God's Word for Our World, Volume 1: Biblical Studies in Honor of Simon John De Vries (Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement JSOT.S 388)

JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT SUPPLEMENT SERIES 388 Editors Claudia V. Camp, Texas Christian University ...

Author: J. Harold Ellens | Deborah L. Ellens | Rolf P. Knierim | Isaac Kalimi

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JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT SUPPLEMENT SERIES

388

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

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

Editorial Board

Richard J. Coggins, Alan Cooper, John Goldingay, Robert P. Gordon, Norman K. Gottwald, John Jarick, Andrew D.H. Mayes, Carol Meyers, Patrick D. Miller

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God's Word for Our World Volume I Biblical Studies in Honor of Simon John De Vries

edited by J. Harold Ellens, Deborah L. Ellens, Rolf P. Knierim and Isaac Kalimi

T &.T CLARK INTERNATIONAL A Continuum imprint LONDON

•

NEW YORK

Copyright © 2004 T&T Clark International A Continuum imprint Published by T&T Clark International The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX 15 East 26th Street, Suite 1703, New York, NY 10010 www.tandtclark.com All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Typeset and edited for Continuum by Forthcoming Publications Ltd www.forthcomingpublications.com Printed on acid-free paper in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd

ISBN 0-8264-6974-4

CONTENTS Foreword by Rolf P. Knierim Abbreviations List of Contributors

ix xii xv

J. HAROLD ELLENS Introduction: Biblical Theology and Text-Critical Studies

1

BRIAN R. MCCARTHY The Characterization of YHWH, the God of Israel, in Exodus 1-15

6

JOHN WILLIAM WEVERS Two Reflections on the Greek Exodus

21

DAVID ROLPH SEELY The Image of the Hand of God in the Book of Exodus

38

DEBORAH L. ELLENS Numbers 5.11-31: Valuing Male Suspicion

55

RONALD E. CLEMENTS The Former Prophets and Deuteronomy— A Re-Examination

83

AMIRA MEIR On the Study of Pentateuchal Poetry

96

J. KENNETH KUNTZ Hendiadys as an Agent of Rhetorical Enrichment in Biblical Poetry, With Special Reference to Prophetic Discourse

114

vi

God's Word for Our World

JOHN D. W. WATTS Two Studies in Isaiah

135

HYUN CHUL PAUL KIM The Song of Moses (Deuteronomy 32.1-43) in Isaiah 40-55

147

SIMON J. DE VRIES John Calvin's Contribution to an Understanding of the Book of Isaiah

172

W. EUGENE MARCH Guess Who is Coming to Dinner! Jeremiah 29.1-9 as an Invitation to Radical Social Change

200

SIMON J. DE VRIES The Interface between Prophecy as Narrative and Prophecy as Proclamation

211

WON W. LEE Balak: The Forgotten Character in Numbers 22—24

247

YITZHAK (ITZIK) PELEG 'Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown' (Jonah 3.4): Two Readings (shtei krie 'of) of the Book of Jonah

262

KENNETH E. POMYKALA Jerusalem as the Fallen Booth of David in Amos 9.11

275

ROBERT L. HUBBARD, JR 'Old What's-His-Name': Why the King in 1 Kings 22 Has No Name

294

MARVIN A. SWEENEY The Portrayal of YHWH'S Deliverance in Micah 2.12-13 Reconsidered

315

Contents

vii

NAOMI STEINBERG Romancing the Widow: The Economic Distinctions between the 'almand, the 'issd- 'almdnd and the 'eset-hammet

327

ISAAC KALIMI The Date of the Book of Chronicles

347

The Work of Simon John De Vries

372

Index of References Index of Authors

380 399

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FOREWORD Rolf P. Knierim

This work is a celebration of the career of Professor Simon John De Vries. His colleagues present the chapters in this commemorative volume with honor and esteem, on the occasion of his eighty-second birthday, 20 December 2003. This is not the place to write Professor De Vries' biography. However, it affords an opportunity to mention the illustrious stages of his Curriculum Vitae. This list alone gives cause for much thought and appreciation: his military service as a Lieutenant in the US Marine Corps from 1942 to 1946, his marriage to Betty Marie Schouten in 1942, his education at Calvin College and Theological Seminary and at Union Theological Seminary in New York where he earned his STM and ThD, his postdoctoral studies at Leiden and Tubingen, his positions as pastor during the 1950s, and as Professor of Old Testament at various institutions thereafter. Professor De Vries spent his life's career, 1962—88, as Professor of Old Testament at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio and is now Professor Emeritus. He continues his work as guest lecturer, research professor, and member of a number of learned societies in the USA and abroad. He is internationally recognized for his grace and wisdom, and for his meticulously researched and written published works. These phases of a rich career point to a life, filled to capacity, of vocational and professional involvement, of deep devotion and high achievement, in both the church and the academy, a life which deserves particular attention, admiration, and respect. Even so, the additional fact of his works published in print is nothing less than astounding. It belongs to a level of literary productivity reached by few anywhere. There is a list of constant publication starting with 1951 and continuing all the way until 2003, with the exception of the years 1974, 1984,1994, and up to the moment of this writing. These important works appeared in approximately equal numbers in each of those fifty years.

x


Their total number exceeds 180, including seven major books and about 50 major research articles. He is, at this moment, in the process of preparing for publication three more books and three major articles. Striking in De Vries' published work is not only the quantity of his productivity, with its wide range of discussed issues and topics, but also its sustained high scholarly quality, especially noticeable in his exegetical biblical studies. Whatever his generally stated ideas or theories have been, which are by no means secondary for him, they are always developed from or backed by specifically studied aspects including full usage of the technical apparatus in exegesis. The same is true for his reviews of scholarly publications. Wherever he agrees or differs from the original author, he demonstrates the result of a circumspect and reliable study of what he is reviewing, combined with his own solid knowledge of the subject under discussion. To be sure, Professor De Vries has, throughout his scholarly life, above all been an heir to the legacy of the classical literary-critical, transmissionhistorical, and tradition-historical school. Whether more or less in the center, this legacy remains indispensable. It continues, fortunately, to be carried on by a solid segment in biblical scholarship, including his contributions. As late as 1995, his massive book From Old Revelation to New demonstrates once more his painstakingly diligent labor in persistently progressing from detailed analysis to synthesis, and so consistently throughout the work. It is, again, the fruit of an ethos of personal discipline sustained throughout years and decades, and regardless of the degrees of popularity. What an example! More than 35 years ago, while still in Heidelberg, I read a review article by a scholar named Simon J. De Vries, who was then unknown to me. It was a critique of a book on a subject with which I was familiar. I was struck by the exegetical competence, balance, and incisiveness of that article. From then on, the name of that reviewer was in the store of my memory as that of one of the most important scholars in our field of Hebrew Bible studies. I consider it as one of the fortunate and enriching events in my life that my path has lead me into the path of his life, and that we have become mutually respectful personal friends, as well as collegial scholarly collaborators.. It would be preposterous were I to imply that I am the one, at least more than others, who is best equipped to write this encomium as a Foreword to this volume of studies. All of the authors contribute here to honor Simon John De Vries as the very senior scholar, teacher, and pastor that he is.

KNIERIM Foreword

xi

There are many who would have their own version of an encomium. I just happened to be one who participated in suggesting the idea of a celebratory volume in his honor. The merit for having taken up the idea belongs solely to Dr J. Harold Ellens. He carried it out and secured the publication of the volume, inviting the participants, processing the organization of the work, and seeing it through the complex publishing process. He belongs to the group of scholars, together with Dr Deborah L. Ellens and Dr Isaac Kalimi, who deserve the credit for the editorial work. I believe no one will object when, in conclusion, I speak in the name of all our contributors to this volume, expressing to Professor Simon John De Vries our indebtedness and admiration for his life's well done effort, and wishing for him and his wife Betty happiness, energy, and contentment as long as life is granted them.

ABBREVIATIONS

AB ABD AKM ANEP

ANET AOAT ArOr AThANT BBB BBET BOB

BHS Bib BIOSCS BJS BKAT

BO BSOAS BWANT BZ BZAW BZNW CBQ CBSC CHANE ConBOT CRBS EBib EJL EncJud EvTh FAT FOTL FRLANT

Anchor Bible David Noel Freedman (ed.), The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992) Abhandlungen fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes James B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near East in Pictures Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954) James B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950) Alter Orient und Altes Testament Archiv orientdlni Abhandlungen zur Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments Bonner biblische Beitrage Beitrage zur biblischen Exegese und Theologie Francis Brown, S.R. Driver and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907) Biblia hebraica stuttgartensia Biblica Bulletin of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies Brown Judaic Studies Biblischer Kommentar: Altes Testament Bibtiotheca orientalis Bulletin of the School of Oriental (and African) Studies Beitrage zur Wissenschaft vom Alten und Neuen Testament Biblische Zeitschrift BeiheftezurZ4ff Beihefte zur ZNW Catholic Biblical Quarterly Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges Culture and history of the ancient Near East Coniectanea biblica, Old Testament Currents in Research: Biblical Studies Etudes bibliques Society of Biblical Literature: Early Judaism and its Literature Encyclopaedia Judaica Evangelische Theologie Forschungen zum Alten Testament The Forms of the Old Testament Literature Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments

Abbreviations GKB GKC

HAL AT HAT

HA WAT HCOT HSM

HTR HUCA ICC

IDE IDBSup Int JAAR JAOS JARCE JBL JESHO JEOL JNES JNSL JPS JPSV

JQR JSHRZ JSNTSup JSOT JSOTSup KAT KB KHAT KJV LCL LSJ LXX MT

NCBC NEB

NICOT NIV NRSV NTS

OBT

OIP OIL

OTP

Xlll

Wilhelm Gesenius, E. Kautzsch and Gotthelf Bergstrasser, Hebrdische Grammatik (Hildesheim: G. Olms, 28th edn, 1962) Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (ed. E. Kautzsch, revised and trans. A.E. Cowley; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910) Ludwig Koehler et al. (eds.), Hebrdisches und aramaisches Lexikon zumAlten Testament (5 vols.; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1967-1995) Handbuch zum Alten Testament Hebrdisches und aramaisches Worterbuch zum Alten Testament Historical commentary on the Old Testament Harvard Semitic Monographs Harvard Theological Review Hebrew Union College Annual International Critical Commentary George Arthur Buttrick (ed.), The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (4 vols.; Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962) IDB, Supplementary Volume Interpretation Journal of the American Academy of Religion Journal of the American Oriental Society Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt Journal of Biblical Literature Journal of The Economic and Social History Of The Orient Jaarbericht.. .ex oriente lux Journal of Near Eastern Studies Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages Jewish Publication Society Jewish Publication Society Version Jewish Quarterly Review Judische Schriften aus hellenistisch-romischer Zeit Journal for the Study of the New Testament, Supplement Series Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series Kommentar zum Alten Testament Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner (eds.), Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti libros (Leiden: EJ. Brill, 1953) Kurzer Hand-Kommentar zum Alten Testament King James Version Loeb Classical Library H.G. Liddell, Robert Scott and H. Stuart Jones, Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 9th edn, 1968). Septuagint Masoretic text New Century Bible Commentary New English Bible New International Commentary on the Old Testament New International Version New Revised Standard Version New Testament Studies Overtures to Biblical theology Oriental Institute Publications Old Testament Library James Charlesworth (ed.), Old Testament Pseudepigrapha

XIV

PMLA RB RevQ RIA RSR RSV

SAA SBL SBLDS SBLMS SNT SO AW

TDNT.

TDOT THAT.

ThWAT. TOTC TRE TS UF VT VTSup WBC WMANT WO ZA ZAW

God's Word for Our World Proceedings of the Modern Language Association of America Revue biblique Revue de Qumran Real Lexicon der Assyriologie Recherches de science religieuse Revised Standard Version State archives of Assyria Society of Biblical Literature SBL Dissertation Series SBL Monograph Series Studien zum Neuen Testament Sitzungsberichte der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich (eds.), Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley; 10 vols.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964—) G.J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren (eds.), Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament Ernst Jenni and Claus Westermann (eds.), Theologisches Handworterbuch zum Alten Testament (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 197176) G.J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren (eds.), Theologisches Worterbuch zum Alten Testament (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1970-) Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries Theologische Realenzyklopadie Theological Studies Ugarit-Forschungen Vetus Testamentum Veins Testamentum, Supplements Word Biblical Commentary Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament Die Welt des Orients Zeitschrift fur Assyriologie Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Ronald E. Clements, a renowned scholar in the field of Old Testament, resides in Cambridge, England Simon J. De Vries, Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio, resides in Grand Rapids, MI, USA Deborah L. Ellens, an independent scholar specializing in the sociology of biblical law, resides in Claremont, CA, USA J. Harold Ellens, a distinguished New Testament scholar, minister and clinical psychologist who integrates biblical tradition with analytical psychology, resides in Farmington Hills, MI, USA Robert L. Hubbard, Jr, is on the faculty at North Park Theological Seminary, Chicago, IL, USA Isaac Kalimi, a renowned Old Testament scholar who integrates biblical analysis with Jewish lore, teaches at Case Western Reserve University, and resides in Cleveland, OH, USA Hyun Chul Paul Kim teaches Old Testament at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio, Delaware, OH, USA J. Kenneth Kuntz, a recognized authority on the Psalmodic literature, teaches in the School of Religion at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA Won W. Lee teaches Old Testament in the Department of Religion and Theology at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, MI, USA W. Eugene March is Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY, USA

xvi


Brian R. McCarthy is an independent scholar residing in Madison, WI, USA Amira Meir teaches at Beit Berl College, Beit Berl, Israel Yitzhak (Itzik) Peleg teaches at Beit Berl College, Beit Berl, Israel Kenneth E. Pomykala teaches New Testament in the Department of Religion and Theology at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, MI, USA Naomi Steinberg teaches in the Department of Religious Studies at De Paul University, Chicago, IL, USA Marvin A. Sweeney, a leading Old Testament scholar, teaches at the Claremont School of Theology, Claremont, CA, USA John D. W. Watts, Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at Louisville Baptist Theological Seminary, currently resides in Penney Farms, FL, USA John William Wevers, a foremost authority on the Greek Septuagint and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Toronto, currently resides in Toronto, ON, Canada

INTRODUCTION: BIBLICAL THEOLOGY AND TEXT-CRITICAL STUDIES J. Harold Ellens

Brevard S. Childs brought out his first volume on the primacy of a canonical approach to biblical studies in 1979. It was entitled Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture.' In that volume he wrestled with the developing problem of the time, the viability of Biblical Theology as a discipline. In his Preface he set forth the problem as he saw it: Two decades of teaching have brought many changes in my perspective. Having experienced the demise of the Biblical Theology movement in America, the dissolution of the broad European consensus in which I was trained, and a widespread confusion regarding theological reflection in general, I began to realize that there was something fundamentally wrong with the foundation of the biblical discipline. It was not a question of improving on a source analysis, of discovering some unrecognized new genre, or of bringing a redactional layer into sharper focus. Rather, the crucial issue turned on one's whole concept of the study of the Bible itself I am now convinced that the relation between the historical critical study of the Bible and its theological use as religious literature within a community of faith and practice needs to be completely rethought. Minor adjustments are not only inadequate, but also conceal the extent of the dry rot. (p. 15)

Childs emphasized in this work that he wished to create a new model for doing Hebrew Bible studies. His model 'seeks to describe the form and function of the Hebrew Bible in its role as sacred scripture for Israel. It argues the case that the biblical literature has not been correctly understood or interpreted because its role as religious literature has not been correctly assessed' (p. 16). Five years later Childs produced a similar treatment of the New Testament and in 1985 a follow-up study of his former work on the Old Testament.2 Significantly, he entitled this last volume in the set of 1. Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979). 2. The New Testament as Canon: An Introduction (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984).

2


three, Old Testament Theology in a Canonical Context.3 His focus upon canonics as the proper method of doing a textual and theological study of the two testaments had matured. The important thing for him seems to have been theological reflection upon the Bible as canonical writings, not as a set of narratives about events or experiences reported by the practitioners of ancient Israelite religion or of the post-Easter Church. It is interesting that, whereas in the first of these three volumes he observed upon the death of the American Biblical Theology movement, in the third of these volumes he came round to an attempt at formulating an Old Testament Theology. When I first became aware of Childs' approach to biblical studies I was in conversation with Bruce M. Metzger at the 1979 convention of the Society of Biblical Literature. I had occasion to observe, in that dialogue, that if the quest for a theological and religio-historical understanding of the Judaic and Christian scriptures were to shift as radically as Childs proposed, from text-critical studies to canonics, students of the disciplines of scriptural studies would leave the fields of excruciatingly and meticulously careful linguistic text-analysis; choosing instead the linguistically less demanding, and more broadly conceptual, and philosophico-theological approach of canonics. I expressed the fear that in two generations of biblical scholars, the mastery of the exquisite skills and apparatus of literary, historical, form-critical, and redaction analysis, worked out so painstakingly over the last century, would be lost. Metzger seemed to affirm this sentiment, and the concern behind it. These fears now seem generally to have been warranted and the predicted state of affairs has come true. When we compare the popularity of work like the rather simple narrative studies and theological analysis of Walter Brueggemann, on the one hand, with the less popular but immensely more critical and crucially fruitful approaches of Form-Geschichte and Redaction-Criticism in the work of Rolf P. Knierim, David J.A. Clines, and Simon John De Vries, on the other, it is clear that the retiring generation is taking with it those finely honed skills; and the more popularized world of contemporary biblical study has been seized and trivialized by the canonics approach. Childs' personal address to the texts of the canon did not in itself completely devalue text-critical study. In his Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture he emphasized the fruits such study had produced but 3. Old Testament Theology in a Canonical Context (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985).

ELLENS Introduction

3

relegated it to a lesser role than it had had for half a century. However, by the arrival on the scene of his Old Testament Theology in a Canonical Context, six years later, he had moved away from an emphasis upon the text-critical disciplines as the foundation of biblical studies, and strongly towards the perspective that theological analysis of the scripture as canon was the proper source for understanding the documents of the two testaments. This approach has increasingly become the method and perspective of biblical scholars, with the exception of those trained in the generation in which Childs himself was trained, in the 1940s and 1950s, and who continue to produce works which employ the full range of text-critical disciplines. Among these latter scholars, the work of Simon John De Vries stands out as a pinnacle of achievement in the world of traditional-historical, redaction-critical, and literary-exegetical scholarship. De Vries is the author of a series of book-length studies that demonstrate this in a remarkable way. In 1975 he published Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, Time and History in the Old Testament? Three years later he wrote Prophet Against Prophet: The Role of the Micaiah Narrative (I Kings 22) in the Development of Early Prophetic Tradition:1 By 1983 his comprehensive volume, The Achievements of Biblical Religion: Prolegomenon to the Old Testament Theology, was ready for publication.6 From Old Revelation to New: A Tradition-Historical and Redaction-Critical Study of Temporal Transitions in Prophetic Prediction arrived on the scene in 1995.7 In the meantime he had also produced exegetical-hermeneutical commentaries on I Kings* in the Word Biblical Commentaries series, and 1 and 2 Chronicles9 in the Forms of the Old Testament Literature series. Childs' canonical perspective reflected his priority of interest in the role of the final form of the Hebrew Bible and LXX in shaping Rabbinic and Patristic literature. That shifted his focus from a critical assessment of the 4. Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, Time and History in the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; London: SPCK, 1975). 5. Prophet Against Prophet: The Role of the Micaiah Narrative (I Kings 22) in the Development of Early Prophetic Tradition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978). 6. Achievements of Biblical Religion: Prolegomenon to the Old Testament Theology (Washington: University Press of America, 1983). 7. From Old Revelation to New: A Tradition-Historical and Redaction-Critical Study of Temporal Transitions in Prophetic Prediction (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995). 8. 1 Kings (WBC, 12; Waco, TX: Word Books, 1985). 9. 1 and 2 Chronicles (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988).

4


narratives and textual products of the ancient Israelite religion, the main subject of the Hebrew Bible, to the role of the finally redacted canon in the formation of Rabbinic Judaism and nascent Christianity, in the second to the sixth centuries CE. De Vries' works stands in marked contrast to the perspective proposed by Childs. De Vries has a deep appreciation for the role of the Bible in the life of the church and in the formulation of the theological confession of the church. He also has a high regard for the function of the Bible as canon. However, his view and practice of biblical studies is focused upon the cruciality of a critical analysis of specific biblical themes and textual pericopes, with a view to understanding their roots and origins, their interpretation in terms of those roots and origins, their function in ancient Israelite religion, and the import of the manner in which they were redacted at various times, particularly during and after the Babylonian exile. Out of this he draws an integrated view of the meaning of the texts. De Vries seems always to be answering the question: 'What did the ancient Israelites think about how God was present in their history and what meaning did they derive from the perceptions that question afforded them?' For De Vries, this is a canonical question only after it has been a question put carefully and critically to each facet of the greatly varied and disparate fabric of the separate narratives that make up the total text of the Bible. Each of De Vries' published works, which Knierim in the Preface to this work indicated run into the hundreds, is a meticulous text-critical analysis of the specific texts in the Hebrew Bible which set forth and control a major theme of ancient Israelite religion. Thus they afford us a carefully developed foundation for conclusions regarding cultural and theological themes that reigned in and shaped that religion. Since Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as we know them today, all find their roots, themes, metaphors, and grounding in the literature of that ancient Israelite religion, De Vries has done us a great service in understanding not only the contours of that ancient world, but also the shapes and forces of our world today. De Vries' work stands boldly in the worthy tradition of linguistic analysis, and thematic interpretation. He is a consummate master of exegesis and hermeneutics. For this De Vries will be known and honored in the history of biblical interpretation. His type and style are hard to find any longer. He will be greatly praised for the kind and quality of work that he does. The direct relevance of and interest in his publications and methodology will last for centuries to come. Thus the products of his scholarship will have profound and sustained currency. He will continue to be praised

ELLENS Introduction

5

for the heroic stance in biblical analysis that he championed, modeled, and refused to give up, even when the tides of scholarly preference were turning in a different and less profound direction. As long as there remains even a minor interest in what the text of the Bible originally said and meant, where it came from, how it got that way, and why and what that means, honest and serious scholars will find it necessary and delightful to consult his works. They are a standard for method, and a paragon of scholarly achievement. It is this dimension and quality of the scholarly legacy of Simon John De Vries that has prompted so many scholars to join in creating this substantive series of studies in his honor.

THE CHARACTERIZATION OF YHWH, THE GOD OF ISRAEL, IN EXODUS 1-15"

Brian R. McCarthy

The approach taken in this investigation focuses not on the developments that gave rise to the Exodus text, nor on the equally important question of 'what really happened', but on the text itself as it is encountered by users and students of the Bible, taken simply as a given, with the shape it happened to have when the biblical collection was sacralized and its texts 'frozen'. Among the various possible text-focused approaches the present one is distinctive in that its primary purpose is to bring out the implications of the story, with its plagues and its destruction of the Egyptian army, for the character of YHWH the God of Israel. The NRSV translation is used, with the exception that 'Lord' is replaced by the tetragrammaton and/or the expressions, 'the God of Israel' and 'this God'. The traditional 'Lord' is a title and hence an inappropriate substitute for a name. Further it is a weak word with a fluid spectrum of meanings. The traditional Christian name 'Old Testament' is avoided. 'Original Testimonies' would be better, but would probably be a distraction, and this is not the place to argue for it; and so 'Hebrew Scriptures', favored by the NRSV, is used. The Character of the Narrative The narrative of Exodus 1-15 is generally read as a major episode in a national epic, a story where Israel sees who and what it is, and why its continued existence is of the greatest significance, given that this corresponds to the will of the great God YHWH; an identity story which has played a major role in the survival of the Israelites/Jews as a distinct people * This study takes up one of the points noted as problematic in the brief programmatic piece, 'Response: Brueggemann and Hanson on God in the Hebrew Scriptures', JAAR 3 (2000), pp. 615-20.

MCCARTHY The Characterization of YHWH..

.7

from perhaps the time of King Josiah down to the present.1 It also gives the appearance of being a strongly ethical narrative. As this study proceeds the answer to the question of the validity of this perception will progressively emerge. Here the grounds for it can be briefly sketched. Simply stated, this appears to be a story of wrongs suffered by YHWH'S people and how they move him to intervene on their behalf. This theme begins to emerge already in the introduction to the story in 1.8-22, which speaks of the oppression of the Israelites, in the form of ever more burdensome forced labor. There is also here the story of the killing of the male Israelite infants which prepares for the story of the infant Moses but then drops out of the picture.2 The theme can be found, secondly, in the characterization of the young Moses through an account of three interventions in each of which he does not simply help kinsfolk, or act to make peace, but takes the side of the one who is wronged (2.11-17). This, along with his upbringing within the Egyptian power circle, introduces him as the right sort of person to serve as the instrument of YHWH'S liberating intervention. It is fully articulated in the accounts of the commissioning of Moses (2.23-4.17 and 6.2-7.7), where what moves YHWH to action is the will to deliver his people—the covenanted descendants of 'Abraham, Isaac and Jacob' (2.24; 6.2-5)—from the burden under which they groan and 'cry out', the same language that is found in the story of the first murder in Gen. 4.10. Three Questions Three questions may help us come to grips with what is theologically and ethically significant in the text. First of all there are many brief references in the Hebrew Scriptures to the intervention of YHWH, the God of Israel, to deliver his people from oppression in Egypt. Its unique importance is implied by the fact that both Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 have YHWH 1. For a recent statement of this view of the Hebrew Scriptures from the angle of archaeology, see the Epilogue of Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, The Bible Unearthed (New York: Free Press, 2001). The Epilogue closes with the words, '.. .this single most influential literary and spiritual creation in the history of humanity'. 2. If this story of deliverance is ethical in character, the ethic in question primarily concerns a fundamental aspect of the human condition, work as a response to the reality of constant material need, and the right of humans to work for themselves and their families rather than have work extorted from them for the advantage of another; in a word, one basic form of oppression.

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initiate his covenant-making with Israel by introducing himself precisely as the author of this deliverance, thereby asserting a claim to Israel's wholehearted service; this service being characterized in the first place as obedience to the Decalogue with its fundamental ethics. Further, in quite a few places this example of divine deliverance is made the grounds for an embryonic ethic of social justice that goes beyond the Decalogue, 'Remember that you once were a stranger/slave in the land of Egypt, therefore...' (see, e.g., Exod. 22.20-23; Lev. 19.33-34; Deut. 5.15; 10.18-19; 15.12-15; 24.17-18). And so the first question is: If we approach the narrative of Exodus. 1-15 from these texts, do we find what we expect to find? The answer has to be: yes and no. For one thing, if—if!—YHWH is going to use violence, we might expect him to do so with some precision, using a carefully focused minimum. Given that this is a 'top-down' situation where the power-figure, anonymous Pharaoh, and he alone, makes decisions, we might expect to find some severe but temporary infliction of pain on him alone; followed when he finally yields by the application of some balm of Gilead. But this is not at all what we do find. Instead we hear of often brutal collective punishments which afflict the whole people of Egypt, a long series of them. And, we must ask: In this narrative, what have they done to merit such harsh treatment?. Secondly, although this may not be immediately evident, it will turn out that to understand this narrative one useful move is to come to see one of its most characteristic features—the plagues (wonders, signs)—as a problem. To start with, their number. From a purely narrative point of view would not three, in a purposeful escalation, have been preferable? And the first nine do not seem to go anywhere, do not seem to advance the story. They look like a shapeless sprawl. Correspondingly, is there not a sharp contrast between the YHWH of the first nine, cooperating with Moses (and Aaron) in a series that looks like it might go on indefinitely, and, on the other hand, the YHWH of the final one, acting on his own and showing himself a purposeful and resolute killer (12.29)? We can note at this point that this seems to be a story of slow learners. Pharaoh never seems to realize that he is in big trouble. Disaster after disaster strikes Egypt, and he may yield for a moment but soon he is back on track, saying 'no', thereby provoking the next one; on and on. And Moses is pretty slow. No less than four times he sees Pharaoh agree to let the people go, only to change his mind when the pressure is off. But Moses continues to trust him and to beseech YHWH to cut short affliction after affliction, each time before the people have been able to get away. He

MCCARTHY The Characterization ofYHWH...

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seems to be about the only personage of the ancient Near East who does not know how to drive a bargain. And YHWH seems just as slow as Moses, given that each time he answers Moses' request and removes the affliction! This, at least, is the surface impression. The third question arises from the fact that even a rapid viewing of the narrative reveals not simply references to the hardness of Pharaoh's heart, or to him hardening his own heart, but also explicit statements that Israel's God hardens his heart.3 And this suggests the question: Why not a narrative of the God of Israel delivering his people through softening+Pharaoh's heart? The Hardening of Pharaoh's Heart When we read the narrative more closely we discover that it does not simply contain some incidental references to YHWH hardening Pharaoh's heart. This tale of repeated collective punishments is prolonged because YHWH is continually hardening Pharaoh's heart to assure that after each affliction he finally refuses to let the people go, so that the stage is set for yet another one. The series is as long or as short as YHWH wants it to be. It reaches its successful conclusion when and how he decides that it should. The hidden key is that, throughout, the apparently godlike power-figure Pharaoh is in reality a puppet in the hands of the God of Israel. The hardening of Pharaoh's heart is explicitly attributed to YHWH in connection with each of signs 6, 8, 9 and, with a delay, 10; but not in connection with signs 1-5 and 7. Concerning 1, 3 and 5 we simply read that Pharaoh's heart is hardened; and concerning 2, 4, and 7 that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. With regard to the tenth sign, YHWH does not harden Pharaoh's heart immediately, but only after he has let the people go. The purpose of this delay is so that Pharaoh and his army will have to go after them and thus walk into a trap. Here YHWH is playing with the Egyptians. But decisive for our narrative are those texts which assert that it is YHWH who hardens Pharaoh's heart: 4.21; 7.3; 10.1-2; 11.10.4 The first and last 3. This problematic idea of God determining someone to do evil is picked up by Paul (see Rom. 9.14-18), which was enough to assure it a long history in Christian theology. 4. Alternatively they might be read as meaning that YHWH is always watchful so that, if Pharaoh's natural obduracy is about to fail, he is there to assure the hardening. It amounts to the same thing.

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of these, made before and towards the end of the series of strikes, can be seen as bracketing statements: And YHWH said to Moses, 'When you go back to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders that I have put in your power; but I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go'. (4.21) Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh; but YHWH hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go out of his land. (11.10)

This ability to determine Pharaoh's decisions worsens the problem of the multiplication of ineffective signs of power. YHWH could have effected the deliverance at any time, via even the least lethal of the plagues, or through a short, escalating series of minor ones. Even more clearly there is no need for the meandering nine. However, as we read this narrative we discover that, besides the deliverance of his people, YHWH has a second purpose, and perhaps this can make more sense of its at least apparent prolixity. Before going on to this second purpose it may be noted that the story can be read in two ways: either with the focus on the ongoing struggle between the two human protagonists, Moses and Pharaoh, and on the series of extensively narrated signs, or on YHWH, who in reality is the chief protagonist, masterminding it, controlling everything that happens. Between the two there is considerable tension.5 Of these two ways of reading (or hearing) the text, the former has a certain value, as far as it goes, given that it focuses attention on the materiality of the long series of afflictions; but finally only the latter is adequate. YHWH's Further Purpose As we read this narrative we learn that, besides delivering his people from oppression, YHWH has a more fundamental purpose, and perhaps this may 5. Users of this narrative, as distinguished from students of it, typically templegoers and church-goers, who mostly have heard it recited and who above all remember it, with all the selectiveness that characterizes memory, are likely to get caught up in the struggle between the two visible protagonists and the series of afflictions that eventuate from that struggle. In comparison with this drama, and with these graphically described public events, the hidden mental events where YHWH determines Pharaoh's decisions are unlikely to get or retain the attention necessary for them to be seen as the key to the whole story. (There is no indication that Pharaoh himself is ever aware of the divine agency.) Only a consciously God-focused reading or hearing of the narrative will keep users aware of the degree to which YHWH is the principal protagonist, present and determinatively active in its every moment.


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give shape and meaning to the ten-plague series: he also wants them, and the Egyptians, to know him. Already in 5.2 Pharaoh says: 'Who is YHWH? I do not know YHWH. ' It is safe to say that, by the time the story is told, this is no longer Pharaoh's problem. And then, in the second commissioning text we read, Say therefore to the Israelites, '...You shall know that I am YHWH your God who has freed you from the burdens of the Egyptians'. (6.7)

And, a little later: The Egyptians shall know that I am YHWH when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring the Israelites out from among them. (7.5)

For the 'that you may know' motif, see also 8.10; 9.14; 10.2b; 11.7; 14.4, 18. Secondly, what YHWH wants Israelites and Egyptians alike to know is not his wisdom or justice or intelligence, but his power. The 'plagues' (11.1) are 'signs' (7.3 etc.) in the sense of demonstrations of power. And here we do not have to rely on interpreting the divine actions—because we also have YHWH'S own words. Having told Pharaoh that he could as well have killed the whole lot of them, he explains why he did not, For this time I will send all my plagues upon you yourself.. .and upon your people, so that you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth... But this is why I have let you live: to show you my power, and to make my name resound through all the earth. (9.14-16)

Like the Egyptians, the rest of the world is about to know YHWH not as a benefactor, but as a power figure who does not hesitate to afflict without purpose or with no other purpose than to make himself known for the sort of god he is. Thirdly, we learn that YHWH wants it to be known that he 'makes a distinction' between his people, Israel, and the Egyptians (8.23; 9.4); and that this is the reason why all the firstborn of the latter will die, Every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die.. .so that you may know that YHWH make a distinction between Egypt and Israel. (11.7)

This further specifies YHWH'S second purpose. Egyptians and Israelites alike must acknowledge not only his power, but also his sovereign freedom to choose whom he will choose; and they must recognize that by his choice he is Israel's God and Israel his people, and that he is not Egypt's God and the Egyptians are not his people. The full significance of this choice will become clear below.

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Finally, when we compare this second purpose of making himself known with the first one, we can see that it offers a larger scope into which the deliverance of his people can be fitted. This is how in fact YHWH'S envisaging of things is stated in several places. This is stated twice in the story of the deliverance of the people from Pharaoh's army, where the deliverance via the latter's destruction is an occasion for YHWH to gain glory and to be known by the Egyptians, I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will pursue them, so that I will gain glory for myself over Pharaoh and his army; and the Egyptians shall know that I am YHWH. (14.4; cf. 14.18)6

By this consideration, 9.14-16 gains special significance. It is the only place in this whole narrative where YHWH'S relation to his people Israel is placed in the wider context of his relation to humankind. Here we are afforded a unique glimpse of the worldwide scope of the purposes of YHWH and a clear view on the fact that, ultimately, he is concerned with his renown If YHWH wants to be known through all the world in his power and in his freedom to favor whom he will, then his drawn-out violent intervention to deliver the people whom he has chosen from the power of godlike Pharaoh is a very appropriate occasion for achieving this purpose. YHWH shows that he can take care of his people and can prevent Pharaoh from taking care of his people, humiliating him in the process. But, even in relation to this second purpose, the problem remains: there still seems to be an excess of punitive but ineffective signs and wonders. Is it possible the author felt that only such a succession of signs would make a permanent imprint on the collective memory of Pharaoh and the Egyptians? Before addressing this question, it is appropriate to examine the affliction which is finally effective in allowing the people to go free and in having them insistently invited to leave (12.29-33). The Killing of the Egyptian Firstborn The killing of the firstborn is the sign of power which leads to the deliverance of the Israelites, and it does so because YHWH decides that it should and because this time he does not harden Pharaoh's heart, or rather, only 6. This language of gaining glory' suggests that here, as in the reading of Deuteronomy as modeled on the Overlord-Vassal treaty, YHWH is modeled on the all too human power-figures of the ancient Near East.


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hardens it after they have left. It is mentioned in two bracketing texts already referred to, 4.21-23 and ch. 11.7 In the latter (vv. 4-7) Moses tells Pharaoh, Thus says YHWH: 'About midnight I will go out through Egypt. Every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the hand mill, and all the firstborn of the livestock...so that you may know that YHWH makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.'

In 12.29 YHWH is reported as carrying out this mass killing, At midnight YHWH struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne to the firstborn of the prisoner who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock.

We are told in 11.7 that this mass killing has the purpose of imposing on Pharaoh the recognition that YHWH, the God of Israel, makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel but this has already been said to him in 8.23 and 9.4. After nine collective punishments he surely knows it already. He has seen not only that this God is moved to action by the oppression of his people, but also that he has not the least concern for Egypt or its people. So this is not the full explanation of the killing, or perhaps this killing brings out more fully the implications of this distinction. At this point the narrative does not tell us all we want to know about the mind of YHWH, but only what he does, and so the best we can do is make some inferences from what is distinctive about this plague, and to imagine how, coming after all the previous afflictions, it would have been experienced by its victims. As we do so we need to remember that, in view of what has been said about YHWH'S ability to harden the heart, the question is not one of intrinsic efficacy in delivering the people. Rather it is one of the final impression that he wants to make on the memories of his two witnesses, the Egyptians 7. The comparison of these two texts reveals a flaw in the narrative. In the first it is a question only of the killing of Pharaoh's firstborn, and YHWH instructs Moses to let Pharaoh know that Israel is YHWH'S firstborn, 'Then you shall say to Pharaoh, "Thus says YHWH: Israel is my firstborn son. I said to you: 'Let my son go that he may worship me'.But you refused to let him go: so now I will kill your firstborn son".' Inch. 11 it is a question of killing all the firstborn of Egypt; and neither there nor elsewhere does Moses tell Pharaoh that YHWH considers Israel to be his firstborn. This latter idea is rarely mentioned in the Scriptures and its omission in ch. 11 suggests that perhaps it was taken up to create the contrast—'my firstborn, your firstborn'—but is then abandoned as the plague that is to be decisive is given the same all-Egypt scope as the previous ones.

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and the Israelites. Hardening the heart and determining particular decisions is one thing, creating enduring memories is another. There is no substitute for actual experiences. We note the following aspects of the narrative: 1. It is a story of directly intended mass killing. 2. Many of those killed must be infants and children. In fact those killed may typically be envisaged as infants and children. 3. The killing is done by YHWH, the God of Israel, in person and immediately, not mediated through the manipulation of natural phenomena. 4. Though it is a mass killing, it is not a localized massacre. It is spread throughout Egypt, affecting every family or at least every one that has a male child; extending even to the slave girl working at the mill and the prisoner in the dungeon. 5. Firstborn sons are uniquely precious to a family. 6. The massacre is thrown in Pharaoh's face by a Moses who seems positively strutting with chauvinism: 'But not a dog will growl at any of the Israelites—not at people, not at animals—so that you may know that the God of Israel makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel!' Apparently even the animals of the Israelites are more precious in the eyes of their god than are the Egyptian firstborn. How Moses gets away with talking like this to Pharaoh is not explained. 7. When this is compared with the destruction of Pharaoh's army that it leads to we can note a major difference. The killing of the army is in some sense rational—they are out to recapture or kill the escaping Israelites—and this stands even if they have been lured by this god into a trap. But the killing of the firstborn is gratuitous because they do not present a threat to anyone. 8. Finally it must be repeated that, unlike Pharaoh, the people who suffer this bitter affliction have done nothing to deserve it. They have to experience it as gratuitous, unmerited. We can imagine some alternatives that set in relief this Scriptural narrative of the death of the Egyptian firstborn. As was noted above, YHWH could and might well have destroyed Pharaoh and the whole Egyptian people (9.15). In contrast, the killing of the firstborn seems almost moderate! But we need to remember that if he did not kill the whole people, it was apparently because he wanted them to be unwilling witnesses to his incomparable power 'through all the earth', and not out of any consideration for their wellbeing.


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This story of the killing of the firstborn can be further set in relief by two contrasting scenarios. On the one hand the firstborn, instead of being killed, might have been inflicted with some grievous illness that threatened their lives and then, as soon as the Israelites are set free, must have been restored to perfect health—perhaps even those who previously had been sickly. On the other hand, instead of dying instantaneously, as our text suggests (see the 'about/at midnight' of 11.4 and 12.29), they could have died in prolonged agony.8 The surgical precision of the killing of the firstborn shows that this is not the YHWH who can barely control his wrath that Brueggemann and others have helped us to discover in the Scriptures. On the contrary, this is a very cool, precise and chillingly ruthless powerfigure. The significance of this perception will be expressed in the second of my two conclusions. Interpretation: The Characterization of YHWH We are now in a position to summarize how this narrative characterizes YHWH. We will first of all interpret it in its visible, incomplete form; and only then bring in the hidden dimension, known only to Moses, where YHWH consistently controls Pharaoh's decisions—'hardens his heart'—to see what difference this makes. We begin by considering the plagues, and the destruction of Pharaoh's army, in relation to his initially revealed purpose of freeing his people. Here we see (1) that YHWH frees one oppressed people by afflicting and oppressing another, and (2) that his oppression of the Egyptian people is extreme both quantitatively and qualitatively—with a long series of punitive strikes, climaxing in the death of the firstborn, which is followed by the destruction of Pharaoh's army, lured into a death trap.

8. If the author of Revelation had written the narrative of the exodus this agony might have lasted for months, and have been such that they would have wished to die (see 9.5). Revelation is one of the few biblical writings that picks up the theme of the 'plagues' (see also the Wisdom of Solomon chs. 11-19) and enlarges it to what it saw as the cosmic level (see the seven plagues of 15.5-16.21). If the exodus narrative is problematic, Revelation is much more so. Its Christ-figure is in some ways unique, but in others he is a typical apocalyptic figure. His mentality is quite remote from that of Jesus of Nazareth. Its God is much more cruel than the YHWH of Exodus. (And, of course, its intrinsic significance is greatly increased by its place as the last book in the Christian Bible, in which the great drama that originated with Genesis is brought to, if not exactly a 'happy ending', at least a victorious conclusion.)

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The conclusion is that if liberation were YHWH'S only purpose, and the series of afflictions simply the means to this end, he would have to be characterized as someone who achieves a worthy purpose through the unnecessary and unmerited infliction of great suffering. We have seen, however, that he has a second and larger purpose and we need to relate the plagues to it. YHWH seeks to make himself known to both the Israelites and the Egyptians, and he does so not by words and proclamations, but by actions which give his words their real meaning and their weight. This is a distinctive mode of revelation. The Egyptians receive the revelation directly, through a series of afflictions that they experience in their flesh; and the Israelites indirectly, as they witness the suffering of the Egyptians and contrast it with their own favorable treatment. Focusing on the Egyptians, we may ask: How would people who had been through such an experience envisage YHWH, the god of the Israelites, whom they knew to be its cause?9 Obviously, they would be convinced intimately of his power. But, conscious as they were that in their 'top-down' world Pharaoh and Pharaoh alone made the decision to retain or release the Israelites, their suffering would have been intensified immeasurably by the awareness that these repeated afflictions, bizarre and cruel in themselves, were also gratuitous, without cause, totally misplaced.10 Consequently, even more than YHWH'S power, it is his freedom of action that would have impressed itself on them. They would have known him as someone who favors whom he will favor, sparing his people the 'plagues' and finally freeing them and delivering them from Pharaoh's army; and also as someone who feels free to afflict and kill whom he will afflict and kill, visiting on them whatever he chooses to, without any 9. Either we are supposed to understand that the transactions between Moses and Pharaoh have generally been known from the start or, if not, we can see them becoming known with the fourth, fifth and seventh plagues: the fourth, where YHWH makes a distinction and Goshen and the Israelites are spared the flies; the fifth, where he again makes a distinction and the livestock of the Israelites are spared (9.4-7); the seventh where the actions of some of Pharaoh's officials to save their slaves and livestock from the hail make the transactions public (9.20). (What proportion of the people are we supposed to understand to have died in this plague?) 10. There is no reason to think that they know of the 'loathsome soars' inflicted on Job from head to toe, but surely they understand that such a powerful god could easily have come up with some form of progressively intensified sufferings for Pharaoh that would have been as effective in moving him to let Israel go as the spectacle of his people afflicted and his country devastated.


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particular reason or justification; even the precisely targeted mass killing of their firstborn. Now they know the real meaning of the distinction he makes between Israel and Egypt. Now they know him as a god whose freedom of action seems to know no limits. Elsewhere the logic of the affirmation of the full divinity of Israel's God leads to the attribution to him of such qualities as justice, wisdom and goodness, but not here. Such putative divine qualities are incompatible with the affirmation of that sovereign freedom of action which in this narrative is, along with incomparable power, his defining characteristic. This has far-reaching implications. First, to show the Egyptians that their great and unjustified suffering is without significance for him is to show them that they are without significance for him. We may consider two further implications: if their humanity does not protect them from his afflictions, then no human being is protected from them; and, if their humanity alone gives them no significance in his eyes, then no human being has significance in his eyes. Or, rather, the only ones who do are those to whom he freely imputes it, such as the Israelites, when he chooses them as his people. Election can be to service or to privilege. In this narrative election seems to be to privilege in the radical sense of having value in this god's eyes, which only those have on whom he decides to bestow it. But even here there are disturbing implications that may have escaped its author(s): if YHWH is free to elect and to bestow significance, then he is also free to reject or withdraw significance, at any time and without any particular reason. How does the revelation to Moses of YHWH'S power to harden Pharaoh's heart affect the conclusions already drawn concerning this narrative's characterization of YHWH? His incomparable power has already been revealed in his ability to mobilize and shape natural processes to create afflictions. Now we see that he can reach into the deepest core of human personhood, the region where free and responsible decisions and actions originate and determine what will be decided, and can do so without the persons in question even being aware of what is happening, leaving them with the mistaken illusion of self-determination. Regarding the other defining characteristic of this portrait of YHWH, his sovereign freedom of action vis-a-vis human beings, the revelation of not merely his ability but his readiness to harden changes things considerably. Already the insignificance of human beings in his eyes has been amply

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manifested in his readiness to visit on them without cause manifold and grievous afflictions. Now, however, this insignificance is even more radically manifested in his readiness not merely to determine human decisions, but to determine them for evil. This apparent encroachment is perhaps even more expressive of his sovereign disregard for the value and dignity of human beings. His freedom of action with regard to human beings seems to be absolute. Answers to Two Questions Concerning the Character of the Narrative We are now in a position to revisit the question posed at the start of this study concerning the character of this narrative: Is the narration of Exodus 1-15, besides being a chapter in ancient Israel's identity story, also the ethical tale it appears to be? (See the section, 'The Character of the Narrative', above.) In view of what has been concluded in the previous section, the answer can be brief. If it is correct to see the divinity of this YHWH as characterized not only by incomparable power, but also by absolute freedom of action unformed by any orientation to the good, then this YHWH is essentially un- or anethical. And so, if he is the principal, all-determining protagonist of this story, then it too is un- or anethical. Further, if he were to make use of even the most benign means of making himself known in his power and sovereign freedom to the Egyptians—and through them to the Israelites and to the whole world—this would still be ethically worthless because it would have no use or value to humans. When he uses misplaced, gratuitous violence to achieve this purpose, this is not simply ethically worthless, but intolerably unethical, especially in view of the powerlessness of his victims. It is, moreover, entirely appropriate as revelation. The afflictions are not merely a message about him. He in his power and freedom of action is immanent in them, just as a human being who tortures another is immanent in his actions. The conclusion seems unavoidable that, despite its appearance of being an ethical tale promoting ethical values, this way of evaluating it needs to be abandoned. It should be seen instead as having a certain integrity as a tale of power and towering wilfulness. On the other hand, however, its appearance of being ethical does require an ethical critique. We may also answer a second question concerning the narrative, the one posed by its apparent shapelessness, with its nine assorted plagues that do


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not seem to go anywhere, followed late in the day by one which is decisive. (See the second question in the section above, 'Three Questions'.) The proposal can now be made that the series of plagues makes good sense when viewed as a 'program of affliction' whereby YHWH makes himself known to the Egyptians. Their apparent endlessness and haphazard nature contribute to their effectiveness, and the desired revelation is completed by the incisive final strike. In this hypothesis there is obviously no need that the preparatory afflictions be nine in number. And there is no need that they be precisely these ones in this order. All that is necessary is that they constitute a long, incoherent sequence, like successive bombing raids on a city. This very shapelessness contributes to their effect: one bizarre and ugly affliction after another, progressively building their effect, disconcerting people, wearing them down, leaving them with no resources to meet the final, devastating strike. In this narrative, if YHWH'S repeated afflictions of the innocent are not superfluous, it is precisely because through them he shows what sort of god he is.11 Concerning the slowness of Moses—and YHWH!—to learn, this is no more than appearance. YHWH wants Pharaoh to refuse to let the Israelites go so that the Egyptian people can be afflicted again and again. In fact he will assure that he does refuse, through hardening his heart. And Moses knows this. Neither is deceived. They seem to be playing with Pharaoh. Postscript One When I was growing up in Dublin a long time ago there was a popular saying. I did not realize it at the time, but it put into my hands a valuable key for unlocking much of the meaning of the Hebrew Scriptures. The saying ran: 'Jam—the kind you put on your bread—jam yesterday, jam tomorrow, never jam today'. That was ancient Israel's situation through most of its history as a small, vulnerable people, living in a dangerous area. The exodus narrative—often seen as the central focus of the faith of Israel—including its characterization of YHWH, asks to be read in this light. It has all the appearances of a compensatory projection+into the indefinite past, crafted for a people 11. If the proposal is accepted of the appropriateness of this prolix-seeming narrative to YHWH'S purpose of making himself known, this is a further confirmation that this purpose, and not simply the liberation of his people, is his larger and more essential one.

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who have been badly hurt time and again and who are acutely conscious of their vulnerability; and whose God has suffered drastic demotion and humiliation. It is a story about power written for a powerless people who too often have paid a grievous price for their powerlessness. Today, in the light of our common experience and, above all, in the light of the Shoah, the understanding of God as all-powerful gives rise to bewildering problems. What if we suspect that this idea emerged in the Bible simply as a function of the 'logic' of compensatory projection as manifested in narratives such as that of the exodus? Postscript Two Even if we leave aside the deeper, invisible level of this narrative, in which YHWH determines Pharaoh's choices, and compare equal with equal, we may say: 1. The YHWH of Exodus compares unfavorably with the God of the story that now precedes it in the Bible, the story of Joseph, where, in a crisis situation, everyone—Egyptians and Israelites alike— profits from Elohim's quiet transformation of him from being a spoiled brat into someone of maturity, integrity and great competence. He even knows how to forgive. 2. This god would not qualify as the 'Judge of all the world' of Gen. 18.25, who must act justly and make a distinction between the righteous and the wicked. This god only cares to make a 'tribal' distinction between one people and another. This god cannot be the prototypical liberator, the hope of all oppressed peoples everywhere. He is not intolerant of oppression, but liberates one people by oppressing another. 3. This god seems a total stranger to the Elohim of Genesis 1, who makes humankind in his image and likeness. What would be the point of being made in the image and likeness of this God? One would then be powerful, arbitrary and cruel, like him. However, the good news is that this God, YHWH, can grow and mature as in Proverbs 8 and 9, where he is the gracious, life-giving benefactor of all, perhaps due to the good influence of Lady Wisdom, whose company he is now keeping.

Two REFLECTIONS ON THE GREEK EXODUS John William Wevers

1. Practical Reflections on the Use of the LXX As someone who has spent most of his life in the study of the LXX, and more intensively for the last thirty-five years on the Greek Pentateuch (the original LXX), I have constantly been perplexed by the irrational ignorance, disregard, and misuse by many biblical scholars of what on the surface would appear to be the earliest extant commentary on the Hebrew Bible by the Hebrews themselves. So I make no apology for challenging the reader at a basic level, namely, a close examination of a piece of text to see whether it can help in understanding that text more clearly. I realize that for many this is preaching to the persuaded, and I plead for their forbearance, since my experience suggests that it would not be amiss to illustrate in the simplest possible way how one can benefit from a serious examination of this earliest exegetical source we have, written neither in Aramaic nor German, but in Greek. Since not all readers will have studied Greek, I suggest that one might take any English translation of the Hebrew text, or preferably the Hebrew text itself. I shall translate everything into English, and compare the Greek text1 with the Hebrew, that is, the consonantal text of the MT, usingBHS. For this study it does not much matter what piece of text one uses, so I have arbitrarily chosen ch. 1 of Exodus, simply because it is the beginning of the book. The book begins in Hebrew with 'and' but not so in the Greek. The Greek book of Exodus is an independent book with an independent translator. It is not attached to the book of Genesis, but has a separate name 'Exodus' in contrast to MT where it is simply part of the Pentateuch, and only for convenience is known by moderns by the first word or words appearing in the book. The intelligence of the translator is 1. The text followed is the Gottingen text: SEPTUAGINTA Vetus Testamentum GraecumAuct. Acad. Scientiarum Gottingensis editum, 11,1 Exodus edititJohn William Wevers, adiuvante U. Quasi (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991).

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immediately apparent from his rendering of the participle 'those coming' (NRSV 'who came') by a perfect participle, 'those who had come' thereby showing that not only had they come, but within the narrative were still there. The term 'sons of Israel' occurs many times in the Old Testament both in the MT and in the LXX and almost invariably means 'the Israelites'. So too in Exodus. But here it does not; it means 'sons of a man named Israel'. This is clear in the Hebrew as well with its 'They came with Jacob', but the LXX makes this completely obvious by adding 'their father', leaving no room for misunderstanding. This is further emphasized by rendering 'each with his household' rather incongruously by 'each with their household' —this grammatical incongruity makes it conspicuously clear that this is the actual household of Jacob their father, and of his sons, that is, each of them with their household. On the names of the patriarchs in vv. 2-4 no relevant comment need be made except in two cases. Judah appears here not as' Iou5a as one might have expected but rather with the Hellenized ending,' louSas.This serves to differentiate between Judah as clan father, as individual, and that of Judah as the tribe. The tribe is always called'louSa by the translator. This distinction is purely LXX; the Hebrew always has nTliT. The other name is that of Naphthali. This appears quite correctly in the LXX, but most readers of the text in Byzantine times would read Naphthalim, which is the Hebrew plural ending. How this developed among the Greek copyists is not known, but it must have originated in the time of bilingual copyists who also knew Hebrew, since only such would have been tempted to add the 'w' at the end. It is not a real plural at all, since in Hebrew the Naphthalites are always called 'sons of Naphthali'. Verse 5 has two parts which the LXX transposes. The second part states that Joseph was already in Egypt. To the translator Joseph belonged to the list of the sons of Israel even though he had come to Egypt much earlier. It is only after that fact is given that the translator gives the total number belonging to Jacob, a statement that comes first in Hebrew. That number is given in Hebrew as being a total of seventy people. This would agree with the sixty-six souls of Gen. 46.26 to which four, namely, Jacob himself, Joseph and his two sons are added to make a total of seventy. But the LXX makes it seventy-five people. This is based on the Greek of Gen. 46.27 where it is said that Joseph had nine sons, thereby making the total number, by excluding Jacob and Joseph, seventy-five people. Clearly the Exodus translator wanted to be consistent with the Greek Genesis.

WEVERS Two Reflections on the Greek Exodus

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He or she had good reason. After all, the Greek Pentateuch was an authoritative rendering of the Hebrew Bible for the Alexandrian community. That the Greek Pentateuch was also regarded as canonical is clear from the legendary Letter of Aristeas, in which there is a description of what happened after the translators from Jerusalem had finished their work. It was then read to the synagogue leaders who immediately declared it perfect, and called for a curse on anyone who would add or detract from or change anything in the translation for all times, a typical declaration that the document is the Word of God, as we know from the New Testament. And so the impulse to make it consistent with the earlier book is easily understandable. Now for those interested in the niceties of Greek grammar I might point out the fine use of SE vs. KCU as conjunctions used to render the Hebrew 'and'. Both clauses in v. 5 begin with 'and' in Hebrew, but LXX uses 6e because both show a change of subject. The subject of the first clause is Joseph, but of the second it is 'all the persons (souls)'; then v. 6 changes the subject again to Joseph and so the translator again uses S'E. Verse 7 illustrates this perfectly. The first changes the subject to 'the Israelites', and the next three clauses keep the same subject. Accordingly S'E is used for the first clause, but KOH for the next three. It would seem then that the use of these conjunctions is not completely arbitrary but is dependent on the context. In v. 7 the growth of the Israelite population is shown by four coordinate verbs in Hebrew: 'became fruitful, swarmed, became many' and 'became strong'. The Greek shows this growth rather differently; it has 'increased, became many, became common', and 'were becoming strong'. In Hebrew the verbs are all of one type—aorist or simple past. The Greek has the first three in the aorist as well, but the last one is in the imperfect, since this was understood as involving a gradual process of becoming strong; it was a steady growth in strength. The Greek also orders the verbal ideas somewhat differently; to the translator 'increasing' logically leads to 'becoming many' which in turn makes the people 'common' throughout the land, all of which results in the people becoming more and more of a force within the land. With v. 8 the emphasis in the narrative shifts to the protagonist who will remain throughout the first third of the book the figure of evil, over against God and his servant Moses: 'Another king arose over Egypt'. The LXX here idiomatically renders the Hebrew's 'new king' by 'another king'— ftaoiAeus irepos. In the following verse the word for 'people', DU, occurs

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twice in the MT, but the translator uses different words: for Pharaoh's own people the LXX uses e'Gvei ('people'), but the people of the Israelites are called y'evos, that is, 'race' rather than 'people'. The term ysvos- is probably used here to indicate a foreign people, since the Israelites were foreigners in the land of Egypt. Pharaoh's complaint is that they are H~l, that is, 'many', as well as DlliJJ, or 'strong'. The LXX has a somewhat different statement. The first one becomes 'a great many', and the second one occurs as a present tense verb 'be strong', probably understanding the Hebrew 01KI? as aparticiple rather than an adjective, which is fully possible in an unvocalized text. So the Greek reads 'the race of the Israelites is a great many and is stronger than us'. In v. 10 Pharaoh presents his plan for containing this foreign tribe. Here too the LXX shows real exegetical skill by introducing the particle ouv thereby showing the logical reaction to v. 9: 'the people are getting to be numerous and strong, so come, let us deal shrewdly with them, that is, outsmart them'. In the Hebrew the references to D# are all in the singular, that is, it takes 'people' as a collective noun. The Greek translates these throughout by the plural except for mT ('become many'), which it renders by the singular. This is not a mistake, but shows intelligent reflection on the part of the translator. One can outsmart them, they can join the enemy, they can engage in war, and they can leave the country. But persons do not become many, only the people can do so. The plural denotes the Israelites; the singular refers to the people as a whole. In the carrying out of Pharaoh's plan the MT has them, the Egyptians, appointing supervisors of labors over the Israelites. The Greek makes the verb singular; after all, Pharaoh is the one to make such government appointments, not the people. The LXX focuses on the actual oppressor, on Pharaoh, rather than on the Egyptians. The Hebrew distinguishes between two kinds of labors, the 'corvee' or conscription labor, and the supervisors who oversee these conscription labors. These supervisors in turn oppress the people with 'heavy burdens' or 'labors'. To the translator these are both work, and he uses the common word for 'works' in both cases. To the translator the distinction was purely academic. According to the Hebrew the people built cities of storage; at least the Hebrew word niDDQ is usually rendered in this way, thus 'storage cities, magazines for provender'. But the LXX never understood the word in this way, but always translated it by oxupocs, using the common collocation 'strong', or 'fortified cities'. They were to the translator cities built up


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for strong defence against possible attack rather than places for storing commodities. The Hebrew names two cities built by Israelite slave labor, Pithom and Raamses. The LXX also has these but adds a third one as 'On, which is Heliopolis'. The identification of 'On' as being Heliopolis is again based on the Greek Genesis. In Genesis (41.45, 50) Joseph's father-in-law is identified as being 'priest of On', which the LXX glossed by the interpreting gloss 'which is Heliopolis', exactly as is done here. Why the LXX added this third city is not clear; possibly it reflects some local Alexandrian Jewish tradition of Heliopolis having been built by ancestral slave labor. We simply don't know. Now it must never be forgotten that the Greek is a translation document, and the Greek must often be seen through Hebrew eyes. In fact, at times this translation character is betrayed by pure Hebraisms which would sound uncouth in places like Athens or Sparta.2 The MT has it here that the oppression through corvee work was a failure; the Israelite population kept growing in spite of the hard labors imposed. The reaction of the Egyptians is stated in the Hebrew as 'And they felt a loathing from the face of the Israelites', that is, because of the Israelites. The translator rendered this literalistically using CCITO to translate the Hebrew "]Stt; thus the Egyptians felt a loathing 'from the Israelites'; this doesn't make much sense in Greek, but of course what is meant is that the loathing was due to, was because of, the Israelites. In the Hebrew the subject is not expressly stated, though it is obvious that the people of Egypt are intended. The Greek expressly states it, adding 'the Egyptians'. In the following verse the term 'the Egyptians' is also used. The MT says that 'Egypt made the people serve with severity', which the LXX renders by the statement that 'the Egyptians oppressed them severely'. The verb is indeed more graphic in Greek than the rather colorless 'made to work' or 'serve' of the Hebrew. In the Greek 'the Egyptians' is used rather than 'Egypt'. Now the Hebrew name D'HiJQ can by extension also refer to its people, just as we use the name of a country to designate the people of that country. Actually, the consonantal name for Egypt can also be vocalized to mean 'Egyptians'. The name is pronounced misrayim whereas the word is pronounced as misrim when it means 2. This translation character has been explained cogently by my colleague, Albert Pietersma as following an interlinear mode, which constitutes a dominant pattern characterizing the LXX translation in general. See his forthcoming 'Psalms' in A New English Translation of the Septuagint (Oxford University Press).

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'Egyptians'. The latter word is extremely rare, however, in the Old Testament, occurring only five times in this plural form, and it never occurs in Exodus. The translator translates the word in either way, that is, either as Egypt or as Egyptians, distinguishing rather carefully between Egypt as a people and Egypt as a land or nation. Indeed, he uses 'the Egyptians' sixty-six times in Exodus, and 'Egypt' 106 times. When the reference is geographic, such as in 'land of, waters or, midst of, borders of he uses Egypt, but with such popular expressions as 'hand of, eyes of, hearts of, camps of he uses Egyptians. The LXX is thus somewhat more precise than is the Hebrew. Another exegetical insight which the Greek betrays in this verse as well as in v. 14 is in the use of the tenses. The MT simply uses the preterite or aorist form of the verbs: 'made to serve, made bitter', and then 'served'. The translator used the imperfect throughout here, in this way stressing the continuous nature of the imposition; he said: 'they were oppressing, they were hurting, they were enslaving'. Notice also the choice of verbs which differs considerably from the Hebrew. For the Hebrew 'made bitter' the LXX used a rare word which means 'to inflict pain' thus stressing the physical rather than the emotional result of the oppression. For the last verb where the Hebrew had used the same root as that of v. 13 (though a different stem), the Greek uses an entirely different verb so as to emphasize the servant or slave character of the labors which were being forced upon the Israelites. The last section of the chapter describes a further tactic on Pharaoh's part to decrease the population growth of the Israelites. Here the king of Egypt appears in the LXX as the 'king of the Egyptians', that is, as king of the people. The addressees are called 'Hebrew midwives', and the translator balances the two neatly by translating the adjective as a genitive noun, namely, 'of the Hebrews'. This sets up the contrast clearly between Egyptians and Hebrews, which is fully legitimate from the point of view of the first fourteen chapters of the book, even though the Hebrew does not make that distinction here. One oddity in the Greek Exodus is the fact that the translator gave the same name to the first midwife as that of Moses' wife, namely, lETr4>copa. The Masoretes distinguished between the two as mSE? sipra and mSH sippora. In my edition of the Greek Exodus I differentiate beween the two by giving an ultimate accent on Shiphra but a penultimate stress on the name of Moses' wife, namely, Zipporah. For Zipporah the -a ending is treated at 2.21 and 18.2 as a first declension ending, and the Hellenistic


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accentuation might be considered validated by it. The name Shiphra occurs only here in the Old Testament and the accent distinction, though admittedly arbitrary is useful. In v. 16 Pharaoh gives his brutish instructions to the two midwives. Precisely what the origin is of the figurative Hebrew phrase 'you shall see them on the double stones' is not clear, but the translator certainly understood what it meant by his 'and they should be at the point of giving birth'. Note that the preposition irpos is here used classically with the dative in the sense of 'near to'. The dative is used with this preposition only infrequently in Hellenistic Greek, later on losing out entirely to the accusative. The Greek also makes a fine distinction in the contrasting construction: 'if it's a male, kill it, but if it's a female keep it alive'. The first imperative is perforce an aorist command, but the second one is sensitively put into the present imperative. Preservation is an ongoing affair; killing is a single act. Incidentally the Hebrew is somewhat odd for the last verb. It is the verb meaning 'to live' and it appears to be in the third masculine singular. But its subject can only be the word PQ, meaning 'daughter', which is feminine, the Hebrew having son and daughter rather than the Greek 'male and female'.3 The Greek makes good sense by making the verb transitive and in the plural imperative with an added 'it' as object, that is, 'keep it alive'. The Samaritan text4 solves the apparent difficulty in the Hebrew by making the verb feminine—'it (the daughter) shall live'. The Greek is stylistically the finer solution, since it makes the statement fully parallel to that on the male child. It is characteristic of the Greek Exodus that though not bound by the language of the parent text it does try to reflect the sense of it. In the midwives' reaction the Hebrew says 'the midwives feared God and did not act as the king of Egypt had said to them'. Of course, when the Egyptian king says something it's an order, and the LXX calls a spade a spade; it says 'as the king had commanded them'. And yet it can reflect in interesting ways changes in the Hebrew. In v. 17 the MT had the peculiar form 'keep it alive'. Here the same verb occurs but in the transitive or piel stem. But the LXX had already made that verb transitive, so to show that the Hebrew had changed the translator here used an entirely different Greek verb meaning roughly the same thing 'preserve alive'. 3. But this need not be the case. See, e.g., C. Houtman, Exodus (4 vols.; Kampen: J.H. Kok, 1986), I, p. 242, for a more likely analysis. 4. A. von Gall, Der hebryauische Pentateuch der Samaritaner (Giessen: Alfred Topelmann, 1918).

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It is no surprise that the evil king then called the midwives in to explain their actions. 'Why...have you preserved alive the male children?' The Hebrew here introduces a new word, D'H'T, which is the regular word for children; it is a word that can be inflected as masculine or as feminine. Here the masculine form naturally reflects the male offspring, but the translator simply used the word 'males' as he had done earlier in the case of 'son' in the MT. After all, that was the whole point of Pharaoh's orders. By eliminating all Hebrew males eventually a pure Hebrew stock would entirely disappear. For the midwives' reply the translator found the last clause in the Hebrew, 'and they give birth', difficult, and so he recast the entire reply. The MT begins with a causal particle 'for'. The LXX disregarded this, simply beginning with 'Not like the women of Egypt are the Hebrew women'. The Hebrew then continues with another causal clause: 'for they are healthy; before the midwives arrive they give birth'. The Greek removes the implied criticism of Egyptian women by substituting for 'they are healthy' the verb 'they give birth'. The causal clause then reads: 'for they give birth before the midwives arrive'. But this now leaves the last clause 'and they give birth' as a kind of useless appendage, which problem the LXX more or less solves by changing the tense to the imperfect. So the whole reply in the Greek reads: 'Not like the women of Egypt are the Hebrew women; for they are bearing before the midwives arrive, and were already giving birth'. Verse 20 also illustrates the care with which the translator interpreted his text. The Hebrew verbs are all in the preterite tense: 'and he prospered, and it (i.e. the people) multiplied' and 'they became strong'. Since 'the people' are obviously the subject of the last two verbs, once as a singular collective, and then as a plural concept, the Greek makes both verbs singular. But of greater interest is the fact that these preterite verbs are all rendered by the imperfect. So God was (continually) prospering the midwives, and the people were (constantly) increasing, and becoming (much) stronger. That is what the LXX says. Verse 21 illustrates another way in which this translator deals with the Hebrew. The MT begins with TH ('and it happened'). This is an extremely common introduction in Hebrew narrative, and it used to be translated in the KJV by 'and it came to pass that', which is much better Hebrew than English. In the Greek Exodus this is never rendered except when it designates either time or place; for example, 'and it happened on the next day that'. So here too it is tastefully omitted, and the Greek simply begins with 'Since the midwives feared God'. But then in the apodosis the Greek


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changes the sense of the MT entirely. The MT says: 'he (i.e. God) made for them (i.e. the people) households'. In other words, the verse is considered to be a commentary on the preceding verse where God's prospering of the midwives consisted of the people's growth. This apparently did not fit what the translator thought the passage really meant to be saying. The verb is made plural so that the midwives become the subject; 'for them' becomes a feminine reflexive pronoun, eotuTois; what the Greek then means is 'they (the midwives) made for themselves households'. So the verse really means that the fear of God produces offspring. In other words, being a good religious person means prosperity—a typical wisdom idea. In the final verse of the chapter Pharaoh enters a new stage of oppression. Now all his people are to take part in the slaughter of Hebrew newborn males; they are to be thrown into the river. The MT does not have the word 'Hebrew', though, of course, that is what Pharaoh meant. It seems to me that this detailed exercise has taught us a number of things, not only about the Greek but also about Exodus ch 1. As I said at the beginning of this study the LXX is the earliest commentary that we have on the Old Testament. Here is reflected what the Alexandrian Jewish translator thought the Hebrew text to mean, and for anyone who is really serious about wanting to understand the Old Testament I commend the use of the LXX as probably the most valuable tool that we have for understanding the Hebrew text. I suggest that this tool is a far better one than any modern commentary that you can buy, because it is a primary document born to fill the needs of a third-century BCE Jewish community who like us needed help to understand what the Hebrew scriptures meant. At times the LXX gives us insights which clarify not only, but even go beyond the Hebrew. One thing seems to me clear. These ancients were no fools who made all kinds of silly mistakes; they knew what they were doing; they made sense even when their parent text was difficult to interpret. They may have been wrong, but they did not write gibberish. And may I suggest that before we brand their insights to be wrong we humbly recognize two things: the Alexandrian Jew spoke Hellenistic Greek fluently; he knew it better than we do, even better than the modern Classics professor does. And, second, he was much closer to Classical Hebrew as a living language than we are. When the translator seems to be translating a difficult word quite differently from BDB or KB or GKB, maybe, just maybe, they knew their Hebrew better than modern lexicographers—even though they didn't know proto-Hebrew, much less proto-Semitic; they didn't have the advantage of knowing Assyrian, Babylonian, much less Ugaritic or Eblaitic, but they

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spoke Hebrew; they knew words in Hebrew that we have never heard of— and it could be that it would not be a bad idea to take seriously what the LXX has to say. Theological Reflections on the Greek Exodus In this essay I intend to probe aspects of the theological points of view of the Greek Exodus. I shall omit from consideration the section dealing with the tabernacle which constitutes a separate problem altogether.5 Methodologically speaking the approach taken is that which was exemplified in the first section, that is, to examine only differences++between th Hebrew text and that of the Greek. Passages in which the two fully agree yield no distinctiveness for the Greek; it is only where the two differ that the theological prejudices of the translator might betray themselves. 1. Such points of view might well appear in how the translator deals with divine names. As is well known, Kupios ('Lord') is used as a substitute for the tetragrammaton throughout the LXX. But it can also serve to render a human master. In contexts where the two occur in proximity as, for example, in the Covenant Code, the translator tends to substitute 6 0eos for the divine name, and in 23.17 where God is referred to as pNi"! m!T ('Yahweh the lord') he substitutes the Lord your God—Kup'iou TOU GEOU aou. In fact, only where there seems to be some good reason for distinguishing between the names miT and DTT^K is he careful in his choice. In other words, one usually cannot use these renderings for text-critical purposes at all. Thus in ch. 19 in the description of the theophany the translator seems to be reluctant to use Kupios, and many cases of the tetragrammaton become GEOS in Greek. In the Hebrew text miT occurs eighteen times and QTT^N only three times, but in the Greek Kupios is used only nine times but b BEOS- occurs thirteen times. The trend must be intentional. If one then compares ch. 24, where the theophany is also described, the trend appears once again. In fact, all references to mm have been changed to 'God' except where his actions are involved, that is, when he speaks, or makes a covenant with Israel, as well as in v. 17, where the mm "TOD remains 56£n$- Kup'iou, 5. I have dealt with this difficult problem in Text History of the Greek Exodus (Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Gottingen. Philologisch Historische Klasse, 3, Folge, 192; Mitteilungen des Septuaginta-Unternehmens, 21; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992), Chapter 6, 'The Composition of Exod 35 to 40'(pp. 117-46).


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which is rather odd since in v. 16 it had been amended to f| 561; ex TOU 0£ou. There is thus an avoidance of describing the divine revelation, the actual theophany in terms of a revelation of Yahweh—'Lord', in favor of a revelation of God. The Greek shares with Hebrew thought the notion that a name is not a separate entity from the one named. This notion is stressed at 34.14 where the Hebrew says: 'Yahweh, whose name is jealous, is a jealous God'; the LXX speaks of the Lord God as 'a jealous name, a jealous God'. By using ^nAcoTov bvoya, an adjectival phrase, the jealous name becomes the same as the jealous God. Probably the best known passage is the one about which more nonsense has been written than about any other; this is 3.14 where the translator was faced with the difficult statement THN ~\W, rrriK ('I am that I am'). It was easy enough to translate the first word simply by syco siyi, but what to do with the relative clause? At first blush one might consider something like os syco eiyi, but that would be gibberish to a Greek-speaking audience, particularly since in the very next clause the MT orders Moses to proclaim TTTIK has sent me to you'. In other words, rrrifc serves both as a relative clause and as subject of a verbal sentence. The only thing that would make sense would be a participle; only a participle could be used in both cases. The rendering b cov does not reflect the influence of Greek philosophy on the LXX whatsoever; it simply shows the translator proceeding rationally in dealing with a difficult translation problem. This solution may also have influenced him at 6.3 as well in the rendering of the name *Htt) ^N. In Genesis that name had always been rendered by BEOS plus a pronoun, so that here it would have become b SEOS CXUTCOV, but the statement is intended to contrast with the second part 'and my name Lord I did not show them'. It is, however, the same God who is speaking, and this is neatly shown by incorporating the participle cov as in 3.14. The contrast is then between b cov and 6ebs cov aurcov—these are different but God is one and the same. 2. A second point that can be made about the translator's point of view is that at times he tones down what might to pious Jewish ears sound offensive. At 4.16 it is said that 'he will become (nnin) a mouth for you, and you will become a god for him'. The translator renders the nmn construction by the future of the verb 'to be' but avoids the notion that Moses would become Aaron's God by rendering 'God' by 'the matters that pertain to God', a clear avoidance of the crass figure of the MT.

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In the Song of Moses the translator also avoids crass figures which define the Lord in human terms. In 15.3, the MT speaks of Yahweh as 'a man of war'; this is toned down to 'the Lord shatters wars', that is, he is victorious in battle. So too at v. 10 the MT'S 'you (i.e. God) blew with your wind (mi)'. This is interpreted as 'you sent your wind'. The winds become God's servants, rather than 'his breath'. At times divine actions apparently seemed overly harsh, and the translator found ways to soften the description. At 5.3, the MT says lest he (i.e. Yahweh) should overtake us with pestilence or the sword. But in the Greek Savccros r| 4>6vos (literally 'death or slaughter') becomes the impersonal subject of the verb and the Lord is not even mentioned; the LXX has 'lest death or slaughter should overtake us'. At 19.22 the MT has the threat 'lest Yahweh break through (i.e. in violence) against them'. The ^"la"1 is toned down considerably by aTraAAa^n, that is, the Greek simply says 'lest the Lord depart from them'. The translator found God's breaking out violently against his own priests somewhat strong. On the other hand, this is not done consistently. At v. 24 the same phrase is rendered by 'lest he destroy them'. And finally at 24.11 the translator avoids God's active killing of the chieftains. For the MT'S 'and on the chieftains of the Israelites he did not lay his hand', the LXX has 'and of the chosen men of Israel not even one was lacking'. God's part in the affair is here completely missing. 3. A further point that can be made is that in God's relations with men, or more particularly with his people, subtle differences may betray the translator's theological beliefs. Thus at 11.3 the phrase D#il )n ('favor of the people') is correctly understood as an objective genitival relation. In the MT the clause states 'And Yahweh gave the people favor in the sight of Egypt'. The LXX understood this fully but rendered 'the people' by TOD Aacp aujou ('to his people'), thus subtly stressing the relation between the Lord and Israel. In the golden calf episode of ch. 32 Yahweh says to Moses in v. 9 'I have seen that this people is stifmecked'. But to the Alexandrian it was not the stiffneckedness of Israel that was the ground for God's decision to destroy Israel and start all over again with Moses; it was rather their enormous sin of attributing the great act of redemption from Egypt to other gods. 'These', they had said, 'are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt'. And so the translator simply omitted the Hebrew verse entirely.


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In Moses' intercessory prayer at 34.9 he asks God to pardon our iniquity and our sin 'and take us for your inheritance'. The Greek is much clearer; the point of God's taking us for his inheritance is that 'we shall be yours'. And at 23.21 reference is made to God's angel, and Israel is enjoined to obey him as God's agent. In the MT this is motivated by the statement 'for he will not forgive your transgression'. In the Greek this becomes 'for he will not withdraw from you', that is, refrain from judging you (UTTOOTE'IAnTou as). Since only God can forgive sins, the idea that God's angel can also forgive sins is in this way avoided by the translator. 4. This leads us to another aspect of the Alexandrian's theology, namely, the central importance of the notion of God's sovereignty, as is clear from his view of the covenant relation. At 2.24 God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; in the Greek the preposition is not 'with' but TTpo?—'towards'. The divine covenant is towards the patriarchs; it is unidirectional, from God towards man, an emphasis well known from the translation of rr~Q by 6ia0f|Kr| rather than by auv0f|Kn. This establishment of the divine covenant 'towards' rather than 'with' man is already apparent in Genesis; at 6.18, in the covenant with Noah, as well as at 17.19, 21, in the one with Isaac, the covenant is also made by God towards, though at 17.4, in the covenant with Abraham, the preposition JJETQ is used. At 6.5 the phrase TT~Q flK is translated by T?IS Sia0f|Kr|s uycov. The LXX usually interprets suffixes with ff ~Q as objective genitives (with very few exceptions). This tendency which began already in Genesis was to view the divine covenant in terms of the recipients. This is then put into a proper perspective in v. 7 where the LXX adds a seemingly gratuitous eyo'i after Aaov. The opening clause already reads 'I will take you to myself as a people', but an extra spo'i intentionally places the accent on the divine impulse: 'I will take you to myself as my own people'. Sometimes God's sovereignty is assured by making him the subject of a clause. At 15.5 the Hebrew's 'the depths cover them' is changed to 'with the sea he covered them', thus making God the active agent in the drowning of the Egyptians. At 11.9 God says that Pharaoh won't listen 'so that my wonders may abound in the land of Egypt'. The LXX makes God the subject with its 'so that I may multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt'. The drama centers in the conflict between God and Pharaoh, and the LXX tends to reflect this somewhat more carefully than the MT does. At 34.22 God orders the observance of the great feasts by the words ~[L? rrorn ('observe for yourself) but LXX makes it Troifioeis not ('observe

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for me'). The festivals are to be observed for God's sake, not for one's own sake. This is consistent with 23.14 where the Hebrew also has a first person reference. At 8.11 (Eng. v. 7) the LXX puts God at the center; the Hebrew has the neutral promise 'and the frogs shall turn away from you', but the Greek interprets the verb by a future passive 'shall be removed'. This presupposes a divine agent, and emphasizes the 'sign' character of the plagues' being brought to an end. And then at 18.19 Jethro gives Moses good advice which he ends with a precative: 'May God be with you'. But the Greek makes this a positive promise: 'God will be with you'. 5. Reference has already been made to God's angel. God's angel and God himself are carefully distinguished in the Greek. In 23.22 the MT might be misunderstood as presupposing the identity of the angel and Yahweh himself. It says: 'You are to listen to his voice (i.e. the voice of the angel) and do everything which I (i.e. Yahweh) say'. The LXX changes this to: 'you are to listen to my voice and do everything which I say'. The angel is but an intermediary to lead the people on God's behalf through the wilderness into the land of promise; God reserves for himself the voice that must be obeyed if the Israelites are to prosper. And then at 4.24 an angel of the Lord becomes an intermediary for an entirely different purpose. It concerns the difficult story of Yahweh's encounter with Moses on his way to Egypt. There the MT says that Yahweh met him and sought to kill him. But the LXX changes this to 'an angel of the Lord met him and sought to kill him', thereby at least somewhat mitigating the harshness of the story. After all, in the Balaam story God also used an angel in a similar fashion. 6. It should also be observed that central to Israel's faith was a clear monotheism. To the Alexandrian the Hebrew statement at 8.10 (Eng. v. 6) 'there is no one like Yahweh our God' was somehow inadequate. True, Yahweh is incomprehensible, but the LXX makes it stronger by 'there is no one else besides the Lord'. This is thus an absolute statement; the Alexandrian insists on recognition by Pharaoh that Israel's monotheistic faith was correct. Note that the Greek even omits the limiting phrase 'our God', offering instead just the straightforward statement 'there is no one else besides the Lord'. This may also be at the basis of 8.22 (Eng. v. 18) where Pharaoh is told that the purpose of the plague of the swarms of flies was that 'you may


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know that I am Yahweh in the midst of the land'. The translator also absolutizes this statement by making it 'you may know that I am the Lord, the lord of all the land'. This is clearly an intentional change by which the word H~lpD ('in the midst of) is changed to 'master, ruler, lord'. Actually, Targum Onqelos has a similar statement; it adds the word CDÊ? ('ruler') and reads 'I am Yahweh the ruler in the midst of the land'. One is here reminded of 9.14 where the MT's 'there is none like me (in all the land)' becomes 'there is no one other like me'. The Greek gloss aAAoc brings out the uniqueness of Israel's God even more strongly. That Yahweh is the divine lawgiver is stressed at 24.12. The Hebrew states that the purpose of Yahweh's writing the Ten Words on the stone tablets was Drmnb, that is, 'to teach them'. But centuries had passed by and the Alexandrian realized that the Ten Words had a more formal purpose. The LXX accordingly substituted vono0£Tr|oai—God wrote the Ten Words in order to frame, or enshrine the vopos, the Torah, the law, and the Ten Words provide a framework for it. 7. And then in the world of the translator it was abundantly clear that over against the true faith stood the world of the non-gods. In the Ten Words there is introduced for the first time at 20.4 the term ^DS ('a graven image'), for which eventually the term YÀUTTTOV would become a standard and fully correct equivalent. The word occurs only here in Exodus, and though one suspects that the translator knew exactly what it meant, he translated it by siocoAov, thereby stressing the irreality or phantom-like character of the ^DS. It should not be forgotten that the Alexandrian Jew lived in a context of paganism, and the reality of Yahweh in his mind stood in stark contrast to the idols of his neighbours. At 22.28 (Eng. v. 27) this context may also be reflected. There Israel is warned 'Do not revile God (DTI^N), nor curse a ruler (fcVEE) of your people'. The word D n n ^N can of course refer to God or to the gods, though the parallel wordfcVEJ]is only singular. But 'reviling God' is an unthinkable crime, and the translator makes both nouns plural, 'gods' and 'rulers', which can hardly have been intended by the Hebrew. Incidentally, at 32.5 illegitimate cult is referred to in a most subtle way. At 10.9 and 13.6 legitimate feasts of Yahweh are translated by Eoprr) Kup'iou. This accords with the translator's practice not to articulate Kup'iou when it is used for the tetragrammaton. But at 32.5 Aaron proclaims the following day as a feast of Yahweh. In the context of the golden calf story this was clearly not a legitimate feast. And the translator is aware of it, and

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so renders the phrase by sopTr) TOÛ Kup'iou, that is, with an article. A subtle distinction indeed! 8. A further characteristic of Judaism as it was developing in the centuries after the exile was a strong emphasis on divine transcendence. So too the LXX at times places a greater distance between God and man than the MT does. Thus at 32.11 it is said of Moses that 'he besought the face of Yahweh'. To the translator this was an overly direct confrontation and the direct object is made into a preposition phrase in the unusual use of èôef)0r) with KctTEvcxvTi Toû Kup'iou, that is, 'he begged over against the Lord'. But ÔÉOMCU is otherwise not used absolutely as here, and to the Greek reader this would place a gulf between the Lord and Moses. In the following verse Moses prays inter alia 'repent (D!"[]D niphal) concerning the evil towards your people'. The LXX avoids any notion that God might repent both here and in v. 14 where God hears Moses ' prayer; rather he uses a positive notion: 'be gracious over against the evil—and he was gracious'. At 34.29 the MT states that Moses was unaware of the fact that 'the skin of his face was shining'. The Greek interpreted the unusual verb pp by a passive, ÔEÔoÇacrrcci ('was effulgent'). But only God can really be effulgent, that is, be radiant with ôoÇa, and so the translator rendered 'the skin of his face' both here and in the next verse by f| ovpiç TOÛ xpcovpos TOÛ TTpoocÔTTou ccÙTou ('the appearance of the skin of his face'). But then in v. 35 the MT says that 'the Israelites saw the face of Moses that the skin of the face of Moses was effulgent'. Here, oddly enough, the LXX omits 'the skin of the face of Moses', that is, in contradiction to the impulse to avoid attributing the radiance of glory to Moses' face. And at 17.6 God is pictured as standing before Moses on the rock at Horeb. This is a good example of the way in which the translator wrestled with difficult notions such as this one, that is, of God actually standing before Moses instead of the other way around. The Alexandrian changed the first part of the line, that is, 'Behold I am standing', to 'Here I did stand', that is, it becomes a reference to God's earlier presence on Horeb. Then the LXX continues the line with 'before you came on to the rock at Horeb'. The statement is now quite innocuous. 9. And finally, there remains the important statement of 33.20 that 'No man can see my face and live'. This fact, or this faith, created difficulty for the translator in a few cases. Thus at 3.6, where God reveals himself at the


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burning bush episode, it is said that 'Moses hid his face.. .because he was afraid to look at God'. The idea of 'looking at God' is completely voided by the positive statement in the Greek: Moses turned aside his face, for he was careful to look down before God. Moses adopted a reverent pose in the presence of God, a posture appropriate in the presence of royalty. This avoidance of the notion of seeing God is especially apparent in the description of the theophany in ch. 24. In v. 10 the Hebrew says 'And they saw the God of Israel'. Immediately thereafter MT has the expression 'and under his feet', which expression the translator rendered by 'and the things (ra) under his feet'. This probably promoted the solution to the problematic statement 'they saw the God of Israel', which the LXX interprets as 'and they saw the place where the God of Israel stood'. An extension of this kind of meticulous care in describing a theophany is also apparent where the verse continues with comparing that which was under his feet as being like 'the very heavens for purity'. The LXX expands this simile by 'like the appearance of the aTEpEconaroç of heaven for purity'. Not heaven itself but only the firmament of heaven can actually appear to the human eye.. Then in the following verse the Hebrew says 'And they beheld God'. The verb is now a different one, HIP! rather than ilK"), thereby promoting a somewhat different rendering of this clause. Here the LXX uses a passive verb, KCÙ co4>0r|aav ('And they appeared'), followed by the words 'in the place of God'. So, beholding God really means 'appearing in the place where God was'. Little needs to be said in concluding this essay, since the many examples given speak for themselves. The differences between the LXX and the Hebrew reflect a view of God befitting the Jewry of the third century BCE. God is transcendent; he is one. He demands a pure cult and total recognition by everyone as the only God. He is to be spoken of in reverent terms, since he is the only one who is, a jealous name who alone may be recognized as the Lord of the universe, even in the environment of Alexandria itself.

THE IMAGE OF THE HAND OF GOD IN THE BOOK OF EXODUS David Rolph Seely

Introduction The hand of God is a central theme of the book of Exodus, and indeed of the Exodus narratives throughout the Hebrew Bible, as a metaphor of God's power to intervene in history.1 The imagery of the hand of God is rich and varied and is expressed with seven terms for hand, arm, right hand, and fingers2 conjoined with many different verbs and adjectives to create a constellation of different visual images. There are many studies on the language describing the hand and arm and of specific passages and issues involving hand imagery throughout the Bible,3 and there are several important studies about specific hand of God imagery in the Exodus narratives,4 1. The image of the hand of God occurs a total of 2155 times in the Hebrew Bible. 345 of these occurrences are found in the Exodus narratives. For a statistical review of the hand of God in the Hebrew Bible see my doctoral dissertation, 'The Image of the Hand of God in the Exodus Narratives' (University of Michigan, 1990), pp. 37-45. 2. The Hebrew hand/arm/fingers vocabulary isyad ('hand/arm'), zeroa ' ('arm'), yamin ('right hand'), kap ('palm/hand'), 'etsba' ('finger'), sem'ol ('left hand'), and sho 'al ('hollow of hand'). 3. Comprehensive articles on the language of the 'hand' and 'arm' with useful bibliographies can be found in J. Bergman, J. W. von Soden and P. R. Ackroyd,+'yad\ in TDOT, V, pp. 393-426, and H.J. Helfmeyer, 'zeroa", in TDOT, IV, pp. 131-40. 4. Brevard S. Childs, 'Deuteronomic Formulae of the Exodus Traditions', in B. Hartmann, E. Jenni and E.Y. Kutscher (eds.), Hebraische Wortforschung. Festschrift zum 80. Geburstag von Walter Baumgartner (VTSup, 16; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1967), pp. 30-39; B. Couroyer, 'Le "doigt de dieu" (Exode, VIII, 15)', RB 63 (1956), pp. 481-95; James K. Hoffmeier, 'The Arm of God Versus the Arm of Pharaoh in the Exodus Narratives', Bib 67 (1986), pp. 378-87; Paul Humbert, 'Etendre la main', VT 12 (1962), pp. 383-95; Gerald A. Klingbeil, 'The Finger ofGodinthe Old Testament', ZAW\\2 (2000), pp. 409-15; C.J. Labuschagne, 'Meaning ofbeyadrama+in the Old Testament',^0^7211 (1982), pp. 143-48; J.J.M. Roberts, 'TheHandofYahweh', VT 21 (1971), pp. 244-51.

SEELY The Image of the Hand of God

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but there are few studies that examine and analyze a set of imagery within a single narrative or book of the Bible.5 Many commentators have noted in passing the various images of the hand of God in Exodus, but only recently has a commentator noted that the hand/arm/right hand of God is one of the major themes in the book of Exodus.6 This study will survey the occurrences of the hand of God imagery in the book of Exodus as a central theme of the book, provide brief analysis of the meaning of each occurrence, and discuss the significance of this imagery in light of the Hebrew Bible as a whole. In the book of Exodus the image of the hand of God occurs 27 times.7 The Lord 'delivers' and 'leads out' his people by his 'strong hand' (3.19; 6.1; 13.3, 9, 14, 16; 32.11) and by his 'outstretched arm' (6.6). He 'stretches out' his hand and 'strikes' Egypt with the plagues (3.20; 7.4, 5; 9.3,15; 14.31) and he swears an oath by raising his hand (6.8). Pharaoh's magicians admit that it is the 'finger of God' that is responsible for the plague of gnats (8.15 [Eng. 19]). By the 'might' of his hand and arm the Lord defeats Pharaoh at the Reed Sea (14.31; 15.16). In the Song of the Sea (Exod. 15) the Lord 'shatters' the Egyptians with his right hand (15.6), when he 'stretches out' his right hand the enemy is swallowed up (15.12), and finally he leads his people to the sanctuary that he 'establishes' with his hands (15.17). The 'hand' of God is recognized as the power to take life or to preserve it (16.3; 24.11). On Mt Sinai the Lord writes the law on the tablets of stone with his finger (31.18) and, in a theophany, the protecting palm/hand of God covers and uncovers Moses, allowing him to experience the presence of God (33.22, 23). Throughout the narrative in Exodus there is a delightful interaction between the Lord's hands and those of the humans Moses and Aaron, and most notably the hand of Pharaoh and his magician. The contest between God and his messengers and Pharaoh and his magicians is often played out with hand gestures. Often it is the hands of Moses and Aaron that 5. A notable exception is the literary and theological study of the hand of God in the Ark Narrative of 1 Samuel by Patrick D. Miller, Jr, and J.J.M. Roberts, The Hand of the Lord: A Reassessment of the 'Ark Narrative ' of I Samuel (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977). 6. William H.C. Propp, Exodus 1-18 (AB, 2; New York: Doubleday, 1999), pp. 36, 502, 528-29. 7. The 27 occurrences are: 18 occurrences ofyad(3.\9,20; 6.1 [twice], 8; 7.4, 5; 9.3, 15; 13.3,9, 14, 16; 14.31; 15.17; 16.3; 24.11; 32.11); two occurrences of zeroa' (6.6; 15.16); three occurrences ofyamin (15.6 [twice], 12); two occurrences of kap (33.22, 23); two occurrences of 'etsba' (8.15 [Eng. 19]; 31.18).

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represent the hand of God. Moses and Aaron use hand gestures in exercising the divine power of the plagues and the magicians counter. Hand gestures performed by Moses and Aaron, usually with the rod, demonstrate how the hand of the Lord intervenes by means of, or simultaneously with, the hands of his messengers. On a more subtle level there is the theme of God accomplishing his purposes 'by the hand of (beyad) his messengers the prophets. For example, God speaks to his people 'through' (beyad) Moses (Exod. 9.35) and delivers the law 'through' (beyad)+Moses (Lev. 26.46). The hand of God occurs in seven narratives in the book of Exodus: the call of Moses in Exodus 3-4, the plagues in chs. 5-13, the Reed Sea in chs. 14-15, the wilderness in ch. 16; the giving of the law in chs. 24 and 31, and the account of the theophany in ch. 33. We will deal with the image of the hand of God in each narrative unit. The Call of Moses: Exodus 3-4 There is an extended play on hand imagery between the hands of God and the hands of humans in the narrative of Moses' prophetic calling. At the burning bush the Lord tells Moses: 'I have come down to deliver them [Israel] from the hand of the Egyptians (miyyadmitsrayimy (3.8; see also 18.10). The Lord goes on to say that Pharaoh will not let the Israelites go 'unless compelled by a mighty hand (welo ' beyad khazaqah)' (3.19)8 and then informs Moses whose hand it will be: 'So I will stretch out my hand and smite Egypt (weshalakhti 'et-yadi wehiketi) with all the wonders I will do in it; after that he (Pharaoh) will let you go' (3.20). Presumably these 'wonders' are the plagues that will be a result of the hand of God. Two of the signs given to the hesitant Moses are directed at his hands: 'put out your hand' to take the rod-serpent (4.1 -5) and 'put your hand into your bosom'—to see it change from clean to leprous and back (4.6-7). However, after these two demonstrations of divine power Moses makes a plea that the Lord should find someone else for this prophetic mission with another phrase that involves a hand: 'Send, I pray, some other person' (shalakh-na ' beyad-tishlakh, 4.13). Literally this phrase means 'send by the hand of whomever you would send', which implies that the Lord can

8. Literally 'and not by a strong hand' (Heb, Gk, Vg). The phrase lo ' beyad khazaqah is generally read here as an idiom meaning 'unless' or 'except by a strong hand (force)'.


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send anyone he wishes. The fact that the Lord becomes angry shows that Moses is suggesting that the Lord send someone other than himself. So, while Moses has been given the means to exercise the power of God through his own hands, he asks that the Lord send 'by the hand' of someone else. The Lord, in response, promises to send Aaron to help. So, the power of the 'hand of God' will be made manifest by the hands of Moses and Aaron, who will represent the 'hand of God', and yet at the Reed Sea it will be the 'right hand' of God alone that will deliver the people and destroy the Egyptians. The staff becomes the symbol of this power of representing God—the Lord told Moses, 'Take in your hand this staff, with which you shall perform the signs' (4.17). Moses will later use this staff to 'smite the waters of the Nile' (7.17) and eventually to part the waters of the Reed Sea (14.16-29). Moses and Aaron and Pharaoh: Exodus 5-13 In the narrative of the plagues the image of the hand of God occurs thirteen times—mostly in phrases that metaphorically refer to the power of God: 'by the strong hand', 'by the strength of hand/arm', and 'the hand/ arm outstretched' against Egypt. After Moses' and Aaron's initial failure to persuade Pharaoh, which only resulted in 'heavier burdens' (Exod. 5), the Lord reassured them saying, 'Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for with a strong hand (beyad khazaqah) he will send them out yea, with a strong hand+(beyad khazaqah) he will drive them out of his land' (6.1). It is not clear whether the yad khazaqah in this passage belongs to Pharaoh or to God. The translation of the preposition 'with' (be-)+is the key to the problem. It can be taken as 'with', denoting the disposition or circumstances under which Pharaoh would drive them out, or it can be taken as 'by' or 'with', indicating that it was only because of the strong coercion of the hand of the Lord that Pharaoh would let them go. Since Pharaoh is the subject of the sentence, the most obvious reading (which is followed by many English translations) is that it is Pharaoh's hand, perhaps representing military force, that will drive Israel out of Egypt. If this is correct it would set up a striking juxtaposition and confrontation of the 'strong hand of God' with the 'strong hand of Pharaoh'. However, the phrase yad khazaqah in Exodus and elsewhere almost always refers to God. Of the thirty times khazaqah appears with yad+(in any form) in the Bible only twice (besides the two occurrences here) does it refer to someone other than God (Num. 20.20 and Deut. 34.12). The

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passage in Num. 20.20 'and Edom came out against them with many men, and with a strong force (webeyad khazaqah)"—most likely a reference to a mighty army—is the most likely candidate for providing a suitable metaphor that would explain Pharaoh's 'strong hand' in 6.1. But the biblical traditions all speak of Pharaoh asking Israel to leave and then pursuing them, not 'driving them out with his army'. Deuteronomy 34.12 refers to the 'mighty power (yadkhazaqah) and the great and terrible deeds which Moses wrought in the sight of all Israel' and might be a deliberate attempt to associate with Moses vocabulary usually attributed only to God. The JPSV translation interprets both as belonging to God rendering 'You shall soon see what I will do to Pharaoh: he shall let them go because of a greater might; indeed, because of a greater might he shall drive them from his land' (Exod. 6.1). In part because of the usual association of yad khazaqah with the Lord, but mostly because it makes more sense in the surrounding narrative I have chosen to count both as references to the hand of God. Cassuto, following Rashi, finds a compromise. He concludes that the first beyad khazaqah refers to God and the second to Pharaoh, reading 'you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; you shall see that by a strong hand—on account of My strong hand—shall he let them go; nay more, by a strong hand—namely, of Pharaoh and his people—shall he drive them out of his land'. 9 One of the most common formulas involving hand of God imagery associated with the Exodus is the phrase 'with a strong hand and outstretched arm (beyadkhazaqah ubizroa 'netuyahy+(Deut. 4.34; 5.15; 26.8; Jer. 32.21; Ezek. 20.33, 34; Ps. 136.12). Oddly enough, while the 'strong hand' is found several times in the book of Exodus (3.19; 6.1; 13.9; 32.11) and the 'outstretched arm' once (6.6) this formula is not found in the book of Exodus. Likely this is a Deuteronomic formula.10 Both images have many Near Eastern parallels. Semantic equivalents of the 'strong hand' are found in Ugaritic, Akkadian, Amarna Letters, and Egyptian1! and equivalents of the 'outstretched hand/arm' in Ugaritic, Akkadian, and Egyptian.12 Both images are probably military ones—the strong hand representing military strength and the outstretched hand/arm a hostile gesture against an enemy.13 9. Press, 10. 11. 12. 13.

Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Exodus (Jerusalem: Magnes 1983). Childs, 'Deuteronomic Formulae of the Exodus Traditions', pp. 32-34. Seely, 'The Image of the Hand of God', pp. 142-46. Seely, The Image of the Hand of God', pp. 127-29. Humbert, ' Etendre la main '.


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The image of God raising his hand in an oath occurs in 6.8: 'I will bring you into the land that I swore (nasa 'ti 'et-yadty. The image of God raising his hand in an oath occurs thirteen times in the Hebrew Bible (Num. 14.30; Deut. 32.40; Ezek. 20.5-6,15,28,42; etc.), ten times promising land and three times swearing vengeance. Presumably the image has its origins in a symbolic gesture made in connection with a solemn oath.14 The plagues in Egypt are often referred to with the image of God 'stretching out his hand or arm' (shalakh, natakh, and natari) to 'smite' (hikkah) Egypt (3.20; 7.4,5; 9.3,15; 14.31) or simply with the phrase 'the hand of the Lord was upon (yadyhwh hayah be-)' (Exod. 9.3). And yet it is the hands of Moses and Aaron that actually bring the plagues about throughout the plague narratives.15 They, with a staff, 'strike' the Nile and 'stretch out' their hands over its waters, turning it to blood (Exod. 7.17, 19). And it is Aaron who 'stretched out' his hand to bring forth frogs (Exod. 8.6) and who 'stretched out his hand with his staff and struck the dust of the earth' to bring forth the gnats. Later, Moses would lift up his staff and 'stretch out' his hand to divide the waters of the Reed Sea (Exod. 14.15)— where the 'outstretched arm' of the Lord will destroy the Egyptians. The language of the 'strong hand', 'stretching out' one's hand, or 'striking' and 'smiting' presents a vivid image probably derived from battle and is a well-known feature of ancient Near Eastern warrior gods as well as of Yahweh the Divine Warrior. In the Exodus narrative the metaphor seems to be played out by humans stretching out their hands and striking in order to release the divine power. Pharaoh's magicians, after unsuccessfully trying to duplicate the plague of gnats, finally acknowledge that 'this is the finger of God ( 'etsba ' 'elohim hu ')' (8.15 [Eng. 19]). The hand and arm are the usual metaphors for the power of God in the Bible, but the image of the 'finger' or 'fingers' of God occur only in Exod. 31.18 and Deut. 9.10, where they refer to the writing on the tablets, and in Ps. 8.4 (Eng. 3), where the heavens are said to be the 'work of God's fingers'. The image may suggest that God's power is so great that he can do all this with only his finger. Clearly the intent of the exclamation of the magicians is to acknowledge a power with which they can no longer compete. B. Couroyer has argued from linguistic parallels 14. David Rolph Seely, 'The Raised Hand of God as a Covenant Oath Gesture', in Astrid B. Beck, Andrew H. Bartelt, Paul R. Raabe and Chris Franke (eds.), Fortunate the Eyes that See: Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman in Celebration of His Seventieth Birthday (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), pp. 411-21. 15. See Exod. 7.19-20; 8.1-2 (Eng. 5-6); 8.12-13 (Eng. 16-17); 10.12-13, 20-21.

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for an Egyptian origin of this phrase.16 It is likely that this passage is the source for Jesus' assertion in Lk. 11.20 that it was not by the power of Beelzebul that he cast out demons but by the 'finger of God'. In the course of the plagues the Lord tells Moses to tell Pharaoh 'For if you refuse to let them go and still hold them, the hand of the Lord will strike (yadyhwh hay ah bemiqneka) your cattle with a deadly pestilence' (Exod. 9.3). Literally, the image is 'the hand of the Lord will be upon' the livestock to afflict them with a plague. The image of the hand of God 'being upon someone' in this context is a negative one with many Near Eastern parallels of the hand of deity being 'upon' someone bringing about sickness or disease.17 The exact intent of the image is difficult to ascertain but most likely it is God reaching out his hand to touch the cattle. See, for example, Job 1.1 land 2.5 where Satan's gesture to stretch out his hand to Job is followed by the verb 'to touch'. In Moses' speech connecting the consecration of the firstborn to the deliverance from Egypt the phrase 'by the strength of his hand (bekhozeq yad)+the Lord has brought you out of Egypt' appears repeatedly (Exod. 13.3,14,16). These are the only occurrences in the Bible of this particular phrase but it is probably the semantic equivalent ioyadkhazaqah in Exod. 13.9. In two passages the phrase 'with a strong hand' is found in conjunction with the Lord's command to Israel 'it shall serve as a sign on your hand' (Exod. 13.9,16). In Jewish interpretation these are connected: 'We observe that the binding of the sign upon the hand is understood as our token of acknowledgement for the momentous strength of hand by which the Lord performed wonders for us'.18 The Reed Sea: Exodus 14-15 There are two accounts of the events at the Reed Sea in Exodus: one prose (ch. 14) and one poetry (ch. 15). In the prose account, just as in the plague narratives, there is significant hand imagery relating to Moses. Twice the Lord commands Moses to 'stretch out' (root n-t-h) his hand holding the 16. Couroyer, 'Le "doigt de dieu" (Exode, VIII, 15)'. See also the more recent study by Klingbeil, 'The Finger of God in the Old Testament'. 17. These have been collected and discussed in Roberts, 'The Hand of Yahweh', and Miller and Roberts, The Hand of the Lord. 18. Nehama Leibowitz, Studies in Shemot: Exodus (Jerusalem: World Zionist Organisation, 1981), p. 221. See also Cassuto,+A Commentary on the Book of Exodus p. 152.


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rod over the waters—once to divide them (14.16) and once to bring them together again (14.26). Moses fulfils both injunctions to the letter by 'stretching out his hand' (14.21, 27). So, while in the poetic description the Lord 'stretches out his hand against Pharaoh' (15.12), in the prose account it is Moses. Just as in the plagues, the gestures of Moses represent the same gesture made by the Lord. Thus the gestures made by prophets may in fact be efficacious because they reflect the same gesture performed at the divine level. A similar phenomenon of mortal and divine hand gestures occurs in Ezek. 21.18-22 (Eng. 14-17) where Ezekiel is commanded to clap his hands as a sign the destruction of Jerusalem is at the same time the Lord claps his hands. This is reminiscent of the images in Assyrian royal art where the god Assur is depicted in the heavens performing the same gestures, making war or peace, as the Assyrian king depicted below on earth.19 The final summary of the prose account of the deliverance at the Reed Sea acknowledges the hand of God—although it is not explicitly mentioned in the prose account itself: 'Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the hand (miyyad}+of the Egyptians... Israel saw the great work+(hayyad haggedolah) which the Lord did against the Egyptians' (14.30-31). This is the only time in the Bible that yad occurs with gedolah and the phrase seems to be a metaphor for the power of God in the plagues. This verse forms a nice inclusio with the beginning of this story in 3.8 where the Lord told Moses, 'I have come down to deliver them out of the hand (miyyad} of the Egyptians' even though it uses different verbs (14.30 'saved', and 3.8 'delivered'). The fact that the Lord gets the credit, even though in ch. 14 it is Moses' hand and his rod that at the Lord's command stretches over the sea to divide it for the Israelites and close it on the Egyptians (14.16, 21, 26), indicates that the gestures of Moses mirror the operation of a divine action. The poem in Exod. 15.1-18 is often referred to as the Song of the Sea. Most scholars believe this poem to be one of the earliest texts from the Bible—some dating the poem from the time of Moses. In this poem there are five occurrences of the image of the hand of God: once yad+(15.17), once zeroa '(15.16), and three timesyamin (15.6 [twice], 12). There have 19. See the reliefs of Assur-nasir-pal II, British Museum #124540, #124555, and #124551. These depictions are discussed by Henri Frankfort, The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient (Harmondsworth: Pelican, 1954), pp. 157-61, and George E. Mendenhall, The Tenth Generation: The Origins of the Biblical Tradition (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), pp. 44-54.

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been many important studies of this poem20 but few have noted the prominent role the image of the hand of God plays in the event described in this poem and the unifying effect hand of God imagery exerts in the very structure of the poem itself.21 Whereas the imagery of the hand of God is a significant part of the victory hymn in the Song of the Sea, it is conspicuously absent in the Song of Deborah (Judg. 5), an otherwise similar victory hymn and roughly from the same period celebrating a military victory in the time of the Conquest. This same dissimilarity is also found in the respective prose accounts of Exodus 14 and Judges 4. The power of the Lord is acknowledged in the accounts of both events, but the vivid image of the hand of God is an early and distinctive feature of the Exodus—especially in the poetry. The image of the hand of God is found seven times in the archaic poetry in Deuteronomy 32 (vv. 39, 40, 41) and 33 (w. 2, 3, 7, 27). The poem is difficult to analyze as it does not present the events of the Reed Sea in chronological order. The poem can and has been divided in many different ways. Most scholars divide the poem into two parts: Part I in vv. 1-11 (Freedman) or 1-12 (Cross) describing the victory of the Lord over the Egyptians, and Part II in vv. 12-18 (Freedman) or 13-18 (Cross) describing the trek through the wilderness to Sinai (Freedman), or culminating in the entry into Canaan (Cross). Most recently Propp has divided the poem according to its content into three parts: vv. 1-7, 8-12, and 13-18. He describes the first stanza as giving an overview of the events, the second stanza as focusing on what actually happened at the Reed Sea, and the third stanza as recounting the future trip across the wilderness to the holy mount.22 The image of the hand of God appears in vv. 6,12,16, and 17—according to any proposed division of the text at the important junctures. The poem can logically be divided according to the imagery of the hand of God into three stanzas—very close to Propp's division—in which each stanza 20. The classic study was the joint dissertation by Frank Moore Cross, Jr, and David Noel Freedman in 1950 and reprinted in Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997). See also Cross's 'The Song of the Sea and Canaanite Myth', in his Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), pp. 112-44, and Freedman's 'Strophe and Meter in Exodus 15', in his Pottery, Poetry, and Prophecy: Studies in Early Hebrew Poetry (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1980), pp. 187-228; also Michael P. O'Connor, Hebrew Verse Structure (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1980). 21. But see Propp, Exodus 1-18, pp. 36, 502, 528-29. 22. Propp, Exodus 1-18, p. 505

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is summarized or concluded with an image of the hand of God. Thus the first stanza in vv. 1 -6 (50 words) recounts the victory in general terms and concludes noting that it is the 'right hand' of the Lord which brought victory (15.6); the second stanza in vv. 7-12 (56 words) gives more detail as to the events at the Reed Sea and summarizes again that the victory was won by the right hand of God (15.12); and the third stanza in vv. 13 -18 (62 words) carries the story forward from the Reed Sea with Israel going forth into the wilderness and concludes that with both hands God will build a sanctuary for Israel (15.17). In the first stanza (15.1-6) the poet praises the Lord for his triumph. He describes the Lord in military language: 'my strength and my might', 'my salvation', 'my God', 'my father's God' (v. 2), and 'a warrior' (v. 3). The poet describes the victory at the Reed Sea in terms of a military victory: 'horse and rider he has thrown into the sea' (v. 1), 'Pharaoh's chariots and his army he cast into the sea; his picked officers were sunk in the Reed Sea' (v. 4), 'the floods covered them; they went down into the depths like a stone' (v. 5). The poet then summarizes and ascribes this might of God to the right hand: Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power— Your right hand, O Lord shattered the enemy. (15.6)

This is the image of the Divine Warrior fighting Israel's battles with his right hand—the hand that would have held weapons. The right hand 'glorious in power' (ne 'dari bakkoakh) conquering 'right hand' (yamiri) of God is here described with a form of the root '-d-r. This is the only time in the Bible that any form of 'hand' or 'arm' is used with this root. It does appear in 15.11 describing the Lord as 'majestic among the Holy Ones' and thus serves as a link between the two stanzas. The image of the right hand of God 'shattering' (tir'ats)+the enemy is interesting. The hand of God does not occur elsewhere in the Bible with the verb ra 'ats. In fact the verb only occurs one other time in Judg 10.8 where the Philistines 'crush' Israel. The image suggested here is certainly that of the Divine Warrior. The right hand symbolic of military power here is more likely to be visualized holding a weapon—perhaps a sword or bow which the Lord holds in his hand in another archaic poem (Deut. 32.42). Such imagery is attested in contemporary figurines.23 23. This suggestion is from Propp, Exodus 1-18,+p. 519, who cites N. Lohfink, The Christian Meaning of the Old Testament+(trans. R.A. Wilson; Milwaukee: Bruce

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It is also possible that the subject of both verb forms is the Lord instead of the hand of the Lord. Whereas the hand of God is never the subject of the verb '-d-r, the Lord is the subject of the root '-d-r in Exod. 15.11. The first colon could thus be rendered Thy right hand, O Lord, who art glorious in power'. The verbal form tir'ats is ambiguous and could either be third feminine singular or second masculine sing, but the poem as a whole has a preponderance of second masculine singular forms, as in v. 7 (tishlakh}. This interpretation would presume the omission of the preposition be- to indicate the dative of agency, and both cola could be rendered: 'With your right hand, O Lord, who art glorious in power // With your right hand, O Lord, you have shattered the enemy'. In either case the image of the hand of the Divine Warrior remains the same. In the second stanza (15.7-12) the poet describes the victory at the Reed Sea as a great wind from the divine nostrils: 'at the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up' (v. 8), 'You blew with your wind, the sea covered them, they sank like lead in the mighty waters' (v. 10). The poet praises the Lord 'In the greatness of your majesty you overthrew your adversaries' (v. 7) and 'Who is like you, among the gods?' (v. 11). As suggested by Propp, rather than this being a poetic description of the Divine Warrior, it is an account of the actual event at the Reed Sea—an event wherein the Egyptian army was lost in the waters. The poet summarizes the events at the Reed Sea in terms of hand of God imagery: You stretched out your right hand (natita yaminkd), the earth swallowed them. (15.12)

The use of the verb natah withyamin indicates a gesture of'extending the right hand' and is only found here (Exod. 15.12) in the Bible. The root natah occurs with a divine 'hand' (yad) indicating a hostile gesture—often against Israel and in the participle netuyah. It also appears with zeroa ' in the formula 'with a mighty hand and outstretched arm' which most often refers to the Lord's role in the Exodus. Once again this is most likely the image of the Divine Warrior. Neatly placed in the poem between the 'right hand of the Lord' in v. 6 and v. 12 is the confident boast of the mighty Pharaoh that 'his hand' will prevail: 1968), p. 76. Representative iconographie representations of figures with outstretched hands with and without weapons can be found in Helga Seeden, The Standing Armed Figurines in the Levant (Munich: C.H. Becksche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1986).

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I will pursue, I will overtake I will divide the spoil, will draw my sword, My hand shall destroy them.

This juxtaposition of the divine hand with the human hand concludes the deadly contest between Pharaoh and the Lord that began in the court of Egypt and continued through the plagues and finally ends at the Reed Sea where the Lord God of Israel destroys the might of the Egyptians. The final stanza, vv. 13-18, continues the drama from the victory at the Reed Sea into the future. The poet describes how 'in your steadfast love you led the people whom you redeemed' (v. 13) and describes the fear of the Philistines, Edomites, Moabites, and Canaanites as 'terror and dread fell upon them: by the might of your arm (zeroa *), they became still as a stone' (v. 16). Thus the poet again refers to the might of the Lord symbolized by his arm. Freedman has noted that the image of 'terror and dread' that falls upon those who hear about the exploits of a conquering army, often attributed to its god or gods, 'is common to campaign oratory of the ancient Near Eastern and a cliche in the prose Assyrian annals' ,24 It is also referred to in Deut. 2.25: 'This day will I begin to put the dread and fear of you upon the peoples that are under the whole heaven, who shall hear the report of you and shall tremble and be in anguish because of you'. The rootgadal appears often in parallel with the 'hand' or 'arm' of God in the Bible but only modifies zeroa ' here and in Ps. 79.11. At the end the poet describes what will occur after the Reed Sea: You brought them in and planted them on the mountain of your own possession, the place, O Lord, that you made your abode, the sanctuary (miqdash), O Lord, that your hands have established (konenuyadeykd).

The Lord culminates his work of delivering his people from Egypt by bringing them and 'planting' (nata*) them on 'the mount of the Lord's heritage', constructing his throne and his sanctuary (temple) which his 'hands established' (v. 17). There is considerable disagreement as to how 24. Freedman, 'Early Israelite History in Light of Early Israelite Poetry', in his Pottery, Poetry, and Prophecy, p. 135. See also Thomas W. Mann, Divine Presence and Guidance in Israelite Traditions: The Typology of Exaltation (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977), pp. 128-29.

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this passage should be interpreted in regards to the location of this mountain and sanctuary. Many (including Cross) argue that vv. 13-18 and the 'passing over of the people' in v. 16 refer to the early stages of the conquest and maintain that the 'mountain' here refers in a general sense to the hill country of Canaan and the sanctuary of Gilgal, Shechem, or Shiloh.25 Freedman, on the other hand, has argued (from the evidence for the early date of the poem, the structural unity, and the three requirements for the site: sacred mountain, earthly sanctuary and heavenly dwelling, etc.) for a straightforward reading of the whole poem that would put all of the narrative in vv. 13-18 in the wilderness and the sanctuary at Sinai.26 The image of God leading and planting his people in Exod. 15.13, 15 may be considered an implicit hand of God metaphor. It is found explicitly stated in Ps. 80.15-16 (Eng. 14-15), 'have regard for this vine, the stock which thy right hand planted', and in Isa. 60.21, 'the shoot of my planting (Israel), the work of my hands'. Freedman maintains that the leading and planting on the mount in the Song of the Sea seems logically to fit within the wilderness period, but in Ps. 80.9 (Eng. 8) the planting is interpreted as after the conquest: 'You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it'. This is perhaps a later transition of the imagery to the post-conquest period. The passage in Isaiah has a future image also connected with the possession of the land. The hand of God only appears with the verbal root k-w-n ('to establish or found') in the polel here (|| to paal) and in Ps. 119.73 with reference to creation 'Your hands have made me ( 'asunî)+and fashioned me+(waykonenuniy. It does occur in the niphal in Ps. 89.22 (Eng. 21), 'my hand shall always remain with him [David]'. The fact that it is expressly stated that the sanctuary was founded by the hands of God (and not of man) is further evidence used by Freedman to argue for a distinction between this 'temple without hands' and the later temple on Mt Zion (the only other candidate in the Bible fulfilling the three requirements) that was an earthly one built 'with human hands' which 'displaces Sinai as the center of worship and the focal point of the religio-political entity'.27 Thus, the hand of God is a prominent and strategically placed image (mostly of the Divine Warrior) in this poem, with numerous later biblical 25. Cross, The Song of the Sea', pp. 141-43. 26. D.N. Freedman, 'Temple Without Hands', in A. Biran et al. (eds.), Temples and High Places in Biblical Times (Jerusalem: The Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology of the Hebrew Union College, 1981), pp. 21-30. 27. Freedman, Temple Without Hands', pp. 21-22.

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echoes, as a symbol that it was the Lord who conquered (and not the hands of mortals), that the Lord's power is greater than the boastings of the enemy, and that it was his hands (not those of mortals) that built his heavenly abode—of which the temple would later be a replica.28 The Wilderness and Sinai: Exodus 16—33 Departing from the Reed Sea Israel entered the wilderness, where they began to experience the trials of desert living and began to murmur. Juxtaposed with the mighty acts of the hand of God in chs. 14-15 is Israel's complaint, 'Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord+(beyadyhwh) in the land of Egypt' (16.3), dripping with irony. At Sinai the law is written on the stone tablets 'by the finger of God' (31.18; see also Deut. 9.10). According to Exod. 32.16 the tablets were made by the Lord as well—presumably with his hands. The only other example of God writing in the Bible is found in Dan. 5.5 (if this can be considered the hand of God at all) and in Isaiah where the Lord says, 'I have graven you (Israel) on the palms of my hands' (Isa. 49.16). The image at Sinai is that of the Lord making the tablets and inscribing on them the law with his finger in order to dramatize the divine origin of the law. It is interesting to note that Moses was instructed to make the second set of tablets but the Lord said he would write on them again (Exod. 34.1). Exodus 33 contains a story of a theophany on Mt Sinai. The Lord covers Moses with his palm/hand (kap) to protect him from his glory in the theophany in 33.22-23. The term kap refers to the palm or the whole of the hand, and occurs ten times as the palm/hand of God outside the narrative in Exodus. Several times it is used in the image of clapping hands together (Ezek. 21.22 [Eng. 17]; 22.13; Job 27.23). This theophany account contains several anthropomorphisms referring to the Lord's face (Exod. 33.11), back (33.23) and hand (33.22, 23). Most biblical commentators follow Maimonides in interpreting such anthropomorphisms metaphorically.29 28. Freedman, 'Temple Without Hands'. For Cross, this is 'at once the earthly sanctuary and the "cosmic mountain" of which the sanctuary is the duplicate and local manifestation—built, incidentally, by God's worshippers' ('The Song of the Sea', p. 142). 29. Maimonides, in the first seventy chapters of his Guide to the Perplexed, addresses the various anthropomorphisms in the Bible and explains how each can be read metaphorically in order to explain something important about the nature of God and his relationship with humans.

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One commentator has suggested, following rabbinic interpretation, that the kap here represents a 'cloud'.30 The Image of the Hand of God and the Exodus in the Bible A review of the image of the hand of God in the book of Exodus reveals this image to be integral to the story and theology of the book of Exodus. It is indeed one of the central themes and motifs of the book. On many occasions the image of the hand of God occurs in formulations that appear to be idioms for strength or power. But often the image occurs in passages of vivid imagery depicting the Lord as the Divine Warrior, stretching out his hand/arm and defeating the enemy with his right hand, writing the law with his finger, and covering Moses with his palm. One cannot help but note the very strong anthropomorphic depiction of God through this hand of God imagery. Throughout the Hebrew Bible the image of the hand of God is distinctively connected with the Exodus. In the Primary History (Genesis through to 2 Kings), hand of God imagery is concentrated in the Exodus narratives. The image of the hand of God does not play any significant role in the narratives either before or after the books of Exodus through to Deuteronomy. In Exodus the image of the hand of God occurs twenty-seven times and in Deuteronomy twenty-four times.3 ' But the hand of God only occurs one time in Genesis where the 'hands of the Mighty One of Jacob' strengthen the arms of Joseph (Gen. 49.24)32 and only three times in the conquest narratives in Joshua and Judges. While the image of the Divine Warrior occurs in Josh. 5.13-15, the image of the hand of God assisting Israel against its enemies is conspicuously absent from the narratives of the conquest in the Primary History.33 In Josh. 4.24 the hand of God is 30. Nahum M. Sarna, Exodus (The JPS Torah Commentary; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1991), p. 215. 31. The hand of God does not occur in Leviticus. 1 have counted the wilderness narratives in Numbers as part of the Exodus narratives. In either case the image of the hand of God is not prominent in Numbers, occurring only twice in Num. 11.23, as a metaphor for power, and 14.30 in the gesture of the raised hand representing an oath. 32. Elsewhere in the Bible the acts of creation are described with hand of God imagery but not in Genesis. In the Psalms the heavens are described as the work of his fingers (Ps. 8.4 [Eng. 3]); Isaiah has the image of the foundation of his earth with his hand (Isa. 48.13). 33. Elsewhere in the Bible one notable exception is found in Ps. 44.3-4 (Eng. 2-3) where the hand of God is explicitly credited with the Conquest as opposed to the people winning the land with their own strength.


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associated with the miraculous crossing of the Jordan River—an event portrayed as mirroring the crossing of the Reed Sea. And in Josh. 22.31 and in Judg. 2.15 the hand of God is directed against Israel, instead of her enemies, because of her rebellion in the Promised Land. All of the instances of the intervention of the hand of God in the Exodus narratives are direct manifestations of divine power and are in no way connected with the efforts of mortals. In this sense they stand apart from many other examples of divine intervention in the Bible in which God strengthens or aids an individual or a people in their efforts. Thus the image of the hand of God represents a distinctive theology of God's power to intervene miraculously in the affairs of humans apart from earthly powers. It is an important motif in what has been termed by Hallo and van Dijk as the 'exaltation of Yahweh' defined as 'the emergence of Israel's God to an unchallenged supremacy in the eyes of his people' which occurs in the book of Exodus.34 Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses summarizes the contest, 'Blessed be the Lord, who has delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and the hand of Pharaoh. Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods' (Exod. 18.10-11). This theological concept is dramatized in the Exodus narratives by the image of the hand of God in a contest against Pharaoh—who claimed divinity—and his magicians. It is a contest between the 'strong hand' of God who sends 'signs and wonders' to deliver his people 'from the hand (miyyad)' of the Egyptians and 'from the hand (miyyad) of Pharaoh (Exod. 18.10). And in the Exodus narratives the hand of God is depicted as being victorious by sending the plagues, parting the waters at the Reed Sea, and destroying the Egyptians. This contest is part of a larger theme in the Bible of the constant interplay and struggle between the 'mighty hand (or arm) of God' and the 'arm of flesh' (Jer. 17.5; Job 40.9). After the Exodus the next story in the Primary History in which the hand of God figures prominently is the Ark Narrative in 1 Samuel 4-7. Here again is a contest between the hand of God and the hands of the enemy. The Lord deliberately does not aid his people in battle so that they are defeated by the Philistines and their gods and the ark is captured—causing Israel to cry, 'Woe to us! Who can deliver us from the hands (miyyad)+of these mighty gods?' (1 Sam. 4.8). The ark is taken to Ashdod where the Lord in turn confronts the statue of Dagon—and the next morning Dagon 34. William W. Hallo and J.J.A. van Dijk, The Exaltation oflnnana (Yale Near Eastern Researches, 3; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), pp. 67-68. Mann develops this typology of exaltation at length although he does not discuss the image of the hand of God in his Divine Presence and Guidance.

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is found fallen on his face with his head and his hands cut off (1 Sam. 5.4). The 'hand of the Lord' then smites the Philistines with a plague and the ark is delivered from captivity, Samuel gathers the people together and they repent and go to battle and the Lord 'helps them' (1 Sam. 7.12) to defeat the Philistines. The text notes 'the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel' (1 Sam. 7.13). Here is a story shaped in the shadow of the Exodus story—the Ark Narrative is a contest between God and foreign powers and deities, the Lord's refusal to help his people, his demonstration of superiority reflected in the cut off hands of Dagon, the hand of the Lord inflicting a plague on the Philistines, and finally divine intervention on behalf of his repentant people. The story is similar to the story of the Exodus and yet it is different. In the Ark Narrative the intervention of the hand of God on behalf of his people is conditional, and while he has power to intervene on his own against Dagon and the Philistines, the Lord achieved victory over the enemy not as at the Reed Sea—where the hand of the Lord did all of the 'fighting'—but through divine assistance. Throughout the rest of the Hebrew Bible the image of the hand of God is expressed in many contexts and in various ways—but all can be measured by the imagery of the hand of God in the Exodus. The hand of God delivered Israel 'from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of Pharaoh' (Exod. 18.10) and set them on their way to Sinai where they became God's people through the covenant. Jeremiah records how the story played out. When the Babylonians came up against Jerusalem, King Zedekiah sent to Jeremiah with the hope of receiving divine deliverance. The Lord responded through Jeremiah that he would not deliver his people who had broken the covenant, 'I myself will fight against you with outstretched hand and mighty arm' in anger, in fury, and in great wrath' (Jer. 21.5). Here the attributes in the Deuteronomic formula 'with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, well known from its many occurrences in Exodus, occur as a unique literary device emphasizing 'the reversal by which Yahweh now embarks upon holy war against his own people'.35 In Jeremiah's own words: 'You brought your people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs, and wonders, with a strong hand and outstretched arm.. .but they did not obey your voice or follow your law.. .and the city, faced with sword, famine, and pestilence, has been given into the hands of the Chaldeans'(32.21-24). 35. William L. Holladay, Jeremiah. I. A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, Chapters 7-25 (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), p. 570.

NUMBERS 5.11-31: VALUING MALE SUSPICION Deborah L. Ellens

1. Introduction A husband drags his wife before the priest. The priest brings her before Yhwh. He prepares a potion, shaves her head, makes her swear an oath and drink the potion. He offers the minhah without oil and frankincense. The procedure effects a verdict: innocent or guilty. That verdict eradicates male suspicion and bestows male knowledge. God delivers the penalty. This is Num. 5.11-31. Its text describes the ritual prescription for a 'malady' called !Mp m~i, a 'spirit of jealousy' or a 'jealous rage' which overtakes a man who suspects his wife of infidelity. The ritual effectively rescues the husband from his malady. Verse 31 is the only interpolation of the pericope. The primary concern of the text, and therefore the ritual it describes, prior to this addition, is not to protect the woman from lynching. Nor is it to punish adultery. To say that the original concern is to preserve peace in the community; or to say that it protects the purity of the husband's progeny; or to say that it is a simple polygraph test, is half-truth which fails to hit the heart of the ritual. The heart of the ritual, in the original context, is suspicion triggering the condition called NDp rm. The original, primary concern of the ritual is to instruct the audience on the execution of a procedure, which has the power to rescue a single male from this condition. Nothing more. Any other result is incidental to this rescue. The subsequent addition of v. 31 extends the original intent in two directions. First, protecting the accusing husband, it bolsters the original intent, ensuring the ritual's efficacy. The husband incurs no punishment, whatever the verdict. Second, it reveals a recontextualization1++of the 1. See Knierim on the use of the terms 'recontextualization', 'transformation' and 'reconceptualization' used in this paragraph: Rolf P. Knierim, Text and Concept in Leviticus 1.1-9: A Case in Exegetical Method (Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1992), p. 1 n. 1.

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potential, guilty verdict. The redactor is aware that the guilty verdict transforms the focus of the threat, which the ritual addresses, from the individual to the collective. The redactor decides that the potential transformation is so dire that provision for it must stand within the ritual text of the ordeal itself. Originally, prior to the addition of v. 31, either this extension of the threat was not perceived, or a subsequent legal apparatus was relied upon to take care of it. The textual result of this recontextualization is a reconceptualization of the verdict. In its new context the original verdict transforms to both verdict and penalty. The original context and its subsequent transformation prompt a theoretical exploration concerning the social construction of male suspicion in ancient Israel. This exploration reveals interesting gender constellations which might otherwise remain hidden. 2. Discussion 2.1. Structure 2.1.1. Introduction The problems of Num. 5.11-31 concern both the ritual and the text that describes it. We are at a disadvantage. Our knowledge of both text and ritual comes through the text alone. The large number of scholars who have argued for several sources is testimony to the fact that the text does not deliver its prize easily. As Baruch Levine notes, at least three aspects of the ritual described in the text must be clarified: (1) its consequences; (2) the circumstances which prompt it; and (3) its phenomenology.2 Choices concerning these three aspects are enmeshed with choices concerning the structural problems of the passage. Many of these structural problems and many of the choices concerning the ritual have been satisfactorily argued since the 1970s.3 The review that follows is, therefore, cursory but to the point. 2. Baruch Levine, Numbers 1-20 (New York: Doubleday, 1993), pp. 200-201. 3. For bibliographic information see the following: Herbert Chanan Brichto, The Case of the sofa+and a Reconsideration of Biblical "Law"', HUCA 46 (1975), pp. 55-70 (55); Michael Fishbane, 'Accusations of Adultery: A Study of Law and Scribal Practice in Numbers 5.11-31', in Alice Bach (éd.), Women in the Hebrew Bible (New York: Routledge, 1999), pp. 487-502; Tikva Frymer-Kensky, 'The Strange Case of the Suspected Sotah (Numbers V 11-31)', FT 34.1 (1984), pp. 11-26 (12-13); Jacob Milgrom, 'The Case of the Suspected Adulteress, Numbers 5.11-31: Redaction and Meaning', in R.E. Friedman (éd.), The Creation of Sacred Literature (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), pp. 69-75.

ELLENS Numbers 5.11-31: Valuing Male Suspicion

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Prior to the '70s scholars attributed the repetitions, redundancies and disjunctions of this text to a piecemeal construction whereby one or more redactors interpolated portions of it. In the mid-'70s, however, Michael Fishbane and Herbert Chanan Brichto changed the course of the discussion by discovering ways to read the text as a whole. During the '80s W. McKane, Jacob Milgrom and Tikva Frymer-Kensky continued the trend, refining our skills in this direction. Baruch Levine followed the same course in his 1993 Numbers commentary. Milgrom and Frymer-Kensky have made the most significant contributions to the structural discussion since the '70s. Both use chiasm extensively to understand the text and the ritual it describes. Milgrom states that, with two minor exceptions, the text derives from a single source. Frymer-Kensky discovers, in addition to the inclusio signals of the chiasms, a set of signals which she calls 'incipits'. This set of signals suggests the most convincing structure offered, so far, for the text. However, Milgrom dismisses her schema on the grounds that it cannot account for the problems of v. 21.4 In what follows I will address Milgrom's criticism, offer a structure based on Frymer-Kensky's schema and discuss the implications of that structure for our understanding of the social construction of male suspicion. 2.1.2. Kensky and Milgrom The husband in Num. 5.11-31 is the object, if not the victim, of a fit of jealous rage, triggered by suspicion. The grammar itself reflects his status. In v. 14, he is twice the object of a preposition. The rage is subject. Verse 14 occurs within a pericope beginning at v. 12b. Fishbane describes vv. 12-14 as the protases of two distinct cases.5 He appeals to laws 131 and 132 of Codex Hammurapi to explain the relationship of the two biblical cases. As a result he divides them between vv. 13 and 14, according to a distinction between public and private accusation.6 Initially, Milgrom 4. Jacob Milgrom, 'On the Suspected Adulteress (Number V 11-31)', VT 35 (1985), pp. 368-69. 5. Fishbane, 'Accusations of Adultery', p. 489. For bibliographic notes on discussion preceding Fishbane see the following: Brichto, 'The Case of the sôtff,+p. 55 n. 1 ; Fishbane, 'Accusations of Adultery', p. 489; Frymer-Kensky, 'The Suspected Sotah', pp. 12-13; G. Giesen, Die Wurzel IDE? 'schwôren' (Bonn: Peter Hanstein, 1981), p. 130; Milgrom, 'The Case of the Suspected Adulteress', p. 69; idem, Numbers (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1989), pp. 350-51. 6. Fishbane, 'Accusations of Adultery', pp. 492-94.

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follows his lead.7 However, his later, 1989 Numbers commentary reflects Frymer-Kensky's argument that the cases distinguish between innocence and guilt, rather than public and private accusation. Following FrymerKensky's lead, Milgrom abandons Fishbane's division between v. 13 and v. 14 and favors the division between 14a and 14b, corresponding to the division between 29b and 30a in the resumptive subscript.8 Frymer-Kensky relies upon inclusios to establish her reading of w. 12-14 and to establish the coherence of the text as a whole.9 She notes that redundancies and repetitions have been proven to be stylistic techniques in construction of many biblical texts.10 However, she does not stop with this latter observation nor with the inclusios. She discovers another interesting and convincing structure at work in the text, a structure which accounts for many of the most significant repetitions. She divides w. 12-31 into four main sections: Introduction (w. 12-14), Action (w. 15-28), Recapitulation (vv. 29-30) and Addendum-Resolution (v. 31). The Action section, itself, divides into four sections: Initiation (v. 15), Preparation (w. 16-18), Adjuration (vv. 19-23) and Execution (vv. 24-28). This is the section which describes the ritual. Frymer-Kensky suggests that these latter four sections, describing the ritual, each begin with a title, a keyword from the section itself. Her description is so apt that I must quote her in full: In each case the key word introduces the section and marks its prime act. It in effect serves as a heading or incipit of that section. Since there is more than one act in each stage of the ritual, and since the passage must detail all the actions to be performed, each section of the passage must include all the acts to be performed at that point. Each action section, therefore, first indicates the prime act of each stage and then describes the co-ordinate act to be performed at that stage: the preparation of the potion, the recitation of the promise of acquittal for the innocent, or the performance of the meal-offering. After the description of the relevant co-ordinate act, each section then returns to the prime act of each stage of the ritual, giving it a fuller exposition. It marks its return to the prime act by the inclusio device of repeating the passage with which the section opened.! ï.

When I exegeted Num. 5.11-31, before reading Frymer-Kensky's article, I too had the impression that the description of the ritual (w. 16-28) was 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

Milgrom, 'On the Suspected Adulteress'. Milgrom, Numbers, p. 351; Frymer-Kensky, The Suspected Sotah', pp. 16-17. Frymer-Kensky, 'The Suspected Sotah', pp. 14-16. Frymer-Kensky, 'The Suspected Sotah', p. 12. Frymer-Kensky, 'The Suspected Sotah', p. 15.


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sectioned in the text and that each section was 'signalled'. What she calls 'incipits', I called 'programmatic statements'. I was delighted to find that she had worked the problem and described it succinctly. Milgrom, however, did not have the same impression and dismisses the entire schema on the basis of its inability to account for v. 21. He writes: Unfortunately, her proposal founders on the shoals of the second section (w. 19-23). The priest's adjuration of the wëhisbîa ' 'ôtâh hakkôhên (v. 19aa) is not limited to a promise of acquittal if she is innocent (v. 19) but also contains, before the repetition is reached (v. 18act [sz'c12]), the beginning (i.e., the protasis) of a promise of punishment if she is guilty (v. 20). The latter's ending (apodosis) occurs in v. 22. Thus, v. 21, containing the repeated adjuration, is an intrusion. It was placed there to emphasize that the imprecation derives its force not from the water but from the Lord.13

Indeed, Frymer-Kensky addresses the problem of v. 21 only obliquely by indicating that repetitions and disjunctions are not necessarily a sign of 'multiple origins or bad style', but rather 'a classic biblical technique used variously to unify compositions with complex structure, to resume narrative after a long hiatus.. .and to resume narrative after short digressions'.14 Milgrom has rightly targeted an unaddressed, niggling problem. The fact that the priest's adjuration (v. 19aa) rules over both a promise for acquittal if innocent and a promise for punishment if guilty does not argue against Frymer-Kensky's proposal; nor does Milgrom claim that it does. However, according to Milgrom, the intrusion of v. 21, where the repetition for this section occurs, does argue against it. Furthermore, Milgrom claims that the repetitions of the other two sections are easily explained without resorting to incipits. The question is: Can v. 21 be read as an integral part of the text? I think it can. 2.1.3. Structure Proper 2.1.3.1. Outline An examination of the structure of the text is necessary to solve this problem. The structure I offer below reveals many of the choices I have made in my understanding of the text and the ritual it describes. It demonstrates nothing less than a deliberate and meticulous, rather than haphazard, construction of Num. 5.11-31 by the author:

12. He means 21aa 13. Milgrom, 'On the Suspected Adulteress', p. 368. 14. Frymer-Kensky, 'The Suspected Sotah', pp. 12-13.

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I Introductory Formula II Yhwh Speech A. General Command B. Specific Commands: The Law of Jealousy 1. Introduction 2. The Speech Proper a. The case of jealousy delineated 1) subject of the case: K?8 ON 2) the conditional statement a) protasis ( 1 ) the husband of guilty woman (a) woman ' s situation 1 a condition #1 lp general 2p specific 2a condition #2 IP specific 2P general 3a condition #3 4a condition #4 (b) husband's situation la rage 2a context (2) husband of guiltless woman (a) rage (b) context b) apodosis (1) Husband's duty: the approach (a) bring the woman (b) bring her offering 1 a general statemen 2a specification 1 p requirements 1 y measure 2y preparation 10 no oil 26 no frankincense 2 P motivation ly general 2y specific

11 12-31 12aa 12a0-31 12ap 12b 12b-28 12ba 12b0-28 12b0-14 12b0-14a0 12bp~ 13 12bp-13aa 12bp 13aa 13ap 13api 13ap2 13ba 13bp 14a 14aa 14ap 14b 14ba 14bp 15-28 15 15aa 15ap-15b 15 ap 15aa-15b 1 Say-15bp 15 ay 15bct-15bp 15ba 15bp 15by 15bi 15by2

ELLENS Numbers 5.11-31: Valuing Male Suspicion (2) Priest's duty: the++++++++++++++++++++++++(a) Part 1 : cause the woman to approach and 16-18 stand la programmatic statement 16 2a ritual proper 17-27 1 P preparing the water 17 2p preparing the woman 18a 1 y cause to stand++++++++++++++++++ 2y shave hair 18ap 3y put in her hand 18ay 3 p preparing the priest 18b (b) Part 2: cause the woman to swear 19-23 la programmatic statement 19aa 2a ritual proper 19ap-23 1P words spoken 19ap~22 1 y Priest's part 19ap-22a 10 introduction 19ap 20 words of ritual 19ay-22a 1s innocent 19ay-19b 1C protasis 19ay 2Ç apodosis 19b 2e guilty 20-22a 1C subject 20aa 2Ç conditional 20ap-22a lr| protasis 20ap-20b 30 parenthetical directive signal- 21 aa-p ling curse-oath 1 e secondary programmatic 21 aa signal 2e apodosis signal 2lap 2t| apodosis 2y woman's part 10 introduction 26 words of the ritual 2p words written and wiped (c) Part 3: cause the woman to drink la programmatic statement 1 p the act

21ay-22a 22b 22ba 22bp 23 24-28 24 24a

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God's Word for Our World 2p the result 24b 2a ritual proper 25-28 lp the offering 25-26 ly bringing 25 2y burning 26 10 directive concerning+++f+++++++. 25 directive concerning sequence 26b 2P the waters 27-28 ly drinking 27aa 2y results 27ap-28 1 ô introduction 27ap 25 two possibilities 27ay-28 1+in context of defilement 27ap-27b 1C protasis 27ay-5 2Ç apodosis 27ae-27b 2e in context of non-defilement 28 1C protasis 28a 2Ç apodosis 28b b. Case of jealousy summarized 29-31 1) identifying clause 29a 2) case proper 29b-31 a) protasis 29b-30a ( 1 ) context # 1 : adulter 29b (2) context #2: jealousy 30a b) apodosis 30b-31 (1) part one: ritual 30ba-p (a) husband 30ba (b) priest 30bp (2) part two: consequence 31

2.1.3.2. Explanation 2.1.3.2.1. Introduction Once the preliminaries (vv. 1 l-12ap) are past and the subject of the case named (v. 12ba) by way of proleptic referent, the entire case, including the ritual, is presented in the form of a single conditional (w. 12bp-28).15 The formulation is clear and concise. This conditional is followed by what scholars call the 'resumptive subscript' (vv. 29-31), a summary of the case. 15. The proleptic referent may, of course, be read as part of the conditional. If so, then the conditional runs from 12ba-28.


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As scholars have observed, this resumptive subscript generally mirrors the structure of the case related in w. 12b(3-28. The protasis of the case sets out the conditions under which the ritual can be invoked, as described above. The apodosis consists of two parts. The first part pertains to the husband's actions. The second part pertains to the priest's actions. The ritual, which consists of three parts, occurs within the section where the priest acts. The author is painstakingly self-conscious in his attempt to translate actual ritual into a manual for ritual-execution. Clearly the text is not the recording of a ritual. It is instruction. As such, it contains directives, signals, appellations and other indicators beyond the ritual per se. With programmatic statements or incipits, the author facilitates the instruction by signalling each section of the text: the approach, the swearing, the drinking. Under each of these headings, the ritual is detailed. Verse 21, however, stands out in this well-ordered text as an anomaly. Like the rest of the text the anomaly is consciously constructed. In fact, its anomalous nature is required for the purpose the author intends. 2.1.3.2.2. Verse 21. As the outline above indicates, I read v. 21aa-p as a parenthetical directive. It consists of two parts. The first part (v. 21aa) is a secondary programmatic statement. The second part (v. 2lap) signals the apodosis that follows. This means that, within this section (w. 19-22), the priest's words are signalled no less than four times: (1) the priest shall cause her to swear (v. 19aa); (2) and he shall say (v. 19a(3); (3) and the priest shall cause the woman to swear by the oath of the curse (v. 21aa); (4) and the priest shall say (21 aa). The first signal (v. 19aa) is the programmatic statement of the section. It is repeated by v. 21aa. The last signal (v. 21ap) is the 'apodosis signal'. The apodosis itself follows. However, the level at which I have placed v. 21aa-p seems to indicate that no such lead-in and certainly no integral connection is possible between the signal and the apodosis. I have placed this unit at its 'unlikely' level, because what is constitutive for its placement is not the fact that it leads into or is connected to an apodosis, which it has split from a protasis. Rather, what is constitutive is the fact that it is a 'stage direction' in a manual for execution, a signal on the same level as the 'stage directions' or signals of vv. 19a[3 and 22ba. Its words are typologically identical to the words of these two latter units. The anomaly is that it is parenthetical and it behaves as such in the structure. It 'unexpectedly' interrupts a conditional. The interruption, however, need not be considered an interpolation.

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The 'secondary programmatic signal'16 alerts the priest, who is reading the manual, that here is the actual place, in the swearing section of the ritual, where the swearing that brings negative consequences occurs, namely the oath of the curse. The 'apodosis signal' alerts the priest, who is reading the manual, that here are the actual words, in the actual place of the swearing section of the ritual, which swear to negative consequences.17 The care with which these signals are placed, interrupting the conditional, indicates the power which this portion of the ritual holds. They demonstrate the author's belief in the efficacy of spoken words as instrument. As the above structure indicates, v. 2lay resumes the conditional begun in 20ap,18 subsequent to the parenthetical. This reading is different from Milgrom's. His belief that v. 21 is an interpolation leads him to the conclusion that the apodosis resumes at v. 22, 'for then the adjuration reads smoothly and lucidly'.19 However, the first apodosis under the adjuration, concerning the innocent (vv. 19ay-19b) begins without a conjunction or a preposition or any other connector. It begins simply with "'pSH, a niphal imperative. If the second apodosis begins at 2 lay instead of at 22a, then its beginning is grammatically parallel to the first apodosis. It begins with )FT, a qal jussive. Milgrom's arguments are more sophisticated, however, than the simple assertion that v. 22 provides smooth and lucid reading if it, rather than v. 21, follows v. 20. A review of his arguments is warranted. He provides at least two reasons for concluding that v. 21 is interpolation. First, the notice that the priest adjures the woman is repeated 'unnecessarily' and, second, the jump from 21b to 22a is awkward both in terms of content and grammar.20 He writes: Furthermore, even if the redundancies of 21 could be justified there is no way of harmonizing the jarring and abrasive juxtaposition of 22 to 21, which would imply that first her physical condition will make her a byword and then she will drink the water. However, it is clear that the sagging thigh and distended belly are not the cause but the effect of the water. Hence instead of the sequential verb ûbâ 'û, 'May [this water] enter' (22), one would have expected the infinitive construct b3bo', 'As [this water] enters', the 16. See the structure presented above. 17. 19ap also serves as an indicator that the actual words which have been signalled stand here in the text and ritual. 18. The proleptic referent HN may, of course, be rendered as part of the conditional. If so, the conditional begins at 20a. 19. Milgrom, 'The Case of the Suspected Adulteress', p. 71. 20. Milgrom, 'The Case of the Suspected Adulteress', p. 71; idem, Numbers, p. 353.


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same construction as the previous If têt, 'As [the Lord] causes' (21). However, ûbâ 'û follows both logically and grammatically after 20, for then the prescribed ordeal is a consequence of the accusation.21

However, as stated, if the two apodoses begin in parallel ways, we expect something like the imperative that begins the first apodosis. We find it in the middle of v. 21 itself, at 21ay: )fr. An adverbial clause follows at 21b. The next finite verb is a relative perfect.22 Thus, we have a. jussive + perfect+sequence. Waltke states: '+Weqataltimayexpress a consequent (logical and/or chronological) situation to a situation represented by a volitional form (cohortative, imperative, jussive; #1 b)'.23 My understanding of the relationship of v. 22 to v. 2lay runs counter to the possibility this statement describes. I propose that the waw beginning v. 22, despite the customary understanding of jussive + perfect sequence, carries an epexegetical force and that the situation described in v. 22 is not sequentially consequent upon v. 21 but rather 'appositional' to it. Verse 22 'clarifies or specifies the sense of the preceding clause' ,24 As was seen in vv. 12 and 13, where the hiddenness of the wife's crime was clarified in a variety of ways, in clause after clause, this author has a proclivity for this stylistic device. Furthermore, the epexegetical force of the clause serves a purpose. In v. 21, as Milgrom states, the source of the power of the water is named.25 The deity is invoked. The author moves from this 'unseen' but essential element in the ritual to what is seen and immediate: the waters. The waters are the instrument of the deity. The author wants the woman to become aware of Yhwh whose power effects the verdict; but he wants her to be equally aware of the real, immediate, seen, instrument, which Yhwh vests with power and which she will swallow. By naming Yhwh as the 'source' and moving to the waters as the 'seen', the author invokes the presence of the deity in a most terrifying way. By these words, Yhwh transfers from the unseen to the seen. A circumstantial preposition at the beginning of v. 22 would soften the force of the imagery the priest brings to the woman's attention. By means of the epexegetical waw he says to the woman, 'Look 21. Milgrom, The Case of the Suspected Adulteress', pp. 71 -72. 22. Bruce K. Waltke and M. O'Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns: 1990), p. 519. 23. Waltke and O'Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, p. 529. See also Thomas O. Lambdin, Introduction to Biblical Hebrew, (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons: 1971), p. 119. 24. Waltke and O'Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, p. 652. 25. Milgrom, 'The Case of the Suspected Adulteress', p. 72.

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here now. These waters, which you see and swallow, will enter your body and effect what Yhwh causes.' Verses 21ay-22a might be translated as follows: 'May Yhwh make you a curse and an oath in the midst of your people, when Yhwh makes your thigh fall and your belly swell; look here, this means—these waters bringing the curse will enter your womb for swelling the belly and causing the thigh to fall'. Thus, the grammar and content of w. 21-22 serve the author's express purpose of vesting this portion of the ritual with tremendous power. However, more must be said about Milgrom's first reason for concluding that v. 21 is an interpolation, the problem of the 'unnecessarily' repeated notice of the priest's adjuration. The repetition occurs at 21aa-p. It is present because of the peculiar nature of the words which follow it. Words in w. 21-22 have a dual, generic function. All the words of the text convey the author's instruction. But some of the words are like water, dust, hair, offering and altar. They are instrument. Where they occur, instruction and instrument overlap. The instruction is all of w. 21-22 and the 'instrument', or the verba sacra,26 is w. 21aa-22a and 22bp. At 21ap-22a and 22bp, the manual of explanation for the ritual and the elements of the ritual coincide. For this reason, the incipit, The Priest Causes Her to Swear, occurs in 19aa and repeats immediately before the verba sacra. Instruction and instrument overlap. The 'notices' demonstrate that words are probably the most powerful of the instruments, which work in conjunction with one another in the ritual. The repetitions preserve nothing less than the potency of the ritual. Milgrom suggests that the verba sacra of the text have been appropriated from an ancient Near Eastern source. Their treatment in the text, including the 'unnecessary' repetition of the notice of adjuration, supports his suggestion. Concerning the formula of the oath, Milgrom writes: It may have been incorporated into the Israelite cult at local high places or shrines and converted into an oath by having the suspected adulteress respond 'amen' (22b). The priestly legislator, however, found the formula

26. Fishbane, 'Accusations of Adultery', p. 488. Fishbane writes: 'The combination of sacred act and sacred word is common among the recovered rituals of the ancient Near East; but there are regrettably few examples in the Hebrew Bible. Num. 5.11-31 is a notable exception; so is Deut. 21.1-9, which prescribes the praxis and oath of absolution in cases of unaccountable homicide. Otherwise, the verba sacra which accompanied ritual praxis have not been preserved. This situation is presumably due to the type and nature of the received texts themselves.'


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unacceptable, since it ostensibly attributed the effect of the oath to the water itself. Since the formula was already accepted and in widespread use he would have incurred too much resistance had he attempted to alter its wording. Instead he followed the simple and more acceptable expedient by adding a statement affirming that the efficacy of the oath was due to the God of Israel (2 Ib). And to forestall the protest that no change in the text was necessary, since an oath implied the invocation of the Deity, he also added a new thought, namely, that the convicted adulteress would become a byword among her people (2la; cf. Jer 29.22).27

If Milgrom is right, the author, by his repeated notices of the priest's adjuration, calls attention to words which are formulaic in their potency and which, in other ancient Near Eastern contexts, had proven their potency. The repetition in 21 aa-21 a|3 constructs this unit as a parenthetical. It jumps the present level of the text to call attention to the instrument of the ritual. Thus, a presentation of the instrument—words—necessitates special attention in the form of interruption of the conditionally phrased instruction surrounding it. The repetitions cradle the potency of the ritual by holding the words in their proper place and by signalling to the priest that he must trifle with neither their precise articulation nor their placement. The transformation of the words from spoken to written to swallowed and the potency that transformation carries requires formulaic precision. Repetitions call attention to this necessity, signalling that the formula is inviolable. The author has effectively warded any inadvertent or intentional damage to this instrument. Some of Milgrom's own comments might be used to support the scenario I have described. He notes that vv. 21 and 22 were 'made to fit artistically and coherently with the rest of the oath formula'.28 He describes this effort in the text as follows: Thus the Lord will make (yitten,+v. 21) her a curse in response to+++++++ ing (va-yitteri) a man other than her husband to have carnal relations with her (v. 20b). Also the effect of the imprecation in verse 21b is given in the reverse order of verse 22a, the thigh preceding the belly, again providing a chiastic balance. Another chiasm was produced within verse 21 with the words shevu'ah, 'oath', and 'alah, 'imprecation'.29

27. Milgrom, 'The Case of the Suspected Adulteress', p. 72; idem, Numbers, p. 353. 28. Milgrom, Numbers, p. 354. 29. Milgrom, Numbers, p. 354.

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Furthermore, Milgrom admits that the interpolation of v. 21 must have been early because the content of 27b presumes 2la.30 I would say that the 'interpolation' must have been as early as the original composition of the text. However, Israel Knohl suggests that v. 27b is an addition as well. He writes: Milgrom claims that the interpolation was made in the early stages of the editing of the pericope, fQU "pro nuntobl n^N1? is repeated in vs. 7b... But perhaps v. 27b is an editorial addition as well! The two possible results of the ordeal of the suspected adulteress are adequately described in w. 27a, 28, which are edited as a chiastic parallel to w. 19,20,22. The editors were, apparently, sensitive to the right literary structure of the passage and thus added v. 27b to correspond to their addition in vs. 21.31

Knohl takes Num. 5.11-31 to be a priestly text of the 'P school' (PT) as opposed to the 'H school' (HT). God, as Yhwh, is never the agent of direct punishment in PT. Knohl notes that punishments in PT are impersonal where Yhwh is concerned.32 Knohl's larger theory, therefore, requires the interpolation. While he understands that H interpolated both v. 27b and v. 21, Milgrom understands that P interpolated both, early in the formation of the text.33 Milgrom argues, against Knohl, that v. 27b is an essential component to the resumptive subscript, since it is the exact counterbalance to the consequence of innocence given in v. 28b.34 If we understand v. 21 as an integral part of the text, then one of two scenarios may be true. We have an exception to Knohl's rule, that is, Yhwh metes punishment directly; or this ritual was not understood, originally, as supplying punishment, in the technical sense. I propose that the latter is the case. Before the addition of v. 31 this ritual did not supply punishment in the technical sense. It supplied only a verdict and the natural, rather than legal, consequences of such a verdict. To support this proposal two examinations are necessary. The first concerns the status of v. 31. The second concerns Frymer-Kensky's cross-cultural research on 'trial by ordeal'.

30. Milgrom, 'The Case of the Suspected Adulteress', p. 73; idem, Numbers, p. 354. 31. Israel Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School (Minneapolis: Fortress Press: 1995), pp. 88-89 n. 90. 32. Knohl, Sanctuary, p. 88. 33. Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22 (New York: Doubleday, 2000), p. 1430. 34. Milgrom, Leviticus, p. 1430.


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2.1.3.2.3. The Question of Penalty 2.1.3.2.3.1. Verse 31. Most, if not all, scholars believe that punishment for the guilty woman is a part of this ritual, with or without interpolation. Frymer-Kensky states that the goal of the ritual is 'to punish adultery'.35 Milgrom states that her punishment is permanent sterility.36 She is protected from lynching in favor of this divine punishment.37 McKane suggests that she is pregnant and the punishment is miscarriage.38 Brichto's suggestion is unique. He states that the ritual protects the woman, since 'mores had stacked the deck' against her.39 He suggests that the effect of the potion is false pregnancy, a 'hysterical neurosis'. He concludes that the 'psychic phenomenon of the power of suggestion', by means of which the ritual works, has little or no effect on either an innocent or a guilty woman. Brichto assumes that the writer of the ancient text would share his own 'assessment of probability' concerning the effect of the potion. This means that the writer has knowingly described a test which the woman is unlikely to fail.40 In a rage, the husband might harm the woman who is disadvantaged in her subordination to him.41 For this reason a ritual which favors her, without appearing to do so, is necessary. Brichto's assessment, however, fails to take the text seriously on its own terms. The text gives no indication whatsoever of disbelieving the power of the potion, and the ritual as a whole to distinguish between innocent and guilty and to effect the guilty verdict. In fact, the ancient text gives every indication of unqualified trust in that power. Only our collective twenty-first century, 'scientific' sensibilities stand against the sincerity of the text. Verse 31 clearly states 'She shall carry her sin', a penalty formula indicating humans are to leave punishment to divine prerogative.42 Milgrom identifies it as an interpolation because it falls outside the min HNT formula

35. Frymer-Kensky, 'The Suspected Sotah', p. 11. 36. Milgrom, 'The Case of the Suspected Adulteress', p. 73. 37. Milgrom, 'The Case of the Suspected Adulteress', pp. 73-74. 38. W. McKane, 'Poison, Trial by Ordeal and the Cup of Wrath', FT 30/4 (1980), pp. 474-92 (474). 39. Brichto, 'The Case of the sofa', pp. 55, 66-67. 40. Brichto, 'The Case of the sôtâ', p. 66. 41. Brichto, 'The Case of the sôtà\ p. 67. 42. D.W. Zimmerli, 'Die Eigenart derprophetischen Rede des Ezechiel', ZAW66 (1954), pp. 1-26 (8-12); Milgrom, 'The Case of the Suspected Adulteress', p. 73; Frymer-Kensky, 'The Suspected Sotah', p. 22.

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which concludes the law of jealousy.43 According to Milgrom its purpose is twofold. First, it ensures that the husband cannot be held liable for false accusation, or any other accusation, under any circumstance in the case. Second, it protects the woman from lynching by placing her punishment in God's hands.44 Paradoxically, if guilty, the woman has committed a deathpenalty crime but escapes that penalty because she is 'unapprehended by man'.45 Nevertheless, the divine punishment, Milgrom observes, is a form oftalionis: 'So the adulteress who acquiesced to receive forbidden seed is doomed to sterility for the rest of her life'.46 Thus, the last clause of v. 31, a penalty clause, contextualizes the results of the ritual given in vv. 21-22 and v. 27. In light of v. 31, no scholar can be faulted for concluding that these verses refer to penalties in the technical sense. Milgrom's explanation of v. 31 as an interpolation is convincing. His perceptions that it transforms other elements of the pericope is correct. However, cued by Frymer-Kensky's comments on trial by ordeal, I propose another explanation of its function. 2.1.3.2.3.2. Trial by Ordeal. If considering v. 31 to be an interpolation, we remove it; then the text goes through a slight transformation. Verse 31 's contextualizing properties vanish and suddenly the ritual seems more akin to 'trial by ordeal', as Frymer-Kenksy defines it. In fact, Frymer-Kensky states that this ritual cannot be considered 'trial by ordeal' since such trials, typically, do not deliver penalties, and since verdicts, which they do deliver, are rendered immediately.47 Across cultures, trials by ordeal 43. Milgrom, 'The Case of the Suspected Adulteress', p. 73. 'That it is a postscript and is not an organic part of the text is clear from the structure of the final section (29-30, A'). The section is encased by an inverted inclusionzo Y tarât...hattôrâh hazzô Y (cf. also 6.21). Thus, in thought and in form, the law of the suspected adulteress is finished and sealed by this concluding inclusion.' 44. Milgrom, 'The Case of the Suspected Adulteress', p. 74. 45. Milgrom, 'The Case of the Suspected Adulteress', pp. 73-74; idem, Numbers, p. 354, 46. Milgrom, 'The Case of the Suspected Adulteress', p. 75; idem, Numbers, p. 350. 47. Frymer-Kensky, 'The Suspected Sotah', p. 24: 'It should be obvious that to call this procedure a "trial by ordeal" is unwarranted and misleading. Judicial ordeals are distinguished by two important and interrelated aspects: the god's decision is manifested immediately, and the result of the trial is not in itself the penalty for the offense. ' See also Frymer-Kensky, 'The Trial Before God of an Accused Adulteress', BRev 2/3 (1986), pp. 46-49.


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function as a kind of polygraph test.48 The penalty is executed after the ordeal, based upon the verdict. For example, a person who sinks to the bottom of the river, is hauled up and then penalized with execution. The 'falling thigh and swelling belly' are like sinking to the bottom of the river, scalds from plunging the hand in boiling water, burns from touching hot iron, vomiting after drinking a potion.49 While these consequences are 'punishing', they are not, according to Frymer-Kensky the punishment.50 In fact, dragging a woman before a priest, accusing her—whether she has done the act or not—'loosening' or 'shaving' her hair, and forcing her to hear, assent to and drink an oath/curse is punishing. The ritual of Num. 5.11-31 punishingly dispenses humiliation and distress on innocent and guilty alike. However, as punishing as a 'fallen thigh and swollen belly' may be, originally it may not have been the punishment. Originally verdict and penalty may have been separate. According to Frymer-Kensky, ordeals typically address a scenario which is difficult for the legal apparatus to handle, a situation of suspicion or unsubstantiated accusation. This latter qualification certainly fits the Num. 5.11 -30, as well as 5.11 -31 scenarios. Immediacy, however, fits neither scenario. Frymer-Kensky suggests that 'falling thigh and swelling belly' refers to a prolapsed uterus, an eventual rather than immediate result.5! Her reasoning is plausible. The least we can say is what she has also already said: 'The "falling" of the genitalia is obviously a sexual disfunction'.52 Even if we are unable to decide what precisely 'falling thigh and swelling belly' means, the text compels us to conclude that it must be eventual. What sexual dysfunction could occur such that it would be immediate and apparent to the priest and such that the author of the text would fail to make provision for 'cleaning up' afterward, especially if blood is involved? Thus, the eventuality of the results of drinking the potion runs counter to Frymer-Kensky's definition of trial by ordeal.53 48. Frymer-Kensky, 'The Trial Before God', p. 48. 49. Frymer-Kensky, 'The Trial Before God', pp. 47-48. 50. Frymer-Kensky, 'The Trial Before God', p. 47. 51. Frymer-Kensky, 'The Suspected Sotah', pp. 18-21. 52. Frymer-Kensky, 'The Suspected Sotah', p. 20. 53. Frymer-Kensky, 'The Suspected Sotah', pp. 21-22: 'There remains the question of the timing of the results. If the guilty woman was to suffer the collapse of her reproductive system, was this expected to happen as she stood before the Lord? Even if the anticipated result was abortion (which does not seem likely), was she expected to abort immediately? This is not an idle line of inquiry, for it is the key to the essential nature of the legal procedure. If the woman is expected to suffer the consequences

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However, while eventuality of the verdict may disqualify this ritual as a standard 'trial by ordeal', in the cross-cultural scope of such ordeals, it may represent Israel's variation. In Num. 5.11-31 a divine penalty is specified and we are led to believe that the penalty is the 'falling thigh and swelling belly' and 'becoming a byword'. That verdict and punishment are coterminous in this ritual seems likely. In Num. 5.11-30, however, we face the possibility that drinking the potion effects a verdict only and not a penalty. The motive of the interpolation of v. 31b, then, appears to be the addition of the penalty. In fact, v. 3 Ib is added precisely because penalty is not originally the province of the ritual. All of Milgrom's comments about the divine penalty addressing an unapprehended crime apply here. Even without v. 31, however, a secondary result is connected to the consequence of the 'thigh falling and belly swelling'. In v. 21 'She will become as a curse (n^N) and an oath (ninty) in the midst of her people'. In v. 27, as well, 'She will become a curse (n^N) in the midst of her people'. This result, definitely a consequence of the ritual, is not limited enough to serve as a verdict. But it need not be considered the penalty, in the technical sense. It is the natural consequence of the ritual's guilty verdict. No divine intervention beyond the verdict itself is necessary to manifest these natural consequences. The oath-curse names the natural consequence. The significance of this natural consequence is that her deed is public, her immediately, then any women who did not would be immediately exonerated, regardless of what might happen later. Indeed, if she could be proved guilty by immediate results (as would happen in an ordeal), then we would expect the court to punish her immediately with the penalty appropriate for adultery, which is death. Immediate results, however, are not indicated by the text. In the first place, the innocent woman is not only expected to be immune from any immediate catastrophe (v. 19), but is also expected to conceive (v. 28). Moreover, our passage, which so meticulously details the procedure to be followed from the time that the husband initiates the action, ends with the drinking of the potion. If a result were expected immediately, we would expect this descriptive-prescriptive ritual text to continue with the priest's obligation to lead the woman, if guilty, down from the altar and deliver her to the people or to their leaders. We might even expect the text to provide a ritual appropriate for the acquitted woman's readmission to the community, perhaps a washing and changing of clothes (cf., e.g., Lev. xvii 15), perhaps a rebinding of the hair, and possibly a statement that she is impure until evening. However, the text says nothing of the sort, but rather ends the procedure with the drinking itself. The text clearly signals the end of the ritual by the Torah-subscript which recapitulates the circumstances under which the procedure would be used.'


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reputation among her people altered. Her husband's humiliation becomes her own. If Goerwitz is right about flK U~1S CN~n and the woman's head is shaved, then for several months she wears a reminder that the secrecy which made her husband a victim of suspicion is reversed.54 This, then, is the motive behind this clause in the oath-curse. The verdict gives knowledge. The knowledge is public and has natural, public consequences. 2.1.3.2.3.3. Conclusion. Thus, in ancient Israel, which puts the tasks of the ritual to a particular, narrow but necessary objective, perhaps we have something akin to trial by ordeal with delayed result, an anomaly among cross-cultural examples, but fitting the needs of ancient Israel precisely. Verse 31, by adding a penalty clause, transforms the verdict of the ritual so that it is understood as both divine verdict and divine penalty. 2.1.3.3. Conclusion The original, primary concern of Num. 5.11-30, and therefore the ritual, was to address the malady of jealous rage triggered by suspicion. Verse 31, which adds the penalty, expands the suspicion of the husband to the suspicion of the community. In the presence of the woman's confirmed guilty act, the safety of the community is suspect. A divine penalty remedies the suspicion. The individual remedy is the verdict. The communal remedy is the divine penalty. Without v. 31, the described ritual is a kind of medicinal remedy. With v. 31 the described ritual is a kind of legal remedy. 2.2. The Social Construction of Male Suspicion 2.2.1. Introduction That someone would go to the trouble to construct a 'medicinal remedy' for something as subjective and unsubstantial as an individual male's suspicion is remarkable. That someone else would transform this 'medicinal remedy' for an individual male's suspicion into a 'legal remedy' for the communal threat from his confirmed suspicion is revealing. Both prompt an exploration of the anatomy of male suspicion in ancient Israel. First, however, a list of signals, pointing to the husband, demonstrates the power that the malady of the jealous rage of suspicion in an individual male has to attract the concern not only of the author of the text, but also of the community behind him. 54. Richard L. Goerwitz, 'What Does the Priestly Source Mean by Win HN JTIS?', JQR 84/3-4, pp. 377-94.

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2.2.2. Structural Signals The text contains at least six sets of structural signals pointing to the welfare of the suspecting husband as the primary concern of the text: (1) The proleptic subject of the protasis, Efô £N, in v. 12ba, indicates that this law concerns the husband over whom passes N3p m~l. (2) The primary actor of the two protases of the single conditional comprising the case under discussion is the husband. Thus, the major sections are called The Husband of Guilty Woman and The Husband of Guiltless Woman. In the apodosis of the same conditional, the husband and the priest are the primary actors. The priest acts on the husband's behalf. The major sections are called The Husband's Duty and The Priest's Duty. Thus, the structure of the major sections highlights the fact that the husband and the priest are the actors in the ritual, both acting on behalf of the husband himself. The law concerns the husband. (3) The clauses in these two protases introduce the conditions that must hold for the ritual to be invoked. They describe two sets of conditions. The first set listed in the text are as follows: (a) there is a husband; (b) his wife turns aside; (c) she acts unfaithfully; (d) she has sexual intercourse with another man; (e) it is hidden from the eyes of the husband; (f) it is done in secret; (g) she is defiled; (h) there are no witnesses; (i) she is not apprehended; (j) a N3p m~l overtakes the husband; (k) he experiences a jealous rage concerning his wife, whom he suspects; (1) she really is defiled. The second set of conditions are as follows: (a) there is a husband; (b) atf]p mi overtakes him; (c) he experiences a jealous rage; (d) the wife is not defiled. The difference between the two cases is the guilt and the innocence of the woman. Two conditions are common to both cases. These two conditions comprise the motivation for the entire ritual: (1) there is a husband; (2) suspecting his wife of infidelity, a N]p mi overtakes him.55 In both cases, the ritual fails to proceed if the jealous rage of suspicion in the husband is absent, regardless of the actions of the wife. This jealous rage of suspicion, then, is the essential concern of the law. (4) The aim of vv. 19ay-22 is twofold. It clarifies to the woman herself what knowledge and what natural results will come through the consequences of the potion. And it invokes the divine power which effects these

55. In the first case this is specified over and over, hi the second case common sense precludes any mention of witnesses. Only someone, who watched the woman at every moment of every day of her life, could claim to be a witness for her innocence. Such a witness is impossible and therefore not specified.


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results and natural consequences. The results, from which the natural consequences follow, antidote suspicion's jealous rage. The law, thus, concerns the antidote to jealous rage. (5) The resumptive subscript explicitly names the subject of the text, nKlpn rnin. This is not the law of probable adultery. It is not the law of probable pregnancy. Nor is it the law of protection of the vulnerable woman. It is the law of jealousy. The husband is jealous. This is his law. (6) Verse 31 both bolsters and transforms the original intent of the ritual. It bolsters it by valuing a man's suspicion, protecting his right to act upon it with impunity. It transforms the ritual by diversifying it. The ritual becomes a vehicle for the penalty as well as the verdict. The penalty is no longer left to a subsequent and separate vehicle. The concern for a penalty indicates that male suspicion in this case is no longer conceptualized as an individual concern. The concept of individual male suspicion is extended. It is no longer driven by the question, 'Has she done it to me or not?' With the addition of v. 31, male suspicion becomes collective and is driven by two questions, 'Has she done it to him or not?' and 'Is the community safe or not?' The ritual verdict supplies the answer to the first question. The divine penalty supplies the answer to the second question. These six sets of structural signals indicate that jealous rage triggered by male suspicion is the primary concern. Originally, threat to the individual male was the sole concern. With the addition of v. 31, that concern recontextualizes to the threat to the collective. 2.2.3. Suspicion 2.2.3.1. Constructing Male Suspicion 2.2.3.1.1. Introduction. Having exegeted the text I enter more theoretical territory. 2.2.3.1.2. State-of-Mind.+To understand the remarkability of the procedure in the original context and its significance in the final context, we must notice that the ritual of Num. 5.11-30 addresses a state-of-mind+and not an act. It pulls that state-of-mind, sympathetically, into the public realm and attempts to alter it with the antidote of knowledge. The ritual of Num. 5.11-31, however, is able, additionally, to address an act, the transgression of the guilty woman. The state-of-mind, subjective and unsubstantial, is conceived as concrete enough to be addressed with public procedure. That the subjective and the unsubstantial might be concretized, that it might mobilize a public

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procedure and a text, means either that its effect or its source is conceived as threatening the fundamentals of a male world. In other words, either the effect or the source of the jealous rage is perceived to have the power to force or manifest concrete changes against the man. The effect is what the jealous man might do on his own to take care of his rage. The source is what the woman or the man's own imagination has done to generate it. While both the effect and the source might 'concretize' the state-of-mind enough to generate public procedure and a text, the sympathies of the text and the procedure suggest that the source rather than the effect is responsible. The ritual is like plugging the hole in the dike or shielding the Achilles heel. Suspicion is the one place where a woman can strike and succeed in wresting control of her sexuality from the male, thereby altering the fundamentals of his world. The ritual redresses this weakness in his system. In the presence of a guilty verdict the problem shifts from the individual male state-of-mind to the communal threat of an accomplished physical act. The divine penalty is invoked and v. 3la encourages the suspecting male not to hesitate. 2.2.3.1.3. Anatomy of Male Suspicion. This malady of suspicion, N]p m~l, might be said to consist of at least four components: the vagina, the womb, the community and the male perpetrator. An examination of these components reveals the fundamentals of the male world that are altered. The husband suspects that his exclusive right to intercourse with his wife has been compromised. He suspects that the purity of the womb belonging to him, and therefore the progeny which issues from it, has been compromised. He suspects that he is dishonored in his house and in the larger community. Finally, he suspects that another male has entered where only he should have gone. The ritual of Num. 5.11-30 addresses the first three components, on his behalf, without qualification. The fourth component remains entirely unaddressed. The omission is telling. The final form of the text expands the concept of suspicion to the community and addresses that expanded form with a penalty. If we cannot be certain what precise form a guilty verdict took, we can be certain, as noted above, that it is some kind of sexual dysfunction. Without more precise knowledge, we remain unsure as to how the first two components of suspicion, the vagina and the womb, were addressed. However, we can presume that they were addressed in some manner. Following a prolapsed uterus through the four components of suspicion is informative. The exercise, by demonstrating the way that at least one


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sexual dysfunction might have addressed the issue of suspicion, points to ways in which other suggested results might have addressed the issue. The first component of suspicion is the vagina, the man's exclusive instrument of pleasure. In the more severe cases of prolapsed uterus, sexual intercourse is not possible, with either the husband or the lover. This means that the guilty woman is effectively stalled in her affair; and while the husband no longer has access, neither does another man. The husband's property rights are, thus, partially restored. If the woman is innocent, the man is given the knowledge that he never lost his pleasure-property in the first place. A prolapsed uterus would also prevent the woman from bearing children. It destroys a questionable womb. This womb is the second component of suspicion. While the womb fails as an avenue for the husband's child, so also does it fail as an avenue for any other man's child. Again, the husband's property rights are partially restored. In the case of the innocent woman, the man knows with certainty, because of the ritual, that the progeny is his own. Thus, under the first two components of suspicion the husband is in a position to know that no illicit progeny and no illicit sex will transpire; or that none ever has transpired. Two components of his suspicion are thus laid to rest. Addressing these two components leaves the innocent woman's vagina and womb intact and viable. She passes unscathed. The third component of suspicion, the community, is addressed in four ways. First, the ritual moves the husband's personal problem to a public sphere, presenting the problem to the priest, a person outside the family. The secrecy which has made him a victim of suspicion is reversed. The guilty woman's secret is public. The innocent woman's shame at being the object of her husband's suspicion is public, as well. Second, in this public realm, the husband's humiliation becomes the woman's humiliation. Reflecting this transference, the text transforms him from grammatical object to subject. On the other hand the wife-subject, 'who has turned aside', transforms to a grammatical object. She is caused to approach, stand, drink. The husband, as victim, begins his transformation the moment he brings the woman to the priest. From that point forward objecthood or 'victimhood' effectively transfers to the woman, who alone carries that burden. Third, she is transformed from the object of another man's actions, to the object of her husband's actions and the actions of the priest, who is allied with the husband.

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Fourth, Frymer-Kensky suggests that a suspicious husband might have been obligated to bring his wife to the priest in order to avoid defilement of the land.56 This aspect applies at the final form of the text. A guilty wife's actions might place the entire community in jeopardy. The ritual enables the husband and the community to address this major unsubstantiated concern, by handing the matter over to God.57 Under the four aspects of this third component of suspicion, the innocent woman, as well as the guilty woman, is affected. Both are objectified. Both accept the transfer of the husband's victimhood. Both suffer public humiliation. The innocent woman, 'free' as she may finally be, cannot escape the ritual's capacity to address the effects of this component. The community will remember, undoubtedly, that she was once suspect. The author of the text is, in all probability, unaware of the gender asymmetries of the social construction of adultery and of suspicion in ancient Israel. However, certainly he would have been able to imagine and understand the idea of the humiliation of an innocent woman bearing this ritual. He chooses, nevertheless, to sacrifice the innocent woman to the needs of the man, who must be rescued from suspicion. In other words, he is willing to err on the side of male suspicion, rather than on the side of female innocence.58 The ritual takes the malady of suspicion so seriously that the potential innocence of the woman is sacrificed to its 'violence'. This violence comes in the form of being suspected, accused, brought before the priest, shaved and administered a potentially devastating potion. Even the status of an innocent woman cannot remain unaltered. The weight of mi K]p compels the world, which begins to revolve around it, and possibilities 56. Frymer-Kensky, 'The Suspected Sotah', p. 18. Milgrom writes (Numbers, p. 351): The implication is clear: This kind of defilement is no less offensive to God and, if not punished, will lead to His abandonment of Israel'. 57. Frymer-Kensky, 'The Suspected Sotah', p. 49. 'In terms of human action, this means that Israel was not required to find out whether adultery had been committed. It could bring the case before God and then go on with its business, assured that Israel's legal system had done its job and that society would not be held responsible for the adultery in its midst. Israel could wait to find out what had actually happened: full proof of innocence would come with the pregnancy of the woman; full proof of guilt would come from the disaster, possibly uterine prolapse. Judgement would be held in abeyance until one thing or the other happened. ' 58. This view differs from Brichto who writes ('The Case of the sotff, pp. 65-66): 'To look at the matter from a somewhat different vantage-point: in the case of trial by ordeal the accused is guilty unless proven innocent; whereas in the case of the suspected Sofa, the accused is innocent unless proven guilty'.


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for the innocent plummet. The innocent woman cannot escape the author's choice. The fourth component of suspicion is the male perpetrator. This component remains entirely unaddressed in the ritual. Certainly, the author would have understood the concept of a 'male suspect', yet no ritual exists for mediating a husband's suspicions of another male. The husband cannot drag a suspected male perpetrator before the priest to discover the truth. The male suspect, while anonymously mentioned in the law, by way of description of the woman's possible misdeeds, is otherwise entirely absent. The woman is the vessel for the husband's seed, from which his progeny comes. He owns her sexuality. She is under his authority. Similar qualifications do not exist with respect to male colleagues. A male colleague has rights that the wife does not. One of those rights, evidently, is to escape the accusation of suspicion. Probable cause, greater than suspicion, must exist to bring him before the court or the priest or Yhwh. In the case of the wife, suspicion is probable cause. In addition, no ritual exists whereby the j ealous rage of a woman can be mediated. In fact, considering the social construction of adultery, the concept of 'jealous rage in a woman triggered by suspicion' can be said not to exist at all. This omission highlights, by way of contrast, the privilege this ritual affords the husband with respect to his wife. Thus the gender constellations of the social construction of suspicion, like the gender constellations of the social construction of adultery, protect the womb and the vagina as the exclusive property of the man. By extension, they protect the man's honor and identity. The reverse situation is non-existent. The ritual, antidoting suspicion, provides a vehicle through which the community can meet its responsibilities in support of suspicious husbands. Furthermore, the ritual protects the suspected male perpetrator, even if indirectly. He remains unnamed and outside the husband's reach. Thus, the ritual understands the need to protect the men of the community first of all. This group of men includes suspected male perpetrators as well as husbands caught in the throes of the jealous rage of suspicion. 2.2.3.2. Valuing Male Suspicion The suspicion that drives the husband is unqualified. It requires no reason but itself to invoke the ritual. It raises the sympathy of the author and other males in the community. They understand male suspicion. They recognize it. They know its needs. They are willing to go to the effort of antidoting it. Furthermore, they know that suspicion can rise up before innocence and

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they make the choice to value male suspicion rather than probable female innocence. They understand the power that threatens a suspicious man. Probable innocence must bend to its force. The power is this: if one party assumes authority over another, stripping the subordinate party, by cultural convention and legal apparatus, of the freedom to choose loyalties and commitments, the honor and identity of the party assuming authority naturally becomes contingent on the security of the forced arrangement. This is the existing, cultural scenario behind Num. 5.11-31. This scenario is home to the social construction of marriage, adultery, loyalties and 'commitments' between men and women in ancient Israel. In such a scenario, the party that is stripped of freedom (the woman) is, also, inadvertently and necessarily, given the power to destroy the controlling party (the man). The stripped-party need only break forced loyalties and commitments to subvert the control and steal a semblance of freedom. Evidently the men of ancient Israel believed that their women had the wherewithal to do this. The woman of ancient Israel had the power to destroy a man as no other power-entity in his world. She had potential to take back what he had taken from her. This is the source of the sympathy underlying the value given to suspicion. The ritual is a fail-safe for this 'weakness' in gender arrangements. It demonstrates extraordinary awareness of the power that woman possesses within those arrangements. Furthermore, and this is interesting, it must also demonstrate some kind of awareness, even if at an unconscious level, of what he has been taken from her. The fact that a procedure and a text are generated suggests that this state-of-mind is the rule rather than the exception. Certainly, it is understood universally and draws universal sympathy. Control of female sexuality is fundamental to its world. In fact, the level of control of female sexuality extends beyond verifiable facts to states-of-mind of individual males. The state-of-mind is one barometer of the level of control. The public apparatus mobilizes even at this most tenuous level. Prior to v. 31, the public apparatus was mobilized for the individual male. One might argue that its mobilization must also have been for the community. Even if no penalty was provided, the verdict would have been the precursor to a penalty delivered by a subsequent legal apparatus. But the addition of the divine penalty in v. 31 itself argues against this, at least m praxis. If such a subsequent legal apparatus and procedure existed and was actually used, addition of v. 31b would have been unnecessary.


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Even the absence of the death penalty may have been engineered in the original context in deference to the husband, who might want to keep his faithless wife. The aim, again, is to leave the widest possible scope for the husband's welfare and interests with respect to the woman who belongs to him. However, at some point in the history of this text a redactor was bothered by the possibility that a woman, found guilty, might go unpunished when death is the expected penalty. Perhaps, too many women, once their hair grew back, appeared to get away scot-free, especially if the husband did not divorce, and if, in deference to 'his humiliation', not too much talk was made of her 'byword' status, even if it was known to everyone. This raises another reason in support of the idea that the consequence originally serves as a verdict only and not a penalty. If the woman had children prior to the ritual, then sterility or even sexual dysfunction, represented by 'fallen thigh and swollen belly', might have been perceived to lose much of its intended power as a penalty. Her life might normalize, at least publicly, as if the affair never happened. The redactor considers the omission glaring and adds the last clause, reasoning from the ritual itself. Since the verdict is a function of God's agency, so then is the penalty. To avoid the threat of normalization this penalty clause is added. Under such circumstances, the verdict and its natural consequences easily cloak themselves as the penalty. This concern for normalization is one of the components of the threat to community. The same redactor adds the first clause of v. 31 because he sees another glaring omission. The ritual can accomplish its purpose only if a husband caught in the jealous rage of suspicion actually brings his wife before the priest. Such an act, however, is radical in the sense that it is public and requires response by an official of the cult. The act has potential to alienate those males in sympathy with the woman, namely the males of her father's household. Verse 31 a assures the husband that he is protected from such consequences. Without such assurance, the man might never bring his case to the priest. He would remain a victim of the malady of Wp ni"l, the destructive power of which is described in Prov. 6.34-3S.59 This clause demonstrates the high value placed on the malady of suspicion.

59. McKane, 'Poison, Trial by Ordeal', p. 474. McKane describes the malady well: 'Yet jealousy and suspicion have become permanent conditions and he is never free from intolerable suspense and unhappiness. He must, at all costs, be released from such corroding thoughts and he submits his wife to trial by ordeal in order to secure this release.'

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2.2A. Conclusion The husband is rescued through this ritual by antidoting three of the four components of suspicion. The purpose of the ritual is to establish male knowledge. Its releases the husband from an uncertainty which constructs a liminality that in areas of sexuality in ancient Israel 'should be' the exclusive province of women, most notably virgins, betrothed or about to be betrothed. The unbearable liminalities which have been thrust upon him by his suspicion, are, by means of the ritual, banished. In other words, the world is righted, its categories and their contents properly ordered and secured. Subsequent to the results of the ritual, he knows if his suspicion is correct or not. In the case of a guilty wife, his vagina, his womb and his honor are partially restored. In the final form of the text, the expanded, confirmed threat to the community is addressed by God. 3. Conclusion Numbers 5.11-31 is from a single source with the exception of v. 31. The original, primary concern of the text, and therefore of the ritual, is to address the malady of jealous rage triggered by suspicion and nothing more. The original concern informs the transformation and recontextualization that v. 31 effects. Verse 31 expands the perceived threat from the husband to the community. Male suspicion is so valued that a ritual is constructed to antidote it and a text is written to instruct on the ritual. The existence of this ritual, the absence of a complementary ritual against a 'suspected husband', the absence of a complementary ritual against the suspected male perpetrator, the willingness to sacrifice female innocence, the later need to bolster the husband and penalize the guilty wife all demonstrate the impossibilities of the gender arrangements which lie behind the social construction of male suspicion in ancient Israel.

THE FORMER PROPHETS AND DEUTERONOMY—A RE-EXAMINATION Ronald E. Clements

As the literary problems of the Pentateuch and its sources provided the centerpiece for the nineteenth-century analysis of the Old Testament, so the question of the relationship between the historical books of the Former Prophets and the book of Deuteronomy emerged as a central pivot for twentieth-century biblical research. Martin Noth's thesis concerning the literary origin of the six historical books which go to make up the Former Prophets and their characterization as a 'Deuteronomistic History' was first put forward in 1943.1 Its appearance marked a significant turning point in the evaluation of the biblical writings that necessarily form the primary documents for the writing of a history of ancient Israel. Subsequent debate has increasingly shown that the very possibility of carrying out such a task rests to a remarkable extent upon the prior evaluation of the historical veracity and time of origin of these six books.2 In preparatory work for the writing of such a history, Noth's thesis aimed to look freshly at the fundamental literary sources on which the viability of such an undertaking rests. 1. Martin Noth, Uberlieferungsgeschichtliche Studien: Die sammelnden und bearbeitenden Geschichtswerke im Alien Testament (Tubingen: Max Niemeyer, 1943). An English translation of the first part was published as The Deuteronomistic History (JSOTSup, 15: Sheffield: JSOT Press, 2nd edn, 1991). 2. Cf. now especially Thomas Rômer and Albert de Pury, 'Deuteronomistic Historiography (DH): History of Research and Debated Issues', in Albert de Pury, Thomas Rômer and Jean-Daniel Macchi (eds.), Israel Constructs its History: Deuteronomistic Historiography in Recent Research (JSOTSup, 306; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), pp. 24-141 (original French edition Israël construit son histoire. L'historiographie deutéronomiste à la lumière des recherches récentes [Geneva: Labor et fides, 1996], pp. 9-120). A valuable survey of many of the major lines of criticism is presented in Gary N. Knoppers and J. Gordon McConville (eds.), Reconsidering Israel and Judah: Recent Studies in the Deuteronomistic History (Sources for Biblical and Theological Study, 8, Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2000).

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God's Word for Our World 1. Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic Literature

Few scholars today appear to be content to uphold Noth's contentions of 1943 in the form in which he originally presented them. This is fully borne out by the extensive secondary literature which they have spawned, and the continuing concern to re-affirm, revise and, when necessary, oppose Noth's proposals. Moreover, although the title 'Deuteronomistic' has generally remained attached to the six books which were more traditionally known as 'The Former Prophets', what exactly this implies has become increasingly open to question. What is 'Deuteronomistic' about the Former Prophets? The answer is not clear. Nevertheless, although claimants can be found for the view that some at least of these books once had an earlier and separate origin, Noth's thesis continues to provide a useful benchmark for scholarly consideration. These six books undoubtedly display a substantial number of features which point to the conclusion that, in their final form, they have been subjected to a revision which aligns them with the book of Deuteronomy. The purpose of this present study is to argue that the most significant of the features which warrants the use of the label 'Deuteronomistic' to define this link is to be found in the explicit references in the historical books to the existence of the law as written and embodied in a book. Such a suggestion is not new, since it has many points in common with the contention of R. Smend3 and the 'Gôttingen School' that the original draft of the Former Prophets was subjected to a 'nomistic' redaction. Nevertheless it is useful to look at the implications that such a thesis has for understanding the significance of the shift to a culture of literary authority in the Deuteronomic movement generally. The transition to a culture in which unique religious authority was vested in a book remains basic to the concept of a scriptural canon and inevitably carries with it a fundamental shift in the nature of religious leadership in directing religious life and practice.4 3. R. Smend, 'Das Gesetz und die Volker: Bin Beitrag zur deuteronomistischen Redaktionsgeschichte', in H.W. Wolff (éd.), Problème biblischer Théologie: G. von Radzum 70. Geburtstag (Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1971), pp. 494-509 (English translation in Knoppers and McConville [eds.], Reconsidering Israel and Judah, pp. 95-110). For the proposals more generally, cf. Rômer and de Pury, 'Deuteronomistic Historiography (DH)', pp. 67-70 (original French edition pp. 50-53). 4. Cf. Philip R. Davies, Scribes and Schools: The Canonization of the Hebrew Scriptures (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1998), pp. 37-58; Stephen

CLEMENTS The Former Prophets and Deuteronomy

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Consequently in looking at a stratum of editing where the unique authority of a written book is highlighted we are confronted with a point of fundamental change in the nature of ancient Israel as a religious community. Both the book of Deuteronomy and the six books which make up the Former Prophets have been subjected to additions, revisions and probable assimilations to other documents to make it necessary to abandon any assumption of single authorship for either of them. It is the minimizing of this feature in Noth's original presentation of his thesis about the so-called Deuteronomistic History, and the concern to emphasize the primary creative role of a single original author, that has encouraged retention of the use of the label 'Deuteronomistic'. In many respects it has been the continued use of this label that has made the thesis a singularly contentious one. With additions and expansions made to both writings over an extended period, which one should be labeled 'Deuteronomistic'? Or is this title to be reserved exclusively for the presumed 'original' author of the History? If so, it must be argued that it is inappropriate. The problems are increased once attempts are made to identify a 'Deuteronomistic' layer of revision in the law book itself. Deuteronomy is more than simply a law book of the type that is familiar from Mesopotamian law codes. There are indications that show that, in its extant form, it is the product of a movement which existed over a long period of time, certainly covering more than a century.5 During this period additions and revisions were made, shaping it to become a manual of religious and ethical instruction rather than a law book in the sense that applies to other ancient Near Eastern law codes. One of the reasons for introducing the label 'Deuteronomistic', in preference to the simpler 'Deuteronomic', has been to leave room for this recognition of a sequence of stages of literary growth. Essentially the same feature of revisions made to an established document are also evident in regard to the historical books of Joshua-2 Kings. The recognition that these display a connectedness and overarching thematic structure has to be set over against the indications that considerable expansions and additions appear to have been made to the original texts. In general it is evident that a complex process of revision was an intrinsic feature of the nature and circumstances surrounding B. Chapman, The Law and the Prophets (FAT, 27; Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 2000), pp. 71-110. 5. For my views on the origin of the book of Deuteronomy see the Introduction to my commentary in Leander Keck et al. (eds.), The New Interpreter's Bible (12 vols.; Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998), II, pp. 269-90.

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the formation of most, if not all, the preserved biblical books. Like the law book to which it is related, the so-called Deuteronomistic History was enlarged and supplemented over a period of time. Arguments and debates have consequently followed as to the precise extent of the original book, with little indication that they are likely to be convincingly resolved. In light of this it is not difficult to see that there are good reasons why a growing level of dissatisfaction exists concerning the appropriateness of Noth's use of the label 'Deuteronomistic' to identify a central characteristic of the primary authorship of the six-volume History. Either it has to be understood loosely to apply to everything in the history, or more narrowly, either to those features that belonged to the earliest draft of the work or to those features which show the closest accord with the law book of Deuteronomy. The aim of the present essay is to explore the possibilities of what this latter position might entail. We could simply accord recognition to the feature that has remained the strongest basis of support for Noth's use of the title that lies in the fact that throughout the History it is assumed that Israel is a people living under the shadow of a divine law. It is a nation uniquely related to Yahweh its God who has placed them under obligation to obey a code of divinely given laws that were revealed at the moment when it was constituted as a nation. Failure to render such obedience is set out as the primary explanation for Israel's decline and fall. These laws are clearly those that, in their general emphasis and demands, relate closely to those that are set out in the book of Deuteronomy. Without reference back to the laws of the law book the reasons for the assumed providential ordering of events described in the History become invalid. The nation's downfall is then left without adequate explanation. Nevertheless it is noteworthy that the formal embodiment of these laws in a book is mentioned only relatively infrequently in the History. The general observation, that the historical books of the Former Prophets presume knowledge that Israel is a people who are set under divine law, is the basis for the conclusion that a fundamental connection exists between these six historical books and the book of Deuteronomy. However there is more than one way in which this connection can be understood and, when questions of plot, structure and overall perspective are taken into consideration, it becomes increasingly difficult to believe that the concerns which gave shape and structure to the law book are all that closely identifiable with those that originally shaped the historical work. The understanding of Israel's existence and nationhood set out in the book of Deuteronomy cannot have been the same as that which provided the creative impulse for the planning, structuring and composition of the six books of history which


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we call the Former Prophets. These are through and through focused on monarchy as an institution. The story of the rise and decline of the royal house of David holds pride of place. In the former it is Moses who dominates the scene in a remarkable fashion, whereas in the latter it is David who is the ideal king, and who brings assurance of salvation. In the former it is kingship that poses the greatest danger to Israel by the potential to lead it away from its primary obedience to Yahweh. In the latter kingship, when focused on God's appointed king, is the institution that offers the promise of greatness to Israel. The concern to demonstrate the theme of salvation through a royal dynasty, both in the story of the origin of Israel's kingship and in its subsequent fortunes and misfortunes, provides the fundamental structure for the four books of 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings. The preparation for this theme in Joshua-Judges displays all the signs of being there to fill a historical gap, rather than because these books intrinsically serve the same general theme. The origin of the monarchy required to be linked up with the giving of the law through Moses. In the law book it is the covenant made with Israel through Moses on Mt Horeb which dominates everything (Deut. 5.1-21), whereas in the History it is the covenant made between Yahweh and the dynasty of David that occupies center stage (especially 2 Sam. 7.1-17). The relationship which binds the two works together through images of obedience and disobedience is largely secondary, and not primary. These fundamental observations are not intended to ignore the fact that the six historical books which comprise the Former Prophets make strong appeal to a divinely given law. The significant point is that this law is seldom explicitly linked to Moses and Mt Horeb and only rarely to its embodiment in a book. When such reference is made it is quite clearly as a secondary motif and with an evident eye to demonstrating that the law book, as a basis of authority, is superior to the authority of the king—even kings as great as David and Solomon! Far too much of the structural framework of the History rests on its expectations concerning the royal dynasty of David for the motif of disregard of a written book of law given by Moses to have been the primary impulse that initiated its composition. When considered as a comprehensive literary work, the Former Prophets show abundant signs of being a 'revisionist' history of Israel's rise and fall under the Davidic monarchy. So far as the original form of its central core is concerned, its expectations and fundamental assumptions must certainly have been significantly different from the perspective that now prevails. What the original beginning and ending of this document may have been,

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perhaps with the appearance of the prophet Samuel and the achievements of the king Hezekiah or Josiah, remains a subject of debate. So also, inevitably, uncertainty surrounds identification of the sequence of additions that were later made to it. Seen overall we must reject altogether the claim that the original royalist history, focused on the house of David, can usefully be described as 'Deuteronomistic' in anything like the way that Martin Noth claimed. It is the revision of this that more properly deserves to be called Deuteronomistic, not the original document. If this perspective is upheld, then it was as a feature of the revision and enlargement of the original pro-monarchic history document that established the correlation between this and the law book of Deuteronomy. The purpose of this study is to explore the level of connection between the two to which alone the label 'Deuteronomistic' proposed by Noth might usefully be applied. 2. Deuteronomy as a Book of Written Law The starting-point for such an investigation must be with the book of Deuteronomy itself. Here we note the fact that the final form of the book displays a marked consciousness of the shift from a social culture that was fundamentally oral in its nature to one that had become quite explicitly literary. From aiming to set out 'the words that Moses spoke to all Israel' (Deut. 1.1) Deuteronomy proceeds in its concluding admonitions to show a strong literary self-awareness.6 What to do with the book and how it was to be preserved, read and applied are introduced in passages that seem to reflect a late stage in its own composition. So it is noteworthy that, after the opening report that Moses had initially addressed Israel orally with the exhortations and admonitions concerning their commitment to Yahweh, the transition to written preservation of the laws becomes evident once the need for continued memorizing and reflection upon them is established (Deut. 6.6-9). The inscribing of the laws on two tablets of stone is mentioned in 10.1-5, but the incorporation of the contents of these laws to become part of a larger book is left unexplained. Not until the law of the king is set out in 17.14-20 does it become unmistakably clear that the whole of Deuteronomy comprises a book whose contents must have ranged far beyond those of two tables of law:

6. Cf. Jean-Pierre Sonnet, The Book within the Book: Writing in Deuteronomy (Biblical Interpretation, 14; Leiden: EJ. Brill, 1997), especially pp. 235-62.


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When he has taken the throne of his kingdom, he shall have a copy of this law written for him in the presence of the levitical priests. It shall remain with him and he shall read in it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear Yahweh his God, diligently observing all the words of this law and these statutes... (Deut. 17.18-19)

Further mention of this law book, with its strong affirmation that its authority is superior to that of the king, is itself strikingly significant. Further awareness of it as a unique authority appears again, rather surprisingly unannounced, in Deut. 29.20-21: ...All the curses written in this book will descend on them, and Yahweh will blot out their names from under heaven. Yahweh will single them out from all the tribes of Israel for calamity, in accordance with all the curses of the covenant written in this book of the law.

The examples of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim are then cited with the warning: ...so the anger of Yahweh was kindled against that land, bringing on it every curse written in this book. The secret things belong to Yahweh our God, but the revealed things belong to us and our children forever, to observe all the words of this law. (Deut. 29.27-29)

Throughout these warnings the conjunction of the concepts of law and covenant with awareness that their content has been enshrined in a book is of paramount significance. A similar book-awareness is to be seen in Deut. 30.9-10: And Yahweh your God will make you abundantly prosperous.. .when you obey Yahweh your God by observing his commandments and decrees that are written in this book of the law, because you turn to Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

Where and by whom this book is to be preserved is then outlined: When Moses had finished writing down in a book the words of this law to the very end, Moses commanded the Levites who carried the ark of the covenant of Yahweh, saying, 'Take this book of the law and put it beside the ark of the covenant of Yahweh your God; let it remain there as a witness against you'. (Deut. 31.24-26)

By such references Deuteronomy displays a marked consciousness that it is a literary composition that is to remain in existence in perpetuity and that its contents are to shape the future life of the nation. It is to become a unique guidebook for the future health and survival of the nation at whose birth it was given. In line with this emphasis upon the uniqueness of

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Deuteronomy as a book, Moses is celebrated as a unique prophet greater than any other that had arisen, or could possibly arise in the future (Deut. 31.10-12). This concluding comment on the authority of Moses in the life of the nation stands in a noticeable level of tension with the status accorded to the whole succession of prophets who are expected to emerge at intervals according to the prescription of 18.15-22. At one level they may be prophets 'like Moses' (cf. 18.15), but at a deeper level they could never equal Moses nor usurp the authority of the book he had bequeathed the nation, any more than a future king could do this (cf. 17.20).7 By noting the importance attached to Deuteronomy's introduction of the conjunction of 'covenant law' and 'law book', we recognize that this marks a distinctive editorial strand within the book, almost certainly one that was introduced at a particular, and probably relatively late, stage in its composition. The reasons for such a shift can only be surmised, but it is not at all difficult to see that the political turmoil that followed the disasters of the early sixth century BCE provided the most likely context for such a change. This is not to deny that, in its original form, Deuteronomy was a written document, but that its own internal self-awareness of its literary character, and the implications this was to have for its preservation and use, represents a distinct stage in its own literary development. 3. The Written Law in the Former Prophets When we turn to the six books of the Former Prophets we discover that a closely comparable level of literary awareness appears in a relatively few, but highly significant, references to a written 'book of the law'. As soon as we take care to recognize that not every reference, either explicit or implicit, to the law of Yahweh carries with it a conscious awareness of its existence as a written text, we are in a position to note the particular 7. Cf. Chapman, The Law and the Prophets, pp. 200-201: 'Throughout the Deuteronomistic History both Mosaic law and mosaic prophecy are viewed as already-recognized authorities. In the earliest layers of the work, prophecy is already regarded as just as authoritative as Mosaic law (e.g. 1 Kg 17-19); later layers of the history increasingly refer both to the written character of the law and the collective character of the prophets. It is this collective aspect, especially when paralleled with written Mosaic law, which suggests an awareness of an emergent prophetic corpus of scripture. Increasingly the prophets are heard to speak with one voice, perhaps because as written texts their "words" can now be read and heard together. It seems unlikely that such a development would have occurred on the basis of exclusively oral traditions.'


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significance that attaches to those references where such a book is mentioned. They are primarily three in number, each of them highly significant. First in the transition from the leadership of Moses to that of his successor Joshua, a theme already introduced in Deuteronomy, we discover that Joshua has been entrusted to read, study, and act in accordance with this book of the law: Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to act in accordance with all the law that my servant Moses commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, so that you may be successful wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to act in accordance with all that is written in it. For then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall be successful. (Josh. 1.7-8)

What is implied by this entrusting of the law book to Joshua is highly meaningful, since it is wholly in line with the contention that Moses was altogether unique as a prophet of Yahweh and that no other prophet could arise to equal or supplant him. So, in the same fashion Joshua is to be the successor to Moses, but, at the deepest level, he will be a leader of a totally different order since Moses gave to the emergent nation the book of the law and Joshua will simply minister to its needs in accordance with it. Moses creates a book of Law, but Joshua merely administers it. The basic ideas of national leadership and authority have been totally transformed in this transition.8 There can never be another Moses. But this does not hinder the nation's success, for there does not need to be another such person. The law book has come into existence and fills the gap left by Moses' death. The story of Israel's progress under the leadership of Joshua is one of initial success, but thereafter the picture begins to change significantly under the judges and the need arises for a kingship to be introduced. This is marred initially by failure and only with the rise and achievements of King David is the decline reversed. In consequence the question of what is to happen to the nation after the death of David becomes a very challenging one. It is at this point therefore that a similar time of crisis is recognized, comparable to that which had come about with the transition from Moses to Joshua. It therefore fits comfortably with the admonition that had been made at that earlier time to introduce a further warning to the successor to David that he too, like the earlier leader, will have to give full and 8. Cf. Christa Schafer-Lichtenberger, Josua undsalomo. Eine Studie zu Autoritdt und Legitimitdt des Nachfolgers im Alien testament (VTSup, 58; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1995).

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constant attention to the book of the law that Moses had given. So, David reminds King Solomon that there exists a book of the law which embodies God's charter for the nation and its leaders. He is to make this his daily guidebook and constant resource for governing the nation: When David's time to die drew near, he charged his son Solomon, saying: 'I am about to go the way of all the earth. Be strong. Be courageous, and keep the charge of Yahweh your God, walking in his ways and keeping his statutes, his commandments, his ordinances, and his testimonies, as it is written in the law of Moses, so that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn. Then Yahweh will establish his word that he spoke concerning me "If your heirs take heed to their way, to walk before me in faithfulness with all their heart and with all their soul, there shall not fail you a successor on the throne of Israel".' (1 Kgs 2.1-4)

The third of the passages where the written form of the law given to Israel through Moses is presented with considerable emphasis is to be found in the account of the circumstances in which this book was discovered in the temple of Jerusalem during renovations in the reign of King Josiah. The unexpected way in which this occurs and the account of how the book's origin with Moses was attested and how its contents were subsequently read out in the temple in the presence of priests, prophets and representatives of the inhabitants of Jerusalem is made the subject of a lengthy report (2 Kgs 22.8-23.3). A striking feature, as has been increasingly remarked by scholars, is that this account stands as a relatively self-contained unit with the report of the renovations and changes introduced under Josiah's direction. It stands as the last of the three episodes in the history of the Former Prophets that relate the covenant made through Moses on Mt Horeb and the law given at that time with a law book. Quite certainly it is a late intrusion into the earlier account of how the temple was renovated and given a new central authority under King Josiah. Accordingly the present form of the historical work which make up the six books of the Former Prophets displays a comparable book-consciousness such as we find occurring in Deuteronomy itself. The three primary occasions of its mention serve a distinct purpose in reflecting the authority accorded to the book and its superiority to other forms of religious and political authority within the nation. Joshua is to be a leader in succession to Moses, but he can never be another Moses, since the latter's relationship to God was unique and unrepeatable. So Joshua is to guide the nation through the medium of the book that Moses bequeathed


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to the nation. The subordination of the kingship, even the kingship of David, to this same unique authority is then made a feature that called for special mention at the time when David handed over his throne to his successor Solomon. The recovery of the law book in Josiah's time from its neglect is then a significant moment in the story of Israel's decline and break-up, since it explains why earlier misfortunes had befallen the people and why new hope emerged with this king. Whether all three of these references to the existence of the law in a written book form were introduced at the same time lacks any certain proof, but it seems highly probable that this was the case. In any event they all serve exactly the same purpose—to show that the written law book was superior to the institution of kingship. The references to the law book as the central mediating agency for Israel's continuing compliance with the demands of Yahweh's covenant then become a key feature in focusing upon its role in the life of the nation. The existence of the book sharpens and defines what Yahweh's law is, how it is to be known and how Israel is to act in accordance with it. If the center of the original form of the history was provided by the story of the covenant and promise made by Yahweh to David, as recounted in 2 Sam. 7.1-17, then the introduction of passages showing emphatically that God intended such kingship to be throughout subject to the prescriptions and demands set out in the law book which Moses had given, changes this perspective drastically. If any feature of the History that we know as the Former Prophets deserves to be labeled 'Deuteronomistic', then it is surely this revisionist perspective on the subordination of kingship to the law book given through Moses. In this we are confronted most directly with the very roots of a conception of authority vested in a collection of writings which constitute a canon. With the linking together of a Mosaic law book with a historical narrative in which the rise, repeated failures and demise of the Davidic kingship are chronicled we are presented with several of the most foundational assumptions of Israel's existence as a community of God. The introduction of a literary self-consciousness in both works is more than a shift from an oral to a literary culture; it is an entry into a new dimension of religious authority. 4. The Deuteronomic Movement and the Transition to a Religion of a Book My contention in the present article has been twofold. The first has been to reflect more fully on the point that the explicit references in the book of

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Deuteronomy to its formal existence and function as a comprehensive manual of law represent a late stage of its own literary development. The same point holds true when we examine the historical work known as the Former Prophets. Although there are many explicit and implicit references to the laws revealed to Israel by God, especially concerning the obligation to worship no other deities apart from Yahweh, references to the fact that these are embodied in a book that requires to be read, preserved and explained to the people more widely, are few. Those that do appear are a relatively late feature of the work clearly aimed at showing that kingship, as a primary institution of national life, was wholly subordinate to the law given by Moses. The second point follows these observations and argues that these explicit references to the divine law book in both works require to be taken together and seen as part of the same editorial process. It is this stage of literary self-consciousness in the compositional development of both Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History which alone properly justifies use of the adjective 'Deuteronomistic'. It might at first appear acceptable to conclude that it was simply a matter of editorial preference and literary taste to make reference relatively infrequently to the embodiment of the laws of Yahweh in a written law book in the case of both these works. Yet this is to underestimate the extent of the impact that the transition from an oral to a literary culture implies for understanding the nature of ancient Israel as a religious community. Moreover, issues of a broader, fundamentally political nature are also at stake. What is implied by such a shift is no mere cultural transition but an entry into a new realm of religious authority mediated through a book. The ideologies of a nation-state governed constitutionally by a written law book and of a nation ruled with sovereign power by a divinely chosen royal dynasty are two fundamentally different views of the divine governance of national life. They are, in essence, opposed political ideologies. They cannot therefore both be usefully labeled Deuteronomistic. This 'law book' ideology is one that has been imposed on both Deuteronomy and the Former Prophets as the result of a secondary level of editorial revision. Throughout both works relics of an older, discredited royal ideology still abound. The introduction of references to a written book of law designed to serve as a document of constitutional polity for ancient Israel are evidence of the shift from one ideology to the other. The accomplishment of this transition was a complex and difficult process and certainly marks a


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major turning point in Israel's own self-understanding as a community of God. It is the adoption of the new law book ideology that properly deserves to be called Deuteronomistic. By this change literacy replaced orality as the medium through which the voice of God was to be heard. The day of the scribe had come and that of the prophet had been circumscribed by new limits.

ON THE STUDY OF PENTATEUCHAL POETRY Amira Meir Poetry is as ancient as the most ancient times, with oral poetry preceding written poetry.1 And indeed philosophers, poets, and linguists have attempted to define it. Habermann, in his book lyunim Bashira Uvapiyut, nicely surveys the many attempts that have been made to define poetry, in both Jewish and non-Jewish literature, beginning with the words of Plato, who banished poets from his ideal state until it learns to appreciate simple language and 'to try to prove that there's more to poetry than mere pleasure—that it also has a beneficial effect on society and on human life in general.. .we'll be the winners if poetry turns out to be beneficial as well as enjoyable'.2 His survey continues with the words of the sages, the greatest Muslim poet of Granada Ibn al-Khatib, the Hebrew poets Immanuel Frances, Naftali Hertz Wiesl, Samuel David Luzzato (ShaDal) and others,3 and is completed with the words of Kant, who defined poetry as, 'a play of the senses arranged by the intelligence', and Friedrich Schiller who said that, 'The philosopher is half a person, and the poet—a whole person'.4 However, unlike Greek literature, in which problems of poetry are discussed in scientific terms in Aristotle's Poetics5—Aristotle was the first to distinguish between poetry and rhetoric—in our literature no such discussion is known.6 Accordingly, one must define the poetry of the Torah, 1. See W.G.E. Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry: A Guide to its Techniques (JSOTSup, 26; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1984), pp. 67-83; and also U. Cassuto, Biblical and Oriental Studies (trans I. Abrahams; Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1975), II, p. 20. 2. Plato, Republic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1944), p. 362. 3. See A.M. Habermann, p. 7. In his poem 'Im lashir, David, tir'av', Immanuel Frances sets rules for poets. 4. Aristotle, Poetics (Jerusalem: Rubin Mass, 1972), Part One, On Poetry, pp. 3-\2. 5. See M. Huk, Aristotle, On the Art of Poetry (Tel-Aviv: Mahbarot le'Sifrut, 1972), p. 9. 6. For a historical survey of the essence of biblical poetry, see J. Kugel, The Idea of Biblical Poetry: Parallelism and its History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), Chapter 6 ('What is the System of Hebrew Poetry?').

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which resembles neither the poetry of the Middle Ages nor modern poetry, nor the poetry of any other group, with the exception of ancient Canaanite poetry,7 although the poetry of the Torah is the more complete and sophisticated of the two, as it is the continuation of this literature.8 It is usual to view biblical poetry as a unique literary form in itself which is differentiated from biblical prose, not only in its special rhythms9 but also in its content, which is never narrative; in its style, which is graphic and rich in images; in its metaphors and tendency toward climax;10 in its syntax, which tends to maintain a loose connection between parts of the sentence; and in its special vocabulary.11 The uniqueness of the poetry of the Torah, as opposed to biblical poetry in general, lies not in any of the factors mentioned above, but rather in the different approaches of the commentators to it, which arise from their various approaches to the entire Torah, as to the holiest part of the biblical canon.12 In light of the fact that all biblical poetry, even the earliest,13 excels in its high level of language, structure, phrasing, rhythm, meter, parallels and so on, Segal14 claims that it is reasonable to assume that in antiquity known rules had already been formulated and set as a sort of Hebrew prosody15 7. On the precedence of parallelism in Canaanite poetry, see W.F. Albright, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan: A Historical Analysis of Two Contrasting Faiths (New York: Doubleday, 1968), pp. 4-5. 8. U. Cassuto, Biblical and Canaanite Literatures (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1972), pp. 20-54, and see also J.C. Greenfield, 'The Hebrew Bible and Canaanite Literature', in R. Alter and F. Kermode (eds.), The Literary Guide to the Bible (London: Collins, 1987), pp. 545-60. 9. See R. Alter, The Art of Biblical Poetry (New York: Basic Books, 1985), pp. 3-26, 28. 10. See Y.S. Licht, 'Shira', in Entziclopedia Mikrait (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1976), VII, pp. 638-39. 11. See M.H. Segal, Introduction to the Bible (Jerusalem: Kiryat Sefer, 1967), I, pp. 35-39. 12. See N.M. Sarna, 'The Canon, Text and Editions', in EncJud, IV, col. 821-25, and also O. Eissfeldt, The Old Testament: An Introduction (trans, from 3rd German edn by Peter R. Ackroyd; Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1965), pp. 562-71. 13. Examples for that are, according to M.H. Segal, the Song of Lamech, the Song of the Well, and the Blessing of Jacob. See his article, 'Leheker Tzuratah shel ha-Shira ha-Mikrait', Sefer Klausner (Tel-Aviv: Va'ad Hayovel in cooperation with Hevrat Omanut, 1937), p. 90. 14. Segal, 'Leheker Tzuratah shel ha-Shira ha-Mikrait'. 15. See B. Hrushovski, 'Prosody, Hebrew', mEncJud, XIII, col. 1200-202. On col. 1202 he notes that although there is no exact theory of rhythm, other rules do exist. For

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according to which Hebrew poets composed their poems throughout the biblical period, as well as in later generations. According to U. Cassuto,16 the rules of biblical poetry, along with those of biblical literature, are common to all peoples of the ancient East,17 and these began to develop even before the rise of the Israelite nation; and as biblical literature is, in its form, the continuation of Canaanite literature, its high level is unsurprising.18 The difficulty lies in that the rules and content of this literature were not relayed to us in the Bible itself or in the rabbinical literature, and accordingly, it is natural that the definition of biblical poetry would be challenging and complex matter.19 Therefore, one should primarily study those places in the Bible where the shira concept appears. The term 'poetry'—shira—appears in the Torah in three contexts. One is the Song of the Sea: 'Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the LORD...' (Exod. 15.1). The second is the Song of the Well: 'Then Israel sang this song...' (Num. 21.17). The third is the Ha'azinu song: (1) 'Therefore, write down this poem and teach it to the people of Israel; put it in their mouths, in order that this poem may be My witness against the people of Israel' (Deut. 31.19) (2) 'and the many troubles and evils befall them—then this poem shall confront them as a witness...' (Deut. 31.21) (3) 'That day, Moses wrote down this poem...' (Deut. 31.22) (4) Then Moses recited the words of this poem to the very end, in the hearing of the whole congregation of Israel...' (Deut. 31.30) (5) 'And Moses came, together with Hosea son of Nun, and recited all the words of this poem in the hearing of the people' (Deut. 32.44).

The Torah itself, therefore, defines three units—Exodus 15, Numbers 21 and Deuteronomy 32—as poetry units. However, only in Deuteronomy 32 does it delimit the passage both at its opening—Deut. 32.30—and at its conclusion—Deut. 32.44. In Exod. 15.1 there is an opening to the poem: 'Then, Moses and the Israelites sang this song...,' but there is no verse to conclude the poem. The opening of the Song of the Well says, 'Then Israel instance, he notes that no two accented syllables will appear one after another; he also observes the secondary stress in long words. 16. See Cassuto, Biblical and Oriental Studies, pp. 16-59. 17. On parallelism in Canaanite poetry, see Albright, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan, pp. 4-10, and also Eissfeldt, The Old Testament, pp. 58-60. 18. The uniqueness of biblical poetry lies, in Cassuto's opinion, in its content and its spirit (Biblical and Oriental Studies, p. 59). 19. See A. Berlin, Biblical Poetry Through Medieval Jewish Eyes (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), p. 7.


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sang this song...' (Num. 21.17), but here, too, there is no verse to conclude the poem.20 That is, of the three places in the Torah where the concept of poetry—shira—is mentioned, in only one of them is there a precise definition of the poetic unit. In the other two places, one must use the definitions of the term 'poetry' to determine the limits of the poetic unit.21 The question that arises is: Are these poetic units, whose limits are not always clear, the only poetry in the Torah, or are there other passages which can also be defined as poetry, even if the Torah does not define them as such; or, does all of the Torah have 'the nature and the properties of poetry, that is language in poetical style', as claimed by the Na-ziv who lived in the nineteenth century.22 In the rabbinical literature, we do not find such a definition, but it appears that they did discern a difference in certain verses and defined them as poetry. In the Tractate Rosh Hashanah23 there is a discussion of the song the Levis are to say daily and on the Sabbath. In this context, the three poetic units defined as song—Ha'azinu Song, the Song of the Sea and the Song of the Well—are mentioned; these are the three units that are defined as poetry by the Torah itself. In the tractate Megillah 16b graphic rules for writing poetry appear: 'All the songs [in Scripture] are written in the form of a half-brick over a whole brick, and a whole brick over a half-brick, with the exception of this one24 and the list of the kings of Canaan,25 which are written in the form of a half-brick over a half-brick and a whole brick over a whole brick'. That is, the graphic rule that appears in the tractate Megillah determines that except for the list of the sons of Haman and the list of the kings of Canaan, all the poetry in the Bible is written half-brick above whole brick and whole brick above half-brick. However, here too 'all these songs' is not detailed. In the tractate Soperim, it is said that, 'All poems must be preceded and followed by benedictions'.26 However, here again there is no detail of 20. Alter notes the difficulty in delineating poetic units (The Art of Biblical Poetry, p. 5). 21. See Alter, The Art of Biblical Poetry, p. 12, and also A. Berlin, The Dynamics of Biblical Parallelism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), pp. 4-6. 22. Naftali Zevi Yehuda. See his Introduction to his commentary Ha 'emek Davar, section c. 23. See p. 3 la of the 1938 Soncino edition. 24. The reference is to the sons of Haman, Est. 9.7-10, which is not a poem. 25. The list of the Canaanite kings whom Joshua defeated appears in Josh. 12.9-24. The reason why the list of the sons of Haman and the list of the Canaanite kings are defined here as poetry is a subject in its own right 26. Chapter 12, Rule 4 (Soncino edition).

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what 'all songs' is referring to, and among the poetic units in the Torah, only the Song of the Well, the Song of the Sea and Ha'azinu Song are mentioned—again, the same three poetic units that the Torah itself defines as 'poetry' and which are noted in the tractate Rosh Hashanah. The graphic rules for writing the Song of the Sea and the Song of Deborah are also mentioned in the tractate Soperim; they are 'written in the form of a halfbrick over a whole brick and whole brick over a half-brick'.27 If we judge by the rule that appears in the tractates Megillah and Soperim, then the only poetic units—shirot—in the Torah are the Song of the Sea and Ha'azinu Song. The Song of the Sea is indeed written halfbrick above whole brick and whole brick above half-brick, whereas the Ha'azinu Song is written half-brick above half-brick and whole brick above half-brick, and not half-brick above whole brick and whole brick above half-brick, as set by the tractates Megillah and Soperim. The Song of the Well, which is mentioned in tractates Rosh Hashanah2* and Soperim29 is not written according to this rule. It appears, therefore, that the sages distinguished between prose and poetry in principle, but that their definitions of poetry stemmed either from the definitions of the Torah itself or from the graphic appearance of the lines in the Torah. Accordingly, the verses they define as poetry—the Song of the Sea, the Song of the Well and the Ha'azinu Song—fit these definitions. I did not find in their writings any poetic definition of the essence of biblical poetry. From the writings of the sages regarding the poetry of the Torah, I move now to a discussion of the writings of Philo and Josephus with regard to the poetry of the Torah.30 In his book on the life of Moses, De Vita Moses,31 Philo the Alexandrian, a Jewish historian of the first century of the Common Era, describes the manner in which Moses was educated: 'Arithmetic, geometry, the lore of meter, rhythm and harmony, and the whole subject of music as shown by the use of instruments or in textbooks and treatises of a more special character, were imparted to him by learned 27. Chapter 12, Rule 10 (Soncino edition). 28. See p. 3 la of the Soncino edition. 29. Chapter 12, Rule 4 (Soncino edition). 30. In order to maintain the continuity from the Torah's own attitude to the poetry in it through to the writings of the sages, I placed the discussion of their writings before those of Philo and Josephus, although historical continuity is not thereby maintained. 31. Here following the F.H. Colson's English translation (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959), p. 287. This book by Philo, which is his most sophisticated composition, was destined for a non-Jewish audience.


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Egyptians'.32 That is, in the opinion of Philo, Moses learned the art of rhythm, harmony and meter from the Egyptians. It may be, as Segal notes,33 that here there is an allusion to the literary types of poetry in the Torah, but Segal raises doubt with regard to the guess that Philo knew Hebrew on such a high level, a doubt which is also shared by H.A. Wolfson34 and Y. Amir.35 Josephus Flavius mentions to the poetic units in the Torah in two places. The first is after the parting of the Reed Sea: After having themselves thus escaped from peril and furthermore beheld their enemies punished in such wise as within men's memory no others had ever been before, they passed that whole night in melody and mirth, Moses himself composing in hexameter verse a song to God to enshrine his praise and their thankfulness for his gracious favour.36

The second place in which Josephus mentions poetry in the Torah is in the description of the last deeds of Moses: .. .On the following days—for assembly was held continuously—he gave them blessings, with curses upon such as should not live in accordance with the laws but should transgress the ordinances that were therein. Then he recited to them the poem in hexameter verse, which he has moreover bequeathed in a book preserved in the temple, containing a prediction of future events, in accordance with which all has come and is coming to pass, the seer having in no whit strayed from the truth.37

32. Colson adds here that Moses might have learned that perhaps from Plato. See p. 286 n. c of the Colson edition (cited in n. 31). 33. Segal, 'Leheker Tzuratah shel ha-Shira ha-Mikrait', p. 91. 34. On the question of whether Philo knew Hebrew, see H.A. Wolfson, Philo Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1948), I, pp. 88-90. Also see H.E. Ryle, Philo and Holy Scripture (London: Macmillan, 1985), p. xxix, and also see C. Siegfried, Philo von Alexandria alsAusleger des Alien Testaments (Jena: Verlag von Hermann Dufft, 1875), pp. 142-45. L.H. Feldman, 'Use Authority and Exegesis of Mikra in the Writing of Josephus', in M.J. Mulder (ed.), Mikra (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), pp. 456-57; and L.H. Feldman, Josephus and Modern Scholarship (1937-1980) (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1984), pp. 492-527. 35. Y. Amir, 'Philo of Alexandria', in Encylopaedia Hebraica (Israel: Encyclopaedia Publishing Company, 1975), XXVII, p. 661. 36. Josephus, Ant. 2.346. A. Schlitt adds that according to Josephus the Blessing of Moses is also written in this meter. See Schlitt's translation of Book 2 (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1978), p. 71 n. 162. 37. Josephus, Ant. 4.302-303.

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In addition, Josephus makes reference to the poetic compositions written by David.38 It appears, therefore, that Philo and Josephus felt the linguistic-formal difference between biblical prose and poetry; however, it is not possible from their writings to learn the essence of biblical poetry, and one might take issue with Josephus regarding the poetry's rhythms.39 However, since that is not the subject of this article, I have chosen not to expand on it. What is important for us is the fact that they made a distinction between poetry and the rest of biblical literature, and this is also the opinion of A. Schalit, who translated Josephus and noted his comments on this matter. In his opinion,40 Josephus is telling his Hellenistic-Roman readers about the verse in which the Song of the Sea, the Song of Ha'azinu, and the book of Psalms is written, for their greater understanding, and also 'so that the picture will be complete and so that the Hellenists will not suspect the Jews of having a poetry which is poorer in its poetic form than Greek and Roman poetry'. That is, Josephus's starting point is Greek poetry, and he is comparing it to biblical poetry; his starting point is not one of the essence and uniqueness of biblical poetry.41 The Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael is the most ancient commentary on the Song of the Sea.42 Regarding the opening verse of the poem, the Mekhilta says,43 'But is it a single song? Are there not ten in all?' The Mekhilta then proceeds to count ten biblical creations which, in its opinion, are poems:44 38. Josephus, Ant. 7.305: 'David, being now free from wars and dangers, and enjoyed profound peace from this time on, composed songs and hymns to God in varied meters—some he made in trimeters, and others in pentameters' (quintupled meter). However, these poems are not a part of the poetry of the Torah and so I will not expand on this matter. 39. As indeed does Segal, 'Leheker Tzuratah shel ha-Shira ha-Mikrait', pp. 91-92. 40. Schalit's translation to Antiquities Book 7, p. 256 n. 342. 41. In Origen, Eusebius and Hieronymus, fathers of the Christian Church, one can find a few more details. The subject is discussed by G.B. Gray, The Forms of Hebrew Poetry Considered (New York: Ktav, 1972), pp. 12-17. 42. Exod. 15.1. The Mekhilta was collected and redacted in Palestine, not before the end of the fourth century BCE. See J. Goldin, The Song of the Sea (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971), pp. 4-5. 43. A very similar formulation appears in Yalkut Shimeoni, Exodus 242. On the differences, see Goldin, The Song of the Sea, pp. 68-69. 44. The same baraita also appears in Midrash Hagadol on the Pentateuch, Exodus, from the fourteenth century. The English versions are according to J. Neusner's translation of the Mekhilta (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), I, pp. 175-76.


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The first was recited in Egypt: 'You shall have a song, as in the night when a feast is sanctified',45 the second at the sea: 'Then sang Moses' (Exod. 15.1), the third at the well: 'Then sang Israel',46 the fourth, said by Moses: 'and it came to pass when Moses had finished writing... Moses spoke in the ears of all the assembly of Israel the words of this song, until they were finished'.47

The Mekhilta goes on to enumerate six more songs, but these are taken from the books of the Prophets and of the Writings, and therefore I will not list them here. The standard for defining all the verses cited by the Mekhilta is, in any case, the mention of the verb T2) in all of its inflections, regarding these poetic units.48 One may conclude that according to the Mekhilta a poetic composition is one which has been defined as such by the Bible by means of the verb T2) or by the nouns shir (song), shira (poetry) or meshorer (poet). After the writings of the sages in the tractates Rosh Hashanah, Megillah and Soperim,49 and those of Philo and Josephus50 on biblical poetry and through the commentators of the Middle Ages, we are not aware of any progress in the study of biblical poetry.51 It appears that the first of the medieval commentators to attempt to explain the phenomenon of biblical poetry was the tenth-century grammatician and lexicographer Menahem Ben Saruq.52 45. Isa. 30.29. This passage is not sufficiently clear. Rashi, basing himself on the Talmud in the tractate Pesahim 95b, comments that the intention is the joy that will come on the night of Pessah, the way they recited a song on the night of the Pessah in Egypt. Goldin, The Song of the Sea, p. 68, explains that according to the midrash the poem mentioned in Isa. 30.29 will be like the poem that was sung by Israel in Egypt during the festival of the night before they left Egypt. 46. Num. 21.17. 47. Deut. 31.24. In Hebrew: nmnnTEJH ^D HN "131^ net) m^DDTH. In the Mekhilta the verb 'to speak' appears in place of the verb 'to write' in the Torah, and 'the words of the song' in place of 'the words of the Torah'. 48. Except the fifth poem, which is attributed to Joshua. This baraita also appears in Midrash Hagadol on the Pentateuch, Exodus, where there is an addition in this context, hi the Mekhilta it says: 'The fifth said by Joshua as it is written: "Then spoke Joshua to the LORD" (Joshua 10.12)', and in Midrash Hagadol it says: 'The fifth, that Joshua said: "Then Joshua spoke [this poem] on the day the LORD routed the Amorites..."' That is, Midrash Hagadol adds the expression 'this poem' in regard to Josh. 10.12. 49. See above pp. 101-102. 50. See above pp. 102-104. 51. See Gray, The Forms of Hebrew Poetry Considered, p. 17. 52. See Segal, 'Leheker Tzuratah shel ha-Shira ha-Mikrait', p. 93 n. 16.

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In his Mahberet,53 which is considered to be the first biblical dictionary and which includes both information on the rules of grammar that had accumulated up to his time and clarifications of many biblical verses, Ben Saruq refers to the subject of parallelism in a number of places. In one place54 he says: 'The two questions are posed in the same verse, once with the interrogatory heh, and again with the interrogatory "if," as in "Can mortals be acquitted by God? Can man be clearer by his Maker?"55.. .and there are many like this.' In another place56 he discerns the missing parallelism without defining it as such, in the saying, ' "It is not the aged who are wise, the elders, who understand how to judge",57 the first "not" standing in the place of the two. And similarly in "because it did not block my mother's womb, and hide trouble from my eyes"58.. .and in many like this in the Torah.'59 In explaining the word av,60 he divides it into six aspects and says: The fourth: 'new wine jugs.'61 There is no word in the Torah that is similar to this word, but the context will teach about it and half of the verse will tell about the other half. One half would have been sufficient, but the subject is repeated, resulting in one matter mentioned twice in one verse, and there are many like this. These are some of the verses in which one half explains the other and where only one half would have been sufficient... 'May my discourse come down as the rain, My speech distill as the dew...'62 And there many like this in the prophets.63 53. Or by its original name, Sefer Pitronim (The Book of Solutions), a name that, in the opinion of E. Ashtor, was usual for books on linguistics. See E. Ashtor, Korot ha-Yehudim bi-Sefarad ha-Muslemit, A (History of the Jews in Muslim Spain) (Jerusalem: Kiryat Sefer, 1960), p. 162. 54. Menahem Ben Saruq, Mahberet (Granada: Edicion Cristica e Introduccion de Angel Sbenz-Badillos, 1986) p. 27. 55. Job 4.17. In Hebrew: inrinCD" ITO UD D« pIS" m'aw E713KH. 56. Ben Saruq, Mahberet, p. 139. 57. Job. 32.9. In Hebrew: CDSCO iriT D^pTI 1I3DIT D^l N1?. 58. Job. 3.10. In Hebrew: TUD "7QU inD1! 'HDDS TIÎ T1D R^ 'D. 59. What Ibn Ezra later defined as 'pulls itself and another with it'. 60. Ben Saruq, Mahberet, p. 17. 61. He is referring here to Job 32.19: 'My belly is like wine not yet opened, like jugs of new wine ready to burst'. 62. Deut. 32.2. 63. He offers nine additional examples, all from the prophets, among them: Isa. 33.21; Josh. 5.13; Job 39.15; Song 4.12; and others. See also E.I.J. Rosenthal, 'The Study of the Bible in Medieval Judaism', in G.W.H. Lampe (ed.), The Cambridge History of the Bible (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. 259.

MEIR On the Study of Pentateuchal Poetry

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Menahem Ben Saruq's language is not fluent and flowing, but his meaning is clear: he definitively determines that these verses are parallelisms. It is of interest to note that although he cites about twelve examples in which 'half of the verse teaches us about the other half'64 in his explanation of 'new wine jugs' (Job. 32.19) only two of them are from poetry in the Torah (Deut. 32.1, 2), and thus his conclusion is 'and there are many like this in the prophets'.65 That is, Ben Saruq discerned parallelisms in the Bible, and although he also noted examples from the Torah (Deut. 32.1, 2), and in one place he says 'and there are many like this in the Torah',66 he associates the phenomenon in general with the prophetic literature. The question of whether in the expression 'and there are many like this in the Torah' he is really referring to many examples of parallelism in the Torah and did not note them, or if this was perhaps no more than a slip of the pen—writing Torah and intending N'vua (the prophets)—remain forever unanswered. It appears, therefore, that Menahem Ben Saruq was not merely a guide to Rashi, as J.J.L. Barg's claims in his foreword to the Epistola of Jehuda Ben Koreisch,67 but also a sort of guide to biblical poetry, since he was the first to attempt to deal with this literary phenomenon in the Bible.68 About three centuries after him, in the twelfth century, the Spanish Hebrew poet Rabbi Moshe Ibn Ezra attempted to define biblical poetry. In Sefer hafyyunim we-ha-Diyyunim69 which he wrote in Arabic during his old age to a friend and an admirer who had asked him eight questions on the essence 64. Ben Saruq, Mahberet,p. 17. 65. Ben Saruq, Mahberet, p. 17. 66. Ben Saruq, Mahberet, p. 139. 67. R. Jehuda Ben Koreisch, Epistola (Lutetiae Parisiorum, 1857), p. xxvii. In 1984 D. Bekerr published a critical version of Judah Ben Quraysh's Risala, and in the Foreword he relates to the Barg's edition, the M. Katz edition and the edition of M. Goodstein. For the matter at hand, Barg's Foreword is important, and so I turned to his edition. 68. Incidentally, as H. Hirschfeld noted in his book, Literary History of Hebrew Grammarians and Lexicographers: Accompanied by Unpublished Texts (Oxford: Oxford University Press; London: Humphrey & Milford, 1926), p. 24, he was also the first grammarian to write in Hebrew. M. Katz notes this as well, in his Foreword to his edition of the Epistola (p. 51). 69. On the importance of Sefer ha-fyyunim we-ha-Diyyunim (The Book of Discussion and Conversation) see J. Dana's book ha-Poetica shel ha-Shira ha-Ivrit biYamei ha-Benayim (Poetics of Medieval Hebrew Literature) (Tel Aviv: Devir, 1982), pp. 15-18.

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of Hebrew poetry, he discusses biblical poetry and the stylistic and rhetorical devices that serve it. Ibn Ezra refers the reader to the eighth section, which is called Poetika, in the philosopher's70 logical writing, in which he tries to clarify the difference between poetry and composition.71 However, the point from which he sets out appears only in the last chapter of his book where is he says: 'that poetry is the wisdom of the Arabs, and the Jews follow in their footsteps in this art'.72 In the opinion of Rabbi Moshe Ibn Ezra, the art of poetry, which is called poetika in Greek, is not one of the independently existing sciences like arithmetic, geography, music and the like, and it is also not entirely one of the consensual sciences, not because it has consensual elements—the science of grammar and the accuracy of the language in which its creations succeed... and it is composed, therefore, of separate things, consensual and didactical.73

Further on, he tries to define the poetic units in the Bible, and says: We did not find variations from prose in it, except for these three books: Psalms, Job and Proverbs, and they, as you will see, do not require rhythm or rhyme as in Arabic rules, and they are like my tempestuous poem... [A] few of the poems in the Holy Scriptures tend from prose, for instance Song of the Sea, Ha'azinu Song, 'David addressed the words of this song to the Lord'74 and 'Deborah sang.'75 And I said only 'a few of the poems' for no other reason than that also in the prose there is what is called poetry, such as the Song of Songs and the Song of the Well76 and others.77

Later, Moshe Ibn Ezra refers to the bareita that lists the poems in the Bible and says: 'The writers of halacha increased their number to nine78 and most of them are prose'.79 That is, Rabbi Moshe Ibn Ezra sees the books of Job, Proverbs, Psalms and the Song of Songs as books 'varying from 70. So, too, he refers to Aristotle. 71. See Sefer Ha-Iyyumim we-ha-Diyyunim (edited and redacted by A.S. Halkin: Jerusalem: Mekize Nirdamim, 1975), p. 135. 72. Sefer ha-Iyyunim we-ha-Diyyunim, p. 223. 73. Sefer ha-Iyyunim we-ha-Diyyunim, p. 23. 74. 2 Sam. 22.1. 75. Judg. 5. 76. Num. 21.17-18. 77. Sefer ha-Iyyunim we-ha-Diyyunim, p. 47. 78. The tenth poem, 'Sing to the LORD a new song, His praise from the ends of the earth' (Isa. 42.10) is for the future, and therefore Moshe Ibn Ezra, also known as Abu Harun, did not count it among the other poems. 79. Sefer ha-Iyyunim we-ha-Diyyunim, p. 47.


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prose', and among the books of prose he sees 'what is called poetry'. As examples from the Torah, he cites the Song of the Sea, the Song of the Well, and the Ha'azinu Song. It may be that Rabbi Moshe Ibn Ezra's definition stems from a more profound literary understanding than that of the sages, and therefore he does not agree with the definition of the bareita in the Mekhilta,^ and claims that not all the verses it defines as poetry are indeed poetry, and says: 'most of them are prose'. However, in his examples of verses of poetry he does not say anything innovative in relation to the Torah and the writings of the sages. A discussion of biblical rhetoric according to the rules of classical rhetoric is found in the writings of Rabbi Judah Messer Leon, a humanist and scholar who lived in Italy in the second half of the fifteenth century.81 In the fourth section of his book Nofet Supim, he enumerates 'the figures of speech by category'82—eighty-three in all. In section 5483 he defines 'clarity [of expression]'—his term for parallelismus membromm:M 'Clarity is a figure of speech in which a single theme is stated in various ways; it is much in evidence in Isaiah. For example, "I responded to those who did not ask, I was at hand to those who did not seek Me".'85 He cites several other examples,86 and then goes on to say: 'The present figure is related to the interpretation as a part is to the whole... It is because this clarity contains the highest degree of clarity that it is called simply "clarity".' That is, Rabbi Judah Messer Leon identified the phenomenon of synonymous parallelism with certainty, and even demonstrated it well, using several outstanding parallelisms from the books of the prophets; however, he does not define it properly according to its nature by the name 'parallelism', but rather sees in it one of the eighty-three clarities, such as, maxim, climax, synecdoche, and others.87 A basic study of biblical poetry is first found in Azariah Dei Rossi (1511-78), one of the great Renaissance scholars of Hebrew, whom Zinberg defines as a 'free researcher', the 'founder of scientific, historical criticism', who 'was far ahead of his time' and of whom 'only the 80. See above, pp. 104-105. 81. In his book Nofet Supim: A Critical Edition and Translation (trans. I. Rabinovitch; Ithaca, NY; Cornel University Press, 1983), Chapter 54, pp. 412ff. 82. Nofet Supim, p. 416. 83. Nofet Supim, p. 530. 84. The term which Robert Lowth coined for parallelism. 85. Isa. 65.1. 86. Isa. 33.14; 65.2; Ezek. 18.16, 45. 87. See Nofet Supim, fourth section, pp. 412-14.

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nineteenth century was able to appreciate his importance duly'.88 His book Me 'or 'Enayim—Enlightenment to the Eyes—was published in 1572, after an earthquake that struck Ferrara while he was there in November 1570, an earthquake which lasted some ten days. The important part of his book is the third, 'Imrei Binah' (Words of Understanding),+in which Azariah comprehensively discusses the history of Israel and the development of the Bible, while in ch. 60, 'Al Hashirim Ha'mehubarim Bileshon Ha'kodesh'' (On the Poems Composed in the Holy Tongue), he discusses biblical poetry. In his opinion, everybody admitted that they were conscious of a poetic melodiousness while reciting them and that their cantillation differed from that of the rest of the Pentateuch, Prophets and Hagiographa. But nobody knew how to appraise them... My heart told me that the songs of holy Scripture do undoubtedly have measures and structures, but that they do not depend on the number of long or short vowels, as in the norm with poems of our owr times... In some cases, the clause will have two measures which together with the second to which it is attached amounts to four; other have three feet and with the second part amounts to six complete feet... Sometimes, a single verse, and even more so, one song, will contain these two kinds of measures, namely two-two and three-three.. , 89

Azariah gives examples of this with the help of verses from the poetry of the Torah. The Song of the Sea, in his opinion, has four qualities: Your right hand, O LORD, glorious in power Your right hand, O LORD, will shatters the foe.

The Ha'azinu Song has six qualities: Give ear, O heavens, let me speak; Let the earth hear the words I utter.'

And the Song of the Well begins with c, c and continues with b, b: Spring up, O well—sing to it The well which the chieftains dug Which the nobles of the people started With maces, with their own staffs. And from Midbar to Mattanah. 88. I. Zinberg, Toldot Sifrut Yisrael B (History of Israel's Literature) (Tel-Aviv: Y. Sherberk, 1956), pp. 290-95. 89. Me 'or 'Enayim (Vilna, 1866), Chapter 60, pp. 479-80, here following the translation by J. Weinberg, The Light of the Eyes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), pp. 712-13.


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In Azariah's opinion, the key to understanding biblical poetry is the subject, that is, the words, and not the vowels in the words, that is, the syllables.90 The fact that it is possible to count ideas and that when they are counted they represent a regular, balanced pattern, although not all poetic verses meet this criterion, is, in the opinion of A. Berlin,91 the innovation of Azariah. In his words: You should not count the feet nor the words, but only the ideas, and thus it often happens that a small word converges with the adjoining word... It does not surprise me that there are many verses which I am unable to fit into the systems described above—perhaps the exceptions outnumber those that are applicable.92

Azariah's work won a great deal of acclaim among Christians, and in 1660, Chapter 60, the chapter that deals with biblical poetry, was translated into Latin and appeared at the end of Johannes Buxtorf II's (1599-1664) translation ofSefer ha-Kuzari.93 On the other hand, among contemporary Jews, the book received lethal criticism, was excommunicated and even burned.94 The distinction between biblical prose and biblical poetry, and the definition of a large portion of biblical literature as poetry, was made by the English bishop Robert Lowth (1710-87) in his study of 1753.95 Lowth wrote his book Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews*6 under the influence of the book Me 'or 'Enayim by Rabbi Azariah Dei Rossi. Lowth's principal innovation is the determination of the relationship between parts of biblical verse, where he relates to the internal substantive relationship and not to the external relationship that concerned Azariah.97 He defined 90. See also Segal, 'Leheker Tzuratah shel ha-Shira ha-Mikrait', pp. 94-99. 91. Berlin, The Dynamics of Biblical Parallelism, p. 143. 92. Me 'or 'Enayim, Chapter 60, p. 480. The translation is by Weinberg, The Light of the Eyes, pp. 713-14. 93. Johannes Buxtorf II was, like his father, a Swiss Middle East expert. He inherited his post as Professor of Bible at the University of Basel from his father. He was the first to translate Sefer ha-Kuzari into Latin (as stated, in 1660). 94. See Segal, 'Leheker Tzuratah shel ha-Shira ha-Mikrait', p. 96. See also Kugel, The Idea of Biblical Poetry, pp. 200-203, and Berlin, The Dynamics of Biblical Parallelism, pp. 42-44. 95. Robert Lowth, Isaiah: A New Translation with A Preliminary Dissertation and Notes (London, n.p., 1948). 96. De Sacra Poesia Hebraeorum (London, 1835), originally published as Praelections de Sacra Poesi Hebraeorum (Oxford, 1753). 97. That is, the structure of the line and its composition.

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the correspondence between two verses or two lines with the concept of parallelism,98 and in his words: The correspondence of one verse, or line, with another, I call parallelism. When a proposition is delivered and a second is subjoined to it or drawn under it, equivalent, or contrasted with it, in the sense or similar form of grammatical construction, these I call parallel lines; and words or phrases, answering one to another in the corresponding lines, parallel terms."

Further on, he discerns three types of parallelism and gives examples of them:100 1. Parallela synonymous: e.g. Isa. 54.4; Prov. 3.9; and others,101 2. Parallela antithetic: e.g. Prov. 10.1; Ps. 20.8; and others,102 3. Parallela synthetic: e.g. Job 12.13-16; Isa. 58.5; and others.103 That is, Azariah dealt only with the structure of the line and emphasized the 'subjects', that is, the internal relationships of content and concept in each line and their logical connection, whereas Lowth dealt with the structure of the verse and emphasized the external relationships—synonymous, antithetic and synthetic parallels—which are expressed in the rhythm; and as Segal claims, an entire picture of the biblical poem can be obtained by connecting these two theories, which was done toward the end of the eighteenth century by Moses Mendelssohn in his commentary Habiur. In his Foreword to the Song of the Sea, Mendelssohn characterizes biblical poetry and also relates to the difference between it and Greek and Roman poetry. Mendelssohn mentions Azariah explicitly,104 whereas he does not mention Lowth. However, as J.G. Klausner showed,105 there is no doubt that Mendelssohn knew Lowth's work and was influenced by it, although 98. As Gray notes in his book The Forms of Hebrew Poetry Considered, pp. 38-39, parallelism is not a characteristic only of Hebrew literature, but also appears in Babylonian literature, as in the creation epic Enuma Elish and The Epic ofGilgamesh. See also Greenfield, The Hebrew Bible and Canaanite Literature, pp. 549-54. 99. Lowth, Isaiah: A New Translation, p. xiv. 100. While he explicitly notes (Isaiah: A New Translation, p. xv) that he cites his examples from those books which are usually seen as books of poetry, and afterwards from Isaiah, and at times also from other prophets. 101. Lowth, Isaiah: A New Translation, pp. xv-xxiv. 102. Lowth, Isaiah: A New Translation, pp. xxiv-xxvii. 103. Lowth, Isaiah: A New Translation, pp. xxvii-xxxi. 104. In his commentary to the Song of the Sea, Exod. 15. 105. • ha-Historya shel ha-Sifrut ha-Ivrit ha-Hadasha (translated by H. Danby as History of Modern Hebrew Literature) (Jerusalem: Achiasaf, 1960), pp. 71-72.


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he formulated it in his own words. It appears, therefore, that the first to define parallelism clearly as a literary phenomenon characteristic of biblical poetry was Robert Lowth.106 According to A. Berlin,107 since Lowth's definition of parallelism as a characteristic literary phenomenon of biblical poetry, biblical researchers tend to identify parallelism with biblical poetry, with the only dissenting voice being that of J. Kugel in his book The Idea of Biblical Poetry. Kugel claims that it is impossible to distinguish between poetry and prose in the Bible because the typical characteristics of poetry also appear in what is clearly not poetry, like the Mesha Stele.108 Kugel differentiates between regular prose and elevated style, and claims that 'to see biblical style through the split lens of prose or poetry is to distort the view'.109 Indeed, Berlin agrees with Kugel that there are parts of the Bible which have a more elevated style, but in her opinion,110 this elevated style is the result of terseness and parallelism. When those two characteristics occur in high degree this is what everyone except Kugel defines as poetry.111 Berlin's conclusions are that not every parallelism is poetry, but that there is no doubt that parallelism is the most central element in the definition of biblical poetry. As stated above, linguists have also attempted to define poetry. The philologist R. Jakobson112 follows in the wake of Lowth, noting that the dominant characteristic of poetic language is parallelism created by patterns of linguistic equivalence projected into sequences of sounds, accents, 106. Rabbi Menahem Ben Saruq, who preceded Lowth by some eight hundred years, did indeed discern the phenomenon of parallelism, but Ben Saruq's phrasing is awkward and he does not distinguish among the various types of parallelism. 107. Berlin, The Dynamics of Biblical Parallelism, p. 4. 108. Kugel, The Idea of Biblical Poetry, p. 63. 109. Kugel, The Idea of Biblical Poetry, pp. 85ff. 110. Berlin, The Dynamics of Biblical Parallelism, p. 5. 111. Alter disagrees with Kugel regarding the continuity from prose to what Kugel calls elevated style. See R. Alter, 'The Characteristics of Ancient Hebrew Poetry', in Alter and Kermode (eds.), The Literary Guide to the Bible, pp. 611 -24 (612). hi Alter's view, Kugel is at one end of the spectrum of opinion regarding biblical poetry. At the other end of this spectrum, he places Paul Kraus, who in the 1930s, sought to prove that the entire Bible is poetry; in an advanced stage of his work, when he learned that the biblical text does not support this assumption, Kraus took his own life (p. 4). 112. 'PoetryofGrammarandGrammarofPoetry',ZJ«gwa21 (1968),pp. 597-609 (602), and M. Weiss, The Bible From Within: The Method of Total Interpretation (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1984), p. 406. Cf. also Berlin, The Dynamics of Biblical Parallelism, pp. 7-14.

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words, sentences, texts, and so forth. However, there is no parallelism that is unique only to poetry, and not all of poetry is parallelism alone. T. Longman113 speaks of prose and poetry, as poles on a continuum. In addition to terseness and parallelism he notes the use of imagery and meter as characteristic of biblical poetry; even though he is aware that including these two factors as characteristics of biblical poetry is problematic. In the opinion of Y. Kaufmann (1889-1963),114 ancient Israelite poetry, which began to come into existence during the desert period, is rooted in the ancient Hebrew song of the moshelim,U5 and its remnants are: Blessing of Jacob: Song of the Sea: Song of the Well: Blessing of Balaam: Blessing of Moses:

Gen. 49.1-26116 Exod. 15.1-21 Num. 21.14-20 Num. 23-24117 Deut. 33

Y. Kaufmann does not mention the other poetic verses in the Torah.118 M.H. Segal adds a few other verses to the units above:119 Song of Lamech: Curse of Canaan: Blessing of Rebekah: Blessing of the children of Rebekah: Blessing of Isaac to his sons: Song of the Ark: Ha'azinu Song:

Gen. 4.23-24 Gen. 9.25-27 Gen. 24.60 Gen. 25.23 Gen. 27.27-29 Num. 10.35-36 Deut. 32.1-43

Relying on Berlin's definition, I have added two more units to these verses:

113. Literary Approaches to Biblical Interpretation (Michigan: Zondervan, 1987), pp.121-34. 114. Toldot ha-Emunah ha- Yisraelit, B (Tel-Aviv: Bialik Institute/Devir, 1960), p. 150. 115. Indeed, he claims that the ancient poets who preceded Israel were called 'moshelim' ('rulers'). See Kaufmann, Toldot ha-Emunah ha-Yisraelit, pp. 144-45. 116. In noting these verses he was not precise when he delimited the song as ending with v. 26, since v. 27 is also a poetic verse, hi the Blessing of Balaam he also lacked precision, where he classifies chs. 23-24 in Numbers as 'Songs of Balaam', despite the fact that the poetic verses are confined to 23.7-10,18-24, and 24.3-9,15-24. 117. Kaufmann calls these verses 'the Song of Balaam' (see Toldot ha-Emunah ha-Yisraelit, p. 145). 118. Kaufmann also notes Josh. 10.12-13; Judg. 5 and 2 Sam. 1.17-27 as poetic verses. 119. See Segal, Introduction to the Bible, I, pp. 110-18.


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The song at the end of the war with Amalek: Exod. 17.16 Song of the moshelim: Num. 21.27-30

In my opinion, all of these verses meet the basic criteria that define biblical poetry, these being terseness and parallelism, and accordingly can be defined as poetry.

HENDIADYS AS AN AGENT OF RHETORICAL ENRICHMENT IN BIBLICAL POETRY, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO PROPHETIC DISCOURSE

J. Kenneth Kuntz

During my stay at Union Theological Seminary in New York City (195963), I heard my respected professors in biblical studies speak approvingly of several young scholars whose sojourns as graduate students preceded mine. Clearly, one such person was Simon De Vries, who had earned his ThD degree there in 1958. Although Simon's interests in the discipline have been wide-ranging, he has often tarried with the prophetic corpus of the canon. Given his firm grasp of the dynamics of Biblical Hebrew poetry, I wish to pay tribute to Simon's scholarship by offering an essay on a compelling trope of prophetic discourse—hendiadys. 'A horse and a man is more than one, and yet not many'. This citation from William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew is prominently featured in George T. Wright's pioneering essay, 'Hendiadys and Hamlet'.1 Convinced that the famous English dramatist and poet used hendiadys far more freely and frequently than is commonly assumed, Wright offers one of the most rigorous treatments of hendiadys available. Ellen Spolsky charges Wright with having overestimated 'the amount of necessary meaning' in this rhetorical figure.2 Frank Kermode lifts up this first systematic examination of hendiadic discourse in Hamlet as 'a brilliant piece of literary criticism'.3 Above all, Wright is persuasive in his conviction that through their use of hendiadys, 1. George T. Wright, 'Hendiadys and Hamlet', PMLA 96 (1981), pp. 168-93. 2. Ellen Spolsky, 'The Limits of Literal Meaning', New Literary History 19 (1987), pp. 419-40 (423). Early in her article Spolsky states, 'Necessary meaning makes only a small contribution to interpretation, but it is present, crucial, uncancellable, and distinguishable from several less determinate kinds of meaning. Though no longer in the majority party, literal meaning still has a seat in parliament' (pp. 419-20). 3. Frank Kermode, Forms of Attention (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), p. 50.

KUNTZ Hendiadys as an Agent of Rhetorical Enrichment

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gifted poets of the past have achieved new levels of amplification, intensification, and elusiveness. Situated in manifestly diverse social and linguistic contexts, such artists have often been successful in employing this ambiguous yet enriching stylistic figure to distinct advantage. As a trope that is commonly attested in classical writing, it continues to surface in modern language discourse as well. Introductory Issues Claiming as its origin the phrase, EV 5ia Suoiv, meaning 'one through two', hendiadys may be defined as a rhetorical device in which a single complex idea is expressed by two words joined by a coordinating conjunction, rather than by a qualifier and a substantive. If, formally speaking, one component is not subordinated to the other, logically speaking, it is. Hence, in Shakespeare's Macbeth, the expression 'full of sound and fury' (V.v.27) engages coordinate nouns that are understood to mean 'full of furious sound'. Given Kenneth Quinn's astute observation that 'in all forms of writing, a word may be backed up by a near-synonym, either because the right word cannot be found or because an unfamiliar idea seems easier grasped when put two ways',4 it comes as no surprise that such a stylistic mechanism might come into existence and enjoy abundant usage. The writings of Virgil and Shakespeare, which yield many examples of this phenomenon, primarily entail the linking of nouns. Whereas nominal coupling is evident in the contemporary English phrase 'this day and age', verbal hendiadys is evident in the expression 'try and do better' (for 'try to do better'). For vintage adjectival examples we may mention 'hot and bothered' (for 'extremely irritated') and 'null and void' (for 'invalid'). This figure of speech assuredly finds a home in our colloquial English. Nevertheless, in contemporary scholarship the existence of hendiadys has sometimes been only grudgingly accepted or forthrightly denied. Having lost patience with those scholars of rhetoric for whom 'the identification, classification, and labeling of specimens of given stylistic devices becomes an end in itself, linguist Geoffrey N. Leech holds in contempt 'the survival in modern textbooks of figures like hendiadys, which we can value only as curiosities'.5 In Leech's estimation, hendiadys is so rare a 4. Kenneth Quinn, Virgil's 'Aeneid': A Critical Description (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1968), p. 424. 5. Geoffrey N. Leech, A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry (London: Longmans, 1969), p. 4.

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phenomenon that he has been unable to find any certain instance of it in English literature. More than four decades earlier, E. Adelaide Hahn had embarked on what Wright regards as 'a persuasive disparagement of hendiadys in Virgil'.6 In so doing, she espoused a position that would surely win Leech's approval. Based on her inspection of individual passages drawn from that famous first-century BCE Roman poet, Hahn produced a detailed study in which she came to the conclusion that 'whenever Virgil chooses to write as though he had two ideas, he really did have two, and that, accordingly, the term hendiadys is a misnomer, and the phenomenon which it is supposed to describe is non-existent'.7 As Hahn lays out her argument, she insists that all examples of what has been called hendiadys in the work of Virgil are nothing more than examples of hendiadic parallelism. In her estimate, the phrases of Virgil that are at issue consistently yield two substantives that are meant to be kept separate, and since both are of equal importance, no subordination of thought is possible. One substantive never unfolds or augments the other. Even so, this essay fails to commend itself as a balanced endeavor. Moreover, Hahn's assessment of this poet has not evoked widespread scholarly endorsement. For example, Kenneth Quinn, who reaches a substantially different conclusion, contends that Virgil made frequent use of hendiadys and that consistently the second substantive 'sharply limits or corrects the first'.8 At the very least, Hahn is guilty of generalizing from the particular to the universal. Even if her reading of Virgil is fundamentally viable, her claim that the phenomenon does not exist lacks warrant. Those who take the history of this rhetorical figure into account are constrained to admit that despite its Greek name the evidence is wanting that hendiadys was regarded by early Greek grammarians or commentators as a recognizable literary device. Whereas Aristotle, in his treatise on Rhetoric, recognizes such figures as the simile, metaphor, and zeugma (the close relative of hendiadys), he does not refer to hendiadys itself. Yet, as David Sansone is quick to point out, this lack of evidence 'does not, of course, mean that the phenomenon is absent from Greek authors'.9 6. Wright, 'Hendiadys andHamlef, p. 170. 7. E. Adelaide Hahn, 'Hendiadys: Is there Such a Thing?', The Classical Weekly 15.25 (8 May 1922), p. 197. 8. Quinn, Virgil's 'Aeneid', p. 424. 9. David Sansone, 'On Hendiadys in Greek', Glotta: Zeitschriftfur griechische undlateinische Sprache 62 (1984), pp. 16-25 (18).


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The first explicit mention of the term is found in the writings of Servius dating from around 400 CE where it undergoes two misspellings—endiadis and endyadys.10 This Latin grammarian coined the term to describe a figurative device that is pervasive in Virgil's A eneid. It involves the use of two substantives, joined by a conjunction signifying 'and', to denote a single but complex idea. Sansone observes that the expressions that Servius identified as hendiadys all contain 'two nouns in the same case, and each can be paraphrased...by substituting for one of the nouns either a genitive depending on the other noun or a corresponding adjective in agreement with the other noun'.11 The most commonly cited example from Virgil is found in the Georgics (11.192): patens libamus et auro ('we drink from cups and gold'). Ordinarily, English translators suppress the bizarre tenor of this phrasing by judging one of the nouns to be dependent on the other. Hence, the rendering 'We drink from golden cups' readily emerges. In like manner, membris et mole valens ('powerful in limbs and weight'} is customarily translated 'mighty in mass of limb'. Building on the findings of recent scholars of Virgil, Wright insists that the figure of hendiadys cannot be explained away in so facile a manner that it fails to 'account for the poet's deliberate stylistic choice of two parallel substantives instead of what we would call a noun phrase (noun and adjective [golden cups]+or noun and dependent noun [cups of gold])'+.1 Perhaps when Virgil portrays the ceremonial sacrifice at which the faithful consume wine from cups and gold, he wishes to confront his readers with two notions rather than one: for these celebrants, only one kind of sacred vessel and one kind of liquid will do. Similarly, in the Aeneid, Entellus' powerful limbs and his entire massive appearance may in fact be dual items of interest. Thus Wright cogently remarks, 'The et in each phrase precisely registers the separateness and successiveness of the two distinct segments of the event. The perception may even be a triple one—of each idea in turn and then of their combination or fusion.'13 Here Wright might have pressed this line of reasoning one step further by suggesting that the two segments in question would undoubtedly be perceived as standing in creative tension within that combination or fusion. This understanding of hendiadys meshes with that advanced by Kenneth Quinn, who lists the figure among the many devices that disclose Virgil's 10. 11. 12. 13.

Sansone, 'On Hendiadys in Greek', pp. 17-18. Sansone, 'On Hendiadys in Greek', p. 18. Wright, 'Hendiadys and Hamlet', p. 168. Wright, 'Hendiadys and Hamlet', p. 168.

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predilection for coordinating structures over subordinating ones. Though, as a practiced writer, Virgil was acutely aware of the efficacy of an incisive phrase, there is in the poet's syntax that constant assertion that is partly facilitated through a frequent recourse to hendiadys. Scarcely lacking in the ability 'to secure first time a direct hit',14 Virgil seems to have been fond of crafting parallel statements that entailed the coordination of substantives. And whereas it is the case that both substantives exist in their own right, often the second substantive functions either to explain or augment the first. With his habit of regularly establishing the elements of a situation in coordinate syntax, this poet expects his readers to perceive 'the differing flavour of his words in the two arms of the parataxis'.15 Clearly successiveness and separateness may present themselves as equally compelling factors within a given hendiadys. Even so, Wilfred G.E. Watson's textbook generalization about hendiadys is ordinarily quite pertinent as we come to terms with this literary figure: 'the important aspect of hendiadys is that its components are no longer considered separately but as a single unit in combination'.16 They exist for the purpose of expressing a single and inseparable concept.17 Accordingly, the interplay between the components merits careful scrutiny on the part of the beholder. Moreover, the complex character of this rhetorical device underlies Chris Baldick's astute observation that 'the status of this figure is often uncertain, since it cannot be established that the paired words actually express a single idea'.18 When it appears that such is not the case, we dare not attach this kind of identity to the word pair. Hendiadys in English Poetry Whereas hendiadys is mainly celebrated as a poetic ornament in Greek and Latin discourse, it is scarcely absent in English poetry. William Shakespeare, John Milton, Alfred Tennyson, and Dylan Thomas are perhaps the better known English poets who have invited hendiadys into their canon of compelling rhetorical devices. In Milton's Samson Agonistes the hero 14. Quinn, Virgil's 'Aeneid',p.423. 15. Quinn, Virgil's 'Aeneid', p. 426. 16. Wilfred G.E. Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry: A Guide to Its Techniques (JSOTSup, 26; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1984), p. 325. 17. This feature is likewise highlighted in H.A. Brongers' 'Merismus, Synekdoche und Hendiadys in der Bibel-Hebraischen Sprache', OTS 14 (1965), p. 110. 18. Chris Baldick, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 97.


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admits that he is made the spectacle of his enemies, that he is the object of their 'scorn and gaze' (1. 34), and the high-ranking men and women who attend the ill-fated feast of Dagon are depicted as the 'choice nobility and flower'+of the Philistines (1. 1654). In his poem, 'Geriant and Enid', Tennyson intensifies the image of scattered gold coins that lie strewn at the marble threshold of Enid's house by presenting them as 'gold and scattered coins'1 (1.26). And Dylan Thomas' poem, 'Fern Hill', focuses on one who is both 'young and easy under the apple boughs' and 'green and carefree+among the barns'. These are suggestive collocations indeed. Since Shakespeare used hendiadys with extraordinary facility, he must have confronted that figure frequently as a schoolboy. Wright avers that this poet's frequent recourse to hendiadys is 'dazzlingly various'.19 In a given hendiadys of Shakespeare the coordinate structure that emerges can range from the simple to the profound, from that which explicates to that which mystifies. Additionally, his hendiadys 'usually elevates the discourse and blurs its logical lines'.20 Late in Shakespeare's tragicomedy Cymbeline, the villain lachimo says of himself, 'The heaviness and guilt within my bosom takes off my manhood' (V.ii.l). An increased emphasis is achieved through this use of two nouns for the more conventional combination involving a noun and its modifier. Moreover, the singular verb effectively yokes the nouns and creates in us the assumption that heavy guilt is intended.21 The collocation is simple, yet effective. It is crucial, however, that we realize that in many instances hendiadic usage resists logical analysis. Here Wright observes that 'hendiadys, far from explaining mysteries, establishes them'.22 This rhetorical figure, therefore, served Shakespeare exceedingly well as he shaped his tragedies that brood on the darker aspects of human existence.23 And no other 19. Wright, 'Hendiadys andHamlef,+p. 169. 20. Wright, 'Hendiadys andHamlef, p. 171. 21. Miriam Joseph, Shakespeare's Use of the Arts of Language (New York: Hafher, 1966), p. 62. 22. Wright, 'Hendiadys and Hamlet', p. 169. That 'anti-logical overtones' are a characteristic feature of Shakespeare's use of hendiadys is also a matter that Wright emphasizes in his hendiadys entry in Alex Preminger and T.V.F. Brogan (eds.), The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), pp. 515-16. 23. In Forms of Attention, Kermode admits this to be the case, but he is even more fascinated by what he calls the 'central principle of doubling' that governs the play (p. 53). He discerns in Hamlet 'a sort of hierarchy of doublets, with hendiadys as the most complex and the most central' (p. 51).

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Shakespearean play employs this trope more frequently than Hamlet. Let us recall two examples. First, the devious nature of the quest on which Polonius and Reynaldo are embarking is highlighted when the former says to the latter, 'And thus do we of wisdom and of reach by indirections find directions out' (II.i.65-67). Second, a hendiadys consisting of 'the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune' in Hamlet's famous soliloquy (III.i.59) is an artfully constructed portrayal of ambiguous and treacherous human relationships on which the play is centered. For Shakespeare, hendiadys proved to be a truly crucial rhetorical artifice. Having had this limited say about hendiadic discourse in poetic literature beyond the biblical canon, we should find ourselves in a more advantageous position to consider hendiadys as a stylistic phenomenon in the poetry of the Hebrew Bible itself. Hendiadys in the Hebrew Bible Admittedly, our topic has scarcely dominated biblical studies. In their Handbook of Biblical Criticism, Richard N. and R. Kendall Soulen identify hendiadys as 'the name for a form of syntactic coordination in which two or more terms are joined by the use of "and" (KCU), rather than by subordinating one term to the other, as, e.g., adjective to noun', and list but one example from the Greek New Testament (Mk. 6.26).24 They do not admit explicitly to the existence of hendiadys within the poetry and prose of the Hebrew Bible. Yet, given the rather limited number of adjectives and adverbs that surface in Biblical Hebrew, it is entirely understandable that in their quest for other avenues of modification, many framers of both prose and poetic discourse looked to hendiadys as an ally. Among the better known introductory grammars of Biblical Hebrew, only one concerns itself with hendiadys, namely that of Thomas O. Lamdin, in which he provides a section entitled, 'Verbal Hendiadys and Related Idioms'.25 Lambdin's opening sentence on the topic clearly shows what he has in mind: 'In the construction wayydsob wayyebek ("and he wept again"), the two verbs are simply coordinated, both having the form as required by the narrative sequence in which they occur, but in meaning the first serves to qualify the second and is best translated adverbially in 24. Richard N. and R. Kendall Soulen, Handbook of Biblical Criticism (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 3rd edn, 2001), p. 72. 25. Thomas O. Lambdin, Introduction to Biblical Hebrew (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971), pp. 238-40.


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English'.26 Included among Lambdin's examples is umihartem wehoradtem 'et- 'dbi henna ('Andyou shall quickly bring my father down here'), which is part of Joseph's command to his brothers in Gen. 45.13. The NRSV and the JPSV translations are representative of renderings of this verse in contemporary English. The former reads, 'Hurry and bring my father down here', and the latter, 'bring my father here with all speed'. Surely the latter rendering is more accepting of the hendiadys. Lambdin also provides examples of asyndetic hendiadic constructions. Among them is sub sekdb ('Lie down again'), an imperative situated in Eli's speech to the boy Samuel in 1 Sam. 3.5. Once more, a logical reading of these coordinate verbs demands our recognition that the first verb is subordinated to the task of qualifying the second. The figure of hendiadys receives varied treatment in more advanced Hebrew grammars. Though Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar shows no interest in hendiadys, two respected studies of Hebrew syntax accord it some consideration, namely Ronald J. Williams' Hebrew Syntax11 and Bruce K. Waltke and M. O'Connor's An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax.2* Yet, apart from providing a list of twenty-one such specimens from the Hebrew Bible, Williams offers the briefest of explanations, merely noting that by means of hendiadys, 'a single concept may be expressed by two words linked by the conjunction we'.29 In Waltke and O'Connor's grammar, hendiadys is specifically mentioned in the authors' discussion of (1) complex nominal constructions, (2) adjectival modifiers, (3) copulative waw, and (4) conjunctive waw. In discussing complex nominal constructions, they isolate Jer. 6.7 which yields the phrase hamas wdsodyissdma' bd ('violence and destruction resound in her') as an example of hendiadys. Here Waltke and O'Connor rightly point to 'the juxtaposition of two nouns as a single referent'.30 And in discussing the conjunctive waw, they explain that it 'serves to join two clauses which describe interrelated or overlapping situations not otherwise logically related'.31 This directly bears on our topic since on occasion pairs of such clauses constitute a hendiadys. 26. Lambdin, Introduction to Biblical Hebrew, p. 238. 27. Ronald J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2nd edn, 1976), p. 16. 28. Bruce K. Waltke and M. O'Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990), pp. 70, 73-74, 540, 653-54. 29. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, p. 16. 30. Waltke and O'Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, p. 70. 31. Waltke and O'Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, p. 653.

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E.A. Speiser may be named as one among a few prominent scholars who have demonstrated some fascination for hendiadys in the course of their exegesis of specific biblical texts. As Speiser provides supporting documentation for his assertion that 'a faithful translation is by no means the same thing as a literal rendering',32 he devotes three reasonably full paragraphs in his 'Introduction' to this trope.33 For him to name hendiadys as a 'method' seems idiosyncratic, but his working definition is illuminating: 'two formally coordinated terms—verbs, nouns, or adjectives—[are] joined by "and" [to] express a single concept in which one of the components defines the other'.34 Speiser is rightly aware that in Biblical Hebrew not all hendiadic constructions call for the coupling of substantives. The twinning can also entail verbs or adjectives. Although he admits that on occasion the translator's failure to perceive this 'added nuance' need not be damaging, he maintains that an accurate translation of Gen. 3.16 fully depends upon our detecting the presence of hendiadys. If a literal rendering of the Hebrew in that verse turns Yahweh's disclosure to the woman into a statement of illogical sequence, 'I will multiply greatly your pain and your conception' ('isfbonek vtfheronek),+the verbal hendiadys urges that the rendering be 'pangs in childbearing'.35 The coordinate phrase itself is eliminated from the translation, which also accords with the recommendation of H.A. Brongers, who on stylistic grounds argues that in most instances an elimination (Ausmerzung) is the best tactic to take in approaching such a Hebraism.36 It is not unusual for hendiadys to present itself at prominent collocations within the biblical text. For example, in Gen. 1.2, at the outset of the Priestly creation account, we are informed that in its original state, the earth was tohu wdbohu ('formless and void'). This nominal hendiadys, with its striking assonance, readily invites the rendering 'formless void' (so NRSV; 'formless waste' in Speiser). Thus, Gen. 1.2 offers a circumstantial nominal clause which declares that at this juncture, the earth was yet a desert waste. 32. E.A. Speiser, Genesis: Introduction, Translation, and Notes (AB, 1; Garden City, NY: Doublelday, 1964), p. Ixvi. 33. Speiser, Genesis, p. Ixx. 34. Speiser, Genesis, p. Ixx. 3 5. Identifying this coordinate construction as ' a typical hendiadys', Claus Westermann says it means 'the pains that childbearing will bring you' (Genesis 1-11: A Commentary [Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984], p. 262). 36. Brongers, 'Merismus, Synekdoche und Hendiadys', p. 110.


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No less prominent is the first of several hendiadic elements that significantly enrich the poetic discourse in the Song of the Sea (Exod. 15.1-18). Standing near the head of this ancient poem in v. 2 is the first-person affirmation of the poet, 'ozzi wezimratyd+('My strength and my might.is Yah'). Here is a hendiadys of sturdy hymnic confession that might well be translated, 'My mighty fortress is Yah'.37 Four other instances of hendiadys in this one hymn also merit mention. First, just a few lines later in v. 4 we meet the hendiadys martebotpar 'oh v^helo ('the chariots of Pharaoh and his army'). What is said to have been 'cast into the sea' is not both chariots and the remainder of the army, but Pharaoh's chariot force as a single entity. This invites the translation, 'Pharaoh's chariot army'. Second, a break-up of a hendiadic phrase and its redistribution into two different locations within the bicolon seems to lie behind the use of the words behasdeka ('in your steadfast love') and be'ozzeka ('with your might') in v. 13: 'You led in your steadfast love the people whom you redeemed; / you guided them with your might to your holy abode' ,38 Third, in v. 14 mention of Philistia's anguish over Israel's entry into the land of Canaan is expressed in the asyndetic hendiadys, sdme 'u 'ammim yirgazun ('the peoples heard and trembled'). Here a simultaneous response to encroaching danger is deftly conveyed. This colon to be rendered 'trembling, the peoples heard' hosts a verb pair that conveys the same reciprocal relationship that is characteristic of nominal hendiadys. Fourth, the presence of a singular verb (tippdl) at the head of v. 16 offers sufficient indication that the two nouns 'emdtd wapahad (''terror and dread'') form a hendiadys denoting how 'the dwellers in Canaan' (v. 15) reacted to Israel's penetration into their land: 'dreadful terror fell upon them'. Even though the poetry of Exod. 15.1-18 may strike us as extraordinary in its proclivity for hendiadys, this trope is no stranger to Biblical Hebrew poetry in general as our analysis of selected prophetic texts will now demonstrate. Hendiadys in the Poetry of the Prophets Although it is not the focus of this essay, we would do well to recognize that hendiadys is no stranger to prophetic prose. One well-known example 37. In agreement with David Noel Freedman in his essay, 'Strophe and Meter in Exodus 15', in idem, Pottery, Poetry, and Prophecy: Collected Essays on Hebrew Poetry (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1980), pp. 163-203 (195), who, in turn, credits E.M. Good with this insight ('Exodus XV.2', VT2Q [1970], p. 358-59). 38. See also Freedman, 'Strophe and Meter in Exodus 15', p. 211.

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is attested in Jon. 1.11 and repeated verbatim two verses later. Seeking to reclaim the recalcitrant Jonah, Yahweh hurls a mighty wind against the sea that severely challenges the mariners guiding the boat on which Jonah has taken passage. The phrase ki hayyam holek weso 'er yields an effective hendiadys. The two verbs enlisted are participles (literally, 'going and storming'} that readily denote that the storm at sea was escalating. Phyllis Trible aptly claims that parallel images 'underscore the intensity of the situation'.39 Moreover, in a prose conclusion to a mocking dirge against Babylon and its king, Isa. 14.22 enlists a hendiadys in order to underscore the full-scale destruction of the city as a people: Yahweh resolves to cut off nin waneked ('offspring and progeny', rendered 'kith and kin' in the JPSV translation). No descendant whatever is expected to remain. But what is knowable about this rhetorical device as it surfaces in the poetic disclosures of biblical Israel's prophets? Three categories of hendiadys may be differentiated—nominal, verbal, and adjectival. Clearly, the nominal category is more pervasive than the verbal and the adjectival category is attested least of all. Yet all three categories serve the needs of poetic prophetic discourse. Nominal Hendiadys In the book of Isaiah, the nominal category is well represented. As Yahweh's lawsuit against Israel unfolds in Isa. 1.2-20, various ritual practices are rejected. But why are they odious to the deity? A hendiadic colon in v. 13 offers the initial answer. The deity thunders, 'I cannot abide the iniquitous solemn assembly"". The hendiadys consists of a pair of linked terms, 'awen wa '"sard, meaning 'iniquity and assembly". Two nouns specify one criticism: Yahweh has no intention of enduring the worship enterprise of an immoral people that undercuts authentic ritualistic practice and its underlying motivation. Manifesting artful alliteration, Isa. 5.6 and 9.17 both yield a nominal hendiadys, samir \vasayit, that may be rendered 'briers and thistles'. We are not to infer that the first noun denotes a thorny bush that is prickly in its totality and is thus distinguishable from the second noun that denotes a bush whose prickliness is limited to its leaves. Collectively the two terms call to mind a thriving bramble patch. In Isa. 5.6 this is what the formerly coveted vineyard of Yahweh has sadly become; in Isa. 9.17 the bramble patch that is consumed by fire serves as a brilliant image for escalating 39. Phyllis Trible, Rhetorical Criticism: Context, Method, and the Book of Jonah (Minneapolis: Fortress Press), p. 143.

KuNTZ Hendiadys as an Agent of Rhetorical Enrichment

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wickedness that defies containment. Of course, the effectiveness of this nominal pair does not depend upon the listener's or reader's ability to establish a precise botanical identification. Like the previous hendiadys in Isa. 1.13, this word-pair in Isa. 5.6 and 9.17 enlivens the discourse that develops Yahweh's case against his covenant people. A negative image is also projected in Isa. 51.19 whose chiastically arranged cola host a double hendiadys. In his discussion of hendiadys, Watson highlights this superb poetic artifice, noting that 'the prophet refers to two events, but in fact mentions four—or, rather, two sets of words in tandem'.40 Watson's translation reads, 'These two disasters have overtaken you, / Who can console you? / destructive desolation, I stabbing starvation, I Who can comfort you?' Reflecting on Jerusalem's punitive downfall that was wrought by Babylonian forces whose deeds brought Yahweh's will to fruition, Deutero-Isaiah first juxtaposes two nouns, hassod wehasseber, meaning 'destruction and shattering', and immediately juxtaposes two others, hard 'db ^hahereb, meaning 'famine and sword'. While the initial nominal pair may be assessed as a more conspicuous instance of hendiadys than its successor, surely the latter targets one reality, not two. Watson's rendering of the Hebrew as 'stabbing starvation' is cogent. Isaiah 53.8 illustrates how an obscure verse in the Hebrew Bible is made more accessible when a hendiadic construction is detected. As the fourth Servant Song (52.13-53.12) elaborates on the intense suffering of Yahweh's faithful servant, mention is made of his removal from the human scene and subsequent burial. The opening colon of this verse yields me'dser umimmispat luqqdh. Whereas the RSV settles on a literal rendering, 'By oppression and judgment he was taken away', the NRSV and JPSV translations present more felicitous readings that presumably capitalize on the hendiadys. The former reads, 'By a perversion of justice he was taken away' and the latter, 'By oppressive judgment he was taken away'. The ubiquitous noun mispdt poses no problem, but its predecessor, 'oser, a noun attested but three times in the Hebrew Bible, is less confidently rendered. If in Ps. 107.39 and Isa. 53.8 this noun denotes some form of oppression, in the latter instance it is better understood when construed as a term that modifies the noun that immediately follows. Calling to mind one event and not two, the hendiadys readily invites the rendering, 'By oppressive judgment'. Finally, a discussion of nominal hendiadys in the book of Isaiah dare not slight the initial colon in Isa. 35.8 that is activated by a singular verb: 40. Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry, p. 326.

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wehayd sam maslul waderek ('and a highway and a road shall appear there'). Cast as a stirring oracle of salvation, Isa. 35.1-10 meditates on the return of the exiles from Babylon to Zion. In anticipation of the return of Yahweh's redeemed and dispersed people, the prophet envisions a pilgrim's highway that traverses the wilderness. Successive cola depict a conspicuous and sacred road (derek haqqodes) that is solely available to Yahweh's own people. As a hapax legomenon, the noun maslul ('highway') is buttressed by the far more familiar noun derek, Yitzhak Avishur's rendering of this hendiadys as 'a paved road' is commendable.41 The dual terminology for 'road' along with a reiteration of the more commonly known term in the colon that immediately follows help to establish the significance of this thoroughfare. The book of Jeremiah is less rigorous in attesting nominal hendiadys in its poetry than is the book of Isaiah. Even so, it hosts several noteworthy instances. In Jer. 3.2, when the prophet fervently seeks to call Judah's citizens to accountability for their continuing infidelity toward the deity, Jeremiah draws on the husband-wife imagery that Hosea had already put to definitive use. He charges wife Judah with having defiled the land: 'You have polluted the land / with your shameful harlotry'. A literal rendering of that defilement yields 'with your harlotry and with your wickedness' (biznutayik ubera 'atek). Since it is unlikely that Jeremiah is rebuking his contemporaries for having committed unspecified crimes in addition to acting unfaithfully,.'your shameful harlotry'+is a viable rendering of this hendiadys.42 As Jeremiah's rhetoric in the previous chapter has already clarified, Yahweh's case against Judah is primarily focused on its senseless and outrageous engagements in infidelity. The hendiadic discourse in Jer. 3.2 offers powerful reinforcement. Four instances of nominal hendiadys in poetic prophetic discourse entail a juxtaposing of the nouns hamas ('violence') and sod ('destruction'). In Jer. 6.7, 20.8, and Amos 3.10 hamas opens the hendiadys, but that task falls to sod in Hab. 1.3. The poem in Jer. 6.1-8 portrays Jerusalem as a city under siege by the Babylonian army that intrudes at Yahweh's bidding. In 41. Yitzhak Avishur, Stylistic Studies of Word-Pairs in Biblical and Ancient Semitic Literatures (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1984), p. 109. 42. Understanding the nouns to be equivalent, William L. Holliday (Jeremiah 1 [Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986], p. 114) thinks it 'certainly possible' that Jer. 3.2 hosts a hendiadic construction. William McKane (A Critical andExegetical Commentary on Jeremiah [ICC; 2 vols.; T. & T. Clark, 1986], I, p. 60) recognizes the hendiadys and translates 'the evil of your harlotry'.


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the last three verses Yahweh offers the rationale for having reversed his patronage of the city: wickedness abounds like a reservoir of water that continuously renews itself. Enlisting a singular verb, the third colon in v. 7 reads hamas wasod yissama' bd ('violence and destruction is heard in her'). Robert Carroll interprets this word-pair as a decisive denotation of outrage, 'the shout of those set upon by thugs'.43 Although this literary unit does not put us on notice to contrast the meaning of one member of the word-pair with the other, Hans Walter Wolff submits that ordinarily hamas entails violence against persons and sod violence against property.44 More importantly, we may infer that this nominal coupling is laden with richer meaning than would have been the case if only one of these two nouns had been used. Hosting its own hendiadys, the colon that immediately follows reads, 'before me [Yahweh] continually are sickness and wound' (h°li umakkd). Even though these yoked nouns lack a finite verb (presumably one in the singular), they confront the reader with a single image—a city whose morally corrupt citizens have plunged it into a debilitating illness. Clearly, Avisur's translation, 'a wound of sickness', makes good sense of the text.45 As a fixed pair, hamas wdsod emerges in a lament of Jeremiah (20.7-13) in which he charges God with having enticed him into a mission that has made him a laughingstock and object of ridicule. He complains that whenever he speaks, he must shout, 'Violence and destruction!' (v. 8). Such speaking has set Jeremiah's contemporaries against him. The prophet's forthright cry about Judah's situation calls to mind Jer. 6.7, where we first took note of this hendiadys. Then in Amos 3.10 the proclivity of the ruling class to store up ('sr) 'violence and destruction in their fortresses' is advanced as compelling evidence that 'they know not how to do right'. It is profitable for the ruling elites to engage in grossly unethical behavior. In light of his understanding of these two nouns that we have previously noted, Wolff infers that the rich 'have imported murder and robbery right into their homes, in the form of their luxurious furnishings'.46 Finally, the nouns hamas and sod surface in close association in Habakkuk to yield a felicitous shorthand description of societal collapse. In his 43. Robert P. Carroll, Jeremiah: A Commentary (OIL; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1986), p. 193. 44. Hans Walter Wolff, Joel and Amos (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), p. 194. 45. Avishur, Stylistic Studies of Word-Pairs, p. 107. 46. Wolff, Joel and Amos, p. 194.

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initial complaint to Yahweh, the prophet protests, 'Destruction and violence are before me' (sod wehdmds lenegdi, 1.3c). With the conventional nominal sequence reversed, this hendiadys is no less effective in exposing social decadence that seems not to concern Yahweh. This colon is buttressed by the next in which rib and madon are closely linked: 'and there disputation and contention rises up' (1.3d). Perceiving the second noun as attributive, Francis I. Andersen submits that the focus of the first element in this nominal hendiadys is sharpened by the second: 'while rib can cover any kind of quarrel in many settings, madon has more legal associations'.47 Together these cola confer on the prophet's complaint a dramatic effectiveness. One other nominal hendiadys in Jeremiah merits mention. In an oracle concerning the Zion community (30.12-17), the prophet declares that whereas Yahweh desired that sinful Zion suffer ostensibly incurable wounds and desertion, he now desires that Zion be healed and its oppressors suffer ruin. This oracle consists of two strophes, the first (vv. 12-15) focusing on the painful present, the second (vv. 16-17) on what lies in store. In v. 13 the particle 'en, denoting lack, is constitutive for both cola. Speaking for Yahweh, the prophet informs Zion, 'There is no one to uphold your cause, / there is no remedy, no healing for you' (r^pu '6t te 'did 'en lak). The missing repetition of 'en lak shows the phrase to be one semantic unit. Avishur embraces Jer. 30.13b as an appositional hendiadys since the term r*pu 'dt and its apposition /* 'did 'appear without any connective waw'.48 The hendiadic colon in v. 13b appreciably contributes to the vivid depiction of the people's plight that this strophe is intent on establishing. To expand our discussion of nominal hendiadys in poetic prophetic discourse, let us consider two examples each from the books of Micah and Habakkuk, and one each from the books of Joel, Amos, Jonah and Zephaniah. (1) Micah 2.1-5 hosts a judgment oracle focused on the wealthy in Judean society who plot against the poor by laying claim to what is not lawfully theirs. If v. 1 is devoted to a general condemnation of evildoers, v. 2 invests itself in specifics. The covetous wealthy seize fields and households. Their violent actions lead to the foreclosing of family farms. 47. Francis I. Andersen, Habakkuk: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB, 25; New York: Doubleday, 2001), p. 118. 48. Yitzhak Avishur, 'Pairs of Synonymous Words in the Construct State (and in Appositional Hendiadys) in Biblical Hebrew', Semitics 2 (1971), pp. 17-81 (66). He cites nine examples from the prophetic corpus: Isa. 25.12; 30.13, 33; 33.9; 54.5; Jer. 30.13; Hos. 7.15; Hab. 2.6; 3.11.


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Francis I. Andersen and David Noel Freedman render the second bicolon, 'and they [evildoers] defrauded a man and his house, I and a man and his estate', thereby highlighting the hendiadys that divides itself over the bicolon. Accordingly, they read beto...wenahalatd as 'his patrimonial property'.49 (2) Another oracle in Micah berating the wealthy (6.9-16) yields a nominal hendiadys that is split across two cola. In v. 12ab Yahweh is depicted as railing against Jerusalem, 'whose rich men are full of lawlessness, / and whose inhabitants speak treachery'. The hendiadys consists of '"sireyha... wtyo^beyha. Certainly those whom Micah vehemently criticizes are one and the same—Jerusalem's wealthy residents who avariciously victimize the poor. Both the favored financial status and the urban residency of the oppressors are at issue. (3) Both hendiadic constructions in Habakkuk that concern us are appositional in nature. The first appears in a rhetorical question advanced in Hab. 2.6ab that introduces a series of five proverbial sayings, each of which targets an identifiable feature of Babylonian imperialism. Assuming an international consensus that stands in strong opposition to Babylonian hegemony and its oppressive tactics, the prophet asks, 'Shall not all these lift up a taunt against him, / in scoffing derision of him?' Watson summons this verse to explain that a hendiadys in biblical poetry may be suspected when one term in a given colon is matched by two terms in its mate.50 The noun masal in v. 6a, rendered above as 'taunt', finds its counterpart in two nouns in v. 6b that are juxtaposed asyndetically—melisd ('allusive saying' or 'satire') and hidot ('riddles' or 'enigmas'). These two substantives are rendered 'mocking riddles' in the NRSV and 'a pointed epigram' in the IPS translation. Even though precise English equivalents are not easily obtainable, two things are clear. First, all three nouns seek to categorize the genre of the proverbial sayings that will immediately unfold; second, the two terms in v. 6b jointly answer to their single antecedent in v. 6a. (4) As Yahweh's theophanic intervention is portrayed in Habakkuk 3, the initial colon in v. 11 reads semes ydreah 'amad zebuld ('sun, moon stands still on high'). An appositional hendiadys immediately prefaces a singular verb. Avishur regards this nominal twinning as an instance of

49. Francis I. Andersen and David Noel Freedman, Micah: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB, 24E; New York: Doubleday, 2000), pp. 257,269. 50. Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry, p. 325.

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'poetical hyperbole' .51 Presumably, the other two cola in v. 11 suggest that as the deity battles cosmic chaos, the brilliance of his weaponry eclipses both sun and moon. In any event, the asyndetic mention of these two heavenly lights is noteworthy. (5) The nominal word-pair, simhd ('joy') andgf/ ('gladness'), assumes the form of a hendiadys in Joel 1.16 as the prophet proclaims the imminence of the day of Yahweh. Seeking confirmation from his audience, Joel frames a rhetorical question, 'Is not food cut off before our eyes, I joy and gladness from the house of our God?' With devastated fields no longer yielding grain and drink (vv. 10,13), the daily temple service was in serious jeopardy. Jerusalem's worshipers would be robbed of this splendid venue for rejoicing in Yahweh's blessing. With one substantive augmenting the other, this hendiadys sets the enormity of this cultic privation into bold relief. (6) After Amos indicts those who wallow in conspicuous luxury (Amos 6.1-7), he lifts up for ridicule (6.8) what Shalom M. Paul perceives as 'a current slogan or shibboleth in Samaria'.52 This is thege'6nya >aqob ('the pride of Jacob') that Yahweh claims he 'detests' (t'b). The suffixed noun w6 'armenotdyw+('and its citadels') that immediately follows denotes the sturdy fortifications that Yahweh claims he 'hates' (sn'). Jacob's misplaced confidence is all the more manifest if we accept the suggestion of Andersen and Freedman that g6 'on and 'arm enot be construed as a hendiadys, namely, 'the majestic citadels of Jacob'.53 (7) In the Jonah psalm, the protagonist holds Yahweh responsible for having cast him into the deep (2.4 [Eng. 3]). Engulfed by the floods, Jonah protests, 'all your breakers and your waves swept over me'. Through this hendiadys, misbareykd wegalleyka, he alerts the deity that he is presently overwhelmed by the primeval waters of chaos (precisely replicating the language of Ps. 42.8cd [Eng. 7cd]). This coordinate structure points to one terrifying reality. (8) Finally, we turn to Zeph. 3.19-20. This concluding editorial element in the book of Zephaniah promises that the formerly scorned Jerusalem will be blessed by a dramatic reversal of fortune. Here a hendiadys is

51. Avishur, 'Pairs of Synonymous Words', p. 71. 52. Shalom M. Paul, Amos: A Commentary on the Book of Amos (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), p. 214. 53. Francis I. Andersen and David Noel Freedman, Amos: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB, 24A; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1989), p. 571.


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minted in one verse, only to find its mirror reflection in the next. In v. 19 Yahweh says of Jerusalem, 'I will change their shame into praise and renown (lithilld+ulesem)in all the earth'. Then in v. 20 Yahweh says to Jerusalem, 'I will make you renowned and praised (lesem vflithilld)+among all the peoples of the earth'. In both verses the substantives Fhilla ('praise') and sem ('name') exist in tandem, but what appears first in one hendiadys appears last in the other. With one noun backed up with a near-synonym, these hope-filled disclosures are made all the more compelling. Verbal Hendiadys Even though this category of coupling is not as prevalent in poetic prophetic discourse as is its nominal counterpart, the books of Isaiah and Hosea incorporate several noteworthy examples. We begin with an appositional verbal hendiadys that is discernible in Isa. 33.9. The poetic lines in Isa. 33.7-9 reflect a period of social unrest set in motion by military disaster, perhaps during the Assyrian assault on Judah in 701 BCE. The initial colon in v. 9 reads 'dbal 'umMd 'ares ('the land mourns, languishes'1}. By naming four specific geographical regions (Lebanon, Sharon, Bashan, and Carmel), this verse claims that extensive territory has suffered disruption. As a summarizing statement, the opening hendiadic colon presents the war-torn land's grieving and withering as one manifestation of the present crisis. In prose and poetry alike, Isaiah 38 reports Hezekiah's illness and recovery. The poetic segment (w. 10-20) imparts a thanksgiving psalm attributable to Judah's king. As is customary for that genre, the first words to surface are those of complaint. As a superb example of figuration, the initial bicolon in v. 12 reads, 'My dwelling is pulled up and removed from me / like a shepherd's tent'. Adjacent niphal perfect verbs linked by a conjunction yield the hendiadys: nissa' v^nigld. The action is presented as simultaneous. Then in the final colon of v. 16 Hezekiah implores Yahweh, 'Revive me and restore me'.54 Here the hendiadys consists of adjacent hiphil suffixed imperatives linked by a conjunction: hahalimeni^hahayeni. Clearly, the king's request for revival anticipates one undertaking by the deity, not two. For double hendiadic formulations enlisting verbs, we turn to Isa. 28.23 and 29.9. In Isa. 28.24-29 the prophet frames an agricultural parable that

54. Following the Syriac version, we emend the first verb in the hendiadys from a perfect to an imperative, thus changing the taw consonant to a he.

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draws an analogy between the farmer's wisdom and God's—both act skillfully in diverse situations. That parable is prefaced by a hendiadic bicolon (v. 23) in which Isaiah as a wisdom teacher urges his audience, perhaps an intimate support group, to lend him its undivided attention. Four masculine plural imperative forms that dominate the bicolon are so arranged that the first two, ha 'azinu wfsim 'u, yield one hendiadys, and the last two, haqsibu v^sim 'u, yield yet another. Isaiah proclaims, 'Give ear and hear my voice, I pay attention and hear my speech'. The second imperative in each pair is identical. These formulations deftly convey Isaiah's fervent desire that his words be attended. Isaiah 29.9-16 offers a compositional unit that is dramatic in its claim that Judah's citizens lack the talent to discern traces of Yahweh's work in their time and place. It opens with a dual hendiadic formulation (v. 9ab) in which the prophet invites his audience to lapse into one emotional state— being dumbfounded! The four imperatives comprising this bicolon convey striking assonance: hitmahmehu uFmahii I hista 'as 'u wdso 'u ('Act astoundedly and be astounded, I act blindingly and be blinded*}. In each case the hendiadys is activated by two forms of the same root. Hithpael and qal imperatives derive from tmh in the first member of the bicolon; hithpalpel and qal imperatives derive from s"+in the second. We may surmise that this hendiadic discourse compensates for the lack of any single term that answers to what the prophet is foremost intent on saying by way of summons. Three instances of verbal hendiadys in the book of Hosea invite brief inspection. First, Hos. 7.15 particularizes the prophet's claim that Yahweh has lavished attention on a people whose obstinate response is one of ingratitude. Within a larger context (7.13-16) that finds Hosea criticizing his contemporaries for their bankrupt lifestyle, the bicolon in 7.15 reads, ' Although I trained, strengthened their arms, /they plot evil against me'. An appositional hendiadys consisting ofyissarti hizzaqti appears on the heels of the emphatic personal pronoun 'ani. Of the two verbs employed (ysr and hzq), the first recalls Israel's trek in the wilderness when Yahweh disciplined his people as a parent trains a child. A twinning of verbs handsomely calls attention to the distant past when the deity diligently equipped his own. Second, as the poetry in Hosea 2 portrays the experience of Hosea's wife who has defected from her husband, it enlists first-person speech not only to spotlight her desire to pursue other lovers (v. 7 [Eng. v. 5]), but also to make vivid her new resolve to rejoin him (v. 9 [Eng. v. 7]. The latter speech offers a verbal coupling of cohortatives: 'I mil go


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and return to my first husband' ('el e kd w6 'dsubd). To be sure, this hendiadys is native to our own speaking. Third, in Hos. 12.3-7 (Eng. 2-6) we encounter Hosea's depiction of Israel's eponymous ancestor Jacob. There he undertakes a succinct poetic summary of Gen. 32.23-33 (Eng. 22-32) that narrates Jacob's wrestling with God at the Jabbok. As Hosea refracts this tradition, he states that Jacob strove with an angel of God and in so doing 'wept and implored him' (bakd wayyithannen, v. 5 [Eng. 4]). As is likewise evident in Est. 8.3, with reference to Esther, this hendiadys exploits two verbs, bkh and hnn, for the purpose of depicting a single act of intense supplication. Adjectival Hendiadys Although the prophets rarely enlist this twinning category in their speech, it is discernible in Isa. 29.5 and Joel 3.4 (Eng. 2.31). The former example enlivens the poetry of Isaiah 29 as it depicts Yahweh's siege and subsequent deliverance of Jerusalem. The final colon of v. 5 and the initial colon of v. 6 declare, 'And in an instant suddenly I you will be visited by Yahweh of Hosts'. Here the prophet mints an appositional hendiadys (peta' pit 'dm) in order to signal the alarmingly abrupt onset of the siege. With apocalyptic overtones, the latter example in Joel 3.4 (Eng. 2.31) anticipates the impending day of Yahweh that will be preceded by cosmic signals: 'The sun will be turned to darkness, / and the moon to blood, / before the day of Yahweh comes—greatly awesome'. This adjectival hendiadys, haggadol wehannora', weds the adjective gadol ('great') with the niphal participle of the rootyr' as adjectival modifier. Though not engaged as elements of a hendiadys, these modifiers previously surface in Joel 2.11 to portray the day of Yahweh as an overpowering event that inflicts Judah with terror. Presently, these directly linked modifiers portend a new day when other nations will undergo the terror while the faithful of Yahweh are delivered. Conclusion In the poetry of the prophets, nominal hendiadys is the favored category of coupling. To be sure, several examples we have noted are rhetorically compelling: 'by oppressive judgment+he was taken away' (Isa. 53.8); 'you have polluted the land / with your shameful harlotry' (Jer. 3.2); and 'the majestic citadels of Jacob' (Amos 6.8). Such a verbal hendiadys as 'my dwelling is pulled up and removed from me' (Isa. 38.12) is unmistakably expressive.

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In the final analysis, hendiadys has been, and remains, a significant resource for many talented communicators. Through hendiadic transformations, relatively colorless adjectival phrases are elevated into striking coordinate phrases that induce listeners and readers to take notice. If Macbeth had claimed that life is but 'a tale told by an idiot, full of furious sound', rather than 'full of sound and fury' as he did claim (V.v.27), William Faulkner might still have produced a stream of consciousness novel in which one of the central characters is an idiot, but the title of that novel might have been entirely different. Surely Shakespeare's hendiadys worked its way into the psyche of this highly accomplished American novelist. Moreover, hendiadys serves well those communicators, writers and speakers alike, who truly appreciate the power of repetition as a compelling mode of discourse. Quinn ruminates, 'Repeating an idea for rhetorical emphasis or for rhythmical effect is as old, probably, as the first awakening of man's pleasure in words'.55 As we accept the invitation to take pleasure in the words of biblical Israel's prophets, and hopefully resist the temptation to take too much pleasure in our own words about their words, we would do well to encounter their hendiadic expressions with a welcoming posture. In so doing, we shall be in a better position to fathom the diverse shades of meaning in the play of the text itself. And with enhanced sensitivity, we will realize anew that art and meaning intersect in multifarious and marvelous ways.

55. Quinn, Virgil's 'Aeneid',p.423.

Two STUDIES IN ISAIAH John D.W. Watts

It is a privilege to be able to contribute to this volume in honor of my friend, Simon John De Vries. Our work together on the Word Biblical Commentary volume on 1 Kings was a pleasure. He made a distinctive contribution to the series. The T Speeches in Isaiah and the Proper Names in Isaiah 42.19 E.W. Conrad1 focused his reading of the book of Isaiah as a literary text on 'the function of its narratives, the interaction of narration and poetry, the interplay of narrative voices, and the relation between the narrators and poetic personae'. He isolated one group of the 'poetic personae' to study in 'we' speeches and songs in the book.2 In this paper I propose to look at another of the 'personae' created by the text. The great drama of the Vision of Isaiah creates three central personalities or characters who present its prophetic message. The central character and speaker is Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel, patron of Jerusalem and its temple. The second is Isaiah son of Amoz, the eighth-century prophet who walked with kings (7.1-16; 20; 36-39). The third is the person who narrates portions in the first person T form in passages that appear throughout the book. This study deals with this third character who appears in the T speeches and report a suggestion concerning his identity. 1. E.W. Conrad, Reading Isaiah (Overtures to Biblical Theology, 27; Minneapolis: Augsburg Press, 1991), p. 30. 2. Conrad, Reading Isaiah, pp. 83-117. For other treatments of newer literary methods of reading the Old Testament, see the works of John Barton: Reading the Old Testament: Method in Biblical Study (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984), especially pp. 158-78; Oracles of God: Perceptions of Ancient Prophecy in Israel after the Exile (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 141-53; (withR. Morgan) Biblical Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 203-68.

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The Persona behind the T Speeches The book of Isaiah contains a number of speeches written in the first person. Many of these are spoken by God, the principal speaker in the book. But a number of other T speeches are not from God. Two of them belong to the so-called 'servant poems' (49.5-7; 50.7-123). Palache, Mowinckel and Schmidt thought the author had presented himself in these speeches as the Servant of Yahweh.4 One may extend this identification by suggesting that all the passages in the Vision that are written in the first person (except those that apply to God) were means by which the drama created a special role for the T speaker. These passages begin in 5.1 and continue through the long prayer in 63.7-64.12, and include: 6.1-13; 8.1-18; 12.1-35; 16.9-12; 48.16b;21.1-10, 11-12, 13-17; 22.1-14; 24.16b-18; 25.1-5; 49.1-4 (Israel); 49.5-6 (or the Persian king?); 50.4-9; 61.1-6, 10-11; 62.1-7; First-person passages use a number of genres in Isaiah and in other prophetic books. Some are narratives telling of visions or experiences (Isa. 6, 8, 21 and 22).6 Others are poems or psalms (Isa. 5 and 25).7 Other passages are speeches addressed to an audience or to the readers (Isa. 49.5-7; 50.4-9; 61; 62). Yahweh speeches are often in the first person (Isa. 1.2-3 and many others, especially in chs. 40^8). A particular feature of these 3. Lisbeth Fried (' Cyrus, the Messiah? The Historical Background to Isaiah 45:1', HTR 95 [2002], pp. 373-93) suggests that 61.Iff. should be added to this list as a messianic speech for the Persian monarch. 4. J.I. Palache, The Ebed-Jahve Enigma in Pseudo Isaiah (Amsterdam, n.p., 1934). S. Mowinckel, Der Knecht Yahwas (Giessen: Alfred Topelmann, 1921). He retracted this interpretation in 'Die Komposition des deuterojesajanischen Buches', ZA W49 (1931), pp. 87-112. H. Schmidt, Gott undLeid im Alien Testament (Giessen: Alfred Topelmann, 1926). 5. A hymn (for the reader to sing?) 'you shall say'. 6. Cf. Jer 1; 2; and so on; Ezekiel (almost all); Hos. 3; Amos 7.1-9; Zech. 1-6 (inside a third-person frame). 7. Cf. the confessions of Jeremiah (11.18-12.5; 15.10-21; 17.14-18; 18.19-23; 20.7-18). K.M. O'Connor (The Confessions of Jeremiah: Their Interpretation and Role in Chapters 1-25 [SBLDS, 94; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988]) has found that the poems are composed for the book using the 'lament genre' of the Psalms in order to establish the authority of the prophet. On the confessions in Jeremiah, see also: G.M. Behler, Les Confessions deJeremie (Bible et Vie Chretienne; Tournai: Casterman, 1959); S. Blank, 'The Confessions of Jeremiah and the Meaning of Prayer', HUCA 21(1948), pp. 331 -54; N. Ittmann, Die Konfessionen Jeremias: IhreBedeutung fur die Verkundigung des Propheten (WMANT, 54; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1981), and much more.

WATTS Two Studies in Isaiah

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speeches is the use of phrases of 'Divine Self-Predication'.8 The phrases are not unique to Isaiah. Sometimes first-person direct and indirect quotations come from others: Isa. 40.27 (Israel); 49.1-4 (Israel); 49.14 (Zion). In 5.1-2 the speaker introduces himself as a poet/singer who sings for his beloved who is revealed in vv. 3-7 to be Yahweh himself. The author is a devotee of Yahweh and a poet. This is appropriate since most of the Vision is written in superb poetry. The passage also shows the speaker's concern for Israel as the people of God. In 5.9 he attests to the words of Yahweh concerning Israel. He is witness to an oath. In 6.1 -13 the speaker introduces himself as a visionary. This, too, fits the rest of Isaiah since most of the Vision is like a vision seeing God moving about and speaking in heaven and on earth. The passage also explains the origin of the speaker's concern for 'the destruction of the whole land and for the nations and peoples in it'. After the introduction of the narrative about Isaiah son of Amoz in 7.1 -17, in which he is supportive of the monarchy and Jerusalem, four passages in first person contrast the speaker with Isaiah son of Amoz. They continue the message of ch. 6 and portray the speaker struggling to come to terms with what he has heard in ch. 6. The first of the first-person accounts in ch. 8 reflects and responds to the earlier third-person narrative of ch. 7. Yahweh lays on the prophet's heart a word: 'Swift Plunder, Hastening Booty'. He has it attested by witnesses. When a child is conceived and born to his wife, he is told to 'call his name Swift Plunder, Hastening Booty'. The explanation parallels that given for the miraculous son promised in 7.15-17 whose name was to be called Immanuel. 'Before the lad knows how to say "my father, my mother", one will carry away the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria before the king of Assyria.' But here the name is not the positive, Immanuel 'God with us', but the negative 'Swift Plunder, Hastening Booty'. The time span is perhaps a little shorter, but not much. Is this a corrective? Or does it have a different audience in mind? Instead of addressing the king whose throne will in fact be spared, does it address the people who will feel the pain of the invasions? 8 . P.B. Harner, Grace and Law in Second Isaiah: 'I am the Lord' (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1988). Cf. also K. Elliger, 'Ich bin der Herr—euer Gott', in Kleine Schriften zum Alien Testament: Zu seinem 65. Geburtstag am 7. Ma'rz 1966 (Theologische Biicherei, 32; Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1966), pp. 211-31, for a treatment of the phrase in the Holiness Code.

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In the second word, 8.5-10, 'the coming of Assyria', Immanuel speaks of 'this people'. In the book of Isaiah Yahweh expresses his love and compassion to 'my people'. When he uses the abrupt impersonal word 'this people' it indicates his distance from them, his impatience toward them. The reason for his displeasure is clear. 'They have refused the waters of Shiloah which flow gently', a way of peace and acceptance. Instead they have chosen a policy that pleases the king of Aram and Pekah, whose name the writer cannot bear to pronounce. He calls him 'Remaliah's son' as he had in 7.5. These kings promoted a policy of active rebellion against Assyria which they wanted Ahaz to join (7.1-2). Because of this rebellion against Assyria and against Yahweh's will for them, Yahweh is bringing an Assyrian invasion that will flood the land including Judah. The people respond with a chant on the name 'Immanuel', the name given by the prophet in 7.14. They do not believe it can happen to them for, after all, 'God is with us'. They have taken the promise to Ahaz to mean that Zion is invulnerable. It cannot be touched. God will not let it or them be harmed. They ignore the word about 'Swift Plunder, Hastening-Booty'. This third word, in 8.11-15, 'Do not call conspiracy',9 also relates to 'this people', but it defines that relation more precisely, 'as though someone took (me) by the hand so that he might turn me away from walking in the way of this people'. This word is much closer to ch. 6. Like the others, this word is not one to be passed on to 'this people', but helps the speaker and the reader recognize the tension between Yahweh and 'the way of this people'. The speaker is warned not to use the language of this people when talking about God (his conspiracy). He need not fear what they fear,10 but he is allowed to call Yahweh of Hosts 'a conspirator'. Chapter 6 had already alerted him to the 'conspiracy'. There is a conspiracy here all right, but it is not the one that the people think of when they use the word. The author is warned to fear God alone. He, not the people or the enemy, is the one to be feared. Yahweh himself is the 'stone of stumbling' for both houses of Israel. They both have a problem with him, not each other. They cannot accept him and his ways, his plans for them. As such he is 'a trap and a snare' which they cannot elude. And this involves every inhabitant of Jerusalem. Here the reader is reminded of the basis problem in the book that was explained in 1.19-20 and 27-28. Because of which 'many 9. C.A. Evans, 'An Interpretation of Isa 8,11-15 Unemended', ZAW91 (1985), pp. 112-13; N. Lohfink, 'Isaiah 8.12-14', BZ 7 (1963), pp. 98-104. 10. On the relation of the prophet to the people and their attitudes, cf. 42.19.


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shall be offended...fall and be broken, snared and taken captive'. The bright promise of ch. 7 is put aside. A dark future is revealed. The fourth word, 8.16-18, 'binding the testimony', is not an announcement of a new word from Yahweh. Instead it marks the decision to retreat from the public arena 'to wait for Yahweh who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob'. Here is an echo of 6.11-13. Having witnessed to the harsh prophecy about the Assyrians given in the birth of his son, the speaker seals the testimony (8.2) with his disciples. Then he draws back to wait and to hope knowing that he and the children that have been given to him will be 'signs and symbols' in Israel from Yahweh of Hosts who dwells in Mt Zion. Isaiah becomes a 'sign and symbol' also in ch. 20. In the Burden of Babylon (chs. 13-27) the T passages serve a different role. The voice shows sympathy and sorrow for the nations, including Judah, in their experience of the invasions and destruction. In 16.9-12 he sympathizes with Moab's suffering. 21.1-10 portrays the anxiety of waiting for an inevitable destruction of Babylon. 21.11-12 trembles with Edom, while vv. 13-17 empathizes with the Dedanites of Arabia. 22.1-14 portrays and weeps for Jerusalem in a critical time. 24.16b-18 expresses distress for a chaotic time for all the land. 25.1-5 is a psalm of trust and praise to Yahweh in the very midst of the terrible times. In all of these the speaker is cast in a literary world of the drama's own creation which makes no effort to relate to the real world of history. In the following speeches the same is true, but the literary world is much closer to the real world in which writer and the readers live and the role portrayed in much closer to the real experiences of the writing prophet. There are large sections of the Vision in which no T speeches occur: chs. 1-4, 9-12, 18-33, 34-48 (with one exception), 55-60, 65-66. In 48.16b there is an announcement: 'And now, Lord Yahweh has sent me and his spirit!' The announcement precedes the first call to move out from Babylon in 48.20. 49.1-4 has Israel speak in first person to decline the invitation to be Yahweh's servant. 49.5-6 brings the announcement that Yahweh has prepared the speaker 'to be his servant, to restore Israel' and 'to be a light to the nations'. This speech contains language compatible with the messianic terms of 45.1 and probably is intended as a speech by Cyrus or his successor.11 50.4-9 presents the claim to having 'a student's tongue' and that he has learned to listen to Yahweh. But it also tells of beatings and persecution for that role.

11. See Fried, 'Cyrus, the Messiah?', p. 166.

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After a space in which the T speech is missing, it returns in concluding speeches in 61.1-6, 10-11 that had the speaker voicing a call for justice and righteousness, as well as care for the needy, the poor, the widow and the orphan. In ch. 62 the speaker acts as a Zionist who insists that Yahweh owes it to the city to rehabilitate it. Both these speeches may better reflect the words of a Persian ruler acting as patron for the city.12 In 63.7-64.12 he voices a prayer for Yahweh to remember his long history with Israel and act to restore her as his people. In this prayer, as in ch. 8, the speaker debates with God about his policies. In both instances these are fruitless prayers for he knows that the divine decree has already been proclaimed, but he feels it important to voice his protests. This speaker in Isaiah, like Jeremiah, is a prophet under protest. In the T speeches the drama has presented a picture of a prophetic personality and voice in the world of the Vision. He is a poet and a visionary. He is a sympathizer and a protester. He is the one who stands up for Israel and for the nations. He is the one who suffers for his faith and his role.

Who is the T? Do these speeches represent one personality throughout? Or are they representative of different personalities? Do the speeches represent a historical figure at all? Or a literary figure? One answer could be that the implied author/editor of the Vision has inserted himself into the drama. Mowinckel and Schmidt (see n. 4, above) thought that the servant speeches represented the prophet/author and his claim to be the Servant of Yahweh. Isaiah 42.19-21 may name this selfproclaimed servant. Isaiah 42.18-21 has been a text that exegetes have struggled with from earliest times.13 Among the problems: the 'blind and deaf are addressed in the plural in v. 18 but vv. 19-21 are singular.14 Many scholars choose to emend the text or to excise portions as glosses. However, if we deal here with vv. 19-21 alone, seeing them as an 'aside' within the larger speech, another possibility emerges: 12. Fried, 'Cyrus, the Messiah?', p. 166 13. See the excellent survey in Jan L. Koole, Isaiah (HCOT; 3 vols.; Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1997), I, pp. 261-71. 14. This phenomenon is common in these chapters. In ch. 40, after addressing the nations, Yahweh turns to speak to Israel as singular.


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Who is blind as (except) my servant ("T3U)?15 Or deaf as Malachi (my messenger, TlÊ) (whom) I send?16 Who is blind as Meshulam (one in covenant) D^CQ? Or blind as the servant of Yahweh? Seeing many thing, but you [singular] do not pay attention. Ears open, but he [singular] does not hear. Yahweh was pleased for his righteousness sake that he magnify instruction (H~nn)and glorify (it).

Scholars have seen many different meanings in DÔS, but only Rabban has thought of it as a proper name, Meshulam.17 Rabban thought this refers to the eldest son of Zerubabbel (1 Chron. 3.19) and that this is a self-identification of the author of 'Second Isaiah'.18 Are Meshulam and Malachi proper names? There is nothing in the context to make that impossible. If they are proper names, who are they? Is Malachi identical with the author of the last book of the Old Testament? The passage associates the servant with being blind and deaf, but also with magnifying prophetic Torah, a theme emphasized at the end of Malachi (3.22). These topics are strands which run through the Vision: the blind and the deaf, the servant of Yahweh, and Torah.19 15. Cf. the 'Comment' and 'Excursus: Identifying "the Servant of Yahweh'" in the forthcoming second edition of my Isaiah 34-66. 16. Cf. Mai. 3.1: 'I will send Malachi (My messenger) who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple. The messenger of covenant whom you desire will come.' 17. Palache, The 'Ebed-Jahve Enigma. Nehemiah Rabban, Second Isaiah: His Prophecy, His Personality, and His Name (Jerusalem: Kiriath Sepher, 1971 [Hebrew]); R.L. Kohn and W.H.C. Propp, 'The Name of "Second Isaiah": The Forgotten Theory of Nehemiah Rabban', in B. Beck et al. (eds.), Fortunate the Eyes that See: Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman in Celebration of his Seventieth Birthday (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995), pp. 223-35. 18. If they do record words the author hears from God, they may refer to his earliest religious experiences of a call to be God's servant. Even if the words are proper names, they do not necessarily point to the author. 19. Torah appears in the earlier servant passage (42.4) as well. Cf. Gerald T. Shepperd, 'The "Scope" of Isaiah as a Book of Jewish and Christian Scriptures', in Roy F. Melugin and Marvin A. Sweeney (eds.), New Visions of Isaiah (JSOTSup, 214; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), pp. 257-81. Torah is the principal subject matter of Isaiah as a book of Jewish Scripture. Late passages like 2.3; 8.20; 24.5; 42.4, 21,24; 51.4,7, may originally have had Mosaic Torah in mind. In exilic passages, like 8.16, 20, torah designates the book of Isaiah itself, but likewise implies a Scripture

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Meshulam is a fairly common name in that period. It appears twentyfour times in Persian period texts. Is he the son of Zerubbabel, as Rabban thinks? If these individuals are properly placed in Isaiah 42, they must be alive in 539 BCE when the context expects the coming of Cyrus. Could they have been schoolboys in that time who would later have important careers? These questions cannot be answered with certainty, but they suggest intriguing possibilities. Meshulam Son of Zerubbabel? Meshulam is a fairly common name of the period, but Rabban's interest was drawn to the eldest son of Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah in the time of Haggai and Zechariah, who bore that name (1 Chron. 3.19). We do not know anything else about Meshulam. But a good bit is known about Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel was a grandson of Jehoichin. He apparently grew up in Babylon as the royal princes did, being trained to serve the Babylonian state (2 Chron. 36.20). Zerubbabel served as a military aid to Darius (1 Esdr. 3.13^.63). Josephus (Ant. 3.2) speaks of Zerubbabel as the governor of Judah when Darius ascended the throne. Zerubbabel appears frequently in Hag. 1.1,14; 2.2,4,21,23 as the prophet encourages him to greater efforts in rebuilding the temple. Zechariah 4 affirms both Zerubbabel and the chief priest Joshua as God's chosen leaders. Ezra 2.2 has Zerubbabel among those returning to Jerusalem. Whether this was in the first return of Sheshbazzer or a later return of people from Babylon is not clear. In 3.8 he and Joshua appoint Levites for work at the altar. In 4.2-3 he rejects the offer of non-Jewish neighbors to help in building the temple. In 5.2 he and Joshua with the support of prophets begin the work on the temple. But they are stopped by Tattenai, the territorial governor. Nehemiah 7.7 and 12.1 list his name among those who came back to Judah from Babylon.

and a subject matter larger than merely this book, namely, the Mosaic Torah: see M.A. Sweeney, 'The Book of Isaiah as Prophetic Torah', in Melugin and Sweeney (eds.), New Visions, pp. 50-67. The book of Isaiah when it reached its final form in the fifth century BCE was designed to support the reform program of Ezra-Nehemiah. In Isa. 2.3 torah refers to Yahweh's instruction concerning the proper way to conduct international relations so as to bring about worldwide order. In its broader context torah refers to the Mosaic Law. The purpose of that law is to establish the norms of life for the people of Israel (Isa. 2.5) and to realize Yahweh's worldwide sovereignty (Isa. 2.2-4).


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Zerubbabel was the last of the house of David to serve as governor in Jerusalem. But his daughter, Shelomith, sister to Meshulam, probably married the next governor, Elnathan.20 At the time which Isaiah 40^8 portrays, just before Cyrus appears, Zerubbabel would still have been in Babylon. His son would be a schoolboy?21 Zerubbabel's son probably shared his life in Babylon and went to Judah with him. If Meshulam is the one addressed in Isa. 42.19, one searches for an understanding of his role that would support the accusation of being more blind than anyone else. Was he a prophet or prophetic scribe in training along with Malachi? If Meshulam is a proper name, parallel to Malachi 'my messenger', the passage (Isa. 42.19) takes on a very different meaning and function. And, if Meshulam should be recognized as the author/composer of the Vision, as Rabban has done, it takes on still more specific meaning. The prophetscribes, Meshulam (for Isaiah) and Malachi (for the Book of the Twelve), are, at least for this stage of the development of the Vision, identified with the blind and deaf of Israel. They did not really hear God's message or see his purpose, what he was doing. This could be true for Meshulam right down to his last prayer (63.7-64.12) in which he is still pleading for God to recognize Israel again as his elect people, something which God at this stage in the development of his history with the people cannot and will not do (65.1-16). Up to this point, despite all of his experiences as 'the servant', despite all of the messages (chs. 55-56, etc.) which he has transmitted, Meshulam (who Rabban thinks is Deutero-Isaiah) does not see, has not rightly heard. Does this verse provide the clue to Deutero-Isaiah's identity as Rabban thinks, to the mysterious T of the prophecy, and to the relation between 20. E.M. Meyers, 'The Shelomith Seal and Aspects of the Judean Restoration: Additional Reconsiderations', Eretz-Israel 18 (1985), pp. 33-38. 21. 1 Chron. 3.17-20 places Zerubbabel as a grandson to Jehoichin, Meshulam a great grandson. Jehoichin was 18 years old when he became king and soon went to Babylon (2 Kgs 24.8). This was 598 BCE. If we reckon first sons to be born whe fathers are between 20 and 25 years old (median 22 years), The dates for the generations look like this: Jehoichin's third son Pedaiah, born around 594 BCE; Pedaiah's first son Zerubbabel, born around 572 BCE; Zerubabbel's first son Meshulam, born around 550 BCE. The year that anticipates Cyrus' entry into Babylon would be 540 BC.. Meshulam would be about ten years old. Zerubbabel went to Jerusalem as part of the larger returns of Sheshbazzar and assumed a major role in the rebuilding of the temple (Ezra 2.2; 3.1-4.4; Haggai; Zech. 1-6). This work began about 520 BCE. Meshulam would have come to Jerusalem with the family. In 520 he would have been about 30 years old.

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The Twelve and Isaiah? Were the composers/editors of Isaiah and the Twelve contemporaries, rivals, friends? If so, should the closing date for each of the books be placed earlier than is customary today, in the generation that follows Zerubbabel, that is, in the early days of the temple built while Zerubbabel, Haggai, and Zechariah were still active in the last decade of the sixth century? There is much to be said for placing Isaiah (and the Twelve) prior to Ezra's coming when the Priestly law was instituted as the Law of the Temple. The last identifiable historical events in the Twelve had to do with the work of Haggai and Zechariah. Zerubbabel was governor and Joshua was high priest c. 515 BCE. The last identifiable historical event in Isaiah is the expected arrival of Cyrus in Babylon (539 BCE). In both books our projection of later dates for Zechariah 9-14 and Malachi, as well as for Isaiah 55-66 is based on conjecture and on historical projections, not explicit historical references. The historical references in each book suggest that. The temple practices challenged in Malachi belong to the newly rebuilt temple in c. 515-500 BCE, and the celebration of a newly rebuilt Jerusalem in chs. 60-62 and a temple in ch. 66 refer to the temple of Zerubbabel. Combining the Two Observations What is the result of combining this interpretation of Isa. 42.19 with the survey of the T speeches? If we hypothesize that Meshulam is the author of the book and that the T passages are intended to give the reader insight into his thinking and experience, we learn that: he is related to 'blind/deaf theme beginning at 6.9; he is 'sent' in 6.8 as a messenger to the people; he is Yahweh's servant (50.7-10). This would require an understanding that the author wrote himself into the script22 in these T passages and that 22. A number of scholars have suggested that the servant of Yahweh is the writer. They include: Kohn and Propp, 'The Name of "Second Isaiah"'; A. Laato, The Servant ofYHWHand Cyrus: A Reinterpretation of the Exilic Messianic Programme in Isaiah 40-55 (ConBOT, 35; Stockholm: Almquist & Wikell, 1992); Mowinckel, DerKnecht Yahwas (as noted above in n. 4, he retracted this interpretation in 'Die Komposition des deuterojesajanischen Buches'). Rabban, Second Isaiah; Schmidt, Gott undLeidim Alien Testament; W. Zimmerli and J. Jeremias, 'TTCUS Beou', in TDNT, V, pp. 653-717. G. Fohrer, Das Buck Jesaja (Zurich: Zwingli Verlag, 1964); E. Kutsch, Sein Leiden und Tod—unserHeil (Biblische Studien, 52; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1967). H.-J. Hermissen, 'Das vierte Gottesknechtslied im Deuterojesajanischen Kontext', in B. Janowski and P. Stuhlmacher (eds.), Der leidende Gottesknecht: Jesaja


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Meshulam presents himself as the visionary and servant depicted as the speaker of the T passages. If the T speeches are traced through the book one may be able to gain a portrait of Meshulam, a self-portrait of the writer. We have already noted the first signal, the youthful first memory of God's calling (42.19). 50.4-9 confesses the trials of being a 'servant of Yahweh' in the face of persecutions. 63.7-64.12 is a long prayer asking God to restore the previous status and privileges to Israel. Is he still showing that he is 'blind' and 'deaf in failing to recognize God's intentions toward his servants? The rest of the story must be deduced from the Vision itself. The book of Isaiah is replete with first-person speeches. Some are put in the mouth of God, but others are not and remain unidentified. The T passages are also found much earlier in the Vision. In 5.1 the implied author introduces himself as a singer/poet who sings to or for his beloved Yahweh. In 6.1 -13 he introduces himself as a visionary who in vision received a word from Yahweh for the year that Uzziah died. In ch. 8 he appears in counterpoint to the narrative about Isaiah son of Amoz. This is another major characteristic of the book. He refutes the positive message of Isaiah with a son whose name implies the disaster to come and then becomes a part of the controversy in which God is called a conspirator. The causes him to retire for a time. In chs. 21, 22 and 24 he shares the pain of the nations and Judah as they experience the very destruction that he has predicted. He sings in 25.1-5. Evaluation The Vision of Isaiah has created a prophetic voice who speaks in T speeches through most of the Vision. The personality of this speaker is fairly clear. The speaker seems overawed by his task and finds it difficult to fulfill. He begins in 5.1 with enthusiasm to sing his song, but has the speech taken over by God who presents his own speech with the poet left only to serve as a witness to his oath. His experience in the throne room (ch. 6) leaves him overwhelmed and he asks in horror 'How long?' 53 und siene Wirkungsgeschchte (FAT, 14; Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1996). H.M. Orlinsky, The So-Called "Servant of the Lord" and "Suffering Servant" in Second Isaiah', in H.M. Orlinsky and N.H. Snaith, Studies in the Second Part of the Book of 'Isaiah (VTSup, 14; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1967), pp. 1-133. A. Schoors, I Am God Your Savior (VTSup, 24; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1973); R.N. Whybray, Thanksgiving fora Liberated Prophet (JSOTSup, 4; Sheffield: JSOT, 1978), pp. 134-35.

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His task in countering the message of Isaiah son of Amoz (ch. 8) brings him into confrontation with a protesting people, leads him to question God about his intentions, and finally to withdraw from the public stage. In chs. 16, 21, 22 and 24 he weeps in sympathy with the peoples who are being overrun by enemies. In 42.19 he hears God's identification of him as his servant, even calling his name, but in the context of accusing him of being 'blind and deaf just like the people, but even more so. In a complaining speech (50.7-12) he tells of beatings and persecutions while insisting that he has been faithful to his charge. In 63.7-64.12 he presents the case for Israel to be recognized on its old terms as the children of God, showing little sign of having learned anything from the progress of God's speeches within the Vision. Are the strand of T speeches and the vignette in 42.19 intended to give the reader a glimpse into the heart and life of the author? Like the 'confessional laments' of Jeremiah, the picture that emerges is much weaker than one would expect from the author of the magnificent picture of God in the Vision in which he resolutely deals with a rebellious people, a city prone to violence, and nations intent on self-aggrandizement at the expense of their neighbors. Perhaps, like Jeremiah who cries to God in his bedchamber only to confront strongly the king and the crowd the next day, the poet Isaiah thinks of himself in very modest, self-effacing terms, while fulfilling his Vision with unique skill and power. There, he says, God is speaking, not I. Is this speaker and prophet/scribe Meshulam, son of Zerubbabel? There is no clear historical identification possible. It only remains an intriguing possibility.

THE SONG OF MOSES (DEUTERONOMY 32.1-43) IN ISAIAH 40-55 Hyun Chul Paul Kim

1. Introduction Scholars have long noticed correlations between the Pentateuch and Isaiah in terms of words, phrases, metaphors, and motifs.1 Traversing through the temporal or compositional boundaries, the texts of Isaiah echo, shift, and reconceptualize the terminologies and traditions of the texts of the Pentateuch as well as other parts of the Tanakh. Just as scholars have pointed out the linguistic and thematic connections between Deuteronomy and Jeremiah, there are echoes between the Patriarchal traditions and Isaiah 40-55 (hereafter Deutero-Isaiah).2 The creation concept, old and new exodus motifs, and the occurrences of the names of Abraham, Sarah, Noah, 1. In addition to the numerous commentaries of this past century, for more recent approaches, see Marvin A. Sweeney, 'The Book of Isaiah as Prophetic Torah', in Roy F. Melugin and Marvin A. Sweeney (eds.), New Visions of Isaiah (JSOTSup, 214; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1996), pp. 50-67, which redefines the role of the book of Isaiah as a prophetic Torah in line with the reform and restoration program of Ezra and Nehemiah; Roy D. Wells, Jr, '"Isaiah" as an Exponent of Torah: Isaiah 56.1-8', in Melugin and Sweeney (eds.), New Visions of Isaiah, pp. 140-55, which focuses on the relation between the Isaianic traditions and Mosaic traditions, especially the echo of Deuteronomic language; see also two significant works by Patricia T. Willey, Remember the Former Things: The Recollection of Previous Texts in Second Isaiah (SBLDS, 161; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997), and Benjamin D. Sommer, A Prophet Reads Scripture: Allusion in Isaiah 40-66 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), especially pp. 132-51. 2. Concerning the scholarly works on the interconnections between Deuteronomy and Jeremiah, see, among others, J. Philip Hyatt, 'Jeremiah and Deuteronomy', JNES1 (1942), pp. 156-73; idem, 'The Deuteronomic Edition of Jeremiah', in Richmond C. Beatty et al. (eds.), Vanderbilt Studies in the Humanities (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1951), I, pp. 71-95; Henri Gazelles, 'Jeremie et le Deuterome', RSR 38 (1951), pp. 5-36; Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), pp. 359-61.

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Moses, let alone Jacob as Israel, are some of the key elements that display the recapitulation of the Pentateuch in Deutero-Isaiah. Additionally, one can find close parallels between Deut. 32.1-43 (the Song of Moses) and Deutero-Isaiah (and possibly Isa. 56-66, hereafter Trito-Isaiah), which deserve special attention. There have been extensive discussions on the interconnections between Deuteronomy 32 and Isaiah 1. For example, J. J.M. Roberts points out the close relationship between Isaiah 1 and Deuteronomy 32 in that Isaiah 1 is heavily dependent on Deuteronomy 32 in terms of its covenant theology.3 Hans Wildberger also illustrates the similar parallels in terms of the fatherimagery of YHWH (cf. Isa. 1.2b).4 Harold Fisch further contributes in explicating the intertextual relations between Deuteronomy 32 and Isaiah I.5 George A.F. Knight in his commentary has pointed out briefly several interconnections between Deuteronomy 32 and Deutero-Isaiah.6 The recent commentary by Klaus Baltzer also enlists further correlations.7 Despite these studies, however, no extensive study on these two particular texttraditions with the specific intertextual interests has been dealt with sufficiently. Apart from these works, no scholarly work has compared the Song of Moses with Deutero-Isaiah in a more detailed analysis. Therefore, the present study attempts to examine the intertextual connections between Deuteronomy 32 and Deutero-Isaiah. It will construct and identify linguistic, metaphorical, and substantive parallels between the two, including the 3. J.J.M. Roberts, 'Isaiah in Old Testament Theology', Int 36 (1982), pp. 130-43 (135). 4 Hans Wildberger, Isaiah 1-12 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), pp. 9-13 and 23. 5. Harold Fisch, Poetry with a Purpose: Biblical Poetics and Interpretation (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), pp. 64-79. 6. George A.F. Knight, Servant Theology: A Commentary on the Book of Isaiah 40-55 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984), pp. 75, 103, 109, 119, 149. 7. Klaus Baltzer in his commentary (Deutero-Isaiah [trans. Margaret Kohl; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001]) presents a thesis that the servant of Deutero-Isaiah is first and foremost the Moses of the Torah, especially of Deuteronomy. Viewing the text of Deutero-Isaiah as a liturgical drama, Baltzer argues for the influence of Moses and his legacy for the composition of Deutero-Isaiah (pp. 18-22). To prove the identity of the servant as Moses, Baltzer relates pertinent phrases and metaphors to the Song of Moses, offering further evidence for the intertextual connections. Yet this monumental work mainly focuses on the correlations between Deutero-Isaiah and the whole book of Deuteronomy, not on the Song of Moses in a more specific and detailed intertextual study.

KIM The Song of Moses

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summons to heavens and earth, the call to remember the days of old, the emphasis on the incomparability of YHWH, the idol imagery, the 'rock' as a metaphor of deity, 'Jeshurun' in parallel with Jacob, the notion of 'servant(s)', the idea of vengeance on the enemies, and other parallels. For clarification, I will define the intertextual parallels preliminarily by three broad categories: citation, allusion, and echo.8 Citations refer to distinctive and direct quotations of more than a term or phrase.9 These citations are virtually identical, with a few or no changes, signaling the evidence of an author's intentional quoting or citing another source. Allusions refer to indirect correlations of a brief phrase, word combination, or metaphors, which nevertheless show some signs of distinctive usage and deliberate intertextual connections.10 Oftentimes, in these cases, it is not clear whether a text is conscientiously alluding to another text or to that which is a common idiomatic usage. Echoes refer to remote interrelations of the texts that share no distinctive word parallels but only similarity of metaphor or imagery.11 In these cases, it is almost impossible to clarify whether the intertextuality occurs among the texts or among the reader's imaginations (or illusions, delusions).12 After exploring the citations, allusions, and echoes of the two text-traditions, the study will consider implications of composition and theology of Isaiah that these interconnections may suggest.

8. Both the definition and methodology of intertextuality have been issues of ongoing discussions or debates among literary and biblical scholars in recent decades. For a premier review on these issues, see Patricia Tull, 'Intertextuality and the Hebrew Scriptures', CRBS 8 (2000), pp. 59-90. Tull accurately diagnoses that 'Because intertextual theory and its vocabulary have been construed so diversely, some discussion of theoretical and methodological assumptions becomes necessary at the outset of most studies' (p. 73). 9. E.g. Isa. 2.2-4 = Mic. 4.1-3; Ps. 105.1-15 = 1 Chron. 16.8-22; andExod. 20.1-17 = Deut. 5.6-21. 10. E.g. Gen. 50.24-25//Josh. 24.32; Jer. 6.14; 8.11//lsa. 48.22; 57.21; and Amos 4.9//Hag. 2.17. 11. E.g. Isa. 36.13-17 (cf. 2 Kgs 18.28-32)//Jer. 27.8-15; Hos. 2.23b//Zech. 13.9b; andZech. 8.12//Hab. 3.17. 12. For a more detailed discussion of the definitions of inner-biblical parallels (with some overlaps with and differences from my views), see Sommer, A Prophet Reads Scripture, pp. 1-31, and James D. Nogalski, 'Intertextuality and the Twelve', in J.W. Watts and P.R. House (eds.), Forming Prophetic Literature: Essays on Isaiah and the Twelve in Honor of John D.W. Watts (JSOTSup, 235; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), pp. 102-24.

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God's Word for Our World 2. Inter textual Readings

The citations, allusions, and echoes within the two parts of the Tanakh can be identified as follows. They will be discussed roughly following the textual arrangement and key phrases or motifs within the Song of Moses. a. The Summons to Heavens and Earth Deut. 32.1: Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak; let the earth hear the words of my mouth.13

mrnNi DÔETI irmn ••a-noN psn unom

Deut. 32.43: Give praise, O nations, 14 his people.

IQU D-U i3nnn

Isa. 44.23: Sing, O heavens, for YHWH has done it; shout, O depths of the earth.

mrr nvo-'i D^DP m n» nrnnn iir~in

+++++++ Shower, O heavens, from above, let the skies rain down righteousness; let the earth open, let salvation sprout up.

bran croons'inn piin^r Dipnoi tfKr-na'n ntrnnsn

Isa. 49.13: Sing, O heavens, and rejoice, O earth; break forth, O mountains, with rejoicing.15

P»"'7:n D"QEn:n

H3~i ann inus11

The Song of Moses opens and ends with the summons to the components of the universe to serve as witnesses in hearing the greatness and promises of YHWH (cf. Deut. 32.43). In Deut. 32.1, both the heavens and the earth as creatures of YHWH are called to be the audience of what Moses is about to recount regarding the great plans of his God. In Deut. 32.43, as an inclusio, the celestial and terrestrial realms are invited again to join in the chorus for praise and worship. 13. All translations are my own, unless indicated otherwise. Although this article implements gender-inclusive language throughout, its translations are intended to be 'literal', for example, in translating designations of YHWH. 14. Both IQIsa3 and the LXX read 'heavens' instead of 'nations'. 15. Cf. Isa. 41.1; 49.1; 51.1.

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Admittedly, this type of summons is a common feature for a song, psalm, or covenant lawsuit. However, the phrase 'heaven and earth' occurs elsewhere in the contexts of denoting the fullness of the world, which covers the whole of universe (e.g. Exod. 20.11; Isa. 51.6; Pss. 57.12; 89.11), the dwelling place of God in contrast with the habitations of the creatures (e.g. Deut. 4.36; 30.12; 1 Kgs 8.30; 22.19; Ps. 115.16; 2 Chron. 6.21), and mere components of God's creation (e.g. Gen. 1.1; 2 Kgs 19.15; Isa. 40.22; 44.24; 45.12; 48.13; 51.13,16; Ps. 102.26; Prov. 3.19). What is unique in our texts then is the use of these terms in the context of a direct call to witness and/or praise. This summons to heavens and earth as witnesses can be traced back to the Sinai covenant tradition (Deut. 4.26; 30.19; 31.28). Yet, in those passages, heavens and earth are referred to as witnesses in an indirect speech (cf. also Deut. 4.36; 2 Sam. 22.8; Isa. 13.13; Hos. 2.23 [Eng. 21]; Joel 2.10; Pss. 50.4; 68.8; 1 Chron. 16.31). In a sharp contrast, heavens and earth are called directly only in Deut. 32.1; Isa. 1.2; 44.23; 45.8; 49.13. This style of reference, with the direct call to both 'heavens and earth', is unique only in Deuteronomy and Isaiah. Furthermore, the placement and function of this call in both texttraditions deserve our attention. Just as this call starts the Song of Moses in Deut. 32.1, so it starts the whole book of Isaiah in Isa. 1.2.16 If we follow the Qumran and LXX renderings of Deut. 32.43 ('heavens' instead of 'nations'), then we may further interpret that this phrase of summons nicely envelops the Song of Moses. A similar case can be found in DeuteroIsaiah where the two occurrences of this call (Isa. 44.23; 45.8) serve a similar function, enveloping the beginning and end of the Cyrus oracle (44.24-45.7). Another occurrence (49.13), moreover, seems to bridge nicely both the preceding and the following units (49.1-12 and 49.14-26). While some may argue that these phrases are merely supplementary inserts in Deutero-Isaiah, their occurrences in the larger context of DeuteroIsaiah—and with the remote echo of Isa. 1.2 (cf. Isa. 66.1, 22)—show a deliberate compositional purpose in that their placement in the present form functions both as markers of independent units and as key bridges 16. Paul Sanders convincingly points out the intertextual correspondence between Deut. 32.1 and Isa. 1.2 (cf. Deut. 32.6bcc and Isa. 1.3a). Concerning this connection Sanders views that 'both compositions may go back to the same oral tradition' rather than a situation in which one text directly influenced the other (The Provenance of Deuteronomy 32 [OTS, 37; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996], p. 355). Likewise, see Wildberger, Isaiah 1-12, p. 9: 'Without a doubt, we are dealing with a judgment speech ("rib-pattern"). The closest parallel is found in the introduction to the Song of Moses in Deut 32.1.'

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that connect the preceding and following units.17 Inasmuch as the opening and closing lines of the Song of Moses are crucial, so also are the similar phrases in Deutero-Isaiah, as they function as the key elements that connect the whole text of Deutero-Isaiah. b. The Call to 'Remember' the 'Days of Old' and 'Former Things' Deut. 32.7: Remember the days of old, consider the years of long generations.

DÛ miT "QT "im~"in ni3C 1ITD

Isa. 43.18: Do not remember the former things, or consider the ancient things.

m]DN"l TaTrr^K IDDDnrr^N m*]Qlp1

Isa. 46.8-9: Remember this and take heed, recall it to mind, you wicked ones; remember the former things of old. 18

12mm H^T'TDT D1?"1?!? D'UKTIS ITEFI DÎUD mJEan TOT

The call to 'remember' (and 'remember not') constructs one of the main thematic skeletons of Deutero-Isaiah.19 The 'days of old' and 'the long 17. Claus Westermann lucidly explains the importance of the short hymns (44.23; 45.8) and the Cyrus oracle: 'The two hymns contained in 44.23 and 45.8 set it in relief as a distinct and independent part of the oracle. Comparison with the other hymns of praise occurring throughout the book shows that its use along with the Cyrus oracle is deliberate' (Isaiah 40-66 [Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1969], p. 163). Cf. also James Muilenburg, 'Isaiah', in George A. Buttrick (ed.), The Interpreter's Bible (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1956), V, p. 525: 'This verse [Isa. 45.8] is not a separate literary unit. It is directly related to the preceding strophes and is a characteristic outburst after a most profound thought. The invocation of the heavens and earth to participate in the work of salvation expresses the psychic rapport between nature and history (cf. 1.2-4).' 18. Cf. also Isa. 41.22; 42.9; 44.21; 48.3-5 (Eng. 6-8); (51.2). 19. The occurrences of the similar motif in Psalms (e.g. 77.7,12; 143.5) should not be overlooked. Patrick D. Miller, regarding the intertextuality of Deuteronomy and Psalms, delineates the compositional and theological significance of Deut. 32, the Song of Moses, in the framework of the entire book of Deuteronomy: 'Deuteronomy is preeminently the lawbook of the Bible and the Psalms are preeminently its songbook. But the Psalter begins with the law and sets its songs and prayers on the way oftorah. And Deuteronomy ends with a song, knowing that the people cannot travel by torah alone' ('Deuteronomy and Psalms: Evoking a Biblical Conversation', JBL 118 [1999], pp. 3-18 (15).


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by-gone years' form a unique correlation with the notion of former things' in Deutero-Isaiah. Admittedly, the words 'to remember' and 'to consider' occur many times in the Hebrew Bible, mainly used with their nominal sense as either a humble reminder (from human beings to God) or a solemn admonition (from God to human beings). However, the fact that these two words occur in pairs and especially in combination with the terms for the 'former things' or 'days of old' is quite distinctive. The combination of the two verbs in command along with the terms for the 'former things' occur elsewhere only in Pss. 25.6-7; 77.5; 106.7; Isa. 64.8 (Eng. 9); Jer. 30.24; Mic. 6.5; Eccl. 1.11. Yet in these passages only one verb or one object to remember occurs. Also, oftentimes the addressee is God who is besought to remember the people in distress; otherwise it is in a report that the people either did not or did remember the former things. On the contrary, it is the people who are called to remember or not remember the former things. Most importantly, it is this word-combination that occurs uniquely in Deut. 32.7, Isa. 43.18-19 and 46.8-9 and nowhere else with these word associations. In fact the term 'former things' (HlD^n)20 occurs so often in Deutero-Isaiah, along with Deut. 32.7, that we may claim this phrase to be typically Deutero-Isaianic (Isa. 42.9; 43.9, 18; 46.9; 48.3; 65.16-17). Therefore, although the notion 'to remember' is not uncommon, the peculiar linguistic associations are quite unique. In light of these interconnections, we may draw out several further implications. First, there is more than one correlation (along with word combination), as several motifs reverberate in the two text-traditions in a concatenated fashion. Fisch has already pointed out the allusion between Deut. 32.1 and Isa. 1.2,20—Isa. 1.2 corresponds to the summons to heavens and earth of Deut. 32. la, whereas Isa. 1.20 corresponds to the words that YHWH has spoken ("131 miT '3) in Deut. 32.Ib (>IB~>I1BK).21 The allusion to the words of YHWH recurs in Isa. 58.14 as well. Likewise, in Isa. 48.3-5, there is a similar allusion to the words from the mouth of YHWH (1KJT ""SB), which neatly echoes Deut. 32.1, 7 together with the motif of the former things of long ago. Second, according to the correlation between the things of old and the words of YHWH (cf. Isa. 44.7-8; 46.10; 53.1), the subsequent inference implies that the 'former things' of DeuteroIsaiah signify not only the things or events of the past but also the very words and promises YHWH had desired and declared, frequently through 20. This term, in this feminine plural form, occurs only in Gen. 41.20 elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible. 21. Fisch, Poetry with a Purpose, pp. 66-67.

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God 's Word for Our World

the words of the prophet. Third, in light of Isa. 63.11, it is plausible to deduce that the days of old and their former things from the perspective of Isaiah point to the long by-gone days in the Israelite history, particularly to the time of Moses, if not the Song of Moses per se.22 This then makes a nice conceptual sequence in that whereas the days of old in Deuteronomy 32 refer to the birth, exodus, and possibly the chastisement of Israel by YHWH (Deut. 32.8-14, 19-27), the former things of old in DeuteroIsaiah refer to the traditions of the ancestors, Moses in particular, and the very words of YHWH via the prophets (Isa. 44.26a). Within these echoes, Deuteronomy 32 advises the Israelites (both the immediate and the ongoing future generations, cf. Deut. 32.44-47) to remember the beginning, exodus, and birth as apeople, as an inheritance of YHWH (Deut. 32.8-14). In Deutero-Isaiah, the Israelites in the exile are exhorted with double messages. On the one hand, they are exhorted to remember YHWH'S promises and steadfast love shown from the time of Moses on. At the same time, on the other hand, the Israelites are exhorted not to remember or linger upon the past pride or punishment but humbly to anticipate the unfolding new things that will be far greater and more splendid than the former things. c. The Incomparability of YHWH and Monotheism Deut. 32.12: YHWH alone led him, and no foreign god was with him.

IDnr "m miT "Q] "?R 1QU fW

Deut. 32.39: See now that I, / am he, and there is no god besides me.

Kin S3K "3» "D nnu 1&CI 1 "1DI? DTI^K j^l

Isa. 41.4(28): I,YHWH, am th++++, and the last, I am he.

jlK»n !TI!T '+] NTTHDN D'mtNTlNT

22. There is a similar echo in Isa. 63.9b, 1 la, which in a striking way identifies 'the ancient days' with Moses. It should be noted that the name Moses occurs only twice (63.11, 12) in the entire book of Isaiah: 'He lifted them up and carried them all the days of old... They remembered the days of old Moses ofhis people' (DNKP1 D^Qn 1QU 1K3 D'TUT'Q" -Dn...0*711; W^l).


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Isa. 44.6: I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god.

]Tin» 'DK1 ]ican ']K DTI^K "pS ^TU^DI

Isa. 45.21: Was it not I, YHWH? There is no other god besides me.

mrr -]» Nl^n "Hl^nO DTDK "Hir'psi

Isa. 48.12: / am he; I am the Kin"" also, I am the last.23

++++++++++++++++ ]lin» "]»•)»

Another fundamental concept in the theology of Deutero-Isaiah is the consistent emphasis on the incompatibility of YHWH as the only God—a concept which is also emphasized in the Song of Moses. In both places, YHWH'S incomparability is asserted as YHWH'S sole authority is sharply contrasted with the nullity of other foreign gods. YHWH as the only God guarantees the steadfast promise and fulfillment to the people while this concept also discloses the falsehood of any taunts or threats by the foreign gods, sorcerers, or peoples. In these interconnections, the vocabularies are strikingly similar as well. The portrayal of the insignificance, if not non-existence, of the foreign gods in Deut. 32.12 recurs in Deutero-Isaiah. What is unique here is again the syntactical similarity, 'there is no god besides me', which occurs in association with the notion of YHWH'S incomparability in Deut. 32.12,39; Isa. 44.6; 45.5, 21. Elsewhere, this phrase occurs yet in quite differen contexts, mostly uttered in human confessions rather than YHWH'S own sef-presentation (2 Kgs 5.15; Pss. 10.4; 14.1; 53.2; Dan. 3.29). In add tion, the emphatic phrase of the first person pronoun in depicting YHWH (NTH ""IN, 'I am he') in Deut. 32.39 is a typical and frequent one in DeuteroIsaiah (Isa. 1.4; 43.10, 13; 46.4; 48.12; 52.6; cf. Kin "33K, 51.12).24 What is striking here is the fact that this phrase occurs only in those passages of Deutero-Isaiah and Deut. 32.39 and in no other place in the entire Hebrew Bible! The setting of Deuteronomy 32 has been taken, with much debate, as that of the pantheon in which the Most High deity apportions and rules 23. Cf. also Isa. 40.18, 25; 42.8; 43.11-13; 45.5-6, 14, 18, 22; 46.9; 47.8, 10. 24. For the linkage of this formula with Exod. 3.14, see Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah (OIL; Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2001), p. 335.

156


other gods. This picture of henotheism which echoes similar ancient Near Eastern mythological notions is somewhat comparable to the depiction in Psalm 82. While the intensified monotheism recurs more radically in Deutero-Isaiah, one can also find a similar portrayal of the divine council in Isaiah 40.25 At the outset, both text-traditions display an element of intensified uniqueness of YHWH as the supreme—and thereby sole and incomparable—deity amid the subtle backgrounds of polytheistic pantheon. Last but not least, the notion of incomparability of YHWH is coincided with the depiction of YHWH as the source and maker of implicit dualism: Deut. 32.39b: I kill and make alive, I shatter and I heal.

JTrmi D'EK 'JK KS1K

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