' as a separate entity seems to have arisen first in the medieval city. Whether the Jerusalem temple personnel might be termed an 'urban elite' will be discussed in the next section. 2. A Study of Biblical Texts This is not the end of the story, however, for there is more to the topic than just the sociological aspects. Our discussion so far has ranged over a wide area of space and time in the ancient world. We now need to focus on ancient Israel itself. When speaking of what the prophets did

63. On this see nn. 27-28 above.


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or thought, we are utterly dependent on the text. Archaeology gives some information but hardly very much about prophecy. So it is to the text that we must go to ask about attitudes. What do the writings handed down to us under the rubric of 'prophets' have to say about cities? The most obvious question to ask is, Did the prophets denounce city dwellers as more evil than their country cousins? As already briefly noted,64 the evils of city life are a favorite theme in literature: one might well expect the prophets to excoriate Jerusalem (or Samaria or other larger towns) as the center of all wickedness, but surprisingly little is made of this. The prophetic writings certainly rail against the wickedness done in Jerusalem, but this is in the context of making Jerusalem a symbol for the nation and also in seeing wickedness as by no means limited to the capital: 'Judah and Jerusualem' is a favorite expression, but it seems to be used to indicate the totality of the population. What we do not find is a particular focus on Jerusalem as an especially wicked city, as an examination of occurrences of the expression indicate (e.g. Isa. 1.1; 2.1; Jer. 19.7; 27.20; 29.2). One might think that Samaria, the capital of the 'wicked Northern kingdom', would be a particular object of denunciation. Indeed, Samaria is attacked, but this is usually as a symbol of the whole Northern Kingdom, as Ephraim and Samaria (Hos. 7.1); in other words, it is the same sort of reference as found in 'Judah and Jerusalem' and shows no particular focus on Samaria the city as opposed to the rest of Israel the country. A similar pairing between Assyria and Nineveh is found in Zeph. 2.13. There are some attacks on cities, though the question of their significance needs considering. The destruction of Babylon is declared in Jer. 50-51, but this is because of her conquest of Jerusalem. A similar explanation lies behind the 'virgin daughter of Babylon' (Isa. 47). The 'Isaiah Apocalypse' talks of a city (Isa. 25-26), if only we knew which city it was,65 but the context hardly suggests a general critique of all cities as such. Zeph. 3.1 speaks against the 'oppressing city', but this is only one of several woes. Part of the punishment on Judah was to have her cities laid waste, but this is parallel to the fruitful land being made a desert. Hab. 2.12 says, 'Woe to him who founds a city in iniquity', but it is part of a general denunciation of sins; anything 'done in iniquity' is 64. See p. 103 above; also Raymond Williams, The Country and the City (London: Chatto & Windus, 1993). 65. See the article by Robert Carroll on pp. 45-61 of this volume.

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a sin, of course, but there does not seem to be any attempt to single out the foundation of cities as a sin in and of itself. The one passage that perhaps sees a city as particularly wicked is the book of Jonah. The prophet is to pronounce judgment on 'Nineveh that great city' (Jon. 1.2; 3.2; 4.11). When he finally gets to Nineveh to deliver his prophecy, the city is further said to be a 'great city to God' (3.3), probably a means of expressing the superlative: 'a terribly large city'.66 The city was a three-days' journey across and contained 120,000 people 'who know not their right hand from their left, and very much cattle' (4.11). Here indeed is a city that takes the full prophetic wrath. There seems to be no doubt that the size of this city is important to the author of Jonah, yet it is not clear that Nineveh is evil because it is large or because it is a city. Its size could symbolize various things, including God's power which treats such a large human creation as insignificant. Also, Yhwh makes the point that such a large number of people are important to him—Gentiles though they be—and not to be destroyed lightly as Jonah expects. Nineveh is evil, but it is the capital of an 'evil empire'; the Assyrians are evil and oppressed Israel and Judah. The book of Jonah does not make any contrast between an evil city and a pure or innocent countryside. The size of the city (three-days' march) and the presence of livestock might suggest that Nineveh here is meant to include not just the concentrated urban area but perhaps a much larger suburban area including areas of cultivation.67 What about the 'wilderness tradition'? Does it show a rural critique at the expense of urban areas? A few passages extol the purity and innocence of Israel in the wilderness (Jer. 7.21-26; Hos. 9.10).68 These might be interpreted as an attack on the concept of cities and a desire to 66. This is only one interpretation, of course; for others, see Jack M. Sasson (Jonah: A New Translation with Introduction, Commentary, and Interpretations [AB 24B; New York: Doubleday, 1990], pp. 228-30). 67. I would not want to press this last point. The 'three-days' march' is probably a literary convention to show that the distance is a large one (cf. Sasson, Jonah, pp. 231-32). 68. Cf. the study of Shemaryahu Talmon, 'The Desert Motif in the Bible and in Qumran Literature', in idem, Literary Studies in the Hebrew Bible: Form and Content: Collected Studies (Jerusalem: Magnes Press; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1993), pp. 216-54 (originally published in Alexander Altmann [ed.], Biblical Motifs: Origins and Transformations [Philip W. Lown Institute of Advanced Judaic Studies, Brandeis University: Studies and Texts, 3; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966], pp. 31-63).


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uphold a more rural ideal. The people were like grapes in the wilderness (Hos. 9.10), in contrast to their present condition. However, as any anthropologist will quickly point out, the basic division is between the wild and the cultivated—the place of human habitation and the place of wild animals. This is found in many pre-modern societies studied by anthropologists. The jungle, wilderness, bush, or space outside the cultivated realm is in a different category from normal human habitation and has certain dangers or at least rules of its own.69 What the prophetic perspective on the wilderness tradition has done is invert this normal view of society: the time in the wilderness has been made the ideal rather than a period to be ended as quickly as possible. Rather than cities as such, what seems most often to have exercised the prophets were shrines, with high places one of the most frequent objects of prophetic criticism. It is the desire of many of the prophets that they be destroyed (Hos. 10.8; Amos 7.9; Micah 1.5; Ezek. 6:6). The high places are attacked as the particular sin of kings such as Jeroboam I (1 Kgs 12.28-32; 2 Kgs 17.32-41) and are a major object of destruction in the alleged reforms of Hezekiah and Josiah (2 Kgs 18.34, 22; 23.4-20). The shrines or high places are especially associated with the worship of other gods (1 Kgs 11.7; 2 Kgs 17.32-41; 23.5-6, 13; Jer. 19.5). Many shrines were associated with cities, as well as various towns and villages (2 Kgs 17.9, 29; 23.5). The high place where Samuel invited Saul to eat with him was apparently outside the city, though near it (1 Sam. 9.18-25). Perhaps the best-known shrine is the one at Bethel which was the object of criticism of a number of the prophets, especially Hosea (8.5; 10.1, 5) and Amos (3.14; 5.5-6; 7.10-17). It is described as being 'at' or 'in' Bethel (bevet-el: 1 Kgs 12.33; 13.32, 33). The greatest or largest shrine was the one at Gibeon (1 Kgs 3.4). On the other hand, some of these shrines or high places (bamot) seem not to have been in cities but out in the country where they are often associated with trees or groves (1 Kgs 11.7; 12.23; 2 Kgs 17.10). What does not emerge from the various passages on shrines/high places is whether it was at all important if a shrine was near a city or not. No distinction seems to be made with regard to location. In the description of Hezekiah's and Josiah's reforms, the high places, shrines, 69. See I.M. Lewis, Social Anthropology in Perspective: The Relevance of Social Anthropology (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1976), pp. 105-108; Mar Douglas, The Lele ofKasai (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963), pp. 204-207.

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etc., are all lumped together, whether they are in the very temple precincts, elsewhere in Jerusalem, near Jerusalem, or elsewhere in the country (2 Kgs 18.4; 23.4-20). It is the shrines themselves that are the object of the writers' fury, not their location, from all indications in the descriptions of their destruction. What about the question of social status, which might—though not necessarily—be associated with a supposed urban/rural divide? Do prophets organize their oracles or prophesy according to social status, with particular wrath directed at the elite? The question of the 'elite' is a difficult one that deserves a full study, hardly possible here. Apart from space, however, one of the reasons the subject is difficult is the idealized view held by many academics that sees the elite only as oppressors, parasites on the workers, and otherwise beyond the pale. This is not sociological analysis but merely the exercise of modern prejudice. The elite were not, of course, one undifferentiated group. There were the political elite, the military elite, the temple establishment, the scribal class, the literate, and so on. To describe these and their inter-relationships adequately would take a thorough study.70 Furthermore, we do not find the elite particularly associated with the urban areas (on the priests and Levites, see below). A rather interesting group are the 'people of the land'.71 Despite a good deal of debate, there 70. Literacy has traditionally been associated with the elite (e.g. Sjoberg, The Preindustrial City, p. 290), yet in the ancient Near East the literary elite were not necessarily the political elite. This was especially true in Egypt and Mesopotamia but also likely for Israel (cf. Wheatley, ' "What the Greatness of a City Is Said to Be"', p. 166). 71. Quite a number of studies have addressed this question over the past decades, including Joseph P. Healey, 'Am Ha'arez', ABD I, pp. 168-69; Baruch Halperin, The Constitution of the Monarchy in Israel (HSM, 25; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981), pp. 190-98; Shemaryahu Talmon, 'The Jewish prn DiJ in Historical Perspective', Proceedings of the Fifth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem 1-3 August 1969 (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1972), pp. 71-76; reprinted in King, Cult and Calendar in Ancient Israel: Collected Studies (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1986); slightly updated in German translation in Gesellschaft und Literatur in der Hebraischen Bibel, Gesammelte Aufsdtze, Band 1 (Information Judentum, 8; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1988), pp. 80-91; Hayim Tadmor, '"The People" and the Kingship in Ancient Israel: The Role of Political Institutions in the Biblical Period', Journal of World History 11 (1968), pp. 46-68; Mordechai Cogan and Hayim Tadmor, // Kings (AB 11; New York: Doubleday, 1988), pp. 129-30; Giorgio Buccellati, Cities and Nations of Ancient Syria: An Essay on Political Institutions with Special Reference to the Israelite


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is some agreement that this represents a particular group of people in Israel which had sufficient power and influence to depose and appoint kings in certain circumstances (e.g. 2 Kgs 21.24; 23.30). In particular contexts, this group seems to represent people with a reasonable amount of wealth and standing in the community, if not a 'landed gentry' or 'aristocracy'.72 Significantly, from these passages, as well as the indication of their title 'people of the land', we would not expect them to be exclusively, or even primarily, city dwellers.73 Yet they are criticized for oppressing the poor and needy in Ezek. 22.29, which seems to be further evidence to show that the prophetic critique was not necessarily aimed at the urban populace. People whose primary domicile was rural also came under the excoriations of the prophets. It is often alleged that prophets are particularly negative toward the rich or privileged. Some passages can be interpreted this way (e.g. Amos 4.1-3), but these are only a small number of passages. Most fulminations of the prophets are against all 'sinners', whether rich or poor. For example, the famous chapter of Isa. 5 is often quoted against those who 'add house to house' (v. 8), presumably the rich, but much of the chapter is against drunkards. Some of this denunciation of drink might possibly fit only the wealthy inebriates, but most of the chapter applies to any lush, not to mention those who commit several other sins. What about the social location of the prophets themselves? Are there any tendencies about their background, either urban or rural? It has been suggested that Micah of Moresheth was a small-town prophet who came to Jerusalem and inveighed against its sins.74 This may well be

Kingdoms (Studi Semitic!, 26; Rome: Istituto di Studi del Vincino Oriente, 1967), pp. 168-78, 224-28; Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel. I. Social Institutions(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961), pp. 70-72 (ETof Les Institutions de I'Ancien Testament [1958]). 72. Cf. Jer. 34.19; 37.2, and 44.21 where they seem to be separate from the king, the king's officials and servants, and priests. On the other hand, they do not seem to include the 'poor of the land', at least in these contexts. They might be equated with the 'men of substance' (gibbore hdhayil) mentioned in 2 Kgs 15.20, as 2 Kgs 23.35 also indicates. 73. Talmon ('Historical Perspectives', pp. 87-88) seems to be alone in suggesting that they were a group in Jerusalem rather than in the country, based on their presence in Jerusalem when Athaliah was deposed. 74. For a discussion of the ways in which Micah has been interpreted, see Delbert Hillers, Micah (ed. L.R. Fisher; Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press,

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true, but most of the historical and social context of Micah is speculation, and even if we accept the superscription as trustworthy (which not everyone would be willing to do), its significance is debated. Does it mean that he was born in Moresheth? Does it mean that he did his prophesying there? Nothing in his prophecy suggests that he was against Jerusalem because it was a city and not a village, while his attack on certain institutions (e.g. the prophets) does not necessarily show a condemnation of cities as such. Samuel's parents seem to have had a certain amount of means, though it would probably not be wrong to classify Elkanah as a farmer (1 Sam. 1). Whereas Elijah's background is not given, we are told that Elisha was a plowman (1 Kgs 19.19-21), though this was probably on the family farm. On the other hand, as will be well known to readers, a number of the prophets described in the biblical text were evidently from a more privileged background. Several prophets were priests: Jeremiah, Ezekiel, perhaps Malachi.75 Huldah, the prophetess associated with Josiah's reform, was the wife of a temple official (2 Kgs 22.14). Deborah was said to be a prophetess, without any explanation of why (Judg. 4.4), but she exercised a position of leadership and may have been from the upper classes. Some prophets are associated with particular cities, especially Jerusalem, including all of Isaiah's ministry. According to a portion of the Isaiah tradition, the prophet was also instrumental in the deliverance of the city from the Assyrians. The classic exposition of the 'Zion tradition' proposes that Isaiah was one of the main proponents of this point of view. Naturally, this interpretation has been strongly opposed by some (e.g. R.E. Clements76), but there is far from a

1984). See also Rex Mason, Micah (OTG; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991). 75. There is a question whether 'Malachi' is a personal name or only a title ('my messenger') for the book. In any case, there is the possibility that the author of Malachi—whatever his name—was a priest (L. Grabbe, Priests, Prophets, Diviners, Sages: A Socio-historical Study of Religious Specialists in Ancient Israel [Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1995], p. 49). 76. See especially his monograph, Isaiah and the Deliverance of Jerusalem: A Study of the Interpretation of Prophecy in the Old Testament (JSOTSup, 13; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1980); also his Isaiah 1-39 (NCBC; London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1980). He acknowledges dependence on the literary analysis of Hermann Barth (Die Jesaja-Worte in der Josiazeit [WMANT, 48; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchen Verlag, 1977]) for deciding which


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consensus on the matter.77 Although from the priestly city of Anathoth, Jeremiah spends his time in and around Jerusalem. He himself was of a priestly family according to the tradition (e.g. Jer. 1.1), and he certainly seems to have spent a lot of time loitering near the temple (e.g. Jer. 7.12). At no point do we find a critique of the concept of city (on Jer. 2.1-2 see above in the discussion of the wilderness tradition). Other prophets are associated with cities or urban areas. Samuel moved around between several different sites in his capacity of both seer and cult figure, but much time was spent at Shiloh. Whether Shiloh would be considered a city depends on one's definition; however, it was an important urban entity, and Samuel seems to have been happy to do his work there. Huldah lived in the Mishneh quarter of Jerusalem (2 Kgs 22.14). In many cases, though, we do not know the origins or background of the particular prophet in question. This applies, for example, to that miscellaneous group of prophets making a brief appearance in the time of the monarchy (1 Kgs 11.29; 14.1-18; 2 Kgs 20.3542). The social, geographical, or other origin of a prophet may well affect his or her message, but the question of rural versus urban does not seem to surface in most texts containing descriptions of prophets or their alleged words. One of the indications of urbanism is specialization, people becoming full-time professionals with regard to a particular skill. The temple personnel—priests and Levites—are specialists, of course. There are also government officials and scribes, though priests and Levites might have provided a considerable portion of scribes.78 But was there a 'butcher, baker, or candlestick maker'? Butchering could have been one of the many tasks of men of the household, though a lot of it may have been done by priests and Levites in the temple. How often was meat eaten apart from sacrifices by the average Israelite, especially those living in Jerusalem? Baking of bread was probably part of the duties of women of the household (cf. Lev. 26.26). Jer. 37.21 mentions a 'bakers' street' in Jerusalem from which Jeremiah was supplied with bread while he was in prison. This indicates some specialization, though how far to press this particular example is hard to say. Government officials words in the book of Isaiah can be assigned to Isaiah of Jerusalem and what is likely to be later addition. 77. See, for example, the review of Clements, Isaiah and the Deliverance of Jerusalem, by J.J.M. Roberts, JBL 101 (1982), pp. 442-44. 78. Cf. Grabbe, Priests, Prophets, Diviners, Sages, pp. 160-61.

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may well have had their bread supplied ready made rather than baking it themselves; on the other hand, it is likely that in many households the women baked the family bread even if they used a communal oven. We also cannot rule out that some villages had a baker to supply a certain amount of bread for those unable or unwilling to make it themselves. The one specialty that we find mentioned in particular is pot throwing (Jer. 18.1-11). This requires a good deal of skill and access to goodquality clay. Households did make their own in times of great social disruption when it was difficult to acquire pottery by trade or purchase. However, this applied to those living in the countryside as much as in the towns or cities: peasants did not usually make their own pottery. There is also the question of whether potters lived entirely by this craft or whether it was supplemented by agrarian activity. Does the name 'Potter's Field' indicate a property owned and worked by a certain potter's household (Mt. 27.7, 10)? There were no doubt a few other specialized trades or crafts: jewelry making, mining and smelting, and the like, but they would have occupied few people, and they would not have been confined to an urban environment (e.g. smelting). One does not have the impression that specialization had gone very far in Israel or Judah, outside the temple and court. The main specialization was those who had govenmental duties and the cult personnel. But were Levites and priests urban? Not necessarily, for before Josiah's reform the biblical text explicitly indicates various places of worship around the country with their cult personnel (1 Kgs 12.23; 13.2, 33; 2 Kgs 17.32; 23.9, 20; 2 Chron. 11.1315). According to the Hexateuch the Levites were to have towns around the country which were also to be 'cities of refuge' (Num. 35; Josh. 20.2, 3). These cities were no doubt a literary fiction of a later age, but they still suggest that people would think of the Levites as living in various places away from Jerusalem. Nehemiah 13.10 mentions that Levites had left Jerusalem to work in their fields. After the priesthood had reached a certain size, all priests were not needed to serve at the altar all the time; instead they served in weekly shifts and then returned to their place of residence outside Jerusalem until the next time their shift was on duty.79 A final consideration is the picture of society in the book of Ruth. 79. See my Judaic Religion in the Second Temple Period: Belief and Practice from the Exile to Yavneh (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 144-45, on the priestly shifts.


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Here we find a man of property and at least some wealth in the person of Boaz (Ruth 2.1: gibbor hayil). Although he has an evident status in the region of Bethlehem and probably lived in the town (cf. 2.4), we see no division between town and country here and certainly no absentee landlord. He labors in the field alongside his workers and is clearly concerned for their welfare. Of course, this is a text, and to determine its relationship with social reality of a particular time and place would require a lengthy discussion beyond our scope here. But the prophetic passages alleged to show a rural critique of the urban are also texts. The point is that the text giving perhaps the most detailed picture of Israelite society shows no rural/urban dichotomy. Bethlehem is not Jerusalem, but by the criteria used by many researchers, it would count as an urban area. Basically, then, we have found no major tendency among the prophets to criticize or denounce cities in particular or to favor rural or country areas over urban entities. If there was an urban critique from a rural perspective, it is muted or minor. On the contrary, the prophets seem to inveigh against everyone. Whatever else you may say about the preexilic prophets, they were generally equal-opportunity curmudgeons. There is no favoritism: they hate everybody. 3. Conclusions In concluding I come back again to some basic methodological principles about the use of the social sciences. Social theories are simply analogies based on one or more cultures. They are not 'facts' that can then be taken as givens by biblical scholars. They are interpretations and, like the usual suspects, to be rounded up and given the third degree—to be subjected to a bit of the rubber hose just to test their metal. They are, in short, simply ways of interrogating the textual or other data. They are templates of interpretation, not tablets from Sinai. They may be helpful, they may yield new insights, they may be a waste of time. Yet when has a biblical scholar said that a currently popular social theory was a waste of time? One of the most problematic tendencies in scholarship is that of reading modern ethical and theological concerns into the data. What should be sociological description becomes in fact an ideological value judgment. The city/urban is bad; the country/rural is good. The rich/ ruling class is bad; the poor are good. The Canaanite city states are bad;

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the refugee slave/peasant/proto-Israelite highland settler is good. The monarchy, social status, the economic situation, class divisions, urbanism, and the like are all presented from the point of view of what a modern liberal, middle-class biblical scholar with a social conscience would consider acceptable. It is the nineteenth-century 'life of Jesus' mentality all over again. Just as the biography of Jesus had to conform to the views and prejudices of a bourgois German professor of the Victorian period, so the prophetic message must conform to what is today theologically and socially respectable and politically correct. Since modern scholars are ecologically minded for the most part and have an ambivalent attitude toward their affluent middle-class lifestyle, as well as toward the urban environment in which almost all of them live, the message of the ancient prophets needs to be anti-city, anti-elite, pro-poor, and pro-rural—or at least, pro-their-particular-image-of-therural, which is not the necessarily the same thing as that experienced by those who live on and work the land. Unfortunately, the message of the prophets—as far as it can be gleaned from the texts—was not that clearcut. They do not seem to have been so exercised over the rural/ urban divide as moderns. The reason may be, I suggest, because that dichotomy did not really exist in ancient Israel. If so, all the theological fulminations dressed up as sociological theory will not change this fact. The points made in this article can be summed up as follows:

(1) Social scientific models should be the servants of biblical scholars, not their masters. Theories derived from the social sciences are simply models to be tested against the biblical and other data, not conclusions to be imposed on the sources. (2) Too often sociological theory is simply a vehicle to import preconceived views about the biblical text. Biblical scholars are in the habit of making statements about the text based on theological or ideological bias and calling it sociological analysis. (3) The social aspect of urbanism is not clearly demonstrated as heuristically useful for Israel and Judah of the monarchic period. The concept of urbanism is problematic as applied to these societies because of the lack of large urban centers and any clear demarcation of urban and rural living. There may have been small differences between town and country, but so far no major distinction in living has been demonstrated. Above all, there does not seem to be much evidence that the type, profession, and activities of prophets are to be determined by questions of urbanism, at least in the Palestinian states of Israel and


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Judah. Whether things might be different in Mesopotamia is a separate question.80 My study so far has made me agree with those sociologists quoted above who doubt the usefulness of urbanism as an analytical tool, but I am happy to be shown examples where it may be quite helpful. In truly urban areas, such as one might encounter in Mesopotamia for example, urbanism may turn out to be more useful. But whatever conclusion one comes to, it must be by proper analysis, not just the exercise of theological or ideological bias.

80. See Van Der Mieroop, The Ancient Mesopotamian City, and the article by Martti Nissinen elsewhere in this volume (pp. 172-209 below).

THE SAVAGE MADE CIVILIZED: AN EXAMINATION OF EZEKIEL 16.8H

S. Tamar Kamionkowski

The prophet Ezekiel was a priest who had trained and possibly worked in the Jerusalem Temple before he was taken into exile to Babylon. As such, his theology, livelihood and life experience were all intimately bound up in urban life. Yet, the complications of city life, as opposed to more rural, agricultural settings, led to the downfall of Jerusalem and the Judeans. Ezekiel was both dependent upon, and loathe to urban life. Ezekiel's ambiguous relationship with city life is the object of this study and the particular textual lens through which this investigation takes place is Ezek. 16. Ezekiel 16 tells a story about an abandoned baby girl, rescued by a man who later marries her and provides her with clothing, food, and riches. The bride repays her husband's generosity by seeking other lovers to whom she passes on her riches and gifts. Enraged, the husband punishes his wife through public shaming, physical abuse, and near death. Seeing his wife humbled and put back in her place, he forgives her adultery and takes her back in love. Of course, in this extended metaphor, the husband is Yhwh and the young woman is Jerusalem. Ezekiel 16.8-13 describes, in quick succession, a series of actions with which Yhwh engages upon his second encounter with young Jerusalem. Verse 8 is particularly pregnant with meaning, for in one verse, Yhwh moves from noticing the young woman to marrying her. The steps which lead from the first sighting to marriage are as follows: Yhwh passes by; he notices that the girl is sexually ripe, so he spreads

* This essay is a partial excerpt, with modifications, from my forthcoming book, Gender Reversal and Cosmic Chaos: A Study in the Book of Esther (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press). See the dissertation for a more detailed exposition of my arguments.

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out his robe (an issue to which we will return), covers her nakedness, swears an oath to her, and enters into a covenant with her, so that she becomes his. There is a general consensus that by the end of v. 8 the metaphor places the two characters, Yhwh and Jerusalem, in some kind of covenantal or marital relationship. It is this relationship which provides the backdrop for the rest of the chapter. The more interesting question, and the one which is more hotly debated is whether or not this verse also describes sexual activity between Yhwh and Jerusalem.1 To a great extent, the question of the nature of v.8 hinges upon a proper understanding of the phrase ^^ =]]D 2TID, literally 'to spread a wing/garment over'. The figurative application of the phrase is found in identical form only in Ruth 3.9 and therefore limits the certainty by which any particular interpretation can be confirmed. The phrase, which more often than not appears with the plural of r]]D 'wings', is used to describe the spread wings of a bird.2 However, in the poem of Deut. 32.11, Yhwh is the subject of this phrase in a metaphor: irra« ^ inK&r innp" TSD tins" f\m" r^na ^s i]p TIT -ieto

1. Before considering the relative merits of the prominent positions in this debate, we should clarify what is at stake in this discussion. Ezek. 16 is a metaphor and as such, it does not tell us anything literal about the nature of God. Because the writer of this text, as with his counterparts Hosea and Jeremiah, employs the marriage metaphor, it does not mean that the writer believed Yhwh to be a literal husband to Jerusalem. In the same vein, if we determine that the text of v. 8 does imply sexual union, this does not necessarily suggest that Yhwh literally has a phallus and engages in sexual intercourse anymore than the text claims that Yhwh literally rinses off the blood from Jerusalem's naked body. The issue is not ultimately whether we imagine Yhwh spreading a garment protectively over his bride or whether we picture a sexual scene; rather, the issue at stake is one of internal coherence and logic. The willingness to acknowledge a metaphor of a divine husband who is jealous of his wife's infidelity, but not of a divine husband who has sex reflects more the discomforts of modern readers than any theological truth claims. J. Cheryl Exum's caution is especially relevant: 'it is important to recognize that God is a character in the biblical narrative (as much a male construct as the women in biblical literature) and thus not to be confused with any one's notion of a "real" god.' ('Prophetic Pornography', in J. Cheryl Exum (ed.), Plotted, Shot and Painted: Cultural Representations of Biblical Women [JSOTSup, 215; Gender, Culture, Theory, 3; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996], pp. 121-28 [122]). 2. Exod. 25.20; 37.9; 1 Kgs 8.7; Job 39.26; 2 Chron. 5.8.

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'Every City shall be Forsaken' Like an eagle who awakens his nestlings, gliding down to his young, so did he spread his wings and take him, bearing him on his wings.3

But here, =]]D 'wings' is plural, God is compared to a bird, and the preposition Û 'upon' is absent. Given the paucity of biblical attestations of this phrase, the interpreter is required to look for extra-biblical parallels; to consider the contexts of Ezek. 16.8 and the similar case in Ruth 3.9; and to use some measure of common sense. Using these criteria, three possible interpretations emerge: the literal, the symbolic, and the euphemistic. The literal reading suggests that 2HD rpD 'spreading a garment' is a parallel to the next phrase, m"ll? HOD 'covering nakedness'.4 In this option, it is the physical covering of the naked young woman which is at issue. However, a few factors stand against this interpretation: first, the syntax of consecutive imperfects suggests sequential, progressive action and not parallel phrases; more troubling, however, is the description in vv. 9-14 in which the girl is washed and clothed. That she is clothed, washed, and reclothed is unlikely and leads us to consider other interpretations.5 'I spread my wing over you' is most commonly understood as a symbolic action which expresses marital obligations on the part of a husband. Viberg argues that this symbolic action is derived from the image of a bird spreading its protective wing.6 Kruger has argued that the background for this symbolic action lies in the Mesopotamian practice of 'cutting the hem' in divorce proceedings. If some kind of disrobing or tearing of clothing marks the cessation of a relationship, the clothing or covering of a person should indicate the establishment

3. All translations of Hebrew and Akkadian texts are my own unless otherwise indicated. 4. It is interesting to note that in our text 'spreading the garment' is followed by the phrase 'I covered your nakedness'. The two actions are presented sequentially, as two distinct acts. This phrase is found in only three other biblical passages: Gen. 9.23; Exod. 28.42 and Hos. 2.11. By contrast, the opposite formulation: 'uncovering nakedness' is quite common. 5. This observation also necessitates a reconsideration of the meaning of HDD

rmu. 6. Ake Viberg, Symbols of Law: A Contextual Analysis of Legal Symbolic Acts in the Old Testament (ConBOT, 34; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1992), pp. 143-44.

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of a relationship.7 Whether the symbolic act signifies a promise of protection or simply ownership is not clear.8 Regarding Ezek. 16.8, Kruger understands the following phrase, 'covered your naked body' as a 'qualification' which further explains 'spread my skirt'.9 In other words, Kruger understands v. 8 as a marriage ceremony in which the groom promises to support his future wife; this is expressed by the parallel statements: 'spread my skirt', 'covered your nakedness', 'swore to you' and 'entered into a covenant'. The details of the marriage obligations are then spelled out in vv. 9, 10, 13a (anointing; clothing; and feeding). In Mesopotamian literature, particularly legal material, we find references to a practice associated with the dissolution of marriage, in which a spouse cuts the other partner's garment. This practice, often referred to as sissiktam bataqum 'cutting a garment', has been well documented by a number of scholars.10 Additionally, C. Kuhl cites an Old Babylonian (OB) text in which a woman declares to her husband: 'you are not my husband' and then leaves naked.11 ^jD 2HS 'spreading a garment' as a symbolic gesture of marriage is thus derived from its opposite sissiktam bataqum or the like. Is this a sound methodological move? No evidence has been brought forward to suggest that spreading out a garment was a symbolic act of marriage or in any way symbolized the forging of any kind of new relationship. It is true that garments, as sissiktam or qannum, were used in a surprisingly great number of symbolic rites and figurative expressions. Garments are cut (bataqum), tied (rakasum, kasdrum) or seized (sabdtum) in a variety of situations. In Malul's comprehensive study of Mesopotamian legal symbolism, nearly half of the symbolic actions which he documents include the manipulation of a garment, whether in divorce claims, pledges, debt collection, or other legal claims. Although tying a garment, ina sissiktim rakasum, appears in marriage contexts,

7. Cf. P.A. Kruger, 'The Hem of the Garment in Marriage: The Meaning of the Symbolic Gesture in Ruth 3:9 and Ezek. 16:8', JNSL 12 (1984), pp. 79-86. 8. Cf. Kruger, The Hem of the Garment', pp. 84-85 for a further discussion of this matter. 9. Kruger, 'The Hem of the Garment', p. 85. 10. Esp. Meir Malul, Studies in Mesopotamian Legal Symbolism (AOAT, 221; Kevelaer: Verlag Butzon & Bercken; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1988). 11. 'Neue Dokumente zum Verstandnis von Hos 2:4-15', ZAW 52 (1934), pp. 102-109.

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the act refers to bundling money in the hem of a garment as a gift to a bride. The common phrase sissiktam sabdtum expresses the formation of relationships, but it is always used by a vassal as an expression of loyalty to his overlord, as in: asbat qannakama ukil sissiktaka, 'I have seized your garment, I have held on to your hem.'12 Similarly, a sabit qanniki is the partner in the inferior position who grabs onto the garment of the superior. There are no examples of the extension of a garment by one person to another. Returning to Ezek. 16.8, one could argue that as Yhwh extends his garment, Jerusalem, by implication, has seized it; but this misses the point. If the point of the text is to demonstrate the generosity of Yhwh, the writer would not employ an idiom which typically stresses the loyalty of the inferior partner. A third possible interpretation is that the phrase spD 2HS is a euphemism for sexual intercourse.13 The strongest proponent of this theory is Marvin H. Pope who writes: 'Just what this meant is not difficult to divine, unless one comes to the story with the presupposition that the deity was wholly void of sexual urge or capability, which certainly was not the ancient idea of gods or goddesses.'14 Brownlee also favors this interpretation, translating the phrase as: 'I spread my robe to you...' 15 This position can be substantiated by a few observations. First of all, Ezekiel does not use the more common phrase here for covering an individual with a garment as he does in 18.7: IIQ—HCD"1 DTtfl 'he covers the naked with a garment'. Secondly, the man's attention is drawn to the young woman because she has reached her 'time of love',

12. Werner Mayer, Untersuchungen zur Formensprache der babylonischen 'Gebetsbeschworungen' (Studia Pohl, 5; Rome: Biblical Pontifical Institute, 1976), p. 528. 13. An early assertion that God has no sexuality is made by Johannes Hempel in 'Die Grenzen des Anthropos Jahwes im alten Testament', ZAW51 (1939), pp. 8284. In M.C.A. Korpel's work on the metaphoric nature of God-talk, she argues that God is nonsexual, with no consort, no sexual organs or behavior, never naked (A Rift in the Clouds: Ugaritic and Hebrew Descriptions of the Divine [Theologische Akademie Uitgaande van de Johannes Calvijnstichting te Kampen, Ugaritischbiblische Literatur, 8; Munster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1990], pp. 125, 133-34, 217-25. 14. Marvin H. Pope, Song of Songs (AB; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977), p. 393. 15. William H. Brownlee, Ezekiel 1-19 (WBC; Waco, TX: Word Books, 1986), p. 225.


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DH1 n^,16 suggesting that sexual desire is the motivating factor for his interest. The previous verse spares no detail in describing the woman's developing physical, pubescent features: 17

D"-ii; --fin "sum -Vim ""aim -prim mton na:o mm mm mu DKI nan "piJfcn ID: D-IB;

I made you grow like the plants of the field; and you continued to grow up until you started menstruating, until your breasts became firm and your hair sprouted. But you were still naked and bare.

The other text in which =pD (ZHS appears, Ruth 3.9, also intimates sexual overtones. In that story, Naomi instructs Ruth to sneak into Boaz's 'bed' after he has eaten and has had his fill of drink. Ruth secretly joins him and 'uncovers his feet,' that is, exposes his genitals.18 When he awakes in a drunken stupor, she requests that he 'spread his garment' over her. Sexual activity may also be suggested by a later phrase in the verse: IT "OH N1HN1 'I entered into a covenant'. The use of the sexually nuanced verb 813 'to enter'19 in place of Ezekiel's usual phraseology for

16. DTTT nu refers to sexual lovemaking; see Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 7-20 (AB; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983), p. 277. Cf. Ezek. 23.17; Prov. 7.18; Song 4.10; 7.13. 17. The meaning of D"T^ "HIO is disputed. W. Zimmerli (Ezekiel 1: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel Chapters 1-24 [trans. R.E. Clements; Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979], p. 324) cuts "HIO as dittography. LXX reads eiofj?i6e fens may be mussu or (w)ussu + subatu, lubuStu or the like. This phrase designates the spreading out of clothing: $a subdssu ina suqim uwassu, 'He spreads out his garment on the street.' Or $a subdte kite ina muhhi tumassu, 'You spread out a garment of linen before me.'27 In the Standard Babylonian (SB) recension of the Gilgamesh Epic, Shamhat seduces Enkidu, the savage man, in the following way: ur-tam-mi MLSam-hat di-da-M ur-Sd ip-te-e-ma ku-zu-ub-M il-qi ul iS-hu-ut il-ti-qi na-pis-su lu-bu-Si-Sd u-ma-si-ma UGU-M is-lal i-pu-us-su-ma lul-la-a Si-pir sin-niS-te Shamhat unclutched her bosom, exposed her sex, and he took in her voluptuousness. She was not restrained, but took his energy. She spread out her robe and he lay upon her, she performed for the primitive the task of womankind.

In this case, Shamhat spreads out or opens her garment in invitation to Enkidu to engage in sexual activity. This unambiguous text offers a compelling parallel to our Ezekiel text. In fact, the entire encounter between Shamhat and Enkidu29 has interesting parallels to Ezek. 16 in other ways as well. "]K~!N1 "pÛ "ntftfl

Then Shamhat saw him—a primitive, a savage fellow from the depths of the wilderness. (SB 1.4)

nm nr ~[ni> rum *D!D EHDKI

She spread out her robe and he lay upon her. (SB 1.4)

26. For further argumentation and examples, cf. Hugenberger, Marriage as a Covenant, pp. 248-79. 27. Wolfram von Soden, Akkadisches Handworterbuch. III. S-Z(Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1981), p. 1498. 28. Translation taken from Maureen Gallery Kovacs, The Epic of Gilgamesh (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2nd edn, 1989), p. 9. 29. Cf. Dietz O. Edzard, 'Kleine Beitrage zum Gilgames-Epos', Or NS 54 (1985), pp. 46-55.

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'Every City shall be Forsaken' "fm~lU nODNl

~p 1OZ7K1 JQ2D ... D^QH JTDKT

... 30-pn'?Nl rD'te'? TI^Hn

Shamhat pulled off her clothing and clothed him with one piece while she clothed herself with a second. (OB 2.2) She took hold of him as the gods do. (OB 2.2) He splashed his shaggy body with water, and rubbed himself with oil and turned into a human. (OB 3.2) He put on some clothing. (OB 2.3) And he became like a warrior/man. (OB 2.3)

There are remarkable parallels between these two stories. In both cases, one character civilizes and guides another primitive, savage, uncultured individual.31 Enkidu, the savage man, is raised by and lives among the animals, having had no contact with humanity. Young Jerusalem is also uncultured, alien to the workings of human society. Yhwh and Shamhat both play the role of transforming the primitive into a social being. In both stories, the sequence of events is essentially the same. The savage is seen, seduced and gradually introduced to the rudimentary symbol of culture, first through sex, then through food and clothing.32 30. On the connection between Jerusalem's clothing and the material of the tabernacle, see Galambush, Jerusalem in the Book of Ezekiel, p. 95. 31. William L. Moran draws upon the work of classicists A.O. Lovejoy and B. Boas's Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity (Baltimore, 1935) who distinguish between primitivism and anti-primitivism. The former sees the early days of humanity as an idyllic, ideal time; while anti-primitivism views early history as a harsh and savage time. According to Moran, the portrayal of Enkidu in the Gilgamesh Epic belongs to the latter tradition of anti-primitivism ('Ovid's Blanda Voluptas and the Humanization of Enkidu', JNES5Q [1991], pp. 121-27). 32. A number of studies have pointed in the direction of Ezekiel's familiarity with Mesopotamian literature; see Stephen Garfinkel, 'On Thistles and Thorns: A New Approach to Ezekiel II 6', VT 4 (1987), pp. 421-37; 'Another Model for Ezekiel's Abnormalities', JANESCU 19 (1989), pp. 39-50; cf. also his 'Studies in Akkadian Influences in the Book of Ezekiel' (unpublished PhD dissertation: Columbia University, NY, 1983). See also M.C. Astour's observations regarding the similarities between the Gog prophecy and the Cuthean Legend of Naram-Sin ('Ezekiel's Prophecy of Gog and the Cuthean Legend of Naram-Sin', JBL 95 [1976], pp. 567-79); Bernhard Lang's work on Mesopotamian motifs and iconography which impact the book of Ezekiel (Ezechiel: der Prophet und das Buch [Ertrage der Forschung, 153; Darmstadt: WissenschaftlicheBuchgesellschaft, 1981); Daniel Bodi's arguments for a literary dependence on the Mesopotamian classic, Erra (The Book of Ezekiel and the Poem of Erra [OBO, 104; Freiburg and Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991]); and Moshe Greenberg has also convincingly argued that Ezekiel had some knowledge of Babylonian literature and


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Some commentators33 follow the suggestion of Hermann Gimkel, that Ezek.16 is based on the popular motif of a foundling who rises to greatness.34 The most recent study on this folktale is that of Brian Lewis,35 who detects 72 occurrences of this motif from various cultures in antiquity; however, he does not include Ezek. 16 in his list. Lewis identifies seven basic elements in this folktale: (1) explanation of abandonment; (2) infant of noble birth; (3) preparation for exposure; (4) exposure; (5) infant protected or nursed in an unusual manner; (6) discovery and adoption; (7) accomplishments of hero.36 The first element is present in all but one of his examples. The second and seventh elements appear in 62 out of 72 tales. Ezekiel 16 does not fit into this model for several reasons. Jerusalem is not abandoned by her parents out of shame or necessity; the story does not care what led Jerusalem to her present circumstances. She does not demonstrate her own greatness as she grows up; she survives and thrives because of Yhwh's intervention. There is no prophecy regarding the birth of Jerusalem which introduces the story and subsequently no fulfillment of prophecy. Furthermore, Jerusalem is not saved by farmers or an animal; rather, she is saved by the 'king' himself. Therefore, tracing the folk or literary origins of this chapter to the foundling motif tale is erroneous; nevertheless the prophet may have been familiar with the practice of exposure of infants and this practice may have provided the initial setting for the tale. The exposure of the infant is combined with the tale of savage turned civilized.

culture (The Design and Themes of Ezekiel's Program of Restoration', Int 38 [1984], pp. 181-209 and 'Ezekiel's Vision: Literary and Iconographic Aspects', in H. Tadmor and M. Weinfeld [eds.], History, Historiography and Interpretation: Studies in Biblical and Cuneiform Literatures [Jerusalem: Magnes Press; Leiden: EJ. Brill, 1983], pp. 159-68). 33. Cf. Cooke, Ezekiel, p. 159. 34. Das Marchen im Alten Testament (Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1921), pp. 11316. More recently, Donald B. Redford, 'Literary Motif of the Exposed Child: Ex 2:1-10', Numen 14 (1967), pp. 209-28. Examples of this story type can be found throughout the ancient Near East and in Greco-Roman literature. 35. Brian Lewis, The Sargon Legend: A Study of the Akkadian Text and the Tale of the Hero who was Exposed at Birth (ASOR Dissertation Series, 4; Cambridge, MA: ASOR, 1980). 36. Lewis, The Sargon Legend, p. 211.

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Sex civilizes,37 but also ultimately undoes civilization. Both Enkidu and Jerusalem go too far and refuse to play their assigned roles; in both cases, they overstep their boundaries. Rivkah Harris has suggested that Shamhat's role vis-a-vis Enkidu marks an inversion: 'She is depicted, through her actions and words, as a maternal, beneficent, wise woman and not as a deceitful, lustful seductress.'38 Yet, as Harris herself notes in quoting the famous Sherry Ortner article, 'Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?'39 women are often 'one of culture's crucial agencies for the conversion of nature into culture'.40 I would suggest that the more interesting reversals are to be found in the Ezekiel version of the story, for there, the male God plays the role of Shamhat. Instead of Shamhat spreading open her robe (and presumably her legs), it is Yhwh who spreads open his garment and seduces the young, savage woman. Ezekiel's adaptation of the Gilgamesh Epic material may reflect the prophet's ambiguous attitudes toward urban life. Ezek. 16 may be read as the story of a savage turned civilized, wherein the savage represents the community of Israel or Jerusalem before it became the capital city of a nation and the civilized woman represents the fully developed capital city. The prophet credits Yhwh with the gifts of urban life; it is Yhwh who bestows the riches and confers a royal status on Jerusalem (Ezek. 16.10-14). And yet, it is this wealth and high status which leads to the corruption of personified Jerusalem. 37. Moran finds a parallel to Enkidu and Shamhat in Ovid's Ars amatoria 2.467-80, a tale of cosmic and human origins. The lines of particular interest to us are: Then did the human race wander in lonely fields, it was but sheer strength and body without grace. The woods had been their home, the grass their food, and leaves their beds, and long was each to each unknown. Gentle love (they say) softened savage hearts: A man and a woman, in one place, had paused. What to do they learned by themselves. There was no teacher. Venus performed her sweet task. There was no art.' Moran, 'Ovid's Blanda Voluptas\ p. 123, cited from EJ. Kenney, P. Ovidi Nasonis Amores; Medicamina faciei feminaeua; Ars amatoria; Remedia Amoris (Oxford Classical Texts; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961). 38. Rivkah Harris, 'Images of Women in the Gilgamesh Epic', in Tzvi Abusch, John Huehnergard and Piotr Steinkeller (eds.), Lingering Over Words: Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Literature in Honor of William L. Moran (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990), pp. 222-23. 39. In Michelle Z. Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere (eds.), Women, Culture, and Society (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974), pp. 67-87. 40. Ortner, 'Is Female to Male?', p. 84; quoted by Harris, 'Images of Women', p. 223.


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Ezekiel depicts Jerusalem as a foundling abandoned by her Amorite and Hittite parents at birth. The Talmud understands Jerusalem's parentage as a source of shame: At the time that the Holy One, Blessed is He, said to Ezekiel, 'Go tell the Israelites: Your father is the Amorite and your mother a Hittite,' an angel said before the Holy One, Blessed is He, 'Master of the Universe, if Abraham and Sarah were to come and stand before You, would You shame them by telling them [this]?41

Moshe Greenberg argues that Ezekiel describes 'the pagan antecedents of Jerusalem' in order to provide 'a motive for the cruel abandonment of the infant (necessary to highlight God's kindness) and a hereditary ground for her future dissolute conduct'.42 Unlike Jeremiah, who envisions Israel's youth as a time of purity of heart (Jer. 2.2), Ezekiel describes the origins of Jerusalem as mired in tragedy. The absence of a Jeremiah-like honeymoon in Ezek. 16, along with other clues, leads Julie Galambush to remark that 'Ezekiel's deletion of Yahweh and Jerusalem's happy past is consistent with his depiction of Jerusalem as inherently other, unclean and unworthy, and of the marriage as an exceptional kindness by Yahweh.'43 However, it is crucial to note that the text itself views this period as an ideal time in some ways. Yhwh condemns Jerusalem for having forgotten this time of her youth (Ezek. 16.43) and Yhwh returns Jerusalem to this initial state before seeking reconciliation with her. In other words, the period prior to the establishment of the capital city is viewed as both a time of impurity and a time of alluring innocence. The extended metaphor of Ezek. 16 is thus better understood not against the backdrop of adoption and marriage imagery, but against the

41. b. Sanh.44b. 42. Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20, p. 300. Cf. also Deut. 26.5, 'My father was a fugitive Aramean.' Gerhard von Rad described this unit as an early creed summary of salvation history (Deuteronomy [OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1966], pp. 157-59). The attribution of Israel's origins from Arameans is not necessarily derogatory; it may simply express claims of Israel's origins from the East. Cf. Neville Krausz, 'Arami oved avi: Deuteronomy 26:5', JBQ 25 (1997), pp. 31-34; Stig Norin, 'Bin Aramaer, dem unkommen nahe—ein Kerntext der Forschung und Tradition', SJOT 8 (1994), pp. 87-104; Gerald Janzen, 'The "Wandering Aramean" Reconsidered', VT44 (1994), pp. 359-75. 43. Galambush, Jerusalem in the Book of Ezekiel, p. 82.

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backdrop of a tale of civilization. God is responsible for having introduced Jerusalem to culture and society. Jerusalem is acculturated and given a position, but as a woman, she is expected to remain faithful to the one who gave her all this. Enkidu, by contrast, is not expected to remain with Shamhat. His independence is expected and Shamhat can gracefully disappear from the story. Jerusalem's independence sets up the tensions which undergird the rest of the story. The tension is set up by the gender of the two players and their relative status as divine and human. The tension, on the level of culture, is that Jerusalem's exposure to urban life, an accummulation of wealth and internationalism eventually lead to her corruption.

RECONSTRUCTING HAGGAI'S JERUSALEM: DEMOGRAPHIC AND SOCIOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS

AND THE SEARCH FOR AN ADEQUATE METHODOLOGICAL POINT OF DEPARTURE

John Kessler

It is quite frequently affirmed in scholarly literature that the production of both the oracles and editorial framework of the book of Haggai can be situated in Jerusalem between 520-516 BCE.1 In contrast to this confluence of opinion, attempts to describe the matrix from which the book arose, that is the specific demographic and sociological situation in Jerusalem, display a great degree of diversity. More specifically, the question of whether early Persian Yehud could have produced significant theological literature has been hotly debated. Given the intensity with which Persian Yehud has been studied over the past 20 years, it is appropriate to ask whether our scholarly appraisal of its social and demographic contours can move any closer to a consensus. This study will therefore attempt three things. First, I will briefly survey three general approaches to the social context of early Persian Jerusalem and Yehud. Second, I will raise and discuss two critical questions. One addresses the role of demographic analysis in the reconstruction of ancient contexts. The second raises the question of the relationship between population density and literary output in Yehud. Finally, I will explore some conclusions and potential implications regarding our understanding of Jerusalem and Yehud in the early Persian period.

1. For example, S. Amsler, Aggee (CAT, XI-C; Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1988), p. 10; C.L. Meyers and E.M. Meyers, Haggai, Zechariah 1-8 (AB; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1987), p. xliii; P.A. Verhoef, The Books of Haggai and Malachi (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), p. 10, as well as Marti, Mitchell, Sellin, Horst and Deissler.

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'Every City shall be Forsaken' 1. Three Representative Approaches to Persian Yehud

a. The Conflict Model As the designation implies, adherents of this model see intra-communal conflict as the point of entry into the dynamics of the life of the community in Yehud. While differing on the precise nature of the conflict, proponents of this approach generally share the following assumptions: (1) Yehud is seen as characterized by profound social divisions, echoes of which may be found in various biblical texts. (2) Yehud is viewed as a rather densely populated province, boasting anywhere from 50,000 to 200,000 inhabitants.2 (3) The years between 587 BCE and 520 BCE, comprising the fall of Jerusalem, the exile of a portion of its inhabitants, and the subsequent return and reinstallation of a group distinguishable from the population that remained in the land, are said to constitute a significant turning point which radically altered the theological and sociological landscape of the Yahwistic faith. Adherents of the conflict model may, broadly speaking, be divided into three major groups according to their understanding of the fundamental nature of the conflict.3 The first group, comprising P.D. Hanson, Morton Smith, R.G. Hamerton-Kelly, P.R. Bedford4 and

2. The following are some representative population estimates for Yehud: Weinberg: 200,000 (J.P. Weinberg, Der Chronist in seiner Mitwelt [BZAW, 239; Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1996], pp. 37-38); Hanson: 42,000 (P.D. Hanson, The Dawn of Apocalyptic [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975], pp. 226-27); Gottwald: 'well in excess of 50,000' (N.K. Gottwald, The Hebrew Bible: A Socio-Literary Introduction [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985], pp. 430-31); Gottwald sees the 50,000 figure of Ezra 2 as too small for the total population of Yehud and suggests that this number represented only the privileged classes. H. Kreissig: 100,000 (H. Kreissig, Die sozialb'konomische Situation in Juda zur Achemenidzeit [Schriften zur Geschichte und Kultur des Alten Orients, 7; Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1973], p. 38 n.3). 3. This three-part categorization is meant to facilitate the understanding of these various conflictual approaches. It should be noted, however, that there is a certain degree of overlap at various points between the three groups. 4. R.G. Hamerton-Kelly, 'The Temple and the Origins of Jewish Apocalyptic', VT20 (1970), pp. 1-15; Hanson, Dawn; M. Smith, Palestinian Parties and Politics that Shaped the Old Testament (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971); P.R. Bedford, 'Discerning the Time: Haggai, Zechariah and the "Delay" in the Rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple', in S.W. Holloway and L.K. Handy (eds.), The

KESSLER Reconstructing Haggai's Jerusalem

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N.K. Gottwald,5 among others, envisages a Jerusalem and Yehud divided primarily upon theological or ideological lines. According to this model, in 520 BCE the populous province of Yehud stood at a critical juncture. The theological diversity and concomitant social fragmentation which obtained before 587 BCE had continued into the exilic period. The situation had been further complicated by the return of the former deportees.6 With the advent of Persian rule, the community was afforded the possibility of choosing its future direction. Various sects and parties vied for political and theological control.7 Prophets sought to sway the masses to one or another of the opposing camps.8 The literature of the period, which constitutes no insignificant corpus, reflects this intra-communal theological debate. Despite agreement on the theological nature of the conflict, the adherents of this position display no unanimity regarding the specific issues under debate, the sectors of the population at odds with one another and the literary works which represent the theologies of the various groups.9 A second variation on the conflict theme is proposed by J.P. Weinberg and H. Kreissig who envisage a Yehud divided primarily over economic and land tenure conflicts.10 Here the returnees are pitted Pitcher is Broken: Memorial Essays for G.W. Ahlstrom (JSOTSup, 190; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), pp. 71-94. 5. Gottwald views portions of the Samaritan population as having pushed into Judah during the exile to occupy abandoned estates (Hebrew Bible, p. 424). He then speaks of two streams of Yahwism: Samaritan and Judahite, in conflict with each other (p. 420). He also alludes to the presence of socioeconomic and political rivalries. 6. Smith, Parties, p. 107; Hanson, Dawn, p. 260. 7. Hanson, Dawn, pp. 211-79; Smith, Parties, pp. 107-10. 8. Hanson, Dawn, pp. 240-62, esp. pp. 244, 246, 253, 256. 9. A brief and random survey is as follows. Hamerton-Kelly: Priestly group favouring immediate construction of the temple vs. disciples of Ezekiel who want to await the eschatological era; Hanson: Priestly-Ezekielian coalition (largely returnees) vs. disciples of Isaiah and disenfranchised Levites; Gottwald: Samaritan Yahwists vs. Judean Yahwists; Bedford: the community vs. Haggai and Zechariah (Bedford, 'Discerning', esp. pp. 74, 94). For a more detailed discussion see, L.L. Grabbe, Judaism from Cyrus to Hadrian I (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), pp. 103-12. 10. H. Kreissig, Situation, pp. 101-105; J.P. Weinberg, 'Der 'am ha ares des 6.4. Jahrhunderts v. u. Z.', Klio 56 (1974), pp. 325-35; idem, 'Die Agrarverhaltnisse in der Biirger-Tempel-Gemeinde der Achamenidenzeit', Acta Antiqua 22 (1974), pp. 473-85. esp. pp 479-81.

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against the non-exiled population. According to this approach, Babylonian policy following 587 BCE had benefited the non-exiled population at the expense of the deportees. The latter, who were the former landowners (or Eigentumerri) were dispossessed of their holdings when they were exiled. Their lands passed into the hands of the Babylonian crown. In the early part of the Babylonian period, the former tenant farmers, (or Besitzern) who had previously worked the land for the Judean landed class were left in place by the Babylonians.11 As such they continued to work the land and surrendered a portion of the produce to the Babylonian crown or member of the nobility. These tenant farmers may also have benefited from extensive debt release.12 As the Babylonian period advanced, however, this group ultimately gained either de facto or de jure ownership of the land, and were recognized as Eigentumern in their own right.13 Under Persian rule, with its restorationist impulse, the former landed class returned and sought to reclaim their land holdings, thus precipitating social conflict on various levels.14 11. Kreissig, Situation, p. 26; M.A. Dandamaev, The Culture and Social Institutions of Ancient Iran (trans. P.L. Kohl; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 132-33. Weinberg's approach differs from that of Kreissig. According to Weinberg, even during the Babylonian period there was a certain measure of conflict between a pro-Babylonian sector of the population consisting of the 'poor of the land' who had been given agricultural plots by the Babylonians and an antiBabylonian 'separatist' group consisting of non-deported freeholders or Eigenttimern ('Agarveraltnis' p. 480); cf. also Weinberg, 'Demographische Notizen zur Geschichte der Nachexilischen Gemeinde in Juda', Klio 54 (1972), pp. 46-50, esp. p. 50. 12. Kreissig, Situation, p. 27. 13. Kreissig, Situation, pp. 27, 32. On the sale and redemption of land, cf. H.G. Kippenberg, Religion und Klassenbildung im antiken Judaa: Eine religionssoziologische Studie zum Verhdltnis von Tradition und gesellschaftlicher Entwickung (Studien zur Umwelt des Neuen Testaments, 14; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978), pp. 33-41. 14. Margalith sees the conflict as being between the pro-Babylonian nondeportees and the pro-Persian returnees: O. Margalith, The Political Background of Zerubbabel's Mission and the Samaritan Schism', VT41 (1991), pp. 312-23, esp. pp. 315-20. Kreissig (Situation, pp. 35-39, 101-105) sees these conflicts as relatively minor. However given the fact that he sees the population of Yehud as 60,000 before the return and 100,000 by the end of the sixth century, by any calculation the difficulties encountered in the course of the integration of upwards of 20,000 returning landowners into a reduced province with a population of 60,000 would have been of monumental proportions.


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Similar views have been expressed by O. Margalith and R. Carroll, and to a lesser extent D.J.A. dines.151 note in passing that unlike virtually all other historians of the period with the possible exception of Gottwald,16 Weinberg views Yehud not as a geographically defined territory but as pockets of returnees living in proximity to the non-exiled population.17 Again the specific theological positions of these two conflicting groups and the literature they produced are variously understood. A third view sees the conflict as ethnic, political and theological. Scholars such as Thompson and Bolin maintain that a group of returnees, by and large ethnically unrelated to the local population, were sent to Yehud to buttress Persian foreign policy initiatives.18 This group achieved hegemony and imposed not only its political control, but its theological agenda on the local population. Much of the biblical literature is an attempt by members of this group to forge a unity between themselves and the local population via a fictitious common history.19 Three observations regarding the conflict model are appropriate at this point. First, it would appear that the presence of a sizable population in Jerusalem and Yehud is a critical element in this approach. I will take up this issue in greater detail below. Second, the biblical literature is frequently seen as either the fruit of this intra-communal 15. R. Carroll, 'The Myth of the Empty Land', Semeia 59 (1992), pp. 79-93; D.J.A. Clines, 'Haggai's Temple, Constructed, Deconstructed, and Reconstructed', SJOT 1 (1993), pp. 51-77; Margalith, 'Background', passim. An excellent critique of the hypothesis of extensive conflict around land tenure at our period may be found in E. Ben Zvi, 'Inclusion in and Exclusion from Israel as Conveyed by the Use of the Term "Israel" in Post-Monarchic Texts', in Holloway and Handy (eds.), The Pitcher is Broken, pp. 95-149, esp. pp. 108-10. 16. Gottwald, Hebrew Bible, p. 429. 17. Weinberg, 'Demographische Notizen', p. 58; 'Agrarverhaltnisse', p. 481. 18. T.M. Bolin, 'When the End is the Beginning: The Persian Period and the Origins of the Biblical Tradition', SJOT 10 (1996), pp. 3-15; T.L. Thompson, Early History of the Israelite People: From the Written and Archaeological Sources (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1992); idem, 'The Exile in History and Myth: A Response to Hans Barstad', in L.L. Grabbe (ed.), Leading Captivity Captive: 'The Exile' as History and Ideology (JSOTSup, 278; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), pp. 101-18, esp. pp. 104-107. 19. For an insightful critique of this position see J. Pasto, 'When is the End the Beginning? Or when the Biblical Past is the Political Present', SJOT 12 (1998), pp. 157-202 and F.E. Deist, 'The Yehud Bible: A Belated Divine Miracle', JNSL 23 (1997), pp. 117-42.

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polemic (so Hanson, Smith, and Hamerton-Kelly) or unwittingly revealing it (so Clines and Bolin). Third, the flow of thought in this approach is generally from sociological analogy or axiom, to text, to historical reconstruction (so Smith, Clines, and Hanson). b. The Populous Exilic Yehud Model The principal proponent of this view is Hans Barstad,20 whose argumentation frequently resembles that of E. Janssen and H. Kreissig,21 and to a lesser extent E.-M. Laperrousaz.22 While the notion of conflict is not absent from this model, it plays a far less significant role than in the preceding position. Rather, this approach emphasizes that the population of Judah/Yehud was relatively stable and homogeneous before and after 587 BCE.23 Furthermore, the departure and return of a small number of elite citizens did not radically affect the religious and economic life of the community.24 This conclusion is based upon several related assumptions: (1) the conviction that the notions of quasi-total deportation, and its concomitant, the 'Myth of the Empty Land', are not primarily intended to be statements of historical detail, but rather essential components of ancient story-telling.25 For Barstad, such notions are thus rhetorical and descriptive devices which stress the importance of 20. H. Barstad, The Myth of the Empty Land: A Study in the History and Archaeology of Judah During the 'Exilic' Period (SOSup, 28; Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1996). Several of the adherents of the 'conflict' model, as we have seen, maintain high population statistics for exilic Judah (so Weinberg, 200,000). However their emphasis on the great degree of conflict which existed in the postexilic period distinguishes them from this second position whose main emphasis is the stability and continuity in Yehud throughout the sixth century. 21. E. Janssen, Juda in der Exilszeit: Ein Beitrag zur Frage der Entstehung des Judentums (FRLANT, 69; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1956); Kreissig, Situation, pp. 20-34. As noted above, Kreissig implies a level of social conflict not discernible in Barstad's work. 22. E.-M. Laperrousaz, 'Jerusalem a 1'epoque perse (etendue et statut)', Transeuphratene 1 (1989), pp. 55-65 and his extensive writings on the size of Jerusalem in Eretz Israel, Folia Orientalia and elsewhere. 23. Barstad, Myth, pp. 53-55. Kreissig (Situation, pp. 22-23) nuances this somewhat, and incorporates the effects of the population loss following Gedeliah's assassination into his reconstruction. 24. Barstad, Myth, pp. 67-71; Kreissig, Situation, pp. 22-23, 26. Kreissig is more hesitant that Barstad regarding the extent of economic activity during the exile. 25. Barstad, Myth, pp. 31-32, 53; Kreissig, Situation, pp. 20-21, 30-31.


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the Babylonian conquest (in Kings)26 or the importance of the returnees (in Chronicles).27 (2) Babylonian destruction in Jerusalem was limited to breaches in the wall, the removal of the city gates, and damage to the central shrine. The residential sections of the city (which extended to the Western Hill) were left largely untouched.28 (3) This densely populated exilic and postexilic Judah was the source of several major literary works such as Lamentations; Isa. 21; DH; Obadiah; Pss. 44, 74, 79, 89, 102; Jeremiah; Ezekiel; and Deutero- and Trito-Isaiah.29 (4) The notion of a 'shift of gravity'30 from Palestine to Babylon is pure mythology. The community which remained in Judah was vital and creative.31 (5) The conflict that did exist arose at a later period and was not a formative factor in the creation of the literary works mentioned above. Let me note in conclusion that while Barstad does not explicitly state his estimate of the population of Jerusalem or Yehud, he clearly assumes it to be rather substantial.32 Furthermore the flow of his argument differs significantly from the 'Conflict' approach. He reasons from historical and archaeological data, to demographic assumptions, to potential for literary output. This line of argumentation corresponds to his basic intent which is not to reconstruct a sociohistorical context per se, but to argue for the potential Palestinian origin of certain literary works.

26. Barstad, Myth, pp. 31-34. 27. Barstad, Myth, pp. 41-42. 28. Here Barstad substantially follows the arguments of Janssen (Exilszeit, pp. 42-45) which were also taken up by P.R. Ackroyd (Exile and Restoration: A Study of Hebrew Thought of the Sixth Century BC [OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1968], pp. 20-21). Cf. Kreissig, Situation, pp. 22-24. 29. Barstad, Myth, pp. 19-23. See also his The Babylonian Captivity of the Book of Isaiah: 'Exilic' Judah and the Provenance of Isaiah 40-55 (Oslo: Novus Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning, 1997), pp. 86-87 and 'On the History and Archaeology of Judah during the Exilic Period. A Reminder', OLP 19 (1988), pp. 25-36, esp. p. 36. 30. It would appear that this tournure which has found its way into the warp and woof of scholarly discussion of the period originated with J. Bright (A History of Israel [Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 2nd edn, 1972], p. 345). It has become a somewhat customary way of describing the theological landscape (to mix metaphors) of the period. 31. Barstad, Myth, pp. 80-82. 32. Barstad, Myth, pp. 53-54.

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c. The Demographic Decline Model In contrast to the preceding, rather maximal, views of the exilic population, proponents of this view, principally C.E. Carter and E. Ben Zvi, and to a lesser extent, Magen Broshi,33 envisage a Yehud and Jerusalem which are rather sparsely populated during the Babylonian and early Persian periods.34 Aharoni similarly posited a 'population vacuum' during this period.35 Carter maintains that while some increase in the population did occur in the late sixth century and early fifth century,36 no significant growth occurred until the mid-fifth century. This increase may have been related to broader Persian political initiatives in the Levant as a whole. Broshi originally estimated the population of midfifth-century Jerusalem as approximately 4,800.37 This figure was later revised downward by Carter, primarily due to his conclusions regarding the size of the residential area of the city and its population density.38

33. I include Broshi here due to the relative comparison between his population estimates and those of Laperrousaz, for example. Next to the latter's estimate of the population of Jerusalem as 12,000 in the mid-fifth century, Broshi's 4,800 is quite restrained (see below). 34. E. Ben Zvi, The Urban Center of Jerusalem and the Development of the Literature of the Hebrew Bible', in Walter E. Aufrecht, Neil A. Mirau and Steven W. Gauley (eds.), Urbanism in Antiquity: From Mesopotamia to Crete (JSOTSup, 244; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1997), pp. 194-209; M. Broshi, 'Estimating the Population of Ancient Jerusalem', BARev 4 (1978), pp. 10-15; idem, 'La population de 1'ancienne Jerusalem', RB 1 (1982), pp. 5-14; C.E. Carter, The Emergence of Yehud in the Persian Period (JSOTSup, 294; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999); idem, 'The Province of Yehud in the Post-Exilic Period: Soundings in Site Distribution and Demography', in T.C. Eskenazi and K.H. Richards (eds.), Second Temple Studies 2: Temple and Community in the Persian Period (JSOTSup, 175; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994), pp. 106-45. 35. Y. Aharoni, The Land of the Bible: A Historical Geography (London: Burns and Gates, 1979), p. 409. 36. Carter, 'Yehud', pp. 134-35. The same may be said for Galilee, cf. J. Briend, 'L'occupation de la Galilee occidentale a 1'epoque perse', Transeuphratene 2 (1990), pp. 109-23, esp. p. 121. A similar phenomenon may be seen in Samaria, cf. A. Zertal, The Pahwah of Samaria (Northern Israel) during the Persian Period: Types of Settlement, Economy, History and New Discoveries', Transeuphratene 3 (1990), pp. 9-29, esp. p. 12. Cf. A. Lemaire, 'Populations et territoires de la Palestine a 1'epoque perse', Transeuphratene 3 (1990), pp. 31-74, esp. p. 43. 37. Broshi, 'Population', p. 9. I arrive at this figure by multiplying Broshi's estimates of size (120 dunams) and his population coefficient (40). 38. Carter, Emergence, pp. 147-48; 196-201 and esp. p. 201 n. 89.


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He estimates the population of Yehud as follows: Persian I (539-450 BCE) 13,350; Persian II (450-333 BCE) 20,650.39 He views the population of Jerusalem as approximately 1,500 in Persian II and estimates the city's size to have been fifty percent smaller in Persian I.40 On the basis of Carter's estimates Ben Zvi concludes that the bodies of literature which Barstad would assign to the exilic period (with one or two minor exceptions) could not have been written either during the exile or in Persian I. The reason for this, according to Ben Zvi, is that until 450 BCE the demographic and economic conditions in Yehud would not have been sufficiently developed to have sustained any significant literary activity. I will explore this issue further below. This sparsely populated Yehud was not marked by profound social or theological divisions. For both Carter and Ben Zvi, one major economic challenge of the period appears to have been the need for sectors of the urban population to construct persuasive reasons why the rural community should part with a portion of its surplus to support groups such as the literati, priests, and other administrative officials.41 Ben Zvi and Carter differ with respect to the period within which the relevant biblical materials were produced. Carter sees such works as DH, P, Third Isaiah, Haggai, First and Second Zechariah, Joel, Jonah, Malachi, Chronicles and the editing of the Writings as having taken place in Yehud during the Persian period, although he ventures no specific suggestions regarding dates.42 He does not appear to exclude Persian I from consideration on the basis of its low population, as does Ben Zvi. I note in conclusion that like Barstad, Ben Zvi moves from demographics to potential for literary output. 2. Two Foundational Questions What, then, did the Jerusalem of 520 BCE look like? Was it a hotbed of intra-communal conflict, reinforced by polemical prophetic preaching 39. Carter, Emergence, pp. 201-202. For his earlier figures for Yehud (10,850 and 17,000) see Carter, 'Yehud', p. 135. 40. Carter, Emergence, pp. 200-201, and 'Yehud', p. 129. 41. Ben Zvi, 'Urban Center', p. 197; Carter, 'Yehud', p. 138, esp. n. 87 and Emergence, p. 287 n. 80. 42. Carter, 'Yehud', p. 137 and Emergence, pp. 286-88. N.P. Lemche, 'The Old Testament: A Hellenistic Book', SJOT1 (1993), pp. 184-85 nn. 41-42, asserts that such conditions did not exist until the Hellenistic period.

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and sectarian literary output? Was it a bustling economic centre where, geopolitical changes notwithstanding, literary and economic activity continued apace? Or was it a shadow of its former self where a small and beleaguered population now sought to stay alive, and somehow, in the process, managed to rehabilitate a damaged cult site? Two foundational questions would appear to be of critical importance in determining our approach to the reconstruction of the sociology of Yehud. The first concerns demographics: which of the preceding demographic profiles is most accurate for Early Persian Yehud? The second question concerns the potential for literary output: can Persian I Yehud be considered a candidate for the production of theological literature? a. The Demographic Framework of Early Persian Yehud Well-founded demographic estimates provide a highly useful point of reference vis-a-vis competing sociological reconstructions. Methodologically, the utility of such estimates is maximized when they are introduced before or at very least at the same time as the application of sociological analogies, the reading of texts, or the reconstruction of social, political and economic circumstances. Demographic assessment thus provides the backdrop against which other factors may be considered. Of the models presented above, only the 'Demographic Decline' position approaches the question of population levels from the perspective of a clearly formulated methodology, elaborated by a variety of researchers over a significant period of time, and applied and tested in a variety of contexts. Thus while Kreissig, Weinberg and Barstad all take into serious consideration the archaeological data relevant to the period, none attempts to translate that data into population estimates using any clearly definable methodology. We are therefore more inclined to accept the lower figures proposed by Carter and Ben Zvi, than the higher estimates presupposed in other reconstructions. Yet having opted for these low levels, it is perhaps prudent to see them as delimiting the lower end of a broader range of potential population figures. This is due to the fact that it is more likely that future research will raise rather than diminish the figures proposed by Carter. Put another way, it is more likely that Persian I occupation will be posited in new sites than that it will be rejected for sites where it is currently assumed. Carter clearly states that his figures are 'provisional


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at best'.43 Thus a reasonable range for the population of Persian I Yehud might be somewhere between Carter's estimate of 13,35044 and the figure of about 20,000 proposed by Albright.45 Allowing for a similar margin for Jerusalem, that city would have a population of somewhere between 750 and 1,500 inhabitants. Such a margin also leaves room for the potential inclusion of any extra-mural population, should such have existed.46 These population estimates call into question the viability of certain aspects of the 'Conflict' and 'Populous Judah' models. Thus, for example, to remain persuasive, the 'Conflict' model must take due account of the fact that social dynamics do indeed change as population density changes. This is especially true when the community under study is facing a significant challenge or engaged in a demanding undertaking, as was the Jerusalem community. For this reason, the contours, proportions, and intensity of the social conflict (which must of course have existed to some degree), must be analyzed and reconstructed in light of the number of people involved, and their broader economic and social situation. The various conflict based models appear to have been formulated presupposing a dense population. If the lower figures are accurate, the models must be revisited. Clearly the intensity of conflict will increase as greater population levels are pressed into limited space. One wonders how Hanson, Weinberg or Morton Smith would have worked out their conflict-based hypotheses had they begun with more modest population figures. It is worth noting that in such reconstructions the biblical numbers are at times incorporated at face value without much analysis (as Hanson does), or interpreted in a rather unconventional way (as Weinberg does).47 Similarly Barstad, while drawing on a wide variety of significant data, does not, conclusively demonstrate that Babylonian Judah was a densely populated province. So, for example, the evidence which he provides of some population in exilic Judah and Jerusalem does not necessarily imply that the population there remained substantially close to its pre-587 BCE levels throughout the entire neo-Babylonian period. 43. Carter, Emergence, p. 202. 44. Carter, Emergence, p. 201. 45. W.F. Albright, The Biblical Period from Abraham to Ezra (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), p. 87. 46. Cf. Carter, Emergence, pp. 145-47. 47. Hanson, Dawn, pp. 226-27; Weinberg, 'Demographische Notizen',passim.

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Similarly his arguments regarding the economic importance of SyriaPalestine as a whole to the Babylonian empire does not prove the existence of a booming economy and dense population specifically in Judah. Furthermore his argument that the 'Myth of the Empty Land' is a literary construct used for rhetorical and ideological purposes does not necessarily demonstrate that no significant diminution in the population actually transpired. As we have seen, there is clear evidence which points in the direction of population decline. Samaria and Galilee appear to have experienced similar population declines in the late Babylonian and early Persian periods, and to have had population levels similar to those we are positing for Yehud.48 Barstad cites Shiloh's estimate of the population of Jerusalem at the end of the eighth century of 25,00040,000. He then poses the question, 'What happened to Jerusalem and to all these people'?49 He appears to intimate that such a question is a difficult one for 'empty landers' to answer. However the question cannot be resolved simply by affirming, as Barstad does, that the bulk of the population either stayed put or fled to sites such as Tell el-Ful.50 Whatever we might have expected to happen based on other considerations, suffice it to say that something appears to have happened to all those people. Barstad goes on to cite E.-M. Laperrousaz as affirming a population of 12,000 in Jerusalem during the exile.51 However, Laperrousaz appears to refer that figure to Nehemiah's Jerusalem rather than to the Babylonian period.52 Furthermore Barkay's tomb excavations in the Hinnom valley (to which Barstad makes reference) demonstrates that Jerusalem was most likely occupied during the Babylonian period. However this data cannot in itself provide an adequate estimate of the population of Jerusalem at the time. Similarly S.S. Weinberg's summary of the 1967-68 Israel Department of Antiquities survey, which Barstad then cites, cannot be said to conclusively demonstrate a densely populated Yehud. It would therefore appear that the most probable profile is that of a significant demographic decline. At this point it may be instructive to canvass the text of Haggai itself for any clues to the demographic situation the text may wittingly or 48. Briend, 'Inoccupation', p. 121; Zertal 'The Pahwah', pp. 11-12. Zertal appears to posit a population of approximately 20,000 for Samaria in Persian I. 49. Barstad, Myth, p. 53. 50. Barstad, Myth, pp. 48-50; 53-55. 51. Barstad, Myth, p. 53 n. 19, italics his. 52. Laperrousaz, 'Jerusalem', p. 57.


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unwittingly reveal. The use of Haggai may be justified on the grounds that (1) the most likely date of the book's final redaction is in Persian I53 and (2) we are not attempting to elicit any detailed historical data from the text, but rather a general impression or background. The descriptions of renovating the temple may reveal something of the general demographic situation in 520 BCE in this regard. Before any work begins, the temple is described as D~in ('to be waste, desolate' vv. 4, 9). In v. 4 3~in stands opposite a description of the peoples houses as DÎSO or 'covered'.54 If the contrast were simply one regarding the relative material states of the two structures in question, one would anticipate a more concrete term describing the temple's physical state of disrepair. Indeed, several such terms were available. Four examples are as follows: (1) JT1] ('to pull or break down') which is used passively to describe broken down cities (Jer. 4.26) or houses (Jer. 33.4; Ezek. 16.39). It may also be used actively to describe the tearing down of altars (Exod. 34.13; Deut. 7.25), towers (Judg. 8.9), houses (Isa. 22.10; Ezek. 26.9) or, significantly, the temple of Baal (2 Kgs 10.27; 11.18; 2 Chron. 23.17); (2) D^n ('to smite, hammer, or strike down') which is used with reference to the damaging of the wood in the temple during the Babylonian invasion (Ps. 74.6); (3) J*"1D ('to break through, break down, break up') used passively with reference to the tearing down of the walls of Jerusalem (Neh. 1.3; 2.13; 4.1; cf. Ps. 80.13; 89.41; Isa. 5.5; 2 Chron. 25.23; or (4) D~in ('to throw down, break down or tear down') used passively of the breaking down of cities (Ezek. 36.35), walls (Jer. 50.15), and foundations (Ezek. 30.4). Indeed, the descriptions in Jer. 52.17-23; 2 Kgs 24.13-17 and Ps. 74.4-9 appear to indicate 53. In my opinion there is no convincing reason for dating the final redaction of Haggai after 516 BCE but many persuasive arguments for placing it before that date. These include (1) the presence, form, and variations in form of the date formulae within the book (cf. R. Yaron, The Scheme of the Aramaic Legal Documents', JJS 2 [1957], pp. 33-61; J. Kessler, The Second Year of Darius and the Prophet Haggai', Transeuphratene 5 [1992], pp. 63-84); (2) the lack of redactional attenuation of the optimistic oracle to Zerubbabel in 2.20-23 (cf. R.A. Mason, The Purpose of the "Editorial Framework" of the Book of Haggai', VT27 [1977], pp. 413-21 esp. p. 417; T. Chary, Aggee—Zacharie Malachie [Sources Bibliques; Paris: J. Gabalda, 1969], p. 12; Verhoef, Haggai, p. 10); (3) the lack of any mention of the completion of the temple (cf. Meyers and Meyers, Haggai, pp. xliii-xlv ); (4) the lack of any hesitation regarding diarchic communal leadership (cf. Mason, 'Purpose', p. 421). 54. For this understanding of the term see, for example, Meyers and Meyers, Haggai, p. 23.

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pillaging, dismantling, and desecration, rather than wholesale demolition. The verbal root inn ('to be dry, waste, desolate', Isa. 34.10; Jer. 26.9; Ezek. 26.19) the adjective H~in ('to be waste, desolate', Jer. 33,10.12; Ezek. 36.35, 38), and the noun nmn ('waste, desolation, ruin', Ezra 9.9; Jer. 7.34; 27.17; 44.2, 6, 22; Ezek. 36.10), by contrast, frequently refer not to the physical dismantling of structures but the results of such destructive activity, that is a state of abandonment and depopulation which comes to a region as a result of invasion and devastation by enemies. As Carroll notes, the term implies the cessation of normal and expected activities.55 Amsler is certainly correct in his observation, '[harev] is not to be taken as a description of the ruined state of the temple building, but, more specifically, designates a lonely and deserted place, forgotten by all, and left to die'.56 Thus the term in 1.4 does not refer primarily to the unrepaired state of the building, but more generally to the abandonment of the site as a whole. This description seems to accord well with the notion of a depopulated or under-populated Jerusalem. This general impression is reinforced by other details in the text. In v. 14 the people are described as coming (N'O) to do the work. Dominique Barthelemy has convincingly argued that in v. 2 the best resolution to the text critical issues regarding Hi? ('the time') is to construe the people as the subject of Kin (as in v. 14) and read the verse, 'It is not the time [for us] to come'.57 He then suggests that the use of 'come' (N*n) here implies a coming to Jerusalem from other surrounding villages, thus indicating that the population of Jerusalem was not equal to the task at hand. While N"D in v. 14 could merely refer to the coming to the temple mount from the lower slopes of the eastern hill, the text nowhere implies that the people whose thoughts are expressed in v. 2 and who come to do the work in v. 14 are to be limited to the Jerusalem 55. R.P. Carroll, Jeremiah: A Commentary (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1986), pp. 635-36. 56. '[harev] decrit non 1'etat de mine ou se trouve le bailment du temple, mais plus precisement la solitude d'un lieu desertique, abandonne de tous et livre a la mort' (Amsler, Aggee, p. 22). 57. D. Barthelemy (ed.), Critique textuelle de I'Ancien Testament. III. Ezechiel, Daniel et les 12 prophetes (OBO, 50/3; Fribourg: Editions Universitaires; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck& Ruprecht, 1992), p. 924. Cf. J. Kessler, "t (le temps) en Aggee I 2-4: conflit theologique ou "sagesse mondaine"?', KT48 (1998), pp. 555-59.


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population. Yet when the people do come (and I would not see the use of rr~lK2J 'remnant' in 1.14 as indicating that only a portion of the population was involved in the project),58 only the most meager of structures is produced (2.1-4). It would seem that such images correspond more readily to a sparsely populated, economically deprived region than to a large and busy urban setting. It is difficult to imagine the temple site as being described as desolate or abandoned if it was located at the centre of a geographically circumscribed yet densely populated urban environment. Similarly such a description seems inappropriate if, as both the 'Conflict' and 'Populous Yehud' positions assume, the temple site was a place where ritual activities on behalf of a sizable population were undertaken, and theological debates raged. Indeed given the significance of the temple, if conditions had permitted, it is difficult to explain why the refurbishing of the cult site had not taken place sooner. It is unlikely to have engendered much imperial opposition in the waning years of Babylonian rule. Certainly there would have been little objection to it in the years following 539 BCE. In conclusion then, while the text of Haggai cannot be said to be determinative, one can affirm that it accords well with the hypothesis of a sparsely inhabited Jerusalem. b. Urbanization, Literary Output, and Population Density Given a demographically limited Yehud, what are the implications for literary output? This question has been posed by Carter, and revisited and expanded by Ben Zvi. For the latter, Yehud's population and its capacity for literary output are quite closely related. This conviction is integrally related to other concomitant factors such as (1) the relative percentage of highly literate members within ancient societies and the applicability of such statistics cross culturally; 59 (2) the location of these literati in urban centres;60 (3) the provision of the economic support required by these literati via the surplus generated by the rural population;61 and (4) the nature of the literary activity of these writers.62 Briefly summarized, Ben Zvi argues as follows. Biblical literature is the work of a group of 'literati'. By 'literati' he means those whose 58. 59. 60. 61. 62.

Apud Clines, 'Haggai's Temple', p. 72. Ben Zvi, 'Urban Center', pp. 195-96. Ben Zvi, 'Urban Center', p. 196. Ben Zvi, 'Urban Center', p. 199. Ben Zvi, 'Urban Center', passim, esp. pp. 196-97.

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literary capabilities would be sufficiently developed so as to be able to (and here I use Ben Zvi's words) to 'create' or 'compose'63 significant tracts of the Bible as we have it. These 'literati' were located in urban centres.64 Furthermore, the training and maintenance of these literati was financed by the surplus produced by the surrounding rural regions.65 Ben Zvi notes that the percentage of literati to the total population in fourth century Egypt was between 0.25 and 0.33 per cent. He grants that this percentage might be slightly higher in Yehud.66 He then concludes that the period during which economic conditions would have been most favourable for the production of biblical literature was Persian II. He suggests that at that period the rural population, as well as Persian imperial investment in Jerusalem would have produced conditions adequate to finance a cadre of urban literati.67 However, he adds, economic realities would still have necessitated that these literati be 'part time' and have some other source of income.68 Thus the bulk of the biblical literature was produced by a small, homogeneous group of contemporaries. Ben Zvi accounts for the theological and stylistic diversity in the literature produced by this relatively small group on the basis of rhetorical concerns. He maintains that these literati adopted certain styles and linguistic conventions for certain documents in order to give those texts the appearance of antiquity, and thus greater authority.69 Therefore despite the clear differences between these texts, they were still the product of a group of contemporaries. Thus Ben Zvi concludes that while some biblical literature may have been produced in Persian I or in the Ptolemaic period, the bulk of it was produced in Persian II.70 As we have seen, his objections to extensive literary production in Persian I relate to (a) the relatively small number of urban

63. Ben Zvi, 'Urban Center', pp. 198, 201. 64. Ben Zvi, 'Urban Center', pp. 195-97. 65. Ben Zvi, 'Urban Center', pp. 196-97. 66. Ben Zvi, 'Urban Center', pp. 196, 201, 204. As Lemaire notes, due to their former status as an ethic minority in the Babylonian empire and their responsibilities to the crown, the returnees may have been a highly literate group (Lemaire, 'Populations', p. 44). 67. Ben Zvi, 'Urban Center', p. 197. 68. Ben Zvi, 'Urban Center', pp. 205-206. 69. Ben Zvi, 'Urban Center', p. 205. 70. Ben Zvi, 'Urban Center', pp. 203-204.


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literati present in Jerusalem and (b) the insufficient financial resources to support them.71 Ben Zvi's arguments represent a helpful caution against the hasty attribution of specific texts to Persian I or Babylonian Yehud with little or no consideration given to the demographic situation of the period. Three attenuating factors, however, should be considered alongside his evaluation of the literary capacities of Persian I Yehud. First, this group of literati may have had resources available to them other than the surplus of rural Yehud. Jewish/Yahwistic populations existed both in Babylon,72 and Egypt as well as in the provinces surrounding Yehud. As Briend, Lemaire, Cohen, and Carter have noted, Yahwistic populations existed in such regions as Galilee and Samaria,73 as well as Ammon, Moab, and the Edomite territory.74 The reconstruction of the temple would hardly have been seen as an insignificant endeavour by such populations. Furthermore, just as the pax Assyriaca opened the borders between provinces and kingdoms,75 there is good reason to assume that the Jerusalem community enjoyed contact with Yahwists of other regions via the pax Persic a. Financial aid from such sectors, which may have in turn created possibilities for literary output, is entirely plausible.76 Furthermore, even in Persian I, the installation of Zerubbabel and the general support of the Persian crown for the rehabilitation of Jerusalem as an urban centre may have reduced that city's fiscal dependence upon the surplus of the rural environs. Second, the literary activity involved in the production of some texts 71. Ben Zvi appears to deem (b) to be more critical than (a). 72. On which see, most recently, F. Joannes and A. Lemaire, 'Trois tablettes cuneiformes a onomastique ouest-semitique', Transeuphratene 17 (1999), pp. 17-33. 73. Lemaire, 'Populations', p. 64. 74. A. Lemaire, 'Les transformations politiques et culturelles de la Transjordanie au Vie Siecle av. J.C.', Transeuphratene 8 (1994), pp. 9-27, esp. p. 12; idem, 'Les inscriptions palestiniennes d'epoque perse: un bilan provisoire', Transeuphratene 1 (1989), pp. 87-104, esp. p. 99, 104; idem, 'Populations', p. 66; Zertal, 'The Pahwah', pp. 15-17; R. Cohen, 'Solomon's Negev Defense Line Contained Three Fewer Fortresses', BARev 12.4 (1986), pp. 40-45; I. Eph'al, 'Changes in Palestine during the Persian Period in Light of Epigraphic Sources', IEJ 48 (1998), pp. 114-16; Carter, Emergence, p. 290. 75. N. Na'aman, 'Population Changes in Palestine Following the Assyrian Deportations', Tel Aviv 20 (1993), pp. 106-19, esp. p. 119. 76. Cf. Carter, Emergence, p. 292.

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may have been less extensive than that envisaged by Ben Zvi. Some of the work of the literati may have consisted of transcribing, updating, or redacting 77 earlier traditions, both written and oral which may have been circulating within Persian I Yehud.78 Third, literary activity should not be entirely limited to the Jerusalem scribal context. As Aufrecht and Lemaire have noted, it appears probable that literary activity in Israel was not exclusively the prerogative of professional scribal schools but was also cultivated in priestly and prophetic circles79 and to a lesser extent the more general population.80 There is no reason to limit literary production to Jerusalem. Some literary activity outside Jerusalem may be envisaged. This potential enlargement of the scope of more significant literary activity to both Persian I and Persian II leaves room to explain the literary diversity of the period in other ways than those which Ben Zvi has proposed. Differences of style and theological emphasis may still be accounted for by the more conventional categories of chronological and geographical difference, diversity of circles of redaction, and attachment to particular theological traditions. At this point it may be once again useful to examine the text of Haggai. In pursuit of an understanding of Yehud's potential for literary output it is instructive to inquire as to what kind of theological traditions appear in the text.81 I propose, therefore, to ask what may be implied when one examines the rhetorical use of theological traditions 77. As Ben Zvi acknowledges, 'Urban Center', p. 202. 78. Cf. O.K. Steck, Theological Streams of Tradition', in Douglas A. Knight (ed.), Tradition and Theology in the Old Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), pp. 183-214. 79. A. Lemaire, Les ecoles et la formation de la Bible dans I'ancien Israel (OBO, 39; Fribourg: Editions Universitaires; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1981), pp. 47-54. 80. W.E. Aufrecht, 'Urbanization and Northwest Semitic Inscriptions of the Late Bronze and Iron Ages', in Walter E. Aufrecht, Neil A. Mirau and Steven W. Gauley (eds.), Urbanization in Antiquity (JSOTSup, 244; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), pp. 116-29. Aufrecht states, 'The epigraphic evidence tells us that many more people than scribes could read and write at the end of the Iron Age in the Levant' (p. 122). Aufrecht, however, sees the biblical text as the product of professional scribes. 81. Cf. Steck, Theological Streams of Tradition'; and G. von Rad, The City on the Hill', in The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays (trans. E.W.T. Dicken; London: SCM Press, 1984), pp. 232-42.


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within Haggai. We thus may potentially know something of the theological world of Jerusalem in 520 BCE when we examine the traditions which serve as rhetorical vehicles for the message of the book. Put another way, by examining the rhetorical strategy of the prophet Haggai as communicated by the book's narrator, one may be able to glimpse the shared theological world of narrator and intended and/or implied audience. In the text, Haggai (be he a real prophet or a literary character, or a combination of the two) makes his appeal to his hearers on the basis of a wide diversity of traditions, frequently configured in creative and innovative ways. The text of Haggai thus knows of the following traditions and motifs: the Jerusalem temple as Yahweh's dwelling place (1.2-14; 2.1-4); the priestly notions of pure and impure (2.10-19); the deuteronomistic futility curse (1.3-11); the hope placed in the Davidic line (2.20-23); the final assault on Zion and her subsequent deliverance (2.6-9, 20-23); the pilgrimage of the nations (2.6-9); the traditions of the exodus (2.5),82 the oracles against the nations (2.6-9, 20-23). While nothing need be posited regarding the existence of documents containing these traditions, we may be justified in seeing these motifs as integral to the theological streams of tradition (to use Steck's apt phrase) current within the community. True, the book's framer(s) could have included these motifs to create the impression of a theologically literate audience. However, even if such a fiction is granted, we must still conclude that one or a few members of the community were sufficiently versed in a diversity of theological traditions so as to have created the fiction of a theologically literate implied hearer. The literary evidence of Haggai thus presents the image of a community sharing some attachment to a variety of theological traditions evidenced elsewhere in biblical literature. The presence of such a wide spectrum of theological traditions and their innovative configuration does raise the possibility that various traditions were circulating in Persian I Yehud and that creative theological writing and redaction were possible. In conclusion, I believe that a balanced appreciation of Yehud's literary capabilities in Persian I is critical. On one hand, it is important to maintain that the low population of early Persian Yehud does not preclude it from having been the origin of certain portions of biblical literature. Yet having argued for the possibility of literary output, the general import of Ben Zvi's analysis does indeed stand. We are dealing 82. See the commentaries on the textual issue here. With Barthelemy, I retain the disputed reference to the 'coming out of Egypt'.

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with a small population, a limited number of whom would have been fully literate. This ought to caution against an overly zealous attempt to locate the origin of vast amounts of biblical literature to Persian I Yehud. Yet even given the province's limited demographic base, it would appear legitimate to attribute a modest but significant corpus of texts to Persian I Yehud, if other significant factors would appear to favour such an identification.83 c. Jerusalem in 520 BCE: Toward a Minimal Reconstruction What then can be affirmed regarding the urban centre of Jerusalem in 520 BCE? Demographic analysis strongly suggests a relatively low population. This conclusion mirrors the general archaeological impression of a sparsely populated region eking out a subsistence economy. It is also clear that Yehud constituted an independent province in the mosaic of tiny provinces that made up Syria-Palestine under Persian rule.84 It most likely covered a region of about 20 to 25 km around Jerusalem.85 In its initial phase local political leadership was exercised by a series of governors related by birth or marriage to the Davidic line.86 Furthermore, there seems to be no reason to doubt that the community in Yehud was composed of both non-exiled Judeans and returnees. Onomastic evidence from late sixth century Babylon would suggest that a definable Yahwistic population may be located there at the time.87 It is therefore not unlikely that the returnees were ethnically 83. For an example of this kind of approach, see R. Person's analysis of the 'Deuteronomic School' against the backdrop of the early postexilic period: R. Person, Second Zechariah and the Deuteronomistic School (JSOTSup, 167; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993), esp. pp. 146-68. 84. A. Lemaire, 'Histoire et administration de la Palestine a 1'epoque perse', in E.-M. Laperrousaz and A. Lemaire (eds.), La Palestine a 1'epoque perse (Paris: Cerf, 1994), pp. 16-17. 85. Carter, 'Yehud', pp. 118-19; Lemaire, 'Histoire et administration', pp. 20-21. 86. A. Lemaire, 'Review of N. Avigad, Bullae and Seals from a Post-Exilic Archive', Syria 54 (1977), pp. 129-131; E.M. Meyers, 'The Shelomith Seal and the Judaean Restoration, Some Additional Considerations',El 18 (1985), pp. 31*-38*. 87. Johannes and Lemaire, Trois tablettes', passim. The evidence presented by Johannes and Lemaire corroborates Grabbe's affirmation of the possibility of ethnic groups remaining together in exile. L.L. Grabbe, '"The Exile" Under the Theodolite: Historiography as Triangulation', in idem (ed.), Leading Captivity Captive (JSOTSup, 278; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), pp. 80-99.


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related to the non-exiled population. The presence of a Davidide among the community's leadership reinforces this impression. Non-biblical literary evidence indicates that both Hebrew and Aramaic were utilized in Yehud.88 There is no evidence which would clearly indicate that this community or its leadership engaged in activities aimed at overthrowing Persian rule in the province.89 It would appear that the community's leadership was diarchic in form.90 This community undertook and completed the restoration of the damaged central shrine in Jerusalem. Broader theological conceptions, identifiable elsewhere in biblical literature, as well as prophetic encouragement, played a role in the completion of this project. In the light of this data, it would seem appropriate to re-visit the question of why the rebuilding of the temple as described in Haggai took place when it did and of its effects on the demographic situation and the potential for literary output. We have situated the prophetic call to rebuild the temple against the backdrop of a struggling and underpopulated Jerusalem. Such a project cannot be considered in isolation from the broader forces and transitions within the Yahwism of the period, as well as broader forces within the Persian empire. As has been widely noted, early Persian Yahwism was geographically, sociologically, and theologically disparate.91 This diversity would have been especially apparent before the reconstruction of its former central shrine. As Blenkinsopp has noted, the question of the rehabilitation of Jerusalem and its temple would have increased in poignancy as the years following 587 BCE advanced.92 Persian imperial concerns would have similarly favored the strengthening of the provincial capital, especially following Cambyses' conquest of Egypt and the revolts subsequent to Darius's accession. The installation of Zerubbabel may be understood in the context of such initiatives. Thus prophetic and

88. E. Lipinski, 'Geographic linguistique de la Transeuphratene a 1'epoque achemenide', Transeuphratene 3 (1990), pp. 95-107. 89. Kessler, 'Second Year', pp. 80-84. 90. Mason, 'Purpose', p. 421. 91. On which see, among others, S. Japhet, 'People and Land in the Restoration Period', in G. Strecker (ed.), Das Land Israel in biblischer Zeit (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1983), pp. 103-25. 92. J. Blenkinsopp, 'The Judaean Priesthood during the Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid Periods: A Hypothetical Reconstruction', CBQ 60 (1998), p. 42.

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Persian concerns may have coalesced to favor both the refurbishing of the temple, and the rehabilitation of the city as a whole. As has been widely noted, once this process had begun, changes in the demographic and sociological landscape would have been inevitable. A renovated temple would require an increase in the local priestly personnel. A reinforced provincial capital would generate a cadre of civil servants of various sorts. The rehabilitation of the temple would have represented a significant step in the Persian collection of tax in Yehud.93 This new urban population would require the services of artisans, merchants, scribes and a variety of other personnel. This in turn may have prompted and facilitated the production of theological literature both in Jerusalem and beyond. Thus 520-516 BCE may prove to have been a more critical moment in the history of Jerusalem than is often appreciated. Circumstances in the broader world appear to have come together to favor the development of Jerusalem in 520 BCE as they had not done since its fall. As a result, that city was transformed into a more functional and important urban centre than it had been for some time. Thus the revitalization of the temple site was intrinsically linked in both cause and effect to the political, theological, and sociological dimensions of early Persian Yehud as well as to factors beyond the borders of that province. It has become customary to view the population growth and political developments in mid-fifth-century Yehud as a decisive moment in the province's history. Perhaps it is now time to view the changes in the urban centre of Jerusalem in 520-516 BCE as a equally critical moment in the emergence of Persian Yehud and of Second Temple Judaism as a whole.

93. Cf. J. Schaper, The Jerusalem Temple as an Instrument of Achaemenid Fiscal Administration', VT45 (1995), pp. 528-39. Schaper's article does not address the highly interesting question of the changes in process and levy which the rehabilitation of the temple would have produced.

THE SOCIOLOGY OFPREINDUSTRIAL CITIES

Ben D. Nefzger

Rohrbaugh has stressed that '[s]ince most modern readers who encounter the term "city" in the New Testament undoubtedly envision the large and diverse industrial cities in which they themselves live, it is worth thinking about the differences between cities then and cities now if we are to read with understanding'.1 The same observation may be made for Old Testament readers. The cities of the Old Testament are quite different from those most of us have lived in and experienced. Urban sociology has two major interests in cities. First, it is interested in the origins and development of cities. That is, what are the factors that bring them into being and sustain their growth? This matter is addressed in the present article. However, a second and equally important question of urban sociology is whether cities do anything to their residents. At a superficial level, this seems to be an absurd question. Of course they do—people conduct business in cities, form families, worship their gods, and get upset with heavy freeway traffic during rush hours. However, this question may be treated at a deeper level. As a colleague once asked me, 'If I hit my finger with a hammer in a building project in the city, is that an urban problem?' In other words, although it happened in the city, did the city have anything to do with it, or is it simply the context in which causal factors operate? Thus this question asks whether there is something fundamental about the city that makes social structure and social processes different there than if they occurred outside the city (or in a different kind of city). Sociologists have taken quite different positions on this issue but most, without addressing it directly, simply ignore the matter altogether, treating each intellectual problem in terms of specific variables. That is, 1. R.L. Rohrbaugh, 'The Preindustrial City', in R.L. Rohrbaugh (ed.), The Social Sciences and New Testament Interpretation (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996), p. 107.

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a social problem such as illicit drug use might be considered in terms of population density in housing but, since housing density can be high outside of cities, as well as within them, the research would not be conceptualized as an urban matter. As such, the city would be considered the context and not a potential cause of the problem. The present article rejects this passive view of cities, arguing that they facilitate the development of urban subcultures. As will be presented below, this perspective has a sociological history, logical support, and empirical validation. However, I will end with the question of its applicability to cities of the type and historical period examined in this volume. It is the nature of sociology to generalize from concrete, specific instances, to search for commonalties in relationships and to do this through comparisons with previous manifestations of the same entity or by comparing multiple instances at the same time or place. The results are sometimes presented as models or types that, although simpler than the cases from which they are drawn, are viewed as the essence of them. This puts sociology in distinct contrast to history, which often emphasizes the detailed examination of particular cases, seeing each as a unique entity. The present article draws upon the preindustrial/ industrial typology, a long-standing distinction in sociological analysis. Some Distinctions There is no classical definition of the city. Many Old Testament communities were simply labeled as cities on the basis of having surrounding walls, dependent villages, a market place, or significant public buildings such as a temple. Some of these communities had a population of only two or three hundred. Which would be classified as cities by contemporary sociologists? Current urban sociologists themselves have been unable to agree on an exact, single definition of the city and this continues to be a much discussed and debated topic. However, several working definitions will be useful at the outset. The city may be defined as a collection of people and buildings, large for its time and place, characterized by a division of labor, social diversity, distinctive activities, and a way of life.2 The term urban is used in 2. This definition is based on the 'preliminary definition' in S.L. Queen and L.F. Thomas, The City; A Study of Urbanism in the United States (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1939), p. 4, which the authors suggest will require some modification. I have taken the liberty of making such a modification.

NEFZGER The Sociology of Preindustrial Cities

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this article as a synonym for city. Urbanization refers to '...the proportion of the total population concentrated in urban settlements, or else to a rise in this proportion'.3 This is in distinction to the growth of cities, which is defined as an increase in the number of people living in cities.4 That is, one or more cities in a society may grow in size while the fraction of the total population living in cities (urbanization) stays the same, or even declines. Urbanism has been defined in two ways in the sociological literature: as a way of life and as a settlement pattern.5 In this article I shall be using it as a way of life; that is, as the subculture of persons who reside in cities. The term city, as defined above, captures both meanings but suggests the dependent nature of the way of life. The Origin of Cities It was only with the domestication of plants and animals during the Neolithic period that it became possible for humans to lead a relatively settled existence. Neolithic farmers could, and did, live together in permanent villages. The first settled villages, which included only a few hundred inhabitants, occurred in the Fertile Crescent area in the period of 6500-5000 BCE. However, they were not cities in terms of settlement pattern or in way of life. They had simple social orders and they were homogeneous in social characteristics such as occupation, property, and wealth. Within age and sex groupings, everyone shared the same experiences.6 Cities first appeared at approximately 3500 BCE and were well developed by 3000-2500 BCE. There were three requirements for their emergence.7 The first was the existence of a surplus of food and other necessities. In other words, levels of productivity had to be high enough so that peasants produced more than they and their immediate dependents needed for survival. The surplus would allow some people to live 3. K. Davis, 'The Urbanization of the Human Population', Scientific American 213.3 (September 1965), pp. 41-63 (41). 4. Davis, 'Urbanization', pp. 41-42. 5. N.P. Gist and S.F. Fava, Urban Society (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 6th edn, 1974), p. 3. 6. Gist and Fava, Urban Society, pp. 8-10. 7. P.M. Hauser, 'Urbanization: An Overview', in P.M. Mauser and L.F. Schnore (eds.), The Study of Urbanization (New York: John Wiley, 1965), pp. 1-47; Gist and Fava, Urban Society, pp. 3-25 ; V.G. Childe, 'The Urban Revolution', The Town Planning Review 221.1 (1950), pp. 3-17.

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in settlements where they were not concerned with the actual physical provision of their own supply of food and other material goods. Therefore, these settlements could be relatively large, densely populated, and permanent. The second factor was an increase in technology. The further development of agricultural technology to the point where a surplus existed increased the potential size of the settled population. This allowed for the development of crafts among persons who were able to engage in activities other than agriculture. Invention and perfection of innovations such as the wheel, the road, irrigation, cultivation stock breeding, and improvements in fishing increased the size of the surplus and, therefore in turn, the number of persons who could live in cites and engage in nonagricultural activities. Also important was the development of a system of writing and numerical notation which enabled people to keep exact records, accumulate knowledge, and preserve literature, poetry, philosophy, and other intellectual products. The third requirement was the addition of other forms of social organization to those based on family and kinship. The sheer existence of a surplus is not sufficient to ensure that it will be concentrated and distributed to people living apart from the original producers. It requires a social system in which people owe loyalty and obligation to groups other than the family and kin. An increased population required a more complex internal social organization and it was also necessary to work out new ways to link the city with its sources of food and raw materials. The complex differentiated social structure of the earliest urban civilized society is evident in several dimensions.8 Institutional diversity was shown in the emergence of authority structures—especially the state—with full-time personnel and distinct buildings separate from the family and kinship group which formerly organized the individual's life. The emergence of full-time specialists—persons whose regular occupation was a craft, trading, administration, a profession, or a service was very important. Occupational diversity added another dimension, for then people differed greatly in their training and life styles and began to develop loyalty to their craft group, trade, interest, or professional standards. Social class differences added a vertical dimension to diversity. Interpersonal relations also took on a new dimension, for now

8.

Gist and Fava, Urban Society, p. 13.


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some associations among people were indirect, impersonal, and specialized. Finally, social control and integration were achieved through the interdependence of diverse groups. All of these new complex aspects of social organization were in addition to, not replacements for, the previous simpler forms. The family and kinship group remained an important organizing institution. Personal, unspecialized primary-group contacts remained, as did social control through similarity of points of view. Gordon Childe: The Characteristics of Early Cities In a review of archaeological findings, Gordon Childe has identified 10 abstract characteristics that differentiate the earliest cities from villages of the time:9 (1) (2)

Larger and more densely populated permanent settlements Non-agricultural specialists supported by a surplus produced by peasants living in the city and in dependent villages (3) Taxation and capital accumulation (4) Monumental public buildings, such as temples, pyramids, and granaries (5) A ruling class supported by the surplus accumulated in a temple or royal granary (6) Invention of recording and the practical systems of writing and numerical notation (7) Acquisition of predictive sciences—arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy (8) New emphases in artistic expression (9) Dependence on trade for vital materials (10) Replacement of kinship by residence as the basis for membership in the community

In summarizing, Childe suggests an organic solidarity as the basis of these newly emerging cities. However imperfectly, he says, even the earliest urban communities must have been held together by a sort of solidarity missing from any Neolithic village. Peasants, craftsmen, priests and rulers formed a community, not only by reason of identity of language and belief, but also because each performed mutually complementary functions, needed for the well being of the whole.

9.

Childe, 'Urban Revolution', pp. 3-17.

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'Every City shall be Forsaken' Gideon Sjoberg: The Characteristics of Preindustrial Cities

Gideon Sjoberg has classified as preindustrial cities those that developed without the influence of industrial production, distribution, and consumption. As the result of an examination of such cities in comparison with those based on an industrial economic system, Sjoberg identifies the following common ecological, economic, and social characteristics of preindustrial cities:10 Ecological Organization (1) Such cities depend for food and raw material from without. Thus, they are marketing centers. They also serve as centers for handicraft manufacturing (2) They fulfill important political, religious, and educational functions and some preindustrial cities become specialized in one of these functions (3) Urbanization is low (4) The amount of food available to support an urban population has been limited by unmechanized agriculture, transportation facilities utilizing primarily human or animal power, and inefficient methods of food preservation and storage (5) There is a rigid social segregation which typically leads to the formation of 'quarters' or 'wards' (6) The quarters reflect the sharp local social divisions. Thus ethnic groups live in special sections. Occupational groupings, some being at the same time ethnic in character, typically reside apart from one another (7) Lower class and especially 'outcaste' groups live on the city's periphery, at a distance from the primary centers of activity (8) Despite rigid segregation, the evidence suggests no real specialization of land use such as is functionally necessary in industrialurban communities (9) The business district does not hold the position of dominance that it enjoys in the industrial-urban community Economic Organization (1) The economy is characterized by the absence of a system of production in which inanimate sources of power are used to multiply human effort

10. G. Sjoberg, 'The Preindustrial City', American Journal of Sociology 60 (1955), pp. 438-45. [Copyright 1955 by The University of Chicago.]

NEFZGER The Sociology ofPreindustrial Cities (2)

(3)

(4)

There is little fragmentation or specialization of work. Handicraftsmen participate in nearly every phase of manufacture, often carrying out the work in their own homes or in small shops nearby The various occupations are organized into guilds. Guild membership and apprenticeship are prerequisites to the practice of almost any occupation The economic structure of the preindustrial city functions with little rationality, judged by industrial-urban standards. This is shown in general nonstandardization of manufacturing methods as well as in the products and is even more evident in marketing. Fixed prices are rare

Social Organization (1) The economic system of the preindustrial city, based as it has been upon animate sources of power, articulates with a characteristic class structure and family, religious, educational, and governmental systems (2) A literate elite controls and depends for its existence upon the mass of the populace. The elite is composed of individuals holding positions in the governmental, religious, and/or educational institutions of the larger society, although at times groups such as large absentee landlords have belonged to it (3) At the opposite pole of the stratification structure are the masses, comprising such groups as handicraft workers whose goods and services are produced primarily for the elite's benefit (4) Between the elite and the lower class is a rather sharp schism. A middle class, typical of industrial-urban communities, where it can be considered the 'dominant class,' is not known in the preindustrial city but in both groups there are gradations in rank. However, these are gradations within the elite and lower class (5) Social mobility in the preindustrial city is minimal (6) Outcaste groups exist which are not an integral part of the dominant social system. They rank lower than the urban lower class, performing tasks considered especially degrading, such as burying the dead. Slaves, beggars, and the like are outcastes in most preindustrial cities (7) Kinship and the ability to perpetuate one's lineage are accorded marked prestige in preindustrial cities. However, the literate elite are the ones most able to fulfill these expectations (8) Kinship and familial organization display rigid patterns of sex and age differentiation. The formalized system of age grading is an effective mechanism of social control. Children and youth are subordinate to parents and other adults and among siblings the eldest son is privileged. This age grading, along with early marriage, prevents a youth culture

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'Every City shall be Forsaken' (9) (10)

(11) (12)

(13)

(14) (15) (16)

(17)

Kinship is functionally integrated with social class and also reinforces and is reinforced by economic organization The kinship system in the preindustrial city articulates with a special kind of religious system. The city is the seat of the key religious functionaries whose actions set standards for the rest of the society Religious activity is not separate from other social action but permeates family, economic, governmental, and other activities Formal education is typically restricted to the male elite, its purpose being to train individuals for position in the governmental, educational, or religious hierarchies The economy of the preindustrial cities does not require mass literacy and the system of production does not provide the leisure necessary for the acquisition of formal education Because preindustrial cities have no system of mass communication, they are relatively isolated from one another The masses in the city are isolated from the elite The formal government of the preindustrial city is the province of the elite and is closely integrated with the educational religious systems. It performs two principal functions: exacting tribute from the city's masses to support the activities of the elite and maintaining law and order through a 'police force' and a court system Little reliance is placed upon formal machinery for regulation of social life. Informal controls exerted through kinship, guild and religious system and personal standing are decisive

Thus, although cities that have developed without an industrial base are each unique in its own way, Sjoberg has identified numerous, interrelated characteristics which they share and which, in turn, sets them off from industrially based cities. The Social Effects of Cities I now turn to the effects of cities. I do so initially by crossing the line between preindustrial and industrial cities to examine a theory that was developed in the twentieth century about American industrial cities. a. Louis Wirth: Urbanism as a Way of Life The definition of the city at the beginning of this essay suggests that cities have a way of life associated with them; that is, ways of thinking, valuing, behaving, that are distinctive. Louis Wirth, in a classic article


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on this topic, 'Urbanism as a Way of Life',11 says that 'for sociological purposes a city may be defined as a relatively large, dense, and permanent settlement of socially heterogeneous individuals'. He then suggests that individuals in this setting develop a way of life that is distinctive for urbanites. This way of life is characterized by increased rationality and sophistication, depersonalization, an increase in secondary relationships, substitution of formal for informal social control, and segmentation in personal life. These, he believes, are the result of the three urban characteristics of population size, density, and heterogeneity. Thus, for Wirth, cities do something to their residents. However, although Wirth recognizes that the individual finds release from the limitations of rural life, the net result is an increase in personal and social disorganization, which the substitution of formal for informal controls is unable to fully overcome. b. Claude Fischer: Subcultural Theory As an important statement on urban life, Wirth's analysis has been widely examined and criticized. Claude Fischer has summarized these criticisms and counter-theories in his widely read The Urban Experience12 and then proposed his own subcultural theory which makes use of the ideas of both Wirth and his critics. Fischer suggests that there are four types of definitions of the word urban and three sociological theoretic approaches to the study of cities. The four types of definitions are: (1) Demographic, which essentially involves the size and density of population; (2) Institutional, which reserve the term 'city' for communities with certain specific institutions such as a commercial market; (3) Cultural, which require that a community possess particular cultural features, such as a group of literate people; and (4) Behavioral, which require certain distinctive and typical behavioral styles among the people of a community, such as an impersonal style of social interaction.13 Fischer builds his own theory on a demographic definition, arguing that it has at least three advantages: First, the numerical criterion is common to virtually all definitions of 'urban' or 'city'. Second, the 11. L. Wirth, 'Urbanism as a Way of Life', American Journal of Sociology 44 (1938), pp. 46-63. 12. C.S. Fischer, The Urban Experience (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 2ndedn, 1984). 13. Fischer, Urban Experience, pp. 24-25.

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purely demographic definition does not beg the question as to whether any other factor is necessarily associated with size. That remains an open question. Third, the demographic definition implies that 'urban' and 'city' refer to matters of degree; they are not all-or-nothing variables. For Fischer, then, the city is simply a place with a relatively large population. Fischer identifies three major theories of urbanism: determinist, compositionalist, and subcultural.14 Determinist theory, which Fischer also calls Wirthian theory or the theory of urban anomie, argues that urbanism increases social and personality disorders. Fischer quotes Wirth's definition of the city as '...a relatively large, dense, and permanent settlement of socially heterogeneous individuals', an essentially demographic definition. He says that for Wirth these features have personal and social structural consequences. Following the work of Georg Simmel,15 Wirth argues that the city produces an overabundance of stimuli, resulting in a psychic overload. Urban residents respond to this in an increasingly individualistic, rational, calculating manner thus becoming emotionally more distant from each other and, as a result, their sense of community is also lost. The increased rationality also makes for a greater division of labor, calculation, competition, and self-interest, thereby also loosening social bonds. With increased population size and, diversity, and the ability to travel within the city where one is not recognized, constraints on individuals are loosened, giving greater freedom to choose for themselves and to develop their own interests, but in Wirth's view, with heavy personal and social costs. Coupled with an increased size of population, informal social control is weakened and formal, secondary means must be constructed to replace the former primary ones. However, these secondary means are never able to restore the social and psychological disorganization of the former condition. Thus, cities are more characterized by these conditions than noncities and the larger the city, the more of it. In short, determinist theories do claim that cities have consequences but they are primarily the cause of individual and social disorder. Determinist theory has been challenged in several ways, most directly 14. Fischer, Urban Experience, pp. 28-41. 15. G. Simmel, 'The Metropolis and Mental Life', in R. Gutman and D. Popenoe (eds.), Neighborhood, City and Metropolis; An Integrated Reader in Urban Sociology (New York: Random House, 1970), pp. 777-87.


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by what Fischer calls 'compositionalist theory'. Compositional (or nonecological) theory denies any strong, direct effects of urbanism; it attributes differences between urban and rural behavior to the composition of the different subpopulations. Herbert Gans has presented a strong case for this theory, suggesting that cities are made up of differing groups whose subcultures are distinctive, not because the city has created them but because they are typical of all such ethnic, social class, gender, neighborhood, life-style groupings, and so on.16 That is, each such grouping has a distinctive subculture which results from its unique make-up and which is the same wherever that grouping is located— the grouping brings along its subculture to the city, the city doesn't create it. Although compositionalists acknowledge that demographic factors may have some effects on urban residents, they claim that they are indirect and weak, as compared, for instance, to the individual's economic position, cultural characteristics, and marital and family status. These factors are found in combination in ethnic and class enclaves within the city and are essentially unaffected by the demographic variables. Thus, what has the greatest effect on the individual is the 'world' in which he or she lives and operates. Subcultural theory adopts the basic orientation of the compositional school but holds that urbanism does have certain effects on the people of the city, with consequences much like the ones determinists see as evidence of disorganization. This is Fischer's theory. Fischer's subcultural theory makes use of both the determinist and compositional theories. It is his contention that the size, density, and heterogeneity of the city do have an effect on the residents but not by destroying social groups, as determinist theory suggests. Rather, it is his position that these factors promote their emergence and support their continuation. Thus, he agrees with the compositionalists that subcultures exist within the city but differs in seeing them as brought about through urban demographic factors. According to Fischer, there are two main ways that the city produces subcultures. The first is that

16. H.J. Gans, 'Urbanism and Suburbanism as Ways of Life: A Re-evaluation of Definitions', in A.M. Rose (ed.), Human Behavior and Social Processes: An Interactionist Approach (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962), pp. 625-48.

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'Every City shall be Forsaken' [l]arge communities attract migrants from wider areas than do small towns, migrants who bring with them a great variety of cultural backgrounds, and thus contribute to the formation of a diverse set of social worlds.17

Second, population concentration produces the structural differentiation stressed by the determinists—occupational specialization, distinctive neighborhoods, specialized institutions and special interest groups.18

Fischer further argues that urbanism intensifies subcultures. It does this by creating a critical mass, a population size large enough to permit what would otherwise be only a small group of individuals to become a vital subculture. That is, with sufficient numbers, a lifestyle can be fully implemented through the presence of newspapers, stores, clubs, etc. In addition, intensification is increased from contacts between subcultures. As he points out, the conflicts of such contacts often result in intensified social solidarity within the subculture. Thus, Fischer hypothesizes that the city does have an effect but not by destroying social groups, as is predicted by determinist theory but, rather, by assisting in their formulation and in the strengthening of them. For Fischer, the city is the hothouse of new subcultures. As he observes, among these subcultures are ones which are considered to be downright deviant, or at least odd, by the larger society. Examples he gives are the subcultures of delinquents, professional criminals, homosexuals, artists, missionaries of new religious sects, intellectuals, lifestyle experimenters, radicals, and scientists. Implications Claude Fischer has assembled an extensive and impressive set of data to support his theory19 which shall not be contested here. However, a much more fundamental question is at issue for this volume. Since Fischer's subcultural theory is based on data from relatively recent American industrial cities, the question is whether it has any application to the preindustrial cities examined here. That is, we now need to cross

17. Fischer, Urban Experience, p. 37. 18. Fischer, Urban Experience, p. 37. 19. Fischer, Urban Experience, pp. 43-269.


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back over the preindustrial/industrial line to see if the trip has been worth it. One test of the applicability of subcultural theory to preindustrial cities has been made. In an empirical examination of the rise of Christianity, Rodney Stark has applied Fischer's subcultural theory to the question of what characteristics of cities were conducive to the spread of Christianity. Stark applied Fischer's assertion that 'the more urban the place, the higher the rates of unconventionally' to his data.20 Christianity, as a new religious system, he reasoned, is easily classified as a deviant religious movement. Therefore, Stark predicted that the larger the urban population was in absolute numbers, the easier it would be to assemble a 'critical mass' needed to form a deviant subculture, in this case a Christian one. Stark's data support that assertion for the emergence of Christianity in 22 cities.21 The implication of the successful Stark application of Fischer's theory is not that such a study should be done for ancient Israelite cities. Stark had great difficulty in assembling the data for such a test of early Christian era cities and it would be all the more difficult to do so for the cities included in this volume. However, these results do suggest that Fischer's theory that cities facilitate the development of subcultures seems worthy of application as an investigative and interpretive tool in the study of such cities.

20. C.S. Fischer, 'Toward A Subcultural Theory of Urbanism', American Journal of Sociology 80 (1975), pp. 1319-41 (1328). 21. R. Stark, The Rise of Christianity; A Sociologist Reconsiders History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), pp. 129-45 (139).

CITY AS LOFTY AS HEAVEN: ARBELA AND OTHER CITIES IN NEO-ASSYRIAN PROPHECY

Martti Nissinen

1. Cities of God and King There is a river whose streams gladden the city of God, which the Most High has made his holy dwelling; God is in that city; she will not be overthrown, and he will help her at the break of the day (Ps. 46.4-5, NEB).

In the ancient Near Eastern and biblical literature, cities are more than just densely populated communities with a more or less hierarchical spatial and social differentiation through the distribution of work, economy, and power.' In the above quotation from a biblical psalm, the city is called the place 'which the Most High has made his holy dwelling'. As such, it appears as a theological or mythological, rather than a political or economical entity. The function of the city as the city of God transcends the limitations of everyday perception and justifies metaphors that violate concrete experience: the psalmist can make waters flow in Jerusalem2 with no more difficulty than, say, John the visionary can envisage the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out 1. For a characterization of what may be called a city, see, e.g., Volkmar Fritz, The City in Ancient Israel (BibSem, 29; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), p. 19; Marc Van De Mieroop, The Ancient Mesopotamian City (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), pp. 36-37. 2. The 'river', of course, is just one of the elements of ancient Near Eastern mythology reflected in Ps. 46 (chaos-motif, El's throne 'at the springs of the rivers' [KTU 1.17 vi 47] etc.), for which see, e.g., Fritz Stolz, Strukturen und Figuren im Kult von Jerusalem (BZAW, 118; Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1970), pp. 163-67; Peter C. Craigie, Psalms 1-50(WBC, 19; Waco, TX: Word Books, 1983), pp. 341-46; Bernd Janowski, Rettungsgewissheit und Epiphanie des Heils: Das Motiv der Hilfe Gottes "am Morgen " im Alien Orient und im Alien Testament, Band I: Alter Orient (WMANT, 59; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1989), pp. 185-87.

NISSINEN City as Lofty as Heaven

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of heaven adorned like a bride. In both cases, the city is presented as the dwelling of God among humans, a space of the divine presence where heaven touches earth and the divine blessing and protection, or even wrath, is bestowed upon people (Ps. 46.5-8; Rev. 21.1-4). Taken from the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, these examples serve as an illustration of the symbolic, emblematic, and mythological function of the city of Jerusalem.3 This function, however, is not restricted to biblical presentations of Jerusalem but is universally known from ancient Near Eastern sources and deserves attention alongside the geo-political and economic aspects of urbanism. The idea of the city as the city of God, the 'dwelling of the Most High' among humankind, was embodied in 'Houses Most High', that is, in temples, in their rituals and personnel, which formed an essential part of the ancient Near Eastern urban society. Moreover, temples maintained a close contact with another significant dwelling: the palace, the residence of the king or his representative in the city. In Marc Van De Mieroop's words, 'Temple and palace were basic urban institutions, and they were institutions that defined a city'.4 The link between the temple and the palace is well motivated: the king could only rule with the divine consent and was obliged to establish the worship of the deities and take care of the property and staff of the temples.5 Negligence in this respect was inexcusable, and 3. The symbolic role of Jerusalem, reflected, for instance, in the biblical Zion theology, has hitherto been the object of an intensive study; see, e.g., Ben C. Ollenburger, Zion, the City of the Great King: A Theological Symbol of the Jerusalem Cult (JSOTSup, 41; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1987). For the amalgam of the political and symbolic aspects of the biblical presentation of Jerusalem, see, e.g., Shemaryahu Talmon, 'The Biblical Concept of Jerusalem', JES 8 (1971), pp. 300-316; Moshe Weinfeld, 'Jerusalem—a Political and Spiritual Capital', in Joan Goodnick Westenholz (ed.), Capital Cities: Urban Planning and Spiritual Dimensions. Proceedings of the Symposium Held on May 27-29, 7996, Jerusalem, Israel (Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem Publications, 2; Jerusalem: Bible Lands Museum, 1998), pp. 15-40. 4. Van De Mieroop, The Ancient Mesopotamian City, p. 52. 5. For Assyria, see J.N. Postgate, Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at the Dawn of History (London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 262-66; for Palestine, see Gosta Ahlstrom, Royal Administration and National Religion in Ancient Palestine (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1982), pp. 1-8; for Moab, Bruce Routledge, 'Learning to Love the King: Urbanism and the State in Iron Age Moab', in Walter E. Aufrecht, Neil A. Mirau and Steven W. Gauley (eds.), Aspects of Urbanism in Antiquity: From

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the subsequent absence of the god and his or her cult from the city was a disaster.6 On the other hand, the temple was the venue of royal festivities like enthronements and triumphs after victorious wars, which made the rituals occasions of the royal manifestations of power; even regular rituals could serve the purpose of demonstrating the king's rule.7 Hence, the temple was an integral part of the organization of the city and state, a symbol of simultaneity of theology and politics and, due to its often considerable property, an important economical factor. Without doubt the temple was regarded as a sacred space in terms of purity and impurity, but it was not an isolated 'religious' realm within the otherwise 'secular' urbanspace—rather, the whole city could be seen as a 'sacred landscape', a mythologized entity as the dwelling of God and king.8 The fundamental association of the city, the god, and the king is observable already in the oldest records of urbanism from ancient Sumer and Egypt9 and is probably a legacy of ancient, preurban societies.10 The mythological and theological glorification of the city becomes apparent, for instance, in hymns addressed to a city and its temples,11 and in the celebration of city walls which symbolized the Mesopotamia to Crete (JSOTSup, 244; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), pp. 130-44(139-40). 6. See Van De Mieroop, The Ancient Mesopotamian City, p. 48, and cf. the discussion below on the 'Sin of Sargon' and the absence of Marduk from Babylon. 7. See Beate Pongratz-Leisten, 'The Interplay of Military Strategy and Cultic Practice in Assyrian Polities', in Simo Parpola and Robert M. Whiting (eds.), Assyria 1995: Proceedings of the 10th Anniversary Symposium of the Neo-Assyrian Texts Corpus Project, Helsinki, September 7-11, 1995 (Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Texts Corpus Project, 1997), pp. 145-52. 8. See Hubert Cancik, 'Rome as Sacred Landscape: Varro and the End of Republican Religion in Rome', Visible Religion 4-5 (1985-86), pp. 250-65. 9. For cities, temples, and rulers in Sumer, see Postgate, Early Mesopotamia, pp. 22-32; for Egypt, see Carolyn Routledge, 'Temple as the Center in Ancient Egyptian Urbanism', in Aufrecht, Mirau and Gauley (eds.), Aspects of Urbanism in Antiquity, pp. 221-35. 10. Ira M. Lapidus, 'Cities and Societies: A Comparative Study of the Emergence of Urban Civilization in Mesopotamia and Greece', Journal of Urban History 21 (1986), pp. 257-92 (285); cf. Cancik, 'Rome as Sacred Landscape', p. 260: 'Sacred landscape carries a materialized memory of society and is a phenomenon of "long duration".' 11. E.g., SAA 3 8 (Arbela), 9 (Uruk) and 10 (Assur); for older examples, see Joan Goodnick Westenholz, 'The Theological Foundation of a City, the Capital City and Babylon', in idem (ed.), Capital Cities, pp. 43-54 (46-48).


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frontier between the organized, divinely ruled city and the chaotic and demonic desert.12 Not every urban settlement was glorified as a city of God. Cities that were economical and political centers of states or districts usually also housed central temples, enjoying higher religious status than the more peripheral settlements. This was evident not only in Bronze Age city states which were comprised of but one city and its surroundings, but also in the Iron Age II territorial states of Syria-Palestine where the regional spatial hierarchy and urbanization developed hand in hand with state formation, and where there were only a limited number of urban centers and major places of worship.13 In the empires of Mesopotamia, again, there was a more differentiated hierarchy of cities14 and a greater diversity of religious traditions; several big cities boasted significant temples in which the worship of different deities had a long history: Marduk in Babylon, Assur in Ashur, Nabu in Borsippa, Sin in Harran, Ninurta in Calah, Inanna/Istar in Uruk, Akkad and Arbela, and so on. The multiplicity of local traditions was brought under one governmental and ideological umbrella by the centralized imperial administration, which could use the symbolic and theological significance of a city as a powerful tool in propagating imperial ideology.15 On the sym12. For the visual and symbolic significance of the city wall, cf. Van De Mieroop, The Ancient Mesopotamian City, pp. 73-76; Beate Pongratz-Leisten, Ina sulmi Irub: Die kulttopographische und ideologische Programmatik der akltuProzession in Babylonien und Assyrien im 1. Jahrtausend v. Chr. (Baghdader Forschungen, 16; Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 1994), pp. 25-31. 13. For the urbanization in Israel/Judah, see Fritz, The City in Ancient Israel; for Moab, see Routledge, 'Learning to Love the King'. 14. For the settlement hierarchy, see Mario Liverani, Studies on the Annals of Ashurnasirpal II. II. Topographical Analysis (Quaderni di Geografica Storica, 4; Rome: Centre Stampad'Ateneo, 1992), pp. 125-26, 131-32. 15. Besides the royal rituals, the ideology was propagated by renaming cities and towns by names that contained an ideological message, e.g., the following names in Esarhaddon's list of toponyms included in his account of the campaign against Subria (Rykle Borger, Die Inschriften Asarhaddons, Konigs von Assyrien [AfO Beiheft, 9; Graz: Selbstverlag, 1956], § 68, p. 107 iv 27-34): ASSur-massuutir, 'I have returned to Assur his land'; ASSur-mannu-isannan, 'Who is like Assur'; MuSakSid-nakiri, 'The (divine) one who makes (the king) vanquish the enemies'; ASSur-indr-garu'a, 'Assur destroys my enemies' etc.; see Beate Pongratz-Leisten, Toponyme als Ausdruck assyrischen Herrschaftsanspruchs', in Beate PongratzLeisten, Hartmut Kiihne and Paolo Xella (eds.), Ana sad! Labnani lu allik: Beitrdge zu altorientalischen und mittelmeerischen Kulturen: Festschrift fur Wolfgang Rollig

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bolic and ideological level, the city manifested the presence of the God and the king, represented by temples, monuments, and local administration. The divine foundation of the city made it a symbol of convergence of the divine and human worlds and caused the name and the fame of the city to be meaningful not only to its inhabitants but to the whole empire.16 Hence, it is not enough to locate the ancient Near Eastern cities on the geographical and political map; seeing urbanism in a broader perspective requires locating the cities on the 'mental maps' of their inhabitants as well. While there are plenty of studies of cities and urbanism in the ancient Near East and Eastern Mediterranean from the point of view of spatial and social organization and regional hierarchy,17 the symbolic, theological, and ideological aspects of the ancient Near Eastern city still call for more attention.18 This article is but a modest attempt at approaching these aspects within the thematic framework of the present volume, using the Neo-Assyrian documentation for prophecy as source material. 2. Arbela: Heaven without Equal The idea of a divinely founded city at the intersection of the human and divine worlds is most gracefully presented in the Hymn to the City of Arbela: (Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1997), pp. 325-43. 16. See Westenholz, 'The Theological Foundation of a City'. 17. E.g., Fritz, The City in Ancient Israel; Postgate, Early Mesopotamia, pp. 2250, 73-87; Van De Mieroop, The Ancient Mesopotamian City; J.M. Wagstaff, 'The Origin and Evolution of Towns: 4000 BC to AD 1900', in G.H. Blake and R.I. Lawless (eds.), The Changing Middle Eastern City (London: Croon Helm, 1980), pp. 11-33; Lapidus, 'Cities and Societies', pp. 257-92 and the articles in Aufrecht, Mirau and Gauley (eds.), Aspects of Urbanism in Antiquity; and Westenholz (ed.), Capital Cities. 18. These aspects have been studied recently by Pongratz-Leisten, Ina sulmi Irub, pp. 18-19, 25-36; idem, 'Toponyme als Ausdruck assyrischen Herrschaftsanspruchs'; Van De Mieroop, The Ancient Mesopotamian City, pp. 42-61; Westenholz, 'The Theological Foundation of the City'; Ian Shaw, 'Building a Sacred Capital: Akhenaten, El-Amarna and the "House of the King's Statue'", in Westenholz (ed.), Capital Cities, pp. 55-64; J. David Hawkins, 'Hattusa: Home to the Thousand Gods of Haiti', in Westenholz (ed.), Capital Cities, pp. 65-82; Lapidus, 'Cities and Societies', pp. 282-85.


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SAA 3 8:1-18 ArbailArbail Same Sa Id Sandni Arbail dl niguti Arbail dl isinndti Arbail dl bet hiddti Arbail aiak Arbail aStammu slru ekurru Sundulu parakku slhdti bob Arbail Saqu mdhdzu dl taSlldti Arbail muSab hiddti Arbail Arbail bet temi u milki rikis mdtdti Arbail mukln parsi ruquti Arbail ki Same Saqi Arbail iSddSu kunnd ki Sa[mdmi] Sa Arbail Saqd reSlSu iStanannan [...] tamSllSu Bdbili Sinnassu ASSur mdhdzu slru parak Simdti bob Same ana libblSu errabii maddandt mdtdti Issdr ina libbi uSbat Nanaia marat Sin [...] Irnina Sarissi Hani issdrtu bukurtu [...] Arbela, O Arbela! Heaven without equal, Arbela! City of merry-making, Arbela! City of festivals, Arbela! City of the temple of jubilation, Arbela! Shrine of Arbela, lofty hostel, broad temple, sanctuary of delights! Gate of Arbela, the pinnacle of holy to[wns]! City of exultation, Arbela! Abode of jubilation, Arbela! Arbela, temple of reason and counsel! Bond of the lands, Arbela! Establisher of profound rites, Arbela! Arbela is as lofty as heaven. Its foundations are as firm as the heavens. The pinnacles of Arbela are lofty, it vies with [...] Its likeness is Babylon, it compares with Assur. O lofty sanctuary, shrine of fates, gate of heaven! Tribute from the lands enters into it. Istar dwells there, Nanaya, the [...] daughter of Sin, Irnina, the foremost of the gods, the first-born goddess [...]

In this hymn, the city of Arbela is the dwelling of the goddess Istar in her various manifestations, associated with high spirits as well as with reason and counsel (temu u milku). Conspicuously enough, the city is called 'heaven without equal'. The whole city of Arbela is presented as a sanctuary, representing its tutelary goddess in a way that the very name of the city becomes a divine connotation. Besides the hymn, this can be seen in personal names with Arbela as the theophoric element: Mannu-kl-Arbail, 'who is like Arbela'; Arbail-hammat, 'Arbela is totality'; Arbail-ila'i, 'Arbela is my god'; Arbail-Sarrat, 'Arbela is queen'; Arbail-Sumu-iddina, 'Arbela has given a name'; Arbail-lamur, 'May I

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see Arbela'; Arbailitu-beltuni, 'the one from Arbela is our lady'. These names clearly refer to Is tar of Arbela; even names like Arbaildiul Arbailltu 'the one (m./f.) from Arbela', do not refer to the place of domicile in the first place but are further expressions of the devotion to the goddess of this deified city, acknowledged all over Assyria.19 Such a plethora of theological and symbolic attributes cannot be assigned to whatever urban settlement, but it can well be expected of Arbela, which in the hymn parallels the capital cities of Babylonia and Assyria. Inhabited from the Sumerian era to our times,20 Arbela owes much of its significance and long history of settlement to its strategic location. Situated at the western foothill of the Zagros mountains, Arbela is at the crossroads of traffic routes in the lowlands east of the Tigris and controls important passageways leading to the north and the northeast from the Assyrian heartland. Due to this favorable location, Arbela was a regional center21 as well as a military base22 and a seat of learning, hosting scribes and diviners.23 More than anything, it was a prominent cult center. It was the dwelling of Istar of Arbela—also called 'the Lady of Arbela' (belet Arbail) or Tstar who dwells in Arbela' (Issar aSibat Arbail}—who, especially in the time of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal, had an established position among the Great Gods. She is one of the most frequently mentioned deities with 19. Of the 35 known persons by the name Arbailaiu, and four by Arbailltu, nobody is referred to as coming from Arbela; see the respective entries by Raija Mattila and K. S. Schmidt in Karen Radner (ed.), The Prosopography of the NeoAssyrian Empire, I/I (Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 1998), pp. 124-27. Similar name patterns with other divine names are well known: Mannu-klASSur, A$$ur-ila'i,Adad-$umu-iddina,Adad-belani,A$$ur-lamur and so on; cf. Mannu-kl-Libbdli, Mannu-kl-Nlnua and other names with a name of a city in the place of the theophoric element. 20. A comprehensive history of Arbela has not been written hitherto, neither has the site been excavated; the center of the modern city of Irbil is built above the huge mound of 30 meters accumulation of settlement layers. 21. In the Neo-Assyrian era, Arbela was the center of the 'district of Arbela' (halzu Arbail; SAA 12 50:7; 71:5; 72 r.ll etc.), and its governor (pahutu) is mentioned on a par with governors of Nineveh and Dur-Sarruken in SAA 10 369. 22. For military activities in the Neo-Assyrian Arbela, cf. SAA 1 149; 155; SAA 5 141; 152. 23. The letters SAA 10 136-142, reporting astrological observations, are sent by 'the decurion of Arbela' (rob eSirti Sa tupSarn Sa Arbail). The extant extispicy reports with indication that they are performed in Arbela are SAA 4 195; 300 and 324.


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hundreds of attestations in greetings of letters, inscriptions and other documents from their time, often together with her alter ego, Istar of Nineveh/Mullissu. The temple of Istar of Arbela, Egasankalamma, was one of the major temples in Assyria.24 As the 'shrine of the fates' and the 'gate of heaven', it was the abode of traditional secret lore,25 awesome festivities26—and prophecy. Among the sources of prophecy, Arbela has no peer in Assyria; a brief look at the index of place names in the edition of the Neo-Assyrian prophetic texts reveals that the name of Arbela is mentioned more often than any other geographical name in this corpus.27 Seven out of fifteen prophets known by personal names are Arbela-based: Ahat-abisa, a woman from Arbela (mar'at Arbail SAA 9 1.8), Baya, a (wo)man28 from Arbela (mar Arbail SAA 9 1.4; [2.2]), Dunnasa-amur,29 a woman from Arbela ([mar'at Arba]il SAA 9 9; cf. 10), Issar-la-tasiyat, a man from Arbela (mar ArbailSAA 9 1.1), La-dagil-ili, a man from Arbela (mar Arbail SAA 9 1.10; Arbailaja 2.3 and 3), Sinqisa-amur, a woman from Arbela (mar'at Arbail SAA 9 1.2; [2.5])

24. The temple, like the city, has not been excavated; for written sources, Brigitte Menzel, Assyrische Tempel, Band. I. Untersuchungen m Kult, Administration und Personal (Studia Pohl, Series Maior 10.1; Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1981), pp. 6-33; A.R. George, House Most High: The Temples of Ancient Mesopotamia (Mesopotamian Civilizations, 5; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1993), p. 90, #351. 25. The text SAA 3 38, 'The Rites of Egasankalamma', is a further representative of the genre of mystical texts deriving from the Babylonian tradition (SAA 3 34-40), for which see Alasdair Livingstone, Mystical and Mythological Explanatory Works of Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986). 26. In addition to the above-quoted hymn, cf., e.g., the reference to a qarltu banquet of Istar in SAA 13 147. For the akltu festivals, see below. 27. Simo Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies (SAA, 9; Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1997), p. 53. 28. For the uncertain gender of Baya, see Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies, p. il and the respective entry in Karen Radner (ed.), The Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, 1/2 (Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 1999), p. 253. 29. Possibly identical with Sinqisa-amur; cf. Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies, pp. il-1 and the respective entry in Radner (ed.), The Prosopography of the NeoAssyrian Empire, 1/2, p. 388.

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Tasmetu-eres 'prophesied in Arbela' (\ina lib}bi Arbail irt[ugum] SAA 96). In addition, the letter of Nabu-resi-issi (SAA 13 144) reports a prophecy delivered by a woman in a temple which to all appearances is located in Arbela.30 On the other hand, Istar of Arbela is the one speaking in at least fourteen oracles of the prophetic corpus31 and, in addition, in two prophecies quoted in the inscriptions of Ashurbanipal.32 Moreover, Lady of Arbela speaks through at least two prophets who come from outside of Arbela, namely, Urkittu-sarrat from Calah (SAA 9 2.4) and Remutti-Allati from Dara-ahuya (SAA 9 1.3). This, along with the devotion to her in personal names, may be taken as a further indication of the veneration of Istar of Arbela as a national, rather than a local manifestation of the divine. The strong concentration on Arbela in the prophetic sources from the time of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal corresponds with these kings' particular attachment for the city. Egasankalamma was well taken care of and decorated by both kings.33 Esarhaddon visualized his enduring presence in this temple by letting his doubled image be placed on the right and left sides of Istar.34 Ashurbanipal, too, presented the temple as the object of his special devotion. In the dialogue between him and

30. This is discernible from the greeting formula typical of writers form Arbela as well as from the letter SAA 13 145 by the same writer. This letter mentions temple weavers which are known especially from Arbela (cf. SAA 13 186); see the notes of Karen Radner in Steven W. Cole and Peter Machinist, Letters from Priests to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal (SAA, 13; Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1999), pp. 116-17. 31. I.e., SAA 9 1.1; 1.2; 1.4; 1.6; 1.8; 1.9; 1.10; SAA 9 2.3; 2.4; SAA 9 3.4; 3.5; SAA 9 5; SAA 9 6 and SAA 9 9. In addition, SAA 9 1.3 and 2.5 are to be understood as the words of Istar of Arbela; furthermore, she appears together with Mullissu in SAA 9 7. 32. I.e., in his accounts of the campaigns against Mannea (Prism A iii 4-7) and Elam (Prism B v 46-49); see Rykle Borger, Beitrage zum Inschriftenwerk Assurbanipals: Die Prismenklassen A, B, C=K, D, E, F, G, H, J und T sowie andere Inschriften(Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1996), pp. 34-35, 100. 33. Esarhaddon: Borger, Inschriften Asarhaddons, § 21, p. 33:8-11; Ashurbanipal: Borger, Beitrage zum Inschriftenwerk Assurbanipals, p. 140 (Prism T) ii 7-8. 34. This is reported in the letters of Assur-hamatu'a (SAA 13 140 and 141); cf. Irene J. Winter, 'Art in Empire: The Royal Image and the Visual Dimensions of Assyrian Ideology', in Parpola and Whiting (eds.), Assyria 1995, pp. 359-81 (376).


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Nabu, the god says the following to the king who is praying for his life in Emasmas, the temple of Istar of Nineveh: SAA3 13:16-18: Slmtaka Sa abnuni tattanahharanni ma tuqnu bila ina EgaSankalamma napSatka ittanahharanni ma baldssu urrik Sa ASSur-bdni-apli Your fate, which I devised, incessantly prays to me thus: 'Bring safety into Egasankalamma!' Your soul incessantly prays to me: 'Prolong the life of Assurbanipal!'

This prayer juxtaposes the 'safety' of Egasankalamma and the life of Ashurbanipal by means of a poetic parallelism, tying the fate of the king in with the stability of the temple. The idea of 'safety'(tuqnu) implies both physical security and peace and reconciliation between heaven and earth, as is discernible from prophetic oracles of Istar of Arbela, which frequently use the verb taqqunu ('to put in order') and its derivatives in a similar meaning.35 Language reminiscent of prophecy can also be found in a document of a royal votive gift given for Egasankalamma by one of the kings '[for the preservation of] my [life], the lengthening of my days, the longevity of my kingship, and the destruction of my enemies, [...] and in Egasankalamma until distant days I [...]' ,36 The damages of the text notwithstanding, the dependance of the reign of the king on the endurance of the temple is unmistakable.

35. E.g., SAA 9 1.2 i 33-34: [ina] bet reduteka [utaqq\anka [urabb]akka, '[In] the Palace of Succession [I ke]ep you safe and [rai]se you'; 1.10 vi 22-26: aklu taqnu takkal me taqnuti taSatti ina libbi ekalllka tataqqun, 'You shall eat safe food, you shall drink safe water, you shall live in safety in your palace'; 2.5 iii 19-20: mat ASSur utaqqan Hani zenuti [is]si mat ASSiir u$al[l]am, 'I will keep Assyria safe, I will reconcile the angry gods with Assyria'; 5:9: tuqqun ana A[$$ur-ahu-iddina Sar mat ASSilr a]ddan, 'I will give security for [Esarhaddon, king of Assyria]'; cf. ABL 1217 s.3 [atta] tuqunu ina ekalllka Sibi, '[As for you], stay in safety in your palace!'. See Martti Nissinen, References to Prophecy in Neo-Assyrian Sources (State Archives of Assyria Studies, 7; Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 1998), p. 153. 36. SAA 12 89:7: [ana baldt nap$dti]ja ardk umlja Sulburu Sarrutija sakdp nakrutlja[...] qereb Egasankalamma ana sat ume[...];reconstruction according to the edition. The text is included among the inscriptions of Esarhaddon in Borger,

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Furthermore, Ashurbanipal assures his regular attendance at Egasankalamma in his prayer addressed to the Lady of Arbela on account of the assault of Teumman, king of Elam, in the year 653.37 Ashurbanipal heard about Teumman when he was attending a festival of Istar in Arbela, 'her beloved city' (al nardm libblsa). Having received the message he, according to the inscription, burst into tears and uttered a long prayer to the goddess, whom he presents as his creator, as goddess of warfare, and as his intercessor before Assur. Upon the prayer, he got a twofold answer from Istar: first an encouraging oracle, probably a prophetic one, and still in the same night, a dream report of a dreamer ($abru).3S In the next month, 'the month of the messages of the goddesses' (Sipir istarati, i.e. prophecies), he mobilized his troops and vanquished Teumman.39 This lengthy passage in the inscription of Ashurbanipal is revealing in many respects. Besides being emphatic about Arbela as the place of communication between the goddess and the king, it serves as an illustration of a typical situation in which prophecies were uttered and as a paragon of the ideology of holy war. Moreover, it provides a kind of compendium of Istar theology, presenting the goddess as the creator and mother of the king in a language very similar to that of the prophecies. In the final analysis, the reason for the prominence of the city of Arbela among the Assyrian cities and the appreciation of prophecy in that city must be sought from the distinctive relationship between the goddess and the king. Simo Parpola has recently emphasized that when Ashurbanipal in his hymn to the Is tars of Arbela and Nineveh calls himself the 'product of Emasmas and Egasankalamma' (SAA 3 3:10; see below), he refers to his upbringing as the royal infant in the temples of Istar in Nineveh and Arbela, and even the prophecies and related Inschriften Asarhaddons, § 97, p. 119, but the identification of the king is uncertain. For prophetic parallels, cf., e.g., SAA 9 1.2; 1.6; 2.3; 2.5. 37. Borger, Beitrdge zum Inschriftenwerk Assurbanipals, pp. 99-100 (Prism B) v 15-46, esp. lines 33-34: andku aSreki a$tene"i allika ana paldh ilutlki u Sullum parseki, 'I visit regularly your dwellings, I come to worship you and take care of your rituals'. 38. Borger, Beitrdge zum InschriftenwerkAssurbanipals, pp. 100-101 (Prism B) v 46-76. The passage is discussed at length in Pamela Gerardi, 'Assurbanipal's Elamite Campaigns: A Literary and Political Study' (Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1987), pp. 145-47; Nissinen, References to Prophecy, pp. 53-56. 39. Borger, Beitrdge zum Inschriftenwerk Assurbanipals, pp. 103-4 (Prism B) v 77-vi 16.


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texts which present the goddess(es) as the wet nurse or the mother of the king40 should be understood accordingly.41 This practice is a concrete reflection of the old idea of the king as the creation of the gods, abundantly represented in inscriptions, hymns, and prophecies, but it goes even further: it is a simulation of what were imagined to be the heavenly circumstances: just like the Istars of Nineveh and Arbela are the nurses of Marduk in the divine world (SAA 3 39:19-22), they are tending the king, 'the Marduk of the people' (SAA 10 112 r. 31), in the human sphere. As far as the sources give the right impression, this practice was begun only with Esarhaddon whose mother Naqia obviously maintained a close contact with the prophets of Arbela.42 Hence, Esarhaddon's and Ashurbanipal's particular devotion to Arbela was due to the exceptionally intimate relationship they had with the Lady of Arbela and her cult. This explains much of the outstanding position of the city of Arbela in the sources from the period of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal, and it also sheds light on the special appreciation of prophecy during their rule as a by-product of the increased significance of the institutions of the Istar worship in Arbela. 3. The Palace of the Steppe in Milqia In the vicinity of Arbela there was a locality which, though not represented by its name, is otherwise identifiable in the prophetic oracles. In the prophecy to the queen mother Naqia, Istar of Arbela says that she will 'go out to the Palace of the Steppe': SAA 9 5:8-9 ina ekal seri u[ssa ...] tuqqun ana A\SSur-ahu-iddina Sar mat ASSur a\ddan

I will [go] to the Palace of the Steppe [...] I will give protection for [Esarhaddon, king of Assyria].

In yet another oracle, the goddess sends an oracle to Esarhaddon from the steppe: 40. SAA 9 1.6 iii 15-18; 2.5 iii 26-27; 7 r. 6-11; SAA 3 13 r. 6-8 etc. 41. Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies, pp. xxxix-xl. 42. She is addressed several times in the prophetic oracles: SAA 1.7 v 8; 1.8 v 12-20; 2.1 i 13; 2.6 iv 28 (?); 5:4; cf. Nissinen, References to Prophecy, pp. 22-24; Sarah C. Melville, The Role of Naqia/Zakutu in Sargonid Politics (SAAS, 9; Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 1999), pp. 27-29.

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'Every City shall be Forsaken' SAA 91.9v 27-30 Issdr Sa Arbail ana seri tattiisi Sulmu ana murlSa ana birit all tassapra ana use[$a ...] Istar of Arbela has left for the steppe. She has sent an oracle of peace to her calf43 in the city. At [her] coming out [...]

Even though badly broken, the texts are revealing enough. The sojourning of the goddess in the steppe makes perfect sense, as Esarhaddon allegedly renewed an 'akitu-house in the steppe, a house of festivals' (bit aklt seri bit niguti).44 We know that in a locality called Milqia, situated not far away from Arbela, there was an akltu-house of Istar of Arbela.45 There are records of worship of Istar of Arbela in Milqia from the time of Shalmaneser III,46 and the references to works done in this locality in the correspondence of Sargon II may also deal with her shrine.47 Ashurbanipal mentions the 'Palace of the Steppe, dwelling of 43. For the king as the 'calf of the goddess, see Martti Nissinen, Prophetic, Redaktion und Fortschreibung im Hoseabuch: Studien zum Werdegang eines Prophetenbuches im Lichte von Has 4 und 11 (AOAT, 231; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1991), pp. 290-94; Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies, pp. xxxvi-xliv. 44. Borger, Inschriften Asarhaddons, § 64, p. 95:20, 32. 45. For the sources, see Menzel, Assyrische Tempel I, p. 113; Simo Parpola, Neo-Assyrian Toponyms(AOAT, 6; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; NeukirchenVluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1970), p. 248; George, House Most High, p. 87, #313. 46. I.e., the prayer KAR 98, in which Milqia is mentioned in a broken context and the Lady of Arbela is addressed among other deities (see Menzel, Assyrische Tempel, Band II: Anmerkungen, Textbuch, Tabellen und Indices [Studia Pohl, Series Maior 10.2; Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1981], p. I l l * , nn. 1519-21), and the poetic account of his campaign to Urartu, which reaches its climax when the king enters a palace, arranges the festival of the Lady of Arbela in Milqia and, finally, performs a lion hunt in Assur (SAA 3 17 r. 27-30; provided that the readings are correct); see Elnathan Weissert, 'Royal Hunt and Royal Triumph in a Prism Fragment of Ashurbanipal (82-5-22,2)', in Parpola and Whiting (eds.), Assyria 1995, pp. 339-58 (348-49). 47. I.e., SAA 1 146, a letter of Samas-upahhir concerning some city rulers (bel dldni) whom the king had ordered to work in Milqia, and SAA 1 147, a letter from these city rulers who complain that the work is a great burden on them. The nature of the king's work (dullu Sarri) is not specified, but since virtually all other occurrences of Milqia are connected with this sanctuary or its festivals, it may be that the works have to do with it; there is a reference from this time to 'washing' some clothing in Milqia which was needed in offering rituals (ND 2789:8-9; see the publication of Barbara Parker, 'Administrative Tablets from the North-West Palace,


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Istar' in Milqia and the accompanying afcz7w-house;48 in general, the sources from the time of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal give the best picture about what it was needed for. It appears that Istar of Arbela, who in Milqia was called Satru,49 dwelt there during the absence of the king, in anticipation of a triumph after his returning from a victorious campaign. When the king arrived, the goddess left Milqia and, together with the king, entered the city of Arbela in a solemn procession.50 The two prophetic references to the '(Palace of the) Steppe' are to be interpreted as references to the triumphal celebration after Esarhaddon had defeated his brothers. The first oracle (SAA 9 5) must have been proclaimed while Esarhaddon was still absent, since it is addressed to the queen mother who during the civil war received prophecies on behalf of her son.51 The second oracle (SAA 9 1.9) presupposes that the war is over, since the king is already in the city (of Nineveh or Arbela), awaiting the encounter with the goddess. Milqia is not an independent case, but belongs together with the Nimrud,' Iraq 23 [1961], pp. 15-67 [53] and the corrected reading of Menzel, Assyrische Tempel, p. Ill*, nn. 1522-24). Moreover, Milqia is mentioned in the letter of Kisir-Assur (SAA 1 125): 'Upon my coming from Milqia to Dur-Sarruken, I was told that there had been an earthquake in Dur-Sarruken...' 48. Maximilian Streck, Assurbanipal und die letzten assyrischen Konige bis zum Untergange Niniveh's (VAB, 7; Leipzig: Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung, 1916), p. 248: 6-7 (not included in Borger, Beitrdge zum Inschriftenwerk Assurbanipals}: Milqia ekal sen muSab Issdranhussu uddiS bit aklssu arsip alu ina gimirtlSu uSaklil, 'As for Milqia, I renovated the delapidated Palace of the Steppe, I reconstructed its akltu-house, I rebuilt the whole town.' 49. With regard to the above-quoted passages of prophecy in connection with other sources it is evident that the name Satru, pace Menzel, Assyrische Tempel /, p. 113, should not be disconnected from Istar of Arbela. 50. This procession is described in SAA 13 149, probably following Esarhaddon's conquest of Egypt, and in Ashurbanipal's report on his triumph after the defeat of Teumman, king of Elam (Ernst F. Weidner, 'Assyrische Beschreibungen der Kriegs-Reliefs Assurbanaplis,' AfO 8 [1932/33], pp. 175-203 [184:43-46]; Borger, Beitrdge zum Inschriftenwerk Assurbanipals,pp. 304-305); see Simo Parpola, Letters from Assyrian Scholars to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal, Part II: Commentary and Appendices(AOAT, 5.2; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1983), pp. 158-59, 192-93; Pongratz-Leisten, Ina sulmi Irub, pp. 79-83; idem, 'The Interplay of Military Strategy and Cultic Practice', pp. 249-50; Weissert, 'Royal Hunt and Royal Triumph', pp. 347-50. 51. See Nissinen, References to Prophecy, pp. 22-24.

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institutions of Arbela as a kind of ceremonial extension of the city. Milqia was probably no major urban settlement, neither could it be situated far away from Arbela. The designation of its main building as the 'Palace of the Steppe' indicates that it was located outside the walls of the city of Arbela, symbolizing the world of chaos in the middle of which the goddess sojourned when the king was in the turmoils of war. 52 The procession from the 'steppe' to the city after the victory, hence, visualized the victory over the powers of 'evil, chaotic wilderness' (SAA 9 2.3 ii 24). The ceremonies in Arbela and Milqia illustrate how the concrete and symbolic aspects of urbanism fuse together, as Beate Pongratz-Leisten has recently pointed out.53 The military significance of Arbela not only increased the mobility of people and goods enhancing financial investments and administration, it also made it necessary to make the presence of the king emphatically manifest and promote the cult of the patron goddess with whom the king had a special relationship. 4. The Doorjambs of Assyria: Assur, Nineveh and Calah Besides Arbela, a whole range of Mesopotamian cities are explicitly or implicitly acknowledged in the Neo-Assyrian prophetic sources. The oracle of an unknown prophet in the oracle collection SAA 9 1 provides a good starting point for the survey, as it itemizes four major Assyrian cities as belonging to the sphere of Esarhaddon's reign: SAA 9 1.6iii8-14 andku Issar Sa [Arbail] A$$ur-ahu-iddina Sar mat A\$$uf\ ina Libbi dli Nmu[a] Kalha Arbai[l] time arkut[e] handle ddrdt[e] ana ASSur-ahu-iddina Sarrlja addanna

52. See Pongratz-Leisten, Ina sulmi irub, pp. 74-78. 53. Pongratz-Leisten has generalized a similar conclusion from the evidence from a group of strategically important Assyrian cities, including Arbela, Nineveh, Kilizi, Kurbail, and Harran ('The Interplay of Military Strategy and Cultic Practice', p. 251): The paramount military role of these [strategically important] cities presupposed the support and the promotion of their respective patron-gods. (...) (A)t the moment when the city was rebuilt into a military garrison, the cult of the city god also experienced a special financial and theological promotion. (...) This promotion is quite understandable, considering the fact that the Assyrian king wanted to be helped and protected by the patron-god of a border garrison in close proximity to his enemies.'


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I am Istar of [Arbela]! Esarhaddon, king of A[ssyria]! In Assur, Ninevfeh], Calah and Arbe[la] I will give endlefss] days and everlasti[ng] years to Esarhaddon, my king.

This neither restricts the rule of Esarhaddon only to the cities in question, nor is the list of cities a random choice of the prophet or the scribe. The four cities, Ashur, Nineveh, Calah, and Arbela, are the most important urban centers in the Assyrian heartland,54 each of them having a long history of settlement and religious tradition. In the royal poetry, these cities embody the idealized functions of the Assyrian city and state,55 and the worship of Istar, the main speaker of the Assyrian prophetic word, played a central role in all of them.56 When Ashur, Nineveh, Calah, and Arbela are mentioned together, they are not just a list of four cities but represent the whole mat Assur; hence, the 'endless days and everlasting years' in these four cities epitomize Esarhaddon's eternal rule over all Assyria.57 A similar idea is represented by another oracle which most probably refers to Ashur, Nineveh, Calah, and Arbela as the 'four doorjambs of Assyria':58 SAA93.5iii 16-22, iv 15-17 abat Issdr Sa Arbail ana ASSur-ahu-iddina Sar mat ASSur aki Sa memmeni la epaStini la addinakkanni ma 4 sippi $a mat Assur Id akpup, Id addinakka nakarka Id akStidu ... [um]d r!$ ASsiir-ahu-iddina [4 sipp]l sa mdtA$$ur [aktapp]a attanakka [nakar]ka aktaSad 54. Of the other cities in that region, only Dur-Sarruken, the capital of Sargon II, could rival Assur, Nineveh, Calah, and Arbela in size and significance, but it had lost its status as the capital to Nineveh and, being founded so late by Sargon II, lacked the venerable tradition the four cities had. It is never mentioned in the extant sources for prophecy. 55. In addition to the above quoted Hymn to the City of Arbela (SAA 3 8), cf. SAA 3 7 (Ashurbanipal's Hymn to Istar of Nineveh) and SAA 3 10 (Blessing for the City of Ashur); it may be coincidental that no such hymn to Calah has been preserved. See Alasdair Livingstone, Court Poetry and Literary Miscellanea (SAA, 3; Helsinki, Helsinki University Press, 1989), pp. xxv-xxvi. 56. For the the worship of Istar in these cities, see Menzel, Assyrische Tempel I, pp. 63-65, 70-74 (Ashur); 114-18 (Nineveh); 102-3 (Calah). 57. Later in the same oracle, the mentioning of Assur and Arbela alone is enough to render the same idea: ASSur-ahu-iddina ina Libbi dli time arkute Sandte ddrdteaddanakk[a\A$$ur-ahu-iddina ina libbi Arbai[l] arltka deiqtu a[ndku], 'Esarhaddon, in Ashur I will give yo[u] endless days and everlasting years! Esarhaddon, in Arbe[la] I [will be] your good shield! (SAA 9 1.6 iv 14-19). 58. Cf. Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies, p. 26 ad loc.

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'Every City shall be Forsaken' Word of Istar of Arbela to Esarhaddon, king of Assyria. As if I had not done or given to you anything! Did I not subdue and give to you the four doorjambs of Assyria? Did I not vanquish your enemy?... [Therefore, rejoice, Esarhaddon! [The four doorjamb]s of Assyria [I have subdujed and given to you! I have vanquished your [enemy]!

While the first of the passages quoted above is taken from a prophecy proclaimed during Esarhaddon's war against his brothers,59 presenting his rule as a prospective reality, the second belongs to the context of his enthronement, referring to the victory he gained over his enemies. The four cities represent here the 'people of Assyria' (nl$e mat ASsur) who, according to the account of Esarhaddon's inscription, came before him and kissed his feet after the goddess had disrupted the ranks of the enemies.60 The doorjamb (sippu) metaphor presents the cities as the doorways through which the newly enthroned king Esarhaddon enters his sphere of power, as entrances which the goddess, by vanquishing his enemies, has 'subdued' and opened for him to come in.61 Of the four 'doorjambs', Ashur clearly comes second in importance after Arbela in the prophetic sources. As the ancient capital of Assyria and as the center of the worship of Assur, the Assyrian supreme god,62 Ashur had a significance among Assyrian cities that exceeded its political weight. It was the city where the Assyrian kings were enthroned and buried, and its most outstanding temple, Esarra, was the principal shrine of Assur.63 The earliest Neo-Assyrian evidence for prophecy in Ashur is the mention of prophetesses (mahhate)in a list of expenditures for the maintenance of various ceremonies of Esarra dated to the sixth day of Adar (XII) of the eponym year of Adad-nerari III (809).64 Furthermore, Ashur is given as the place of origin of two prophets from the

59. See Nissinen, References to Prophecy, pp. 24-25. 60. Borger, Inschriften Asarhaddons, § 27, p. 44: 74-81. 61. Cf. Ps 24.7 (NEB): 'Lift up your heads, you gates, lift yourselves up, your everlasting doors, that the king of glory may come in.' 62. For the role of Assur as the universal god in Assyrian religion, see Parpola, Prophecies, p. xxi; Parpola, 'The Assyrian Tree of Life: Tracing the Origins of Jewish Monotheism and Greek Philosophy', JNES 52 (1993), pp. 161-208 (205-206). 63. See Menzel, Assyrische Tempel /, pp. 36-63; George, Houses Most High, p. 145, #1035. 64. SAA 12 69. The prophets are mentioned in a section concerning the 'divine council' (lines 27-31).


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time of Esarhaddon, [Nabu]-hussanni65 (SAA 9 2.1) and Ilussa-amur66 (SAA 9 1.5). The institutional affiliation of these prophets is not indicated; Esarra is not the only alternative, since there was a temple of Istar in Ashur as well. Esarra, however, is the temple where the appearance of the prophetess Mullissu-abu-usri is reported by Adad-ahu-iddina in his letter to the king (SAA 13 37). According to the preserved text of the fragmentary letter, this woman prophesied (tartugum) in the temple that the throne housed in that temple should be sent to Akkad for a substitute king ritual.67 What makes Esarra the most probable venue for this prophetic appearance, besides the structure of the blessing formula of the letter,68 is that not just any throne was good enough to be used in that ritual, but it had to be the actual royal throne, the one on which Esarhaddon was seated when he was enthroned in Esarra. The enthronement of Esarhaddon at the end of the year 681 BCE is referred to at the beginning of the account of the construction of Esarra in the inscription Ass. A, written in 679 BCE.69 Even prophetic messages (Sipir mahhe) are mentioned among the signs of good portent (ittati dunqi) coming from the different kinds of divination which enouraged the newly enthroned king.70 This is not just a rhetorical note, since the prophecies proclaimed on that occasion by the prophet Ladagil-ili (from Arbela!) were collected and preserved for posterity in the collection SAA 9 3. The role of Esarra and the city of Ashur as the symbol of the Assyrian royal ideology becomes unmistakable in the introductory passage of this collection:

65. For the restoration of the name, which could also be [Assur]-hussanni, see Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies, p. li. 66. This name is otherwise attested only in a fragment of a list of provisions from Ashur, KAV 121, in which together with other women she receives provisions. 67. For this letter and its historical background, see Benno Landsberger, Brief des Bischofs von Esagila an Konig Asarhaddon (Mededelingen der Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, afd. Letterkunde, Nieuwe reeks 28/6; Amsterdam: Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, 1965), p. 49; Simo Parpola, Letters, p. 329; Nissinen, References to Prophecy, pp. 78-81. 68. SAA 13 37:4-6: 'May Assur, Mullissu, Nabu and Marduk bless the king, my lord'; cf. Parpola, Letters, p. 329. 69. For the inscription, cf. Barbara Nevling Porter, Images, Power, and Politics: Figurative Aspects of Esarhaddon's Babylonian Policy (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1993), pp. 97-99. 70. Borger, Inschriften Asarhaddons, § 2, p. 2 i 12-26.

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'Every City shall be Forsaken' SAA 9 3.119-15 [Sulmu a\na Same kaqqiri [Sulm]u ana ESarra [Sulmu] ana ASSur-ahuiddina Sarmat ASSur [$ulni\u Sa ASSur-ahu-iddina [i$kuri\uni ina muhhi Sepe lillik [isinnu ina] ESarra ASSur issakan [...] $a Libbi ali [Peace] with heaven and earth! [Peacje with Esarra! [Peace] with Esarhaddon, king of Assyria! May the [peac]e [establish]ed by Esarhaddon become stable and prosper!71 Esarhaddon has arranged [a banquet72 in] Esarra. [...] of Assur.

Esarra and the city of Ashur are here represented as the space where the peace between heaven and earth is celebrated, where the sulmu established by Esarhaddon, the well-being based on cosmic harmony and personified by the king, becomes manifest. In the two prophetic oracles following the introductory passage, the Sulmu is proclaimed in prophetic words and made material in the form of tablets which are placed first before the courtyard god Bel-Tarbasi (SAA 9 3.2 ii 8) and then before the Image (of Assur), probably in the throne room where the king is seated (SAA 9 3.3 ii 26). In the prophetic oracles, then, the city of Ashur, together with its main temple, assumes a ceremonial role as the scene of events which are not only of paramount political importance but also symbolize the fundamentals of the Assyrian religion and royal ideology. It is hardly a matter of chance that in the prophetic oracles, the city is never called (At) A$$ur (URU-a$-$ur or BAL.TIL.KI) but consistently referred to as Libbi ali (URU.sA—URU), the Inner City,73 which, rather than just meaning the 'city center', is a honorific designation which implies the message of the centrality of Ashur as the dwelling of the Assyrian supreme god. The role of the city of Ashur in the prophetic oracles clearly overshadows that of the capital city of the empire, Nineveh. Even though there was an eminent temple of Istar in Nineveh called Emasmas,74 no single prophet of the corpus comes from there, nor is the city of Nineveh indicated as the provenance of any prophecy quoted outside the 71. Lit.: 'go on its feet', or 'get on to its feet'. 72. Thus according to the restoration of Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies, p. 22 ad loc. What follows is probably a description of a procession leading to Esarhaddon's enthronement. 73. SAA 9 1.5 iii 5; 1.6 iii 9; iv 1; 2.1 i 14; 3.1 i 15. 74. See Menzel, Assyrische Tempel I, pp. 116-17; George, House Most High, pp. 121-22, #742.


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prophetic corpus. This virtual silence, however, does not mean that there was no prophetic activity in Nineveh. In his retrospective account of his rise to power, Esarhaddon claims to have been encouraged by prophecies (Sipir mahhe) which were constantly sent to him on occasion of his joyful entering into Nineveh and his ascending the throne of his father.75 Whether originating from Nineveh or other places, such prophecies were certainly delivered (cf. SAA 9 1 ! ) and read out in Nineveh. When the astrologer Bel-usezib complains about the insufficient attention paid to him by the newly enthroned king, he refers to prophets and prophetesses that have been summoned by the king instead of him (SAA 10 109:7-16). Provided that the king actually granted an audience to the prophets, and the 'summoning' does not simply stand for employing, Nineveh provides itself as a natural site of this encounter. In these sources, however, Nineveh is merely the implied scene of events without any emphatically symbolic connotation. The suspicious nonappearance of Nineveh in the prophetic oracles, save its inclusion in the group of the 'four doorjambs' (SAA 9 1.6 iii 9) and its juxtaposition with Calah in a passage to be quoted below (SAA 9 2.4 iii 7-11) could be explained by the impression given by the texts that of the twin manifestations of Istar, the dominance of Istar of Arbela in prophecy is unquestionable, while Istar of Nineveh never appears as the speaker in the prophetic oracles. However, this is not, in fact, the case. When the goddess speaks in a double apparition, it is always Mullissu who appears together with Istar of Arbela (SAA 9 2.4 ii 30; 7 r. 6; 9 r.l), and Mullissu, on the other hand, is the wife of Assur whose role wholly converges with that of Istar of Nineveh. The pairing of Istar of Arbela and Mullissu in the prophetic oracles corresponds to the juxtaposition of the Istars of Arbela and Nineveh elsewhere.76 This can be 75. Borger, Inschriften Asarhaddons, § 27, p. 45 i 87-ii 7: 'In the month of Adar (XII), a favorable month, on the 8th day, the day of the festival of Nabu, I triumphantly entered Nineveh, the residence of my lordship, and happily ascended the throne of my father. The Southwind, the breeze of Ea, was blowing—the wind whose blowing portends well for exercising the kingship. Favorable omens in the sky and on earth came to me. Oracles of prophets, messages of the gods and the Goddess, were constantly sent to me and they encouraged my heart.' 76. Cf. Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies, pp. xl, Ixxi and note that the dialogue between Ashurbanipal and Nabu (SAA 3 13), which is both historically and substantially very closely related to the prophecy SAA 9 9, takes place in Emasmas, the Istar temple of Nineveh, which is also called the dwelling of Mullissu (Borger, Inschriften Asarhaddons, § 64, p. 94 r. 6: EmaSmaS atman Mullissi beltlja).In this

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exemplified by the letter of the exorcist Nabu-nadin-sumi to the king, in which he recommends the banishment of a person by virtue of the (prophetic) words of the Istars of Arbela and Nineveh: SAA 10 284 r. 4-8 ki $a Issdr Sa N[lnua] Issdr $a Arbail iqban[ni\ ma $a is si Sarri belin[i] la kenuni ma issu mat ASSur ninassahSu

According to what Istar of N[ineveh] and Istar of Arbela have said: 'Those who are disloyal to the king our lord, we shall extinguish from Assyria,' he should indeed be banished from Assyria!

The divine words referred to by Nabu-nadin-sumi turn out to be a paraphrase of a prophetic oracle (SAA 9 2.4 ii 31-33),77 in which the divine speakers are Istar of Arbela and Mullissu. This not only speaks for the identification of Istar of Nineveh and Mullissu but underlines the conclusion that the two goddesses are actually one. The same impression can be gathered from Ashurbanipal's Hymn to the Istars of Nineveh and Arbela: SAA33:6-12.r. 14-16 zikir SapteSina girru naphu atmuSina kunnu ana ddriS andku ASMr-bdni-apli bibil libblSin zer ASSur rabu [ili]tti Nina, binut EmaSmaS [u] EgaSankalamma $a ultu libbi bit re[duti uSar]bd Sarruti [ina p]i$ina ell[i qab]u labdr kusslja... Belit-Nlnd, ummu alittlya taSruka Sarriitu Sa Id Sandni Belit Arbail bd[nl}tlya taqbd baldtl ddrdte A word from their lips is blazing fire! Their utterances are valid for ever! I am Ashurbanipal, their favorite, most valued seed of Ashur, [offsjpring of Nineveh, product of Emasmas [and] Egasankalamma, whose kingship they [made gr]eat even in the Palace of Succession]. [In] their pure mouth is [spok]en the endurance of my throne... The Lady of Nineveh, the mother who bore me, endowed me with unparalleled kingship; the Lady of Arbela, my creator, ordered everlasting life for me.

The language and imagery of this hymn is blatantly 'prophetic', being in many ways parallel to the extant prophetic oracles.78 Even though dialogue, the motherly roles of Mullissu (lines 21-22) and the Queen of Nineveh (lines r. 2-8) fuse together. 77. See Nissinen, References to Prophecy, pp. 102-105. 78. E.g.: SAA 3 3:3 'who have no equal among the great gods', cf. SAA 9 9:3: 'they are strongest among the gods'; SAA 3 3:13: 'I knew no father or mother, I


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this is not a warrant for us to take the hymn as a specimen of prophecy from Nineveh (the language of prophecy common with this and many other forms of poetry rather explains itself by the background of prophecy in the worship of Istar), expressions like 'word from their lips' and 'in their pure mouth' may be interpreted in terms of prophecy. No specific attention is paid to the city of Nineveh in this hymn,79 except its being the 'home' of the goddess and the location of her temple, Emasmas. Nineveh appears together with Calah as a potential hotbed of insurrection in an oracle belonging to the collection from the beginning of Esarhaddon's reign: SAA92.4iii7-14 ake ake Sa ana [...] ma'duti u-[[sal]]-na-'u-[x-ni] ma immati mdtu nakkuru ibbaSSi ma ina Kalhi Ninua lu Id nuSab atta lu qdldka ASSiir-ahu-iddina sirdni Elamdja Manndja ablar Urartdja SitrlSu abarrim igib Sa Mugalli ubattaq How, how to respond to those who...80 to many [people], saying: 'Will the way of this country ever change? Let us not stay in Calah and Nineveh!' You, Esarhaddon, keep silent! I will select the emissaries of the Elamite king and the Mannean king, I will seal the messages of the Urartean king, I will cut off the heel81 of Mugallu.82

In this case, the two cities do not seem to assume any emphatically symbolic or emblematic role. As the capital city, Nineveh is a natural choice as an example of a city where problems of domestic policy may grew up in the lap of the goddesses', cf. SAA 9 2.5 iii 26-27: 'I am your father and mother, I raised you between my wings'; SAA 3 3:14-15: 'As a child the great gods guided me, going with me on the right and the left', cf. SAA 9 1.4 ii 20-24: 'When your mother gave birth to you, sixty great gods stood with me and protected you. Sin was at your right side, Samas at your left', and so on. 79. Cf. Ashurbanipal's Hymn to Istar of Nineveh (SAA 3 7), where the city does play a certain role. 80. The word is partly erased, partly broken and difficult to interpret. It could be explained as ussana"u[ni], an otherwise not attested Dtn-form of Sa'u 'run', but this verb does not occur in Neo-Assyrian. 81. The word is interpreted as eqbu, 'heel' (see AHw 231). 82. Mugallu was the king of Melid in Anatolia; cf. SAA 4 1-12 and see Sanna Aro, 'Tabal: Zur Geschichte und materiellen Kultur des zentralanatolischen Hochplateaus von 1200 bis 600 v. Chr' (unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Helsinki, 1998), pp. 149-53.

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surface, and Calah is given as the place of origin of the prophetess Urkittu-sarrat who delivered the oracle. The cities seem to appear as pars pro toto, as two examples of places where the previously mentioned 'disloyal ones' (la keniiti, SAA 9 2.4 ii 29, 32) may show up, rather than being specifically pointed out as the main trouble spots. The same applies to the sample of foreign nations listed in the oracle, Elam, Mannea, Urartu, and Melid, which at the beginning of Esarhaddon's reign would not (yet) necessarily harass Assyria any more than other countries did.83 The fact that Urkittu-sarrat is designated as a Kalhitu (SAA 9 2.4 iii 18) makes it evident that prophets were active in the city of Calah, where their natural base was the temple of the Lady of Kidmuri, the local manifestation of Istar.84 This temple was restored by Ashurnasirpal II in the ninth century, and again by Ashurbanipal who in his inscription gives an account of the re-establishment of the cult of the Lady of Kidmuri, which, according to this account, had meanwhile been in a state of dereliction.85 While this may not quite have been the case (there are indications that Bet Kidmuri existed even in the time of Esarhaddon), it is conclusive that Ashurbanipal indeed promoted the cult of the Lady of Kidmuri.86 As the sources of inspiration, Ashurbanipal mentions dreams and prophecies (Sipir mahhe) that were constantly 83. This is not to say that each of these nations would not have caused any trouble in the future. After less than half a decade, during the years 676-675 BCE, Esarhaddon took a campaign against both Mannea and Melid, while Elam raided northern Babylonia. Only the mention of Urartu is peculiar in this context, as Urartu was already defeated at the end of the eighth century by S argon II and hardly constituted any serious threat in the time of Esarhaddon. Urartu might not refer only to the state with the same name but also to other powers that were active in the north, above all the Cimmerians who were allied with Ursa, king of Urartu, against Subria. For a historical overview, see A. Kirk Grayson, 'Assyria: Sennacherib and Esarhaddon (704-669 B.C.)', CAH2, III, 2, pp. 103-41 (127-32). 84. For this temple, see Menzel, Assyrische Tempel/, pp. 102-3; J.N. Postgate and J. Reade, 'Kalhu', RLA 5, pp. 303-23 (308-9); George, House Most High, p. 113, #645. 85. Borger, Beitrdge zum Inschriftenwerk Assurbanipals, pp. 140-41 (Prism T) ii 7-24. 86. See Nissinen, References to Prophecy, pp. 35-37. It is not altogether clear, though, in which city this happened, since both Calah and Nineveh housed a temple of the Lady of Kidmuri in the Neo-Assyrian era; for the Bet Kidmuri in Nineveh, see Menzel, Assyrische Tempel /, pp. 121-22. In his long petition to Assurbanipal, the exorcist Urad-Gula claims to have arranged a banquet in Bet Kidmuri (SAA 10

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sent to him by the goddess 'to make perfect her majestic divinity and glorify her precious rites'.87 Formulaic as this language is, it certainly reflects the concern of the prophets for the temple that employed them. With regard to the 'mental map' of the prophecies, the geographical scope of the prophecy of Urkittu-sarrat deserves attention. While the oracle proclaims the word of Istar of Arbela and Nineveh (Mullissu), the prophetess comes from Calah and is probably affiliated to the temple of the Lady of Kidmuri. On the other hand, her name means 'Urkittu is queen', and even though the appellation Urkittu is indistinguishable from Mullissu in the Neo-Assyrian sources,88 it carries the memory of the city of Uruk and its goddess. Together, the four manifestations of the goddess, associated with four cities, not only demonstrate the extension of Istar's dominion but also the fundamental unity of the different manifestations of the goddess. 5. Babylon and the Gods ofEsaggil Among the cities acknowledged in the Neo-Assyrian sources for prophecy, a special attention is devoted to Babylon, the capital city of the sister nation. This must be partly due to the prophetic tradition in Babylonia, documented at long intervals from Ur III89 through Old Babylonian90 and Neo-Babylonian91 periods to the Hellenistic times.92 294 r. 23)—whether in Calah or in Nineveh, can only be guessed. Moreover, it is unclear whether his visit to this temple had anything to do with his turning to a prophet, about which he tells later in the same letter (line r. 32). 87. Borger, Beitrdge zum Inschriftenwerk Assurbanipals, pp. 140-41 (Prism T) ii 14-17: ana Suklul ilutlsa slrti Surruhu meseSa Suquruti ina Sutti Sipir mahhe iStanappara kajjdna,'To make perfect her majestic divinity and glorify her precious rites, (the Lady of Kidmuri) constantly sent me orders through dreams and prophetic messages.' Note the affinity to the respective account of Esarhaddon's accession to throne in the Ass A inscription (above, n. 74). 88. Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies, p. lii; cf. especially SAA 3 13 r. 2: 'May he who grasped the feet of the Queen of Nineveh not come to shame in the assembly of the great gods; may he who sits next to Urkittu not come to shame in the assembly of those who wish him ill!' 89. In TCS 1 369:5, a muhhum of Innin of Girsu appears as the recipient of a barley ration; see Edmond Sollberger, The Business and Administrative Correspondence under the Kings of Ur (TCS, 1; Locust Valley, NY: J.J. Augustin, 1966), p. 90. 90. The best document of prophecy in Old Babylonian Babylon is the letter of Yarim-Addu to Zimri-Lim, king of Mari (ARM 26 371) which reports the

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However, there are also timely reasons for the relevance of Babylonian matters in the Neo-As Syrian oracles. To be sure, the name of the city of Babylon occurs in the NeoAssyrian prophetic corpus only once in a broken context (SAA 9 2.6 iv 4). However, the gods of Esaggil, the temple of Marduk in Babylon and the principal place of worship in all Babylonia,93 make an impressive appearance in the collection of prophecies from the beginning of Esarhaddon's reign (SAA 9 2). As the introductory oracle of the collection, the compilers have chosen that of [Nabu]-hussanni from Assur, in which Istar speaks in her various manifestations, including the goddesses of Esaggil: SAA 9 2.115-12 [... andku] Banitu [...] utaqqan [kussiu Sa A$$ur-ahu\-iddina ukdna [...] aninu iStardti [ . . . i]na Esaggil [...] ASSur-ahu-iddina Sar mat ASSur [nakariiteka] usappak [ina Sepeja} ukabbas [... I am] Banitu,94 [...]! will put in order. I will establish [the throne of Esarh]addon. [...] We are the goddesses [... i]n Esaggil! [...] Esarhaddon, king of Assyria! I will catch [your enemies] and trample them [under my foot].

The self-presentation of Istar as the goddesses of Esaggil at the very outset of the collection speaks for itself, but the concern for Babylon appearance of a prophet (apilum) of Marduk at the gate of the royal palace in Babylon; see Dominique Charpin et al., Archives epistolaires de Mart 1/2 (ARM, 26.2; Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1988), pp. 177-79. In addition, there are several occurences of muhhum in Old Babylonian sources, e.g., MDP 181 171:14 Ri-bi-i mu-hu-um, 'RibI the prophet'. 91. E.g., YOS 6 18 lists two persons designated as 'sons' of prophets: md+AG NUMUN GIN A mLU.GUB.BA 'Nabu-zeru-ukm son of the prophet' (lines 1, 7); mremutÊN A m LU.GUB.BA 'Remut-Bel son of the prophet' (lines 8, 10). In these cases, the prophet is the ancestor of the family. 92. I.e., the Late Babylonian akltu ritual in which a high priest (SeSgallu) utters an oracle of Bel closely akin to prophetic language (F. Thureau-Dangin, Rituels accadiens [Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1921], p. 144-45). This seems to witness a literary adaptation of prophecy in cultic literature; see Karel van der Toorn, 'L'oracle de victoire comme expression prophetique au Proche-Orient ancien', RB 94 (1987), pp. 63-97 (93). 93. See George, House Most High, pp. 139-40, #967. 94. Banitu is a designation of the creation goddess Belet-ili, here appearing as an aspect of Istar; see Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies, p. xviii and cf. Karlheinz Deller, 'STT 366: Deutungsversuch 1982', Assur 3 (1983), pp. 139-53 (142-43).


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becomes even more emphatic in the course of the text of the collection. The concluding sixth oracle obviously thematizes Babylon and Esaggil again, being partly presented as the word of Urkittu (Istar of Uruk/ Mullissu; SAA 9 2.6 iv 1-15); however, this prophecy is too fragmentary for a proper interpretation. In the third oracle from the mouth of La-dagil-ili from Arbela, Istar of Arbela does not speak as the deities of Esaggil, but for them: SAA 9 2.3 ii 22-27 dibblja annuti issu libbi Arbail ma betanukka esip Hani $a Esaggil ina seri lemni balli Sarbubu arhiS 2 maqaludti ina pdnlSunu luSesiu lilliku Sulamka liqbiu Take to heart these words of mine from Arbela: The gods of Esaggil are languishing in an evil, chaotic wilderness. Let two burnt offerings be sent before them at once, let your greeting of peace be pronounced to them!95

This appealing speech is intelligible when interpreted against the fact that Babylon still lay in ruins after its destruction by Sennacherib a decade earlier (689 BCE), after a whole cycle of Babylonian uprisings and the subsequent punitive campaigns. When Esarhaddon, after the victorious civil war against his brothers ascended the throne of his father, the situation in Babylonia was certainly the most urgent political problem he had to face. It was one of the principal efforts of Esarhaddon throughout his reign to establish a political control over the potentially rebellious Babylonia, and not only that, but a modus vivendi between Assyria and Babylonia, governed by an ideology of a single nation under one king.96 This ideology was theologically motivated by 95. This translation takes the people who take the offerings to the gods as the subject of the precatives lillikii and liqbiu', in this case 'your well-being' (Sulamkd means the king's greeting to the gods. If, on the other hand, the gods of Esaggil are to interpreted as the subject, then Sulamka would be the oracle of salvation of these deities concerning Esarhaddon's well-being. 96. For the political history of Babylonia before and during the reign of Esarhaddon, see J.A. Brinkman, Prelude to Empire: Babylonian Society and Politics, 747-626 EC (Occasional Publications of the Babylonian Fund, 7; Philadelphia: The University Museum, 1984), pp. 67-84; Grant Frame, Babylonia 689-627 BCE: A Political History (Uitgaven van het Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul, 69; Istanbul: Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul, 1992), pp. 52-101; for the ideological dimensions of Esarhaddon's political efforts, see J.A. Brinkman, 'Through a Glass Darkly: Esarhaddon's Retrospects on

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the divine foundation of the city of Babylon97 and the respective veneration of Marduk and other gods of Esaggil, whose harsh treatment by Sennacherib caused a guilty conscience later on, as the famous 'Sin of Sargon' text (SAA 3 33) demonstrates. In this text, designed as a kind of testament of Sennacherib to his son, the death of Sargon on the battlefield is explained as a consequence of his insufficient veneration of the gods of Babylonia.98 Esarhaddon is urged to make the statue of Marduk and finish what his father left unfinished: 'Accept what I have explained to you, and reconcile [the gods of Babylonia] with your gods!' (SAA 3 33 r. 26-27.) This is perfectly in line with the abovequoted prophecy, as well as with the whole collection, the central theme of which is the consolidation of Esarhaddon's throne and the reconciliation between him and the divine world: SAA 9 2.3 ii 22-27 ASMr-ahu-iddina Id tapallah mat ASSiir utaqqan Hani zenuti [isjsi mat ASSUr u$al[l]am Esarhaddon, fear not! I will protect Assyria, I will reconcile the angry gods with Assyria.

Among the 'angry gods' in question, the Babylonian ones certainly were the angriest. It is noteworthy that reconciliation, not only with the gods of Assyria but also with those of Babylonia, is presented as prerequisite of the safety and well-being of Assyria. This is beautifully exemplified by the fact that the prophets from Ashur and Arbela seem to have been among the first proponents of this ideology. The prophets were not alone, though, since similar ideas were also cherished by scholars who belonged to the closest board of the king's advisors. Bel-usezib, the best known Babylonian scholar employed by Esarhaddon, repeatedly embeds a similar message in his letters. Soon after Esarhaddon's accession, he reminds the king of the sign of kingship, which he told to the queen mother Naqia and to an exorcist during

the Downfall of Babylon', JAOS 103 (1983), pp. 35-42 and, most profoundly, Porter, Images, Power, and Politics, esp. pp. 77-153. 97. See Westenholz, The Theological Foundation of the City', pp. 49-51. 98. See Hayim Tadmor, Benno Landsberger and Simo Parpola, 'The Sin of Sargon and Sennacherib's Last Will', SAAB 3 (1989), pp. 3-52. The ideological context of this text fits the time of Esarhaddon rather than that of Sennacherib; for this reason, Landsberger (p. 35) and Parpola (pp. 45-47) argue for a date of composition during Esarhaddon's reign.

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Esarhaddon's expatriation at the time of the civil war preceding his rise to power. The meaning of the sign is the following: 'Esarhaddon will rebuild Babylon and restore Esaggil' (SAA 10 109: 13-15)." In another letter a few years later, the same astrologer quotes words that to all appearances are of prophetic origin: SAA 10 11 lr. 23-26 Bel iqtabi umma akl Marduk-Sapik-zeri A$$ur-ahu-iddina Sar mat A$$[ur] ina kussiSu lu aSib u mdt[dti] gabbi ana qdteSu amanni Bel has said: 'May Esarhaddon, king of Ass[yria], be seated on his throne like Marduk-sapik-zeri, and I will deliver all the countries] into his hands.'

As well as presenting the divine speech as that of Marduk (Bel) of Babylon, the point is that Marduk-sapik-zeri was a king of Babylon four hundred years earlier (1081-1069 BCE), and his merits included the rebuilding of the fortifications of Babylon and the conclusion of an alliance with the contemporary Assyrian king, Assur-bel-kala.100 Presenting him as the paragon of a divinely favored king implies that nothing less is required of Esarhaddon. Moreover, the theory and practice of the theology of reconciliation is amply represented also by the inscriptions of Esarhaddon that concentrate on his building projects in Babylonia. According to the Babylon inscription of Esarhaddon, the most programmatic text in favor of the reconstruction of Babylon, it was Marduk himself who together with the other gods abandoned Babylon in his anger at the negligent and treacherous people and relented only when Babylon and its temples were repaired and the gods brought back to where they belonged.101

99. This is an application of an omen taken from the omen collection Enuma Ann Enlil (56) which he quotes in an abridged form later in the letter (SAA 10 109 r. 14-15); see Simo Parpola, The Murderer of Sennacherib', in Bendt Alster (ed.), Death in Mesopotamia (Mesopotamia 8 = CRRAI, 26; Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, 1980), pp. 171-82 (179-80). 100. See Grant Frame, Rulers of Babylonia from the Second Dynasty of Isin to the End of Assyrian Domination (] 157-612 BC) (RIMB, 2; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995), pp. 45-49. 101. Borger, InschriftenAsarhaddons, §11, pp. 11-29. For the 'divine alienation—divine reconciliation' pattern, see Brinkman, Through a Glass Darkly', pp. 40-41; for the use of this pattern in prophecy, Nissinen, References to Prophecy, pp. 38-41.

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According to the inscriptions, which are partly corroborated by archaeological evidence, the repatriation of the gods of Babylonia and the building of temples began at the very beginning of Esarhaddon's reign and continued ever since.102 In spite of all his efforts, however, Esarhaddon could not carry out the main objective of this project, the restoration of Esaggil. He attempted to reinstate the statue of Marduk in Esaggil in his last year (669), but an inauspicious event obstructed this enterprise.103 The works on Esaggil were finally completed at the beginning of the reign of Ashurbanipal who calls Esarhaddon 'builder of Esaggil' and only claims to have completed what his father left unfinished.104 In addition to the prophecies, letters, and inscriptions, there is one document in which the fate of Babylon and her patron god Marduk is the central theme: the so-called Marduk Ordeal text, a commentary on a ritual in which Marduk is beaten and sent to prison (SAA 3 34/35). It has been argued with good reason that this text, rather than being antiBabylonian propaganda, commiserates with the god and reflects the politics of the circles who never gave up the veneration of Marduk and promoted the rebuilding of Babylon and Esaggil.105 As the akitu festival, for obvious reasons, did not take place in Babylon during the reigns of Sennacherib and Esarhaddon,106 the ritual is most probably to be associated with the return of the statue of Marduk in Babylon at the 102. See Porter, Images, Power, and Politics, pp. 41-75. 103. For the date, see Parpola, Letters from Assyrian Scholars, II, p. 32 (ad SAA 10 24). The fragment K 6048+8323 possibly refers to the same incident; see W.G. Lambert, 'Esarhaddon's Attempt to Return Marduk to Babylon', in Gerlinde Mauer and Ursula Magen (eds.), Ad bene et fideliter seminandum: Festgabe fiir Karlheinz Deller (AOAT, 220; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1988), pp. 157-74. The return of the statue of Marduk and other gods is overoptimistically anticipated in the AsBbE inscription (Borger, Inschriften Asarhaddons, § 57, pp. 86-89). 104. Streck, Assurbanipal, pp. 228:5 and 226:8-9 (not included in Borger, Beitrdge zum InschriftenwerkAssurbanipals). 105. So Tikva Frymer-Kensky, 'The Tribulations of Marduk: The So-called "Marduk Ordeal Text'", JAOS 103 (1983), pp. 131-41 (139-40); cf. Livingstone, Mystical and Mythological Explanatory Works, pp. 236-53; Porter, Images, Power, and Politics, pp. 139-40. 106. Thus the Esarhaddon and Akitu Chronicles; see A.K. Grayson, Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles (TCS, 5; Locust Valley, NY: J.J. Augustin, 1975), pp. 127:31-36, 131:1-8.


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beginning of Ashurbanipal's reign.107 In one passage of this text, even a prophet (mahhu} opens his mouth: SAA 3 34:28-29/SAA 3 35:31 mahhu Sa ina pan Belet-Bdbili illakuni mupassiru $u ana irtlSa ibakki illak ma ana hursan ubbuluSu Si tatarrad ma ahua ahua [...] The prophet who goes before the Lady of Babylon is a bringer of news; weeping he goes toward her: 'They are taking him (scil. Marduk) to the hursdnwsr She sends (the prophet) away, saying: 'My brother, my brother!' [...]

With regard to the proclamation of the Assyrian prophets on behalf of the gods of Esaggil, there is nothing surprising in the appearance of a prophet in a ritual like this, especially if the suggested historical background is correct. Whatever role the prophets may have played in akitu rituals in general, this particular case reflects their pro-Babylonian attitude. Along with the exorcists who are designated as 'his people' (niSlSu) in the previous line,109 the cultic commentary presents the prophets as sympathizers of Marduk, the maltreated lord of Babylon. The failure to return Marduk to Esaggil notwithstanding, Esarhaddon took great pains with the rebuilding of Babylon, and the position assigned to the main god of Esaggil and Babylonia was conspicuously renowned in Assyria during his reign. Consistently with the reconciliation ideology, the veneration of Marduk, having suffered a serious decline in the time of Sennacherib, was again part of the public image of the king.110 According to the written documents at our disposal, this development was enhanced by the joint efforts of the supporters of the reconciliation between Assyrian and Babylonia—prophets, diviners, and scribes.

107. Frymer-Kensky, The Tribulations of Marduk', p. 140. 108. This word is interpreted as meaning the river ordeal, but Frymer-Kensky (The Tribulations of Marduk', pp. 138-39) shows that it rather means the cosmic location where Marduk is held captive. 109. SAA 3 34:27/3 35:22: The exorcists (LU.MAS.MAS.MES) who go in front of him reciting an incantation, are his people (UN.MES-£w); they [go] wailing in front of him.' 110. See Porter, Images, Power, and Politics, pp. 137-48 and cf. Barbara Nevling Porter, 'What the Assyrians Thought the Babylonians Thought about the Relative Status of Nabu and Marduk in the Late Assyrian Period', in Parpola and Whiting (eds.), Assyria 1995, pp. 253-60.

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'Every City shall be Forsaken' 6. Akkad as the Venue for the Substitute King Ritual

The Babylonian policy of Esarhaddon appears in a somewhat different light in the letters sent by his agent in Babylonia, Mar-Issar. For all his goodwill towards Babylonia, Esarhaddon had to keep his eyes open for any trace of insurrection among the Babylonians whose attitudes towards Assyria were often critical if not hostile after Sennacherib's destructive maneuvers, and Mar-Issar was in Babylonia precisely for that reason. In his famous report on the burial of the substitute king in the city of Akkad in the year 671 BCE (SAA 10 352), Mar-Issar quotes two prophecies uttered by a prophetess in the course of the substitute king ritual, obviously in order to convince the king that the somewhat exceptional choice of the substitute king was the will of the gods: the person who died for the sake of the king was the son of the temple administrator (Satammu) of Akkad. He also tells that the inhabitants of Akkad as well as other Babylonians became nervous, obviously for the reason that the execution of the son of a high official reminded the Babylonians of their political situation.111 The role of the city of Akkad in the substitute king ritual is highly ceremonial. Akkad (Agade) was the ancient Sargonid capital of Babylonia in the second half of the third millennium, and its patroness, the Lady (Istar) of Akkad, belonged to the prominent Babylonian manifestations of the goddess. Even though Akkad never achieved political importance after the Gutian invasion in the twenty-second century (it recovered for a while only in the Kassite period), it retained its symbolic value in mythological and religious literature as the center of the cult of Istar.112 It was Esarhaddon who, as a part of his rebuilding project in Babylonia, revived the city and returned Istar and other gods of Akkad from Elam in the year 674 BCE.113 The reason for the rebuilding of Akkad was doubtless its symbolic and religious significance as the ancient capital rather than its strategic or economical importance. The substitute king ritual was necessary because the lunar eclipse 111. For this letter and the role of prophecy in it, see Nissinen, References to Prophecy, pp. 68-77. 112. The history of the city is summarized by G.J.P. McEwan, 'Agade after the Gutian Destruction: The Afterlife of a Mesopotamian City', AfO Beiheft 19 (1982), pp. 8-15. 113. Grayson, Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles, pp. 84:16-18; 126:21-22; cf. SAA 10 359 and Frame, Babylonia, pp. 73-75.


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afflicted Babylonia, and by arranging it in Akkad Esarhaddon gave the city an exalted position. Very probably the substitute king ritual and the archaic 'assembly of the country'114 convoked on that occasion were one of the few major events that had taken place in the newly rebuilt city. By means of this event Esarhaddon not only paid homage to timehonored Babylonian traditions but also demonstrated and enacted his kingship over Babylonia. 7. Pseudoprophecy in Harran, the City of the Moon God The city of Harran enjoyed a remarkable political and religious status in the Neo-Assyrian era. The political and strategic significance of the city was related to its role as a trading center along several commercial routes between Mesopotamia, Syria-Palestine, and Asia Minor, whereas its religious prestige was based on the age-old tradition of the worship of Sin, the Moon God, in Harran.115 Since the ninth century, the city was part of the Assyrian empire, achieving a distinguished religiopolitical position especially in the time of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal. Just as he did in Arbela, Esarhaddon demonstrated his special appreciation of Harran, his incessant devotion to the Moon God and his enduring presence in Harran by placing his doubled statue on the right and left sides and the images of his sons behind and in front of the image of Sin.116 Ashurbanipal, for his part, rebuilt Ehulhul, the temple of Sin, including the cella of Nusku called Emelamanna.117 114. The puhrum is a well-known institution from the Early Dynastic and Old Babylonian periods; see Postgate, Early Mesopotamia, pp. 80-81; Van De Mieroop, The Ancient Mesopotamian City, pp. 121-28. 115. See Tamara M. Green, The City of the Moon God: Religious Traditions of Harran (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World, 114; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1992); Edward Lipifiski, Studies in Aramaic Inscriptions and Onomastics (OLA, 57; Leuven: Peeters, 1994), pp. 171-92; Steven W. Holloway, 'Harran: Cultic Geography in the Neo-Assyrian Empire and its Implications for Sennacherib's "Letter to Hezekiah" in 2 Kings', in Steven W. Holloway and Lowell K. Handy (eds.), The Pitcher is Broken: Memorial Essays for G.W. Ahlstrom (JSOTSup, 190; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), pp. 276-314. For the symbolic and figurative meanings of the moon-god of Harran, see Christoph Uehlinger, 'Figurative Policy, Propaganda und Prophetic', in J.A. Emerton (ed.), Congress Volume Cambridge 1995 (VTSup, 66; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1997), pp. 297-349 (315-23). 116. SAA 10 13; cf. Winter, 'Art in Empire', p. 376. 117. Borger, Beitrage zum Inschriftenwerk Assurbanipals, p. 143 (Prism C) i

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Harran plays an important role in the letters of Nabu-rehtu-usur, who warns the king about an alleged conspiracy that has an outpost in that city (ABL 1217+; CT 53 17+; 938). He is informed about the scheming of a certain Sasi and his accomplices for the overthrow of Esarhaddon that culminated in a (pseudo)prophecy uttered by a 'slave girl' of Belahu-usur from Harran. This woman had allegedly spoken 'in the neighborhood of Harran' words of the god Nusku, according to which the dynasty of Sennacherib will be destroyed and Sasi will be the king (ABL 1217 r. 2-5). Even though Nabu-rehtu-usur did not know that the whole episode was probably due to an intentional misleading,118 the way he connects the prophecy against the king with the city of Harran deserves attention. First, while referring to the word of Mullissu in CT 53 17, he is consistent in quoting words of Nikkal against the words claimed to be those of Nusku in ABL 1217.119 This is because Nikkal and Nusku were the wife and the son of Sin, and the cult of this divine family was centered in Harran;120 indeed, Sin, Nusku, and Nikkal turn out to be the Harranean equivalent of the triad Bel, Nabu, and Istar/ Mullissu, to which Nabu-rehtu-usur shows himself to be devoted in the greetings of his three letters (ABL 1217:2-3; CT53 17:2-3; 938:2-3) and which appears as the triune divine speaker in the prophecy of Bay a (SAA91.4). The designation of Sin as 'the Lord of Harran' (bel Harran), very common, for example, in personal names all over the empire,121 manifests the fundamental affinity of the god and the city; even in Nineveh, 85-90; for the sources, see also George, House Most High, pp. 99, #470, and 123, #764. 118. Sasi was probably Esarhaddon's agent among the conspirators and kept the king up to date about what was happening; see Nissinen, References to Prophecy, pp. 108-53. 119. ABL 1217:8: dababu Sa Nikkal u[da . . . ] 'I k[now] the words of Nikkal'; ibid., line 12-13: [ina li]bbi dabdbi Nik[kal annie] Id taSl[at...] 'Do not disregard these] words of Ni[kkal!... ]'; cf. CT53 17:8-9: dababu anniu SaMullissu [$u Sarru bell] ina libbi lu Id i[$lat] This is the word of Mullissu; [the king, my lord,] should not be ne[glectful] about it.' 120. For the worship of these deities in Harran, see Green, The City of the Moon God, pp. 19-43; idem, 'The Presence of the Goddess in Harran', in Eugene N. Lane (ed.), Cybele, Attis and Related Cults: Essays in Memory ofM.J. Vermaseren (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World, 131; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996), pp. 87-100; Holloway, 'Harran: Cultic Geography in the Neo-Assyrian Empire', pp. 287-91. 121. Bel-Harrdn-belu-usur, 'O Lord of Harran, protect the lord'; Bel-Harrdn-


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his temple is called 'the house of the Lord of Harran' (bit bel Harran). This temple was the venue of the false extispicy which the kidnapped scholar Kudurru was forced to perform with the series of the temple of Nusku in hand and which certainly was part of the same conspiracy Nabu-rehtu-usur was concerned about (SAA 10 179).122 Remarkably, the god and the city belong together, with the political and symbolic aspects of the city interwoven, no matter what kind of undertaking is in process. Likewise, in the letter of Nabu-rehtu-usur, the city of Harran is not only represented by its name but also by its gods; events that take place in Harran are interpreted by him as affecting the gods who have chosen the city as their dwelling, and vice versa. An interesting aspect of the religio-political eminence of the city of Harran reveals itself in the fact that the oracle of Nusku against the king was proclaimed, not within the city, but 'on the outskirts' of Harran (ina q[an\ni sa H[arran]). The same expression occurs in a letter in which Marduk-sumu-usur reminds Ashurbanipal about the temple of cedar, built 'on the outskirts' of Harran to be the scene of a royal ceremony when Esarhaddon was on his way to conquer Egypt in Nisan (I), 671 BCE. In this ceremony, Esarhaddon was crowned in the presence of Sin and Nusku and a (prophetic?) oracle was spoken to him: 'You will go and conquer the world with it!' (SAA 10 174: 10-16). This 'act of propaganda staged as a symbolic act'123 was a formidable demonstration of the presence of the king and the gods of Harran—but why outside Harran and not in the city itself? It seems that the temple of cedar was built 'on the outskirts' of Harran just as the #&z7«-houses, like the one in Milqia, were often situated outside the city walls. A sanctuary outside the city not only symbolized the dwelling of the god outside her/his proper place, but also enabled a triumphal procession from the realm of chaos into the city. The function of the akitu-processions was to celebrate the re-establishment of order, to visualize the power and presence of the king and to inspire the people with confidence. Even though such a triumphal procession is not mentioned with dun'Lord of Harran is my protective wall;Bel-Harran-isse'a,'Lord of Harran is with me'; Bel-Harrdn-Saddu'a, 'Lord of Harran is my mountain'; Bel-HarrdnSarru-usur, 'O Lord of Harran, protect the king' etc.; see the respective entries by P. Villard, Karen Radner and Heather D. Baker in Radner (ed.), Prosopography of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, 1/2, pp. 300-304. 122. See Nissinen, References to Prophecy, pp. 133-35. 123. Uehlinger, 'Figurative Policy, Propaganda und Prophetic', p. 317.

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regard to the ceremony in the temple of cedar (which may or may not be identical with the otherwise attested akitu-house of Harran124), the function of this ceremony is largely the same as that of the akitu. Moreover, it is conceivable that the oracle of Nusku against the king was proclaimed nowhere else than in this particular spot only less than a year after the coronation ceremony took place. The symbolic effect of the 'prophetic' message, diametrically opposed to the idea of the ceremony, even though it was most probably nothing but political bluff, was certainly great enough to arouse general indignation among the people in Harran and elsewhere who were loyal to the king—and turn their attention away from what was really happening. Whoever engineered this event, could not have used better the symbolic value of Harran as the city of god and king for his purposes. 8. Dara-ahuya in the Middle of the Mountains The remaining locality appearing in the Neo-Assyrian sources for prophecy125 is Dara-ahuya, which is mentioned in the authorship note of the shortest of the extant oracles of the prophetic corpus: SAA 9 1.3 ill 1-15 nSak issi A$$ur-ahu-iddina Sarrlja riSi Arbail Sa pi Remutti-Allati $a Dara-ahuja $a birti Sadddni I rejoice over Esarhaddon, my king! Arbela rejoices! By the mouth of the woman Remutti-Allati from Dara-ahuya in the middle of the mountains.

There are several interesting features in this tiny piece of prophecy. First, the formulation 'my king' implies that the speaker is a divine one. Moreover, even without a self-identification, it is beyond doubt that the speaker is Istar of Arbela; the unmistakable poetic parallelism alone

124. For the akitu-ceremony in Harran, for which there is evidence from about the same time (SAA 10 338), see Pongratz-Leisten, 'The Interplay of Military Strategy and Cultic Practice', p. 248. 125. I exclude Tyre, because it is mentioned only in the colophon of one tablet: Nis[an] 18, eponymy of Bel-sadu'a, governor of Tyre (SAA 9 9 r. 6).


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suggests what we have already learned, namely, that the goddess and the city are virtually one: the goddess rejoices, ergo, Arbela rejoices! The language of the prophecy sounds like a quotation from the Hymn to the city of Arbela.126 Thirdly, in spite of the Arbela-centered message, the place of origin of the prophetess Remutti-Allati and her oracle is indicated to be elsewhere, in a town (URU) called Dara-ahuya which should be looked for 'in the middle of the mountains'. This prophecy includes the only attestation of the name Dara-ahuya which not only means that the settlement in question can hardly be a major one, but also makes its localization difficult. A village in the vicinity of Arbela (which is not far away from the mountains) may suggest itself; however, there is another possible explanation. Since all the oracles of the collection SAA 9 1 belong to the context of Esarhaddon's war against his brothers and seem to be arranged according to a loose chronology,127 it is plausible to think that the prophecy of RemuttiAllati is an oracle of encouragement, received during the war as a foretaste of the coming victory. The placement of the oracle in the collection may, of course, be purely redactional; however, it does not exclude the possibility that the prophecy was actually spoken somewhere 'out there' when Esarhaddon and his troops were on the move towards Nineveh. The indefinite determining of the position of Dara-ahuya 'in the middle of mountains' may intentionally hint at the period when Esarhaddon was 'roaming the steppe', outside the safe urban space and exposed to the powers of disorder. If this is true, the prophecy of Remutti-Allati may be taken as another specimen of the encouraging divine messages Esarhaddon later claimed to have received constantly at that time in response to his prayers.128 Dara-ahuya, on the other hand, may be nothing but an intermediary station without any special relevance for the issue of prophecy and cities.

126. SAA 3 8 r. 18-22: Arbail rlSa [...] nlSl iriSSu [...] Beltu riSat [...] iriSa bet [...] ekurru kuzbu za"un [...] Beltu Sa blti $a Arbail irlSa libb[a$a...], 'Arbela rejoices! The people rejoice [...] The Lady rejoices [...] The house of [...] rejoices! The temple is adorned with attractiveness [...] the Lady of the House of Arbela rejoices, [her] heart [...].' 127. In SAA 9 1.2 Esarhaddon appears as a crown prince, and SAA 9 1.4 to 1.8 give the impression of having been received in the turmoils of war, whereas SAA 1.9 and 10 presuppose that the war is over. 128. Borger, Inschriften Asarhaddons, § 27, p. 43 i 59-62.

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9. Conclusion Urbanism is not a major issue in Neo-Assyrian prophecy. The social and economic aspects of urbanism are never thematized in the prophetic sources which reveal little of the social setting of the prophets in the cities, and even less of the place of the prophets outside them. According to the extant indications of the place of origin of a prophet or a prophetic oracle, the Assyrian prophets appear as urban-dwellers, but this is because the primary context of prophetic activity is the temple of the god(dess), and the temple, on the other hand, is an urban institution. To be sure, cities are mentioned as places where people live, where certain events take place and where, for instance, insurrections may arise. Only cities, and with the exception of Dara-ahuya, only the most prominent ones, are mentioned as domiciles of prophets or as places of prophetic performances. Likewise, the place names that appear in the prophetic oracles or in connection with prophecy in other sources, belong without exception to the major cities of the Assyrian empire, all of them housing a temple of Istar or one of her manifestations. This is well in line with the institutional affiliation of the prophets to the temples of pre-eminent Assyrian cities, among which Arbela clearly assumed an outstanding position as the cradle of prophecy. However, the cities are not mentioned merely as geographical locations of prophetic performances, and this is what makes it relevant to study the role of the cities in Assyrian prophecy. In the sources pertinent to prophecy, cities are, in fact, meaningful as ideological rather than spatial entities. Cities represent something that concerns and embraces the whole empire: they are embodiments of the divine presence129 and the king's reign, manifestations of the fundamental unity of god, king, and people. Especially cities like Arbela, Ashur, Babylon, and Harran are dwellings of the divine, being themselves representations of their tutelary deities—Istar, Assur, Marduk, and Sin—and proclaiming their glory. By the same token, in the framework of the imperial ideology, the cities are representations of the royal power, places in which the omnipresence of the king, chosen by the gods, is manifested by means of images, rituals, hymns, and divine words. In the final analysis, hence, the aspect of urbanism in Assyrian prophecy is 129. Or, as in the case of Babylon, divine absence, which is only the other side of the same coin.


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best interpreted from the point of view of the prophets' symbolic universe, reflecting their theological and ideological, albeit socially conditioned conception of the reality.130

130. For the hermeneutical applicability of the concept of 'symbolic universe' introduced by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann (The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge [Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966]), see Kari Syreeni, 'Wonderlands: A Beginner's Guide to Three Worlds', SEA 64 (1999), pp. 33-46.

JERUSALEM: AN EXAMPLE OF WAR IN A WALLED CITY (ISAIAH 3-4)*

John D.W. Watts

Isaiah is a prophetic interpretation of the Assyrian and Babylonian periods in terms of Yahweh's actions and decisions concerning Palestine, Israel, and Jerusalem. The walled (fortified) cities of Palestine, built over the centuries with Egyptian encouragement as defense establishments against attack from the north, presented Assyrian and Babylonian commanders with obstacles that had to be overcome in their campaigns. While some could be by-passed, no commander likes to have such fortresses still intact on their flanks or to their rear.1 Walled Cities in Palestine2 and Isaiah 3-4 Jerusalem (and Beth Shean) was different from the much earlier cities of the Mesopotamian basin and the Nile Valley. Those were cities to live in, urban centers of commerce, created by burgeoning populations. The cities of Palestine were very different, more like fortresses, not large. When populations expanded, they did so outside the walls. For the most part the larger population lived in villages and towns in the surrounding countryside. The villages were there first and they maintained their independence until circumstances made them dependent on the protection of the cities and their kings. * For a more complete treatment, see R. Seavers, 'The Practice of Ancient Warfare with Comparisons to the Biblical Accounts of Warfare from the Conquest to the End of the United Monarchy' (PhD dissertation, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, IL, 1998). 1. Cf. Sennacherib's campaign in 701 BCE and the position of Jerusalem (Isa. 36) and Nebuchadnezzar's 13-year siege of Tyre that ended in 571 BCE. 2. Gosta W. Ahlstrom, The History of Ancient Palestine (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), p. 361.

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The history of walled cities in Palestine begins very early. There were plenty of rocks to build with and the geography of the land tended to invite invading bands to move on the north-south routes (cf. Jericho/ Beth Shean/Jerusalem/Haran/Tyre/Byblos). The biblical story of the Israelites movement toward Palestine pictures the wanderers being well aware of the presence and might of the walled cities.3 The story continues at least to Crusader times when Europeans rebuilt many of the old fortresses and brought back to Europe a healthy respect for the advantages to be gained when fighting from behind walls.4 Fortified places continued to play a role in Europe, but as cities grew in size the fortified areas were concentrated in smaller areas within cities (like the 'kremlins' in Russian cities; or the castle in Prague) or in fortresses on the approaches to the cities (like those near Strasbourg on the line between France and Germany or the old Spanish fort in St Augustine in Florida). Walls (like the Roman wall in the north of England or the Chinese wall against the Mongolian armies, or around cities as in London and Paris) continued to play roles. The architectural features paralleled the political growth of kingdoms. Tribes tended to move about. When they settled it was in villages and towns. The walled city created the position of king (~[^Q) who extended the power and influence gained from his fortified position to rule over surrounding villages and towns and thereby incurred the responsibility for protecting them. This system of small city-states built around walled capital cities sometimes functioned under the benign oversight of faroff empires. But when the imperial powers began to install their own administrations and when they assumed the responsibility for protection, the day of the independent walled cities was over. Some of the walled cities continued to play a role when they existed near imperial borders or in districts where opposition thrived. They became fortresses for the empire, now much reduced in importance, pomp, and grandeur. This is very much the story of Jerusalem. It was built well before Israelite tribes came into the land. It was occupied by David and played a central role in his consolidation of the tribes and in his building a mini-empirewhich included neighboring small states in Palestine. Under

3. Cf. Encyclopedia Britannica (Chicago: Encyclopedia Brittanica, 15th edn, 1985), XXIV, p. 582. 4. Encyclopedia Britannica, XXIV, pp. 582-83.

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the benign blessing of Egypt, the United Monarchy thrived and Jerusalem became famous. Even within the much smaller kingdom of Judah, Jerusalem continued its role. But then came the Assyrian invasions of the eighth and seventh centuries. The small states with their walled cities were viewed as threats to the empire and many were destroyed (Samaria, Damascus, even Tyre and many others). Jerusalem was threatened repeatedly (834 BCE by Samaria and Damascus [Isa. 7]; 701 BCE by the Assyrian armies of Sennacherib [Isa. 36-37=2 Kgs 18-19]). The toughness of the walled city in such a strategic location proved itself, even against the siege techniques of much superior armies. Jerusalem was allowed to survive. Perhaps it played a different role in imperial plans for the protection of the border against Egypt. But when the situation was reversed Babylon found that the walls provided too much protection for rebellious units. Along with other repressive measures against Judah, the walls came down in 586 BCE. Persia apparently had a different view of Jerusalem's role. Ostensibly because it was a temple city, but probably also because it occupied a strategic military position near the border with Egypt, it was rebuilt over the years between 515 and 465 BCE. Even its walls stood high. The city was demolished at least twice more. Seleucid armies in 168 BCE destroyed the walls of Jerusalem and many houses (2 Mace. 5.2425; 1 Mace. 1.30-31). For three years Jewish worship in the temple was forbidden and the altar desecrated through pagan sacrifices.5 The city was rebuilt, completed by the Herodian dynasty with Roman approval. But, again, the city was destroyed by Roman legions in 70 CE. Christian Crusaders later rebuilt the city including its walls. Isaiah 3-4 fits into the history.6 It provides an excellent picture of the city, its internal structures and needs, its weaknesses, and finally the way that it could thrive under the right patronage. While these two chapters describe the way God deals with the city, they also picture the political, social, and economic realities of city life in such a fortress city in that period. The external fortifications may be strong, but, if the infrastructures and morale do not hold, the city will collapse within the 5. R.H. Pfeiffer, History of New Testament Times: With an Introduction to the Apocrypha (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1949), pp. 12-13. 6. The role of the city in the book of Isaiah is large. From the denunciation and threat to it in 1.21-28, to the word in 24.12, to the reports of its restoration in chs. 60 and 62, it plays a major part.

WATTS Jerusalem

213

walls. The pressures of siege were calculated to bring exactly that to pass. When an invading force had the resources and resolve to hold out for an extended siege as Nebuchadnezzar did for 13 years at Tyre, it took an incredible amount of stamina to hold out. 'Supply and support' (3.1) touches on a key requisite for survival. The city, strong as it was, depended on supplies of water and food from the hinterlands. A second requisite is 'personnel' (3.2-4, 12). Cities cannot re-supply themselves with enough persons to man their military or their political positions. Here, too, they are dependent on outside supply and support. Over years of war (the wars of the Assyrian and Babylonian period lasted 154 years, from 740 BCE to 586 BCE) the country and the city lost military and civil leadership and personnel: 'soldier and man of war, judge and prophet, diviner and elder, company commander and honorable man, counselor and diviner and one skilled in magic' (3.2-3). The result was that 'boys became their leaders and incompetents their rulers' (3.4). They could not control the population. Violence and oppression became the order of the day. There was no longer respect for the elderly or for the cultured. The people were desperate for leadership and order. They were willing to accept a tyrant if that achieved some semblance of order. But no one wanted the post, even on those conditions. Their judicial system became a sham and a disgrace. The final picture is: 'Boys are their taskmasters. Women rule over them. Their directors err and pervert their way of life'( 3.12).7 The stronger of the survivors used the occasion to enrich themselves at the expense of the weakened, widowed, bereaved, and poor (vv. 14-15). The picture is one of total breakdown of social order and decency in face of the devastation of war. No matter how strong the walls, if over a period of time one loses this many soldiers and leaders, the city will fall from within. There are 'social issues' (3.5-7, 12, 13-15). The personnel who lived in the cities and those who lived in surrounding villages which depended upon the city and its wealth and power must be kept happy and prosperous. Otherwise there is the probability of troubles.8 There are 'problems of affluence' (3.17-24). The cities often sat astride trade routes which made caravans pay for protection. Jerusalem 7. The youthfulness of leaders may refer to kings like Jehoiachin who submitted to Nebuchadnezzar in 598 BCE only to be taken into exile. 8. Note that the troops and bureaucracy are kin to those outside. Cf. Isa. 22 related to high officials in the court of Hezekiah.

214


and Samaria grew rich in this way, as did other cities. But with affluence came problems. The rich became symbols of social disparity (cf. Amos 3.15 and 4.1-3 for people in Samaria). Corruption of officials is pictured in Isa. 22 for Shebna, who conspired to have an elaborate mausoleum built for himself, and for Hilkiah, his successor. Without its supporting area and population a city is helpless: 'the destitute, helpless city', This is how a sustained siege over a considerable period of time could bring a city down without ever breaching its walls. The book of Isaiah's narrative pictures two sieges of the city. In Isa. 7, Ahaz is under a loose siege by the kings of Aram and Israel while their armies ravage Judah (cf. 2 Chron. 28.5-21). By neutralizing the walled capital at the beginning of the young king's reign, they were free to steal whatever they wanted from the rest of the country. The second siege is a close siege by the Assyrians intended to neutralize Hezekiah's forces while the Assyrian king attacked Egypt (Isa. 36-37 = 2 Kgs 18.17-19.36). Both of these sieges were unsuccessful in destroying the city. Ahaz escaped because of the approach of the Assyrian armies. Hezekiah escaped because of the miraculous events of disease among the Assyrian troops, or bad news from home for the commander. Isaiah, in contrast to Jeremiah and Ezekiel, never actually describes the fall of 586 BCE. However, Isaiah does speak of a number of cities including Damascus (17.1-3) and Tyre (23) being subject to the devastation of that time (cf. also 24.12). Jerusalem's siege in 734 BCE is pictured in Isa. 7 and that of 721 BCE in Isa. 36-37. Its troubles during this period are pictured in Isa. 22. Beyond the siege there is the hope of a future reversal (4.2-3). 'Branch of Yahweh—beautiful and glorious' speaks of new leadership. The fruit of the land'—speaks of the pride and glory of the survivors in the hinterland providing new support for the city. The survivors in Jerusalem are called 'holy'. The Temple is restored. It is the primary reason for the survival and continued activity of the city. Yahweh's means are a spirit of judgment and a spirit of fire which effect a cleansing (4.4). These are the long and terrible times of the Assyrian and Babylonian periods. Yahweh will create over Zion a protective canopy, a shelter (4.5-6). Is this a reference to Persian imperial patronage? This Persian restoration received Isaianic treatment in chs. 49-54, 60 and 62. In this treatment Yhwh claims credit for having brought Cyrus with the specific mandate of rebuilding Jerusalem. Under the Persians (and Nehemiah) the walls of the city serve to protect its inhabitants

WATTS Jerusalem

215

from local vandals. The city served as an armed outpost for the Persians and as a temple site for Jews. A walled city of this type had not been able to withstand the sustained assault of imperial power such as the attacks of Babylon (586 BCE), Seleucid armies (165 BCE), or Rome (70 CE). Conclusion Isaiah 3-4 is a literary unity which stands independently in the larger book. It is a miniature of the treatment of the city of Jerusalem in the larger book. It could also be called a foreshadowing of the treatment of Jerusalem through the rest of the book. A metaphorical picture of God at work over Jerusalem uses a figure from the wilderness journey (fire by night and a cloud of smoke by day). But the role is different in Exodus. There it served to lead the traveling people. In Isaiah it serves to protect the city. But it is also a metaphor for the experiences of Jerusalem with the trials of a walled city during the powerful changes (political, social, and economic) of the eighth to the sixth centuries. Cities such as Jerusalem can only survive and prosper under the protection and patronage of powerful empires.

INDEXES INDEX OF REFERENCES OLD TESTAMENT

Genesis 1-11 1.29-30 2 4.17 9.3-6 9.8-17 9.23 11.1-9 24.1 24.6 24.7-11 36.20 37.33 38.9 38.15

18 43 75,78 43 43 43 126 43,55 43 43 43 75 75 129 129

Exodus 23.11 25.20 28.42 34.13 37.9

76 125 126 149 125

Leviticus 11.15 11.16 11.17 11.18 18.25 18.28 26 26.6 26.14-23 26.26

42 42 42 42 83 83 84 75 73 119

Numbers 6.1-21 35

39 120

Deuteronomy 2.10-12 2.20-23 3.11 7.25 12.2 14.13 14.14 14.15 14.16 14.17 14.22-26 16.21 17.9 20.19-20 21.1-9 21.13 26.5 32.11

40 40 40 149 79 42 42 42 42 42 100 79 40 79 60 130 135 125

Joshua 20.2 20.3

120 120

Judges 4.4 8.9 9.8-15 13-16

118 149 79 39

Ruth 2.1

121

2.4 3.9

121 125, 126, 129

1 Samuel 1 1.11 9.18-25

118 39 115

2 Samuel 24.16-25

28

1 Kings 3.4 8.7 11.7 11.29 12.23 12.28-32 12.33 13.2 13.32 13.33 14.1-18 19.19-21 22.39

115 125 115 119 115, 120 115 115 120 115 115, 120 119 118 38

2 Kings 2.22 10.15-16 10.27 11.18 14 15.20 17.9 17.10

88 39 149 149 78 117 115 115

Index of References 17.25 17.29 17.32-41 17.32 18-20 18-19 18.4 18.17-19.36 18.22 19.3-4 20.35-42 22.14 23.4-20 23.5-6 23.5 23.9 23.13 23.20 23.30 23.35 24.13-17 24.14

75 115 115 120 67 212 116 214 115 115 119 36, 118, 119 115, 116 115 115 120 115 120 117 117 149 117

2 Chronicles 5.8 11.13-15 20.9 23.17 25.23 28.5-21 36.21

125 120 73 149 149 214 84

Ezra 9.9

150

Nehemiah 1.3 2.13 4.1 13.10

149 149 149 120

Job 38.5-6 39.26

41

Psalms 1 44 46 46.4-5 46.5-8 48 74 74.4-9 74.6 79 80.13 89 89.41 96.12 102 148

79 143 55, 56, 172 172 173 55,56 143 149 149 143 149 143 149 79 143 75

Proverbs 3.18 30.30

79 74

Ecclesiastes 9.13-16

47

Isaiah 1-35 1 1 .1 1 .7

1 .9-10 1 .21-28

141 .21-26

42 125 74

2-55 2-39 2-12 2 2.1 2.2-4 2.4 2.6-21 3-4 3.1-5 3.1 3.2-4 3.2-3

18,35,39 66 113 48 40 212 19, 46, 59 66 20, 66, 67 20, 66, 67 18 113 66 43 66 24, 212, 215 49 213 213 213

111 3.4 3.5-7 3.12 3.13-15 3.14-15 3.16^.1 3.16-26 3.17-24 4.1-2 4.2-6 4.2-3 4.3 4.4 4.5-6 5 5.5 5.6 5.8 5.17 6.11 7 7.2 7.10-14 7.23-25 9.17 10.1 10.17 10.19 10.34 11.6-9 11.9 13-23 13-21 13.1-22 13.19-22 13.19 14.17 14.22-23 15.1-63 17.1-3 18.11-28 19.1-9 19.25 21 21.1-10 22 22.2 22.8

213 213 213 213 213 59 39 213 76 59 214 59 214 214 117 149 39 117 39,48 39 212,214 44 67 39 39,44 39 39 44 44 43 43 40,41 64 40 40 40 44 41 37 214 37 37 58 143 56 213,214 48 44

218 Isaiah (cont.) 22.10 23-27 23 24-27

24.2 24.4-13 24.5 24.7 24.9 24.10-13 24.10 24.11 24.12 25-26 25.2 25.3 25.6 25.10-12 26.1-6 26.1 27.4 27.10-11 27.10 27.11 28-32 28.21 29.1-8 29.17 30.23-25 32.14 32.15-20 32.15a 33-34 33.20 34.8-11 34.9 34.10 34.11b 34.12 34.13-15 35.1 35.6 36-38 36-37

'Every City shall be Forsaken' 149 64 214 18, 19, 41,47-49, 51,53, 54,56 49 49 43 49 49 48 43,55 49 212,214 113 49 48,56 49 52 48 50,55 39 48 44 39 20,66 60 66 44 44 39,48 18,44 44 64 48 42 41 150 42 42 42 44 44 67 212,214

36.4 37.21-35 37.47 38 38.26 39 40-55 41.18-20 41.18-19 43.19-20 43.20 44.23 44.26 45.13 47 48 48.1-2 48.2 49-54 50.2 51.3 52 52.1 54.11-17 55.12 56-66 60

63.1-6 64.5 64.9 65.17-19

67 64 64 67 88 67 51,67 88 44 44 88 79 48 48 113 59 59 59 24, 214 44 44 59 59 54 79 66 24,212, 214 24,212, 214 64 129 44 49

Jeremiah 1.1 2 2.1-2 2.2 2.7 2.21 4.26 7 7.1-2 7.2 7.7 7.14

119 33 119 135 44 76 149 19,52 119 52 52 52

62

7.21-26 7.34 8.8 17.7-8 18.1-11 19.1-13 19.1-2 19.5 19.7 19.10-13 19.15 25 26.9 26.16-19 27 27.17 27.20 29.2 29.7 33.4 33.10 33.12 34.19 35 35.1-19 37.2 37.21 44.2 44.6 44.21 44.22 48.32-33 50-51 50.15 51.34 51.59-64 52.17-23

114 150 39 79 120 53 53 115 113 53 53 19,57 150 66 19 150 113 113 56 149 150 150 117 59 39 117 119 150 150 117 150 49 57, 113 149 57 53 149

Ezekiel 1-24 2.6 2.21 3.4-11 4.28 5.6 5.16-17 5.17 6

82 76 87 81 87 87 73 75 82

Index of References 6.6 6.14 7 7.2 7.3 7.7 7.9 9.10 10 11.15 11.17 11.21 12.8-9 12.13 12.15 12.21 13.4 14.1-6 14.2-6 14.12-23 14.12-15 14.15 14.17 14.21 15 16

16.1-43 16.8-13 16.8 16.9-14 16.9 16.10-14 16.10 16.13a 16.14 16.21 MT 16.39 16.43 16.46-52 16.62 17 17.2 17.13

83,115 82 82 81 83 82 82 87 73 90,91 91 91 87 83 83 83 74 87 87 83 83 73,83 74 75,83 77 19,21, 22, 58, 76, 124, 125, 131, 133-35 85 124 21, 12427, 130 126 127, 130 134 127 127 86 130 149 135 85 130 76 77 130

17.24 18.4 18.7 19.10-14 19.12 20.32 20.45-48 21.7-8[2-3] 22.1-12 22.27 22.29 23 23.1-10 23.4 24.25 25^8 26.9 26.19 28.24 30.4 31.6 31.8-9 31.8 31.13 32.1-16 33 33.24 33.27 34 34.25-29 34.25 34.28 35.12 36.8-12 36.8 36.9-1 36.10 36.16 36.17 36.22-38 36.26 36.34-36 36.35 36.36 36.38 37.26 38.20

78 87 128 76 80 79 80 81 20,85 74 117 85 85 130 75 84 149 150 76 149 74 77 77 74 73 82 91 91 74,75 75 84, 130 74 73 84 81 86 150 81 91 84 85 85 88, 149, 150 86 150 130 74

219

47 47.1-12 47.9 47.11

80 75 27,71, 86,93 78,88 89 88 89

Hosea 1-3 2 2.11 2.20 4-14 7.1 8.5 9.7-8 9.10 10.1 10.5 10.8 12.10

65,66 18 126 43,75 65 113 115 39 114, 115 115 115 115 39

Joel 3-4

64

Amos 1.3-2.3 2.11 3.14 3.15 4.1-3 5.5-6 6.1-7 7.9 7.10-17

64 39 115 214 117,214 115 39 115 115

38.22 39.17 40^18

Jonah 1.2 3.2 3.3

4.11

114 114 114 114

Micah 1.2 1.5 3.12

64 115 66


220 Micah (cont.) 4.1-4 4.1 4.8 5.5-15 6.1-2 Habakkuk 2 2.12

66 66 63 64 64

64 113

Zephaniah 1.10 2-3 2.13 3.1

36 64 113 113

Haggai 1.2-14 1.2 1.4

155 150 149, 150

1.9 1.14 2.1-4 2.5 2.6-9 2.10-19 2.20-23

149 150, 151 151, 155 155 155 155 149, 155

Zechariah 9-14

64

APOCRYPHA, NEW TESTAMENT AND PSEUDEPIGRAPHA APOCRYPHA

NEW TESTAMENT

/ Maccabees 1.30-31

212

Matthew 27.7 27. 27.10 27.10

2 Maccabees 5.14 5.23-26 5.24-25

110 110 212

Tobit 13.16-18

120 120

21.1-4 21.10-27 21/1-4

60 27 173

PSEUDEPIGRAPHA

27

Galatians 4.26 4.26 Jude 12.9 Revelation 11.8

2 Baruch

60

4.2-4 4.2-

27

76

4 Ezra 7.26 13.36

27 27

57

OTHER ANCIENT REFERENCES ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN ABL 204 1217 204 1217 T. 2-5 1217 s.3 181 1217+ 204 1217:2-3 204 1217:8 204 ARM

26371 Ashurbanipal Prism A iii 4-7 Prism B v 15-46 v 33-34 v 46-76 v 46-49 v77-vi 16

195

180

182 182 182 180 182

Prism C i 85-90

203

Prism T ii 14-17 ii7-8 ii 7-24

195 180 194

Borger, Die Inschriften Asarhaddons §2, p. 2: 12-26 § 11, pp. 11-29 §21, p. 33: 8-11 § 27, p. 43 i 59-62 § 27, p. 44: 74-81 § 27, p. 45 i 87-ii 7 § 64, p. 94 r. 6

§ 64, p. 95:20 § 64, p. 95:32 § 68, p. 107 iv 27-34 §97, p. 119

184 184 175 182

CT

189 199

53 17 53 17+ 53 17:2-3 53 17:8-9 53938 53 938:2-3

180

KAR

98

204 204 204 204 204 204

184

207 KAV

188

121

189

191 191

MDP 181 171:14

196

Index of References ND

2789:8-9

184

SAA

1 125 1 146 1 147 1 149 1 155 33:3 33:6-12 33:10 33:13 33:14-15 33r.l4-16

185 184 184 178 178 192 192 182 192 193 192

37 38

187, 193 174, 187

38r.l-22 38:1-18 3 10 3 13 3 13 r.2 3 13r.6-8 3 13:16-18

207 177 187 191 195 183 181 198 198 179 200 201 201 200 201 201 179 183 193 178 178 178 178 178 174

333

3 33 r.26-27 3 34-40 334

3 34:27 3 34:28-29 335 3 35:22

335:31 338

339:19-22 4 1-12 4 195 4300 4324 5 141 5 152 9

91 9 1.1 9 1.2

186,207 179, 180 179, 180, 182, 207

9 1.2 i 33-34 9 1.3

181 180

9 1.3 ii 11-15 9 1.4

9 1.4 1120-24 9 1.5 9 1.5 iii 5 9 1.6 9 1.61118-14 9 1.61119 9 1.6111 15-18 9 1.6 iv 1 9 1.6iv 14-19 9 1.8

206

179, 180, 204, 207 193 189 190

180, 182 186

190, 191 183 190 187

179, 180, 207

9 1.9 9 1. 9 v 27-30 9 1.10 9 1. 10 vi 22-26 92

92.1 92.1 i 14 92.1 15-12 92.3

180, 185 184

179, 180 181 196 189 190 196

179, 180, 182

9 2.3 ii 22-27 9 2.3 ii 24 92.4 9 2.4 ii 29 9 2.4 ii 30 9 2.4 ii 3 1-33 9 2.4 ii 32 92.4iii7-14 92.41117-11 92.4iii 18 92.5 9 2.5 iii 19-20 9 2.5 iii 26-27 92.6iv 1-15 9 2.6 iv 4

197, 198 186 180 194 191 192 194 193 191 194

180, 182 181

183, 193 197 196

93

179, 189

93.119-15 93.1 i 15 93.2118 9 3.3 ii 26 93.4 93.5 9 3.5 iii 16-22 93.5iv 15-17

190 190 190 190 180 180 187 187

221 180, 185 183 181 96 180 97 180 97r.6-ll 183 97r.6 191 99 179, 180, 191 99r.l 191 192 9 9 r.2-8 99r.6 206 99:3 192 99:21-22 192 9 10 179 174 10 1013 203 1024 200 10 109:7-16 191 10 109:13-15 199 10109r.l4-15 199 10 lllr.23-26 199 10112r.31 183 10 136-142 178 10174:10-16 205 10179 205 10284r.4-8 192 194 10294r.23 10 294 r.32 195 10338 206 10352 202 202 10359 10369 178 1250:7 178 1269 188 188 1269:27-31 1271:5 178 1272r.ll 178 1289:7 181 1337 189 13 37:4-6 189 13 140 180 13 141 180 13 144 180 13 145 180 13 147 179 185 13 149 13 186 180 95

95:8-9 95:9

222 TCS 1 369:5 YOS 618

618:1 618:7 618:8 618:10

'Every City shall be Forsaken' 195

196 196 196 196 196

Epic ofGilgamesh 131 1.4 132 2.2 132 2.3 3.2 132

JOSEPHUS

Ovid

Apion 1.22 §197 War 3.3.2 §43 6.9.3 §420

Ars amatoria 2.467-80

134

Strabo Geographia 4.1.5

104

109 110 110

CLASSICAL

Cicero Pro Roscio Aermino 75 31, 103 Diodorus Siculus 40.3.1-7 109

Varro Rerum Rusticarum 2.1.1 31,103

INDEX OF AUTHORS Abrams,P. 101, 108 Ackroyd, P.R. 143 Adams, P. 16 Aharoni, Y. 144 Ahlstrom, G.W. 36, 173, 210 Albright, W.F. 147 Alston, R. 109 Alston, R.D. 109 Amsler, S. 137, 150 Anderson, B.W. 71 Aro, S. 193 Astour, M.C. 132 Aufrecht, W.E. 154 Avigad, N. 37,38 Bagnall, R.S. 109 Baker, H.D. 205 Barfield, T. 15 Barnard, A. 15

Barstad, H.M. 22, 142, 143, 146-48 Barth, F. 26 Earth, H. 27, 118 Barthelemy, D. 150, 155 Beaujeu-Garnier, J. 108 Becking, B. 58 Bedford, P.R. 22, 138, 139 Ben Zvi, E. 22, 28, 48, 141, 144-46, 151-55 Benet, F. 102 Benvenisti, M. 46 Berger, P.L. 209 Blenkinsopp, J. 18, 25, 30, 31, 33, 36, 157 Boas, B. 132 Bodi, D. 132 Bolin, T.M. 22, 141, 142 Bolle, K.W. 26

Borger,R. 175, 180-82, 184, 185, 188, 189, 191, 194, 195, 199,203,207 Brecht, B. 35 Briend,J. 144, 148, 153 Bright,!. 143 Brinkmann, J.A. 197, 199 Broshi, M. 22, 36, 110, 144 Brownlee, W.H. 128 Buccellati, G. 116 Byatt, A. 110 Cancik, H. 174 Carmichael, C.M. 129 Carroll, R.P. 19, 22, 26, 27, 52, 57, 58, 70,92,94, 113, 141, 150 Carter, C.E. 22, 111, 144-147, 151, 153, 156 Chary, T. 149 Childe, V.G. 17, 29, 97, 108, 111, 163 Christaller, W. 108 Chyutin, M. 27 Clements, R.E. 27,50, 119 Clifford, RJ. 71,78,88 Clines, D.J.A. 141, 142, 151 Cogan, M. 116 Cohen, L. 55 Cohen, R. 153 Collins, J.J. 71 Cooke, GA. 129, 133 Coote, R.B. 19,28,31,32,64 Cornell, TJ. 99 Craigie, P.C. 172 Crowfoot, G.M. 38 Crowfoot, J.W. 38 Dandamaev, M.A. 140 Davis, K. 161

224


Deist, F.E. 141 Deller, K. 196 Delobez, A. 108 Dempsey, C.J. 130 Dever.W.G. 36,96, 110, 111 Douglas, M. 72, 115 Duguid,!. 72,93,94 Durkheim, E. 16,97 Edzard,D.O. 131 Eichrodt,W. 129 Engels,F. 16,31,97, 101 Eph'al.1. 153 Exum, J.C. 125

Hauser, P.M. 15, 102, 161 Hawkins, J.D. 176 Hayward, C.T.R. 27 Healey, J.P. 116 Hempel, J. 128 Hibbert, A.B. 103 Hill,J. 57,58 Hill, S.D. 69 Killers, D. 117 Holloway, S.W. 203,204 Hopkins, K. 30,99 Hubbard, R.L., Jr 129 Hugenberger, G.P. 130,131 Irwin,W. 130

Fava, S. 161, 162 Finkelstein, I. 110 Finley, M. 30, 32, 98, 99, 104, 107, 108 Fischer, C.S. 23,167-71 Frame, G. 197, 199, 202 Friedman, J. 108 Frier, B.W. 109 Fritz, V. 105, 172, 175, 176 Frye,N. 92 Frymer-Kensky, T. 200, 201 Galambush, J. 20, 31, 33, 130, 132, 135 Cans, HJ. 169 Garfinkel, S. 132 George, A.R. 179, 184, 188, 190, 194, 196, 204 Gerardi, P. 182 Gist,N.P. 161, 162 Gorg, M. 40 Gottwald, N.K. 22, 138, 139, 104, 141 Grabbe, L.L. 16, 18, 21, 25, 27-29, 31-33, 107,118,119,139,156 Gray, G.B. 41 Grayson, A.K. 194,200,202 Green, T.M. 203,204 Greenberg.M. 129,130,132,135 Gunkel, H. 133 Habel, N. 72,83 Halpern,B. 64, 116 Hamerton-Kelly, R.G. 22, 138, 139, 142 Hanson, P.D. 22, 138, 139, 142, 147 Harris, R. 134

Jameson, F. 72,92,93 Jamieson-Drake, D.W. 38 Janowski, B. 172 Janssen, E. 22, 142 Janzen, G. 135 Japhet, S. 157 Johannes, F. 153, 156 Kaiser, O. 50 Kamionkowski, T. 21, 28, 31, 33, 124 Kenney,E.J. 134 Kessler, J. 22, 25, 28, 149, 150, 157 Kippenberg, G. 140 Korpel, M.C.A. 128 Kovacs,M.G. 131 Krausz, N. 135 Kreissig,H. 22, 138-40, 142, 143, 146 Kruger, P.A. 127, 129 Kuhl,C. 127 Kunin, S.D. 26 Lambert, W.G. 200 Landsberger, B. 189, 198 Lang, B. 132 Laperrousaz, E.-M. 22, 142, 148 Lapidus,I.M. 174, 176 Lemaire, A. 144,152-54,156 Lemche, N.P. 145 Levenson, J.D. 71,88 Levi-Strauss, C. 26 Lewis, B. 133 Lewis, I.M. 115

Index of Authors Lewis, O. 15, 102 Lipinski,E. 157,203 Liverani, M. 175 Livingstone, A. 187,200 Lloyd, P.C. 106 Lomas, K. 99 Lovejoy, A.O. 132 Luckmann, T. 209 Lupri, E. 102 Malul,M. 127 Margalith, O. 22, 140, 141 Marx, K. 31, 101 Mason, R.A. 118, 149, 157 Mattila, R. 178 Mattingly, D.J. 99 Mayer, W. 128 Mazar, A. 38 McEwan, G.J.P. 202 McGee, T.G. 100-102 McTaggert, W.D. 15 Melville, S.C. 183 Menzel, B. 179, 184, 185, 187, 188, 190, 194 Meyers, C.L. 137, 149 Meyers, E.M. 137, 149, 156 Michaels, W.B. 92 Miles, S.W. 17, 98, 105, 106 Moran,W.L. 132, 134 Motyer, J.A. 50, 56, 58 Na'aman, N. 153 Nefzger, B. 17,22,25,29,97 Nissinen, M. 23,31, 123, 181, 183-85, 188, 189, 192, 194, 199, 202, 204, 205 Norin, S. 135 North, J.A. 100 Ofer, A. 37 Ollenburger, B. 173 Ortner, S. 134 Osborne, R. 30, 32, 99, 107 Pahl,R.E. 102 Parker, B. 184 Parkins, H.M. 30, 107, 108

225

Parpola, S. 179, 182-85, 187-91, 195, 196, 198-200 Pasto, J. 141 Person, R. 156 Pfeiffer, R.H. 212 Pirenne, H. 103 Ploger,J.G. 81 Pocock, D.F. 56,58 Polley, M.E. 69 Pongratz-Leisten, B. 174-76, 185, 186, 206 Pope, M.H. 128 Porteous, N.W. 59 Porter, B.N. 189, 198, 200, 201 Postgate, J.N. 109, 173, 174, 194, 203 Queen, S.L. 160

Rad, G. von 135, 154 Radner, K. 180,205 Reade, J. 194 Redfield, R. 17, 102 Redford, D.B. 133 Redman, C.L. I l l Reissman, L. 102 Rich, J. 30,99 Roberts, J.J.M. 27 Rohrbaugh, R.L. 159 Routledge, B. 173, 175 Routledge, C. 174 Ste Croix, G.E.M. de 101-104 Sasson, J.M. 114 Saunders, P. 16 Scarry, E. 82 Schaper, J. 158 Schmidt, K.S. 178 Schnore, L.F. 15 Seavers, R. 210 Seymour-Smith, J. 15 Shaw, I. 176 Shiloh, Y. I l l Simmel, G. 168 Sjoberg, G. 17, 23, 68, 100, 101, 107, 116, 164, 166 Smith, A. 16, 31,97, 103 Smith, M. 22, 138 Smith, M.G. 15, 139, 142, 147

226


Soden, W. von 131 Sollberger, E. 195 Southall, A. 18, 32, 101, 104, 106-108 Spencer, J. 15 Stark, R. 23, 171 Steck, O.H. 154 Stern, E. 36 Stevenson, K.R. 72,93 Stolz, F. 172 Streck, M. 185,200 Stummer, F. 54 Sweeney, M.A. 50 Syreeni, K. 209 Tadmor, H. 116, 198 Talmon, S. 114, 116, 117, 173 Thomas, L.F. 160 Thompson, T.L. 22, 141 Thrupp, S.L. 101 Thureau-Dangin, F. 196 Toorn, K. van der 196 Tucker, G.M. 87 Tuell, S.S. 78 Tushingham, A.D. 36 Uehlinger, C. 203,205 Van De Mieroop, M. 109, 123, 172-76, 203 Vanderhooft, D.S. 64 Vaux, R. de 117 Verhoef, P.A. 137, 149

Viberg, A. 126, 129 Villard,P. 205 Wagstaff, J.M. 176 Wallace, H.N. 78 Wallace-Hadrill, A. 30-32, 99, 103, 105, 107, 108 Watts, J. 24 Weber, M. 16, 30, 32, 39, 97-99, 107 Weidner,E.F. 185 Weinberg, J.P 22, 138-41, 146, 147 Weinberg, S.S. 148 Weinfeld, M. 173 Weissert, E. 184, 185 Westenholz, J.G. 174, 176, 198 Westermann, C. 54 Wheatley, P. 15, 17, 97, 98, 101, 102, 116 Whittaker, C.R. 99 Wildberger, H. 51 Williams, R. 31, 113 Williamson, H.G.M. 67 Wilson, R.R. 69 Winter, I.J. 180,203 Wirth, L. 23, 29, 108, 166-68 Wrigley, E.A. 98, 101 Yaron, R. 149 Zertal, A. 144, 148, 153 Zimmerli, W. 129 Zorn, J.R. 37

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197 William M. Schniedewind, The Word of God in Transition: From Prophet to Exegete in the Second Temple Period 198 T.J. Meadowcroft, Aramaic Daniel and Greek Daniel: A Literary Comparison 199 J.H. Eaton, Psalms of the Way and the Kingdom: A Conference with the Commentators 200 M. Daniel Carroll R., David J.A. Clines and Philip R. Davies (eds.), The Bible in Human Society: Essays in Honour of John Rogerson 201 John W. Rogerson, The Bible and Criticism in Victorian Britain: Profiles of F.D. Maurice and William Robertson Smith 202 Nanette Stahl, Law and Liminality in the Bible 203 Jill M. Munro, Spikenard and Saffron: The Imagery of the Song of Songs 204 Philip R. Davies, Whose Bible Is It Anyway ? 205 David J.A. Clines, Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible 206 M0gens Miiller, The First Bible of the Church: A Plea for the Septuagint 207 John W. Rogerson, Margaret Davies and M. Daniel Carroll R. (eds.), The Bible in Ethics: The Second Sheffield Colloquium 208 Beverly J. Stratton, Out of Eden: Reading, Rhetoric, and Ideology in Genesis 2-3 209 Patricia Dutcher-Walls, Narrative Art, Political Rhetoric: The Case ofAthaliah and Joash 210 Jacques Berlinerblau, The Vow and the 'Popular Religious Groups' of Ancient Israel: A Philological and Sociological Inquiry 211 Brian E. Kelly, Retribution and Eschatology in Chronicles 212 Yvonne Sherwood, The Prostitute and the Prophet: Hosea's Marriage in Literary- Theoretical Perspective 213 Yair Hoffman, A Blemished Perfection: The Book of Job in Context 214 Roy F. Melugin and Marvin A. Sweeney (eds.), New Visions of Isaiah 215 J. Cheryl Exum, Plotted, Shot and Painted: Cultural Representations of Biblical Women 216 Judith E. McKinlay, Gendering Wisdom the Host: Biblical Invitations to Eat and Drink 217 Jerome F.D. Creach, Yahweh as Refuge and the Editing of the Hebrew Psalter 218 Harry P. Nasuti, Defining the Sacred Songs: Genre, Tradition, and the PostCritical Interpretation of the Psalms 219 Gerald Morris, Prophecy, Poetry and Hosea 220 Raymond F. Person, Jr, In Conversation with Jonah: Conversation Analysis, Literary Criticism, and the Book of Jonah 221 Gillian Keys, The Wages of Sin: A Reappraisal of the 'Succession Narrative' 222 R.N. Whybray, Reading the Psalms as a Book 223 Scott B. Noegel, Janus Parallelism in the Book of Job 224 Paul J. Kissling, Reliable Characters in the Primary History: Profiles of Moses, Joshua, Elijah and Elisha 225 Richard D. Weis and David M. Carr (eds.), A Gift of God in Due Season: Essays on Scripture and Community in Honor of James A. Sanders

226 Lori L. Rowlett, Joshua and the Rhetoric of Violence: A New Historicist Analysis 227 John F.A. Sawyer (ed.), Reading Leviticus: Responses to Mary Douglas 228 Volkmar Fritz and Philip R. Davies (eds.), The Origins of the Ancient Israelite States 229 Stephen Breck Reid (ed.), Prophets and Paradigms: Essays in Honor of Gene M. Tucker 230 Kevin J. Cathcart and Michael Maher (eds.), Targumic and Cognate Studies: Essays in Honour of Martin McNamara 231 Weston W. Fields, Sodom and Gomorrah: History and Motif in Biblical Narrative 232 Tilde Binger, Asherah: Goddesses in Ugarit, Israel and the Old Testament 233 Michael D. Goulder, The Psalms ofAsaph and the Pentateuch: Studies in the Psalter, III 234 Ken Stone, Sex, Honor, and Power in the Deuteronomistic History 235 James W. Watts and Paul House (eds.), Forming Prophetic Literature: Essays on Isaiah and the Twelve in Honor of John D. W. Watts 236 Thomas M. Bolin, Freedom beyond Forgiveness: The Book of Jonah Reexamined 237 Neil Asher Silberman and David B. Small (eds.), The Archaeology of Israel: Constructing the Past, Interpreting the Present 238 M. Patrick Graham, Kenneth G. Hoglund and Steven L. McKenzie (eds.), The Chronicler as Historian 239 Mark S. Smith, The Pilgrimage Pattern in Exodus 240 Eugene E. Carpenter (ed.), A Biblical Itinerary: In Search of Method, Form and Content. Essays in Honor of George W. Coats 241 Robert Karl Gnuse, No Other Gods: Emergent Monotheism in Israel 242 K.L. Noll, The Faces of David 243 Henning Graf Reventlow (ed.), Eschatology in the Bible and in Jewish and Christian Tradition 244 Walter E. Aufrecht, Neil A. Mirau and Steven W. Gauley (eds.), Urbanism in Antiquity: From Mesopotamia to Crete 245 Lester L. Grabbe (ed.), Can a 'History of Israel' Be Written? 246 Gillian M. Bediako, Primal Religion and the Bible: William Robertson Smith and his Heritage 247 Nathan Klaus, Pivot Patterns in the Former Prophets 248 Etienne Nodet, A Search for the Origins of Judaism: From Joshua to the Mishnah 249 William Paul Griffin, The God of the Prophets: An Analysis of Divine Action 250 Josette Elayi and Jean Sapin, Beyond the River: New Perspectives on Transeuphratene 251 Flemming A.J. Nielsen, The Tragedy in History: Herodotus and the Deuteronomistic History 252 David C. Mitchell, The Message of the Psalter: An Eschatological Programme in the Book of Psalms

253 William Johnstone, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Volume 1: 1 Chronicles 1-2 Chronicles 9: Israel's Place among the Nations 254 William Johnstone, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Volume 2: 2 Chronicles 10—36: Guilt and Atonement 255 Larry L. Lyke, King David with the Wise Woman ofTekoa: The Resonance of Tradition in Parabolic Narrative 256 Roland Meynet, Rhetorical Analysis: An Introduction to Biblical Rhetoric 257 Philip R. Davies and David J.A. Clines (eds.), The World of Genesis: Persons, Places, Perspectives 258 Michael D. Goulder, The Psalms of the Return (Book V, Psalms 107-150): Studies in the Psalter, IV 259 Allen Rosengren Petersen, The Royal God: Enthronement Festivals in Ancient Israel and Ugarit? 260 A.R. Pete Diamond, Kathleen M. O'Connor and Louis Stulman (eds.), Troubling Jeremiah 261 Othmar Keel, Goddesses and Trees, New Moon and Yahweh: Ancient Near Eastern Art and the Hebrew Bible 262 Victor H. Matthews, Bernard M. Levinson and Tikva Frymer-Kensky (eds.), Gender and Law in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East 263 M. Patrick Graham and Steven L. McKenzie, The Chronicler as Author: Studies in Text and Texture 264 Donald F. Murray, Divine Prerogative and Royal Pretension: Pragmatics, Poetics, and Polemics in a Narrative Sequence about David (2 Samuel 5.17-7.29) 265 John Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan 266 J. Cheryl Exum and Stephen D. Moore (eds.), Biblical Studies/Cultural Studies: The Third Sheffield Colloquium 267 Patrick D. Miller, Jr, Israelite Religion and Biblical Theology: Collected Essays 268 Linda S. Schearing and Steven L. McKenzie (eds.), Those Elusive Deuteronomists: 'Pandeuteronomism' and Scholarship in the Nineties 269 David J.A. Clines and Stephen D. Moore (eds.), Auguries: The Jubilee Volume of the Sheffield Department of Biblical Studies 270 John Day (ed.), King and Messiah in Israel and the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the Oxford Old Testament Seminar 271 Wonsuk Ma, Until the Spirit Comes: The Spirit of God in the Book of Isaiah 272 James Richard Linville, Israel in the Book of Kings: The Past as a Project of Social Identity 273 Meir Lubetski, Claire Gottlieb and Sharon Keller (eds.), Boundaries of the Ancient Near Eastern World: A Tribute to Cyrus H. Gordon 274 Martin J. Buss, Biblical Form Criticism in its Context 275 William Johnstone, Chronicles and Exodus: An Analogy and its Application 276 Raz Kletter, Economic Keystones: The Weight System of the Kingdom ofJudah 211 Augustine Pagolu, The Religion of the Patriarchs

278 Lester L. Grabbe (ed.), Leading Captivity Captive: 'The Exile' as History and Ideology 279 Kari Latvus, God, Anger and Ideology: The Anger of God in Joshua and Judges in Relation to Deuteronomy and the Priestly Writings 280 Eric S. Christiansen, A Time to Tell: Narrative Strategies in Ecclesiastes 281 Peter D. Miscall, Isaiah 34-35: A Nightmare/A Dream 282 Joan E. Cook, Hannah's Desire, God's Design: Early Interpretations in the Story of Hannah 283 Kelvin Friebel, Jeremiah's and Ezekiel's Sign-Acts: Rhetorical Nonverbal Communication 284 M. Patrick Graham, Rick R. Marrs and Steven L. McKenzie (eds.), Worship and the Hebrew Bible: Essays in Honor of John T. Willis 285 Paolo Sacchi, History of the Second Temple 286 Wesley J. Bergen, Elisha and the End ofProphetism 287 Anne Fitzpatrick-McKinley, The Transformation ofTorahfrom Scribal Advice to Law 288 Diana Lipton, Revisions of the Night: Politics and Promises in the Patriarchal Dreams of Genesis 289 JoZe KraSovec (ed.), The Interpretation of the Bible: The International Symposium in Slovenia 290 Frederick H. Cryer and Thomas L. Thompson (eds.), Qumran between the Old and New Testaments 291 Christine Schams, Jewish Scribes in the Second-Temple Period 292 David J.A. Clines, On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays, 1967-1998 Volume 1 293 David J.A. Clines, On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays, 1967-1998 Volume 2 294 Charles E. Carter, The Emergence of Yehud in the Persian Period: A Social and Demographic Study 295 Jean-Marc Heimerdinger, Topic, Focus and Foreground in Ancient Hebrew Narratives 296 Mark Cameron Love, The Evasive Text: Zechariah 1-8 and the Frustrated Reader 297 Paul S. Ash, David, Solomon and Egypt: A Reassessment 298 John D. Baildam, Paradisal Love: Johann Gottfried Herder and the Song of Songs 299 M. Daniel Carroll R., Rethinking Contexts, Rereading Texts: Contributions from the Social Sciences to Biblical Interpretation 300 Edward Ball (ed.), In Search of True Wisdom: Essays in Old Testament Interpretation in Honour of Ronald E. Clements 301 Carolyn S. Leeb, Away from the Father's House: The Social Location ofna'ar and na 'arah in Ancient Israel 302 Xuan Huong Thi Pham, Mourning in the Ancient Near East and the Hebrew Bible 303 Ingrid Hjelm, The Samaritans and Early Judaism: A Literary Analysis

304 Wolter H. Rose, Zemah and Zerubabbel: Messianic Expectations in the Early Postexilic Period 305 Jo Bailey Wells, God's Holy People: A Theme in Biblical Theology 306 Albert de Pury, Thomas Romer and Jean-Daniel Macchi (eds.), Israel Constructs its History: Deuteronomistic Historiography in Recent Research 307 Robert L. Cole, The Shape and Message of Book HI (Psalms 73-89) 308 Yiu-Wing Fung, Victim and Victimizes Joseph's Interpretation of his Destiny 309 George Aichele (ed.), Culture, Entertainment and the Bible 310 Esther Fuchs, Sexual Politics in the Biblical Narrative: Reading the Hebrew Bible as a Woman 311 Gregory Glazov, The Bridling of the Tongue and the Opening of the Mouth in Biblical Prophecy 312 Francis Landy, Beauty and the Enigma: And Other Essays on the Hebrew Bible 314 Bernard S. Jackson, Studies in the Semiotics of Biblical Law 315 Paul R. Williamson, Abraham, Israel and the Nations: The Patriarchal Promise and its Covenantal Development in Genesis 316 Dominic Rudman, Determinism in the Book of Ecclesiastes 317 Lester L. Grabbe (ed.), Did Moses Speak Attic? Jewish Historiography and Scripture in the Hellenistic Period 318 David A. Baer, When We All Go Home: Translation and Theology in LXX 5666 320 Claudia V. Camp, Wise, Strange and Holy: The Strange Woman and the Making of the Bible 321 Varese Layzer, Signs of Weakness: Juxtaposing Irish Tales and the Bible 322 Mignon R. Jacobs, The Conceptual Coherence of the Book ofMicah 323 Martin Ravndal Hauge, The Descent from the Mountain: Narrative Patterns in Exodus 19^0 324 P.M. Michele Daviau, John W. Wevers and Michael Weigl (eds.), The World of the Aramaeans: Studies in Honour of Paul-Eugene Dion, Volume 1 325 P.M. Michele Daviau, John W. Wevers and Michael Weigl (eds.), The World of the Aramaeans: Studies in Honour of Paul-Eugene Dion, Volume 2 326 P.M. Michele Daviau, John W. Wevers and Michael Weigl (eds.), The World of the Aramaeans: Studies in Honour of Paul-Eugene Dion, Volume 3 327 Gary D. Salyer, Vain Rhetoric: Private Insight and Public Debate in Ecclesiastes 330 Lester L. Grabbe and Robert D. Haak (eds.), 'Every City shall be Forsaken': Urbanism and Prophecy in Ancient Israel and the Near East 331 Amihai Mazar (ed.), with the assistance of Ginny Mathias, Studies in the Archaeology of the Iron Age in Israel and Jordan 332 Robert J.V. Hiebert, Claude E. Cox and Peter J. Gentry (eds.), The Old Greek Psalter: Studies in Honour of Albert Pietersma

'Every City Shall Be Forsaken': Urbanism and Prophecy in Ancient Israel and the Near East (JSOT Supplement)

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