Jeremiah's and Ezekiel's Sign-Acts: Rhetorical Nonverbal Communication (JSOT Supplement Series)

JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT SUPPLEMENT SERIES 283 Editors David J.A. Clines Philip R. Davies Executiv...

Author: Kelvin G. Friebel

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JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

SUPPLEMENT SERIES

283

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

Sheffield Academic Press

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Jeremiah's and

Ezekiel's Sign-Acts

Kelvin G. Friebel

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 283

Copyright © 1999 Sheffield Academic Press Published by Sheffield Academic Press Ltd Mansion House 19KingfieldRoad Sheffield SI 1 9AS England

Typeset by Sheffield Academic Press and Printed on acid-free paper in Great Britain by Biddies Ltd Guildford and King's Lynn

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

ISBN 1-85075-919-7

CONTENTS

Preface Abbreviations

7 8

Chapter 1

THEORETICAL BASES FOR UNDERSTANDING JEREMIAH'S AND EZEKIEL'S SIGN-ACTS 1. Prophets and Rhetorical Nonverbal Communication 2. Parameters of Jeremiah's and Ezekiel's Behaviors Considered 'Sign-Acts' 3. Actual Performance of the Prophetic Actions 4. Nonverbal Communication Model 5. Sign-Acts and Rhetorical Theory

11 11 13 20 34 40

Chapter 2

JEREMIAH' s AND EZEKIEL' s SIGN-ACTS 1. Jeremiah's and Ezekiel's Pre-586 BCE Sign-Acts 2. Pre-586 BCE Transitional Sign-Acts 3. Post-586 BCE Sign-Acts

79 79 314 351

Chapter 3

SIGN-ACTS AS NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION 1. Intentionality of Jeremiah's and Ezekiel's Sign-Acts 2. Nonverbal Functions of the Sign-Acts 3. Coding of the Prophetic Sign-Acts 4. Sign-Acts as Types of Nonverbal Communication 5. Coordination of the Verbal and Nonverbal Elements 6. Conclusions: Sign-Acts as Nonverbal Communication

370 370 382 385 392 400 405

Chapter 4

THE RHETORIC OF JEREMIAH'S AND EZEKIEL' s SIGN-ACTS 1. Rhetorical Situation 2. Rhetorical Strategies

407 407 411

6

Jeremiah's and Ezekiel 's Sign-Acts 3. Audience Response 4. Conclusion

Bibliography Index of References Index of Authors

461 466 468 503 528

PREFACE

The study of Jeremiah's and Ezekiel's sign-actions has been a part of my life, with varying degrees of prominence, for more than a decade. I completed my PhD dissertation on the subject in 1989 for the Department of Hebrew and Semitic Studies at the University of Wisconsin— Madison. This present work is a major revision and updating of that dissertation which was done under the supervision of Dr Michael V. Fox. Although this work has undergone alterations and modifications over the years, I am very indebted to Dr Fox for the help and insights which he gave me when working on the original dissertation. I will always be grateful for the model of thoroughness and excellence in his own personal scholarly works and research which he exemplified and which I have in some way sought to emulate. I would like to dedicate this work to Dr Joseph Davis who passed away in July 1998. While doing my undergraduate work in Biblical Literature at Seattle Pacific College in the early 1970s, Dr Davis was my Old Testament professor and Honors Thesis advisor. He communicated to me a contagious passion for the study of Old Testament Scripture, as well as reflected a genuine spirituality based on that Scripture. I am also grateful to my wife, Margaret, and my two children, Jonathan and Rachel, who have been an encouragement over these years to bring this project to completion.

ABBREVIATIONS

AB AJBA AJP AJSL AnBib ANEP

ANET

AnOr AOAT ARM ArOr AT ANT AusBR BA BARev BASOR BASORSup BBB BDB

BETL BFCT Bib BibOr BN BTB BWANT BZ BZAW CAD

Anchor Bible Australian Journal of Biblical Archaeology American Journal of Philology American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures Analecta biblica James B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near East in Pictures Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1954) James B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1950) Analecta orientalia Alter Orient und Altes Testament Archives royales de Mari Archiv orientdlni Abhandlungen zur Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments Australian Biblical Review Biblical Archaeologist Biblical Archaeology Review Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, Supplements Bonner biblische Beitrage Francis Brown, S.R. Driver and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907) Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium Beitrage zur Forderung christlicher Theologie Biblica Biblica et orientalia Biblische Notizen Biblical Theology Bulletin Beitrage zur Wissenschaft vom Alten und Neuen Testament Biblische Zeitschrift Beihefte zur ZAW Ignace I. Gelb et al. (eds.), The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (Chicago: Oriental Institute, 1964-)

Abbreviations CBQ ConBOT CTM DID EBib EstBib ETR EvQ ExpTim FOIL GKC GTJ HAT HSM HTR HUCA IBS ICC IDB IDBSup IEJ Int JAAR JANESCU JAOS JBL JBR JCS JHS JNES JNSL JSOT JSOTSup JSP JSS JTS KHAT LD Neot NICOT NKZ NovT NTOA OBO OLZ

9

Catholic Biblical Quarterly Coniectanea biblica, Old Testament Concordia Theological Monthly Discoveries in the Judaean Desert Etudes bibliques Estudios biblicos Etudes theologiques et religieuses Evangelical Quarterly Expository Times The Forms of the Old Testament Literature Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (ed. E. Kautzsch, revised and trans. A.E. Cowley; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910) Grace Theological Journal Handbuch zum Alten Testament Harvard Semitic Monographs Harvard Theological Review Hebrew Union College Annual Irish Biblical Studies International Critical Commentary George Arthur Buttrick (ed.), The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (4 vols.; Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962) IDB, Supplementary Volume Israel Exploration Journal Interpretation Journal of the American Academy of Religion Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society of Columbia University Journal of the American Oriental Society Journal of Biblical Literature Journal of Bible and Religion Journal of Cuneiform Studies Journal of Hellenic Studies Journal of Near Eastern Studies Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Journal of Semitic Studies Journal of Theological Studies Kurzer Hand-Kommentar zum Alten Testament Lectio divina Neotestamentica New International Commentary on the Old Testament Neue kirchliche Zeitschrift Novum Testamentum Novum Testamentum et orbis antiquus Orbis biblicus et orientalis Orientalistische Literaturzeitung

10

Jeremiah's and Ezekiel's Sign-Acts

OrAnt OTL OTS PEQ PTMS RB REg SBLDS SBLMS SBLSBS SBLSS SET SE

Oriens antiquus Old Testament Library Oudtestamentische Studien Palestine Exploration Quarterly Pittsburgh Theological Monograph Series Revue biblique Revue d'egyptologie SBL Dissertation Series SBL Monograph Series SBL Sources for Biblical Study SBL Semeia Studies Studies in Biblical Theology Studio Evangelica I, II, III (= TU 73 [1959], 87 [1964], 88 [1964], etc.) Svensk exegetisk arsbok Scottish Journal of Theology Studia theologica Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah The Bible Today Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich (eds.), Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley; 10 vols.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964-1976) G.J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren (eds.), Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974-) Ernst Jenni and Claus Westermann (eds.), Theologisches Handworterbuch zum Alien Testament (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1971-76) G.J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren (eds.), Theologisches Worterbuch zum Alien Testament (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1970-) Theologische Literaturzeitung Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries Theologische Quartalschrift Theologische Studien und Kritiken R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer, Jr and Bruce K. Waltke (eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (2 vols.; Chicago: Moody Press, 1980) Ugarit-Forschungen Vetus Testamentum Vetus Testamentum, Supplements Word Biblical Commentary Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alien und Neuen Testament Zeitschrift fur Assyriologie Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Zeitschrift fur Papyrologie und Epigraphik Zeitschrift fur wissenschaftliche Theologie

SEA SJT ST STDJ TBT TDNT

TDOT

THAT

ThWAT

TLZ TOTC TQ TSK TWOT

UF VT VTSup WBC WMANT ZA ZAW ZPE ZWT

Chapter 1 THEORETICAL BASES FOR UNDERSTANDING JEREMIAH'S AND EZEKIEL'S SIGN-ACTS

1. Prophets and Rhetorical Nonverbal Communication In that all communication is a process of coordinating verbal and nonverbal elements, when the biblical prophets proclaimed their messages before audiences, they had available to them the full spectrum of both the verbal and nonverbal communication channels. They undoubtedly used a wide range of body movements including arm and hand gestures, facial expressions and eye movements to emphasize and dramatize points of their messages. Since the messages were delivered audibly, the prophets undoubtedly made full use of the vocalic variables of volume, tone, pitch and rate to convey the specific nuances of the verbalized oracles. Thus the employment of nonverbal elements by the prophets can be assumed even though the written records have preserved very few references to such. Since the prophets were attempting to communicate their messages effectively so that their audiences would pay attention and respond appropriately, a primary motivation behind the prophetic messages was that of persuasion.1 The employment of nonverbal behavior by the prophets undoubtedly arose out of the same rhetorical motivation as did the verbal proclamations. Thus the study of the prophets' proclama-

1. The persuasive or interactive function of the sign-acts accords with Ezekiel's and Jeremiah's self-understanding of their prophetic missions as being interactive. Jeremiah understood his prophetic task as including calls to repentance whose aim was to convince the audiences of a continued devotion to God or of a change in their misdirected devotion and behavior (cf. Jer. 7.25-26; 25.3-7; 35.15). Ezekiel's understanding of his prophetic role as 'watchman' (Ezek. 3.17-21; 33.1-9) involved the task of 'warning'. The implied intent behind the warning was that the auditors would heed it, i.e. be persuaded by the prophet's messages.

12

Jeremiah's and Ezekiel 's Sign-Acts

tions, both verbal and nonverbal, from the perspectives of communication theory and rhetoric elucidates more fully both the messages and the transmission processes. The sparsity of references to nonverbal behavior is unfortunate for those desiring to analyze the communication techniques of the prophets, but is understandable due to the inherent theological and ideological nature of the preserved text which was concerned almost solely with the content of the prophetic messages and not with how the messages were given. Only in certain cases were the nonverbal communication elements reported, when the nonverbal elements were laden with message content. Although in biblical studies these kinds of prophetic gestures and actions have often been labeled 'symbolic actions',2 in this study, the term 'sign-act' will be used in reference to the nonverbal prophetic behavior because such a designation is more in keeping with the definition of the terms 'sign' and 'symbol' as used in communication theory (see the discussion in Chapter 1 §4.3). Although the actual events and sequence of the sign-acts can be perceived and reconstructed only through the literary accounts, the rhetoric of the performed sign-acts must be distinguished from the rhetoric of their literary descriptions. The persuasive strategy of the literary compositions arises from the literary qualities and devices which are primarily auditory (in that literature was designed to be read aloud), whereas the

2. In some recent studies, other terms have been used in the attempt to more adequately describe this nonverbal communication. For example, Amsler (1980, 1985) uses the more general term 'prophetic acts' ('actes prophetique'); Overholt (1982; 1986; 1989: 86-96) and Long (1977) employ the sociological term 'acts/ deeds of power'; Lang(1981a, 1981b), although still using the term 'symbolic acts', refers to the actions as 'demonstration actions' (Demonstrationshandlungen) and (1978, 1981b, 1983a, 1986) 'street theatre' (Strassentheater); Stacey (1990) uses 'prophetic drama'. The term 'pantomime' has also been used to describe these prophetic actions (cf. Matthews and Benjamin 1993: 215-16; Alonso Schokel 1988: 113). Although the terms 'pantomime' or 'mime' have a wide variety of meanings and are somewhat elusive to define, in their more technical usages they refer to formalized actions within the genres of theatre or dance (cf. Bourquin 1979; Rolfe 1979a), specially as used in the ancient world (cf. Rolfe 1979b). If 'pantomime' is understood in that technical sense, then the prophetic sign-actions are not 'pantomime' in that they are not part of formalized drama, but are rather part of the dynamics of interpersonal communication which involves nonverbal gestures and body movements.

1. Understanding Jeremiah's and Ezekiel 's Sign-Acts

13

rhetoric of the sign-acts is deduced from the nonverbal elements which are essentially visual. Likewise a distinction must be made between the respective audiences: the viewers of the actions, and the readers of the literary accounts who are not assumed to have been present at the time of the performance of the sign-act. This study will deal with the rhetoric or suasive aspects of the performed sign-acts, rather than that of the literary descriptions.3 This study seeks to follow Taylor's (1969: 80) advice in his comment on Ezekiel's actions: But if he did in fact use symbolical actions to convey his messages, it is important that we try to understand what he actually did and how he did it. This clearly mattered to him, and it mattered to his observers that they saw it accurately and interpreted correctly what he was wanting to say. If we are to do the same, we must cast ourselves in the role of his fellowexiles, and sit where they sat, and watch his every movement as closely as we may.

The general reliability of the literary renditions for reconstructing the actions is assumed, although, as will be done in Chapter 2, each account must be examined for literary interpolations which may have altered or affected the recounting of the details of the performed actions. 2. Parameters of Jeremiah's and Ezekiel's Behaviors Considered 'Sign-Acts' This study focuses on those nonverbal actions and behaviors, performed by Jeremiah and Ezekiel, whose primary aim was to communicate contentual messages in a rhetorical manner so as to persuade the people of the veracity of the prophets' viewpoints and to elicit appropriate responses. Each of the biblical books ascribed to these two prophets provides a significant repertoire of actions for analysis so as to allow for internal comparison between the individual prophet's actions, as well as external comparisons between the actions of the two. Since Jeremiah and

3. Previous studies have adequately elucidated the literary form and motifs of the 'sign-act' narrative genre. See especially Fohrer 1952a, 1968; March 1974; Matheney 1965; Schmidt 1982; Woodard 1983. On specific literary features such as the 'question-answer' schema in the sign-act accounts, see Long 1971: 134-35, and for audience citations in the accounts, see Clark 1984.

14


Ezekiel were contemporaries, the situations which elicited their signacts were similar because they functioned in the same theological and ideological contexts and essentially in the same historical context even though the external locations of the audiences were different—Jeremiah in Jerusalem and Ezekiel in exile.4 It is possible that members of Ezekiel's audience, and even Ezekiel himself, viewed some of the actions performed by Jeremiah prior to the exile of 597 BCE. Also, the two books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel contain the bulk of the extant accounts of nonverbal behavior performed by prophets in communicating message-contents.5 Therefore the analysis of these accounts can be used paradigmatically for understanding and interpreting other prophets' nonverbal communication activities. In this study the term 'sign-act' is applied to all the nonverbal behaviors (i.e. bodily movements, gestures and paralanguage) whose primary purpose was communicative and interactive: Jer. 13.1-11; 16.1-9; 19.113; chs. 27-28; 32.1-44; 35.1-19; 43.8-13; 51.59-64a; Ezek. 3.22-27 / 24.25-27 / 33.21-22; chs. 4-5; 6.11-12; 12.1-16; 12.17-20; 21.11-29;

4. Although the locale of Ezekiel's ministry has been questioned and debated, the arguments are sufficiently convincing for accepting the biblical text's placement of it in Babylon among the Judahite exiles of 597 BCE. 5. Outside of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, there are only seven biblical accounts of communicative nonverbal actions performed by prophets as part of their public ministries. Three 'communicative' nonverbal sign-act accounts are extant within 'historical narratives': 1 Kgs 11.29-31, Ahijah's tearing the cloak into 12 parts and giving 10 to Jeroboam to indicate the division of the kingdom; 1 Kgs 22.11 (= 2 Chron. 18.10), Zedekiah's use of the iron horns to indicate the goring of the Arameans; 2 Kgs 13.14-19, Elisha's use of the bow and arrows to indicate Joash's victory over the Arameans. 1 Kgs 19.19-21, in which Elijah threw his cloak on Elisha, is often classified as a 'symbolic action', but that action was interactive and informative, not communicative (i.e. the action by itself did not bear an interpretable message-content in simile-form). Within books ascribed to prophets, there are only four communicative nonverbal actions: Hos. 1.2-9 (the marriage of Gomer and the bearing of children—the naming of the children was a verbal, not a nonverbal, act); Hos. 3.1-5 (the prophet's taking again the adulterous wife); Isa. 20.1-6 (Isaiah's going naked); and Zech. 6.9-15 (the making of the crown). Although Isa. 8.1-4, and also 7.3, have, at times, been classified under the rubric 'sign-actions', the communicated messages were the children's names which were verbal in nature and did not involve nonverbal actions. In Isa. 8.1, the act of writing had no communicative significance, only the written message which is a type of nonvocal, verbal communication.


15

24.15-24; 37.15-28. By the inclusion of such acts as the clapping in Ezek. 6.11-12 and the wailing in Ezek. 21.17-22, the category of 'signact' is broader than the traditional connotations of the appellation 'symbolic action' whose criteria for classification were frequently based not on the nonverbal function or purpose but on literary form. Thus if the account of a nonverbal behavior did not correspond to the form-critical structure,6 or if the behavior was viewed as being a stereotypical gesture,7 the behavior was not classified as a 'symbolic action'. But such distinctions do not correspond with definitions and categories as employed within the studies of nonverbal communication where the communicative nature of a nonverbal action is not contingent on the form of its literary recounting, or on whether it is an idiosyncratic or stereotypical behavior, or on it having a specific type of conjunction with the verbal part of the message (see Chapter 1 §5.2.4 and Chapter 3 §5). Since this study confines itself to those nonverbal behaviors which, as part of Ezekiel's and Jeremiah's public ministry, were both actually performed before audiences (see Chapter 1 §3) and had communicative purposes, certain other nonverbal or purported nonverbal behaviors are excluded from consideration and from the appellation 'sign-act':8 (1) activities which were of a biographical nature unrelated to the public proclamation of messages; (2) actions performed in visions (e.g. the eating of the scroll in Ezek. 2.8-3.3); (3) phrases which originated from 6. For example Fohrer (1952a; 1967:249-50; 1968) does not list Ezek. 6.11-12; 21.17-22 and Jer. 35 as 'symbolic actions', but refers to each as 'ein symbolahnliches Tun' (1968: 72). Hals (1989: 354) makes the same form critical distinction. 7. Zimmerli (1979: 29-30, 182) classifies the wailing (Ezek. 21.17-22) and the clapping (Ezek. 6.11-12) as 'expressive gestures', and distinguishes them from 'sign-acts' on the basis that the latter were independently formulated actions which conveyed their messages within themselves while the former were stereotyped actions which underscored, reinforced and clarified the prophet's word or qualified it in a particular way. Garner (1980: 169-89) also attempts to make the same distinction, but realizes that 'The line between purposeful gesture (or series of gestures) and symbolic action is sometimes difficult to draw—both are nonverbal and active in nature' (174). 8. Stacey (1990), in using the concept of 'prophetic drama', defines the category too widely, thus making no distinction between intentionally performed, actual actions and visionary activities (cf. 7-8). Thus a preciseness in delineating the specific primary function of sign-acts as being communicative is obscured (see Chapter 3 §2).

16


nonverbal actions but had developed into figures of speech, no longer indicating specific accompanying actions9 (e.g. the command to Ezekiel, 'set your face' ("f]D D^CD); 10 (4) accounts in which there are no explicit references to nonverbal actions accompanying the verbal messages (e.g. the reference to the iron yoke in Jer. 28.13-14,n the

9. For discussions regarding phrases originating out of nonverbal behavior (e.g. gestures, postures, facial expressions) and then developing into figurative or idiomatic expressions to convey attitudes, ideas or feelings without the accompanying nonverbal movement being present, and thus on criteria for differentiating between figures of speech and actual actions in other ancient Near Eastern references to nonverbal communication, see Gruber 1980: 18-20; Kruger 1989: 55; Malul 1988: 23-26; Viberg 1992: 9. 10. 'Set your face toward [•?«]' in Ezek. 6.2; 13.17; 21.7; 25.2; 28.21; 38.2; 'set your face to [Û]' in Ezek. 29.2; 35.2; 'set your face toward ["[~n]' in Ezek. 21.2. Whereas the phrase may have originated from a nonverbal disposing of the face in a particular manner while speaking (e.g. in Num. 24.1-2 Balaam was to have optical view of the people he was to curse), at the time of Ezekiel it was probably only a figurative expression indicating an emotive state (i.e. an adversarial attitude toward the subject of address), unaccompanied by any specific behavior. Supporting a figurative understanding of the phrase are the similar expressions: D^S D^fa + complementary infinitive (Jer. 42.15, 17; 44.12) meaning 'to intend, decide, to determine'; HOI?1? D'3D p] in Ezek. 3.8 which is figurative of the prophet's disposition; the two phrases... n D^S ]HD in Ezek. 14.8 and 15.7a, and... 3 D^S D'to in Ezek. 15.7b; Jer. 21.10; 44.11, both of which figuratively express negative dispositions (cf. Layton 1986: 177-79; van der Woude 1979: 440). Likewise the addressees of the oracles prefaced by this command were either not in optical view of the prophet (cf. 6.2, the mountains of Israel; 21.7, Jerusalem; 25.2, Ammon; 28.21, Sidon; 29.2, Pharaoh; 35.2, Mt Seir; 38.2, Gog), or were so vague as to defy a specific locale (cf. 13.17, false prophetesses). Also in Ezek. 4.3, 7 when an actual nonverbal movement was intended, different terminology was used (^K D^S ]D [hi.]). Brownlee's (1983, 1986) interpretation that this phrase in Ezekiel meant 'set out on a journey', and thus that Ezekiel literally journeyed to the various places, must be dismissed on the basis that Brownlee has singled out only one of the biblical, semantic meanings of the phrase (cf. Gen. 31.21; Dan. 11.18 [qere]), compared it with Ugaritic in which the phrase only has this meaning, and then applied it to all of the occurrences in Ezekiel. See Layton (1986) and Dhorme (1963: 44-45) who have investigated the phrase's various uses in biblical and Akkadian texts (cf. also McCurley 1968: 179-80; Oppenheim 1941: 256-68) where, depending on the context and accompanying prepositions, it has several literal or figurative meanings. 11. The reference to the iron yoke in Jer. 28.13-14 has been interpreted by some commentators to mean that, upon Jeremiah's reappearance to confront Hananiah, Jeremiah wore an iron yoke as a replacement for the previously broken, wooden


17

hypothetical performance of a sword dance in Ezek. 21.13-22,12 and the activities with the cooking pot in Ezek. 24.3-1413); (5) 'rhetorical commands',14 parabolic language, and picturesque verbal images which one. The language, though, suggests that Jeremiah used a verbal image in vv. 1314. The command, 'Go and speak to Hananiah' (v. 13), was the typical pattern in Jeremiah to indicate an auditory message rather than a visual or sensory message (cf. the phrase in 2.2; 3.12; 5.5; 34.2; 39.16). The command does not contain any instruction to make and wear an iron yoke, nor does the text state that he did so. The MT's 'and you have made/will make bars of iron' (28.13) is part of Jeremiah's address to Hananiah, not a divine command to Jeremiah. Likewise the preferred reading of the LXX's first-person verb form ('but I will make...') occurs in the divine address to Hananiah, so that the referent of the action is God and not Jeremiah. 12. Ezek. 21.13-22 has often been interpreted as being accompanied by a 'sword dance' in which the prophet wielded the sword in the air while verbally proclaiming the message. But the text provides no explicit evidence for this supposition. Therefore this study will only deal with the mentioned actions of vv. 17 and 19 (crying out and wailing, striking the thigh, and clapping the hands). 13. Some suppose Ezek. 24.3-14 to have been an enacted parable in which the prophet actually had a cooking pot on the fire before him. But the phrase, 'speak a parable' (ÊJQ ^Q), is unlike any other Ezekiel terminology used to describe an actual performance. Rather, in Ezekiel (12.22-23; 16.44; 17.2; 18.2; 21.5), the noun bCQ refers to a verbal oracle (cf. Beyse 1986; Hauck 1967: 749; Polk 1983; Stacey 1990: 119-20; contra Godbey [1923], Herbert [1954: 189, 196], Johnson [1955: 168-69], Matheney [1965: 214-29] who argue that the term itself denotes enacted parables) or to a person who will be talked about (Ezek. 14.7-8—the coordination of flitf and ^2?Q expresses both the nonverbal and verbal aspects: i.e. the person as an niK was to be a nonverbal, visible illustration, and as a ^2JQ someone who would be spoken about). Also the accompanying command, 'and you shall say [mQtfl] to them', coupled with the following introductory formula, 'Thus says Yahweh', indicates a verbally communicated message in which the auditors of the following injunctions (vv. 3b-5, 6b, 10-11) were the people, not the prophet. To avoid this argument, and maintain the position that 24.3-14 was an enacted action, Fohrer (1955: 138-40; 1968: 61-64) rearranges the verses and places v. 3a (the command for verbal pronouncement) after the commands of vv. 3b-5, and v. 6b just before the verbal interpretation in vv. 6a, 7-14. There is no basis for this rearrangement and it results inappropriately in the clarifying interpretation being called a'PEJQ. 14. The term 'rhetorical command' is used to designate a device of verbal rhetoric in which an injunction or imperative is employed by the speaker to create an image in the audience's mind such that the enjoined action and its subsequent result were to be mentally rehearsed but not actually carried out. Thus it is similar to 'rhetorical questions' to which the auditors were not expected to answer audibly but rather draw the speaker-intended conclusion in their own thinking.

18


were not actually performed15 (e.g. the 'cup' imagery of Jer. 25.15-2916 and injunctions of the 'cooking song' of Ezek. 24.3-14);17 (6) actions

Jeremiah frequently used such 'rhetorical commands' in addressing his audiences, which are clearly indicated grammatically by being second-masculine plural imperatives (addressed to the people: Jer. 2.10; 4.5, 6, 8; 5.1, 10; 6.1, 16; 7.12; 8.14; 9.16; 18.13; 22.10, 30; 30.6), or second-feminine singular imperatives (addressed to the city: Jer. 3.2; 7.29; 10.17; 13.20). Huey (1993: 87-88) argues that even though the imperatives in Jer. 5.1 are plural, such is still a sign-act carried out by Jeremiah analogous to Diogenes' carrying a lighted lamp saying, 'I am looking for a man' (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers6.41). But the plural forms and the frequency of rhetorical commands in Jeremiah, suggest that this was not an action actually performed by the prophet. 15. Since all communication involves verbal and nonverbal elements, it can be assumed that the prophets frequently used nonverbal elements and may have frequently used actions which depicted their spoken messages. But when those actions are not explicitly noted and described, it becomes futile to reconstruct hypothetically what actions might have been performed and then to speculate about the rhetoric of those imagined actions. 16. That Jer. 25.15-29 is verbally created imagery rather than an actually performed action is argued on the bases of: (1) the mixing of metaphors in that the cup's effect is explained in terms of a military reality as 'the sword which I (Yahweh) am sending among them' (vv. 16, 27); (2) the figurative language of Jeremiah being commanded to take the cup from 'the hand of Yahweh' (vv. 15, 17); (3) the hyperbolic language of the extensive list of nations which Jeremiah is to make drink (cf. vv. 18-26; 'all the kingdoms of the earth which are upon the face of the ground', v. 26); (4) the immediate context of the MT in which vv. 15-29 can be taken as a figurative application of v. 13, so that 'Yahweh's words' are synonymous with 'the cup of wine of wrath' in vv. 15-16, and 'prophesy' in v. 13, synonymous to 'giving to drink' in vv. 15-16. The statement of performance in v. 17 refers then not to a physical taking of a cup and giving it to the nations, but a figurative expression of the fulfilling of the divine mission to be a prophet to the nations. The LXX arrangement of the oracles against the nations (MT chs. 46-51) between MT 25.14 and 15, and 25.13b ('which Jeremiah prophesied against all the nations') as a title for 25.15-29 reinforces this argument since 25.15-29 is then a concluding statement indicating that Jeremiah fulfilled his commission with respect to those countries. (5) The broader context in which this image correlates with the call narrative of 1.9 in which Jeremiah was to take the 'words' from the 'hand of Yahweh' (in 25.15 he took the cup of wrath from Yahweh's hand) and in 1.10 he was to be a prophet to the nations (in 25.15, he gave the cup to the nations to drink). 17. In both Jer. 25.15-29 and Ezek. 24.3-14, the injunctives are to be understood as 'rhetorical commands' rather than commands for actual performance. In Jer. 25.15-29 the 'rhetorical command' was directed to the prophet, whereas in Ezek.


19

performed by others besides Jeremiah and Ezekiel (e.g. Hananiah's action of Jer. 28 which was a distinct sign-act in its own right [see Chapter 2 §1.6] and the unsolicited activity of the potter in Jer. 18 [see Chapter 3 §1.3]), with the exception of actions intentionally elicited or commanded by Jeremiah and Ezekiel in direct interaction so that through such the prophets might communicate specific messages (e.g. Jer. 32; 35; 51.59-64); and (7) occasions of writing where the act of writing did not communicate any message-content,18 but rather the message was conveyed through that which was written which is nonvocalic verbal communication19 (e.g. Jer. 29; 30.1-2; 36.2, 4, 28, 32;20 Ezek. 24.1-2).21

24.3-14, which was most likely a 'work song' appropriated for the prophetic communication event, the prophet was addressing an imaginary persona whom the audience had to imagine mentally as fulfilling the enjoined commands. The differences between the oracles of Jer. 25.15-29 and Ezek. 24.3-14, and sign-acts prevent the verbal nature of the former from being used paradigmatically for arguing that the latter were also nonperformed (contra Davidson 1893: xxix; Farbridge 1923: 11; Konig 1892: 651-52; 1904: 175). 18. That the act of writing was not communicative does not deny that it was unintentionally informative about the prophet's role and position. For Jeremiah, the act of writing to the exiles (ch. 29) indicated his perception that he had the prophetic authority and responsibility to do so; ch. 36 informed of his social situation, i.e. his temporary exclusion from public ministry in the Temple; and the written messages of Jer. 30.1-2; 36.32; Ezek. 24.1-2, by their being preserved, would have confirmed and authenticated the prophets' positions and reliability when, in the future, the predictive words were historically verified. 19. See Nolan (1975: 98-100) on the distinctions between nonverbal and verbal, and between vocalic and nonvocalic communication. 20. Kessler (1966: 391; 1969) proposes that Jer. 36 was a 'symbolic action'. But Kessler fails to demonstrate that the act of writing communicated message-content as did the nonverbal behavior of the other prophetic sign-acts. Also the sign-acts were intentionally performed (see Chapter 3 §1) whereas any contrast between the rejection of Jeremiah's scroll and the reception to Josiah's discovered scroll (1 Kgs 22), since it involved audience response, could not have been intentionally staged by Jeremiah. Such a contrast in audience reaction must have been perceived only after the event occurred. See Schmidt (1982: 213) who dismisses Kessler's suggestion on the basis of definition and Gattung. 21. Stacey (1990: 162-66, 203-204) includes Jer. 36 and Ezek. 24.1-2 under the rubric of 'prophetic drama'.

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Jeremiah's and Ezekiel 's Sign-Acts 3. Actual Performance of the Prophetic Actions

Although many scholars have adopted the view that the sign-acts were actually performed,22 that hypothesis has not gone without challenge. Some of the actions are relegated to the category of literary fictions,23 parabolic speeches,24 visionary experiences25 or imaginations of the mind. 26 If the actions were not performed but only verbally communicated (either in speech or in writing), the study of their rhetorical function could not focus on the acts themselves but only on the literary narratives. Therefore, before the communication and rhetoric models are presented by which the sign-acts of Jeremiah and Ezekiel will be analyzed, the hypothesis that the literary accounts recount nonverbal actions which really occurred will be substantiated. 3.1 Arguments against Real Performance The arguments against the real performance of the sign-acts are usually based on five criteria: (1) some of the actions were physically impossible to carry out; (2) the rhetorical forcefulness of the oral or literary presentation of the accounts obviates the necessity for the actions actually to have been performed; (3) some of the actions can be deemed to be nonperformed by virtue of their unaesthetic nature; (4) if performed, some of the actions would have been unintelligible to the spectators; (5) if performed, some of the actions would not have been observable 22. For those who have written specifically on the sign-acts and argue for their actual performance, see Alfrink 1948; Amsler 1985; van den Born 1935, 1947; Buzy 1923; Criado 1948; Fohrer 1952a, 1968; Eraser 1974; Matheney 1965, 1968; Pilch 1981a; Ramlot 1972; Robinson 1927; Swidler 1981; Vorwahl 1932; Woodard 1983. Although Stacey (1990: 225-33) generally maintains that the actions were actually performed, he concludes that questions of actual performance are secondary since in the Hebrews' understanding of reality 'a distinction between subjective and objective happenings is simply not appropriate' (175; cf. also 149). 23. Cf. Carroll 1986; 1991: 111; Davis 1989a; Garscha 1974; Holscher 1924; Klein 1988; McKane 1986, 1996; Wevers 1969; Wilson 1980. 24. Cf. Konig (1904) who classifies all the Ezekiel accounts as parabolic speeches. 25. For those classifying some or all of the accounts in Ezekiel as visionary experiences, see Broome 1946; Cooke 1936; Hines 1923; Howie 1950; Keil 1976; Maimonides, Guide to the Perplexed 2.46. 26. Cf. Davidson 1893; also Haeussermann (1932) that they arose out of the unconscious and were only orally or literarily narrated to the audiences.


21

by an audience. Each of these will be shown to provide an inadequate argument against the actuality of the actions' performances when such is indicated by the text. 3.1.1 Physical Impossibility of Performance. The actions found in Jer. 13.1-11 and Ezek. 4.4-8 are generally the ones cited to substantiate that the sign-acts were, at times, impossible to perform.27 It is argued that the physical distance and time needed for travel makes it improbable that Jeremiah made two trips to the Euphrates River (Jer. 13.1-11).28 The extended period of immobility while Ezekiel is said to have lain on his sides is considered by some to have been beyond physical capability (Ezek. 4.4-S).29 But the purported obstacles to the possibility of performance can be interpreted in different ways. For example, the Perat to which Jeremiah traveled may not have been the Euphrates River but a place near Jerusalem. Others see the journey to the Euphrates as being a real possibility and attempt to find time in the chronology of Jeremiah's life when he could have accomplished such an extended journey (see the discussion in Chapter 2 §1.3). Ezekiel may not have lain on his side both day and night but only during the daylight hours when there would have been observers (see the discussion in Chapter 2 §1.9). Difficulty must be distinguished from impossibility, since the former does not obviate actual performance. The criterion for actual performance that a behavior must be within a certain range of easiness should be dismissed since an action's higher degree of difficulty may have a correspondingly greater rhetorical impact on the audience. Behaviors which are more difficult to perform may attract more attention, provoke more reflective thought by the audience, and inform of a more intense

27. Besides the actions cited for Ezekiel and Jeremiah, Isaiah's going naked for three years (Isa. 20.2-4) has received the same criticism that such an action would be impossible given the climate of Jerusalem. 28. Therefore Jer. 13.1-11 is frequently classified as a visionary experience (cf. Baumann 1953; Driver 1907; Herrmann 1908; Konig 1904; Lindblom 1962; Robinson 1927; Rudolph 1958), 'Einkleidung eines Gedankens' (Cornill 1905: 171), parabolic speech or literary fiction (cf. Duhm 1901; McKane 1986; Wendland 1916). 29. For those arguing the impossibility of performing Ezek. 4.4-8, see Cooke 1936; Davidson 1893; Herrmann 1908; Hines 1923; Howie 1950; Keil 1976; Konig 1904; Robinson 1927; Wendland 1916; Wevers 1969; Wilson 1980.

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level of personal involvement by the rhetor. Although several of Jeremiah's and Ezekiel's sign-acts were difficult to perform, none of them can be considered impossible. 3.1.2 Non-Necessity of Performance. It has been argued that the rhetorical effect upon the audiences would have been just as great whether the actions were performed or whether they were only forceful speeches or literary compositions.30 Although it is not denied that verbal (whether written or oral) communication can be very forceful and image producing, the very nature of communication is both verbal and nonverbal. To deny to the prophets the nonverbal expression of ideas seems to be unnaturally limiting their means of communicating. Exegetical considerations, which must acknowledge that the text intends the reader to understand the acts as actually occurring, override the hypothetical speculation as to whether they needed to have taken place. 3.1.3 Unaesthetic Nature of the Performances. Some actions have been described as being too childish or in too bad taste to have been performed.31 Aesthetics are a matter of cultural and individual taste, and caution must be exercised so as not to impose on the prophets modern cultural and/or personal values and standards for appropriate behavior. Ezekiel's objection in 4.14 to the use of human excrement as a cooking fuel shows that when a commanded action was perceived to go beyond acceptable cultural, personal or moral bounds, the prophet could object to such performance. Since the case cited is the only one in which a prophet voiced an objection, it can be adduced that the other actions must have fallen within the limits (even if on the outer fringes of such) of that which was personally acceptable.32 Even if the actions were 30. Cf. Davis 1989a: 67-71; Konig 1892: 652; 1904: 175. Cf. similarly Davies' (1996: 55-58) discussion of Jer. 13. 31. For those arguing that the unaesthetic nature meant nonperformance, see Farbridge 1923; Konig 1904. Maimonides (Guide to the Perplexed 2.46), after citing Ezek. 4-5, states the position well: 'God is too exalted than that He should turn His prophets into a laughingstock and a mockery for fools by ordering them to carry out crazy actions' (translation by S. Pines). 32. The same argument holds true against Maimonides' (Guide to the Perplexed 2.46) contention that such acts as Ezekiel's shaving his head and beard could not


23

childish, bizarre, deviant, eccentric, repugnant or shocking according to both modern and ancient taste, this does not deny their actual performance. One might compare the actions of Diogenes, the Greek Cynic, who performed bizarre actions for communicative and rhetorical purposes.33 Some of his actions were considered by his own contemporaries as going beyond the bounds of decency, but this did not prevent him from performing them. In a similar manner, rhetorical concerns may have outweighed aesthetic concerns when it came to the prophets' performance of the actions. Certainly part of the persuasive force was the nonverbal behaviors' unaesthetic nature. 3.1.4 Unintelligibility of Performance. Due to the ambiguous nature or to the complexity of the actions, some have suggested that the nonverbal behaviors would not have been intelligible to the audiences, thus substantiating the argument that they were not actually performed.34 Although nonverbal behavior is inherently ambiguous, the uncertainty of the meaning of the prophets' actions could have served an important rhetorical function of causing the audiences to speculate about the actions' meanings and implications. The intelligibility of the nonverbal actions came through the accompanying verbal explanations, so that the meanings which the prophet desired to transmit through the nonverbal behaviors were eventually made clear to the people (see Chapter 4 §2.2). 3.1.5 Unnoticeability of Performance. Some have argued that Ezekiel's action of trembling (Ezek. 12.18) would not have been readily observable by the audience.35 But most of Jeremiah's and Ezekiel's actions were of such a dramatic nature that their performances were certainly noticed. If one views the actions as being intentionally performed to communicate specific messages to the audiences, then even the trembling could have been carried out in a manner which was clearly observable (see Chapter 2 §1.12), just as mimes communicate emotions have been performed because they violated the legal injunctions imposed upon priests. For Ezekiel and Jeremiah, the importance of communicating a message to the people outweighed strict adherence to certain legal injunctions or social propriety. 33. For a discussion of some of Diogenes' actions, see Chapter 1 §5.2.5. See also Sayre 1938. 34. Cf. Wilson (1980: 283) on Ezek. 4-5. 35. Cf. Konig 1904: 175.

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and feelings through overt and subtle gestures, facial expressions, and body postures. 3.2 Indicators of Real Performance The actions of Jeremiah and Ezekiel are not narratively presented as what the prophets did, but rather what the prophets were commanded to do. With the exception of the narratives of Jer. 32.8-15 (the purchase of Hanamel's field) and Jer. 51.59-64a (the scroll concerning Babylon) all of the actions are literarily reported in the context of divine command. Although Jeremiah's action of 32.8-15 was narrated as an account of what happened, the text explicitly notes that the action was performed because of divine injunction (vv. 7, 25). Even Jer. 51.59-64 is similar to the other literary descriptions in that it recounts only Jeremiah's command to Seraiah to perform the specified actions. Since almost all of the accounts are reception-language and not proclamation/performance-language, the actuality of the performances has to be derived from other indicators. Several types of indicators are found within the literary texts to confirm the actual performances of the deeds. The following indicators will be noted: (1) statements of the actions' execution; (2) the notations of the presence of eyewitnesses; (3) verbal audience responses which indicate a viewed performance; and (4) the application of the nomenclature 'sign' to the actions.36 Jeremiah 13.1-11 16.1-9 19.1-13 27.1-28.17

32.1-44 35.1-19 43.8-13 51.59-64a

statement of the execution of the command (vv. 2, 5, 7) NO CONFIRMATION eyewitnesses (vv. 1, 10) statement of the execution of the verbal message (v. 12) [inferred that such also subsumed under it the performance of the accompanying nonverbal action]; eyewitnesses (28.1-11); execution of the command (implicit in 28.12 of Hananiah's breaking the yoke) statement of the execution of the command (vv. 8-16); eyewitnesses (v. 12) statement of the execution of the command (vv. 3-5) eyewitnesses (v. 9) NO CONFIRMATION

36. In establishing the actual performance of legal Mesopotamian symbolic acts, Malul (1988: 23-29; similarly Viberg 1992: 9-10) uses a number of criteria


25

Ezekiel 3.24-27; 24.25-27; 33.21-22 4.1-3 4.4-8 4.9-17 5.1-4 6.11-12 12.1-16

12.17-20 21.11-12 21.13-22 21.23-29 24.15-24 37.15-28

term 'sign' (24.27); execution statement (33.22); eyewitnesses (24.27; 33.22) term 'sign' (v. 3) NO CONFIRMATION eyewitnesses (v. 12) NO CONFIRMATION NO CONFIRMATION statement of the execution of the command (v. 7); eyewitnesses (vv. 3-7); verbal audience response (v. 10); term 'sign' (vv. 6, 11) NO CONFIRMATION eyewitnesses (v. 11); verbal audience response (v. 12) NO CONFIRMATION NO CONFIRMATION statement of the execution of the command(v. 18); term 'sign' (v. 24); verbal audience response (v. 19) eyewitnesses (v. 20); verbal audience response (v. 18)

3.2.1 Statement that the Prophet Carried out the Divine Command?1 Statements which confirm that the prophets carried out the commanded actions are not sufficient by themselves to establish categorically actual performance since similar statements express the prophets' compliance in fulfilling a command while in the midst of vision experiences (cf. Jer. 25.17; Ezek. 3.2, eating the scroll; Ezek. 8.5, 8, 10, passim; Ezek. 37.7, 10). But the statements of command-fulfilment combined with other indicators lead to the conclusion of physical, and not visionary, performances. Conversely, the lack of a statement of the action being carried

including performability, performance (versus being a figure of speech), intention and solemnity, limited duration of execution, and an appropriate context. The latter involves 'The accumulation of contextual detail like the mention of witnesses, the situation and place where a legal transaction had taken place, and other "narrative" details, may be taken as auxiliary evidence for proving the performed character of some written remark' (25). 37. See Fohrer (1952a: 103; 1968: 81-82) who classifies the 'Bericht iiber die Ausfiihrung' as one of the 'selbstandigen Merkmale'; cf. also Matheney 1965: 23638; Woodard 1983: 80-82.

26


out, fails to prove that the action was not performed.38 Since the reports were narrated as divine commands to act, the theological presupposition of the text is undoubtedly the prophet's obedience to the divine word. So it is implicitly assumed that the actions were carried out, thus making, at times, the statements of performance unnecessary redundancies. In a similar manner, very frequently the literary form of the 'messenger formula' in which the prophet (or another person) was commissioned to deliver a message lacks an execution statement. But that omission does not imply that the entrusted message was not delivered.39 3.2.2 Presence of Eyewitnesses.4® Several of the sign-acts express, either in the command (Jer. 19.1, 10; 43.9; Ezek. 4.12; 12.3 [twice], 4 [twice], 5, 6; 21.11; 37.20) or in the report of the command-fulfilment (Jer. 32.12; Ezek. 12.7), that the actions were performed in the presence of audiences. The usual terminology for this is 'in the sight of (... TU1?) which in other passages has a technical meaning of a transaction being performed so that the spectators might legally bear witness to the fact of its execution.41 Because the sign-acts were rhetorically motivated, the spectators were not uninvolved witnesses merely testifying that the prophets had performed the actions, but were rather participatory witnesses in the communication events who were to respond to the personal and national implications of the messages. It is acknowledged that in its overall biblical usage, the phrase DTI/7 is primarily used idiomatically and not exclusively for a visual action. For instance, the phrase is used in the context of verbalization as in Jer. 28.1, 5, 11. But in Gen. 23.18 the phrase clearly indicated the visual nature in contrast to the audible nature expressed in v. 16 by D'OTtQ. Thus, in its generalized use, the expression indicates the presence of witnesses and thereby the actual performance, but not necessarily the nature, whether verbal or nonverbal, of the communication event, unless such is made clear by the specific context. 38. Contra Hines 1923: 55-56; Howie 1950: 79, 81; Konig 1892: 652; 1904: 175. 39. Cf. Schmidt 1982. 40. See Fohrer (1952a: 103; 1968: 18) who classifies the 'Angaben iiber Augenzeugen' as 'unselbstandigenMerkmale'. 41. Cf. DTJft in Gen. 42.24; Exod. 4.30; Deut. 25.9, and specifically the use for legally binding transactions in Gen. 23.11, 18 and Jer. 32.12 (cf. Reventlow 1959: 34-36).


27

There were undoubtedly audiences for all of the actions (even Jer. 51.59-64a; see Chapter 2 §1.7) even when such is not explicitly stated.42 The size of the audiences becomes secondary to the issue of the audiences' presence. 3.2.3 Verbal Audience Response. Sometimes the literary accounts report that verbal audience responses were elicited by the actions.43 Although indicating that there were witnesses to the prophetic sign-acts, the mere existence of verbal audience responses does not determine whether the prophetic messages were verbal or nonverbal, nor whether the inquiries about the messages were by first-hand observers/auditors or by those who heard second-hand about the proclamation events. But in several cases the content of the response demonstrates that nonverbal behaviors were observed by the inquirers, therefore providing substantiation that such were really performed.44 Ezek. 12.9: 'What are you doing?' This response indicates that the audience saw the prophet 'doing' something and did not just hear him verbally recount an experience. If the latter were the case, then 'What are you saying?' would have been more appropriate. Ezek. 21.12: 'Concerning what are you groaning?' The audience obviously heard the nonverbal paralinguistic sighing of the prophet. Ezek. 24.19: 'Will you not tell us what these things (mean) for us since you are doing (them)?' Again the audience focused on what the prophet was 'doing', not 'saying'. 3.2.4 Designation of the Actions as 'Signs' (DIN, D21Q). In Ezek. 4.3 the placing of the iron griddle (thus incorporating the whole model siege of 42. Contra Stacey (1990: 133, 138) who maintains that the lack of mention of eyewitnesses, as in Jer. 13.1-11, means that there was no audience which therefore indicates that the primary purpose of the sign-acts was not communication. 43. As to whether the citations of audience inquiry reflect actual responses made in the course of the prophets' performances or were merely stylistic devices employed in the literary compositions, see Clark (1984) who views the citations in Ezek. 12.9 and 24.19 as 'representative' of the people's view, 21.12 as 'simulated (?)', and 37.18 as'genuine (?)'. 44. This same type of description appears in the Deir 'Alia inscription (Combination 1, lines 3-4) where the people inquire of Baalam's nonverbal behavior of fasting and weeping asking him: 'Why are you fasting and crying?' (For text and translation, see Hackett 1980.) See also the audience verbal responses in the examples of the nonbiblical, nonverbal communication in Chapter 1 §5.2.5.

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the city) is called a 'sign' (niN) for the house of Israel. In Ezek. 12.6, 11 when going out like an exile, in 24.24 when refraining from mourning at his wife's death, and in 24.27 when released from the speechlessness, Ezekiel is called a 'sign' (nsiQ). Since niN and DD1Q are frequent synonyms in parallel construction,45 in Ezekiel a strict distinction in meaning is unwarranted.46 The only distinction that can be drawn in Ezekiel is that HEJ1Q is reserved for the prophet himself47 and, by extension, his behavior which would or should be imitated by the people (12.6, 11; 24.24, 27).48 Yet in Ezekiel, ni« is also used for persons (14.8),49 in addition to inanimate miniature depictions (4.3) and sabbaths (20.12, 20). The terms, even in Ezekiel, can therefore be considered synonymous as to their basic meaning.50 45. Eighteen of the 36 occurrences of fiDlQ are in conjunction with flitf (Ezek. 7.3; Deut. 4.34; 6.22; 7.19; 26.8; 28.46; 29.2; 34.11; 13.2, 3; Neh 9.10; Isa. 8.18; 20.3; Jer. 32.20, 21; Pss. 78.43; 105.27; 135.9). Of the 18 remaining occurrences, 4 refer to the events in Egypt (Exod. 4.21; 7.9; 11.9, 10) which are referred to by either term (cf. especially where the snake turning into a staff is called HEJIQ in Exod. 7.9, but fritf in 4.8, 9, 28) and 2 refer to the 'sign' given Hezekiah of the sun moving back on the steps (called HS1Q in 2 Chron. 32.24, 31, but n1« in 2 Kgs 20.8, 9). The distinction of PID1Q being a negative portentous or a miraculous sign is therefore unwarranted (contra Rengstorf 1972:118). In Ezek. 4.3 and 14.8, the niniN were part of calamitous prophecies, and there was nothing miraculous about the person of Ezekiel to whom the term DS1Q was applied (12.6, 11; 24.24, 27). 46. Cf. Bailey 1991: 203-206, 210-11. 47. Although the distinction holds true for Ezekiel that only PID1Q was used of the prophet, it is not so in other prophetic books. In Isa. 8.18 DS1Q is used in parallelism with DiK in reference to Isaiah and his children, and in 20.3 in reference to the prophet when performing the sign-act of going naked to represent the Egyptians' and Cushites' captivity. 48. Blank (1974: 123-24) translates the term as 'paradigm' in that the prophet served as a visual analogy or example. Bailey (1991: 205-206) notes the coordination of prophets being called 'signs' almost exclusively in instances of performing sign-actions. Although he emphasizes that the 'the prophet and not the activity is called a sign' (205), he also notes that the prophets are designated 'signs' 'due to their connection with the particular activity in which they were engaged'. He then draws comparisons with similar language usage in other ancient Near Eastern omen texts. 49. See also Ps. 71.7 where the psalmist had become a nsiQ, and Ps. 86.17, an

ni». 50. The synonymous nature of the two terms in Ezekiel and the specific use of nitf in Isa. 20.3 in reference to a sign-action obviate Odell's (1998: 233) argument that the use of fritf in Ezek. 4.3 indicates that 4.1-5.4 are to be understood as part of


29

The primary characteristic of the two biblical terms, whether in secular or religious usage, is that the 'sign' was something perceived by the senses. As such, when the sign was an object, the stress was always upon visible apprehension,51 and when the sign was an event, upon participatory involvement.52 Auditory perception was not part of the sign's sensory mode of communication. 53 The visual aspect of signs is evidenced in the conjoined use of the verb n*O ('see'54) and in the signs being displayed in the people's sight (cf. Josh. 24.17, referring to the 'signs' God performed in Egypt and in the wilderness: 'He made these great signs [nln&n] in our sight [irrD^]').55 As applied to the prophetic the private initiatory rites of the preceding call narrative rather than activities performed in the public proclamation of the prophetic message. 51. Examples of visually observable 'signs' include those in Egypt (niX/nQin: Num. 14.22; Josh. 24.17), the altar splitting apart (HD1D: 1 Kgs 13.3, 5), heavenly signs (naiD: Joel 3.3; nit*!: Gen. 1.14), the staff becoming a snake (Tn'R: Exod. 4.8; nDID: Exod. 7.9), and the signs (iTinltf) of the rainbow (Gen. 9.12, 13, 17), circumcision (Gen. 17.11), the Passover blood on the door (Exod. 12.13), the signal banner (Num. 2.2), the censers on the altar (Num. 17.3), Aaron's rod (Num. 17.25), Gideon's fleece (Judg. 6.17), the stone memorial (Josh. 4.6), the growth of trees instead of briars (Isa. 55.13), and the altar (Isa. 19.20). 52. E.g. the sabbaths as signs (Exod. 31.13, 17; Ezek. 20.12, 20), the eating of the harvest (2 Kgs 19.29; Isa. 37.30), worshiping at the mountain (Exod. 3.12). 53. Cf. Anderson 1962: 349; Keller 1946: 56-57; Quell 1961: 292-93; Rengstorf 1971: 211-12. The only occurrence of either of the two terms in which a verbal message was the 'sign' is 1 Sam. 14.9-10 (HiR) where the enemy troops would tell Jonathan to wait or to proceed. Even in that case, the 'sign', rather than consisting of only a specific verbal content, was more generally that of a receptive or nonreceptive attitude toward Jonathan's approach which, in that particular case, was to be indicated in a verbal manner. (Cf. a similar situation in 1 Mace. 5.40-41 in which the indicator of military success or failure was completely nonverbal: whether Judas's army advanced across or halted at the river.) In Isa. 8.18, the sign incorporated the verbal names of the children, but was not solely confined to that aspect for the physical presence of the prophet and his children were also aspects of the sign (cf. Wagner 1997: 178). 54. Cf. Num. 14.22: 'Because all the men who have seen [D'tOil]... my signs [TDK]...'; Ps. 74.9, 'Our signs [ynniK] we have not seen [irtO »*?]'; Ps. 86.17, 'Make of me a sign [~1K] for good that those who hate me may see [iKT'iJ..." 55. Cf. Rengstorf (1971: 212), who also finds the visual character of the term niK expressed in the verbs related to the 'signs' occurrence: D'E, rrtD (cf. Exod. 10.1-2; Jer. 32.20; Pss. 78.43; 105.27—the latter three using both m'R and HD1D); and factuality suggested by HOT (Exod. 4.17; Num. 14.11, 22; Deut. 11.3; 34.11 [both ni« and H31D]; Josh. 24.17; Judg. 6.17; Ps. 86.17).

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sign-acts, the terms connoted the nonverbal rather than verbal nature of the actions, and their ability to be observed visually which by extension implies the presence of eyewitnesses.56 The two terms for 'sign' also always indicate that the referent so designated served a functional purpose which was interactive and persuasive,57 in that, the intention of a 'sign' was to transmit understanding and to alter the observers' perceptions of the situation which would have an effect on subsequent beliefs and behaviors.58 The rhetorical aspect of the two lexemes is evidenced by their connection with the knowledge formula, 'and you/they shall know that I am Yahweh',59 for example, Ezek. 14.8; 20.12, 20; Jer. 44.29, and specifically with respect to the sign-acts, Ezek. 12.15, 16, 20; 24.24, 27. The sign served an epistemic function of imparting knowledge, but knowledge of a very specific type: recognition of God. This connection shows that the intent of the signs was not merely to produce intellectual understanding about God, but to be the catalyst in changing the observers' theological belief system. Ezek. 14.8 and Jer. 44.29 illustrate the rhetorical nature of a sign. The speech context of Ezek. 14.8, in which the idolater was said to become a sign, is a call to repentance (v. 6) indicating that the purpose of the sign was to motivate the addressees toward a change of behavior. The signs of Ezek. 14.8 and Jer. 44.29, when they actually occurred, were to be rhetorical proofs presented as part of the attempt to 56. Cf. Fohrer 1968: 83-84. 57. Cf. Exod. 4.8; Num. 14.11. 58. The interactive nature is seen in Helfmeyer's (1977: 170-86) other categories of the functions of DIN besides that of the 'sign-acts': impart knowledge (epistemic signs), provide protection (protection signs), motivate to believe and worship God (faith signs), maintain faith through remembrance (mnemonic signs), remind of the covenant (covenant signs), confirms something beyond itself (confirmation signs). See also Fox's (1974: 562-69) threefold categorization of: (1) proof signs 'whose purpose is to convince the onlooker of the truth of a certain proposition' (562); (2) symbol signs, including the prophetic sign-acts, which 'serve to make that event vivid to the consciousness by translating it into actions' (562); (3) cognition signs (subdivided into 'identity' and 'mnemonic' signs) 'whose purpose is to awaken knowledge of something in the observer' (563). On the interactive nature, see also Keller 1946: 57-59; Quell 1961: 294; Rengstorf 1971: 216. 59. On the knowledge formula, and its use in Ezekiel, see the articles in Zimmerli 1982b. On the occurrence of 'sign' and the recognition formula in other biblical passages, see Helfmeyer 1977: 171-75; Keller 1946: 58-59; Rengstorf 1971: 215.


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persuade the people to adhere to the belief that God was interacting in human history through acts of judgment.60 As the two 'sign' lexemes were used for Ezekiel's sign-acts, they can be similarly understood as visually observable depictions, in contradistinction to auditory messages, and which functioned rhetorically with respect to intent and purpose. The Hebrew designation of the actions as 'signs' thereby implies actual performance. 3.3 Unconfirmed Acts Those acts which have no explicit indicators reflecting actual performances can be assumed to have been physically carried out as well. If Jer. 15.17 ('I did not sit in the circle of merrymakers, nor did I exult; because of your hand, I sat alone') is a reference to the actions in Jer. 16.1-9, then the latter is confirmed through that statement of execution (see Chapter 2 §1.2). Even if that is not the case, there are no barriers to the actuality of Jeremiah's abstinence from marrying and withdrawal from certain customary social interactions. In Jer. 51.59-64, the narrative style of Jeremiah's giving instructions to his messenger leads to the conclusion that this was an act really performed by Seraiah upon his arrival in Babylon. Although no specific statements of confirmation can be adduced for the actions of Ezek. 4.4-8 and 5.1-4, when understood as part of the complex of actions of chs. 4-5 (see Chapter 2 §1.9), the confirming indicators of the term 'sign' in 4.3 and the reference to eyewitnesses in 4.12 can be adduced to substantiate the actual performance of all of the actions in the complex. The actions of Ezek. 6.11 (clapping, stamping the feet), 12.18 (trembling and quivering), and 21.17-22 (wailing, striking the thigh, clapping) were common nonverbal gestures and expressions whose actual performance need not be questioned. The marking of two ways in Ezek. 21.24-25 similarly involved no activity which could not have been easily performed. 3.4 Distinctive Language The actual performance of all of the sign-acts of Jeremiah and Ezekiel can also be adduced indirectly from the fact that the language used to recount the nonverbal behaviors is distinctive from that of visionary 60. Cf. Helfmeyer 1977: 175. Similarly McCullough (1962: 346) lists Ezek. 14.8 as an 'object lesson'.

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experiences and verbalized messages. Such differences in literary presentation point to the texts' intention that the sign-act accounts be understood as actually occurring. 3.4.1 Language of Vision Experience. The recounted sign-acts of Ezekiel are the ones most severely questioned as to their actual performance, and often relegated to visionary or imaginary contexts. But within Ezekiel, the visions are clearly designated as such through distinctive vocabulary of 'visions', 'hand of Yahweh', 'Spirit lifting him up', 'looking/seeing'.61 Also some of the vision accounts incorporate specific injunctions that what had just been visionally experienced by Ezekiel was to be verbally communicated to those who had not experienced it (11.25; 37.12; 40.4). When Ezekiel performed an action in the midst of a vision (Ezek. 2.8-3.3, eating the scroll; ch. 8, going to the various parts of the Temple; 9.8, falling on his face; 11.4-13; 37.7, 10, prophesying), the context of a visionary experience was clearly stated. Such distinctive language of the visionary experiences of Ezekiel is totally lacking in the sign-act accounts with reference to the performances of the actions. The only sign-act which is found in the context of vision language is Ezekiel's speechlessness. In 3.26, the commencement of the speechlessness was communicated via the visionary experience (cf. 3.22: 'the hand of Yahweh was upon me'; 3.24: 'the Spirit entered me'), and in 33.22, Ezekiel had a visionary experience ('the hand of Yahweh was upon me') the evening preceding the cessation of the speechlessness which occurred the following morning (see Chapter 2 §1.8). But the speechlessness and the release from it were not executed during, rather, subsequent to, the visions. So the visions were the context of the prophet's reception of the announcements about the speechlessness and not the context of its performance.62 61. Ezek. 1.1-3.15: 'I saw visions of God' (1.1); 'the hand of Yahweh came upon him' (1.3); 'as I looked, behold' (1.4, 15; 2.8); 'I heard' (1.24); 'I saw' (1.27); 'the Spirit entered me' (2.2); 'the Spirit lifted me up' (3.12, 14). Ezek. 8-11: 'the hand of the Lord Yahweh fell on me' (8.1; cf. 8.3); 'I looked, and behold' (8.2, passim); 'the Spirit lifted me up' (8.3; 11.1, 24); 'brought me in a vision by the Spirit of God' (11.24). Ezek. 37.1-14: 'the hand of Yahweh was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit' (37.1). Ezek. 40-48: 'the hand of Yahweh was upon me' (40.1); 'in the visions of God' (40.2). 62. If chs. 4-5 are chronologically linked to 3.22-27, it may also be that the

1. Understanding Jeremiah's and Ezekiel's Sign-Acts

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Similarly in Jeremiah, the distinctive visual language of vision ('look', 'see', 'behold'—Jer. 1.11, 13; 4.23-26; 24.1, 3; 30.6) is lacking in the sign-act accounts. The distinctiveness in reporting types of experiences leads to the conclusion that the literary renderings of the sign-acts intend one to interpret the actions not as visions but as actual performances. 3.4.2 Language Enjoining Verbal Communication. The terminology used in the commands for the prophets to address the audiences verbally is different from the commands for nonverbal behavior in the sign-act accounts. In Jeremiah, the language commanding verbal pronouncement is clearly indicated by im (1.17; 7.27; 26.2), Kip (2.2; 3.12; 7.2; 11.6), TOR (5.19; 7.28; 8.4; 11.3; 13.12; 34.2; 39.16) and 13] (5.20). In Ezekiel, besides the terms im (14.4; 20.3, 27; 33.2), Km (6.2; 13,2; 21.7, 33; 25.2; 29.2; 30.2; 34.2; 35.2; 36.1; 38.2; 39.1) and 1QK (12.28; 14.6; 17.12; 28.2; 31.2; 33.10, 11, 12, 25), some specific types of verbal discourse are enjoined upon the prophet: 'propound a riddle' (rrpn Tin, 17.2), 'speak a parable' (^CQ *7fe?!?, 17.2; 24.3), "take up a lamentation' (nrp Stp, 19.1; 27.2; 28.12; 32.2). While the injunctive mood is employed whether enjoining a verbal message or a nonverbal action, the distinction as to the type of communication behavior is made through the terminology employed. The distinction in terminology is readily seen in those instances when, within the sign-act accounts, a command to verbalize is coupled with a command to act nonverbally.63 Ezek. 6.11: 'Clap your hand [nonverbal action], stomp your foot [nonverbal action], and say [verbal expression]...' Ezek. 12.1-16: There is a clear contrast between the commands for nonverbal action in vv. 3-6 and the verbal response to the people's inquiry of the meaning of the actions in vv. 8-11: 'Say to them...'

commands in those chapters to perform the sign-acts were also communicated to Ezekiel during the same visionary experience. But again the reception of the commands must be distinguished from the execution of the commands. 63. A similar form of command is found in Jeremiah in which the prophet was commanded to change his locale and then once having done so, verbally address the people: 'Go t"]1?!"!—a nonverbal action] and speak' (e.g. Jer. 2.2; 3.12; 28.13; 34.2; 35.2, 13; 39.16).

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Ezek. 21.11-12: 'Groan [nonverbal paralinguistic expression]... then you shall say [verbal expression]...' Ezek. 21.19: 'Prophesy [verbal expression] and clap [nonverbal gesture]...' Ezek. 24.15-24: The contrast is made between the nonverbal actions in vv. 16-17 and the verbal communication in vv. 20-24 ('Say to the house of Israel', v. 21). It should be noted that the commands to perform the sign-acts are given in similar terminology as are other commands for noncommunicative nonverbal actions whose real performance is not questioned (e.g. 'write' in Jer. 30.2; 36.2, 28). This use of normal, nonverbal terminology for the communicative actions enjoined in the sign-acts, which is distinct from the terminology for verbal communication, implies that the literary accounts of the sign-acts were intended to be understood as real performances. 3.5 Conclusion: The Sign-Acts' Actual Performance The sum of the arguments support the hypothesis that the literary accounts of the sign-acts of Jeremiah and Ezekiel report nonverbal behaviors which were really and publicly performed by the prophets as part of their prophetic ministries. This being the case, the actions can be defined more precisely as to type, function and purpose according to nonverbal communication theory. Even if one ends up disagreeing with the assumption of actual performance, the ensuing study has validity since it cannot be denied that the literary accounts of the sign-acts intendthe reader to assume that the actions really took place. Thus, even if one holds that the acts were visions or parabolic speech, benefit can be derived from this study by construing it as an analysis of the rhetorical functions and impact intended by the literary accounts. 4. Nonverbal Communication Model In analyzing a communication process, five aspects must be considered: (1) the level of the speaker's awareness and intention of the sign; (2) the primary function of the nonverbal behavior; (3) the coding of the communication signs; (4) the nature of the nonverbal behavior; and (5) the associated relationship between the verbal and nonverbal elements. The prophetic sign-acts are defined more precisely as nonverbal communication when analyzed according to these aspects. At this juncture,


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the terminology used with reference to the five aspects of communication theory will be defined. The synthesis of the sign-acts and communication theory will be dealt with in Chapter 3. 4.1 Intentionality in Communicating In communication theory, intentionality is defined as 'the deliberate use of a nonverbal act to communicate a message to another interactant' (Ekman and Friesen 1969: 53).64 That information can sometimes be sent unconsciously is affirmed, but such is excluded by the definition of intentionality: 'Intentional nonverbal behavior must be... within awareness and the sender must want to send a message through his act' (Ekman and Friesen 1969: 54). The term 'intent', as employed in this study, will include both conscious awareness and deliberateness in using the nonverbal behavior to communicate a specifiable messagecontent. This definition of intent, as conscious performance by the sender, does not mean that the receivers will accurately acknowledge either the appropriate level of the sender's motivating intent or the meaning intended by the sender. Since an outside observer cannot accurately determine the sender's intent, by necessity the determination of intent depends on the evaluation of such by the sender. The primary considerations, with respect to intent, are whether the sign-acts of Jeremiah and Ezekiel are presented as intentionally performed, and if so, is such intent accurately ascribed to the prophets' motives. 4.2 Functions of Nonverbal Communication Nonverbal communication functions in three ways, which overlap for any single action: it is communicative, informative and interactive (cf. Ekman and Friesen 1969: 57). 4.2.1 Communicative. Communicative nonverbal behaviors are 'those acts which are clearly and consciously intended by the sender to transmit a specifiable message to the receiver... Presumed unconscious intentions to transmit a message are also excluded from our definition' (Ekman and Friesen 1969: 55-56). 64. On intentionality in communication, see also Harrison and Knapp 1972: 34445; Knapp 1978: 5; Nolan (1975: 113-17) who uses the term 'propositionality'; Scott 1980.

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The encoded meaning by the speaker of the message may be either idiosyncratic or shared (conventional). Ekman and Friesen (1969: 54) define idiosyncratic and shared meanings as: 'An act has idiosyncratic meaning if there is some regularity in the information associated with its occurrence but the association is peculiar to a single individual. An act has shared meaning if the information associated with it is common across some specifiable set of individuals.' 4.2.2 Informative. Informative behavior can inform the receiver of the sender's emotions, convey interpersonal attitudes (such as like/dislike, dominance/submission), and present personality (cf. Knapp 1978: 21). The information thus conveyed is not necessarily consciously transmitted by the sender.65 The distinctiveness of informative behavior is that it does not attempt to communicate a specific message-content, but informs of tangential and peripheral aspects associated with the speaker and primary message. Since the primary, conscious intent of the prophetic sign-acts was that of communicating messages rather than informing of the prophets' social status and interpersonal attitudes, the informative aspect will be dealt with in this study only as it relates to the rhetoric of enhancing the prophets' ethos. 4.2.3 Interactive. Interactive nonverbal behaviors are those 'acts by one person in an interaction which clearly modify or influence the interactive behavior of the other person(s)' (Ekman and Friesen 1969: 56). An interactive behavior has a persuasive aspect as it evokes responses, such as drawing the attention of the spectators (cf. Ekman and Friesen 1969: 64). In this study, the terms 'rhetorical' and 'persuasive' will be used as the characteristic aspects of the 'interactive' function of the prophetic sign-acts. 4.3 Coding of Nonverbal Behavior Nonverbal behavior is coded by the sender (encoder) as it is transmitted to the receiver (the decoder). Coding is the process through which the 65. Cf. Ekman and Friesen (1969: 55): This 'does not imply that the act was intended to convey the information it does, nor does it imply that the act was intended to convey any information at all, though it does. The term informative refers only to decoded meaning.'


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sign is associated with its referent resulting in 'meaning' (cf. Nolan 1975: 111).66 A three-part continuum shows the principle of correspondence between the act and its meaning with the distinguishing feature of each kind of coding being the proximity of the code to its referent (cf. Ekman and Friesen 1972: 356; Knapp 1978: 10): Intrinsic

Iconic

Arbitrary

4.3.1 Intrinsic Coding: 'Index'. Intrinsic coding has the greatest correspondence between the sign and the referent, that is, 'the meaning of the act is intrinsic to the action itself; and the referent can be the code itself, that is, 'the act does not stand for but is its significant' (Ekman and Friesen 1969: 60). A sign which is intrinsically coded is called an 'index'.67 4.3.2 Iconic Coding: 'Icon'/'Representational'. Iconic coding involves a close resemblance between the sign and the referent. 'Acts which are iconically coded carry the clue to their decoding in their appearance; the nonverbal act, the sign, looks in some way like what it means, its significant' (Ekman and Friesen 1969: 60).68 Since the term 'icon' has other connotations in religious terminology differing from its usage in communication theory, the term 'representational' will be used in this study to designate the iconically coded prophetic acts.

66. In their studies of the prophetic actions, Amsler (1980: 195; 1985: 61-64) and Clerc (1985: 109-10) attempt to apply the schema of digital versus analogical coding to verbal and nonverbal communication respectively, but as Nolan (1975: 111-12) points out, some nonverbal communication can be digitally coded, so that the digital/analogical distinction is not adequate for precisely defining how nonverbal behavior is coded (cf. also Ekman and Friesen 1969: 60). 67. Cf. Firth (1973: 61) who defines 'index' as 'a sign directly related in fact to what it signified'. Cf. also Hawkes (1977: 127): an 'index' is 'something which functions as a sign by virtue of some sort of factual or causal connection with its object'. 68. Cf. also Hawkes 1977: 127. Firth defines an 'icon' as 'a sign that represents its object by resembling it' (1973: 61) and a sign in which 'a sensory likenessrelation is intended or interpreted. Change of scale or motion or dimension may be involved, since an icon is constructed as a physical or imaginative representation, suggesting a referent by a complex combination of elements' (1973: 75).

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4.3.3 Arbitrary Coding: 'Symbol'/'Figurative'. Arbitrary coding has the least correspondence between the sign and referent in that there is no sensory resemblance between the two.69 A sign which is arbitrarily coded is referred to as a 'symbol'.70 To avoid misunderstanding between the term 'symbol' as defined in this study as an arbitrarily coded sign and its much broader use in previous studies of the prophetic actions,71 the term 'figurative' will be applied to those prophetic actions which are of this type of coding. 4.3.4 'Sign'. While the terms 'index', 'icon' and 'symbol' are defined by the type of respective coding, the term 'sign'72 is inclusive under which the above three types of coding are subsumed. It is acknowledged that there is not total unanimity regarding the above distinctions between 'sign', 'index' (intrinsically coded), 'icon' and 'symbol' (arbitrarily coded).73 But the distinctions, as presented above, provide clearer and more precise definitions which allow the prophetic sign-acts to be more accurately described and categorized as to their nature and function.74 69. Verbal behavior is of this type since words do not visually or audibly (with the exception of onomatopoeia) resemble the object being spoken of. 70. Firth (1973: 61) defines 'symbol' as 'a sign determined by its object only in the sense that it will be so interpreted—an allocation depending on habit, convention or agreement, or natural disposition of the interpreter' and (1973: 74) 'No sensory likeness of symbol to object may be apparent to an observer, and imputation of relationship may seem arbitrary'. See also Hawkes (1977: 127) that a 'symbol' is 'something which functions as a sign because of some "rule" of conventional or habitual association between itself and its object' and (1977: 129) '[the symbol's] relationship to [the referent] remains fundamentally arbitrary (or "imputed"...) sustained only by the structure of the language in which it occurs, and which is understood by its interpretant, and not by reference to any area of experience beyond that'. 71. Cf. Konig (1904: 170) who uses the two broad categories of an act 'performed for its own sake or an act executed in order to express an idea'. Then everything included in the latter category is called 'symbolic'. 72. Cf. Hawkes's (1977: 127) definition: 'A sign [or representamen} thus stands for something (its object); it stands for something to somebody (its interpretant); and finally it stands for something to somebody in some sense (this respect is called its ground): Cf. also Firth 1973: 74. 73. See, for example, Skorupski's (1976: 116-24) discussion of differing views about the various terms as to which type of coding each has reference. 74. Stacey (1990: 20-22) dismisses the use of both terms, 'symbol' and 'sign',


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4.4 Types of Nonverbal Communication Even though verbal and nonverbal behaviors are not exclusively independent entities within the communication process but rather interact with each other to produce the total message,75 a distinction can be made so that the nonverbal elements can be analyzed separately and categorized according to their different types.76 The nonverbal communication types significant for this study 77 are: (1) body motions (kinesics), (2) artifacts, and (3) paralanguage. 4.4.1 Body Motions. Kinesic behavior includes gestures, movements of the body, facial expressions, eye movements, and posture. These bodily behaviors are further subdivided: (1) emblems, which are stylized movements with conventional meanings; (2) illustrators, which serve to illustrate what is being said verbally; (3) affect displays, which are the behavioral consequences of emotional states; and (4) regulators, which maintain the flow of the communication without bearing any messagecontent.78 with respect to these prophetic actions. He distinguishes between the two in that 'symbols are normally supposed to participate directly in what they represent', and that they 'do more than convey information' which is how he defines 'sign' (20). He further states that 'symbols have an inner, compelling power that signs lack. Symbols communicate through the senses to the unconscious and the response is profound, not entirely rational nor volitional' (21). But his definitions of the two terms deal only at the level of function (thus symbols are interactive, while signs are only informational), rather than with how the message is encoded. But it is the latter level of encoding which is foundational in producing the appropriate definitions. 75. Cf. Knapp (1978: 20): 'Nonverbal communication cannot be studied in isolation from the total communication process. Verbal and nonverbal communication should be treated as a total and inseparable unit.' 76. The following categories are taken from Knapp (1978: 12-20) with modifications from Cronkhite and Liska (1980: 109). For a similar categorization, see Brembeck and Howell 1976: 207-11. On other categorizations of nonverbal behavior, see Harrison and Knapp 1972: 346-47. 77. Nonverbal communication also involves proxemics and environment, chronemics (aspects of the temporal interaction between the communicants), tactile behavior (intercommunicant touching) and physical (nonmovement bound) communicator characteristics (e.g. physique, height, hair, skin color). But the biblical accounts of Jeremiah's and Ezekiel's sign-acts do not provide sufficient information on these aspects to warrant discussion in this study. 78. The category of 'kinesics' also includes 'adaptors' which are adaptive acts

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4.4.2 Artifacts. Artifacts are the objects, external to the interactants, which the communicator employs as nonverbal stimuli to aide in the transfer of the message (cf. Knapp 1978: 19). 4.4.3 Paralanguage. Paralanguage incorporates the nonverbal elements involved in how something is said, not what is said. The paralinguistic elements (cf. Knapp 1978: 18-19) are divided into: (1) voice qualities and (2) vocalizations. The former involves elements such as tempo and pitch, rhythm, and articulation control. The latter is subdivided into: (a) vocal qualifiers (e.g. intensity, pitch height, and extent); (b) vocal segregates (e.g. 'uh-huh', 'um', 'uh', 'ah'); and (c) vocal characterizers (e.g. laughing, crying, sighing, coughing, moaning, groaning, whining, yelling, whispering, sneezing). 4.5 Coordination of the Verbal and Nonverbal Elements Within a communication event, the verbal and nonverbal elements of the message are coordinated both temporally and functionally. Whereas 'timing (chronemics)' involves the temporal aspects of speaker-audience interaction, this category refers to when and how the speaker conjoins the verbal and nonverbal elements in communicating the message. 5. Sign-Acts and Rhetorical Theory The rhetorical (interactive) function of the prophetic sign-acts was a significant part of the whole communication event, for the prophets were not merely trying to disseminate message content didactically but were attempting to persuade their audiences of a different way of viewing their situations and circumstances. Through the sign-actions, the prophets were trying to alter the people's perceptions, attitudes and behavioral patterns. Before analyzing the suasive purposes and effects of Jeremiah's and Ezekiel's sign-acts, it is necessary to deal with the theoretical issues of the definition of 'rhetoric', the reasons the sign-acts are to be considered rhetorical rather than having an inherent effectiveness, and the rhetorical model. maintained by habit, and therefore are unintentionally and unconsciously performed without correlation to the communication context (cf. Ekman and Friesen 1969: 8492; 1972: 361-64; Knapp 1978: 17-18). But this category is not pertinent to the study of the prophetic sign-acts.


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5.1 Definition of 'Rhetoric' When defined as 'the art of persuasion', 'rhetoric' is far broader than just analyzing structural and literary techniques,79 but must incorporate an analysis of how those features are utilized within the persuasive attempts by the sender and of the resulting effects upon the audiences. Thus the analysis of the rhetoric of the nonverbal actions is more than identification of types and description of the structural components and arrangement, but must include analysis as to how those features were used as suasive techniques in their various forms of interaction such as instructing, advising, arguing, ordering, persuading, threatening and warning. 5.2 Rhetorical Effect versus Inherent Efficaciousness Many studies dealing with the prophetic sign-acts, rather than viewing them as communication techniques designed for the purpose of audience persuasion, have viewed the actions' effectiveness as an inherent quality traceable to a relationship either with 'sympathetic magic' or with the supposed 'power of the spoken word'. In those studies, a signact's effectiveness is perceived as setting the depicted event in motion through the very performance of the action.80 This view is succinctly expressed by Bowker (1964: 130) that the prophetic act 'releases an event in miniature, it says that a particular consequence is not simply 79. Wuellner (1987: 451-52) calls the type of 'rhetorical criticism', which only deals with literary and structural patterns, 'rhetoric restrained' since it is the 'reduction of rhetorics to stylistics, and of stylistics in turn to the rhetorical tropes or figures. Reduced to concerns of style, with the artistry of textual disposition and textual structure, rhetorical criticism has become indistinguishable from literary criticism.' 80. On the sign-acts being associated with sympathetic magic or the power of the spoken word and being initiators of the depicted future reality, see Amsler 1980: 198; 1985: 47-52; Aune 1983: 100, 153, 374; Bourguet 1987a: 251-58, 44547; 1987b: 177-84; Bowker 1964: 130; Clerc 1985: 108-109, 132; Fishbane 1971: 185-87; Fohrer 1967: 250-53; 1968: 14, 19, 93-107; Fox 1912, 1913/14; Fraser 1974: 47, 51-53; Godbey 1923; Guillaume 1938: 170-74; Hals 1989: 33-34, 39-40, 77, 274-75, 354; Keller 1946: 49-50; Kooy 1962: 472-74; Lawhead 1985-86: 14; Lindblom 1962: 52, 54, 172; Lods 1927: 59; 1929: 173-75; 1950: 58-60, 240-41; March 1974: 172-73; Matheney 1965; 1968: 261; Paul 1971: 1158, 1162-63; Pilch 1981a: 107-108; von Rad 1962: 61, 74-76; Robinson 1927: 2-10; 1942: 132-33, 137; Rosen 1968: 44-48; Rowley 1963: 92-93; Vorwahl 1932: 68-69; Woodard 1983: 101-28, 137-38; Zimmerli 1965: 518-20; 1979: 55, 156.

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possible, not simply predictable, it is unavoidable because it is already in being... It is the release of an inevitable circumstance which nothing can avert.' But, as will be shown, the assertions that the prophetic sign-acts incorporated inherent qualities of participation and effectiveness in carrying out their referents are based on questionable presuppositions.81 5.2.1 Presuppositions of Links with Magic or the 'Power' of the Word. The link with 'sympathetic magic' has been explained either as being an overt one, in that the sign-acts were sympathetic magic, or as a derivational one, in that the sign-acts originated out of 'sympathetic magic'82 but as employed by the prophets had 'overcome' and 'transformed' the magical elements.83 The 'overcoming' is explained as having occurred at several levels: (1) while the power of magic depended upon an inner power connected with it or with proper technical execution, the power of the sign-acts derived from God; (2) .while magic coerced or constrained the deity, the sign-acts were done at God's command; (3) magic often sought personal ends while the sign-acts were the divine will which, at times, even contradicted the prophets' personal desires; (4) magical acts relied on the present to bring the future into being, while the sign-acts brought the future into the present; (5) the magical act had an independent existence and function, but the sign-act was subservient to the proclamation of the divine word and thereby had a kerygmatic function. It is also argued that the 'transformation' did not obviate the sign-acts' inevitability of outcome; rather, it based the assurance of the outcome on different theological presuppositions, such as the divine promise.84

81. For arguments against the sign-acts having an inherent power, see van den Born 1935: 26-28; 1947: 34-36; Criado 1948; Lang 1978: 167-70; 198la: 278; 1981b: 86-87, 89; 1983a: 81-82, 88; 1985: 7-8; 1986: 301 (except for Jer. 51.59-64 and 2 Kgs 13.14-19); Ramlot 1972: 970, 972-73; Stacey 1990: 234-59. 82. Cf. Fohrer (1968: 10): 'Die prophetischen Handlungen stehen phanomenologisch in engem Zusammenhang mit uberall anzutreffenden magisch-zauberhaften Handlungen, in denen sie ihren Ursprung haben und aus denen sich ihre magische Ausftihrung und Wirkung ergibt.' 83. Fohrer (1967: 248, 251) speaks of a broken or dialectical relationship (gebrochene order dialektische Art) of the prophetic sign-acts to magic. 84. See Fohrer 1967: 251; 1968: 105-107, 114-18; Matheney 1965: 302-303; Stacey 1990: 268-75.


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The proposed ways in which the sign-acts have 'overcome' the magical elements are, with some modifications, potentially valid observations of the differences between magical acts and the prophetic nonverbal behaviors. But those observed contrasts need not reflect the process of transforming what was once a magical action into a nonmagical one. Rather, the differences may indicate an attitudinal difference toward actions perceived as magical and those intended as rhetorical communication. As such, regardless of any similarity in outward form, the noted contrasts could as well be used as arguments against the prophetic actions having a magical background. Some of the differences reinforce the view that the prophetic nonverbal communication was rhetorical in intent. The conclusion that the power to carry out the events depicted by the sign-acts resided with God (argument T, above), is a statement about the rhetor's authority: the prophet as the human rhetor, because he was God's messenger, was backed by the divine authority. Since the sign-acts did not coerce the deity (argument '2'), then they must have been audience-directed for the purpose of persuasion. Since the contrast between the prophets' personal desires and the messages of the sign-acts reinforced the divinely imposed nature of the actions (argument '3'), the messages' arguments were ones based on authority which should have enhanced the suasive impact on the audiences. Although the sign-acts depicted future events in the present (argument '4'), it can be argued that the purpose of such was not thereby to bring the future event into being, but rather to attempt to change the audiences' present beliefs and dispositions so that their personal futures might be thereby altered. Part of the 'kerygmatic' function (argument '5') was that of convincing the audiences of the proclamations. One of the major arguments for linking the prophetic actions to 'sympathetic magic' is that the primitive world-view was essentially magical-mythopic.85 Since it is assumed that the ancient Israelites shared such a world-view with the other 'primitive' ancient Near Eastern peoples, it is postulated that Israelite practices must have derived from such magical concepts. It is then argued that even though the magical elements had been overcome in the sign-acts, the original Sitz im Leben of magic can be detected through residues or survivals within the actions.

85. Cf. Fohrer 1967; Guiliaume 1938; Lods 1927.

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The whole theory that a primitive mindset must be magical is now dismissed by many recent anthropological studies of 'primitive' cultures, and the methodology of using 'survivals' for differing cross-cultural phenomena is recognized as being based on some erroneous presuppositions.86 Other studies have focused on the efficaciousness of the actions as being equated with the 'power' which the Israelites supposedly ascribed to the spoken word.87 It is proposed that the view of the efficacious word existed because of a lack of distinction between the word and its entity.88 It is argued that this is reflected in the Hebrew language because ~Q1 can be used for a verbal pronouncement or for a nonverbal thing, and in the biblical texts where the 'word' is treated as a substantive element.89 This concept of the 'efficaciousness of the word' has been perpetuated within biblical scholarship despite refutations of the concept from etymological and sociological studies. The view, that the 'power' of the word resided inherently in the word as an objective entity, is countered by the position that the power and ability to expedite resided rather in the speaker who was in a position of authority to carry out that which was stated (cf. Thiselton 1974: 29093). This accords with persuasion theory that the speaker's power, which is the ability to administer rewards or punishments, is significant in producing results (cf. Petty and Cacioppo 1981: 68). The position is also countered by the fact that words, such as blessings and cursings,

86. Against a magico-mythical world-view approach, see Douglas 1966; Munn 1973: 592; Rogerson 1978. On a critique of the 'primitive mindset' assumptions with specific reference to the prophetic sign-acts, see Lang 1983a: 88-89; 1985: 7-8; 1986: 303-304. 87. This has resulted in the sign-acts being referred to as 'visual words' (cf. Lindblom 1962: 171: verbum visibile). But this kind of designation clearly destroys the verbal/nonverbal distinction in the communication event, and therefore is unsuited for these nonverbal actions. 88. Cf. Rabinowitz (1972: 121): 'words and entities were felt to be necessarily and intrinsically connected with each other... To encounter the word was to encounter the entity, the reality designated by it... The word is the reality in its most concentrated, compacted, essential form.' 89. Cf. Jer. 5.14; 23.29 where the divine word is like fire; Jer. 23.29, the word is like a hammer which breaks rock; Isa. 55.11, it does not return empty, without accomplishing the divine desire; Hos. 6.5, the word slays and is like lightning; Ps. 107.20, the word heals; Ps. 147.18, the word melts ice.


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were performative.90 When spoken in the proper contexts following accepted conventional procedures, performative words actually 'do' something. But this is still to be distinguished from any 'power' which the word inherently has, for taken out of the proper context, the word becomes 'infelicitous'.91 Also, the argument that "Ql can mean both 'word' and 'thing', and therefore the two were indistinguishable in the minds of the Israelites, has been refuted on the basis of the nature of polysemy (cf. Barr 1961: 133-38; Thiselton 1974: 289-90). Also the arguments which are based on interpretations of the biblical passages where 'word' is referred to in some substantive manner and which thus conclude that the 'word' was an objective reality with an inherent power, result from overliteralizing language which is metaphoric description. In poetry, any concept or abstract thing could be hypostasized, but this did not mean that the poetic expression reflected the speaker's ontological understanding of the subject. Those who adhere to the assumption of an inherent power frequently postulate differing degrees of efficaciousness in bringing about the predicted future events. It is proposed that actions were more efficacious than spoken words.92 There is a rhetorical difference between verbal and nonverbal behaviors with respect to the effects on the audience. But the rhetorical nature of a behavior's effect on an audience is quite different from, and not necessarily due to, any 'inherent efficaciousness' in the format of the message's presentation. With respect to an action's efficaciousness, all that can be evaluated is the communicants' perspectives or attributions of such. As will be shown, neither the prophets nor the audiences viewed the sign-acts as inevitably bringing about the depicted future occurrences. This being the case, one need not postulate any inherent

90. For a definition and general discussion of 'performative' utterances, see Austin 1970, 1975; Hancher 1988. On 'performatives' as rhetorical constructs, see Benjamin 1976. For specific correlations of performatives: to the biblical view of the 'word', see Thiselton 1974: 293-94; to prophetic utterances, see Carroll 1979: 69-75; to biblical 'blessings', see Mitchell 1987; to prophetic sign-acts, see Button 1995. 91. See Austin (1975: 12-24) for the definition of what comprises 'infelicitous' occurrences of performatives. 92. Cf. Fohrer 1968: 92; Lindblom 1962: 52; Lods 1950: 241; Robinson 1942: 132-33.

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efficaciousness, but rather attribute all effects of both verbal and nonverbal behavior to their employment as persuasive tools and devices designed by the prophets to elicit specific audience responses. The assumption of various degrees of effectiveness is also used as an argument for the 'false' prophets' similar nonverbalactions93 not hav ing an efficaciousness like that of the 'true' prophets. In other words, the events nonverbally depicted by the 'true' prophets would actually occur, while those of the 'false' prophets need not or would not occur. This line of reasoning is linked to the hypothesis that the degree of 'power' of a word was contingent upon 'the strength of the "soul" in which the words originated, of the person who uttered them or caused them to be uttered' (Rabinowitz 1972: 120).94 The hermeneutical ploy is then adduced that since the 'false' prophets were not sent by God, their actions were not efficacious. But this is an argument based on hindsight, for the immediate audiences probably could not have so clearly discerned who was a 'true' or 'false' prophet. In the confrontation of Jeremiah with Hananiah (Jer. 28), both prophets spoke in the name of Yahweh (28.2, 11, 13) and both performed nonverbal actions which depicted the theological positions which they proclaimed (Jer. 27.2; 28.10). How would the immediate audience have been able to know which of the two actions was efficacious, and thereby know which of the prophetic messages to structure their future lives by? The supposition of varying degrees of efficaciousness, to the point that a 'false' prophet's action had none, contradicts the basic hypothesis upon which the supposition of the actions' effectiveness is based. The words or actions cannot be considered efficacious in and of themselves if their effectiveness depends upon the performer. It is better to maintain a consistent perspective regarding the actions, regardless of the performers, as communication devices employed for their rhetorical impact upon the audiences. According to the latter hypothesis, a signact's impact on the audience was partly contingent upon the rhetor's ethos and abilities to reward or punish, not upon an 'inherent power' residing in the action itself.

93. The only texts which recount such actions by 'false' prophets are Jer. 28.10, Hananiah's breaking the yoke worn by Jeremiah, and 1 Kgs 22.11 (- 2 Chron. 18.10), Zedekiah's use of iron horns, in which he possibly placed them on his head to imitate the goring of the enemy. 94. Cf. also Lindblom 1962: 117.


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Some authors, while adhering to the actions' inherent efficaciousness analogous to magical rites or to the 'power' of the word, do acknowledge the performed sign-acts' suasive impact on the audiences.95 But attempting to maintain the two positions usually results in a diminishing or negating of the suasive importance. If a sign-act's effectiveness is considered to be inherent and not audience-bound, so that an audience did not even have to be present for the performance, then the suasive impact which necessitates an audience is negated. If the primary motivating factor behind the prophets' performances of the actions is considered to be 'setting the future events in motion', then the rhetorical impact becomes secondary and insignificant since the audiences' responses to what the prophets communicated would have an inconsequential affect on what happened in the future. But once the verbal words and nonverbal sign-acts are stripped of the nonexistent 'inherently efficacious power', then they can truly be considered 'rhetorical' communication devices.96 Thus the purpose and function of the sign-acts are to be found in the inherent need and desire to communicate effectively, rather than in the context of magical ritual. 95. Cf. Fohrer 1968: 91-92; Lindblom 1962: 172; Matheney 1965: 304. Mutton (1995) tries to take a mediating position between the two arguing that the sign-acts are a form of cursing which is a performative, thus being both illocutionary in that they 'have the power to "do things" because of the social conventions which form the context for this power' (257), as well as perlocutionary in that they elicit an affective response within the audience such as 'to modify behavior by clarifying the consequences of one's actions' (258). Although this is certainly a step in the right direction, Mutton still seems to work with the assumption that the sign-acts are predictive of what will happen in the future. Yet not all sign-acts are future-oriented (see Chapter 1 §5.2.3) nor do all of the sign-acts portray negative judgment, as implied by the term 'curse' (e.g. Ezek. 37.15-28 which would rather have to be a 'blessing'). Thus some of the sign-acts cannot be explained through Mutton's interpretative paradigm. 96. When Stacey (1990) denies that the sign-acts are inherently efficacious, he argues from a metaphysical perspective. He seeks to understand their relationship to future events as not being linear, cause-effect, rather the prophetic actions and the future events are 'different modes of expression' of the divine will (275-82). Although he acknowledges the rhetorical function of the prophetic actions (20-21, 280), he also dismisses the communicative and persuasive aspects (264-68); cf. Mutton's (1995: 255-56) critique of Stacey. By focusing solely on the metaphysical relationship between divine will, drama, and future event, he fails to explain how the sign-acts functioned specifically as communication in the context of proclamation.

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Rather than attempting to bring about historical events through prophesying about them, the primary motives for the prophets' transmission of their messages through nonverbal channels can be found in the desire to influence suasively the audiences together with the need to communicate the messages' contents in a comprehensible manner. 5.2.2 Actors' and Spectators' Views of the Sign-Acts. In arguing for a link with magic and therefore an inherent efficaciousness, it must be assumed that either the prophets and/or the audiences viewed the signacts as efficacious.97 For if neither the prophets nor the audiences viewed the actions as inherently 'powerful', then such refutes that perspective as being a valid way of interpreting the sign-actions. What is significant is that, as literarily recounted, the audience responses to the prophetic messages do not warrant the view that the audiences themselves viewed the prophetic words and actions as efficacious in the sense that the mere utterances or performances were sufficient to bring about the realities predicted. The people are characterized as not listening to (not heeding) the messages of Ezekiel and Jeremiah (cf. Ezek. 2.3-7; 3.7; 12.2; 33.31) or as discounting them (cf. Jer. 17.15; Ezek. 12.22; 33.30-32). The auditors frequently dismissed the prophetic messages as if they were optional advice, with the choice to heed the messages based upon the auditors' own dispositions at the time. Zedekiah requested words from Jeremiah (Jer. 21; 37.17; 38.14-28), yet once the prophetic words were given, Zedekiah felt no compulsion to alter his policy which would have resulted in different consequences (cf. 38.17-23). Similarly Jeremiah's answer to the people's request (42.143.7) was dismissed as a lie and not heeded without any apparent fear of negative repercussions for not complying with the prophetic advice. If the audiences considered the prophetic words and deeds efficacious, then certainly the people would have ascribed them greater credence.98

97. Cf. van den Born (1947: 35; also 1935: 27) who argues that whether an action is considered magical depends upon the intention of the actor: 'the difference between magical and symbolic action frequently only exists in the purpose of the person performing the action. Two people can do the same thing; it all depends what the personal attitude of those people is, whether the same deed means a magical action for one and a symbolic action for the other' (translated from Dutch). 98. Cf. Carroll (1979: 73): 'If there had been a belief in the magical power of the prophetic word or gesture in ancient Israel then we would have expected the prophets to have been taken more seriously than they appear to have been.'


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Some commentators have proposed that Jehoiakim, in burning the scroll of Jeremiah's oracles (Jer. 36.22-24), thereby 'magically' or effectively counteracted any effect that the proclamations inherently possessed." But this action by Jehoiakim can be interpreted as being either an act of contempt toward the prophet and his message or that of a tyrant who did not desire the words of Jeremiah to be disseminated publicly. He therefore destroyed the only copy of the written text so that the oracles could no longer be properly remembered or repeated in their full form by the audience who had initially heard them (36.8). Thus the action was not 'counter-magic', but rather practical in nature. The king's reaction of not being afraid of the proclamations nor being sorrowful (36.24) indicates that the king did not view the written words as having any inherent efficaciousness about which he had to be overly concerned. It has also been proposed that Hananiah broke the yoke (28.10-11) to counteract, overcome and alter by his nonverbal action the reality already set in motion by Jeremiah's wearing of the yoke.100 First, this type of argument misinterprets the action of Jeremiah as being a predictive prophecy which Hananiah would need to nullify. But through the nonverbal action of wearing the yoke, Jeremiah was not depicting some event yet to be actualized in the future which contrasted to the present situation. Jeremiah was not predicting, but exhorting and arguing for the people of Judah to continue the present condition of subservience to Babylon instead of attempting to throw off the yoke as they were being counselled to do. Hananiah's action should be seen as a prophetic act in its own right, not as being 'counter-magic'. Just as Jeremiah had dramatically presented his case by wearing the yoke, so Hananiah wanted to communicate his prophecy dramatically and legitimate his authority as a prophet by breaking the yoke. Thus his action is a rhetorical counter-action done to nullify the persuasive impact of Jeremiah's act, not one which effectively countered any inherent efficaciousness of Jeremiah's act. 99. Cf. Carroll 1986: 667; Fohrer 1967: 262-63; Huey 1993: 328; Kessler 1969: 383; Nicholson 1970: 9; Paterson 1984: 44. Stacey (1990: 164-65) suggests that such a notion of instrumental effectiveness was present from the perspective of Jehoiakim and his supporters, but that such was not part of Jeremiah's theological or metaphysical viewpoint. 100. Cf. Carroll 1986: 537, 545; Fraser 1974: 47, 49-50; McKeating 1961: 51; Nicholson 1970: 96-97; Stacey 1990: 252, 266.

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Frequently the prophetic messages elicited responses which were directed against the prophets themselves and not against the messages (cf. Jer, 11.18-19, 21; 12.6; 15.15, 20; 18.18, 20-23; 20.1-2, 7, 10; 26.10-11, 16; 29.26; 32.2-5; 36.26; 38.1-6, 14-15; also 1.19; Ezek. 2.6). This indicates that it was the prophet's continued presence, not the already uttered word, that was considered a threat to the community. For example, Pashur's placement of Jeremiah in the stocks (Jer. 20.1-6) cannot be interpreted adequately as an act intended to counter any presumed power inherent in the prophet's announcement of destruction so as to prevent its occurrence101 since Jeremiah's arrest and spending the night in the stocks would not have affected the already spoken proclamation. As a punitive measure, the confinement of Jeremiah was a persuasive attempt to stop Jeremiah from any further utterances rather than trying to rectify past utterances. Similar are the other incidents where Jeremiah was arrested and imprisoned. In Jer. 29.26-27 when Shemaiah questioned why Jeremiah had not been put into the stocks and thereby rebuked, no comment was made about the punishment in any way thwarting already stated messages, but rather it was aimed at preventing further utterances. In Jeremiah 26, after proclaiming the destruction of the Temple, even the call for Jeremiah's death (26.11) cannot be understood in the sense that his death was tied to any belief of altering the judgment proclamation. Rather the audience perceived that the oracle was not inevitable, but conditionally based upon their response to it (26.17-19). In 38.1-6, Jeremiah's imprisonment in the cistern occurred specifically because his prophecies were causing the Judahite soldiers and citizenry (v. 4) to lose morale. The intent behind having the prophet imprisoned was not to counteract the words already spoken, but to prevent the public from hearing any more of his discouraging and seditious prophecies. There is no need to resort to views of any supposed efficaciousness of the word to explain the hostile responses against the prophets, since such reactions against rhetors are commonly associated with messages intended to persuade as noted by studies on psychological reactance (see Chapter 4 §3.2).102 The negative reactions were against persuasive 101. Contra Fraser 1974: 47; Lods 1927: 60; 1950: 59,186-87; Rosen 1968: 47. 102. On the motivational theory of psychological reactance, see Petty and Cacioppo (1981: 155-60), in which 'psychological reactance' is defined as the attempt to somehow reinstate one's 'freedom to act or hold a certain position' when one believes that that freedom 'may be or has been limited' (155).


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messages which were of a high level of personal interest for the addressees and which were also radically discrepant from what the people desired to hear or believed would happen. The hostile responses of threatened, or actually inflicted, physical abuse on the prophet were aimed at preventing the prophet from further utterances and stemmed from a concern for the uttered messages' persuasive impact which could result in alterations in the people's morale and political stance. 5.2.3 Nature of the Sign-Acts as Prophecy. Prophecy is multifaceted with respect to the types of prophetic messages and to their resultant outcomes. Since the sign-acts are prophecy, this varied nature is applicable to them as well. When these factors are taken into consideration, it is obvious that the sign-acts cannot be categorized in toto as efficaciously bringing about the depicted events.103 The argument that the prophetic sign-acts were efficacious assumes that all the actions were of one type: they predicted future events. Fohrer (1968: 110) laid down the principle: 'There exists in the prophetic action no double symbolism, perhaps that of the present or past and moreover that of the future, but rather always a single symbolism as in magical action. It signifies an imminent event.'104 But all of the nonverbal behaviors did not depict events which were yet to come. 1. Some of the actions depicted past or current conditions rather than future conditions. Jer. 13.1-2, the wearing of the waist-sash, depicted the people as they had been in the past in their closeness to God. Ezek. 4.4-5, the lying on the left side, depicted the people bearing their sin during the preceding and current years.105 The eating of unclean food 103. Cf. Stacey 1990: 273-74. 104. 'Es liegt in der prophetischen Handlung keine doppelte Symbolik vor, etwa die der Gegenwart oder Vergangenheit und ausserdem die der Zukunft, sondern stets eine einfache Symbolik wie in der magischen Handlung. Es ist ein bevorstehendes Geschehen gemeint' (my translation). On the prophetic sign-acts only depicting future events, without consideration of other types of usage, see Fohrer (1952a: 120) that 'sie symbolisiert immer ein zukiinftiges Geschehen'; Wevers (1969: 14) that all of Ezekiel's 'concern future events'; Fox (1974) who categorizes the prophetic sign-acts as 'symbol signs' (566) which 'always inform by representing a future event in the human sphere' (576). See also Buzy's (1923: 3) definition of 'symbol': 'un signe, acte ou vision, ayant pour but de presager un evenment futur'. 105. As argued in Chapter 2 §1.9.1, the time reference of 390 years was to the period from the dedication of the Temple until its destruction. Even if one interprets

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(Ezek. 4.12-15) and being scattered into exile (Ezek. 5.2) were, for Ezekiel's immediate exilic audience, a depiction of their present circumstances, although still a future experience for those remaining in Jerusalem. None of those actions reflected wholly future attitudes and actions which were not to some extent already present. 2. Some of the sign-acts were advice to the people of how they shouldrespond to the circumstances, not predictive of how theywould respond. Jeremiah 27, the wearing of the yoke, was not a portrayal of a future condition, but of the current experience which was the best posture in which the nations should continue so as to experience the least amount of adversity in the future (see Chapter 2 §1.6). It is also argued in this study (see Chapter 2 §§1.13 and 1.14) that the actions of Ezek. 21.11 (groaning), 17 (crying out, striking the thigh) did not represent the people's future emotional reactions which they would perform when the destruction occurred, but rather were admonitions of how the people should be reacting in the present to the sinfulness and to the news of the coming destruction. The speechlessness of Ezek. 3.2627 reflected how the people should currently be responding in their relationship to God (see Chapter 2 §1.8). Ezekiel's lack of mourning at his wife's death (Ezek. 24.16-17) was advice and an exhortation of how the people should act in the future at Jerusalem's destruction. Thus the sign-act did not depict how the people would react. Since the action was a form of advice, its performance could not inevitably bring about the depicted reaction, for that rested solely on the people's prerogatives. 3. One of the nonverbal prophecies was a comparison. Jeremiah 35, the offering of wine to the Rechabites, contained no actions which can be interpreted as future-oriented, but rather the nonverbal behaviors illustrated the Rechabites' faithfulness so as to bring an indictment against the past and current unfaithfulness of the Judahites (see Chapter 2 §1.5). The very nature of the act as creating a comparison removes it from being predictive in nature. Thus a number of the nonverbal sign-acts cannot be subsumed under the category of depicting future events. Since they did not depict future events, the argument of efficaciousness and inevitability of the events

the action as a reference to the exile of the Northern Kingdom, this does not obviate the fact that the referent involved a past time period which extended into the present.


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depicted is misapplied, and those actions must be explained from another perspective. Even though those actions were of different types— they depicted past events, they were advisory, they created comparisons—they still all served the same function: they were devices to communicate messages nonverbally and persuasively. Rather than segmenting or singling out those actions which did predict future happenings and then assume that they are the paradigm by which the function of 'sign-acts' is to be understood, it is better to have a paradigm under which the various types of sign-acts (advice, comparison, warning, future-oriented) can be incorporated. The best paradigm is that of understanding all of the sign-acts as having a communicative and rhetorical function. This then removes the necessity of viewing the primary function of the future-oriented sign-acts as inaugurating the depicted events. Viewing the future-oriented sign-acts as not inherently efficacious also is consistent with the functional nature of future-oriented verbal prophecy. A very mechanical view of prophecy results when verbal or nonverbal prophecy is thought inevitably to set in motion the prophesied historical realities. But if the prophecies were viewed as inevitable and irrevocable, then why did the prophets, once having declared the coming judgment, continue to preach? Since 'inevitability' is not a matter of degrees, once the message was proclaimed, what more could be said or done to assure the coming judgment? For example, Jeremiah's prophecy of Jerusalem's total destruction, nonverbally depicted through the shattering of the earthenware jar (Jer. 19.1-13), was given, most probably, during the reign of Jehoiakim. If the people could not alter the future event thus nonverbally depicted, what purpose or benefit were the subsequent prophecies about the same topic? The subsequent oracles could not reinforce the 'inevitable fulfilment' of the previous oracle in the sense of making it any more inevitable. But subsequent repetitions of the same message do affect the hearers by making them aware of the coming judgment, by indicting them for their behavior, and by declaring that they bore the responsibility for the judgment, and giving the possibility for the people to change. But that latter purpose is almost exclusively rhetorical in intent. So the repetitious nature of the prophecies suggests that they served a rhetorical function. The multifaceted nature of prophecy also included the aspect of conditionality, either in an absolute sense (i.e. proper audience response would completely negate the calamity or the promise) or in a temporary

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sense (i.e. the proper audience response would divert the calamity or promise to a subsequent period). When a prophecy was conditionally contingent, the motivation for giving the prophecy primarily incorporated functional and rhetorical aspects in that the public proclamations were designed to create the necessary behavioral and attitudinal changes within the audiences so that either the judgment could be averted or the promise realized. If the future-oriented sign-acts were perceived as contingent, then they would have been interpreted as that which would imminently occur only if there was not an appropriate, responsive change by the people. Although it is very difficult to determine exactly which future-oriented sign-acts were considered contingent when the accompanying verbal proclamations did not hint of conditionality, the possibility exists that all prophecies which were based on the outworkings of the blessings and curses of the covenant obligations were considered such. Within Jeremiah there are indications that prophecy was considered contingent even when the conditional aspect was not verbalized. Jeremiah 18.7, 9 present straightforward predictive prophecies, yet vv. 8 and 10 imply that the conditional aspect was certainly in effect. That Jeremiah, as well as the spectators and auditors of his oracles, viewed at least some of his prophecies as contingent can be seen in several passages. In the Jeremiah 26 account of the Temple sermon, which is dated to the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim (26.1), v. 3 expresses the conditional nature of the following judgment upon the Temple (cf. also v. 13 and 7.4-6). The audience's response also understood Jeremiah's threat in the same context of conditionality as Micah's previous judgment statements, that it would not inevitability come about (vv. 16-19). Jeremiah 36.3 and 7, during the fourth year of Jehoiakim's reign (36.1), express the possibility that the people would turn from their evil ways, with the implication being that God would then change his course of action. When Zedekiah approached Jeremiah during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem his inquiry expressed the hope that perhaps the Lord would yet change his mind (21.2). The attitude in this case indicates that the prophetic messages of doom were perceived to be in some sense contingent, if not upon the people's behavior, then upon the mercy of God. In some of Jeremiah's messages to King Zedekiah (21.1-10; 34.1-2), no conditional aspect was given, but merely the judgment that the city would be burned. Yet in a subsequent message (Jer. 38.17-23) the view

1. Understanding Jeremiah's and Ezekiel's Sign-Acts

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was expressed that if Zedekiah surrendered, the city would not be burned with fire and he and his household would live.106 From the latter passage it can be deduced that chronologically antecedent prophecies must have been considered conditional, even when the contingency aspects were not explicitly stated. Since Jer. 38.17-23, with its conditional nature, was given years after the future-oriented sign-acts of shattering the jar to depict the destruction of the city (Jer. 19.1-13) and of not having a wife and not attending funerals or feasts (Jer. 16.1-9) to depict the calamitous postdestruction situation, the possibility remains that the previously enacted sign-acts should be viewed as containing an implicit conditional aspect as well. In Ezekiel, the same conditional aspect to the declaration of a divine sentence of judgment is found. In Ezek. 3.17-21 and 33.12-19 (cf. 18.21-32) the declaration is given in unqualified terms that the righteous will live (33.13) or that the wicked will die (3.18; 33.14). But the point of the argument is exactly that the subsequent behavior of the individual can totally negate the divine pronouncement which initially appeared inevitable. These passages provide a theological framework for understanding the divine declarations given by Ezekiel as contingent upon the human response. It has frequently been noted that Ezekiel's prophecies about the coming destruction and exile were more uncompromising in tone than Jeremiah's. But before thereby assuming that Ezekiel's sign-acts were depicting inevitable events, the rhetorical strategies of addressing an exilic audience must be taken into consideration. Many of Ezekiel's prophecies employed the rhetorical strategy of 'indirect address' which is the strategy of the prophet speaking as if he were directly addressing the Jerusalemites but yet being overheard by the exilic audience. Yet the real force of the messages were the unexpressed ramifications for his immediate exilic audience. The nonverbal depictions of the coming judgment upon Jerusalem (4.1-3, 7, 9-11; 5.1-2; 12.1-16; 12.17-20; 21.24) employed such a form of 'indirect address' since they did not depict the conditions Ezekiel's immediate audience would experience. For rhetorical purposes they were presented as inevitable occurrences because the immediate exilic audience was not in any position to alter what happened in Jerusalem—only the Jerusalemites (Jeremiah's audi106. Cf. Kessler (1965: 62-68, 73-75) who discusses the hortatory nature of the five 'contingent' or 'conditional' oracles found in Jer. 26-29, 32^1-5 (i.e. ch. 27; 26.1-6; 38.2, 17-23; 42.7-22).

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ence) could alter such by their behavior. In contrast to Jeremiah's 'direct address' which served the suasive function of warning the people of the coming judgment, with the intent that the people, through behavioral changes, could, to some extent, alter God's judgmental dealings with the city,107 the purpose of Ezekiel's 'indirect address' in depicting future events in Jerusalem served a different function of attempting to persuade the exilic audience to divest itself of its hope for an imminent return. Because of the rhetorical strategy being employed, Ezekiel's sign-acts cannot be considered totally unconditional in nature.108 Even if Ezekiel and Jeremiah may not have held any hope of the people repenting and thereby commuting the sentences of judgment, the prophets' personal expectations would not have obviated the conditional nature of the prophecies themselves. Of importance for understanding the conditional nature of the signacts is the one recorded prophetic sign-act of the New Testament (Acts 21.11). Upon Paul's arrival in Caesarea Maritima, Agabus took Paul's belt, bound his own feet and hands with it, and stated that in like manner the person who wore the belt would be bound at Jerusalem. In vv. 12-13 the people begged and implored Paul to abandon his visit to Jerusalem. The people's response to the prophetic action clearly reflected the notion that the depicted event was not considered inevitable, 107. Cf. Gitay (1996: 221-25) who speaks of the rhetorical strategy of prophetic oral proclamations of verbally describing potential situations in order to persuade the audience to a change of behavior. 108. This line of argument is also of significance for Raitt's (1977: 35-49) discussion of the sequential development of the radicalization process of the judgment messages between Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Although Raitt acknowledges the rhetorical motive eliciting Ezekiel's use of the judgment theme (48: 'Because those who had gone with him into Exile based their hopes not upon God but upon Jerusalem's escaping destruction and quickly returning from captivity, Ezekiel had to proclaim the destruction of Judah in the most uncompromising terms'), he overlooks the implications of Ezekiel addressing an audience physically removed from the events in Jerusalem. Because of Ezekiel's exilic locale, calls for his immediate audience to repent so as to alter what happened in Jerusalem would have been totally meaningless and inappropriate. The messages which portrayed the coming events in Jerusalem were used to foster attitudinal and behavioral changes in conjunction with the immediate audience's own future in the exile. The inevitable tone of Ezekiel when speaking about the coming destruction is thus explicable upon the basis of the audience addressed and the rhetorical purpose for speaking of the judgment, and may not be as much the result of a linear development as Raitt assumes (36).


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but would occur only if Paul persisted in his present course of going to Jerusalem. By their entreaty, they assumed that not going to Jerusalem was a viable option which would obviate the events depicted by the sign-act. Even though the sign-act did not present the events as being contingent in nature, the audience understood them to be such. By analogy, even though the sign-acts of Jeremiah and Ezekiel did not explicitly contain declarations of their conditional nature, this does not necessarily mean that they were considered inevitable. The above arguments do not categorically demonstrate that all of Jeremiah's and Ezekiel's future-oriented sign-acts were considered conditional, but they do show that some prophecies were considered such, thus creating that possibility for the sign-acts. As such, the events depicted by the future-oriented actions of Jeremiah and Ezekiel would have been considered inevitable only if the people persisted in their breach of the covenant relationship with God.109 If all of the acted prophecies are viewed as inevitably bringing about the events because of a supposed inherent power, then any functional aspect, outside of the dissemination of information, becomes irrelevant, and both the nonfuture orientation of some of the actions and the conditional aspect of the future-oriented ones are denied. So in order to deal with all of the sign-acts in a consistent manner which accommodates both the varied types of the sign-acts and the conditional nature of future-oriented prophecies, it is better to analyze the sign-acts from the functional standpoint of suasive communication techniques.110 5.2.4 Ritualistic versus Idiosyncratic Actions. Since the sphere of magical ritual is only one of the multifarious contexts in which nonverbal

109. In some ways, they thus functioned like the conventional nonverbal actions in ancient Near Eastern treaties which depicted what would happen only if the parties breached the treaty. The depicted conditions were inconsequential as long as the treaty obligations were faithfully adhered to. 110. The approach here is thus similar, in this respect, to that of Borchardt's (1990) as he deals with 'doomsday speculations' (of which biblical judgment prophecies are a subcategory), that they have a rhetorical purpose even when such is not explicitly stated: 'If they pretend to be assertions pure and simple, they deceive because they actually represent a means of coercion, a persuasive strategy to get others (or the world) to do something or stop doing something... Speculation about the end of things is therefore a discourse of persuasion and, like all such forms of discourse, it employs a strategy of persuasion—"a rhetoric" ' (2).

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elements are used,111 the nonverbal communication of the prophets need not be automatically relegated to the same conceptual paradigm. Just because the prophets carried on 'religious' functions and performed within the 'religious' sphere does not make them ipso facto practioners of magical or quasi-magical practices. Also, just because the simileform of relating sign to referent, which is employed in the prophetic sign-acts, is found in enacted rituals of the ancient Near Eastern magical texts and the curses of vassal-treaties,112 it does not mean that the sign-acts' original Sitz im Leben was magical rituals.113 The simile-form of expression is so common and so varied as to contexts of usage that it is not evidence of an organic link. So neither the external form nor the religious nature of prophetic sign-acts necessitates interrelatedness with respect to use or origin between them and enacted curses in treaties or magical rites. Many studies of the prophetic sign-acts have drawn the lines of distinction between nonverbal behaviors according to a religious/secular dichotomy. Therefore, the distinction was made between the uses of nonverbal behavior by the prophets to declare the divine will and by other persons to express ideas on secular issues.114 This resulted in the propensity to liken the sign-acts to ritual actions performed in religious contexts.115 What was overlooked is the distinction between conven-

111. On the various settings of ancient Near Eastern nonverbal communication, see Gruber 1980. 112. On the nonverbal aspects of the vassal treaties, see Millers 1964: 18-24. 113. Contra Fohrer (1968: 12-14; 1967: 250-51), Matheney (1965) who compare the magical texts of Maqlu and Surpu. 114. Fohrer (1968) distinguished between profane actions, which symbolized and taught but did not establish a result, and the prophetic acts which, because of the attached divine promises, were certain of their results. According to Fohrer (1968: 105), the profane actions contained no magical elements and therefore are not to be equated with the prophetic actions. Similar is Keller's (1946: 99-100) conclusion that the prophetic actions were 'revelation-' (Offenbarung-) or 'oraclesigns' (Orakelzeichen), and therefore not to be equated with 'gestures' (Gesten). Also Konig (1904) uses the divisions of secular actions and religious actions, placing the prophetic acts in the latter category along with ritual and cultic actions. All of these distinctions are based solely on a religious/secular dichotomy of contextual usage and not upon the functional aspects of the nonverbal behaviors. 115. Cf. Robinson (1942; 1946: 227) and Rowley (1963: 91-92) who stress the connection between prophetic and cultic ritual acts. Fohrer (1968) draws the majority of his examples for comparison from cultic rituals.


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tional (ritualistic) and individualistic (idiosyncratic) actions.116 There is a clear distinction between those actions which are formal and those which are informal, regardless of whether the contexts are religious or secular. Ritual (both religious and secular) action is often emblematic, stylized in performance, standardized in meaning, with that meaning being clearly understood by the participating culture-group, and performed only within the contexts of particular circumstances, such as mourning, performing sacrifices and other cultic activities,117 covenant making, rites of passage in life, and confirming legally binding commitments.118 From a perspective of communication theory, rituals are primarily interactive or informative. Religious ritual interactively affects the actor119 while informing of the actor's relationship to the deity. Secular rituals are often informative, indicating one's status or relationship to the other person in the interaction.120 In contrast, individualistic (idiosyncratic) acts are not stereotypical and frequently arise out of particular exigences of the moment to communicate messages. Since the acts of Jeremiah and Ezekiel were idiosyncratic in their performance or in context of usage, comparison with ritualistic actions so as to derive their meanings does not give adequate credence to the uniqueness of the prophetic communicative 116. In studies of the prophetic actions, van den Born (1935: 3-8), Lang (1978: 170; 1981a: 278; 1983a: 88; 1986: 305), Swidler (1981: 185) make this distinction, classifying the sign-acts as 'unconventional'. Viberg (1992: 11-12), in dealing with Israelite 'legal symbolic acts', also draws this distinction between legal acts which are conventional and the prophetic acts which are 'non-conventional / innovative'. 117. For biblical gestures of worship, supplication and prayer, see Gruber 1980: 22-181. 118. On legal actions in Israelite culture, see Viberg 1992; in Mesopotamia, see Malul 1988. 119. See Munn (1973: 593) on ritual and 'symbolic instrumentation' which is the connection of ritual symbols with specific aims and immediate imperatives in the sociopsychological situations of the actors. 120. Krout (1971: 18), when speaking of ceremonial and ritual actions, notes that their 'general aim is group unity and group security'. There are several examples of conventional, biblical behaviors which indicated social status and interpersonal relationships: dominance was expressed by placing the foot on the conquered enemy's neck (cf. Josh. 10.24; Isa. 51.23; Ps. 110.1); a hole was placed in a slave's ear to indicate the slave's perpetual status as a slave (cf. Exod. 21.6; Deut. 15.17); friendship was expressed through a handshake (cf. Jer. 50.15; Ezek. 17.18; 2 Kgs 10.15; Ezra 10.19; Lam. 5.6; 2 Chron. 30.8).

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actions.121 The dichotomy based only upon a religious/secular premise, without the situational context of the conventional/idiosyncratic factor being taken into consideration, has often led to adducing meanings for the prophetic acts which may have been quite foreign to the intentions of the idiosyncratic acts. Even for an emblematic action, what it means within one established ritualistic/conventional context might be quite different from its meaning when used in another conventional context, and different still when used in the communication process by an individual outside of the ritual context.122 An example of the importance of situational context for determining the proper interpretation of an act is seen with respect to crying: within the context of a funeral, it is probably an affect display for sorrow, yet in the context of greeting a friend, it probably displays joy. Due to context, the same action indicates totally opposite feelings.123

121. This is contra Robinson (1942: 133) who argues that the prophetic actions were not spontaneous expressions but rather stereotypical actions, and that it is only because there are not enough accounts preserved that the stereotypical nature is not apparent. He suggests that if there were more accounts, it would be found that the prophetic behaviors were 'conventional and stereotyped'. But there is no basis for this argument from silence and the accounts we do have, in which no two actions are alike, indicate the contrary conclusion. Because Stacey (1990: 23-48) does not adequately take into account the functional and meaning differences between individualistic and conventional actions, he merely defines the distinguishing characteristic of 'conventional actions' as 'their formality and artificiality'. Since prophetic sign-acts are 'contrived and artificial acts', he then sees that 'it is appropriate to look for parallels among conventional forms' (23). He does acknowledge that due to the single performance of the prophetic act in contrast to the standardized repetition of conventional acts, 'the parallel is by no means perfect' (23). To his credit, he focuses on drawing parallels at the conceptual level, so as to determine the mode of thought by which prophetic sign-acts are to be understood, rather than on specifics of external similarities. 122. Fohrer's work (1968), when using comparative examples, has two major weaknesses in methodology. First, Fohrer failed to take into account the situational contexts. Noting contextual differences is necessary in order to differentiate between the actions' types of coding and primary functions. Secondly, he failed to take into account the cultural contexts of the nonverbal behaviors. For Fohrer, the situational and cultural contexts seem to have been irrelevant for his comparisons as long as there were some external similarities with the prophetic actions. That methodology of comparison is faulty for it assumes a specifiable meaning for a nonverbal act regardless of its situational or cultural contexts. 123. This concept becomes very significant for Ezekiel's clapping in 6.11 and


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Distinctions between the idiosyncratic use of nonverbal behaviors in the religious realm and idiosyncratic use in the secular realm are not found in the communicative and interactive purposes, but rather occur in the perceptions of the messages' origins (i.e. in the religious realm the message has a divine origin while in the secular, a human origin) and of the communicators' roles (i.e. in the prophetic context, the prophet is merely the messenger, not the originator of the message, whereas in the secular context the rhetor is both speaker and source of the message). 5.2.5 Comparison with Other Examples of Nonverbal Communication. There are numerous ancient examples of idiosyncratic nonverbal behaviors used in nonreligious, nonmagical contexts where the intent was clearly that of communication and persuasion. The cited examples are not an exhaustive listing, but are rather representative for the purpose of making typological comparisons. The majority of the ancient examples are from secular or non-prophetic settings. But they still provide valid typological comparisons to the prophetic actions since the religious/secular dichotomy is not paramount for determining type of communication usage and purpose. It is not at all assumed that the performers of the nonverbal communication, who existed in diverse chronological and geographical settings, shared similar cultural, religious or philosophical views. Rather the point of the comparisons is to show how idiosyncratic nonverbal communication is an intrinsic part of human experience irrespective of religious or secular contexts, and that just as those cited examples arose out of the innate need to communicate which engenders both verbal and nonverbal means of expression, so too the prophets' sign-actions can be understood in a similar way. Both of the following cited biblical examples are individualistic nonverbal behaviors which were communicative and interactive in their primary functions. In 1 Sam. 11.1-7, it is recounted that in response to the request of the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead for help against the besieging Ammonites, Saul took a yoke of oxen, cut them into pieces and sent the pieces throughout Israel with the message: 'Whoever does not come out after Saul and after Samuel, thus shall it be done to his oxen' (1 Sam. 11.7). The motivating factor behind the action was to stir the people to action (interactive), but the artifacts in the nonverbal 21.19, where, because of the situational contexts, the gesture needs to be differentiated in meaning from that in Ezek. 25.6 (see Chapter 2 §§1.10 and 1.14).

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behavior also communicated a message-content in a representational manner. This action was also contingent in that if the people responded to the request, the nonverbally depicted action would not happen. In 1 Sam. 20.20-22, 35-39, the action of Jonathan shooting arrows beyond his servant was a previously agreed upon sign between himself and David. The combination of the nonverbal action, performed with the artifacts, and the verbal statement to the servant, which expressed direction, was clearly designed to communicate a message. The nonverbal action was figurative, but idiosyncratically coded as such: if the arrows went beyond the servant, David was to go away from the place, whereas if the arrows were between Jonathan and the servant, David was to draw near. In this case the intent was to communicate a message, but the message had interactive ramifications in that David was to respond appropriately according to the placement of the arrows. This action did not depict an inevitable result, but was advice as to what David should do based upon the circumstances of Saul's disposition toward him.124 In Mari text 206 (Durand 1988: 434-35; Huffmon 1997: 13-14), there appears to be the sole extant ancient Near Eastern extrabiblical account of a prophetic sign-act. In that text, an ecstatic prophet of Dagan demands a lamb to devour (11. 9-10), which he does devour uncooked in front of the gate (11. 11-12). After gathering the elders (11. 13-16), he then speaks to them the message based on the word-play, that there was coming a 'devouring' (1. 18). There are numerous similarities to Jeremiah's and Ezekiel's prophetic sign-acts.125 Significant to note is that this Mari prophet's action was publically performed, followed by a publically declared verbal message. The nonverbal was coordinated with the verbal message through an implied simile-form: just like the prophet had devoured the lamb, so

124. Van den Born (1935: 6; 1947: 13-14) compares this action to 2 Kgs 13.1417 and sees it as being originally an 'oracle-of-arrows' whereby Jonathan wanted to expose what God's will was. But this was not the case, for Jonathan's shooting of the arrows was a prearranged sign between the two and was based upon Jonathan's discerning Saul's disposition toward David in the latter's absence. 125. See Gordon (1995: 77) who views the Mari sign-act as being 'within the bounds of familiar or accepted behavior for prophets in this Mari region', and thus the implications of this parallel for understanding the Old Testament prophets' signact performances as being part of both their self-conscious 'prophetic' behavior as well as the societal perception of them as 'prophets'.


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there would be devouring, probably referring to pestilence. Thus the prophet's eating of the lamb figuratively represented the devastation which would come. Like many of Jeremiah's and Ezekiel's sign-acts, the nonverbal action preceded the verbally coordinated message. Clearly the Mari prophetic nonverbal communication depicted a conviction or perspective of what would happen in the future. Yet, the ecstatic's final instructions to return the forbidden material and to expel from the city anyone who made an assault (11. 20-22) imply that the devastation could be avoided if appropriate actions were taken. Ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean literature provides many examples of idiosyncratic nonverbal behaviors, performed by persons other than prophets, which were both communicative and interactive.126 1. To give advice. Livy (Early History of Rome 1.54)127 gives the account of Sextus sending a messenger to Rome to inquire of his father, Tarquin, as to what steps he should take to ensure his recently gained power over Gabii. As Tarquin strolled through his garden, with the messenger following, while not saying a word he began to knock off poppyheads with his stick. Finally, the messenger, having wearied of waiting for a reply, left. The messenger told Sextus what he had seen Tarquin do. Sextus realized that though his father had not spoken, he had, by his action, expressed his meaning clearly enough. So Sextus proceeded at once to put to death all the influential men in Gabii.

126. All of the actions cited were also 'informative' concerning the senders' relationships to other people, their status in society, their attitudes and emotional dispositions. But in the examples cited the communicative and interactive functions were those which were of primary importance and which were intentionally part of the communication events. The informative aspect was either unintentional or only marginally intentional. 127. This incident is also recorded in Ovid, Fasti 2.703-10 and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 4.56. A similar action is attributed to Thrasybulus upon Periander's inquiry (Herodotus, Persian Wars 5.92), or to Periander upon Thrasybulus's request (Aristotle, Politics 1284a, 131 la). Dionysius (4.56) notes that Tarquinus was imitating the action of Thrasybulus and that is why Sextus was able to understand the meaning. There is also a similar story given in Gen. R. 67.6 during the reign of an Antoninus who inquired of R. Judah the Prince as to how to fill the treasury. R. Judah replied by the nonverbal action of uprooting the large radishes from his garden and planting small ones, whereupon Antoninus dismissed officers and replaced them with others.

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Tarquin's nonverbal communication was used as a substitute for the verbal message. It was a figurative depiction, which functioned interactively to give advice so that the recipient would know what to do. That the communication was not following conventional signs, but was rather idiosyncratic is deduced from the messenger not being aware of what the message was nor even that a message had been given. In the sense of giving advice, this action is comparable to Jeremiah's wearing the yoke (Jer. 27) to depict the political route that Judah should take, and to Ezekiel's nonverbal displays of how the people should be reacting (Ezek. 3.26; 21.11, 17; 24.15-24). 2. To express intention or conviction about the future. Herodotus (Persian Wars 4.131-34) recounts the incident of the Scythian princes sending a message to Darius by means of the artifacts of a bird, a mouse, a frog and five arrows. Since the artifacts were unaccompanied by any verbal explanation, the Persians came to two diverse opinions as to the intended message. One was that the Scythians intended to surrender themselves to the Persians (signified by the giving of the arrows which were signs of power), as well as their land (signified by the mouse who lives on land and eats the food of humans), their water (signified by the frog), and their army or animals (signified by the bird which resembles a horse). The second interpretation was that if the Persians did not become like birds and fly away into the sky, or like mice and burrow into the ground, or like frogs and take refuge in the swamp, they would not escape but die pierced by Scythian arrows. The latter interpretation was the one which dictated the Persians' subsequent actions. In this nonverbal communication, the artifacts were used as substitutes for the verbal message, and were figuratively and idiosyncratically encoded. That they were not conventionally understood signs is apparent from the ambiguity in the objects' meanings which resulted in two contrasting interpretations. In the seventh century BCE, as recounted in K 2852 and K 9662 ('Der "Gottesbrief" Tablet 2, column 2,11. 13-23; Borger 1956: 104-105),128 Esarhaddon set up siege walls against Uppume. Upon seeing the siege, the ruler of Uppume had a human image made which was wrapped in a penitent's robe, wearing shackles, and positioned at a handmill. The artifact was transported to Esarhaddon to communicate the vassal's 128. Cf. the text also cited in Lang (1978: 168-69; 1986: 300).


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intent of complete submission, as that artifact representationally depicted what future actions he would perform and the future posture he would take.129 The action was also clearly interactive as it attempted to persuade Esarhaddon to alter his attitude toward the vassal, as explicitly expressed in the text (1. 23) that the ruler of Uppume did this so as 'to arouse compassion and save his life'. Herodotus (Persian Wars 1.165) records that the Phocaeans, before departing by ship to relocate, dropped a heavy mass of iron into the sea, and swore never to return to Phocaea until the mass reappeared upon the surface of the water. As part of an oath, this action nonverbally exemplified the conviction which the Phocaeans had about their future. That it only expressed a conviction and that the people considered the future ramifications contingent on their own prerogatives and not inevitably bound by the action, is evidenced from the fact that before they set out, half of the people returned to Phocaea. This action has similarities to Jeremiah's instructions to Seraiah (Jer. 51.63) to tie a stone to the scroll of curses against Babylon and dispose of it in the Euphrates River to express the future fate of Babylon. The cited nonbiblical examples reflect how intentions and convictions regarding the future could be expressed nonverbally. The actions of Jeremiah and Ezekiel which depicted coming events are comparable and should probably be approached from the perspective of conveying divine intention and conviction, not necessarily inevitability due to some inherent nature of the actions themselves. 3. To indict a person or society. In each of the following cases the indictment was leveled against personal or social conditions. The nonverbal actions signified either the conditions or the speakers' attitudes toward such conditions. The Greek Cynic Diogenes performed numerous nonverbal actions as part of his tirades against practices he found unacceptable. He is said to have gone about in the broad daylight with a lighted lamp saying, 'I am looking for a man' (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 6.41; Philo, Gig. 34).130 While visiting a man's house Diogenes was 129. Another similar action from the eighteenth century BCE was the exchange of gifts between the Hittite king Anitta and the prince of Purushandu. The prince gave the king an iron throne and iron scepter, thereby acknowledging Anitta as his overlord (cf. Starke 1979: 105; Lang 1986: 300). 130. On the historicity of this incident, see Sayre (1938: 99) who denies its attribution to Diogenes since it was a popular story before Diogenes' time being

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told not to spit, but he promptly did so into the man's face explaining that he could not find a more suitable receptacle (Lives of Eminent Philosophers 6.32). He begged alms of a statue, and when asked why, he replied, To get practice in being refused' (6.49).13i He once placed the crown of pine, which was for the winner in the Isthmian games, on his own head. When he was told to remove it, he replied that he deserved to wear it since he was the only victor over many antagonists such as poverty, exile, disrepute, pain, anger, desire, fear and pleasure (9.10-13). When visiting Plato's house, he trampled on Plato's carpets, stating, 'I trample upon Plato's vainglory' (6.26). On an occasion of the games, Diogenes saw two horses that were hitched together begin fighting and kicking each other. When one horse became exhausted, it broke loose and ran off. In the presence of the large crowd which had been watching, Diogenes placed a crown upon the head of the remaining horse and proclaimed it the winner of an Isthmian prize because it had won in kicking (Dio Chrysostom, Discourses 9.22). Diogenes' nonverbal behaviors functioned not only to communicate content but also served to draw the people's attention interactively to the addressed conditions which Diogenes was bringing under condemnation. The intent was thereby to indict the persons responsible for the said conditions. On at least two occasions, the accounts note that after Diogenes had done something, the people asked him what it meant (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 6.49; Dio Chrysostom, Discourses 9.10-13), making it clear that the nonverbal action had been insufficient by itself for the audience to understand the intended communicated meaning. In some cases, the interactive intent produced the results of the audience agreeing with Diogenes' positions. The specific effect of crowning the horse for winning in kicking was that the people applauded Diogenes' action, derided the athletes, and some did not stay to witness the games (Dio Chrysostom, Discourses 9.22). Frequently indictments were made by means of explicit comparisons between the nonverbal behaviors performed or the artifacts employed. Herodotus (Persian Wars 3.32) records the event which led to Camby ses' execution of his sister. While sitting at the table, she took some lettuce, stripped the leaves off, and asked her brother when the lettuce told of Aesop, Heraclitus, Democritus and Archilochus. 131. Sayre (1938: 108) believes that this story is attributed to Diogenes but was actually performed by Aristippus (cf. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 2.75).


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looked prettier—with its leaves on or with them stripped off. After he replied that it looked best with the leaves on, she rejoined that as she had done to the lettuce, so too he had made bare the house of Cyrus by killing their brother, Smerdis. Through the nonverbal action she sought to produce regret, remorse and guilt in her brother. After Xerxes fled from Greece, Pausanias had Xerxes' cooks prepare a meal and set a table with tapestried couches, gold and silver utensils, and magnificent and good food like that which Xerxes normally had. He then had his own cooks make a Spartan meal. When the two meals were served, Pausanias used the vast difference between the two fares to point out to the Greek generals the folly of the Median captain, who, when he enjoyed such fare as that, needed to come to Greece to rob them of their penury (Herodotus, Persian Wars 9.82). The comparison was used to mock the enemy's motives. When Amasis reigned over Egypt he needed to persuade the people to accept his rule since he had come from a house without distinction. He had his golden footpan remade into an image of one of the gods, and when it was set up in a public place, the Egyptians began worshiping it. Then Amasis called an assembly and explained how the image had once been his footpan in which they had formerly washed their feet, regurgitated and urinated, but now it was greatly reverenced. He compared it to himself who formerly was a private person who was now the king and commanded them to honor and reverence him because of his present position (Herodotus, Persian Wars 2.172). Herodotus states that the suasive intent was effected as 'he won over the Egyptians and brought them to be content to do him service' (translated by G. Rawlinson, 1942). Those uses of comparative actions for indictment are similar to Jeremiah's use of the Rechabites as a comparative example of covenant loyalty to castigate the other Israelites for their unfaithfulness in their covenant with God (Jer. 35). 4. To present alternate plans of action for the future. In the following examples, nonverbal comparisons were the prominent elements in the attempts to persuade the people of one specific course of action over against another. The two alternatives were nonverbally presented, with the decision as to which to follow being left up to the audience. When Sertorius wished to take away his soldiers' dejection after a military defeat, he placed before the army two horses. One horse, accompanied by a tall robust man, was very weak and old. The other

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horse was large and strong and was accompanied by a small man of contemptible appearance. The strong man seized his old horse's tail with both hands and tried with all his might to pull it out, while the weak man began plucking out the hairs of the strong horse one by one. After it was over, Sertorius stood and addressed the men: 'You see that perseverance is more efficacious than violence, and that many things which cannot be mastered when they stand together yield when one masters them little by little' (Plutarch, Lives, Sertorius 16; translated by B. Perrin, 1919).132 Cyrus, in attempting to persuade the Persians to revolt against the Medes, had some Persians come one day with their reapinghooks to clear a tract of land covered with thorns. The next day they were commanded to relax and feast. Afterwards he asked them which they enjoyed most, the day of work or the day of feasting. When they obviously chose the latter, Cyrus remarked that if they chose to obey him, they could enjoy delights and never descend to slavish toil. But if they would not listen, then they would have unnumbered toils. The desired result of Cyrus's nonverbal comparison was achieved as the Persians were delighted to follow him in shaking off the Median yoke (Herodotus, Persian Wars 1.125-27). Lycurgus, who wished to recall the Spartan citizens from their current mode of living so as to lead them to a more sober and temperate type of life, raised two puppies. One he raised as a house pet fed on dainty food, and the other as a hunting dog. Then be brought the two dogs into the public assembly and put down some dainty food and also let loose a hare. The dogs each went for the dining fare to which they were accustomed. Lycurgus then explained to the people that even though the two dogs were from the same stock, by virtue of discipline, they had turned out utterly different, and exhorted the Spartans that the hunting dog was the one which should be emulated (Plutarch, Moralia, Apophthegmata Laconica 225F).

132. A similar point was made when Scilurus (Plutarch, Moralia, Regum et Imperatorum Apophthegmata 174, De Garrulitate 511C), upon his death-bed, gave each of his 80 sons a bundle of javelins to break. When they could not, he then took the javelins one by one and easily broke them, thereby teaching them if they were united they would be strong and invincible, whereas their disunion would make them weak and unstable.


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These actions were used primarily to persuade the people to undertake certain courses of actions which had future ramifications. The examples of the horses' tails and the dogs depicted the alternatives in a figurative manner while the reaping/feasting presented the contrast in a representational way. Jeremiah used the technique of nonverbally presenting contrasting conditions with an implied option to choose between them. Jeremiah (13.1-11) used the comparison of the waist-sash in its new condition with its later spoiled state to indicate the consequences of either staying close to God or coming under divine judgment. Although not explicitly stated, certainly it was implied that the former state was preferable to the latter. Jeremiah wore the yoke (27.2) to present one side of the alternatives being presented to the people as to how they should respond to the Babylonian rule. Although Jeremiah did not depict the contrasting option, Hananiah's action of breaking the yoke (28.10) did nonverbally provide such. The combined actions of the two prophets thus presented the people with the two options between which they had to choose. Although all but one of the cited comparative examples of idiosyncratic nonverbal communication differ from the religious, prophetic actions in context of performance (nonreligious settings) and role of the performers (nonprophets), they do not differ substantially in type, form and usage of the nonverbal behaviors for communication purposes. Besides the similarities in purposes of giving advice, expressing intentions for the future, indicting persons or society, and presenting alternate plans of action, there are also similarities on the functional level, such as in the frequent use of artifacts to transmit the messages, the persuasive intent of the messages, the ambiguity of the actions which thus required accompanying verbal interpretations, and their employment to elicit inquiring responses from the audiences as to why the actions were performed. The similarities between these idiosyncratic, secular nonverbal behaviors reinforce the understanding of the prophetic actions as communicative and rhetorical in nature rather than inherently efficacious. These cited secular actions were not perceived as having an efficaciousness inherent in the actions themselves, but originated out of the need to communicate messages persuasively. The nonverbal channel became the avenue which the senders chose to most effectively transmit the messages which they felt their audiences needed to hear and be convinced of.

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5.3 Rhetorical Model There are no extant Hebrew theoretical discussions of rhetoric from the period of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, so it is not known what conceptual models there might have been or if such abstract theoretical conceptions of rhetoric were even formulated. Thus, for this study, a theoretical model, used only for the purposes of analysis and systematization, has been selected which fits the 'implicit rhetoric' of the prophets.133 It is not assumed that the rhetorical model or the organization of specific suasive techniques within that model was necessarily thought of by the prophets in the same manner as explained in this study. Although the general conclusion that the prophets intentionally sought to persuade their audiences is implied by the nature of the prophetic messages, certain specific aspects of the rhetoric are beyond our recovery, such as why, on only certain occasions, the prophets chose the medium of nonverbal actions rather than verbal proclamation, or why they chose the specific actions and rhetorical strategies as opposed to others. Unless the reasons for the particular choices are revealed by the communicators, they are impossible to determine via the literary accounts of the communication events from which we are so far removed, not only chronologically, but culturally. According to the biblical texts all of these specifics are subsumed under the divine fiat: God commanded the prophets to use the particular nonverbal actions, in the manner prescribed, at those particular times. Thus the question of the motivational logic and intent behind specific rhetorical decisions will not be dealt with in this study. Also speculation will not be made as to 133. On 'implicit rhetoric', see Scult 1975: 216. The hypothesis underlying the validity of using a rhetorical model to analyze the biblical texts has been expressed by Kennedy (1984: 10), when arguing for the application of a classical model of rhetoric to New Testament texts: 'Though rhetoric is colored by the traditions and conventions of the society in which it is applied, it is also a universal phenomenon which is conditioned by basic workings of the human mind and heart and by the nature of all human society.' Black (1980: 82) assumes that 'rhetorical propensities are neither innate nor immutable, but are activated by cultural conditions. They are a social epiphenomenon and will be historically fluctuant with the society itself.' Even so, he acknowledges that 'We commonly postulate that men and women have always stood in roughly the same relationship to persuasive messages as we; that, modified by the particulars of their situations, people have always been disposed to understand persuasive messages in similar ways and to experience similar reactions to them. This postulate is a way we have of making sense of history, and it is procedurally impeccable.'


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whether the specific actions and strategies were the best ones that could have been used, nor will the actions or strategies be compared or contrasted with other techniques which might have been appropriately used. Rather this study will confine itself to analyzing the performance of the actions as recounted, in order to determine the persuasive effects they should, might or did have on the spectators. The rhetorical model employed in this study contains three major elements, in keeping with Black's (1978: 134) definition of a 'rhetorical transaction': (1) rhetorical situation, (2) rhetorical strategies, and (3) audience effect (i.e. response). 5.3.1 Rhetorical Situation.134 Since the sign-acts arose out of the exigences of the particular moments, it is important to note the situational contexts (or environments) which elicited the performances of the nonverbal behaviors. The situational context includes ideological and philosophical conditions as well as external physical conditions. The motive for rhetoric is provided when within the environment something is perceived as being 'other than it should be, that is, an exigence; and something else is recognized as a means of remedy or modification' (Bitzer 1980: 23). The rhetorical situation is thus defined as a complex of persons, events, objects, and relations presenting an actual or potential exigence which can be completely or partially removed if discourse, introduced into the situation, can so constrain human decision or action as to bring about the significant modification of the exigence (Bitzer 1968: 6).

A rhetorical situation consists of: (1) an exigence which is a perceived problem or defect; (2) the rhetor who recognizes and seeks to remedy or modify the exigence through communication; (3) an audience which is capable of being influenced by the rhetor and of effecting a change in the exigence;135 and (4) rhetorical strategies which can influence the audience.

134. The definition of 'rhetorical situation' essentially follows that of Bitzer (1968, 1980). 'Rhetorical situation' is also referred to as 'argumentative situation' by Wiklander (1984: 158-75); 'exigential flow' by White (1980a: 14-17). 135. On the importance of audience, see Bitzer (1980: 23): 'The presence of an audience is necessary because only by means of its mediating influence can the exigence be modified. Since the audience must be capable of modifying the exi-

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In prophetic studies, it is a basic assumption that particular prophetic oracles were elicited by specific situations even when the literary accounts give no indication as to what the specific situations were. Some of the specific occasions of the sign-acts of Jeremiah and Ezekiel were given, such as the gathering of foreign ambassadors in Jerusalem during the reign of Zedekiah to consider rebellion (Jer. 27), the final period of the Babylonian siege of the city of Jerusalem (Jer. 32), Seraiah's journey to Babylon in the fourth year of Zedekiah (Jer. 51.59-64a), and the death of Ezekiel's wife (Ezek. 24.15-24). With respect to the rhetorical situations of other of Jeremiah's and Ezekiel's sign-acts, the particulars are not always known, but the broader political and theological-ideological exigences of that time period can be extrapolated. Even though the locale of the two audiences respectively addressed by the two prophets differed, both audiences were affected by the same political happenings, and, as part of their communal identity, shared similar ideological perspectives. Lacking the necessary sources from the time of Jeremiah and Ezekiel which could help explicate the rhetorical situations, the exigences being addressed by the two prophets have to be derived from the biblical accounts. The deriving of the exigences from the suasive discourses themselves is based on the following principles: (1) rhetorical address indicates rhetorical situation—'the existence of a rhetorical address is a reliable sign of the existence of situation' (Bitzer 1968: 2); (2) a specific rhetorical address is linked to specific exigences—'a particular discourse comes into existence because of some specific condition or situation which invites utterance' (Bitzer 1968: 4); (3) exigences are 'objective' realities136 and 'are therefore available for scrutiny by an gence positively, it follows that listeners incapable of this modifying influence will not count as a rhetorical or functional audience.' 136. It is acknowledged that there are 'sophistic situations' in which the exigence is only asserted to be real, 'spurious situations' in which an exigence is erroneously or ignorantly alleged to exist, 'fantasy situations' in which the exigence is imaginary, and 'fictive situations' in which the exigence is established by the novel or play. (These types are defined by Bitzer 1968: 11.) In the biblical texts, the rhetorical situations addressed by Ezekiel and Jeremiah are presented as being real. Since knowledge and awareness of how properly to address the situations were part of the divine revelation, the prophets' understandings of the situations were presented as not being sophistic or spurious. On the contrary, Ezekiel and Jeremiah regarded the 'false' prophets discourses as addressing 'spurious situations' precisely because those prophets had not been in the council of Yahweh (i.e. received a


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observer or critic who attends to them. To say the situation is objective, publicly observable, and historic means that it is real or genuine—that our critical examination will certify its existence' (Bitzer 1968: II). 137 Thus 'the critic perceives and explicates these exigencies as part of his experience of the meaning of the rhetorical response. All he need establish is that what he perceives as exigencies were in fact present in the situation that persisted throughout the development of the rhetorical response' (Scult 1975: 26). Since exigences are implicit in rhetorical responses, the messages of Ezekiel and Jeremiah, especially those which directly argued against specific audience views, can be used to formulate the prophets' perceptions of the rhetorical situations which they addressed. As implied by the depictions of Ezekiel's and Jeremiah's sign-acts, the exigences which the two prophets perceived and attempted to rectify belonged to the mental realm of the belief systems of their audiences—the people's theological viewpoints and predispositions which assumed God's saving intervention on their behalf.138 The theological complex of ideas which the two prophets were attempting to change had extensive ramifications for the perception of how God would concretely work in history with respect to the destruction of Jerusalem and the return from exile. The occurring historical events were not denied by the audiences, but rather disagreement with the prophets arose over the events' causes, consequences, and theological implications. Because the people's interpretations of the occurring historical events, as well as their future expectations of what would happen, were based on the theological tenets to which they adhered, their understanding of God's functioning was radically different from that of the two prophets. The people's theological suppositions certainly had implications for their ethical, political, economic and social conduct and attitudes. But

divine revelation of the 'real situation'; cf. Jer. 23.18, 22; similarly Jer. 14.14; 23.16, 21, 26-28, 32; 29.33; Ezek. 13.2-3, 6-9, 17, 19; 22.28). Since the sign-acts were actually performed to address real audiences and were therefore not merely visionary experiences or literary inventions, the situations cannot be considered 'fantasy' or 'fictive'. 137. See Brinton (1981: 243-44) who, in regard to mental exigences, clarifies that it is still 'objectively' the case that the persons hold certain beliefs and experience certain emotions. 138. Bitzer (1980: 23) notes that 'The exigence is sometimes in the audience addressed—for example, its false beliefs'.

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such must be considered to have been, for the prophets, subsumed under the theological belief system so that only changes in the belief system would result in significant and lasting behavioral modifications in the other areas. Thus the primary concern of this study's analysis of the rhetorical situations and strategies will be the theological suppositions of the audiences rather than their ethics, social structures and conflicts, or economic and political policies.139 5.3.2 Rhetorical Strategies. In attempting to counteract and alter ideological positions which the prophets considered untenable, they employed numerous strategies which were associated both with themselves and with the messages. A basic categorization of strategies is presented here, while in Chapter 2 the specific strategies will be identified for the individual sign-acts and Chapter 4 will give an amplified synthesis of the strategies of the sign-acts. Within the persuasion process as defined by the 'message-learning approach' (cf. Ho viand et al. 1953),140 the processes involved in producing changes in beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors are (1) attention, (2) comprehension, (3) acceptance, and (4) retention. In order for a communication to be persuasive, it must first gain and then maintain the audience's attention. 'Attention' means not only gaining attention in order to deliver the specific message, but also giving the issues a

139. There is legitimacy in analyzing prophetic activity in terms of social, political and economic factors in order to elucidate facets of the prophetic roles (e.g. Lang [1978; 1981b: 84-92; 1983a; 1986: 300] who interprets prophetic activity in terms of political involvement; Gottwald [1981], Long [198la], Mottu [1976], Wilson [1980: 250-51] who interpret the conflict between Jeremiah and Hananiah [Jer. 28] in sociological terms). But focusing only on those issues as the sole motivating factors, to the exclusion of theological exigences, results in a view which is contrary to the textual presentations, in which the primary issues are theological in nature. For example, when Jeremiah wore the yoke (Jer. 27), he gave political advice, yet his reasons for taking that particular position were wholly theological (vv. 5-7). 140. Cf. also McGuire 1973: 221-23; Petty and Cacioppo 1981: 60. The same steps are part of McGuire's (1973: 227-29) 'information-processing paradigm', which is a slight variation of the 'learning paradigm'. Since this is a 'learning' theory, it must also be noted that 'the type of learning and the conditions of learning are ordinarily quite different in the case of producing opinion change through persuasive communication than in the case of other learning situations' (Hovland et al. 1953: 15).


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hearing by focusing the attention on the message content and not just on the rhetor and the delivery style. Besides dealing with the audience's attention, a persuasive communication must also be understood (i.e. comprehension), mentally rehearsed and remembered by the spectators (i.e. retention), as well as provide incentives to alter the behaviors or attitudes (i.e. acceptance). This basic four-point schema will be used throughout this study to delineate how the specific rhetorical strategies of the sign-acts contributed to the steps in the suasive process. Any single attempt at persuasion rarely achieves lasting results (cf. Petty and Cacioppo 1981: 87-89). Jeremiah's and Ezekiel's attempts to persuade their audiences extended over the full length of their prophetic ministries. It must not be forgotten that each individual oracle and signact was part of the broader context of extended suasive campaigns. 5.3.2.1 Source Strategies. With respect to prophetic messages, the source of the communication must be considered in its dual aspects: the immediate sources for the audiences were the prophets, and yet the theological presupposition held by the prophets was that the source was ultimately God, with the prophets being the personalized means of transmitting the divine messages. This theological presupposition is clearly indicated in the introductory formulas which explicitly attribute the sign-acts to divine communication: for example, 'thus said Yahweh' (Jer. 13.1; 19.1; 27.2; Ezek. 6.11), 'Yahweh said to me' (Jer. 13.6; Ezek. 3.22; 4.15, 16), or 'the word of Yahweh (came) to me' (Jer. 13.3, 8; 16.1; 32.6; 43.8; Ezek. 12.1, 8, 17; 21.13, 23; 24.15; 37.15; cf. the slight variations in Jer. 32.1; 35.1), and by the accounts of the sign-acts being formulated as divine injunctions.141 When considering 'source' in this study, the referent will be the prophet who performed the action.142

141. The only sign-acts not recorded in divine command-forms are Jer. 51.59-64 which is an action performed by Seraiah at Jeremiah's command, and Ezekiel's speechlessness (3.26-27; 24.27; 33.22). Although in the first-person account of Jer. 32.6-15, the buying of the field is not initially given in command form (v. 7), it is recounted as such in v. 25. 142. Cf. Brembeck and Howell (1976: 252) who note that for cases in which the speaker is not the source of his message, such as diplomats (and in our case, the prophets), it is the immediate speaker (the prophet) who 'will be evaluated in terms of the total impact he makes on the receiver; the mouthpiece of the message and its source merge into one persuasive image'.

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This in no way denies the prophets' theological presupposition regarding an ultimate divine source for the message. Source strategies143 include those factors which dealt with the prophets themselves which aided in the suasive ventures such as the rhetor's credibility, power, similarity, involvement and attractiveness (see Chapter 4 §2.3.1).144 The suasive effects of the source factors are determined by the audience's perception and not by the speaker's self-evaluation (cf. Brembeck and Howell 1976: 252). The rhetor can only say or do things which will aid the audience in creating or enhancing a positive perception of the source so that the source's attributes enhance the message's rhetorical impact. 5.3.2.2 Message Strategies.145 The strategy-categories of style, structure, argument types, and incentives will be used to discuss the specific techniques employed in the persuasion processes of the sign-acts. 1. Style includes the forms in which the rhetorical communications occurred, such as the coding of the actions, whether representational or figurative, their dramatic qualities, and the manner of address, whether indirect or direct. 2. Structure includes the organization of the actions, their sequence for climactic purposes, and the time element involved in their performance.

143. On the influence and variability of source factors in the suasive process, see Brembeck and Howell 1976: 251-66; Hovland et al 1953: 19-55, 269-70; McGuire 1973: 229-32; Petty and Cacioppo 1981: 61-69, 235-37. 144. With respect to communicator attractiveness, the more a source is liked or more physically attractive, generally the more persuasive the communicator will be. Nothing can be discerned from the biblical texts about the likeableness or physical attractiveness of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, except that Ezekiel was referred to, by his audience, as being like a songster who was pleasant to listen to (Ezek. 33.32). Even the numerous occasions of audiences soliciting divine messages from the two prophets (e.g. the elders and people coming to Ezekiel: 8.1; 14.1; 20.1; 33.30-31; Zedekiah and the people inquiring of Jeremiah: 21.1-2; 37.3; 37.17; 38.14; 42.1-3), need not imply favorable dispositions toward the prophets but rather the recognition that the two were divine intermediaries (i.e. recognition of their role function and credibility). Thus, due to the lack of textual evidence, the aspect of the prophets' likeableness or attractiveness will not be dealt with in this study. 145. On message factors in persuasion, see Petty and Cacioppo 1981: 60, 69-80; McGuire 1973: 232-37.


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3. Types of argument include the rational (logical), emotional and other kinds of appeals employed. 4. Incentives are the types of rewards or punishments presented for either compliance or noncompliance with the speaker's message. Incentives are a key aspect in persuasion because even though attention has been gained, comprehension and retention achieved, without sufficient incentives to adopt the new position over against that initially held by the recipient, persuasion will not occur. 5.3.3 Audience Response. Within the communication process, the addressed audience is an active participant who both receives the message from the sender and also transmits back to the sender a reaction.146 'Audience' can incorporate not only the 'addressed audience' of the immediate auditors or spectators to whom the message is addressed by the communicator, but also 'unaddressed audiences' which include those who hear about the communication event after it has occurred. In this study, 'audience' will be used exclusively in the sense of 'addressed audience' of those persons physically present at and cognizant of the prophets' performances. Descriptions of the 'audiences' and their views are derived from the prophets' perceptions, and frequently throughout this study the term is an abstraction and schematization. Individual members of the prophets' audiences undoubtedly responded to the messages with varying degrees of acceptance or rejection. But the abstraction is a means of delineating the group whose attitudes the prophets perceived themselves as countering, and a means of defining the tenor of the overall responses which the prophets felt their messages were eliciting. In the sign-act accounts of Jeremiah and Ezekiel there are only occasional references to the audiences' responses, such as Hananiah's response of breaking the yoke which Jeremiah was wearing (Jer. 28) or the verbalized questions asking Ezekiel for further clarification (Ezek. 12.10; 21.12; 24.19; 37.18). When specific audience responses are not indicated, only general conclusions, which are adduced from the larger 146. On the role of the audience, see Bauer 1973; Schramm 1973. See also Overholt's (1977; 1981a: 58-60; 1989: 22-25) model of the interrelatedness of the prophet, people and supernatural in the prophetic process. But that model does not reflect the influence of rhetorical or non-messenger and non-recipient factors (e.g. rhetorical situation, physical locale or environment) which are part of the dynamic of the communication process.

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context of the prophetic books, can be made about the overall effects of the prophets' nonverbal behaviors. The focus of the analysis of the audience responses to the sign-acts will be on whether the responses reflect that the prophets were successful in their attempts to persuade.

Chapter 2 JEREMIAH'S AND EZEKIBL'S SIGN-ACTS

This section contains the studies of the individual sign-act accounts in Jeremiah and Ezekiel. The sign-acts are divided into two chronological groups: (1) those performed before, and (2) those performed after Jerusalem's destruction in 586 BCE. The exigences of the rhetorical situations which elicited the nonverbal prophetic responses are delineated first before analyzing the specific sign-acts from each period. The study of each passage consists of two parts: (1)

(2)

Communicative meaning: This section addresses the issues and difficulties in interpreting the sign-acts. This portion of the study seeks to establish the meanings of the messages transmitted via the nonverbal channel, and to delineate, according to the terms and definitions from Chapter 1 §4 how those meanings were communicated. Rhetoric: Each action's rhetorical function, as defined in Chapter 1 §5.3, is explored according to the four constituent parts of the persuasion process: (a) attention, (b) comprehension, (c) acceptance, (d) retention. 1. Jeremiah's and Ezekiel's Pre-586 BCE Sign-Acts

1.1 Pre-586 BCE Rhetorical Situation All of the recorded pre-586 BCE sign-acts of Jeremiah, with the possible exception of the commencement of Jer. 16.1-9, took place after Jehoiakim's accession to the throne in 609 BCE. Ezekiel's took place from 593 BCE (Ezek. 1.2) to 586 BCE, during the reign of Zedekiah. Thus, the two prophets' sign-acts were performed over a period of some 20 years prior to Jerusalem's fall.

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Rhetorical situations are not static, but undergo development and change.1 While some rhetorical situations mature and then decay, others mature and persist. Such theological beliefs, as those held by the audiences, which the prophets perceived as the exigence, have a persistent nature which makes them resilient to change, especially when there is group support for them.2 Thus the pre-586 BCE rhetorical situation was one which matured and then continued to persist for a number of years. So, prior to Jerusalem's destruction, both Ezekiel and Jeremiah addressed the same essential exigence which only underwent slight variations as it was affected by the changing historical circumstances. The need for rhetorical responses by Jeremiah and Ezekiel was not precipitated by the historical situations created by the Babylonians, but rather by the belief system of the prophets' fellow citizens. Like the prophets, the other people were attempting to reconcile the political realities with their preconceived notions of God's dealing with them. Precisely because the audiences' theological predispositions caused them to perceive and respond differently to the situations than did Jeremiah and Ezekiel, rhetorical responses were deemed necessary by the two prophets. The prophetic messages sought to alter the audiences' interpretations of the historical events and to influence the resultant corporate behavioral responses (which were frequently political in nature) to the external events. Thus Jeremiah and Ezekiel reacted not to the historical movements of the Babylonians, but to their fellow citizens' perceptions of and responses to those historical realities. It was the realm of theological beliefs which provided the exigence of the rhetorical situation.3 The pre-586 BCE theology held by the people which elicited the nonverbal actions of Jeremiah and Ezekiel will be referred to as the 'popular theology'.4 This reconstruction of the 'popular theology' derives 1. Cf. Bitzer 1968: 12-13; 1980: 34-36. In the latter work, he lists four stages of a rhetorical situation's evolution: origin, maturity, deterioration, disintegration. 2. On the resistance of beliefs to change and the influence of social support on their perpetuation, even in the midst of seemingly contradictory events or circumstances, see the studies on the theory of 'cognitive dissonance': Carroll 1979: 86110; Festinger 1957: 24-28, 177-202; Petty and Cacioppo 1981: 137-52. 3. See Bright (1976: 16-17, 171) who states that the severity of the clash between Jeremiah and his audience is explicable, not as a political difference, but only as a theological one. 4. The term vox populi (or 'popular theology') is used by Crenshaw 1971. Other terms have also been used to describe the same theology: Bright (1972: 331),

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not from sources external to the prophetic books, but from the issues addressed verbally and nonverbally by the two prophets, and is therefore in one sense an imputed theology since it represents the prophets' perceptions of the exigence.5 It is in no way suggested that the 'popular theology' was a monolithic belief system which everyone adhered to, but rather, as extrapolated from the arguments of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, was a consensus, Yahwistic theology held by the addressees. The 'popular theology' of the period can be summarized under the four tenets of: (1) the covenant, (2) Jerusalem and the Temple, (3) the land, and (4) the Davidic dynasty. (1) The people assumed that God, because of the covenant relationship, was unconditionally under certain obligations in regard to the treatment of them, such as national deliverance, protection, and blessing, which ensured the people's continuance. (2) By the time of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the concept of the inviolability of Zion6 seems to have been an indisputable tenet of the popular theology. God had chosen Jerusalem as the place of his manifested presence in the Temple and the cult which obligated God to protect not only the Temple, but the whole city7 to which the sacredness of the Temple had been extended.8 (3) As understood in the pop'national theology'; Bright (1965, 1976), 'official theology'; Brueggemann (1978, 1986), 'royal theology'; Manahan (1980a, 1980b), 'para-covenantal theology' or 'peace theology'. 5. On the reconstruction of the exigence from the rhetor's arguments, see Chapter 1 §5.3.1. See also Clark's (1984: 33-38) discussion of 'audience analysis' and the deriving of the audience attitudes and beliefs from the audience citations in Ezekiel, and also Trapp's (1992) study of audience quotations in Jeremiah. 6. Cf. 1 Kgs 8.12-21; Pss. 46; 48; 76; 78.68-69; 132.13-15; Isa. 2.2-4; 14.32; 17.12-14; 29.5-8; 31.4-5; Lam. 4.12. 7. This is the attitude which is clearly rebutted in the 'Temple sermon' of Jer. 7 and 26 (cf. Overholt [1970: 7-8, 17-18; 1972: 460] who discusses the 'lie' (IptO) of Jer. 7 as a false sense of security in the Temple). Also Ezekiel's non-use of the term 'Zion' when referring to Jerusalem, may have been a conscious rejection by Ezekiel of the prevailing Zion theology (cf. Boadt 1986: 190). 8. On the extension of the sacredness over the whole city, see Bright 1976: 138; Davies 1974: 150-54. On the flexibility of the term Ti? see Fisher (1963) who finds it meaning not only village, city, state, but also Temple quarter (2 Kgs 10.25), inner room of the Temple (1 Kgs 20.30), and equated with the mountain of God. In regard to Jerusalem, he cites Ezek. 40.2-5 where the term refers to the Temple area; Ezek. 45.6, to the city as distinct from the holy district; Isa. 60.7, 13, 14, where the Temple is 'the city of Yahweh'; Zech. 8.3, to 'the mountain of Yahweh'. Fisher then concludes (1963: 40): 'It seems that, ideally, YHWH does not have a temple

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ular theology, the patriarchal promise of the land therefore meant that God was obligated to deliver the land from foreign incursions because the land was their perpetual heritage from which they would not be removed.9 (4) Because of the Davidic promise of kingship,10 the people assumed that God was obligated to ensure a Davidic heir upon the throne so that there would be perpetual Judahite sovereignty over the land. The above four elements combined to provide a theological basis for the popular theology's emphasis on God's saving activity on behalf of the people. Thus the popular theology fostered both a feeling that Judah was secure (e.g. the audience citations in Jeremiah which attest to this sense of security: Jer. 5.12-13a; 6.14; 8.11; 14.13, 15; 21.13; 23.17; 37.9, 19),11 even in rebellion against the Babylonian military might, and also a sense of hope for the exiles that they would return to Judah within a short time (e.g. Jer. 27.16; 28.3-4; 29.5-9). The former was the exigence against which Jeremiah spoke in Judah, while the latter was that which Ezekiel vied with among the exiles in Babylon. 1.2 Jeremiah 16.1-9n 1.2.1 Communicative Meaning. In contrast to the other nonverbal signacts imposed upon Jeremiah in which he was to do something, this sign-act involved a threefold prohibition (vv. 2, 5, 8) against doing that quarter within a city, but the city is his temple quarter, temple and even the Hill of God.' 9. On the importance of 'the land' in Jeremiah's and Ezekiel's messages, see Brueggemann 1977: 107-29, 133-43; in Jeremiah, see Diepold 1972; Habel 1992. 10. Cf. 2 Sam. 7.1-17; 23.5; Pss. 78.70-72; 89; 132.17-18; Isa. 9.6-7. 11. Crenshaw (1971: 24-26), in his analysis of the vox populi cites Jer. 5.12; 14.13; 21.13; 23.17 as examples of the characteristic of 'confidence in God's faithfulness'. This confidence is defined by Crenshaw (1971: 24-25) as 'an expression of faith in the benevolence of God despite historical circumstances'. 12. This passage has frequently been judged to have undergone editorial work, usually considered Deuteronomic. The expansions have been primarily identified in vv. 3-6. But the proposed glosses do not significantly affect the meaning of the passage for this study, since they only add emphasis to the description of the prophesied destruction. Verses 10-13 form a separate unit so that the people's inquiry in v. 10 is not a direct audience response to this particular sign-act, but more generally to all Jeremiah's predictions of calamity. That vv. 10-13 form a literary unit in themselves is evidenced by the reoccurrence of the same literary schema (i.e. general audience

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which was socially acceptable and expected. The text follows the parallel arrangement of (a) command to nonverbal behavior and (b) interpretation: (la) v. 2, command not to marry and thereby not to have children; (Ib) vv. 3-4, interpretation; (2a) v. 5a, command not to perform the socially expected mourning customs; (2b) vv. 5b-7, interpretation; (3a) v. 8, command not to participate in celebrations; (3b) v. 9, interpretation. The text does not indicate whether all of these commands were given concurrently or rather at chronologically diverse occasions and only literarily joined together. But all three of the prohibitions are mutually linked together both in the resultant social reclusiveness of Jeremiah and in their communicating about the same future occasion. The situation of judgment described in v. 4 is assumed in vv. 6-7, 9. The interpretations are also literarily linked through the chiastic declaration that the dead would not be mourned or buried in vv. 4 ("HDp"1 N'?! HSD"1 $b) and 6 (TIDO"1 ^71 T~np>> 8*7),13 and through 'the great ones and small ones' in v. 6 referring back to the fathers and mothers, sons and daughters in v. 3. Also, the references to marriage form an inclusio: 'you shall not take a wife' (v. 2) // T am removing from this place... [the] voice of [the] groom and [the] voice of [the] bride' (v. 9). The second and third commands are a complementary pair which naturally adhere to one another as they restrict involvement in the emotionally contrasting

question asking the cause of the judgment; prophetic response stating the cause as apostasy, and, frequently, a statement of the divine judgment) in Jer. 5.19; 9.11-15; 22.8-9; cf. also Deut. 29.21-27; 1 Kgs 9.8-9. (For discussion of this literary schema, see Jones 1992: 232; Nicholson 1970: 59-63; Stulman 1986: 70; Thompson 1980: 403, 408; Wilson 1980: 236.) Therefore vv. 10-13 cannot be used to determine the specific content of the 'original' declaration in vv. 1-9 (contra Barstad 1984: 129; Carroll 1986: 340). 13. Kuhl (1952: 7) cites this as an example of a 'Wiederaufnahme'. But this stylistic device cannot be used a priori to argue that vv. 4b-6a are a secondary literary insertion. Resumptive statements can be part of the original composition so as to refer the auditor/reader back to a previous concept.

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situations of grieving and rejoicing. The lack of any introductory formula between vv. 5-7 and 8-9 also points toward a continuous command (and explanation) to Jeremiah. From the standpoint of chronology and ability to enact the commands, there is no insurmountable difficulty in assuming the concurrent commencement of all three lifestyle behaviors. The text also does not delineate any period of duration for the behaviors. It is evident that they were ongoing restrictions on Jeremiah's manner of living rather than prohibitions for a single occasion. It is thus usually assumed that the restrictions were observed over the extended period of time until the fall of Jerusalem when the messages communicated by Jeremiah's sign-acts were actualized in the life of the community. 1. Celibacy. The first prohibition imposed upon Jeremiah14 was to remain celibate and thereby have no children (v. 2): 'You shall not take a wife, and there will be no sons or daughters to you, in this place.' Although there is no date reference associated with this command, it must have been given at the point when Jeremiah was within the socially recognized age for marriage when it was expected of him to fulfil the obligations of rearing a family. 14. Carroll (1986: 338-42) and Barstad (1984: 129) maintain that 16.1-9 originally was not directed to Jeremiah's personal life but rather was directly addressed to the people, so that the prohibitions were not personally imposed on Jeremiah but communally on the people. That argument cannot be sustained. Every other place where the audience is addressed in command form (i.e. 'rhetorical commands'; for a definition and discussion of Jeremiah's use of such, see Chapter 1 §2), the forms of address are either second feminine singular (i.e. to Jerusalem: 3.2; 7.29; 10.17; 13.20) or second masculine plural (cf. 2.10; 4.5, 6, 8; 5.1, 10; 6.1, 16; 7.12; 8.14; 9.16; 18.13; 22.10, 30; 30.6). Second masculine singular is never found in an address to the people, only to the prophet. In the parallel statements, the person shift of the verbs from second singular (v. 5) to third-person (singular and plural, vv. 6-7), as well as the contrast between second singular in vv. 2, 5, 8 and the second plural address to the people in v. 9 confirms the distinction in addressed personages in those verses. Had the statements been addressed to the people throughout, a consistency of second plural would be expected. McKane (1986: 367) suggests that there is no autobiographical core to the account, but rather the whole is an exilic creation (cf. also 1986: xc-xcii). But even if one considers the present literary form to reflect an exilic dating, this does not obviate the prophet actually performing the actions so that the account still retains the essence of the actions and of the interpretations given them by the prophet himself.


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Excursus: Dating of the Sign-Act The commencement of this behavior has usually been placed as concurrent with Jeremiah's call in 627 BCE (cf. van den Born 1935: 61; Bright 1965: xc; Kurian 1980: 234) or during the reign of Jehoiakim (609-597 BCE) (cf. Holladay [1981: 61-62; 1983: 152-53, 156], after Dec. 601 BCE). Though there are no biblical references which delineate the age at which young men were married in ancient Israel, it is generally assumed that marriage for the common people15 occurred during the late teen years. If such were the case, then placing this command to Jeremiah in the reign of Jehoiakim seems too late. If the traditional interpretation is followed that Jeremiah received his commission to the prophetic ministry in 627 BCE (Jer. 1.2) and was therefore probably born around 640 BCE, then during the time of Jehoiakim, Jeremiah would have been, minimally, in his thirties. Even Holladay's (1981: 61-62; 1983: 152-53, 156; 1986: 5, 468-69) schema of dating does not eliminate the problem, because if 1.2 is the date of Jeremiah's birth (627-626 BCE), Jeremiah would still have been 26 or 27, well beyond the age generally assumed for marrying, if this oracle was not given until about 600 BCE. Others, also assuming that Jer. 1.2 dates Jeremiah's birth, coordinate the command not to marry with Jeremiah's call which is redated to about 609-608 BCE so that he was in his late teens at the time (cf. Hyatt 1966; May 1945: 227). But the redating of Jeremiah's birth and call is contrary to the explicit statements in 1.2 and 25.13 (cf. also 3.6; 36.2) and seems an unlikely hypothesis (cf. Jones 1992: 61-62; Lundbom 1993; Overholt 1971). Some feel that placing the events at the beginning of Jeremiah's ministry makes him proclaim messages of catastrophic doom which were inappropriate for the period of Josiah. To resolve this incongruity, some have proposed that although Jeremiah did not marry from the inception of his ministry, he either did not attribute to his celibacy (and the other lifestyle patterns) any divine imposition or any intent to transmit a 15. There is some evidence for when some kings were married. Based on calculations of accession age, length of reign, and ages of their sons, de Vaux (1965: 29) estimates that king Jehoiachin married at age 16 and kings Amon and Josiah, at 14. But the practices of the royalty may not be paradigmatic for the common people because of the former's need to assure a successor to the throne.

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communicative meaning until much later in his ministry (cf. van den Born 1947: 58-61; von Ewald 1878: 163-64), or did not proclaim the meaning he understood it to have until the appropriate time. The former position of retrospectively imputed intention to the action goes against the intent of the literary text (see the discussion in Chapter 3 §1). As noted below in §1.2.2, the most advantageous time to achieve the greatest rhetorical impact was at the behavior's commencement, not after some 20 years of observing Jeremiah's celibacy to which he had attributed no significance other than personal preference. After such an extended period, that lifestyle would have been viewed by the audience as being 'normal' for him. At that juncture, the suasive impact of the nonverbal behavior would have been minimal when he attempted to verbally coordinate with it a previously unexpressed communicative meaning. To resolve the difficulties, some have maintained that Jeremiah had been previously married and that his wife had either died or been divorced from him so that this was a command against remarrying. Goldman (1952) interprets 11.15 and 12.7-8 as references to Jeremiah's wife's adultery and cites Jeremiah's preoccupation with the adultery theme (e.g. 2.20, 33; 3.1-3, 6-9; 4.30; 5.7-8) as evidence that Jeremiah divorced his unfaithful wife. But in 11.15 and 12.7-8 the first-person suffix refers to God who is speaking, and a repeated theme in a prophet's ministry need not reflect a psychological preoccupation because of personal experience. Other commentators place the stress of the command on the phrase 'in this place' (v. 2), that is, Anathoth. Thus the prohibition was not a permanent injunction but only that he was not to take a wife from his hometown where he was receiving opposition. But the phrase lacks that specificity of Jeremiah's hometown, for it is clearly synonymous with 'in this land', that is, Judah, in vv. 3 and 6. The difficulties of both a dating during Jehoiakim's reign or at the beginning of his career can be resolved without resorting to a redating of Jeremiah's career. There is the possibility that marriage at a very young age was not universally practiced by the common people. For example, Isaac was married at 40 (Gen. 25.20), and according to 1 Kgs 22.42 and 2 Kgs 8.17, Jehoshaphat's eldest son was born when Jehoshaphat was 28. Thus the social expectations may not have been to marry at a particularly young age, but only rather to marry. So during Jehoiakim's reign, Jeremiah, in his thirties, would have reached the


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upper limits of the marriageable period. Thus everyone would have been expecting him to marry. Such a heightened expectation would have enhanced the dramatic impact of his pronouncement that he was never going to do such. The other possibility exists that from the beginning of his ministry, when he was in his teen years, he understood his celibacy to be divinely commanded so as to communicate a specific message content of judgment to the people (cf. Jones 1992: 229-30), and this he proclaimed in response to the national wickedness instituted by Manasseh. An analogy to the proclamation of judgment upon the people during the reign of Josiah is found in the proclamation of the prophetess Huldah when she read the scroll found in the Temple (2 Kgs 22.16-20). That prophecy too contains a repeated emphasis on 'this place', as in Jer. 16.19. The sentiment is expressed that judgment was sure to come, but would only be delayed until after Josiah's death. Jeremiah may have shared that perspective, and during the early part of his ministry proclaimed judgment through his lifestyle as a catalyst for the people to return to God,16 and later during the apostasies of Jehoiakim, renewed that message with an added vigor. The refrainment from marriage with the accompanying lack of descendants, and thereby Jeremiah's solitary familial existence was interpreted in vv. 3-4. The time was coming when the families of his audience would be decimated by divine judgment of catastrophic proportions (v. 4). Even though the interpretation is not expressed in a simile-form, as for many of Jeremiah's sign-acts, an implied simile was portrayed: just as Jeremiah was deprived of all immediate family members, so too when the judgment occurred, the individual members of the audience would be like Jeremiah in their solitariness of familial existence because their children and parents would be killed. The focus of Jeremiah's nonverbal demonstration was thus not the act of abstaining from marriage and not having children, but the resultant childless and solitary condition which was equivalent to that of a widower. Thus Jeremiah was representationally depicting the future fate of his audience: 16, Although Lundbom does not specifically discuss Jer. 16.1-9, his perception of Jeremiah's early career and its link to the finding of the scroll (1993: 81-96) is similar to what is expressed here. Lundbom dates Jeremiah's birth at 640 BCE, his call to 627 BCE, and the commencement of his ministry to 622 BCE, when Jeremiah would have been 18 years of age.

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just as he was alone, they too would be alone. Implied in the message is that once the judgment occurred there would be no future hope for the community because there would no longer be any progeny to continue it, just as Jeremiah had no progeny to carry on his familial line. Jeremiah's refrainment from marriage was thus not for convenience's sake to save him (or his potential descendants) from the distress of the coming disaster, nor that it would be inappropriate to bring children into such a calamitous time,17 nor to facilitate his functioning in the prophetic role without the encumbrances of family responsibilities.18 Rather his behavior had a specifiable communicative message in which he functioned in the role of the people as he depicted what their manner of existence would be like in the future. There is no exhortation that the people should imitate, in anticipation of the coming judgment, any of the three prohibitions, but rather his lifestyle portrayed the consequences of the executed devastation which some of them would have to endure. 2. No mourning rituals. The second prohibition was not to participate in the customary mourning rituals (v. 5). The specific mourning customs prohibited are those of going to the house of grieving19 (Kinn ^K 17. Contra van den Born 1935: 61; Brueggemann 1988: 144; Carroll 1981: 132; McKane 1986: Ixvi-lxvii. 18. Contra van den Born 1947: 60-61; Hyatt 1951: 82; Lang 1986: 307; Rudolph 1958: 101; Stacey 1990: 139-40. 19. Although in its only other biblical usage (Amos 6.7), nno refers to feasting in revelry, here in Jeremiah it clearly refers to an aspect of the mourning customs as the context of v. 5 indicates. It therefore has the connotation of a 'wake' for the dead (cf. Bright 1965: 110; Greenfield 1974: 453; Gruber 1980: 441). The noun, PIT~1Q, is attested in various sources from the fourteenth century BCE through the Talmudic times and is associated with both funeral rites and bacchanal revelry. (On those sources, see Avigad and Greenfield 1982; Barstad 1984: 127-42; Bryan 1973; Dahood 1971: 52; Eissfeldt 1966, 1973a, 1973b; Friedman 1979-80: 192, 200-201; Greenfield 1973: 48; 1974; Halpern 1979-80; King 1988a: 137-61; 1988b; 1993: 140-41; Lewis 1989: 80-94; L'Heureux 1974: 266-67, 270; Loretz 1982, 1993; Margalit 1979-80: 100-105; Miller 1971: 44-48; Pope 1972: 190-94; 1977b: 214-21; 1981: 176-79; Porten 1968: 179-86; Teixidor 1981.) In the nonbiblical sources, the term can refer to a feast (as in Amos 6.7; cf. Piraeus inscription), a cultic association (cf. the nonmythological Ras Shamra texts; Marseilles Tariff inscription; Palmyra sources; Nabatean inscriptions), or the place of feasting (cf. RS 24.258 [KTU 1.1141). Thus, the 'house of the nriD' could be the site of the feast or property belonging to the association (cf. RS 15.70; RS 15.88). To explain the contrastive contexts of the term in Amos 6.7 and Jer. 16.5 (as well

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rrTHQ rP3), mourning (Tisob "j^n 'p&'i),20 and expressing condolence (nnb TJfl 'PNl).21 Participation in the social amenities of mourning as in the extrabiblical usages), it has frequently been assumed that the root fin means a 'shrill sound', and therefore could be either a cry of joy (thus the context of feasting in Amos 6.7) or of sorrow (thus the context of mourning in Jer. 16.5) (cf S. Driver 1907: 94; Eissfeldt 1966; 1973a: 119-21; 1973b: 136-38; Harrison 1973: 104; Keil 1977: I, 268; Meyer 1979: 603-604). But Pope (1972: 193-94; 1977a: 164-65; 1977b: 220-21; cf. also Margalit 1979-80: 101) suggests that it is cognate to the Arabic rzh, meaning 'to fall down from fatigue and to remain prostrate without power to rise'. Collapse from drunken overindulgence was part of revelry (cf. RS 24.258 11. 15-22) as well as part of mourning activities. Thus, in that wa the term has been related to both types of occasions (cf. Lewis 1989: 88-89, 93). In applying the nonbiblical usages of the term to an understanding of Jer. 16.5, a couple of distinctions should be made. Clearly, as the parallel to nntOQ in v. 8 shows, the term in Jeremiah refers to an event and not to an association. Although in nonbiblical usages the term can have the technical meaning of a specific place of feasting, since the emphasis in Jer. 16.5 is not on the locale but on the activity, nPiQ ITD should not be understood as a technical term specifying a locale with a specialized function (e.g. not a 'funeral parlor', nor a particular place set aside only for 'funeral feasts'; contra Loretz 1982: 91), but generically as any building, including private domiciles, in which mourning was occurring. Although in the nonbiblical usages the term involves cultic feasts, in Jeremiah it need not carry connotations of nonYahwistic rites (cf. Ackerman 1989: 279) but was rather a generic term for funeral feasts. It is interpretatively unsound to assume, merely on the basis of the use of the same term, that there is an identity between pre-1300 BCE Ugaritic practices, Israelite practices of the seventh and sixth centuries BCE, and Palmyrian practices of the first three centuries CE. This is contra Barstad (1984: 129) who argues that the occasion mentioned by Jeremiah did involve such pagan rites. But he does so on the basis that v. 5 was a prohibition addressed to the people, who according to vv. 11, 13, 18 were involved in pagan worship. But his argument fails at two additional points, which are discussed above: (1) the prohibition is not directed to the people, but personally to Jeremiah. Such a command not to participate in nonYahwistic rituals would seem to be totally superfluous to a prophet of Yahweh. The structural parallelism of the command in v. 5 with those of vv. 2 and 8 show that the former was not an undesirable thing which was prohibited, but rather something which was socially expected and an event in which the prophet would naturally participate. (2) There is no interpretative link between vv. 10-13 and vv. 1-9 by which the nature of the activities in vv. 5-9 can be evaluated as non-Yahwistic. 20. Although 130 derives from the nonverbal gesture of 'beating the breast' and can also refer to paralinguistic 'wailing, lamenting' (see under Ezek. 24.15-24, Chapter 2 §2.2), here it has the general meaning of 'mourning' (cf. Gruber 1980: 438-39). 21. TO derives from the nonverbal gesture of shaking the head (cf. Jer. 18.16)

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rituals is not only a show of respect for the dead or a catharsis to alleviate personal grief, but is also a means of expressing, through socially recognized channels, concern, and of offering sympathetic assistance to those in the grieving process. In the latter case, the focus of one's participation is not on the dead person but on the bereaved. Jeremiah's behavior was not only an abstaining from activities which showed respect for the dead (suggested by v. 6. As evidenced by the connotation of the term 11] (v. 5), 'to console', and the emphasis in v. 7 ('and they will not break [bread] for them22 in mourning23 in order to comfort him or perhaps from the shaking of the whole body (cf. Gruber 1980: 406; Holladay 1986: 441), possibly as a result of violent sobbing and lamenting. But here the prohibition does not mean to refrain from making that specific gesture, rather not to express the emotions of mourning and sympathy which that gesture displays. In v. 5, the object of the preposition, in the phrase nn'p 13D, is not explicit, and the understanding of the referent affects the understanding of the connotation of TO. In Jer. 22.10, ... t 7 ~!1] clearly means to mourn for the dead person: l~I]n ^Nl IDDfl *?$ i?. (Contra Gruber [1980: 406] who, in order to make ~I1] consistently mean 'console', must insert words into the translation: 'do not console [those who mourn] for his sake'.) If that connotation is applicable to Jer. 16.5, then the sense is 'do not mourn for them, i.e. the dead'. But in numerous other places,... *? "113 means 'console, condole, comfort the one(s) mourning' (cf. Gruber 1980: 406407): //*7an in Jer. 15.5;//Dm in Isa. 51.19; Nan. 3.7; Job 2.11; 42.11; Ps. 69.21. Therefore the meaning here would be 'do not console them, i.e. those who are mourning and grieving' (cf. Gruber 1980: 441; Thompson 1980: 405). In light of v. 7 where the emphasis is on acts of comfort and consolation to the bereaved, and the use of QI13, a frequent synonym of "T13, the latter meaning of 'console' is preferable here. 22. Isa. 58.7 reads DFI^ DID indicating that in this expression the direct object should be 'bread'. But Lam. 4.4 only reads Dil^ 2712, with the direct object, 'bread', being implied. So it is possible that here in Jer. 16.7, the direct object, 'bread' is unexpressed, but implied. The LXX reads DPI1? for MT's D!"!1?, and is generally followed. 23. ^DK Û: If the MT pointing is retained, the preposition is that of norm, thus meaning 'in accordance with mourning (customs)'. ^Dtf is a technical term for the conventional mourning rituals performed over the whole period of mourning (cf. Baumann 1977: 45). Frequently it is repointed to the adjective, 'mourner' (^58), with the whole phrase meaning 'do not break [bread] for/to a mourner'. The resulting structure makes the emendation plausible since it provides a referent for the suffix (which is lacking in LXX) on lam1?. But Holladay (1966: 418-19) argues for the MT pointing on the basis of the parallelism between cola 1 and 3 ('[bread] for mourning'//'cup of consolation') and that of 2 and 4 ('for the dead'//'for his father and his mother').

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on account of the dead, and they will not give them24 the cup of consolation to drink25 on account of his father and his mother'), 26 it was also an abstention from mourning customs which served the social function of expressing sympathy and condolences to the survivors of the deceased.27 There was thus emphasis on abstaining from the communal interaction within the mourning process. For Jeremiah to abstain from such would not have been considered just eccentric, but within the context of familial and communal solidarity, such behavior was disrespectful both to the dead and to the survivors. The interpretation of Jeremiah's action is found in vv. 6b-7 which form an implied simile with v. 5a. Structurally the first two points of comparison form a chiasmus:

24. DniK is frequently emended to TUN, consistent with the following singular suffixes. But if MT's CH1? is retained with CH1? implied, then the sequence of number follows an a: b: a': b' pattern: plural (Dnb), singular (inn]'?), plural (CHIN), singular (ION, TDK). 25. The breaking of bread and drinking from the cup of consolation refer to the practice of either food provided by friends and neighbors at the conclusion of the fasting period during mourning (cf. 1 Sam. 31.13; 2 Sam. 1.12; 3.35; 12.20-21) or to food and drink brought into the house of the deceased for the surviving relatives since food preparation was prohibited in the dwelling because of the uncleanness produced by the death. On food associated with mourning, see Tob. 4.17 and the references to 'bread of mourners/men' in Ezek. 24.17, 22; Hos. 9.4. The 'cup of consolation' is not mentioned biblically elsewhere, but in later Judaism it was prescribed that ten cups of wine were to be consumed in the mourner's house (cf. Ket. 8b; Sem. 14.14), one of which was for the comforting of the mourners (D'^riK "Cimrr?). 26. Loretz (1982) argues that originally in v. 7, there were no references to comforting the survivors (deleting 7aB, 7b6 as secondary additions), but only references to food and sacrifices offered to the dead. Thus, he interprets the HPlD in v. 5 as the place where the cultic association performed those death rites. But Loretz's understanding and deletions are questionable since it is unlikely that the Yahwistic prophet, Jeremiah, would have naturally associated with such an association and rituals so that his participation needed to be prohibited, and since in v. 5, showing sympathy to the survivors was already part of the prohibited action to which v. 7 correlates as interpretation. 27. See King's (1988a: 137) assessment of the function of the nrin: The purpose of the funerary aspect of the maneah was to offer consolation to those in mourning. By sharing food and drink with the mourners, participants offered solace and comfort' (cf. also 1988b: 36-37; 1993: 141; Lewis 1989: 138).

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Jeremiah's and Ezekiel 's Sign-Acts v. 5.

(a) you shall not go to the house of grieving (i.e. a specific action in the mourning process); (b) and you shall not go to mourn (ISO); (c) and you shall not express sympathy (11]); v. 6b. (b') and they will not mourn (120); (a1) and one will not lacerate himself or make himself bald (i.e. specific gestures in the mourning process);28 1 v. 7. (c ) and they will not break bread and not give the cup of consolation to drink in order to comfort (Din). As in the abstention from marriage, so too in this behavior, Jeremiah functioned in the role of the people and representationally depicted what the people would do when the judgment came.29 The basis of properly interpreting the simile-relationship between Jeremiah's behavior and the corresponding people's behavior is clear in v. 6a which refers to the future event of people dying, also mentioned in vv. 3-4. The temporal sequence is thus established that when those future deaths occurred, then vv. 6b-7 would happen. Just as Jeremiah refrained from the mourning customs and expressions of comfort (v. 5), so too would the people refrain from their customary expressions of mourning. Like Jeremiah's 28. Certain types of self-laceration and of shaving the head bald in mourning were prohibited in the law (Lev. 19.27-28; 21.5; Deut. 14.1), but some types were apparently practiced by the Israelites (cf. shaving in Jer. 7.29; Ezek. 7.18; Isa. 22.12; Amos 8.10; Mic. 1.16; Job 1.20; shaving and body gashing: Jer. 41.5). The statement here expresses neither condemnation nor approval of the practices, but merely acknowledges that such practices were part of the customary rituals which would no longer be practiced in the circumstances specified. 29. Jeremiah depicted what the people would do in the future, not what they should do in the present. Thus his actions were not exhortations for the people currently to refrain from mourning and from joyous actions because such behaviors were considered inappropriate in anticipation of the coming destruction (contra Carroll 1986: 340; Cornill 1905: 203-204; Thompson 1980: 405). Jeremiah's refrainment from mourning thus contrasted with Ezekiel's (24.15-24; see Chapter §2.2) in that Jeremiah's was a prediction of what would happen in the future while Ezekiel's was a demonstration of appropriate behavior in the future. Since Ezekiel's exilic audience could only react to the distant destruction as observers, Ezekiel therefore demonstrated to them what their appropriate response should be. In contrast, Jeremiah's audience would be active victims of the judgment events; therefore he predicted the conditions in which they would find themselves after the destruction.


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action (v. 5), the people's actions would have a two-pronged focus: the one was directed toward the dead (v. 6) to show respect, and the other toward those who grieved (v. 7) so as to give comfort. Jeremiah's nonverbal behavior only showed the resultant behavior of the people, not the psychological motivation for such. There is no reason to assume that the lack of mourning by the people resulted from their callousness because they had become so accustomed to death because of the enormity of the slaughter, nor that the point of the message was that the public calamities were too great to permit individual losses to come into consideration. Rather, the people's lack of performing the mourning amenities was due to the circumstance of the decimation of the population (v. 6a). The death toll would be so massive, that the normal consolations and rites, including burial, were beyond the capability of the few who survived.30 For the dead not to be buried was considered a most disgraceful circumstance.31 So just as Jeremiah's behavior was 30. This is similar to the situation, as described by Thucydides, during the plague in Athens in 430 BCE during which some 'were so overwhelmed by the weight of their calamities that they had actually given up the usual practice of making laments for the dead... The bodies of the dying were heaped one on top of the other... The temples ... were full of the dead bodies of people who had died inside them. For the catastrophe was so overwhelming that men, not knowing what would happen next to them, became indifferent to every rule of religion or of law. All the funeral ceremonies which used to be observed were now disorganized, and they buried the dead as best they could. Many people, lacking the necessary means of burial because so many deaths had already occurred in their households, adopted the most shameless methods' (History of the Peloponnesian War 2.51-52, translated by R. Warner). The Egyptian 'Prophecy of Neferti' refers to the dissolution of mourning as part of the social collapse: 'This land is (so) damaged (that) there is no one who is concerned with it, no one who speaks, no one who weeps... There is no one who weeps because of death; there is no one who spends the night fasting because of death; (but) a man's heart pursues himself (alone). (Dishevelled) mourning is no (longer) carried out today, (for) the heart is completely separated from it' (ANET 445a, c). But in this passage, the refraining from mourning seems to be the result of self-absorption in which no one is concerned about what is happening to anyone else, rather than resulting from the extensity of destruction. 31. The theme of nonburial is repeated in Jer. 8.2; 9.21; 14.16; 22.19; 25.33; 36.30, and the result is that the bodies become food for the animals (v. 4) in Jer. 7.33; 19.7; 34.20. Such is mentioned elsewhere in Deut. 28.26; Ezek. 39.17-20; Pss. 79.2-3; 83.11; 1 Kgs 14.11; 16.4; 21.24; 2 Kgs 9.10, 36-37; Isa. 5.25; 18.6; 1 Sam. 17.43-46; Gen. 40.19. Being left unburied was part of the ancient Near East

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perceived as socially disrespectful, so too the survivors' future behavior would be a form of disrespect since they would not be able to bury the dead properly or mourn over them. From an emotional standpoint, the extent of the catastrophe touched everyone. Because each individual survivor would lose family members and would be alone, just as Jeremiah had no descendants because of his celibacy, they each would undergo such an extreme sense of loss that they would be personally unable to express consolation and condolence to their friends and neighbors who had experienced similar losses. The customary rituals which expressed the communal solidarity with the sufferers would not be exercised because there was no longer any community and the few who survived were not in the circumstantial position to console. In v. 5b, God's withdrawal of his peace is not the interpretation of the action, but rather the motivation for the desolating judgment expressed in v. 6a (cf. also v. 4) which would result in the people's behavior of vv. 6b-7. So Jeremiah was not functioning in the role of God, and thus his nonparticipation in the social function did not depict God's withdrawal from his people.32 The emphasis of this prohibition (v. 5), and the following one in v. 8, was not on Jeremiah's total social withdrawal, but rather his nonparticipation in a specific communal activity. 3. No festive activities. The third prohibition (v. 8)33 was Jeremiah's abstinence from participation in joyous festive occasions: 'And to the treaty curse (cf. Fensham 1963: 161-63; Killers 1964: 68-69): e.g. Esarhaddon treaty, lines 426-27 (ANET 53Sc), 451-52 (ANET 53&d), 483-84 (ANET539a);Seti I decree (ANET 328a); Eshmunazar sarcophagus (ANET 662c); Maqlu 4.42-44; 8.85-89. 32. Contra van den Born 1935: 31, 61-62; 1947: 61; Clerc 1985: 131; Klein 1988: 36-37; Thompson 1980: 405, 407. 33. Holladay (1986: 470; cf. also Pope 1981: 176-77; Lewis 1989: 89, 138-39) suggests that rather than two prohibitions, one against attending funerals (v. 5) and another against joyous festivities (v. 8), there may only be a single prohibition against funerals. Thus ni"l2?Q JT3 (v. 8) is merely a redundant, synonymous restatement of nriQ ITD (v. 5). This interpretation is based, in part, on the name of the rabbinic tractate on 'mourning' which is euphemistically called 'rejoicings' (Semahof) and on the tractate's reference to the dead as 'groom' and 'bride' in Sem. 8.2, 7 (cf. 3.1, 7; 11.4-5). Thus v. 9 would be a euphemistic manner of speaking about mourning activities. But such an interpretation overlooks the stereotypical nature of the phraseology in v. 9. Such language is also found in Jer. 7.34; 25.10; 33.11 where it clearly does not refer to the removal of mourning activities, but of joyful sounds.


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house of feasting 34 you will not go to sit with them35 to eat and to drink.' Although the context gives weddings as a specific type (v. 9b: 'groom's voice and bride's voice'), 36 the proscribed activities were undoubtedly broader than that since there is the general reference to the removal of '(the) sound of joy and (the) sound of gladness', and nntOQ refers to the joyous communal and family celebrations which took

Also Zlotnick (1966: 14-15) discusses the tractate passages, and although he takes the terms 'bride' and 'groom' to be references to the dead, he notes that the terms did not express the deceaseds' state of being, but rather designated their youthful age. Thus the terms cannot be considered synonymous with 'dead persons'. As Holladay(1986: 470) points out, the chiasmus formed by the verb and indirect object of location between vv. 5 (nnn JT3 [b] K13H btf [a]) and 8 («nn K1? [a'] nran IT3 [b'J), and the structural parallelism between vv. 5-7 (v. 5a: [a] prohibition; vv. 5b-7: [b] interpretation // v. 8: [a'j prohibition; v. 9: Lb1]interpretation) suggest a shift in the subject matter. More decisive for understanding the two as contrasting commands is the use of nnro !T3 in antithetic parallelism to ^3K m in Eccl. 7.2; cf. also in Eccl. 7.4 where the latter is antithetic to HPTO 173. The same contrast is brought out in Est 9.22, that when the people were delivered from the threat of destruction, it was for them a month in which sorrow was turned to gladness and mourning into a good day (310 OV1? ^3^01 nnDCC1? j'ro), so that it was a time of feasting and gladness (nriQOI nrra 'Q'). The term, nnro, never refers to a feast held in conjunction with funeral rites, but always in conjunction with joyous occasions. In Sem. 8.15, the mourner is forbidden to go to a nnSQ JT3. In Jer. 51.39, the nntira did take place in the context of death, but there the feast was preparatory so as to make the Babylonians drunk in judgment. So even there it was not a feast after death occurred. In an inscription from Palmyra (cf. Teixidor 1981) there is reference to a WTO (1. 14) in which the rtno H S13J (11. 3-4) participate. But in this much later text, it cannot be concluded that the 'feast' was a funeral meal. 34. nntOQ 1T3, literally 'house of drinking'. The point of the prohibition was not to restrict Jeremiah from going to a specific locale, but rather to refrain from the festive occasion which was associated with the place. Although the term could have the technical meaning of 'banquet hall' (cf. Est. 7.8 where it refers to the banquet room of the palace), it probably here has the broader connotation of any house or private domicile at which a feast was taking place. 35. nmtf is frequently repointed. But the MT pointing is a variant vocalization of the preposition which occurs repeatedly in Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and is not the direct object marker (cf. BDB 85c). 36. The reference to the voice of the bride and groom is clearly an allusion back to Jeremiah's not marrying in v. 2: there would be no wedding feast of his own to attend and he was not to attend those of others.

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place not only at marriages (Gen. 29.22; Judg. 14.12, 17), but also when a child was weaned (Gen. 21.8), at birthdays (Gen. 40.20; cf. Job 1.4), at the queen's coronation (Est. 2.18), and during sheepshearing time (1 Sam. 25.36). The emphasis of the restraint seems therefore to be upon nonparticipation in varied communal festivities. Although the verbal explanation which was given to the people (v. 9)37 was not explicitly expressed in simile-form, a simile between Jeremiah's behavior and the people's behavior is implied. By analogy to the other two actions in which Jeremiah functioned representationally as the people, such is the case here. Since he does not function in the role of God, his abstention should not be understood as communicating God's withdrawal from the people. Verse 9 does not express that God withdraws himself but rather, via judgment, he removes from the people their occasions for rejoicing.38 The day would come when the people would not be able to attend such festivities. Jeremiah thus anticipatorily functioned as if those occasions had already been taken away. His lack of attending joyous celebrations was not because of an inappropriateness of doing so in light of the coming destruction, but rather to communicate representationally the people's future behavior. In all three prohibitions, Jeremiah functioned in the role of the people representing to them what their future life would be like when the judgment came. In none of the nonverbal displays did Jeremiah express the psychological motivation for the people's imitative behavior, but only the people's resultant condition and external behavior after the devastation had occurred. In the celibacy he represented the state of familial solitariness in which they would find themselves. In the latter two behaviors he represented the type of actions which they would no longer perform because of the destruction's overwhelming totality: they would no longer be capable of communally expressing sympathy while 37. The stereotypical nature of v. 9 does not mean that it could not have been an ad hoc interpretation. Undoubtedly the prophets used the same stereotypical expressions in various spontaneous utterances. This is contra van den Born (1947: 59) who argues that the stereotypical nature of v. 9 reflects an interpretation given in retrospect, which in turn indicates the same for all the interpretations of the actions ofvv. 1-8. 38. The removal of joyful sounds is a common description of judgment: Jer. 7.34; 25.10; 33.11; Ezek. 26.13 (cf. the motif of joy turned into mourning in Lam. 5.14-15; Amos 8.10). The motif is also one of the stereotypical curses in ancient Near Eastern vassal treaties (cf. Fensham 1963: 171-72; Hillers 1964: 57-58): e.g. Sefire I A 29 (ANET660&); Ashurnirari treaty rev. 4.19 (ANET533b).


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in the depth of grieving, nor would they have festive occasions in which to communally empathize with each other. 1.2.2 Rhetoric 1. Attention. Attention was clearly gained through the nature of the behaviors which were contrary to the social norms and expectations. By his celibacy, Jeremiah would have no children to perpetuate his inheritance or remembrance. Such was considered catastrophic by a culture which stressed the continuance of one's memory through familial lines (cf. Jer. 22.30).39 There is no extant biblical Hebrew term for 'bachelor', which probably reflects the unusualness of the condition.40 So when Jeremiah publicly declared himself to be a bachelor, such certainly would have elicited from the audience a questioning attitude and from his family a shock that he was making no attempt to continue the lineage. Lack of participation in the communal activities of mourning and celebrating would have been considered socially unacceptable behavior. Jeremiah's absence from such must have evoked consternation as well as curiosity which would have provided the necessary openings to communicate verbally the meaning of his nonverbal behaviors. 2. Comprehension. The communicative significance of Jeremiah's behavior was probably not obvious solely through observation of the behaviors. His actions could have been easily misinterpreted as condemnatory of the involved social institutions, expressive of a personal desire to be a recluse, or expressive of Jeremiah's psychological condition. The outward behaviors, without any accompanying verbal interpretations, were probably initially interpreted as being informative about the prophet himself, rather than as bearing communicative messages for the people. Only the verbal explanations clarified what messages were thereby being nonverbally transmitted. 3. Acceptance. It may be assumed that the people were anticipating their lives to continue on in relative normalcy since, as vv. 10-13 indicate, they perceived no cause for calamity to occur. In order to 39. Also, in Jeremiah's letter to the Babylonian exiles (29.6), he told them to take wives and have children in Babylon. Such must have been considered, both by the recipients and by Jeremiah, to constitute normalcy of life. 40. Lambert (1963) cites ancient Near Eastern proverbs which reflect the attitudes toward celibacy at that time: for example 'He that supports no wife, he that supports no son, may his misfortunes be multiplied' (Fara II no. 26 III 9-11).

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counteract that attitude, Jeremiah had to present the potential of a coming judgment in a memorable manner. The uniqueness of his behaviors in their contrariness to social norms and expectations not only served the function of gaining the people's attention, but also visually and graphically created an image in the people's minds of what the future would be like. The greatest rhetorical impact on an audience occurs temporally at the point of concurrence of audience expectation, nonverbal action, and verbal explanation. The audience's questioning (whether verbally or only mentally) of his lifestyle was undoubtedly most vociferous when he initially implemented the restrictions. It was the audience's initial curiosity which produced the greatest point of receptivity for the verbally communicated interpretations. After the nonverbal behaviors had been in existence for an extended period of time, there was probably a waning effect on the people who began to accept them as the 'standard operating procedure' for Jeremiah. Since the restrictions involved his total and continuous lifestyle, they comprised a greater depth of personal cost-involvement than did those sign-acts which were only solitary and momentary presentations. For Jeremiah, his behaviors resulted in a lack of offspring, social exclusion with its accompanying loneliness,41 and probably even caused scorn and ridicule to be directed at him. Such a depth of personal involvement must have been noticed by the audience. This should have helped to confirm in their minds the depth of conviction Jeremiah had concerning the issue, as well as to verify that what was being done was not by personal preference but through divine imposition. Recognition of the latter should have lent a greater sense of authority, and therefore suasive credibility, to the message Jeremiah proclaimed.42 41. It is generally noted that 15.15-21 and 16.1-9 have been editorially placed together so that the prohibitions of 16.1-9 provided the explanation, i.e. the prophet acted under divine commission, for the resultant situation of 'loneliness' described in 15.17. If that is the case, then 15.17 can be considered a confirmation, functioning like an execution statement, that Jeremiah actually carried out the commands of 16.1-9 (see Chapter 1 §3.3). The link between the two passages is highlighted more in the LXX in which 16.1 is lacking. Thus 16.2-9 is more closely associated with Jeremiah's 'lament' in 15.15-21, and specifically to the prophetic mission defined in 15.19-21 and to the affirmation in v. 17 that he had not sat in the circle of merrymakers but rather sat alone. 42. Cf. Berquist 1989: 134-35.


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4. Remembrance. Not only the unusual nature of the behaviors, but also Jeremiah's extended adherence to them with the resulting flux in audiences and circumstances, provided repeated openings for renewed verbal proclamations. Every time a friend or relative died or was married or had occasion for a festive gathering, Jeremiah was conspicuously absent from the mourning or joyous events. Even to those who already knew what Jeremiah was communicating by his lifestyle and had accepted his eccentric behavior as 'normal', the occasions of mourning and festivity allowed for a renewed heightened awareness of those behaviors, thus providing the mental stimuli to bring his message to remembrance. It must be presumed that on numerous occasions the opportunity presented itself for Jeremiah to repeat verbally the communicative message signified by his behaviors, or at least for the community to talk about his lifestyle commitments. 1.3 Jeremiah 13.1-11 1.3.1 Communicative Meaning. This sign-act was performed43 over an extended period of time, although the precise date at which the activities commenced is not given.44 The nonverbal actions fall into three

43. The discussion here presupposes this sign-act's actual performance rather than the account being that of a vision, literary fiction, or nonacted parable (see the discussion in Chapter 1 §3.) Carroll (1981: 131; 1986: 295-96) interprets the action as only a mime in which Jeremiah did not really do these things over an extended period of time but acted them out at one time before an audience in a dramatic display in which he drew the Euphrates River in the sand or designated some nearby place as such, and merely informed his audience that a long time had passed between the depicted actions. That interpretation runs into two difficulties: (1) the language of the text does not describe the creation of a setting which is quite different as evidenced in Ezek. 21.24. The text presupposes actual locations and an actual performance rather than a 'theatrical' collapsing of time and elements. (2) If there was no real time lapse, unless the prophet employed two waist-sashes, which the text in no way suggests, either he was originally wearing a ruined sash, or when he 'retrieved' the sash, he held before the audience a perfectly good sash which they then had to imagine was ruined. Thus the contrast between the new and ruined conditions is totally lost or contradicted if the sash was not really seen by the people in both its new and ruined states. 44. Although some suggest that the sign-act dates as early as the beginning of Jeremiah's ministry (c. 626 BCE) and therefore refers to the Assyrian, rather than Babylonian, influence (cf. Cornill 1905: 171), it is usually dated to Jehoiakim's reign of 609-597 BCE. The latter seems preferable because at that juncture the threat

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sequential stages of performance: (1) the wearing of the new waist-sash (vv. 1-2), (2) burying it (vv. 3-5), and (3) retrieving it after it was spoiled (vv. 6-7).45 But the interpretation (vv. 8-11)46 is bifold, and structurally forms a chiasmus with the sequence of actions:

of forced exile in Babylon was a real possibility for the inhabitants of the Judahite vassal state. 45. Hubmann (1991) argues that there was originally only the singular action of vv. 1-2 of wearing the waist-sash which was a positive proclamation regarding Israel (i.e. the Northern Kingdom) as reflected in v. 11, and that vv. 3-10 (an references to Judah in v. 11) are subsequent expansions. His arguments are based on the discontinuity, and therefore, improbability of the waist-sash being used conjointly in both a positive (vv. 1-2) and a negative (vv. 3-8) manner, and on t apparent discrepancy of the referent for the waist-sash in v. 11 being 'the people', whereas in v. 9 it is the 'pride'. Yet the argument that positive and negative activities cannot cohere together is questionable, especially if such a contrast is a deliberate rhetorical strategy to depict respectively past and future historical situations. Also 'the pride' and 'the people' are not mutually exclusive terms as indicated by v. 10. Also, in Ezek. 24.21, ]1{W includes the offspring which were taken away. 46. Verses 10-11, or portions thereof, are at times cited as being later, probably Deuteronomic, interpolations. But there is no overriding reason to assume that vv. 10-11 give to the sign-act an interpretation other than what was originally intended. Thiel (1973: 170-73) has rightly pointed out that 13.8-9, lOa (the first three words), and lOb form a very close structural parallel to the interpretation of the sign-act in 19.1 la: 13.8-10 Introductory Statement: -IOK^ iLJK mrr nm TH

19.11a crr'w moKi

Messenger Formula:

mrr IDS nr>

rmnu mrr ~m ro

Announcement of God's Judgment (in terms of the nonverbal action):

rmrr p«j ns rrntDK HDD

run nan ns nnTO nro

nn tfîT ]isj n«T

n»m Ti?n n«i

n?n T,Tto 7n...inn nn nun

-luvn "^ n» "asr ~W$G

Expression of total destruction:

W? rr?:r ^ ION

-nu nsin1? ^DV K1? nss

That parallelism, as well as the chiastic arrangement of the interpretation in vv. 811 with the actions in vv. 1-7, reinforce the argument that vv. 10-11 represent original interpretation.


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Action: Interpretation: A. v. 1: wearing (Action 1) B'. vv. 9-10: ruining B. vv. 5, 7: ruining (Actions 2 and 3) A', v. 11: wearing47 Although there is no reference to eyewitnesses, their presence is not thereby excluded.48 The waist-sash, while being worn, would have been clearly observable to any who saw Jeremiah, and it can therefore be assumed as part of the communication technique that the rained waistsash was displayed to the audience. Thus some of the stages must have been directly observed by an audience, while it is possible that other aspects were only reported to an audience. The repeated sequence of phrases connecting the commands (vv. 1-7) and the interpretation (vv. 8-11)—^K mrr "1QN HD (v. 1)... "Ql sm

^« mm (v. 3)... ^K mrr "iom (v. 6)... ^K mm ~m TH (v. 8)49—is the structure of a chronological schema in which vv. 8-11 follow temporally after vv. 1-7. This literary sequence may suggest that the meaning of the respective stages of activity was not relayed to the

47. Brueggemann (1988: 122) argues that the chiastic literary arrangement between command and interpretation is: '1st command: buy and wear (vv. 1-2) 2nd command: remove and hide (vv. 3-5) 3rd command: recover and1st in useless (vv. 6-7)

3rd interpretation: cling to Yahweh (v. 11). 2nd interpretation: Israel refuses Yahweh (v. 10). tion: Israel is worthless (v. 9).'

But his linking of vv. 3-5 with v. 10 is predicated on the connection between 'removing' the garment and Israel's 'removing' themselves from Yahweh. There is no explicit command in vv. 3-5 for Jeremiah to 'remove' the waist-sash; rather the focus of the command is on Jeremiah taking and burying it in Perat. Also, it is clear that the interpretation in v. 10 goes with the action of v. 7 because of the emphasis on the ruined condition of the waist-sash. It is better to take vv. 9-10 as a single interpretative section which follows the typical Prophecy of Disaster giving the 'announcement of judgment/threat' (v. 9) followed by the 'reason' or 'accusation' (v. lOa), and then concluding with a reiteration of the 'announcement of judgment/ threat' (v. lOb). 48. Contra Balla (1943: 108-109) that the action was done privately and, only subsequently, verbally reported to the people. 49. Stylistically, the formulas, along with the one in v. 9 form an a: b: c: b': a' pattern (cf. Bourguet 1987a: 242; 1987b: 168; Hubmann 1991: 113).

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people as each was performed, but rather the verbal interpretation was given only after the culmination of the totality of actions when the ruined waist-sash had been retrieved. Whether Jeremiah understood the communicative meaning of his nonverbal activities while in the process of performing them is not recorded. But even if he did not understand their communicative significances until the time the message-content was given to him to be verbalized to the people, the actions were intentionally performed at the command of God. 1. Wearing the waist-sash. Initially Jeremiah was to purchase a linen waist-sash and wear it (v. 1). The article of clothing, TUK, has been identified either as a 'loincloth', much like a knee-length skirt or kilt, which was an inner garment (thus no other type of garment was worn underneath it), or as a 'girdle' or 'sash' which was a piece of cloth wrapped around the waist to hold the other garments in place. Other passages show that Tim refers to an outwardly visible article of clothing. In Ezek. 23.15 the wall reliefs of the Chaldeans show them wearing the article of clothing (min Dmrm Tim) and in 2 Kgs 1.18, although the people who saw him did not know Elijah's identity, they gave a visual description of him which included wearing a leather

mm.50

Since an Tim was an outwardly visible piece of attire and since, if it were Jeremiah's loincloth, its removal would have left him naked, the article of clothing was most probably the waist-sash.51 The waist-sash was used not just as the practical item of clothing to hold the garments together and the place for tucking in the edges of the robe when working, but also functioned in an ornamental manner. Thus it also correlates to the people (as waist-sash) being the praise and glory of God (v. lib).52

50. The other occurrences of TltK are not helpful in determining the specific identity of the article of clothing, but only that it was worn by kings (Job 12.18; Isa. 11.5) and soldiers (Isa. 5.27). 51. Also, in Isa. 20 when Isaiah was commanded to remove his loincloth and go naked, pfo is the specified piece of clothing. Since ~11TN is used elsewhere in Isa. (5.27; 11.5), a distinction may be made between the two articles of clothing. 52. Holladay (1986: 397) argues against rnKsn'Tl r6nrr7l DBÎ (v. 11) being a Deuteronomistic, redactional interpolation.


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The first part of the nonverbal action is interpreted in v. 11. The waist-sash figuratively stood for53 the people of Israel54 and Judah. The clinging of the garment closely to the person, figuratively stood for the closeness of the relationship which the people ('the waist-sash') had with God (the role assumed by Jeremiah in the nonverbal behavior). The first part of the sign-act depicted the past and current relationship of the people with God that they were bound to him through the covenantal privileges and obligations. The waist-sash was specified as being made of linen (DTlEJD). It has frequently been pointed out that linen was the material of the priests' garments (Ezek. 44.17-18), and therefore that aspect possibly reflected the priestly nature of the people (cf. Exod. 19.6).55 But linen was apparently a material worn by any who could afford it (cf. worn by those contracting leprosy, Lev. 13.47,48, 52, 59) and it was not particularly the possession of the priests or nobility. Had the priestly girdle been specifically in mind, QiQN (cf. Exod. 28.4, 39-40; 29.9; 39.29; Lev. 8.7, 13; 16.4) could have been used to make the connection more explicit. The term DTK0S is most often used not as a technical term for a specific type of material, but as a general designation of cloth which is distinct from wool (cf. Lev. 13.47, 48, 52, 59; Deut. 22.11; Ezek. 44.17-18; Hos. 2.7, 11; Prov. 31.13). Outside of Ezek. 44.17-18 (where 'linen' is used in contrast to 'wool'), the priestly garments were to be made of specific types of linen, m (cf. Exod. 28.5-6, 8, 15, 39; 39.2-3, 5, 8, 27-29) or ID (cf. Exod. 28.42; 39.28; Lev. 6.3; 16.4, 23, 32). If the linen garments of the priest were meant, either of those two terms would have made the identification explicit. Since no allusion to 'linen' is made in the verbal interpretation (vv. 8-11) and the description as a linen material is not repeated after v. 1, it need not be assumed that the 'linenness' had any communicative meaning. Possibly the only significance of the linen quality was to describe the waist-sash as being of a 53. Jeremiah's employment of the waist-sash was solely for communicative purposes as a figurative artifact. Thus there is no direct correlation with the use of clothing or with the burial of objects in magical rituals (contra Fohrer 1968: 34-35; Clerc 1985: 127). 54. In v. 11, 'the whole house of Israel' is frequently considered a gloss. But since this portion of the nonverbal action depicts past events, a reference to the totality of the people (both Israelites and Judahites) cannot be arbitrarily excluded. 55. Cf. Clerc 1985: 127; Haulotte 1966: 166; Holladay 1986: 397; Huey 1993: 144; Keil 1977:1, 232; Thompson 1980: 364.

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cloth material in contrast to leather (cf. Elijah's waist-sash of leather, 2 Kgs 1.18). In other words, the waist-sash was to be made of a material which would rot quickly in order to facilitate the communication event.56 An additional stipulation (v. Ib) was given that the waist-sash must not be placed in water. This command has been variously interpreted as part of the message-content of the sign-act. One interpretation is that the command meant not to wash the waist-sash even when it became dirty and required washing. Thus the soiled condition of the sash reflected the people's accumulated spiritual filthiness through disobedience to God.57 Thus, by the sash becoming dirty, the reason for its being ruined was also nonverbally transmitted. But if the point was that the sash should become soiled in order to communicate the people's spiritual 'dirtiness', the command not to place it in water would have been a very oblique way of expressing such. A direct statement for the prophet to allow it to become dirty would be more expectable. Also, a dirty waist-sash would not have been consistent with the rest of the nonverbal depiction. For if the sash became soiled while being worn, because of the roles assumed in the nonverbal communication, such would have to be considered the result of the negligence or lack of care by the wearer (God), not the fault of the cloth (the people). The dirt accumulated through wearing would have been a passive acquisition on the part of the waist-sash (the people), which does not correlate with Jeremiah's contention that the people actively participated in the things which corrupted them. Another interpretation is that not placing the waist-sash in water meant never taking it off, for the spoilage came when the sash was no longer being worn. Thus the prohibition was a way of emphasizing the bond between God and his people as depicted in the continual wearing of the sash.58 But the straightforward statement that Jeremiah was not to remove the sash would have been far more appropriate to express the concept suggested. Although the interpretation emphasizes the wearing,

56. Likewise in Jer. 19.1 the vessel is designated as EHF! "l^V, but its descriptive quality had no communicative value. Its earthenware composition was needed because of its breakable nature in order to facilitate the communication of the message. 57. Cf. Keil 1977:1, 232-33. 58. Cf. Boehmer 1909: 456-57; Duhm 1901: 120; McKane 1986: 290.


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it is not just the fact of its removal which brings about the ruination, but specifically its placement in a situation which would bring about such. Yet a third proposed interpretation is that since water was the agent of the sash's destruction, not placing it in water while it was being worn meant that the clothing was preserved intact and guarded from the element that would destroy it. Thus the command was a way of emphasizing the waist-sash's newness and cleanliness which stood for the people's unspoiled purity.59 The major objection to this interpretation is that nowhere does the text indicate that water was the agent of destruction. When Jeremiah was commanded to conceal the waist-sash, he was to do so in 'a crevice of the cliff. It was actually the contact with the decaying forces of the ground, and not with any riverwater, which brought about the quick spoilage of the garment. Also, the verbal interpretation has no reference to the people's initial purity, only to their disobedience. If purity was the point, far better would have been the command not to get the garment dirty, rather than a restriction against not washing it which would have been an action which renewed its cleanliness. Since communicative meaning in the accompanying verbal interpretation is not attributed to the stipulation against placing it in water, it may have served only as an informative contrast to the burying. Thus it transmitted no message about Israel's condition of purity or soiledness, but was necessary only to enhance the contrast being made. The waistsash had not been damaged previous to the wearing and was not destroyed through use or care of it, but rather through a deliberate act of placing it in circumstances where it would be ruined. 2. Burying of the waist-sash. The second stage of the nonverbal behavior (vv. 3-4) was that Jeremiah journeyed to Perat and there, in a crevice of the rock, buried the waist-sash. Although ]QtD literally means 'hide', 'conceal', at times, it clearly has the connotation of 'hiding through burying in the ground' (cf. Gen. 35.4; Exod. 2.12; Josh. 7.2122; cf. also of people: Isa. 2.10; Job 40.13). 'Burying' is also implied by the fact that Jeremiah had to dig (HDPI) the waist-sash out from where it was (v. 7) in order to retrieve it. The major debated issue in the performance of this part of the action is the locale of Perat.60 In all other biblical occurrences, n~lEJ is the name 59. Cf. Buzy 1923: 127; Dyer 1994: 78-79. 60. There is no basis for Clements's (1988: 85-86) and Schreiner's (1981: 81) contention that all the place references were later additions which were inserted, or

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for the Euphrates River, and refers to such in Jer. 46.2, 6, 10, and 51.63. Although the Euphrates River is usually referred to by the fuller nomenclature of n~)S in],61 on occasion (cf. 2 Chron. 35.20; Jer. 51.63), it is designated only by JT1S. So in Jeremiah 13, the specification without ~lil] cannot be decisive in arguing against it being the Euphrates. But in those other two passages, other locational references associated with the term make the addition of 'river' unnecessary (2 Chron. 35.20: D"IS ^y BtonDD; Jer. 51.63: located in Babylon in v. 60). Since nothing else in Jeremiah 13 specifically places it in Babylon, the possibility exists that Perat in this passage is another location other than the Euphrates River. Some commentators have maintained that Jeremiah actually made the journey to the Euphrates River.62 Since Jerusalem to the Euphrates was about 350 miles, this would have meant Jeremiah made two roundtrips, each of which was three to six months in length (cf. Ezra 7.9 where the one-way journey took four months). Those who maintain such an actual journey argue that such extended absences could have occurred during the latter period of Jehoiakim's reign, and that an actual acquaintance between Jeremiah and the Babylonians would help to explain the latter's favorable disposition toward him after the fall of Jerusalem (Jer. 39.11-12). But two such extended journeys just for the sake of a communication event, when the Jerusalemite audience would not observe his actual burying or retrieval, seem unnecessary and improbable.63 After a three to six months' absence, a person's clothing cannot be assumed to be a noticeable item of attention because of the expected change of attire made over such a period. Therefore, upon Jeremiah's return from an extended journey, the missing waist-sash could not be presumed to have been a feature noticeable to the spectators. Since the action was a communication event, an actual journey to the Euphrates need not be demanded. Since the whole of the action was based on the figurative artifact of the waist-sash standing for the people, that of Stacey (1990: 132-34) that the original locale of Parah was later editorially modified, so as to reinterpret an original portrayal of the people's ruined and useless condition into an exilic reference. 61. Jer. 46.2, 6, 10; Gen. 15.18; Deut. 1.7; 11.24; Josh. 1.4; 2 Sam. 8.3; 2 Kgs 23.29; 24.7; 1 Chron. 5.9; 18.3; cf. similarly Gen. 2.14: mD «in...-irrm. 62. Cf. Balla 1943: 99-101; Keil 1977:1, 230-31. 63. Cf. Jones 1992: 195-96.


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one can assume that the actual locale of hiding the waist-sash need only carry an allusion to the Mesopotamian region. For the message's communicative meaning, the significance was in the place name, Perat, and not in the actual location of the hiding.64 Probably a location near Jerusalem which bore the name Perat65 or Parah66 was selected so that the name of the hiding place played homonymically on 'Euphrates'.67 Word-plays were part of Jeremiah's repertoire of communication (cf. 1.11-12), so that such can be assumed in this case as well. Although not expressed, when Jeremiah journeyed to this nearby locale, spectators may have accompanied him so as to verify and witness the actual burial and retrieval of the cloth garment (cf. Jer. 19.1).68 3. Retrieval of the waist-sash. The third part of the action (vv. 6-7) was Jeremiah's retrieval of the waist-sash and the discovery that it was

64. Although often assumed that the garment was buried in a river location and thus spoiled by the water, such is not mentioned. Since Perat bore the message through word association which was based on the auditory similarity of the names rather than on the physical similarity of location, it need not be assumed to have been by a river. 65. We cannot rule out the possibility of a locale, still unknown to us, named Perat in the vicinity of Jerusalem. Dyer (1994: 72-76) suggests the identification with the city of Pharathoni (1 Mace. 9.50) and the valley of Pheretae (Josephus, War 4.511-12). In a different vein, Jones (1992: 196) suggests that Jeremiah, for the purpose of the sign-act, simply selected a wadi and arbitrarily called it Perat, although such was not its actual name. Unlikely and unnecessary are the suggestions, by others, of either nnSN (Bethlehem), with an aphaeresis of the prosthetic N, and or the emendation to 'Perez'. 66. Frequently suggested is the town in the territory of Benjamin (Josh. 18.23), located in a rocky valley (Wadi Fara) about five miles northeast of Jerusalem (cf. Birch 1880). It is argued that Parah meets the requirements of the text since the area has rocky crags and an abundant water supply. (But as noted above, the latter need not be an assumed requirement.) If Parah is meant, then in vv. 4 and 7 nrn? should be revocalized to nrns, and in v. 5, n~lD must be emended to n~lD. According to Janzen's (1973: 177; cf. also Holladay 1986: 393) transcription, 4QJera, in v. 5, reads nrnDD, the place name with prefixed preposition and suffixed he-locale (cf. GKC 90e). If this is original, then no consonantal emendation would be necessary to read 'Parah' throughout. 67. Since only a homonymic allusion is being employed here, the fact that the location to which he took the waist-sash was near Jerusalem does not signify 'the Euphrates on Judah's soil', thereby meaning an invasion by the Babylonians into Judah's land (contra Holladay 1986: 398). 68. Cf. Jones 1992: 196.

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totally ruined. Since in the verbal interpretation, only the wearing of the waist-sash (v. 11) and the bringing about of its destruction (vv. 9-10) are ascribed communicative meaning, Jeremiah's acquisition of the waist-sash (vv. 1-2), the refrainment from placing it in water (v. 1), the method of concealment (vv. 4-5),69 and the retrieval of the garment (vv. 6-7) should not be interpreted as bearing specifiable message-contents.70 The act of retrieval was necessary only to present before the people the artifact in its ruined condition so that they could see that it had rotted and was no longer useful for anything. The sign-act graphically depicted that the people would be destroyed through rotting, although ppQ is not specifically used.71 The question remains as to how that was actually to occur in the historical realm:72 is the spoiling of the garment to be understood as occurring through the political and/or theological collaboration between Judah and Babylon, which results from no longer clinging to God,73 or to be understood as an act of punishment either in the form of a Babylonian invasion

69. Thus the burial in a hole is not to be understood as signifying the ignominious and disgraceful condition of the Judahites while living in exile as if they were thrown into a cavern. 70. Bourguet (1987a: 247; 1987b: 173) correctly argues that Jer. 13.1-11 is a 'metaphor', in which every aspect of the figure does not resemble the referent, and not an 'allegory', in which every detail of the figure has a meaning. 71. The metaphor of rotting (ppQ) is used in Ezek. 33.10 and Lev. 26.39 for the consequence of the people's sins, and specifically, for the condition of exile. 72. Stacey (1990: 133-34) contends that such a question is invalid since the original sign-act was a generic, theological statement which did not imply any historical events. Thus 'the introduction of the idea of historical punishment distorts the original meaning of the drama' (134). But since the prophets consistently made very specific historical references in their verbal prophecies, and not just prepositional theological declarations, there is no basis to deny such reference in this case. 73. Cf. Baumann 1953; Brueggemann 1988: 122-23; Clerc 1985: 126-27; Cornill 1905: 170-71; Craigie, Kelly and Drinkard 1991: 191-93; Huey 1993: 144; Jones 1992: 196-97; Lundbom 1993: 16; Rudolph 1958: 86-87; Thompson 1980: 365-66. This interpretation of the spoiling as the corruption through political and theological contacts is frequently linked with the dating of the prophecy to about 605 BCE when Jehoiakim transferred his political allegiance from Egypt to Babylon. The prophecy is then assumed to be a caution against the implications and consequences of that political alliance.


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into Judah or the Judahites' exile to Babylon?74 In the former case, the people actively brought about the ruination through their political alliances with and religious borrowings from Mesopotamia, while in the latter the people passively received the punishment inflicted by God. Consistently throughout the sign-act Jeremiah functioned in the role of God, while the waist-sash, the figure of the people, served in a passive manner: just as the waist-sash was worn by Jeremiah, so the people 'clung' to God (v. 11). Since throughout the sign-act the nonverbal artifact was always acted upon by Jeremiah, such an understanding should determine the meaning of its destruction. Thus the key interpretative issue is the explicit activity of the prophetic (divine) burying rather than the passive condition of no longer being worn.75 Since in v. 9, the referent of HDD plus the first-person imperfect is the nonverbal action performed by the prophet, the explicit coordination was between the manner in which God was going to destroy the people and the manner in which Jeremiah brought about the ruination of the waist-sash.76 The correlation was that God would deliberately bring about the people's destruction, just like the ruination of the waist-sash was achieved through Jeremiah's deliberate activity of burying it. Thus the reading of rrrKBR (v. 9: first-person singular hiphil) accurately reflects Jeremiah's nonverbal activity,77 and should not be emended to nnt2J3 which arises

74. De Bondt (1950: 36-39) argues for a double, ironic meaning that the spoiling was a result of both deserting God and coming under Assyrian and Babylonian religious influences, as well as national destruction by going into exile. 75. This is also consistent with the subsequent literary unit of vv. 12-14, which is connected by the catchword HITO in v. 14, where the explicit emphasis is on the divine activity of judgment. 76. Bourguet (1987a: 250-52; 1987b: 177-78) rightly notes that in the verbal oracle (vv. 9-10) the lack of mention of Prat places the emphasis on the fact that it was God who did the destroying, rather than on how the people were to be destroyed. But he then goes on to conclude that the references to P'rat (the Euphrates) in vv. 1-8 were made so as to create an allusion to the magical practices of Mesopotamia, so that the prophetic action was understood in the ideological context of such magic. It rather seems that throughout the description of the nonverbal activity emphasis is placed on Perat as the 'location' of the destruction, and it is difficult to see how the audience would have perceived this place reference merely as an allusion to the abstract concept of Mesopotamian magic. Against the magical understanding of the prophetic sign-acts, see Chapter 1 §5.2. 77. MT's reading in Jer. 13.9 is exactly parallel to the verbalized interpretations of Jeremiah's shattering the earthenware jar in 19.11 and to Hananiah's breaking

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out of the interpretation that the people spoiled themselves.78 The Jeremianic use of nnCD also argues against the sign-act referring to the people's moral corruption through their own actions. In its broader usage, the niphal of nns? can mean either the condition of moral corruption as a result of the people's own actions (cf. Gen. 6.11, 12; Ezek. 20.44) or the state of physical destruction wreaked upon an object by an outside force (cf. Exod. 8.20). But the niphal, as in 13.7, is used elsewhere in Jeremiah (18.4: the vessel being physically marred) only in the latter sense. Likewise in Jeremiah, all the other occurrences of nn0 (hiphil: 2.30; 4.7; 6.5; 11.19; 13.9, 14; 15.3, 6; 36.29: 49.9; 51.11, 25; piel: 5.10; 12.10; 48.18) have the meaning of 'physical destruction' and not 'moral corruption'.79 Since the artifact served a passive function and was only acted upon, excluded must be the interpretation that the ruination of the waist-sash meant the people's active associations with the Babylonians.80 In order to portray the corrupting nature of the peoples' activities, another manner of communication, which did not have the dichotomy between a passive vehicle and active tenor, would have been more appropriate. In this sign-act, the artifact only presented the contrasting conditions of the people (i.e. before and after) and did not portray the motivational causes for either condition. Although the people's disobedience was the motivation for the destruction, that cause was only verbally referenced (vv. 10-11)81 and not nonverbally depicted. Thus the spoilage was not the yoke in 28.11. In both of those actions the artifacts were acted upon by prophets who assumed the divine role and then spoke of God's activity:

rrnrr pto n« rrnEJK rro mrr ia« n^ (13.10) nan n« -OSN rro mrr IDS m (19.11) nswTDn] "75; ns -QEJR rrDn mrr ins ro (28.11) This parallelism supports MT's first-person hiphil reading in 13.9. 78. Contra Rudolph 1958: 86-87. 79. The only questionable occurrence is the hiphil in 6.28 as to whether the people are 'destroying' others, or acting in a morally corrupt manner. 80. In Jer. 2.18, the people's drinking from the waters of the Euphrates is used as a figure for the people's relying on and partaking of Babylonian influences. But that figure is expressed totally in terms of the people's active participation, unlike the passiveness of the waist-sash in 13.1-11. Therefore Jer. 2.18 cannot serve as a basis for the interpretation of Jer. 13.1-11, contra Baumann 1953: 79-80; Cornill 1905: 171; Rudolph 1958: 87. 81. Some interpret JIM in v. 9 as having the negative connotation of arrogance or conceit (hubris) (cf. Amsler 1985: 12; Baumann 1953: 78-79; Keil 1977:1, 234;


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the moral or political defilement through pagan influence and alliances, but rather a punitive judgment imposed upon the people. As an expression of God's activity of imposing judgment upon the people, the question remains whether Jeremiah had in mind the destruction of Judah by the invading Babylonians,82 or the Judahites' exilic experience.83 Although no mention of exile is made, such is implied in the sign-act. As Jeremiah took the waist-sash to a different location (Perat) where it was rendered useless, so too God would destroy his people by removing them to the region of the Euphrates.84 The Stacey 1990: 133-34; Thiel 1973: 170), thus providing another motive for the judgment (cf. Jer. 48.29; Ezek. 16.49, 56). But the term can also have positive connotations and may refer here to the people's position of eminence, that is, their position of closeness to God, and its resultant material and spiritual benefits (cf. Carroll 1986: 294). }ltO then indicates, not a reason for judgment, but rather the excellence and majesty which the people would be unable to enjoy because of its removal. In this passage there may be a deliberate rhetorical play on the two nuances as the negative connotation is brought out in v. 10, while the positive connotation occurs in v. 11. 82. Cf. Dyer 1994; Holladay 1986: 398; Southwood 1979. 83. Cf. Amsler 1985: 12, 14; Balla 1943: 103-104; Bright 1965: 96; Buzy 1923: 128; Carroll 1981: 131-32; 1986: 296; Duhm 1901: 119; Fohrer 1968: 33; Jones 1992: 196-97; Keil 1977:1, 233-34; McKane 1986: Ixxii, 290-91; Thiel 1973: 174; Thompson 1980: 363. 84. This imagery contrasts with that of Isa. 8.5-8 where, to depict the Assyrian invasion, and Jer. 47.2, to depict the Babylonian invasion, the waters of the Euphrates overflow the river's banks and flood Judah and Philistia. Dyer (1994: 7880), Holladay (1986: 398), and Southwood (1979: 233-36) seek to find the understanding of the meaning of Jeremiah's action in the element of iJ^DH p'pl By citing Isa. 7.18 (invasion through the image of bees and flies) and Jer. 16.16 (the image of hunters and fishermen), where the phrase has the connotation of 'hiding places', they then interpret Jeremiah's hiding the waist-sash in the crevices of the rock as Judah's seeking to hide from the Babylonian invasion. But in spite of the attempts to hide, the Judahites will still be spoilt by the rising water of the Euphrates (citing Isa. 8.6-8; Jer. 46.7; 47.2). But this interpretation interpolates into Jer. 13.1-11 situations and circumstances unexpressed there: no reference is made to the flooding conditions of a river; no reference is made to the spoiling occurring through the action of river-water; in fact, no explicit reference is made to a river at all. The interpretation of Jer. 13.1-11 as invasion, on the basis of Isa. 8.5-8 and Jer. 47.2, is a misapplication of two divergent metaphors. In fact, the contrast in imagery between Isa. 8.5-8 and Jer. 47.2 in which the waters come to Judah and Jer. 13.1-11. in which the waist-sash is taken to Perat, makes it unlikely that invasion is intended in the latter.

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ruination of the waist-sash therefore depicted a future event of judgment, and not past or current moral conditions: 'This evil people... shall be85 like the waist-sash' (v. 10). Even though Jeremiah's action of putting the waist-sash in a position where it would be destroyed depicted the people's exile, Jeremiah's retrieval of the waist-sash should not be interpreted as a divine retrieval of the people from exile. As noted above, the retrieval of the garment was only necessary for the transmission of the message and did not have communicative meaning. The climax and conclusion of the nonverbal communication came with the waist-sash's spoilage. i.3.2 Rhetoric 1. Attention. The stages of the sign-act have the effect of focusing and heightening the people's attention on the communicative significance of the waist-sash and of the accompanying actions. Initially the sign-act began on a rather mundane level of Jeremiah wearing a new linen waistsash. Although this was undoubtedly observed by the people, such must not have been considered strange or bizarre since the action was part of everyday life and the artifact was common attire.86 If Jeremiah told the audience that he was doing such by divine command, their interest should have been aroused as to what significance would be attached to the action. Yet overall, the initial action was rather commonplace and thus probably only mildly attention attracting. But the burying probably raised a greater interest in the people's minds because of the more unusual nature of such an act. If Jeremiah recounted the divine command to go and bury it or if some actually perceived him doing so, the people's curiosity would have been heightened even more as to why he would do such a strange thing with a relatively new piece of clothing. After he had buried the sash, its noticeable absence as part of his attire

85. TPl should not be repointed to a vav-consecutive (contra Rudolph 1958: 82). 86. Some have suggested that if Jeremiah wore the 'prophetic attire' of a tunic of coarse material with a hair cloak over it (cf. Zech. 13.4: ~I,B& n~l~IK), then a linen waist-sash bound on the outside would have looked quite odd in comparison (cf. Thompson 1980: 363). Such a visual discontinuity in clothing would have attracted attention. But we do not know whether Jeremiah wore any such type of 'prophetic garb', but rather may have dressed like the rest of the people. If the latter were the case, then the linen waist-sash would have only drawn attention because of its newness or because of his verbal references to it.


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should have kept the people wondering as to the significance of his actions. In the final stage, the climax came when the ruined waist-sash was presented before them. As the audience thought about this whole sequence, their queries must have undoubtedly revolved around what messages the actions conveyed and the reasons why the prophet would deliberately ruin a good piece of clothing. The aroused attentiveness and questioning opened the avenue of receptivity for the verbal explanations. 2. Comprehension. As indicated above, the meanings of the actions were probably not given until Jeremiah presented the ruined waist-sash before the audience. So for the audience, the comprehension of the actions was delayed over an extended period of time. Such a delay gave them plenty of time to speculate and discuss with each other what they felt were the meanings of Jeremiah's actions. The delay in giving the interpretation would have helped to raise the people's curiosity to the point of an attentive listening when Jeremiah verbally gave the explanation. 3. Acceptance. The sequence of the sign-act moved from an initial depiction, whose message implications were fully agreed upon by both the audience and rhetor, to a climactic culmination in a position over which the two radically disagreed. The initial sentiment of the people clinging to God just as the waist-sash clung to Jeremiah was a viewpoint with which the audience must have heartily given their assent. They too felt that this was what their relationship to God was like because of the covenantal bond and divine promises. Jeremiah strategically began from a position of agreement between himself and the audience. Such a strategy of establishing a common basis of belief between rhetor and audience is often crucial for the rhetor to establish credibility and avoid a counterproductive reaction, so as then to move the audience to a radically different position and conclusion from that which they initially hold. The rhetorical exigence faced by Jeremiah was that the depicted condition of the clinging waist-sash was the one in which the people assumed they would perpetually continue. So, in order to create within the audience's thinking the possibility of another option and another way of viewing the future, Jeremiah used the vividness of the ruined waist-sash to portray the judgment of ruination which would come upon them. In attempting to persuade the current generation of the inevitability of their fate if they persisted in their present course of

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action, Jeremiah did not employ logical arguments and reasons for that conviction, but rather depicted a graphic comparison of the conditions before and after: respectively, of the people clinging to God and of their being ruined and useless. From the audience's point of view, they only observed the waist-sash when it was new and then when it was ruined. The process of spoiling, which occurred while the waist-sash was buried, was not part of the observable phenomenon. So the contrastive relationship between the two conditions of the waist-sash was that which was prominent in the audience's mind. Because of the contingent nature of predictive prophecy (see Chapter 1 §5.2.3), rather than just announcing and declaring judgment, part of the rhetorical strategy involved in presenting the contrasting conditions of the waist-sash may have been to motivate the people to change their course of disobedience so that the depicted ruination might be yet avoided.87 In the nonverbal display, the contrast was so pronounced that the people could not have failed to recognize that the initial depiction of the clinging garment was assuredly the better of the two positions in which to be. By confronting the people with the contrasted conditions, the rhetorical intent may have been that the people would recognize the implied options available to them, and then in light of those options make the proper and favorable choice of doing that which was necessary to remain in the former state of clinging to God rather than suffer the consequences of becoming a useless spoiled garment. With respect to incentives for acceptance of the rhetorical message, the initial depiction focused on the reward of the intimacy of relationship with God. But the concluding depiction of the ruined waist-sash held out no reward or hope since the waist-sash was useless (vv. 7, 10). Also, for the immediately addressed audience, no hope of retrieval from the exile was presented, but rather only the finality of the consequences of the punishment.88 4. Remembrance. The means for remembering the message were created not only through the vividness of the contrast, but also through the employment of a common article of clothing. Each day as the people donned their apparel and bound on and wore their own waist-sashes, 87. Cf. Baumann 1953: 81. 88. Neither Jeremiah nor Ezekiel expressed any hope that the generation taken into exile would return (cf. Jer. 25.8-14; 29; Ezek. 4.6, the length would be '40' years), but this does not in any way negate their belief in a future restoration to the land.


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they were doing just as Jeremiah had done. The use of their own waistsashes for practical and noncommunicative purposes had the potential of being visual reminders of the message-content Jeremiah had ascribed to the identical object being worn and ruined. 1.4 Jeremiah 19.1 -13W 1.4.1 Communicative Meaning. Probably during the reign of Jehoiakim, 90 Jeremiah was commanded to acquire an earthenware potter's decanter91 which would be used in the performance of a sign-act (v. la). He was to summon92 some of the elders of the people and priests93 as a selected audience (v. Ib) and proceed to the Potsherd Gate94 which opened onto the Ben-Hinnom Valley95 (v. 2a). Once at that locale, he 89. Although 19.1-20.6 forms a literary unit, the section of 19.14—20.6 recounts a separate communication event, and therefore is not included in the analysis of the nonverbal activity of 19.1-13. 90. This oracle is generally assigned to the period of Jehoiakim, although sug gestions for a more precise date within that period vary: the beginning of the reign between 609-605 BCE (cf. Keil 1977:1, 293; Lundbom 1993: 95; Thompson 1980 100, 445); about 604 BCE (cf. May 1945: 224); about 601-600 BCE (cf. Holladay 1986: 539); shortly prior to 597 BCE (cf. Craigie, Kelly and Drinkard 1991: 258). 91. The construction 1^? p3p3 is equivalent to ~l^T '^D (2 Sam. 17.28; Ps. 2.9), -KTn lL0 (Jer. 19.11), and C-KV ^3] (Isa. 30.14). There is no need to emend to the passive participle "HIT, 'formed of earthenware', as LXX (contra Cornill 1905: 231; Duhm 1901: 160; Holladay 1986: 534). 92. In 19.1, just prior to the reference to the 'elders', a verb must be supplied in the Hebrew (e.g. 'take', 'summon') as in the Versions. The MT is a result of either the syntax being a 'pregnant construction' (cf. Keil 1977: I, 306-307) or because the verb has dropped out (cf. Driver 1907: 112; Duhm 1901: 160; Wanke 1971: 7). 93. For the MT's 'elders of the priests', the LXX lacks ']pT (followed by numerous commentators). On 'elders of the priests', see 2 Kgs 19.2, and similarly 'HB D'TOn (2 Chron. 36.14) and D'TOn 'IOR~I (Neh. 12.7). 94. Rather than D~1H meaning 'sun' (cf. Judg. 14.18; Job 9.7), and therefore 'East Gate', it is a by-form of E~in. Whenever the latter is used alone (except Prov. 26.23), it means a potsherd (cf. Kelso 1948: 7). The Targum reads 'Dung Gate', known from Neh. 2.13; 3.13-14; 12.31, which was probably a later appellation for the same gate. 95. The MT reading here of D]H p m is attested by v. 6. The LXX (eiq TO TtoXxiavdpeiov wwv -cow -CEKVCOV croxwv, 'to the burial place of the sons of their children') has either mistakenly read DIT:n "H or, because of the content of ch. 7 and 19.4-13, has replaced the proper place name with an interpretative description, as 7ioXnav8pelov forK'J suggests. Soggin (1975) maintains that the LXX in 19.2b and 2.23, where ^2 is also translated ev top jioXuav8pio), has transmitted 'a credible

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was to perform the nonverbal action of shattering the jug (v. 10), presumably by casting it onto the ground. Just as the act of acquiring the decanter did not carry any communicative message-significance, neither did the fired, earthenware quality (2Tin) nor the specific type of vessel (p3p3 which was a 4- to 10-inch high decanter with a narrow neck and single handle whose name was onomatopoeic of the gurgling sound its liquid contents made when poured out96). Israel was not in anyway likened to the quality of the clay composition or to the artistic design of the vessel. The material composition and type of vessel respectively designated the artifact as one which would break easily (unlike one of metal or wood) and which would not be repairable once broken.97 Those aspects were noncommunicative features which served to heighten the dramatic effect of the communicative act of shattering. The message-content of this nonverbal communication was transmitted through the combination of the action with the artifact,98 and was enhanced by the locale at which it was performed. Because of the natural features (i.e. the natural drainage, the southern exposure for weathering clay, and the steep hillside for the purification pits) and availability of water from the nearby waterpools, it is likely that the potters' section of the city was located in the Ben-Hinnom Valley.99 Thus the designation 'Potsherd Gate' is attributable to the pottery-making activity and specifically to the discarded pottery in the vicinity. The

tradition of the nature of the cult practices in the Valley' (87), that being infant sacrifice (cf. also McKane 1986: xxiv-xxv). 96. Cf. Amiran 1970: 262-65, PL 89 nos. 1-3; photos 258-61; Honeyman 1939: 79-80; PL 18 Fig. 3; Kelso 1948: 7, 17, Fig. 20; King 1993: 171-72. 97. Although pottery vessels were mended by copper wire or rivets, such was impossible for the damaged narrow neck of the decanter (see Kelso 1948: 7). 98. Stacey (1990: 147) suggests that the onlookers were more than just witnesses to the action, but were in fact 'part of the drama' in that '[t]heir shocked horror when they see a flask... broken in pieces prefigures the horror of those who will see the city fall'. Although in v. 8 reference is made to a reaction to the city's destruction, there is no direct link made to the audience's reaction to the sign-act, nor is there any indication as to how the audience actually did respond. Thus it is concluded that only Jeremiah's action with the artifact, and not the audience response, was part of the communicative intent. 99. Cf. Kelso 1948: 9.


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site thus was very appropriate for the depiction of Jerusalem as a pottery vessel which was to be thrown on the dump-heap of discarded rubble. Some have suggested, on the basis of the word-play in v. 7, that prior to breaking the vessel, Jeremiah poured out its contents.100 Thus when uttering the words .. .mirP TiKU DK TpDI, extra emphasis was provided by the contents of the decanter actually gurgling out onto the ground. Although such an action is possible, it is not necessary to assume such here. In the command to acquire the vessel, there is no indication that it was to be filled with any liquid. There is also no command to empty out the vessel in contrast to the explicit command to shatter it. If Jeremiah was to pour out the contents to communicate God's pouring out of the people as a figure for their destruction (cf. 2 Sam. 14.14), one would expect such to be explicitly recounted. The reference in v. 7 is best understood as a verbalized word-play which would not have escaped the auditors' notice. If 19.1-13 is considered an oracular unit (not merely a literary unit),101 then it can be assumed that Jeremiah shattered the decanter in the midst 100. Cf. Craigie, Kelly and Drinkard 1991: 260-62; von Ewald 1878: 175; Harrison 1973: 111; Thompson 1980: 450-51. 101. There is scholarly debate as to whether vv. 2b-9, llb-13 were part of the verbal oracle temporally coordinated with the nonverbal action. The main arguments lor segmenting out 19.2b-9, llb-13 as later editorial expansions are: (1) vv. 2b-9 presume a different audience, 'the kings of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem', in contrast to 'the elders' in v. 1. (2) The content focuses on the locale, 'Tophet'. (3) The stylistic differences reflect a strong Deuteronomic character. More recently arguments for the unity of the text have been presented (cf. Holladay 1986: 536-39): (1) With respect to the addressed audiences, the 'kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem' of v. 3 are not ostensibly different from 'the elders of the people and priests' of v. 1. The designation in v. 3 does not presume that the specified audience was actually present, but was a comprehensive manner of stating that the message would involve all the people of Jerusalem. In this case the selected spectators, the 'elders' (v. 1), were the socially recognized representatives for all the people. (2) Since in the verbal-nonverbal coordination of a communication event, the verbal need not only interpret the nonverbal but can complement it through giving additional information (see Chapter 3 §5.2), any elimination of vv. 2b-9, llb-13 has to be made on other grounds than subject matter. From a communication standpoint, there is no reason why an oracular message cannot both play on the nonverbal artifact and action (the shattering of the decanter) as well as on the locale where it was given (the Valley of Ben-Hinnom). This is especially true when the two sub-

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of a verbal proclamation of judgment (vv. 3, 6-9) and indictment (vv. 45). The climax of the initial verbal message was thus emphasized by the performance of the related nonverbal action. Just when Jeremiah proclaimed the total desolation of the city (v. 8) and of the people (vv. 7, 9), he smashed the jar. The decanter's ruined condition correlated with jects were already linked by the actual geographical proximity in the Valley of BenHinnom of both the potters' section and Tophet. (3) The supposed Deuteronomic characteristics of vv. 2b-9, llb-13, which are argued to be non-Jeremianic, actually reflect a diction which is distinctive within Jeremiah. Although such does not prove a Jeremianic authorship, it certainly makes it feasible. (4) In v. 7, Tip 31 is a word-play on the name of the vessel (vv. 1, 10). Although some cite this as evidence for the artful work of the editor who incorporated the 'sermonic material' between vv. 2a and 10, it could equally be the result of the prophet's artistic efforts. (5) In the reference in v. 3 to the 'ears ringing', there is a subtle play between the verbal expression and the nonverbal sign. Just as the people's ears would ring upon hearing of the actual destruction, so when the earthenware vessel was shattered on the ground, the spectators had their auditory senses aroused by the sound of the breaking. Although such an allusion could be literarily created, its impact works far better in the verbal-nonverbal coordination where the breaking of the vessel was literally heard. (6) It is only the indictment of vv. 4-5 which provides any justification for the divine actions as portrayed by Jeremiah. (7) The similarity of the message between vv. 3-9 and 7.30-34 can be accounted for by 19.1-13 being a narrative account of 7.30-34, just as ch. 26 is a narrative version of 7.1-15. (8) The structure of 19.1-13 is not a haphazard arrangement of elements but a structured parallelism of nonverbal action (vv. l-2a), verbal speech (vv. 2b-9), nonverbal action (v. 10), verbal speech (vv. 11-13). (9) The language of v. 12 presupposes the previous action. The sequence of p...")2NO...!"DD (vv. 11-12) also occurs in 13.9, 11 with the same conjoined references: (a) i"D3 + reference to God's destructive activity against the people (19.11: "ae?« rcO; 13.9: rrriEJK POD); (b) followed by lizno + reference to the prophet's action (19.11: ISTTI Ô n« 13^ "IW«3; 13.11: BPK ^JIQ "limn p3T "ItZHO); (c) followed by p + reference to God's activity (19.12: nfay« p; 13.11: TpTin p) (d) followed by miT DK] (19.12; 13.11); (e) followed by an infinitive construct declaring what God will make the people into (19.12: DSHD nKTH TJJil HN flrf?; 13.11: JTlNSn1?! rf?nnL71 DBfrl UZb ^ mTf?). The parallel structure indicates a stereotypical formula of address for Jeremiah so that 19.12 should not be considered merely a superfluous restatement of v. 11. If the comparison to Tophet in v. 12 is an original part of the verbal interpretation, then the references to Tophet throughout vv. 3-9 and 13 may also be considered such.


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the verbally created picture of the city's architectural destruction (v. 8), and the fragments of the shattered artifact lying on the ground correlated with the verbal statements of the human destruction resulting in the bodies strewn on the ground (v. 7). The message stressed not only the city's shattering, but also the irreparable nature, and therefore the finality, of the destruction. Once the city was totally destroyed, the addressed audience need not hold out any hope for the city's rebuilding or for personal restoration to the land since that generation would be destroyed (killed or exiled) along with the material city. The communicative meaning of the nonverbal action is clearly explained in v. lla: 102 'Just so will I break103 this people and this city, just as one breaks the potter's vessel which (then) can no longer be repaired.'104 The decanter figuratively stood for the people and the city, while Jeremiah, in the act of shattering it, played the divine role. In employing this image, Jeremiah was nonverbally enacting a familiar verbal expression105 and a common ancient Near Eastern motif,106 'to 102. Verse 1 Ib ('And in Tophet...') is not represented in LXX and is intrusive in its present location. It would fit better at the end of v. 6 (cf. Cornill 1905: 232; Rudolph 1958: 116; Wanke 1971: 7, 12) or at the end of v. 13 where it occurs in LXXL. Janzen (1973: 43) suggests that it is a clarifying gloss on nSfD in v. 12 so that it has been 'taken into the text at approximately the intended spot'. 103. On the connotations of "Q2J both in Jeremiah and other passages, see Bourguet 1987a: 448-49. 104. There is no real basis for Hubmann's (1991: 123) proposal that the original action of 19.10 positively signified the destruction of the Tophet (interpreting 'this place' in v. 12 as a reference to such) and thus supported the cult reforms as carried out by Josiah. The referent of the action being the negative destruction of the city (v. 1 la, and also the references in v. 12 to the inhabitants and the city) is thus considered a later expansion. As argued above, vv. lla and 12 are so tightly tied together structurally that they seem to constitute the original interpretation. 105. Cf. Ps. 2.9: 'You shall break them with a rod of iron; like a potter's vessel you shall shatter them.' In Eccl. 12.6, death is portrayed by the image of 'the golden bowl is crushed, and the jar is shattered'. 106. In the ancient Near East, the 'breaking of vessels', whether as an actual action or as a verbal image, had wide contexts of usages and meanings: (1) To curse and destroy one's enemies, whether human or 'spirit': (a) In execration texts against human enemies: e.g. the nineteenth-eighteenth century BCE Egyptian texts (cf. ANET 328-29; Keel 1978: 266-68, Fig. 359; Posener 1958); the Mesopotamian text, Assur 4129 rev. 11. 11-12 (cf. Ebeling 1949 190-95; Fishbane 1971: 188-90). Another frequently cited example is the Egyptian

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be broken like a pot'. The imagery is used in verbal proclamations by Jeremiah in 22.28; 48.12, 38. In fact, Jeremiah's nonverbal enactment is very close to the verbalized statement of Isa. 30.13-14. The difference is that in Isaiah it was the people's own sin which, like a collaps-

Saqqara execration figurines (ANEP 538) which were presumably shattered (cf. ANEP 320; Keel 1978: 268). But Posener (1940: 19), in the original publication, states that the figurines bear no traces of intentional mutilation—any damage has resulted from the fragility of the material. (b) In funerary ritual (cf. Grinsell 1961; Keel 1978: 268): e.g. the Egyptian rite of 'shattering red pots' mentioned in Pyramid Text 249b, Utterance 244 (cf. Mercer 1952:1, 74; II, 114; Gilbert 1985: 44); for other Egyptian texts and illustrations, see Borchardt 1929. In Babylonian literature, the goddess Belili was said to have broken a valuable vessel to show her grief for Tammuz (cf. Farbridge 1923: 221). (c) In cultic and temple ritual: e.g. the Egyptian relief of Amenophis III (fifteenth-fourteenth century BCE) shattering the red pots (cf. Moret 1946; for an illustration of the relief, see Keel 1978: Fig. 357a). In the Mesopotamian Akitu Festival, the shattering of the pot stood for Marduk's subjugation of Tiamat (for the text, see Fishbane 1971: 179; cf. also Matheney 1965: 45-48). (2) To counteract evil forces whether they be demons, sickness, or evil spells imposed by another (cf. Fohrer 1968: 39; Clerc 1985: 134): e.g. Gittin 69a; the Mesopotamian texts VAT 10018 1. 20 and AO 8895 1. 17 (cf. Ebeling 1949: 203-208). (For other texts, see Fishbane 1971: 177-78, 184, 186, 188-90, 194-95; Thompson 1908: 28-31, 124.) (3) To preserve ritual cleanness: e.g. in Lev. 11.33; 15.12, a vessel which became unclean through contact with something unclean was to be shattered; in Lev. 6.28, the earthenware vessel in which the sin offering was boiled was to be broken to avoid its future use in a profane manner. Borchardt (1929: 15) suggests a similar possibility for the Egyptian funerary rite that the vessels were shattered so as to serve no longer for profane purposes. As part of a verbally created image, the motif is also present in the 'Oracle of the Potter' (cf. Koenen 1968; 1970), which possibly dates to about 130 BCE: a potter (an incarnation of the potter god, Chnum) was sent by Hermes Thoth to the island of Helios where he fired pots. Since such was considered a sacrilege by the observers, they pulled the pots from the kiln and dashed them to pieces. The potter then fell into a trance and began to prophesy that the broken pots stood for the destruction of Egypt. There is a significant difference between that account and Jeremiah's employment of the image: the smashing of the pots was not performed by the 'potter prophet', rather he merely gave an interpretation to the already transpired action which was performed by someone else, unintentionally with respect to communicative function; in contrast, Jeremiah, for communicative purposes, intentionally shattered the jar, and then verbalized the message which he himself had intended by the action.


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ing wall, shattered them, whereas in Jeremiah, although sin was the cause of the shattering, it was God who did the smashing. Jeremiah's action may also have been partially predicated on the practice of breaking earthenware vessels which had somehow become ritually unclean (cf. Lev. 11.33, unclean through contact with an unclean animal; Lev. 15.12, unclean because of a bodily discharge).107 Thus the indictment of vv. 4-5 established the defilement of the city of Jerusalem, here represented by the earthenware jar, and thus provided the 'legal' (according to cultic stipulations) justification to break the jar. Although the type of uncleanness with which Jeremiah charged Jerusalem does not correlate specifically with those in Leviticus, and no explicit reference is made to the cultic practice, certainly such a principle that a defiled earthenware vessel was to be destroyed may have provided the religious legal precedence upon which Jeremiah based his action. Frequently Jeremiah's action has been cited as an imitation of the ritual exemplified in the Egyptian execration texts where the names of cursed persons were inscribed on pottery bowls which were then smashed, or likened to other magical rituals in which a clay artifact was broken.108 It is therefore frequently assumed because of the similarity in outward form that Jeremiah's action also shared a similar perspective of the efficaciousness so that Jeremiah's action insured the defeat of the city.109 But similarity of motif does not imply sameness in the meaning or in the identical theological presuppositions attached to those actions performed in a magical or ritualistic context.110 107. Cf. Bourguet (1987a: 450) who notes the conceptual and semantic connections between Leviticus 11.33 and Jer. 19 (although considering vv. 3-9, 13 secondary additions): the similarity of the description of the vessels in Lev. 11.33 (also 15.12) as fenn ^D and as &nn ~i!iV and IHTn ^D, respectively, in Jer. 19.1, 11; the same term, "DEJ, for the means of destruction (Lev. 11.33 [also 15.12]; Jer. 19.10, 11 [twice]); the same term, NDED, for the defilement (Lev. 11.33; Jer. 19.13); defilement of the vessel in Leviticus occurs because of contact with a dead animal body (Lev. 11.32-35) which conceptually links with the dead bodies implicitly present in the unclean Tophet (Jer. 19.4b-5; cf. also v. 7). 108. Cf. Berridge 1970: 180; Bourguet 1987a: 445-47; Clerc 1985: 134; Fishbane 1971: 185-87; Fohrer 1961: 311; 1968: 39-40; Gilbert 1985: 44-46; Lods 1927: 59-60; 1950: 186;Matheney 1965: 17; Rudolph 1958: 117; Woodard 1983: 111-12. 109. Cf. Carroll 1986: 386-87; Lods 1927: 59-60; 1950: 59; Rosen 1968: 47; Thompson 1980: 452. 110. See Chapter 1 §5.2. Cf. also van den Born (1935: 68-69) who argues against any presuppositional connection between Jeremiah's act and the Egyptian rituals.

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The context of Jeremiah's action was an idiosyncratic communication event with the motif being used to transmit a very specific message-content. Jeremiah's action did utilize a common imagery, but did so for communicative purposes and therefore should not be interpreted as a theological imitation or employment of magical rituals. In fact, Jeremiah's use of the imagery apparently resulted from his taking a verbal expression, which he himself used, and nonverbally enacting it. The verbal expression may have originally entered the language via the experiences of everyday life in which broken pottery was a common feature and not necessarily via the execration texts or some other 'magical' context. But even if it derived from the latter, the verbal expression can only be assumed to have perpetuated, as a simile, the imagery and not the theological presuppositions.111 Thus as an enactment of a verbal expression, Jeremiah's action is yet another step removed from any actual magical ritual. 1.4.2 Rhetoric 1. Attention. Initial attention was certainly gained for the selected audience through Jeremiah's invitation (command?) for them to come with him. As the entourage of Jeremiah, the elders and the priests went to the gate, it may have attracted the attention of others from the general populace who also came along as curious onlookers. 2. Comprehension. The act of shattering the vessel was immediately interpreted to the people. That immediate explanation, coupled with the act's drawing upon a common motif of 'being a broken vessel', made the communicated message unambiguously clear. If the act was subsequent to the prophet's verbal indictments and statements of destructive judgment (vv. 3-9), as argued here, then the shattered jug standing for Jerusalem would have certainly been anticipated. Thus people should not have lacked understanding of the meaning or the significance of Jeremiah's action.

111. Contra Fishbane (1971: 177-202) who raises the question of the derivation of the motif in Jeremiah (19.1-13; 22.28) and opts for a background in magical incantations. He then argues (180-82, 185-87) that because of external similarities between the simile-form in Jer. 19 and the simile-form in incantations, Jer. 19 also reflects a 'transfer of essence' between the referent (vehicle) and the object standing for it (tenor). But similarity in outward form is not sufficient to establish similarity of theological and presuppositional content.


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3. Acceptance. Jeremiah's stance within the nonverbal behavior was that of active participant functioning in the divine role. Since the action was presented as being God's action, it was a rhetorical argument based on authority. The audience's 'popular theology' which perpetuated the view of Jerusalem's inviolability because of the divine protection was totally contradicted and challenged by the message proclaimed by the smashing of the jug which was that God would destroy Jerusalem. Because of the radicalness of Jeremiah's message, a dramatic display was needed to emphasize the point so as to convince the audience of its validity. Jeremiah employed the motif of 'being shattered like a pot' in an ironic manner. For within the popular theology, it was God who would shatter Israel's enemies. If the elders and priests surmised, prior to the giving of the oracle, that Jeremiah was going to use the vessel in a figurative manner to depict God's judgment against a nation, it is probable that they expected the judgment to be expressed against their enemies. They may have expected Jeremiah to display nonverbally the sentiments expressed in Ps. 2.9. But to the contrary, Jeremiah turned the image of God breaking the nation's enemies into an announcement against God's people who were now in the position of the 'enemy'. Although the whole nonverbal and verbal presentation was completed within a very brief time, the visual and auditory elements must have forcefully impacted upon the audience. The impact resided not just in the act, but in the collation of the various aspects: the locale of the event at the Potsherd Gate; the visual setting of other pottery dumps in the vicinity; the auditory sound of the pot striking and breaking on the ground which was verbally reinforced by the allusion to Jerusalem's destruction making the ears ring (v. 3); the nonverbal action forming the climax of the verbal statements (vv. 3-9); the use of a jar which, once broken, could not be repaired. The dramatic impact was also heightened by the nonverbal performance being in the midst of the complementary verbal oracle (vv. 3-9). Once at the location, the verbal message initially spoken by Jeremiah focused on the locale, not on the vessel he carried. Thus while standing by the exact spot being spoken of, the people's attention was diverted away from the earthenware vessel with the exception of the word-play in v. 7. So when at the height of the verbal proclamation, Jeremiah shattered the jar, the dramatic aspect of the nonverbal action was height-

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ened by its unexpectedness for the jar was, at that moment, not the center of the spectator's attention. Although not explicitly stated, it is implied that the purpose of the dramatic presentation was to set before the people vividly the consequences of their present course of action. Through depicting the judgment, the implied incentive was for the people to adopt behaviors which would avert the depicted irreparable destruction. So the rhetorical purpose for the nonverbal communication was not merely to pronounce that such a judgment was irrevocably determined, but to show suasively that if the destruction did occur, it would be irrevocable. 4. Remembrance. The forcefulness of the action itself produced a memorable image. But the message was also kept before the people through Jeremiah's employment of an artifact which was a common item of everyday life and use. Subsequent to the proclamation, every time the audience members, even inadvertently, broke a vessel and whenever they saw the potters taking out vessels and breaking them as they were cast onto the discard piles, an occasion was created for the remembrance of Jeremiah's deliberate action. Jeremiah also performed the action at a locale which was part of the people's daily setting. So every time the people went by the Potsherd Gate and observed the broken pottery from the numerous destroyed vessels of the potters, the visual catalyst was present so as to remind them of Jeremiah's message. 1.5 Jeremiah 35.1-19 (LXX: 42.1-19) 1.5.1 Communicative Meaning. According to the introductory statement of v. 1, this incident is dated generally, but without any preciseness, to the time of Jehoiakim.112 According to v. 11, the Rechabites explained their presence in the city as the result of the threat of the Babylonian and Syrian armies.113 Two possibilities have been proposed for the specific date of the Rechabites' retreat into the confines of Jerusalem: (1) 605-603 BCE, during one of Nebuchadnezzar's incursions

112. Some consider v. 1 to be editorial (Cf. Duhm 1901: 384; Levin 1994: 312; Migsch 1997; Thiel 1981: 44). But even so, a date during the reign of Jehoiakim is still appropriate. 113. The LXX reads 'Assyria', and Syriac reads 'Edom'. Since the designation of the army associated with the Babylonians has been obscured, a precise temporal reference is also left more uncertain.


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into Judah (cf. 2 Chron. 36.6-7; Dan. 1.1-2);114 (2) after 601/600 BCE when, in response to Jehoiakim's rebellion, Nebuchadnezzar sent contingent forces from the vassal states of Aram, Moab and Ammon against Judah (cf. 2 Kgs 24.1-2), followed by the Babylonian invasion in 598/597 BCE (cf. 2 Kgs 24.10-11).115 In either case, the Babylonian threat of destruction was imminent enough for the Rechabites to feel that their survival without the protection of a defensive city-wall was not possible (vv. 10-11).116 This passage informs very little about the Rechabites since it states nothing about their origin as a group,117 the purpose for their lifestyle restrictions, their geographic locale prior to coming into Jerusalem, their occupational livelihood, or their religious beliefs.118 According to 114. Cf. Buzy 1923: 148; Keil 1977: II, 88. 115. Cf. Bosman 1983: 83-84; Bright 1965: 189-90; Cornill 1905: 382-83; Harrison 1973: 147-48; Holladay 1989: 246; Jones 1992: 434; Luria 1987: 112; May 1945: 223; Rudolph 1958: 207; Stacey 1990: 159; Thompson 1980: 615. 116. There is no reason to adopt other suggestions which place this event during a period other than Jehoiakim's, since the Babylonian activities during Jehoiakim's reign adequately explain the Rechabites' fearful response. 117. Besides Jer. 35, 'Rechab' as a proper name occurs only in 2 Kgs 10.15, 23; 1 Chron. 2.55; Neh. 3.14; 2 Sam. 4.2, 5, 6, 9. The only link that can be made with any degree of certainty between the 'Rechab' in those passages and the 'Rechabites' in Jer. 35 is in 2 Kgs 10.15. Any genealogical correlation with the person(s) in any of the other references is only supposition (cf. Knights 1993a). 118. The 'Rechabites' have frequently been identified as a (semi-) nomadic clan of herders (cf. Harrison 1973: 148). But that view has been challenged. Frick (1971; followed by Benjamin 1994: 137; Holladay 1989: 247; McNutt 1994) suggests that they were 'a guild of metal-workers involved in the making of chariots and other weaponry' (285) and that their non-agricultural mode of life was 'an occupational pattern, but not a religious vocation' (287). Cummings (1979) suggests that they were a prophetic group on the basis that in 2 Kgs 10.15-24, Jonadab fulfils a prophetic function (specifically the one which, in 1 Kgs 19.17, was prophesied for Elisha); the term 'father' can mean the head of a prophetic band; Jeremiah took them to the chamber of a prophetic group (Jer. 35.4); the promise 'stand before Yahweh' (Jer. 35.19) is used of prophetic activity; the name, 'Rechab' correlates with the chariot motif in the Elijah and Elisha cycles (2 Kgs 2.12; 6.17; 13.14). Knights (1996a) also holds that they were an itinerant prophetic group with the prohibition not to drink wine being a prohibition against any intoxicant corresponding to Isa. 28.7, which suggests that prophets were to be abstinent. Keukens (1983) argues that the Rechabites were house-born slaves (on the basis of the designation in Jer. 35.5, 'son of the house of...'; cf. Gen. 15.2, 3; Eccl. 2.7)

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vv. 6, 8, 10, 16, 19, the establisher of the disciplines which the Rechabites followed was Jonadab, son of Rechab. He is probably the same as the Jehonadab, son of Rechab, in 2 Kgs 10.15-24 who collaborated with Jehu in his revolt against the Israelite house of Ahab during the second half of the ninth century BCE. But neither passage clarifies Jonadab's function, whether he was the genealogical 'father' or 'father' in the sense of 'leader', or the meaning of 'son of Rechab', whether it signified physical descent or membership in a guild-type association. Jeremiah 35 is the only passage which delineates the Rechabites' observance of the prohibitions against wine consumption, dwelling in permanent structures, and agricultural and viticultural activities. No theological basis for these prohibitions is given,119 whether they considered sedentary life to be associated with the corruptions of Baalism;120 whether they sought to preserve the ideals of the period of the Israelite wilderness wanderings;121 whether it was an anti-urban reaction against

who had been given, by their patron, Jonadab ('father' in the legal sense; cf. Ps. 68.6; Job 29.16; Isa. 22.21), the legal status of protected citizens (citing Isaac and Lot as 'protected citizens' in Gen. 26.3, 12-14 and 19.2, 3, 9 respectively). Thus the restrictions were placed on the Rechabites for the purpose of maintaining distinction between their status as protected citizens and that of free citizenship which was held by Jonadab (cf. the restrictive distinctions in Lev. 22.10-11). Keukens's argument that the Rechabites were house-born slaves rests on the MT's designation in v. 5 'the sons of the house of the Rechabites'. Verse 5 is the only place where this designation occurs, and it is lacking in the LXX which reads simply 'them'. (Cf Janzen [1973: 74] who cites the MT reading as a case of expanding the original pronominal reading.) The more frequent designations of the Rechabites in Jer. 35 are 'the house of the Rechabites' (vv. 2, 3, 18) and 'the sons of Jonadab' (v. 16; cf. vv. 6, 14). In v. 19, it states that no person would be cut off 'from Jonadab', not from 'the sons of the house of Jonadab'. Certainly if a distinction between 'slaves' and genealogical or group progeny was meant, one would expect the preciseness in designation to have been consistently carried out. Even though 'son of the house of...' may in some places be a technical term for house-born slave, such does not seem to be the case in Jer. 35. Frequently comparison has been made between the Rechabites and the fourth century BCE Nabataeans as described by Diodorus Siculus (19.94). But against any connection between the two groups, see Knights 1993b. 119. Cf. Gamberoni 1996. 120. Cf. Bronner 1971: 8-10; Cornill 1905: 383; Keil 1977: II, 89; Rudolph 1958: 207-209. 121. Cf. Jones 1992: 432; Rudolph 1958: 209; de Vaux 1965: 14-15. But Fox


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trusting in fortifications rather than Yahweh and against the urban economic and social injustices;122 or whether there was any religious motive at all behind the prohibitions. The specifics of the group's structure, origins and theological presuppositions are not crucial for understanding Jeremiah's activity with them, since the only issue pertinent in the interaction was their fidelity to the instruction not to drink wine. Although virtually nothing is known about the Rechabites, there is no basis for assuming that the group and these restrictions were mere fabrications for the purpose of the story which never actually occurred.123 Jeremiah was divinely commanded to go to the Rechabite group124 for the purpose of bringing them into one of the Temple chambers (1973: 450) and Knights (1992: 82) argue against any link with a wilderness idealization. 122. Cf. Knights 1996a: 139-40. 123. Contra Carroll 1986: 652; McKane 1988; 1996: 890-98. McKane argues such on the basis of the unaesthetic nature of either the presumed action ('the prophet creates an artificial spectacle which does not redound to his credit', 1988: 117; 1996: 896) or of the literary account (cf. 1996: 895). But against aesthetics being a basis for judging actual occurrence, see Chapter 1 §3.1.3. Others consider the literary composition of the chapter to be exilic (cf. Aull 1971: 97-99; Duhm 1901: 284-88; Migsch 1997; Nicholson 1970: 32-37; Rudolph 1958: 207). But even that need not obviate the account being based on an event performed and a contrast drawn by Jeremiah himself. That the action goes back to Jeremiah, see Bright 1965: 190; Knights 1995: 144; Thompson 1980: 616. There is also no basis for Levin's (1994: 307-15) suggestion that in the original sign-act the Rechabites (as described in vv. 6-11) were not even involved, but rather it only dealt with Jeremiah presenting wine to the Judahite army 'charioteers' (revocalizing D'HDHH in v. 2) as a message of judgment on the nation similar to the drinking of the cup of wine of wrath in Jer 25.15-29. According to Levin the account of the original sign-act is found only in vv. 2aa, b, 5, 12-13, and thus did not establish a contrastive behavior which formed the basis for an indictment against the Judahites. 124. In v. 2, D'ZCnn JT3 should be understood like in vv. 3 and 18 (cf. v. 5, DTlDin JTD ^D) in the sense of 'group, clan, community'. Thus Jeremiah was not instructed to go to the physical structure in which the Rechabites resided (contra Carroll 1986: 651-52, 654; Holladay 1989: 247; LXX which implies such through the distinction between OIKOV Ap%a(3iv in v. 2 and oiiciav Apxafhv in v. 3), but to make contact with the familial entity. The text makes no explicit statement about whether the Rechabites lived in tents or permanent structures during their stay in Jerusalem, only that their presence in Jerusalem was a concession performed out of necessity (v. 11). Because of their fidelity in adhering to the strictures imposed upon them by Jonadab, it may be presumed that they continued to reside in tents

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where he was to offer them wine to drink (v. 2). Verses 3-5 recount in first person, Jeremiah's execution of the command: he brought the Rechabite men to the Temple125 and specifically into the chamber named for the prophetic band headed by Hanan (v. 4).126 The apparent purpose for bringing the Rechabites into the Temple area was so that the incident could be publicly observed.127 Had Jeremiah desired within the confines of the city walls (on that possibility, see Amsler 1985: 58; Bronner 1971: 10; Thompson 1980: 616). Since the focus of the demonstration was the injunction against wine drinking, no explicit statement about the type of dwelling was necessitated. Thus there is no reason to assume that if they did live in tents, such would be specifically stated and, since it is not, they must have resided in permanent buildings (contra Carroll 1986: 652; Kessler 1965: 218). 125. The Rechabites' attitude toward the Temple and participation in its ritual is not expressed. So speculation that they were opposed to such is unwarranted (contra Bronner 1971: 11). 126. Although this is the only occurrence of DTT^Kn 2TK in Jeremiah, in other places it is clearly attributed to persons who function in a prophetic role (cf. Moses: Deut. 33.1; Josh. 14.6; Ezra 3.2; 1 Chron. 23.14; 2 Chron. 30.16; Ps. 90.1; Elijah: 1 Kgs 17.17-24; 2 Kgs 1.9-16; Elisha: 2 Kgs 4-8, passim; Samuel: 1 Sam. 9.6-10; Shemaiah: 1 Kgs 12.22; 2 Chron. 11.2; anonymous prophets: Judg. 13.6, 8; 1 Sam. 2.27; 1 Kgs 13; 20.28; 2 Kgs 23.15-20; 2 Chron. 25.7-9), and is synonymous with the other terms for prophet (cf. Bratsiotis 1977: 233-35). Holstein (1977: 70-75) argues that the term is an honoric title and therefore does not designate the specific functional role of prophet. (Cf. Hallevy [1958] who argues for a semantic shift in the term from its pre-exilic equation with the functional role of prophet to a postexilic designation of a special relationship to God irrespective of functional role.) Holstein (1977: 74) therefore suggests the possibility that Hanan's role was a priestly, rather than a prophetic, one (cf. also Huey 1993: 314). But he acknowledges that, with the exception of Hanan and David, 'every "man of God" is clearly a prophet' (74). Even the exception of David breaks down since in the postexilic presentation of David, David also, on occasion, functions in a prophetic manner (cf. 2 Chron. 29.25; lQPsa 27.11). Thus 'man of God' must be considered an honorific title, but one which seems to be exclusively applied to prophets. It is assumed that |3n "OH here refers to a prophetic band like the term D^Din "03 (cf. 1 Kgs 20.35; 2 Kgs 2.3, 5, 7, 15). It is unknown whether this prophetic group functioned specifically as cult prophets. Also, Jeremiah's relationship with them is unknown. Some suggest the possibility that either Jeremiah shared a work area with them or that they were sympathetic toward his ministry (cf. Bright 1965: 189; Carroll 1986: 654; Harrison 1973: 149; Jones 1992: 433; Keown, Scalise and Smothers 1995: 194; Thompson 1980: 616-17). 127. Cf. Duhm 1901: 286; Harrison 1973: 148-49; Thiel 1981: 46; Thompson 1980: 617.


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merely to perform the action and then report the Rechabites' reaction to an audience which had not observed it, it could have been done in the privacy of the Rechabites' own dwellings. There is no reason to assume that within the chamber area itself Jeremiah and the Rechabites were the only ones present. As indicated in Jer. 36.10 in which Baruch, while in one of the Temple chambers, read Jeremiah's scroll 'to all the people', the chambers may have been large open areas so that all those in the immediate vicinity could be aware of what took place within. Thus the specific identification of the location (v. 4) as being next to the chamber of the civil officials and above that of some of the Temple personnel,128 may have ensured the awareness of Jeremiah's activities by the civil and religious leaders of the people in those adjacent chambers. When Jeremiah set pitchers129 full of wine before the Rechabites, and then verbally directed them to drink (v. 5), he may have anticipated their reaction. Jeremiah was probably acquainted with the customs of the Rechabites, and thus aware of their stance against drinking wine. In fact, the locale of the Temple, besides assuring of an audience, may have facilitated the refusal on the part of the Rechabites. Since their commitment to the restrictions probably involved either an actual or an

Contra Stacey (1990: 160-61) who views their refusal not as a public act, but rather as a private one whose purpose was 'not intended as a visual aid, nor even as a public example' (161), and therefore not primarily prescriptive as to how Israel ought to act. Rather, the act was 'the stable conduct that witnesses to and helps to secure the stability of Israel as the people of God' (161-62). But this noncommunicative understanding is contrary to the verbalized interpretation in vv. 12-19, which according to Stacey are later sermonic additions. 128. The 'keeper of the gate' (^Dil ~OQ), is ranked third among the priests after the 'chief priest' and the 'second priest' in Jer. 52.24; 2 Kgs 23.4; 25.18 (cf. also 2 Kgs 12.10). Maaseiah may be the same person to whom reference is made in Jer. 21.1; 29.25; 37.3 as the father of the priest, Zephaniah. 129. Although in Gen. 44.2-17 1)23 is used of the 'cup' with which Joseph served Pharaoh, and in Exod. 25.31-34; 37.17-20 of the ornamental 'cups' on the branches of the tabernacle menorah, here the plural refers to 'pitchers' rather than 'bowls' (cf. Targum: p^D; LXX: Kepduiov). Kelso (1948: 13, 17) argues tha when the term refers to ceramic ware it means 'pitcher', but when made of metal it designates a 'cup'. Most probably the pitchers were the one-handled jugs, 8 to 10 inches in height, similar to the Greek wine pitcher, oivoxori (cf. Honeyman 1939: 80, PI. XVIII Figs. 4(a), 4(b); Kelso: 1948: 176, Fig. 18).

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implied oath which invoked the divine authority, the setting of the Temple—the abode of the divinely invoked deity—should have impressed on the Rechabites the importance of their commitment, making their refusal to drink the wine more probable. These activities are unlike many of Jeremiah's sign-acts, in that a message-content was not communicated through simile-form referenced by the prophet's nonverbal actions, but the point of the message resided in the refusal of the Rechabites to drink the wine. Jeremiah's actions and words were only the catalysts which facilitated the evocation of a response from the Rechabites which concretely demonstrated and brought to the foreground their commitment to their lifestyle behaviors. But like Jeremiah 32 in which the prophet created the communicative message as part of an interaction with other humans which in that case was Hanamel, so here the communicative intent of the message is attributed to the prophet, not to the other participants. The Rechabites' intent in refusing to accept Jeremiah's command to drink wine was not to communicate a message of covenant fidelity to the broader Judahite audience, but to communicate to Jeremiah a specific personal refusal and its reasons. Yet Jeremiah was intentionally seeking to elicit such a specific response so that he could use it in the broader communicative context. The Rechabites' response provided to the people of Judah an example, not in the specifics of drinking wine, but in the abstract area of fidelity to commandment observance.130 The communicated message was structured around a contrast: the covenant fidelity of the Rechabites which was evoked through the activities of Jeremiah (vv. 6-11) contrasted with the infidelity of the Judahites which was only verbally expressed by Jeremiah (vv. 13-16). The demonstration with the Rechabites only presented one of the two elements of the contrast. As an element in the contrast, Jeremiah's offer and the Rechabites' response were not future-oriented,131 but rather focused on the Rechabites' past 130. In the demonstration, Jeremiah does not express commendation for the specifics of the Rechabite asceticism, but only focused on their obedience to such. It is clear that Jeremiah did not share the same perspective with respect to the specifics of the prohibitions, for in his letter to the exiles (ch. 29) he commanded them to 'build houses, and plant vineyards' (v. 5), two things which the Rechabites would not do. 131. In its literary form, Jer. 35 follows the pattern of the other sign-acts: command to act (vv. 1-2); report of the execution of the action (vv. 3-11); interpretation


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and current behavior, and thereby provided the basis for an indictment against the Judahites' current and past behavior. The accompanying verbal indictment and the presentation of the other part of the contrast (vv. 12-19) were immediately delivered to the audience after the engendered demonstration.132 The term 'go' (v. 13) may imply that Jeremiah was to move to a position where the people could hear him, or it may be an example of where "[^n functions merely as an introductory word (cf. BDB 234a 5f) without indicating any physical movement. Thus it does not suggest that he was to address an audience which had not seen the activity in the chamber. The verbal proclamation left no doubt as to the point of Jeremiah's interaction with the Rechabites. It placed the Rechabites' obedience (vv. 14a, 16a) in contrast to the Judahites' lack of obedience (vv. 14b-15, 16b),133 which (vv. 12-17). But in Fohrer's (1952a, 1967, 1968) discussions of 'symbolic actions' he does not include Jer. 35, and gives no reason for that omission. He only calls Jer. 35 'ein symbolahnlichesTun' (1968: 72). One surmises that the omission is because Jer. 35 contradicts his premise that the sign-acts must be future-oriented (cf. 1952a: 120; 1968: 110), and since a contrast-demonstration is purely communicative in nature, Jer. 35 could not substantiate his thesis which was to demonstrate the magical roots and affinities of the prophetic acts. 132. Sometimes either the whole or parts of vv. 12-19 are considered later, usually Deuteronomic, editorial additions. But without the accompanying verbal statements in vv. 12-19, the point of the demonstration of fidelity is totally lost. Both elements (the Rechabites' behavior and Jeremiah's verbal indictment) are required to form the contrast and explicate its implications for the audience and participants (cf. Knights 1995). Certainly the purpose of the activities was not just to give a word of promise to the Rechabites (vv. 18-19) without intending to use their behavior as a contrastive indictment. The public nature of the activities argues against their functioning as only an avenue for a private message to the Rechabites. If such were the case, then certainly the proving of their loyalty and word of commendation could have occurred in the confines of the Rechabites' dwellings. Since drawing contrasts was frequently a part of the Jeremianic style (e.g. 2.11, 32; 8.7; 18.14-15), the essence of the contrast drawn here need not be denied to Jeremiah. 133. The same contrast is made in the literary structure of chs. 34-35 in which the account of the Rechabites' faithfulness (ch. 35) is juxtaposed to the chronologically disparate incident of Zedekiah's and the people's infidelity in keeping the commitment of the manumission of the slaves (ch. 34.8-22). Martens (1987: 37-43) has demonstrated the symmetrically parallel structural sequence (40) and the identical theme of 'integrity in covenant keeping' (41) between 34.8-22 and 35.1-19. The structural parallelism is as follows: prophetic revelation formula (34.8/735.1); description of incident (34.8b-ll//35.2-13); prophetic revelation formula and messenger formula (34.12a//35.12a-13a); divine retelling of incident with accusation

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in turn resulted in a contrast in the future divine disposition and actions towards the two groups. Once the contrastive indictment against the Judahites' unfaithfulness had been given (vv. 13-16), then followed a verbal pronouncement of the ramifications of God's future response of judgment which was justified because of the Judahites' behavior (v. 17). The prophet then addressed the Rechabites, and after commending their faithfulness (v. 18), pronounced the ramifications of God's future response of a promise134 of their survival135 and their service,136

(34.12b-16//35.13b-16); general announcement (34.17-20//35.17); particularized announcement (34.21-22//35.18-19). In both passages, the locale of the covenant obligation is the house of Yahweh: in 34.16, the covenant to free the slaves is made in the Temple, and in 35.4, the Rechabites' covenant is tested in the Temple (41). Thematically, the contrast between the two is also made through an a fortiori argument: Zedekiah is unfaithful to a divine covenant which concerns other people's human rights and freedom while the Rechabites are faithful to human impositions concerning personal diet and living conditions (42). The endings of the two accounts form a contrast between Zedekiah's fate and the Rechabites' reward. Brueggemann (1991: 112-20) emphasizes and develops the 'listening' theme and theology which link the narratives of chs. 34.8-22 and 35. The Leitwort (DQ2J) is used in 34.10 (twice), 14, 17; and 35.8, 10, 13, 14 (twice), 15, 16, 17, 18. The juxtaposition of the two chapters literarily provides a concrete, historical confirmation of the charge levelled in 35.12-16. When taken together, the sequence of chs. 34-35 makes the Rechabites' faithfulness stand out even sharper in contrast to the king's and the people's infidelity. It also literarily places the Rechabites' faithfulness and the promise in the climactic position of emphasizing the contrast. 134. On the promise of v. 19 following the language pattern of the 'covenant of grant', see Levenson 1976. 135. 2TN rnD1 tib expresses a guarantee of progeny. It occurs in the promises to the Davidic lineage (Jer. 33.17; 1 Kgs 2.4; 8.25; 9.5; 2 Chron. 6.16; 7.18) and Levitical priests (Jer. 33.18) (cf. Levenson 1976: 510). 136. In v. 19, "^D1? "IQD does not refer merely to 'survival', but 'service' in some capacity (cf. 1 Kgs 1.2; 10.8; 12.8 with reference to 'standing before a king'). 'Stand' OQU) is used for various types of 'serving': (1) with respect to prophetic ministry (cf. Jer. 15.1, although there it may also include priestly service; 15.19; 18.20; 1 Kgs 17.1; 18.15; 2 Kgs 3.14), (2) with respect to priestly ministry (cf. Num. 16.9; Deut. 10.8; 18.5; 1 Kgs 8.11; 2 Chron. 29.11; Pss. 134.1; 135.2), and (3) as a designation for a nonsacerdotal's act of worship (cf. Jer. 7.10; Deut. 4.10; 1 Kgs 8.22; 2 Kgs 5.16). Since the phrase is not unique to any specific type of service, it should not necessarily be interpreted that the Rechabites would become priests or menial Temple servants (contra Keukens 1983: 235; McKane 1988: 12021), or that they were a prophetic group (contra Cummings 1979: 122; Knights


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which was justified on the basis of their behavior (v. 19).137 1.5.2 Rhetoric 1. Attention. The very presence of the Rechabites in Jerusalem probably attracted attention because of the peculiarities of their manner of living, especially if they lived in tents while in Jerusalem. So in using the Rechabites for the sign-act demonstration, Jeremiah took advantage of the opportunity presented by the attention-arousing quality of the Rechabites' proximate presence. The other worshippers undoubtedly took note as Jeremiah entered the Temple area with the entourage of Rechabites, and their curiosity must have been evoked as to why Jeremiah was bringing the Rechabites there. 2. Comprehension. Initially Jeremiah's activities with and injunctions to the Rechabites gave no indication that the demonstration had any message import or application for anyone other than the Rechabites, and so the spectators may have presumed that, on this occasion, they could be detached observers rather than addressees. They may have anticipated that Jeremiah would rebuke the Rechabites for refusing to follow his divinely commissioned command to partake of the offered wine. This delayed awareness allowed the audience to enter fully into 1996b). In light of the use for nonsacerdotals, the promise with respect to the Rechabites may mean nothing more than service either in the sense of being able to worship God, or that their lives, as a living demonstration of fidelity, were a continual form of service. 137. The variants in the LXX of vv. 18-19 do not affect the general conclusions expressed here. The MT's construction of vv. 18-19 structurally forms a better parallel with vv. 13-17 than does the LXX's. Initially both groups are directly addressed in second plural, but in the contrasting manner of indictment and commendation: vv. 13-17: men of Judah a. Thus says Yahweh (v. 13) b. say to the men of Judah (v. 13) 2nd plural: c. (indictment) (vv. 14-16)

vv. 18-19: Rechabites b'. [say] to the house of the Rechabites (v. 18) a'. Thus says Yahweh (v. 18) c'. (commendation) (v. 18)

When the speech moves to the contrasting statements of judgment and promise, the speech shifts to third person. d. Therefore, thus says Yahweh (v. 17) d'. Therefore, thus says Yahweh (v. 19) 3rd person: e. (word of judgment) (v. 17) e'. (promise) (v. 19)

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the communication event without expecting an indicting message directed against them and without preemptively building defenses against such. Also, the audience's initial lack of awareness and expectation of any audience application should have heightened the impact of the message when the fidelity of the Rechabites was verbally contrasted with the people's infidelity. 3. Acceptance. The coordination of the Rechabites' behavioral response and prophet's verbal message was structured in a linear manner of building toward the climax. The behavioral demonstration served the function of creating the situation which was employed in the verbal message as a contrast. The climax then occurred with the verbal proclamation which contained the main point of the message for the hearers. The verbal message itself moved from indictment (vv. 13-16), based on the contrast created by the Rechabite response, to judgment (v. 17), based on the audience's behavior. The total message, which centered around the contrast created by the refusal of the Rechabites, formed a logical argument. In the verbal portion of the oracle, the two sides of the contrast were presented: (a) the Rechabites are faithful, and (b) the Judahites are unfaithful. The contrast is structured in an a: b: a': b' pattern: (a) Rechabites, v. 14a; (b) Judahites, vv. 14b-15; (a1) Rechabites, v. 16a; (b?) Judahites, v. 16b. As a result of the initial propositions, the logical consequences are expressed, but in a chiastic manner: (b1) because the Judahites are unfaithful, they will be punished (v. 17), and (a1) because the Rechabites are faithful, they will be rewarded (vv. 18-19). The point of this logical contrast was stressed through the rhetorical question which began the verbal portion of the message: 'Will you not receive instruction...?' (v. 13).138 The specific type of rational argument used to emphasize the contrast was an a fortiori (lesser to greater) one which functioned on two levels: (1) human versus divine: the Rechabites faithfully observed the commands of their human ancestor—how much more should the Judahites observe the commands of the deity (vv. 14, 16); (2) one time versus numerous repetitions: the Rechabites faithfully observed the commands delivered to them through only one human agent—how much more 138. This type of logical argument is similar to that employed elsewhere in Jeremiah in which the people are indicted for their sinfulness through the use of a contrast which is expressed in the form of a rhetorical question: Jer. 2.9-13; 2.32; 8.4-7; 8.8-12; 18.13-17; 30.6-7.


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should the Judahites observe God's commands which had been repeatedly delivered to them by the prophetic messengers (v. 14-15). Although based on a logical appeal, the contrast also incorporated an emotional argument. By presenting the Rechabites as a model which should be emulated with respect to fidelity in commandment observance, the Judahites should have been ashamed of their own behavior. That shame could then become a motivating factor causing the Judahites to change and become faithful to God's ordinances as the Rechabites were to their forefather's commands. The incentive to change also focused on the emotional aspects of the fear of being punished in contrast to the satisfaction of receiving blessings. Since the message communicated focused not on Jeremiah's activities but on the Rechabites' behavioral response, Jeremiah functioned in the role of a facilitator. He only expedited the demonstration of one element of the contrast and did not representationally depict either the Judahites' or God's behavior toward the Rechabites. But the audience may have perceived Jeremiah as functioning in the role of 'tempter', or 'tester', similar to Amos 2.11-12,139 in relationship to the Rechabites.140 When the Rechabites refused to follow the imperative to drink the wine —which must have been assumed to be a divine command because it was delivered by the prophetic messenger under specific commission of God, and done so while in the Temple area, the ultimate locale of the divine presence—the audience may have felt a condemnatory reaction against the Rechabites: how dare the Rechabites tenaciously adhere to a humanly imposed standard and refuse to heed a divine injunction by a prophet? Yet that internal audience response against the Rechabites unsuspectedly aided in the response Jeremiah sought to evoke: if the audience felt repulsed by the Rechabites not obeying a command by a 139. In Amos 2.11-12, the people are accused of making the Nazarites drink wine. Jeremiah, who may have been influenced by that passage, incorporated in this interaction significant variations for the purpose of emphasizing the Rechabites' fidelity. In Amos, the people as 'tempters' made the Nazarites violate a divine injunction whereas in Jer. 35, Jeremiah 'tempted' the Rechabites to violate a human injunction. In Amos, the focus was on the 'tempters' activity and only peripherally on the Nazarites' response, whereas in Jer. 35, the focus was on the Rechabites' response and only tangentially on Jeremiah's role as their 'tempter'. So in Amos, although the Nazarites succumbed to human pressure, it was the 'tempters' who came under judgment. But in Jer. 35, the Rechabites who did not succumb, were commended for their faithful adherence to a human injunction. 140. Cf. Amsler 1985: 58.

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prophet, how much more should they feel condemnation towards themselves because of their own disregard for divine injunctions also given by prophets. So any sense of condemnation toward the Rechabites only added to the force of the indictment against themselves. While the audience may have focused on the Rechabites' refusal to drink, Jeremiah refocused attention away from the refusal and onto the motive for their refusal: their deep sense of commitment to commandment observance. 4. Remembrance. Whenever the Rechabites were observed on the city streets, the occasion was presented to focus on the peculiarity of their customs and to rethink Jeremiah's activity with them. If the Rechabites lived in a tent-city, the visual presence of their dwellings which also demonstrated their adherence to Jonadab's instructions, reinforced the demonstration Jeremiah had performed. Thus the continued presence of the Rechabites in Jerusalem must have been for the Jerusalemites a constant reminder of Jeremiah's message of fidelity in obeying commands and an inescapable living indictment against the people's lack of adherence to God's directives. 1.6 Jeremiah 27-28 (LXX: 34-35 )m 1.6.1 Communicative Meaning. According to 28.1, some time during Zedekiah's fourth year (594-593 BCE), a group of delegates from the political entities neighboring Judah—Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, Sidon—gathered in Jerusalem (27.3). Excursus: Dating of the Events of Chapters 27-28 Regardless of stylistic differences, the incidents of chs. 27 (in first person) and 28 (after v. 1, in third person) must be taken together as sequentially arranged events. Hananiah's breaking Jeremiah's yoke becomes inexplicable without the incident of ch. 27.142 But there is a 141. There are numerous variants between the LXX and MT texts with the latter being longer. None of the variant readings substantially affects the interpretation of the nonverbal communication and its communicative meaning. For comparative studies of the differences between the texts of the LXX and MT, besides the commentaries, see Goldman 1992: 123-88; 1997; van der Kooij 1994; McKane 1989; Janzen 1973; Stulman 1986: 86-89; Tov 1979, 1981, 1985. 142. Carroll (1986: 530, 540-41) argues that chs. 27 and 28 'are doublets rather than two historical incidents' (530), so that the two should not be read as sequential


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discrepancy between the dates given in 27.1 and 28.1. (For a thorough discussion of the textual issues involved, besides the commentaries, see specifically Schmidt 1921; Seidl 1977a: 34-42, 72-76; 1979.) On the basis of 28.1, the events of chs. 27-28 are almost universally dated to the fourth year of Zedekiah. Congruency is best achieved when 27.1 is considered an erroneous reading (Dp"HIT PD^QD rPI2JK""Q), probably based on 26.1, and therefore deleted following the LXX. In 28.1, flD^QQ rPEJK"")^ because it does not correlate with 'the fourth year', should also be deleted (and ^ added before 'Zedekiah') on the basis of the LXX. The phrase is apparently a gloss which occurred after the erroneous dated superscription of 27.1 had been inserted, and whose purpose was to harmonize the discrepant dates in the two superscriptions. Elimination of 27.1 solves the problems of having to correlate the MT's readings in 27.1 and 28.1 through such assumptions as Jeremiah began wearing the yoke at the beginning of Jehoiakim's reign and continued to do so for some 15 years until the events of ch. 28 (contra Guillaume 1938: 154) or that the divine commission was directed to Jeremiah during the accession year of Jehoiakim, but only actually performed during the reign of Zedekiah. That the events clearly occurred during the reign of Zedekiah is indicated by the reference to Zedekiah in 27.3 and 12, the references to the 597 BCE deportation of Jehoiachin in 27.20 and 28.3-4, and the date in 28.1 which the MT seeks to connect explicitly with the events of ch. 27 ('in that year'). Even though the phrase KTin PHED is lacking in the LXX it seems to link the sign-act of ch. 27 accurately with Hananiah's action in ch. 28. Some commentators retain 27.1 but emend 'Jehoiakim' to 'Zedekiah', following the Syriac and a few Hebrew manuscripts. But this does not eliminate the difficulty of the technical term ro^QQ rr2JN~l, accounts. On the assumption that Zedekiah would not have entertained the idea of rebellion, Carroll then argues that the doublets are not historical, but must be read as a fabricated story. But even those who see in the two chapters a great deal of editorial work and development (cf. Duhm 1901: 216-17; Hossfeld and Meyer 1973: 90-103; Jones 1992: 346-49; Martin-Achard 1977: 53-54; Roulet and Bonvin 1985: 151-52; Wanke 1971: 34-36) attribute at least 28.10-11 to the original account, thus linking it with the action of 27.2-3. Even if the composition of the two chapters is late, there is no reason to doubt their historicity. For example, Nicholson (1970: 95) holds to their historicity even though considering major portions of the chapters to be Deuteronomic.

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which means the accession year, correlating with the fourth year of the reign, unless one considers 'the fourth year' in 28.1 to be a later, erroneous addition (cf. May 1945: 217-18). Others attempt to retain th verse through emending 27.1 to read irrpn^ mnnn men, 'in th fourth year of Zedekiah'143 or by transposing the date, 'in the fourth year, the fifth month of Zedekiah, King of Judah', from 28.1 to 27.1.144 There is no textual evidence for either of the latter two emendations. There is no need to retain 27.1 on the basis that the sign-act account should commence with a date superscription, since such is not mandatory as evidenced by 13.1-11; 16.1-9; 19.1-13. In fact, the elimination of 27.1 makes the account begin in an identical manner to the sign-act accounts of chs. 13 and 19: mrr "ION PD. Some have sought to retain both readings of 'the beginning of the reign' and the 'fourth year', either by taking the former as a general term indicating the first part of the king's reign which could incorporate the latter ( cf. Keil 1977:1, 397-98), or by ascribing varying nuances to the former and to its accompanying prepositions, such as 'after the completion of the reign of Jehoiakim' in 27.1 and 'after the beginning, or accession year, of the reign of Zedekiah' in 28.1 (Althann 1988). But Althann's solution results in two very different nuances for the term JT2JN") in proximate contexts of identical formulaic expressions. Such seems unlikely. HD^QQ rPCto"] (cf. Jer. 26.1; also PID^Q rTm-Q in Jer. 49.34) seems to be a technical term,145 equivalent to the Babylonian reS Sarriiti and the Akkadian, Surrdt Sarruti, meaning the accession year of the king, and thus cannot correlate with the 'fourth year' in Jer. 28.1. Besides the Babylonian and Akkadian occurrences, it occurs in Aramaic with the same technical sense as part of the date formula: for example, £>tf~l rnD^n in the Wadi Daliyeh papyrus (335 BCE) of the contract for the sale of a slave (cf. Cross 1963: 113), and NrDI^Q tftn in an Ele phantine papyrus, Cowley no. 6.1-2 (465 BCE) (cf. Cowley 1923: 16). Some commentators maintain that ch. 27 occurred in the accession year of Zedekiah, and that the gathering of the foreign diplomats in Jerusalem was to win the support of Judah's new ruler (cf. Driver 1964: 143. Cf. Buzy 1923: 140-41; Carroll 1981: 322; Fohrer 1952a: 108; Holladay 1989: 112; Prinsloo 1981: 69; Wanke 1971: 19, 21. 144. Cf. Cornill 1905: 304-305; Duhm 1901: 217, 223. 145. On the term, see Kutsch 1985: 12; Sarna 1978: 91*; Tadmor 1956: 227-28; 1958: 27-29. On its occurrences in Jeremiah, see Seidl 1977b: 29-31.


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83-88; May 1945: 217-18), or to plan for the revolt which would not actually occur until two years later, concurrent with the uprisings in Babylon (cf. Sarna 1978: 94-95*). If one maintains that the actions of ch. 28 did not occur until the fourth year of Zedekiah, then Jeremiah must have worn the yoke for the intervening four years. But Driver (1964: 86) emends 28.1 to read 'that same year, in the year of the accession of Zedekiah... in the first year, in the fifth month' on the basis that 'in the fourth year' arose from a misunderstanding of the original text's abbreviation "in 2D. The abbreviation, actually standing fornnCNTin TO3, was misunderstood as rrimn n]2b. But Driver's solution still does not eliminate the difficulty of the verse, for the accession year (as Driver acknowledges, 84) was not the same as 'the first year'. His proposed reading still leaves two conflicting dates juxtaposed to each other. Sarna (1978: 95-96*) resolves the four-year hiatus by proposing that the anomaly of the MT's date formula for the fourth year means that the fourth year was not that of the king but of the sabbatical year cycle which corresponded to the regal accession year. But Sarna makes no comment about the LXX's reading which conforms precisely to the majority of date formulas, 'in the year X of Y (the king)' (cf. 25.1; 32.1; 36.1, 9; 39.1, 2; 42.7; 45.1; 46.2). Much of Sarna's argument (93-94*) is based on the appropriateness of the date of ch. 29 to the beginning of Zedekiah's reign and the assumption that ch. 29 must be dated at the same time as chs. 27-28 (92*). But the thematic unity of chs. 27-29 does not necessitate a chronological unity between chs. 2728 and ch. 29. The latter begins with its own superscription which in no manner explicitly connects the sending of the letter to the same year as the preceding incidents. Also against the event occurring in Zedekiah's accession year is the content of Jeremiah's response which implies a gathering that was not just trying to assess the current political situation, but rather sought to solidify a coalition for revolt. It seems highly unlikely that such an attitude of rebellion would have occurred in Judah just a matter of months after the Jerusalemites had experienced the siege of the city and the deportation of many of the citizens, and after Zedekiah's appointment by the Babylonians presumably because of his pro-Babylonian tendencies at that time. Although the purpose of the meeting is not explicitly stated, from the message which Jeremiah directed to the diplomatic messengers and to

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Zedekiah (27.4-15), it can be assumed that it was to plan rebellion against Babylon. The conferees must have perceived that a rebellion and a reasserting of their independence of their respective nations was somehow linked to an anticipated demise of the Babylonian supremacy. The thoughts of rebellion were probably fueled by the political events of Elam's attack on Babylonia in 596/595 BCE, rebellion within Babylonia in 595/594,146 and promises, or at least anticipation, of support from the Egyptians. Prophets, both in Judah and in the neighboring countries (27.9-10, 14-15), encouraged the movement by proclaiming the success of the rebellious venture147 and that two years from then the Babylonian power would be broken (Jer. 27.9, 14, 16; 28.3-4). Because of the prophetic declarations that this was the auspicious time to take action against the Babylonian domination, the consideration to revolt was not merely a political matter, but carried theological overtones as well. While the gathering of diplomats took place, Jeremiah received the divine command to make a yoke fa) consisting of a bar (HCDIQ) and bonds (rrnoiQ),148 and place it on his neck (27.2). The simplest form of a yoke149 used for oxen when ploughing, threshing or pulling a wagon150 146. On the accounts of these two events in the Babylonian chronicles, see BM 21946, Reverse lines 16-22 in Wiseman 1956: 72-73. 147. That during the same time this nationalistic feeling was also being encouraged—possibly accompanied by involvement in seditious actions—by the proclaimers of the popular theology within the Babylonian exilic community is clear from Jeremiah's advice to the exiles in his letter (Jer. 29.1-23) dated after the 597 BCE exile. Some commentators understand Jer. 29.7-9 as a reference to some of the Jewish exiles being involved in disorderly acts during the rebellion in Babylonia in 595/594, and vv. 21-23 to the prophets being killed because of utterances considered seditious by the Babylonians (cf. Bright 1972: 328; Carroll 1981: 191; Overholt 1967: 246-47; 1970: 29, 46). 148. In Jer. 27-28, the distinction is quite consistently made that when the physical artifact is meant, the terms ntDlQ/niQQ and rmoiQ are used (27.2; 28.10, 12, 13a), whereas when the metaphoric image is meant, î) is employed (27.8, 11, 12; 28.2, 4, 11, 14). The only exception to this distinction is in 28.13b where mUQ, instead of *?&, is used figuratively for Babylon's rule. But that verse seeks to play on the literal 'yoke-bar' which Hananiah broke (v. 13a) and the 'yoke-bars' which would replace it (v. 13b). Then subsequently in v. 14, ^ is once again used for the figure of subservience. 149. For examples of this simple type of yoke, see the Egyptian model (23502000 BCE) in ANEP 84 and the Assyrian relief (668-633 BCE) in ANEP 167. 150. It is generally assumed that the yoke was patterned after the draught animal


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was that of a cross-bar (HQID)151 placed across the back of the ox's neck and fastened by rope or leather thongs (miDlQ) either to the animal's horns or passed around the front of the neck.152 Jeremiah could easily have fashioned such a yoke which visually resembled very closely those employed with animals. While wearing the yoke, Jeremiah was to declare publicly the message to the foreign ambassadors (27.3-11) and to Zedekiah (27.1215)153 that they should submit to the yoke of Babylon (27.8, 11, 12). In yoke rather than a porter's yoke or the yoke-bar and thongs used to restrain slaves or prisoners of war. Such is substantiated by the nonfigurative use of *?'& exclusively for an animal yoke (Num. 19.2; Deut. 21.3; 1 Sam. 6.7). Supportive of the yoke being of the type used for animals is also the reference to wild animals as part of the argument strategy in v. 6 (cf. Holladay 1989: 119). There is no doubt that captives, when deported, wore wooden shackles on their hands which were attached to their necks by cords (cf. the Egyptian reliefs of the fourteen and thirteenth centuries BCE in ANEP 49, 51, 55). There are also references to dog collars being placed on the captured kings' necks (cf. ANET 292a; 298b, c; 300b). Biblically, the terms pt ('fetter': Isa. 45.14; Nah. 3.10; Ps. 149.8), pm ('manacle': Jer. 40.1, 4), and to ('fetter': Pss. 105.18; 149.8) are used for the instruments to bind captives. Against Jeremiah's yoke being something which a captive would have worn are the facts that there are no references to Jeremiah binding his hands (cf. Jer. 40.4), the biblical terms for the binding of captives do not include î), and as Jeremiah wore the yoke he figuratively communicated submission and did not representationally depict the deportees. It was precisely the exilic captivity which would be avoided if the people 'wore the yoke' (cf. 27.11). 151. Besides being part of a yoke, HQ1Q is also used for the poles used in carrying the ark (1 Chron. 15.15), and similarly CD1Q for a pole for carrying things on (Num. 4.10, 12; 13.23). Such usage suggests that as part of the yoke, it was the cross-bar. 152. Another style of yoke included the cross-bar, wooden pegs which fastened into the cross-bar on each side of the animal's neck, and a rope or leather thong which went around the front of the neck whose ends were attached to the wooden pegs. For illustrations and descriptions of this type of yoke, see the Assyrian relief (668-633 BCE) in ANEP 168, and King 1993: 161. Holladay (1983: 155; 1986: 7; 1989: 119-120) and Zwickel (1991) suggest that mtDQ does not refer to the cross-bar, but to the yoke-pegs. Thus Jeremiah would have only worn the leather or rope bonds and the yoke-pegs, but not the cross-bar. But the non-yoke usage of HCDIQ for a pole (see above), the singular rather than the plural in 28.10, 12, and 13a (see n. 154 below on the reading in 13a), and Hananiah's ability to break the artifact (28.10) best fit the identification as the single cross-bar of the yoke rather than the two yoke-pegs. 153. Schreiner (1984: 159-61; cf. also 1987: 3) argues that originally the inci-

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27.3, the MT's Dnn^CZJl implies that Jeremiah also sent yokes with the foreign emissaries. Likewise the plural form JT1CDC, which is conjoined with plural suffixes in v. 2 and contrasted with the MT's singular H21D in 28.10, 12 and 13a154 suggests that Jeremiah initially made at least six yokes and bore them on his neck. 155 When he addressed the emissaries from the five foreign nations, he then presented a yoke to each of them.156 So when the conferees personally relayed Jeremiah's dent only included vv. 2, 4a and 12, and thus only involved Zedekiah and not the foreign ambassadors. He considers the amplification of giving the message to the foreign ambassadors as a later exilic addition. There is no reason to assume that Jeremiah did not also give the message to the foreign dignitaries, even though his primary purpose was to dissuade the Judahites from participation in any rebellious efforts. Others who consider much of 27.4/5-22 (with the possible exception of vv. 11 or 12b) as secondary additions to the account (cf. Duhm 1901: 216-18; Fohrer 1952a: 108; 1968: 40-41; Hossfeld and Meyer 1973: 90-103; Martin-Achard 1977: 53-54; Nicholson 1970: 95; Roulet and Bonvin 1985: 151-52; Thiel 1981: 5-10; Wanke 1971: 27, 33-36), view as secondary the explicit statement that the message was verbalized to Zedekiah. Even if the message was not given explicitly to Zedekiah, there is no doubt that the Judahites were also recipients of the message as indicated by Hananiah's response in ch. 28, which shows full awareness of Jeremiah's message. 154. In 28.13a, DOIO should be revocalized as a singular construct on the basis that consistently for the plural only the second holem is written plene (mtOQ) as in Jer. 27.2 and 28.13b, and also Ezek. 30.18; 34.27; 1 Chron. 15.5. The only exception is Lev. 26.13 in which both vowels are written defectiva. The defectively written initial holem in the plural spelling contrasts with the singular, in which the initial holem is consistently plene (~01D) as in Jer. 28.10, 12, and also Isa. 58.6, 9. 155. Huey (1993: 242) suggests that the plural does not refer to six yokes, but rather to two wooden cross-bars, one worn over the neck and the other under the neck, joined by the thongs. Thus Jeremiah constructed only one yoke. Wanke (1971: 24) suggests the distinction between the plural (moc) and the singular (HCDID) usages corresponds to the two aspects of the making of the yoke and the completed condition of the artifact. When reference occurs in conjunction with the former, the plural is used (27.2; 28.13b), and with the latter, the singular (28.10, 12). But there is really no explanation as to why such an artificial, and inaccurate, distinction would be made when the process of making the yoke also only involved, not a plurality, but a single cross-bar. Even though such a distinction is possible, the plural and singular usages can also be explained as above, that the plural was used consistently when more than one cross-bar was meant, while the singular was used when only one cross-bar was involved. 156. Cf. Holladay (1983: 155; 1986: 7; 1989: 120—but he views the artifacts as


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message to their respective kings, their transmissions were nonverbally reinforced through those artifacts. In the encounter with Hananiah (28.10), Hananiah then broke the remaining bar (singular) which Jeremiah, serving as the messenger to Zedekiah and Judah, had on his neck. But in 27.3, the Lucianic tradition of the LXX does not reflect the suffix, so that frequently the MT is emended to nn'PCCh with the implied object being 'the message'157 rather than the yokes. In that case, Jeremiah only made one yoke which he himself wore, and the emissaries only reported verbally to their masters what Jeremiah had done and said. Also, in 28.10 and 12 where the MT has the singular 'bar', the LXX and Syriac have the plural. Thus the plural/singular distinctions made in the MT are obviated in those translations whose consistent plural forms apparently reflect the understanding of only a singular artifact made and worn by Jeremiah. Although Jeremiah had no authority to command the foreign emissaries to dutifully transmit to their masters the message which he gave them, the circumstances may have made such a transmission of the message very probable. In the ancient Near East, the auspiciousness of any military venture was determined beforehand through the consultation of religious personnel and ritual (cf. 1 Kgs 22.1-28; Ezek. 21.2627). With respect to this consultation for rebellion, prophetic messages were being given which indicated its appropriateness (vv. 9-10; cf. also vv. 14-17). So when Jeremiah gave a contrary prophetic message which questioned the propriety of the planned action, it can be assumed that such was duly noted.158 The correspondence between Jeremiah's nonverbal action and the message-content was that of a simile-form: 'Just as I am wearing the yoke, so the nations should wear the yoke of the king of Babylon.' The nonverbal action figuratively depicted a metaphor for submission.

only the pegs and ropes); Keil 1977: I, 399-400; Keown, Scalise and Smothers 1995: 49. 157. T3 n^SJ also occurs in Exod. 4.13; 2 Sam. 12.25; 1 Kgs 2.25 without any direct object, which is inferred to be 'word' or 'message'. 158. Jeremiah's position is analogous to that of Micaiah in 1 Kgs 22, when in the consultation before battle, he gave an inauspicious message which was contrary to the other prophets (v. 17). Although Micaiah's message was not heeded, it was also not categorically dismissed (vv. 17-28).

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Within the biblical literature, the imagery of 'being under the yoke' or 'wearing the yoke' was common as a means of describing subservience. In only three of its biblical occurrences, does î)159 refer to a literal yoke used for cattle (Num. 19.2; Deut. 21.3; 1 Sam. 6.7). All of its other occurrences refer figuratively to a subservience which is usually, but not always (cf. Jer. 5.5), oppressive in nature (Hos. 11.4; Gen. 27.40; Lam. 1.14; 3.27). Most frequently the 'yoke' is that of political servitude to one's overlord (the yoke of Solomon in 1 Kgs 12.4, 9, 10, 11, 14 = 2 Chron. 10.4, 9, 10, 11, 14; the yoke of the enemies in Deut. 28.48; Jer. 2.20; 30.8; Isa. 9.3; the yoke of Babylon in Isa. 47.6; Ezek. 34.27; Jer. 27.8, 11, 12; 28.2, 4, 11, 14; the yoke of Egypt in Lev. 26.13; the yoke of Assyria in Isa. 10.27; 14.25).160 Outside of Jeremiah 27 and 28, HQ1Q, both in its singular and plural forms, is always used in the figurative senses of either foreign domination (cf. the plural for the yoke-bars of Egypt in Lev. 26.13; Ezek. 30.18; the yoke-bars of Babylon in Ezek. 34.27; cf. also tOlQ, the yokebar of Assyria in Nah. 1.13) or oppressive wickedness (Isa. 58.6, 9; singular).161 miDlQ is only used of literal 'bonds' for a donkey in Job 39.5. In all its other cases, it is a figure for oppressive distress (Pss. 107.14; 116.16; Isa. 28.22), conformance to the divinely imposed ordinances (Jer. 5.5), or subservience to one's enemies (Jer. 2.20; 30.8; Isa. 52.2; Nah. 1.13; Ps. 2.3).162

159. For a discussion of the meaning of 'j'V,see Seidl 1978: 124-26. 160. The imagery of being freed from the yoke (î1) is expressed frequently by the verb "Dti (Jer. 2.20; 5.5; 30.8; Lev. 26.13; Ezek. 34.27) just like Hananiah's declaration in 28.2, 4, 11. But the breaking of the yoke is also expressed by Finn (Isa. 9.3), pis (Gen. 27.40), and ÎH (Isa. 10.27), or its removal by T10 (Isa. 10.27; 14.25). In all of these cases, except Gen. 27.40 and Jer. 5.5, the one who does the breaking or removing of the yoke is God. (On the literary formulas for 'removal of the yoke', see Seidl 1978: 237-42; also Becking 1989: 75-76.) 161. In every case of non-Jeremianic usage, the context in which HCDIQ is used is that of deliverance from the yoke. When the 'yoke-bars' refer to foreign lordship, it is God who breaks or removes them ("1383: Lev. 26.13; Ezek. 30.18; 34.27), and when wickedness, it is the people's responsibility to do so (110 and pn]: Isa. 58.6, 9). 162. The removal of rmOIQ, and therefore freedom from the subservient conditions, is most frequently expressed by pn] (as a human action: Ps. 2.3; Jer. 5.5; as a divine action: Jer. 2.20; 30.8; Nah. 1.13; Ps. 107.14; Isa. 28.22) or by FTPS (as a


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The figure of the yoke for domination/submission is also very common in the extant ancient Near Eastern literature. The figure, referring either to the yoke of the king or to the gods, is found in cultic (e.g. Hymn of Ishtar [ANET 383d]) as well as the historical literature of the Assyrians and the Babylonians.163 It occurs in an Assyrian prophetic oracle concerning Ashurbanipal (667 BCE): ' "[The kings] of the lands [I shall overthrow, place under the yoke, bind their feet in [strong fetters]"' (K. 883.12-13).164 The figurative expression of 'wearing the yoke' to signify subservience to one's enemy may have derived from an actual practice of the victor's placing a yoke on the neck of the conquered leaders. In the annals of Ashurbanipal is the account: 'I harnessed Tammaritu, Pa'e, Ummana[ldasi, king(s)] of Elam, (and) laute', king of Ishmael whom I had captured personally... like choice foals to my (triumphal) char, my royal means of transportation... and they actually held the straps (abSanu) (to pull the char).'165 divine action: Ps. 116.16; as a human action: Isa. 52.2). (Cf. the discussion in Seidl 1978: 55-57.) 163. E.g. from the reign of Tiglathpileser (744-727 BCE): ANET 284a; from the reign of Sargon II (721-705 BCE): ANET285d; 286b; from the reign of Sennacherib (704-681 BCE) [all the Sennacherib references can be found in Luckenbill 1924]: Oriental Prism 2.36; 2.62 (= AWET 287c); 3.19 (= ANET2S8a); BM 113203: 62; Bellino Cylinder, line 18; Bull Inscription, line 28; from the reign of Esarhaddon (680-669 BCE): ANET29la, b; 292c; from the reign of Ashurbanipal (668-633 BCE): ANET 295d; 296a; 297c, d; 300d; quotation in Gruber 1980: 54; from the reign of Nabopolassor (626-605 BCE): quotation in Heschel 1962: I, 131; from th reign of Nebuchadnezzar (605-562 BCE):ANET 307d. For numerous other references, see CAD 1,1 65-66; 11, II 260-63. The common Akkadian term for 'yoke' was nlru (cf. CAD 11, II 260-64), but the image was also expressed through abSdnu, the rope which was part of the yoke (cf. CAD 1, I 65-66): Sargon II: ANET 286c; Sennacherib: Oriental Prism 2.68 (= AMET287d); Bavian Inscription, line 5; Nebi Ynus Inscription, line 15 (=ANET 288c); Ashurbanipal: ANET291c, d; 300d. Whereas nlru was used both literally for a yoke as well as figuratively for domination or rule imposed by the gods or by a human king, abSanu, does not occur in the extant Akkadian texts as a part of a literal yoke (as in Sumerian), but only in metaphoric contexts of labor or corvee imposed on gods by gods, on men by gods, or on conquered peoples by the conquering king. 164. ANET451&- cf. Strong 1894: 633-35, 645. 165. ANET 300d. See also CAD 11, II 261, translating Strech Asb. 82 x 29: 'I made (the defeated kings) pull the yoke [mm] of the carriage.' See also the

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In his sign-act of wearing the yoke, Jeremiah drew upon a common verbal expression and performed it nonverbally in order to convey dramatically the prophetic message. Jeremiah thereby depicted to the foreign ambassadors and to the Judahites the course of action which they should currently take: rather than attempting to throw off the yoke through the plans for the revolt, they should continue to wear the 'political' yoke of the Babylonians.166 The issue was not whether the people would resist coming under the yoke, but whether they would remain under the yoke. Also, the issue was not whether at some point in the future the yoke would be imposed upon them, for the Judahites had unquestionably been under the yoke of the Babylonians since the 597 BCE exile and the appointment of a Babylonian-ordained ruler. In 27.6, the current condition of subjection to the Babylonian yoke by Judah and the neighboring countries was noted: 'even I have given [Tin]] all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar'. TIP] expresses the past and current reality, and is not a 'prophetic perfect' expressing what would happen in the future. Thus, by wearing the yoke, Jeremiah was not depicting a future, yet unrealized, condition.167 Rather, he was thereby exhorting the Judahites and neighboring nations to perpetuate the condition which they currently were under. Jeremiah's action was thus not a prediction about what the people would do in the future, but rather counsel as to the divinely decreed action which the people should

Egyptian relief (1550-1350 BCE) of the plow being pulled by four slaves, ANEP 85. Similar is Ashurbanipal's treatment of Uate': 'I put a pillory (on) his (neck) together with a bear (and) a dog and made him stand on guard (duty) at the gate in Nineveh' (AW£T298b). 166. Hester (1982: 292) suggests a double meaning to Jeremiah's action: subservience to Babylon and 'continued livelihood on the land the oxen plows [sic]'. But the reference to 'working the land' in v. 11 is the only statement which would allude to his proposed second meaning of the action. Had the second meaning been intended, one would expect a more explicit reference. It is best to view Jeremiah's action as only portraying the option (subservience), and not the consequences (livelihood on the land). 167. Contra Keown, Scalise and Smothers (1995: 56) that Nebuchadnezzar's control over the area did not yet reflect the extent of servitude which Jeremiah portrayed. But Hananiah's subsequent sign-act (28.10-11) was clearly premised on the assumption that Jeremiah's sign-act did indeed accurately indicate the current situation of Judah from which God would bring relief.


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take in the present.m Jeremiah's message placed before the people a behavioral option which had political and religious ramifications: they could wear the yoke, or they could cast it off; but they had to be aware of the consequences of each action. Jeremiah did not in any way nonverbally depict, but only verbally declared (27.5-15), the future consequences of both heeding his nonverbally depicted advice (remain in the land to work it, v. 11; remain alive, v. 12) and of rejecting his advice (punishment by sword, famine and pestilence, v. 8, and similarly v. 13; exile from the land, vv. 10, 15; death, vv. 10, 13, 15).169 His nonverbal behavior only depicted the option which Jeremiah recommended to the people. In contrast, Hananiah's action presented the other option. The accompanying verbal statements (vv. 4-22) not only interpreted the action and described the consequences of adhering or not adhering to the advice, but also placed the whole choice into a theological context (e.g. vv. 5-6, and the first person of divine address in vv. 8, lOb, 11, 15).170 Just as the other prophets perceived the throwing off of the yoke in theological terms (cf. 28.1-4, 11: God would break the yoke), so too Jeremiah perceived his political advice in theological terms. Jeremiah presented the submission to the Babylonians as tantamount to continued submission to God. The verbal messages added a dimension to the communication which the nonverbal behavior could not convey. The nonverbal only depicted the submission option, while the verbal was able to express the motivations and reasons for the advised submission. 1.6.2 Rhetoric 1. Attention. There is no doubt that, because of the action's unusualness, when Jeremiah appeared in public wearing the yoke, he attracted attention. The Judahites' curiosity should have been aroused, and maybe

168. Because of the commonness of the imagery as a verbal description for submission, and since it did not predict the future, there is no need to view Jeremiah's yoke actions as magical (contra Carroll 1986: 530), or to look for its origin in magical rituals of consecration, purification or healing (contra Fohrer 1968: 41-42). The functions of the yoke in those cases are totally different and they provide no illumination on the communicative meaning of Jeremiah's employment of the nonverbal artifact. 169. Cf. Kessler's (1965: 67-68, 73-75,88-89) discussion of the hortatory nature of ch. 27 as a 'contingent/conditional oracle'. 170. On the theology of 27.1-11, see Lang 1983b; Prinsloo 1981.

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even more so when he did not initially proclaim a message to his own people but approached the foreign ambassadors (27.3). 2. Comprehension. Since the action had correspondence to a common metaphor (i.e. bearing the yoke), there was probably an initial level of understanding over the general concept being portrayed. Yet such may have further aroused the people's curiosity as they wondered what type of specific message or what further activity Jeremiah would attach to such. They may have wondered if he would perform with the yoke some further action, such as throwing it off or breaking it (as Hananiah later did), which would communicate a message supportive of the rebellion efforts. They may have initially hoped that Jeremiah would utter an oracle against Babylon, thus prophesying that Babylon would come under the yoke of another nation. The unspecifiedness inherent in Jeremiah's nonverbal action and an ambiguity in its meaning allowed for an initial openness to a message which would ultimately be contrary to what the people were hoping to hear and contrary to what others were prophetically speaking. 3. Acceptance. In considering rebellion against Babylon, the people had before them two options: one was not to rebel, but continue to submit (wear the yoke), and the other was to rebel (throw off the yoke). Jeremiah's nonverbal act only displayed to the people the option of not rebelling and continued submission to the Babylonians, and that option was presented in a very graphic manner in order to impress upon the people the appropriateness of that option. In attempting to persuade the people to follow the option which he presented, Jeremiah employed the speaker strategy of identification with the people. While performing the nonverbal behavior, Jeremiah functioned in the role of the addressed audience and figuratively modeled the behavior they were to emulate. This acting in the people's role placed the choice on the people themselves: it was they who had to bear or not bear the yoke. Although the verbal message stressed the divine activity in decreeing subservience to the Babylonians, the nonverbal display did not present the divine imposition of the yoke, only the people's responsibility to wear it.171 Thus the nonverbal display stressed the optional nature of the behavior and focused on the audience's role in the decision-making process. 171. This contrasts with Hananiah's action in which Hananiah functioned in the divine role, so that the nonverbal display became totally God's action without any human responsibility or involvement.


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Even though Jeremiah initially addressed the foreign emissaries, the primary rhetorical concern was undoubtedly to persuade the Judahites not to participate nor to have confidence in any attempts of rebellion. When addressing the foreign ambassadors, Jeremiah was employing a form of indirect address with respect to the Judahite audience which is presumed to have overheard his speech to the foreigners (cf. v. 13). Jeremiah's initial message was explicitly addressed and applicable to the foreign nations, not to Judah. But by first speaking to the foreign representatives, Jeremiah was able to express indirectly the message to the Judahites who were opposed to the position Jeremiah espoused. Certainly Jeremiah's castigation of the foreign prophets (vv. 9-10) and the declaration that they were prophesying falsely may not have been reacted to in an overly negative manner by many of the Judahites, for, after all, those foreign prophets were non-Yahwists who certainly could be wrong. So the initial address to the foreign ambassadors should have helped to alleviate some of the negative reactions to the message in contrast to what might have happened had Jeremiah come out and only confronted the Judahite political leaders and prophets without such a preparatory indirect address. The movement from the indirect address to the direct address thus placed the application to his immediate audience in a final climactic position. As he spoke to the foreign ambassadors, the implied message of that indirect address for the Judahites was clearly that they too should not participate in the efforts to throw off the Babylonian yoke. Those implications were not left for the audience to draw by themselves but were explicitly stated as Jeremiah shifted from indirect to direct address when he spoke to Zedekiah and the people (vv. 12-22). The conclusion which Jeremiah wanted the Judahite audience to draw was stated in unequivocal terms: the same message which was addressed to the foreign kings was addressed to Jeremiah's own nation. As noted above, the nonverbal action only displayed the advocated option, while the accompanying verbal declarations placed the whole issue into the theological realm. The choice which the people would make had ramifications far beyond just the political consequences since it involved the people's covenant relationship with God. The 'other prophets' were declaring that to cast off the yoke would be the politically and theologically expedient thing to do. As such, they maintained that one still bore God's yoke while casting off the Babylonians' yoke. But Jeremiah admonished that to continue wearing the Babylonian yoke

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was the only means to continue wearing God's yoke. This theological element served as an argument from authority. It was the divine will that the Judahites continue under Babylonian hegemony. The advocated position in the nonverbal display was not Jeremiah's private counsel, but a divine mandate. 4. Remembrance. The time period over which Jeremiah wore the yoke and continued thereby to proclaim his message of submission is not known. But certainly it can be assumed that Jeremiah continued this method of nonverbal communication on a daily basis for some time until the confrontation with Hananiah (ch. 28).172 During this period of wearing the yoke, it can be assumed that Jeremiah also took advantage of the opportunity to proclaim messages verbally which either reiterated the yoke imagery or gave variations on that theme which emphasized other aspects of the subservience.173 Through Jeremiah's repeated act of wearing the yoke, he made the action more memorable. Whenever he was seen with the yoke bound to his neck, the message was once again placed before the people. The remembrance of his message was also aided by his employment of a common item, an ox-yoke, and even more so, by the fact that his action had depicted a common figure of speech. Any verbal reference to that image or any observation of yokes literally being used by oxen, provided the allusion to Jeremiah's action which could have brought his message of submission into the conscious cognitive realm. 1.6.3 Audience Response. In 28.1-4,174 10-11 is recounted Hananiah's response to Jeremiah's nonverbal behavior.175 Hananiah's response cor172. There is no reason to assume that the incidents of chs. 27 and 28 occurred on the same day. 173. Verses 16-22 may be such an example of one of the variant, but related, themes of submission to the Babylonians which Jeremiah proclaimed during this period. Verses 16-22 do not constitute a direct interpretation of the wearing of the yoke, but a complementary message focusing on a different subject (the Temple vessels). Yet the starting point of that message, as indicated in v. 17, was the yoke. 174. Some commentators consider vv. 2-4 to be later expansions which were incorporated into the account of Hananiah's response (cf. Hossfeld and Meyer 1973: 90-93; Martin-Achard 1977: 53-54; Roulet and Bonvin 1985: 151-52; Wanke 1971: 31, 34-36), partially on the basis that a sign-act's explanation occurs after the action, not before (cf. Hossfeld and Meyer 1973: 94). But there is no basis for that kind of assumption about the fixity of the temporal coordination of the nonverbal and verbal elements (see Chapter 3 §5.1).


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relates directly with Jeremiah's accusations against the other prophets (compare 28.3 to 27.16; 29.8-10) who were presenting the people with a hope of an imminent return from exile which implied the imminent demise of Babylon, and who were advocating Judahite participation in the attempt to revolt. As part of the prophetic group which was voicing the popular sentiments, Hananiah's reaction can be considered paradigmatic of the response of the broader audience to Jeremiah's message on this occasion.176 Thus, when considering Hananiah's actions as exclusively 'audience response', Hananiah can be classified as a type of 'mimetic-orator' whose function 'is not to shape an audience's beliefs and disbeliefs but to reflect them. He is the spokesman, official or unofficial, of some group in society, and his discourses may be taken as expressing the mind of that group' (Black 1978: 167). Black (1978: 173-74) makes the distinction between a prophet and a mimetic-orator: while both may express ideas which coincide with the auditors' opinions, the prophet is regarded by the group as the source of or motivat-

Other commentators have argued for the originality of the verses, or at least vv. lb-3a (cf. Duhm 1901: 216-17; Schreiner 1984: 164-65; 1987: 1-3). There is no reason to assume that vv. 2-4 do not reflect Hananiah's sentiments and motives for breaking the yoke. 175. At this juncture, only Hananiah's attitudinal response to Jeremiah's message is dealt with as 'audience response'. In Chapter 1 §5.2.2 it has already been argued that Hananiah's action was not one of countering any inherent power or efficaciousness attributed to Jeremiah's action, but rather a rhetorical sign-act in its own right. Therefore Hananiah's action could be analyzed as a nonverbal communication event, with Jeremiah's responses (28.5-9, 12-16) analyzed as the 'audience response' to Hananiah. Cf. Overholt's (1977: 139-43; 1989: 56-58) analysis of Jeremiah's and Hananiah's interaction as a 'proclamation-feedback-proclamation' sequence, and Lundbom's (1991: 21-22) analysis of the classical rhetorical arguments employed by Jeremiah in his response. 176. The dialogue between Jeremiah and Hananiah involved the issue of prophetic conflict between 'true' and 'false' prophets. (On the theology and sociology of prophetic conflict in Jer. 28, besides the commentaries, see Carroll 1976; 1981: 181-89; Goldenberg 1982; Hester 1982: 290-304; Hossfeld and Meyer 1973: 90103; Long 1981a, 1981b; Lys 1979; Manahan 1980b; Martin-Achard 1977; Mottu 1976; Osswald 1962; Overholt 1967; 1970: 24-48; 1977; Quell 1952: 43-67; Roulet and Bonvin 1985; Sanders 1977; Seebass 1970; Sheppard 1988; Wilson 1980: 25051; 1984b: 67-80.) But the issue dealt with here will not be that of Hananiah as a 'false' prophet, rather, his reaction as demonstrative of the broader audience's attitudes.

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ing influence on their opinions, while the mimetic-orator only pronounces the tenets of the group's common doctrine. Hananiah is certainly functioning here in the religious role of a prophet, but from the perspective of 'audience response' in communication theory, he also functions as a mimetic orator in that he expresses the views previously given to the group and already held by a significant segment of it. That Hananiah's response was based on the basic premises of the popular theology is evident from the issues which were stressed: the land (e.g. the unequivocal emphasis on 'this place' in 28.3, 4), the Temple (28.3),177 the Davidic monarchy (28.4), and the covenantal relationship of God with his people. Although not explicitly stated, Hananiah, in presenting the divine activity, was drawing upon the traditions of God salvationally fighting on behalf of his people. It was God who, in the past, had broken the yoke of Judah's enemies and removed the bonds (Jer. 2.20), broken the yoke of Egypt (Lev. 26.13), and removed Assyria's yoke (Isa. 10.27; 14.25; cf. also Nah. 1.13). Because of the covenant relationship, Hananiah viewed God as Judah's ally which meant deliverance for Jerusalem. The conflict between Jeremiah and Hananiah, and thereby the larger audience, was not between two divergent religious traditions, but over what specific tenets of the tradition were to be stressed and applied to the specific historical circumstances.178 For even Jeremiah in 30.8 177. Presumably tantamount in the people's thinking, as indicated by 27.16-22, was also the restoration of the Temple vessels which had been taken in the 597 BCE captivity. On the functioning of the passages in chs. 27-28 which deal with the Temple vessels as part of the 'continuity theme' in which the vessels' restoration re-establishes continuity of the cultus which has been disrupted by the events of 597 BCE, see Ackroyd 1987. Some consider 27.16-22 to be later, even postexilic additions to the text because of the emphasis on the cultic vessels (cf. Hossfeld and Meyer 1973: 102-103; Martin-Achard 1977: 53-54; Roulet and Bonvin 1985: 151-52; Schreiner 1984: 162-64: 1987: 9-11; Wanke 1971: 27, 33-34). But there is no reason to deny such a concern to the period between 597 and 586 BCE. 178. Long (198la) seeks to define the prophetic conflict in more political terms (48) reflective of the pro- or anti-Babylonian affiliation of Jeremiah and Hananiah. Although the prophets may have been respectively so politically oriented, such a political alignment on their part, according to the biblical witness, did not stem from purely political motives, but rather was based on their underlining theological presuppositions. Therefore their conflict is considered here to have been over religious ideology which had political ramifications.


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prophesied that God would act as Hananiah prophesied. But that expectation, according to Jeremiah was not applicable to this particular historical situation. Thus, it was the misapplication of specific theological presuppositions to the current Babylonian domination which Jeremiah perceived as the exigence which needed to be rhetorically addressed by his wearing the yoke. Hananiah's response undoubtedly reflects how deeply the popular theology held sway over the people. Thus any message which did not emphasize God's deliverance of the people and the preservation of the land, the Temple and the Davidic monarchy was rejected and countered by a further entrenchment into the popular theology's positions. Theories which deal with the motivational aspects of persuasion show 'that there is a strong tendency for people to maintain consonance (consistency) among the elements of a cognitive system' (Petty and Cacioppo 1981: 126). Thus whenever a person's belief system is presented with a message which challenges an aspect of that belief system, thereby causing cognitive disequilibrium (dissonance) and tension, the person is motivated to restore the cognitive equilibrium through some manner. The dissonance may be eliminated through alteration of the belief system and behavior so as to adopt the conflicting position advocated by the rhetor.179 Or it may be eliminated through rejection of the Wilson (1980: 250-51; 1984b: 77-80), acknowledging the theological distinctions, argues that the roots of the conflict were sociological because Hananiah was a 'central' prophet while Jeremiah was a 'peripheral' prophet. For arguments against Wilson's position, see Carroll (1986: 548), Hester (1982: 225-325) and Long (198la: 43-44) who argue that the proposed sociological distinctions cannot be substantiated. Mottu (1976), and similarly Gottwald (1981), attempt to define the conflict in socio-economic terms of a class struggle between the interests of the ruling class (represented by Hananiah) and the masses of the people (represented by Jeremiah). But such an alignment of the prophets with specific socio-economic viewpoints and such an understanding of the text according to Marxist ideology are speculations rather than derivations from the text. (For arguments against Mottu's position, see Carroll 1986: 548-49, and against Gottwald, see Long 1981b: 127-28.) 179. Carroll (1979: 194) views the position espoused by Hananiah in ch. 28 as an example of 'dissonance reduction by changing original cognition'. Prior to 597 BCE the prophets (including Hananiah) had predicted no deportation. But once that event had indeed occurred, their espoused position had to accommodate the reality of the circumstances. At the same time they would not totally abandon their previous perspective, but would only shift to an acknowledgment that the exile would be very brief.

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conflicting alternative, either by rationalizing that it is more profitable to maintain the already held position, or by strengthening the held position by selectively increasing favorable information. When the Judahites were presented with Jeremiah's message which challenged their belief system, they (as exemplified by Hananiah) responded in the latter manner of rejecting Jeremiah's option. Thus Hananiah strengthened the already held position through the additional prophetic confirmation that it correlated with God's intended activity (28.2-4, 11), and he reinforced a hopeful attitude through the reiteration of the view that restoration was imminent (e.g. 'in two years', 28.3, 11). Assuming Hananiah's response to Jeremiah's sign-act was representative of the audience, through the sign-act of the yoke Jeremiah apparently did not convince the people to abandon their theological presuppositions which, from Jeremiah's perspective, were instilling in the people a false sense of confidence and hope. Although the immediate political plans for revolt apparently did not materialize in 594— 593 BCE, and thus Jeremiah's advocated position of remaining subservient to the yoke of Babylon was for that current time followed, such may have been due to political realities or other factors and totally unrelated to any conscious effort to heed Jeremiah's advice. That the audience's theological and political perspectives persisted is evidenced in that a few years later (589 BCE) Jeremiah's advice was totally disregarded as Judah did revolt against Babylon. 1.7 Jeremiah 5L59-64am (LXX: 28.59-64a) 1.7.1 Communicative Meaning. This sign-act is dated to the fourth year of Zedekiah (594/593 BCE) when Seraiah,181 the 'tribute officer',182 180. Verse 64b, irPQT nm mn IS "Bin, should be seen as an editorial comment, not specifically related to the sign-act of vv. 59-64a. The phrase is appropriately lacking in LXX where the different placement of the oracles against Babylon does not make this the conclusion to the oracles against the nations or to the Jeremianic portion of the whole book. 181. According to Baruch's lineage in Jer. 32.12 (the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah), Seraiah and Baruch, Jeremiah's scribe, may have been brothers. A seal has been found which reads, 1HH] | imfo1? (Seraiah [son of] Neriah) (cf. Avigad 1978a: 56; 1978b; 1979: 118; King 1993: 97). The 'Seraiah' of the seal is possibly to be identified with the one in this passage. 182. Such is the LXX reading: dpxcov 5c6po>v. The Greek plural need not reflect a plural in the Vorlage, but rather the singular nran (cf. Budde 1878: 531; Holladay 1989: 432, 434; Lundbom 1986: 111), which is frequently used in the technical


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made a journey to Babylon (v. 59). The exact historical circumstances motivating the visit are not known,183 but significant for understanding the communicative purpose of Seraiah's nonverbal action are the broader, corresponding events and beliefs which constituted the rhetorical situation. As indicated in chs. 27-28, there was a renewed interest sense of 'tribute' that a vassal pays to its overlord (cf. Judg. 3.15, 17, 18; 2 Sam. 8.2, 6 = 1 Chron. 18.2, 6; 2 Kgs 17.3, 4; 2 Chron. 17.5, 11; 26.8; Hos. 10.6). Thus the LXX and MT stem from the same consonantal text, nrt]Q, which was understood with different vocalizations (respectively nrijQ and nrnp), and then in the MT came to be written plene, nrtlDD. The MT literally means 'officer of the resting place'. nni]Q is used in Num. 10.33 to designate the place of encampment when on a journey. According to that reading, Seraiah's function was that of quartermaster who was responsible for the bivouacking of the caravan or the troops in the evening, or more specifically for the king's well-being while on the journey, and was thus the king's chamberlain. The Syriac has il]nQ, 'camp', probably as a result of metathesis, but the meaning is essentially the same as the MT's. Either the MT's or the LXX's designation of Seraiah's function is possible. Other proposals are unconvincing. Godbey (1923: 100) suggests that the title 'chief producer of quiet' is the designation for a functionary of curse-rituals which Seraiah is assumed to have performed on this occasion. But in its biblical usage, niTDQ is never associated with divinatory practices. Based on niTOD in 1 Chron. 22.9 (cf. also 1 Kgs 8.56) being an antonym of non^D (v. 8), another proposal (cf. McKane 1995: 700; 1996: 1352, citing Ehrlich) is that Seraiah was an antiwar statesperson who was opposed to any rebellion attempts by Judah against Babylonia. 183. It is often suggested that the trip correlated with the events of chs. 27-28 during the summer of 593 BCE. As a result of the gathering of delegates in Jerusalem, Zedekiah was instructed to renew his loyalty to Babylon. If this was the case, there is the possibility, as indicated by the MT, that Zedekiah himself made the journey to appear before the Babylonian king. The LXX states that Seraiah 'went from' (J"!KQ) Zedekiah, in the sense of an official ambassador, so that Zedekiah may have only sent a royal delegation which did not involve his personal accompaniment. Others suggest that the purpose of the delegation's journey to Babylon was not directly related to the conference of Jer. 27. Rather, it may have correlated with Nebuchadnezzar's campaign into the region in 594 BCE and involved the payment of tribute monies. Because of Judah's tendency to seek Egyptian support, Zedekiah could have been obliged to pay his tribute in person. But even if that was the case, Zedekiah may have only presented himself to Nebuchadnezzar at the headquarters in Syria while Seraiah journeyed on to Babylon with the tribute (cf. Freedy and Redford 1970: 475). It is also possible that the journey was a diplomatic mission unrelated in any specific manner to either of those incidents.

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in Judah's independence, and even prophecies to that effect were being given that the Babylonian power would be destroyed in two years' time (cf. 28.3, 11). Those in Judah and the exiles in Babylon were emphasizing that the current timing, which they perceived as being auspicious for political rebellion, should be taken advantage of. In Babylon, Seraiah was to do four things as part of the total communication event: (1) read all the words concerning Babylon which Jeremiah had written down (v. 61); (2) verbally acknowledge the divine authority behind the words (v. 62); (3) perform the nonverbal action of casting the scroll, which was tied to a rock, into the Euphrates River (v. 63), and (4) verbally state the interpretation (v. 64a). Seraiah performed the action at the command of Jeremiah (v. 59) so that he was functioning as Jeremiah's official messenger.184 The reason for the task being delegated was practical: Jeremiah was not personally making the journey to Babylon. As a delegated messenger, the message was Jeremiah's, not Seraiah's, so that it carried the same authority and intentional communicative purpose as if performed by Jeremiah.185 Yet since the sign-act was performed by a representative who was not a prophet in his own right, the account does reflect slight differences in the message's presentation than if it had been performed by the prophet himself. 1. Reading of the scroll (verse 61). Jeremiah sent his oracle of Babylon's doom with Seraiah in a single186 scroll (v. 60). The specific content of the written prophecy is not given, but the sentiment, viewpoint and intent of the message must have been similar to those expressed in 50.1-51.58.187 184. In v. 59, the LXX is explicit that Jeremiah's command to Seraiah was a divine commission: 'the word which the Lord commanded the prophet Jeremiah to say to Seraiah'. 185. On a form-critical analysis of Jer. 51.59-64 as 'prophetic delegation', see Schmidt 1982: 213. 186. "irTN "1DO: the adjectival designation as a 'single' scroll is uncertain whether 'one' is an intentional contradistinction to the many scrolls written by Jeremiah which formed the main collection, or only an expression of indefiniteness, 'a scroll'. Budde (1878: 546; cf. also Wanke 1971: 137) understands the phrase to mean 'a single sheet' (Blatt), but such is based on his view of the shortness of the contents. The length of the scroll is not known and may easily have been more than a single piece of papyrus. 187. Verse 60b, 'all these words [which are] written concerning Babylon', seems to link the content of the scroll with the oracles against Babylon in 50.1-51.58.


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The purpose for writing down the oracles against Babylon was twofold. First, it served the practical function of being a manner of transmitting the message via a delegated messenger. The text attaches no 'magical' significance to the prophecies being written down. There is no reason to a priori assume that in this case the transmission in written form served other than a practical function similar to the written correspondences of Jer. 29.1, 29, and 2 Kgs 20.12. Since Jeremiah was not traveling to Babylon where he could orally deliver the message, the exact transmission of the message was assured through the message being written down. Secondly, the scroll then served as the artifact which figuratively stood for Babylon in the nonverbal action of sinking it in the river. Seraiah was to read (K~lp) the scroll upon his arrival in Babylon. Since in the ancient Near East, all reading was done aloud, excluded is the interpretation that Seraiah read the scroll inaudibly to himself. The text does not explicitly indicate whether the scroll was to be read in the hearing of an audience. Yet the cumulative evidence suggests that an Some consider that preceding passage (or the authentic materials therein) to have been the scroll's content (cf. Buzy 1923: 155; Holladay 1989: 433-34; Keown, Scalise and Smothers 1995: 373; Lundbom 1986: 103). Yet the majority of commentators view v. 60b as a later editorial insertion made after vv. 59-64a had been joined to 50.1-51.58. If the latter is the case, then 50.1-51.58, considered by some to be a compilation of materials incorporating post-Jeremianic material, would not have been the specific contents of the scroll. Lundbom (1986: 101-104, 107) understands vv. 59-64 as an 'extended colophon' to chs. 50-51 which was attached to the scroll containing those chapters when Seraiah made a copy prior to throwing the original in the Euphrates. Clearly vv. 59-64 form a literary conclusion to chs. 50-51, and thereby function in a colophonic manner of authenticating the preceding words. But to classify vv. 59-64 as Seraiah's 'extended colophon' to the scroll which he copied, is extending the meaning of 'colophon' beyond its form-critical boundaries and inferring too many elements which are not explicit in the passage. The literary genre is not that of a colophon but a narration of a delegated sign-act. The account contains no reference to Seraiah making a copy of the scroll, and Lundbom assumes that 50.1-51.58 were the contents of that scroll without even broaching the possibility of vv. 59-64a being a separate narrative which was only editorially attached to the preceding. The only part of vv. 59-64 which can technically be classified as a 'colophon' is the phrase at the end of v. 64: 'Up to here are the words of Jeremiah' (cf. Gevaryahu 1970: 369; 1975: 56). Yet Lundbom (1986: 109) takes this to be a later editorial addition thereby weakening his own argument. For without v. 64b, vv. 59-64a lack the specific characteristics of colophonic language.

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audience is presupposed. This is partially based on the fact that elsewhere in Jeremiah when N~)p is used with respect to the written word it always signifies a reading aloud in the presence of an audience (cf. Jer. 29.29; 36.6, 8, 10, 13, 14, 15, 21, 23). Also the commands in 51.59-61 parallel those of 36.4-6 for Baruch to read the scroll in the Temple: (1) specification of a delegated representative (51.59 // 36.4a); (2) notation of the writing down of the message (51.60 // 36.4b); (3) command for the messenger to read the words (51.61: n^KH Dnmn HN ntOpl // 36.6: mrr nm n«...n«np1). The only difference is that in 36.6 the audience is explicitly mentioned (Dm "ONO). But in 36.8, in the summation report of the execution of the reading, there is no reference to auditors, and such is only made explicit in the following detailed account in vv. 9-19. The parallel structure with 36.4-6 supports the conclusion that 51.59-64a is to be understood according to the typical account form of the delegated reading of a message, and that auditors are presumed to be present at the execution of the commands of 51.5964a even though their presence is not explicitly mentioned. 2. Verbal acknowledgment of the divine authority (verse D^n (24.27) should not be understood as indicatives but injunctives. This understanding is reinforced by the parallel structure of 3.26a and 3.27a: v. 26a. v. 27a.

a. And I shall make your tongue cleave to your palate, b. and you shall be speechless; a'. I will open your mouth, b'. and you will speak unto them.

In 3.27, the release from the speechlessness (a') enables Ezekiel to speak, but the actual speaking is a wilful act by Ezekiel, and therefore enjoined upon him (b'). The parallel structure points to the imposition of the speechlessness (3.26a) being understood in a similar manner that God enabled Ezekiel to be speechlessness (a), but that the actual nonspeaking was a wilful act by Ezekiel himself (b). Thus the emphasis on the divine imposition of the speechlessness does not negate the aspect of the condition being a voluntary self-imposition by the prophet. Rather, the stress on the divine participation can be understood as a stylistic way of stating that the divine ability was given to Ezekiel to fulfil this difficult nonverbal behavior over the required, extended period of time.235 3. Duration of the speechlessness. If the speechlessness were literal, as maintained here, then the question arises as to when the speechless behavior began. The present arrangement of the passages within the book suggests that it commenced at the beginning of Ezekiel's prophetic ministry and continued until news of the fall of Jerusalem reached him some seven-and-a-half years later. But some commentators have questioned that chronology and have maintained that 3.2527 has been placed in its present literary position for theological reasons so as to incorporate into the prophetic call some aspect of Ezekiel's ministry (e.g. his suffering [cf. Brownlee 1986: xxxviii, 54-57; Eichrodt 1970: 75-76, 348]236 or the difficulty of the task [cf. Wevers 1969: 29])

235. See the similar coordination of divine enabling and human carrying out of the action in 3.8-9 where in response to the people's obstinacy, God gives to Ezekiel a stony disposition equal to the people, yet Ezekiel is also commanded not to be afraid. 236. This position is summarized by Roehrs (1958: 183).

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which only became evident at a later period.237 Or, its literary position serves as an apologetic explaining why the prophet did not function as an intercessor to help thwart the divine wrath (cf. Wilson 1972: 104). 3.25-27 is thus considered either an editorial fabrication based on 24.25-27238 or an actual part of that text which was editorially moved to its present location.239 Thus the speechlessness of Ezekiel was a continuously permanent condition, but only from the period of 24.25-27 to that of 33.21-22. As such, most often the speechlessness has been understood as a dumbness, not a voluntary abstention, resulting from the emotional trauma of his wife's death,240 of waiting for the news of Jerusalem's fall (cf. Lindblom 1962: 198-99), of having already prophetically received the news from God (cf. Matheney 1965: 272; Vogt 1981: 99-101), of actually receiving the news from the human survivor (cf. Bertholet 1897: 130), or an ecstatic dumbness (cf. Wevers 1969: 52, 178-79). Thus the dumbness was continuous, but only for at most two years based on the dates of 24.1 and 33.21. Against the rearrangement of the text as proposed above is the fact that if 3.25-27 is considered an editorial fabrication, then neither in 24.25-27 nor in 33.21-22 is there any statement of the onset of the speechlessness, rather it is an already assumed condition. The omission of reference to its onset seems unlikely. The assumption that 3.25-27, 24.25-27, and 33.21-22 (or portions thereof) at one time constituted a single literary unit, obviates the above argument. But it is not logical for a coherent original account to have been fragmentized to the degree in which it is presently found in the texts (cf. Greenberg 1958: 102). Also, not all of the difficulties are removed by the assumption of a 237. Cf. Hals 1989: 26. Komlosh (1973) links 3.24-27 chronologically with Ezekiel's call, but then argues that the injunctions and prohibitions did not express instruction to the prophet but descriptively hinted at the future prophetic ministry. Such a position is unsatisfactory since the injunctions of 3.24-27 occur in the midst of other instructions which were to be immediately carried out (3.22-23; 4.1-5.4), and if 3.26-27 does not indicate the time of the speechlessness' commencement, then there is no other specification of such in the book. 238. Cf. Eichrodt 1970: 75-76; Garscha 1974: 85-86; Holscher 1924: 55-59; Wevers 1969: 52-53; Wilson 1972: 93, 104; Zimmerli 1979: 161. 239. Cf. Brownlee 1978: 394-95; 1986: xxxviii, 55-58, 93; Cooke 1936: 46-47; Fohrer 1952b: 30, 47, 254; 1955: 25; Fuhs 1984: 30-31; Te Stroete 1977: 173; Vogt 1981:33-35,93-98. 240. Cf. Bewer 1936: 114-15; Brownlee 1986: xxxiv, 56, 58, 93 (along with suppressed grief and fear for his personal safety); Eichrodt 1970: 33.


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continuously permanent condition between the time of 24.25-29 and that of 33.21-26. There are numerous verbalized prophecies against the nations (Ezek. 26.1; 29.1; 30.20; 31.1) dated between the date of 24.1 and that of 33.21, which thereby necessitates dating the onset of the speechlessness only after the third month of the eleventh year of the exile (Ezek. 31.1).241 Clearly the intent of the extant text is that the speechlessness started at the beginning of Ezekiel's ministry and ended when he received the news of the fall of Jerusalem. Most of the arguments for not accepting the chronology implied by the textual arrangement of the passages revolve around the assumption that the speechlessness was a type of dumbness which was permanent in nature. But that the speechlessness need not be understood as a physical dumbness has already been demonstrated. 4. Condition of the speechlessness: continuous or intermittent. The continuous or intermittent nature of the speechlessness, besides being based on presuppositions about its nature and duration, is dependent upon the interpretation of ''""CH?') in 3.27 as to whether it is iterative, 'whenever 1 speak', or durative, 'when (i.e. the next time) 1 speak'. In the former sense the verse means that Ezekiel's speechlessness was interrupted and nullified whenever Yahweh gave to the prophet a divine word to utter. In the latter sense, the speechlessness was uninterrupted in its duration. In its present context, the phrase must be understood in the iterative sense since the interpretation of a continuous speechlessness is nullified by the numerous prophecies in chs. 4-33 which are explicitly or implicitly dated between the beginning of Ezekiel's ministry and the time

241. Cf. Roehrs 1958: 183-84. Aware of this difficulty, Fohrer (1955: 25; 1968: 66-67) dates the beginning of the speechlessness after the Egypt oracles (30.20-26; 31.1-18) and Vogt (1981: 100) from the date of the city's fall to the reception of the report (about six months). Bewer (1936: 114-15), Hals (1989: 240), Wevers (1969: 178-79), and Zimmerli (1969: 149; 1983: 193) view the speechlessness as lasting only the one evening mentioned in 33.22. But this latter position results from the supposition that only 33.22 is original and that 3.25-27 and 24.25-27 are completely editorial fabrications (cf. Wevers; Zimmerli) or that 24.18-27 and 33.22 refer to two sequential days (cf. Bewer). But such a brief time span of one evening, during a typically, nonspectator period, especially if confined to his house as Zimmerli maintains, would not have had enough of an audience impact for the event to be described as a 'sign' for the people.

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of the arrival of the news of Jerusalem's fall. The only way the interpretation of a continuous speechlessness during that extended period can be maintained is to argue that all of the prophecies which are attributed to that period were not delivered orally but were either written down by the prophet (cf. Robinson 1923: 147), or were all inventions stemming from a later period and then subsequently attributed to the preceding period (cf. Buttenwieser 1930: 4). The difficulty with the latter view is that the prophecies of chs. 4-24 anticipate the destruction of the Jerusalem and would be irrelevant to the exile's situation after such had occurred. The former interpretation, that the prophecies were exclusively written compositions, flounders on the presentations of the prophecies themselves. They are expressed, not in terms of writing, but of speaking. In the injunctions to prophesy, ~IQN was used (6.3, 11; 12.23, 28; 13.2, 18; 14.6; 16.3; 17.3, 9, 12; 19.2; 21.3, 8, 14, 33; 22.3, 24; 24.3, 21; in the oracles against the nations: 25.3; 27.3; 28.2, 12, 22; 29.3; 30.2; 31.2; 32.2). There are reports of Ezekiel actually speaking to the people (Hin: 11.25; 24.18; "ION: 24.20). The prophet was enjoined to carry on verbal dialogues with the people after they had inquired of him (12.9-10; 14.1, 4; 20.1, 3; 21.12; 24.19-20). The people are reported to have 'heard' his voice (33.30-32). Thus the position of a continuous, permanent speechlessness from the beginning of his ministry is not textually tenable.242 Yet some interpret 3.27 as being a later editorial comment inserted after the present placement of 3.25-26 so as to elevate the discrepancy with the numerous verbal prophecies which follow (cf. Cooke 1936: 47; Wevers 1969: 53). But such reasoning is circular based on the assumption that 3.25-26 are editorial insertions based on the assumption that the speechlessness must be a literal dumbness which was of a continuous nature. When the speechlessness is understood as a voluntary abstention, then the iterative nature of v. 27 is acceptable as an intrinsic 242. Torrey (1970: 39), in maintaining a literal, yet continuous, speechlessness at the beginning of the ministry, argues that 24.25-27 and 33.21-22 are editorial. Thus he maintains that the speechlessness only lasted through the period of the sign-acts of chs. 4-5 (similarly Odell 1998: 246). Yet there is no record of its cessation outside of 24.25-27 and 33.22. Likewise his contention that both of those passages are purely editorial is linked to his position that they give a Babylonian setting to what he considers an original setting in Judah. Such a setting in Judah, and therefore the basis for assuming the passages to be editorial, has been refuted on other grounds and is no longer generally accepted.


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part of the original command, and the textual arrangement assumes that the point of the speechlessness' commencement was at the beginning of Ezekiel's prophetic career. There is no reason that 3.27 must have a durative sense. In the watchman commands of 3.18 and 33.8, which constitute along with 3.22-27 a clarification of Ezekiel's prophetic role, there is a similar construction: 'when I speak to the wicked' ("HOND). In those passages, the form does not mean that God will speak only once more to the wicked or that the prophet's obligation was fulfilled with the utterance of just the next prophetic warning. That parallel construction helps substantiate an iterative meaning of •"Dim in 3.27. Since there are no inherent difficulties which a priori negate understanding Ezekiel's speechlessness according to the intent of the passages as they now stand, this study assumes that Ezekiel's speechlessness was a voluntary abstention, carried out through the enablement of God, which spanned the initial period of his ministry (c. 593-586 BCE). The imposition of speechlessness was lifted throughout the seven-year period whenever Ezekiel was divinely compelled to utter a prophetic message. The speechlessness thus means that Ezekiel still verbally prophesied, but that he did not carry on any nonprophetic conversation with those around him.243 5. Function: communicative or informative.The questions still remain as to whether the speechlessness and the release from such communicated specific message-contents, and, if so, what were those communicated messages. To find the answer to the first question, appeal is made to the term 'sign' which is used in 24.27 to describe Ezekiel in his release from the speechlessness. Elsewhere whenever Ezekiel referred to himself as a HS1Q, it always meant that the activity bore a message-content through simile-form: 'just as I have done, so should/will the people do' (cf. 12.6, 11; 24.24). There is no reason to assume that the designation has another meaning when referring to the release from speechlessness.244 Thus the appli243. Cf. Greenberg 1983: 121; Taylor 1969: 27, 73-74; Tromp 1986: 21 244. Bertholet (1897: 130), Holscher (1924: 131), Keil (1976:1, 352) argue that the term 'sign' in this passage must be construed differently from its use elsewhere in Ezekiel, and thus did not refer to Ezekiel's specific behavior of speechlessness but to the whole of his ministry which had happened and would yet happen. In light of the consistent Ezekielian use of the term, to understand the use in this single instance as an exception is unwarranted. When the totality of Ezekiel's prophetic

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cation of the term 'sign' (24.27) to the release from speechlessness indicates not only its observable nature, but also its communicative value. Although the speechlessness bore a message-content regarding the breakdown of the dialogue between the people and God, in the literary accounts the precise meaning of the behavior is not interpreted. Did Ezekiel perform in the role of God to portray the divine silence toward the people, or in the role of the people to display the manner in which the people should be relating to God? Many have assumed that the speechlessness reflected the former: God was silent and hidden which signified his disfavor toward the people (cf. Amos 8.11-12; Lam. 2.9).245 The difficulties with that interpretation are: (1) in the book, God is nowhere else presented as being nonspeaking and silent. God is only presented as being unresponsive to the people's inquiries, unless he deemed otherwise. In fact, in this disrupted dialogue, it was only God who was to do the speaking in unsolicited monologues. (2) Similarly in the coordinated negation of the role of 'mediator' (3.26), Ezekiel could no longer function on the people's behalf. He was still clearly functioning in the divine role as a rebuker of the people. (3) The word 'sign' (naiQ), when applied explicitly to Ezekiel, always refers to the prophet acting representationally in the role of the people and not of God.246 Thus the designation as a 'sign' always meant that Ezekiel was performing behavior which either was being enjoined on the people or would be imitated by them: 'just as I have done, so should/will the people do'. All of these arguments lead to the conclusion that, on the communicative level, the speechlessness was a representational expression ministry was spoken of as having an interactive impact, DS1Q was not used, but rather the general description that the people 'would know that there had been a prophet in their midst' (33.33). Since elsewhere in Ezekiel, the referent of HS1Q was the prophet when performing a specific behavior, such an understanding should be maintained for 24.27 (with reference specifically to his speechlessness). 245. Cf. Allen 1994: 61; Brownlee 1986: 57; Buzy 1923: 217-18; Fohrer 1952b: 30; 1955: 25-26; 1968: 66-67; Garner 1980: 188; Greenberg 1983: 120-21; Janzen 1981: 108; Konig 1892: 653, 657; 1904: 175-76; Roehrs 1958: 182-83; Stacey 1990: 179-80; Tromp 1986: 210. 246. In 4.3, when the divine disposition was being displayed along with the model siege, the whole event is referred to as an HIK, thus linguistically differentiating it from Ezekiel being the 'sign'.


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about the people's behavior: just as the prophet was speechless, so they should be in relationship with God. Ezekiel was not demonstrating that the people were speechless in the sense that they had given up in attempting to speak to God, rather, in light of their iniquity, they should be silent and no longer assume a normal dialogic relationship with God. Clearly throughout the book, the breakdown in the dialogue between God and the people is ascribed to the latter's sins (cf. 14.3-11; 22.3031). Although 16.63 is not referring to the action of Ezekiel's speechlessness, the passage does exemplify the kind of meaning ascribed in Ezekiel to the nonverbal behavior of 'not having an opening of the mouth'. There it is stated that an acknowledgement of their sin should force the people into a speechlessness (HQ jinns ill) "]*? nTP KL?'))247 which outwardly displayed their humiliation. Thus, Ezekiel's speechlessness not only demonstrated to the people what their overt participation in the divine-human relationship should be, but it also connotated the motivating disposition, which in this case was one of shame. Just as he was speechless, so should they be as they took responsibility for their sins. The people's role in the human-divine relationship at that juncture was to be one of listening, not of speaking. Commands to listen (cf. Ezek. 6.3; 16.35; 18.25; 21.3) correlated to the prohibition to be speechless as they expressed the people's part in the dialogic relationship.248 Speech was now to flow only unidirectionally from God to the people in monologue discourse, with the latter silently and attentively hearing, and then appropriately responding in behavioral obedience. The message expressed by Ezekiel's act of speechlessness ran directly counter to the people's beliefs at that time: they felt that they had every right to continue the dialogue with God. That the people continued to participate in the dialogic relationship as if nothing was wrong is evident from their numerous inquiries (i.e. acts of speaking to God) 247. Variations of the Hebrew phrase HD + nns always refer to the act of speaking. Thus there is no reason to interpret (contra Kennedy 1991) HE3 }inns in Ezek. 16.63 as a technical designation regarding the ceremony of opening an idol's mouth so as to be the source of oracles, and understand 16.63 to mean that the Jerusalemites would no longer practice that cultic ritual. 248. Throughout Ezekiel, there is an emphasis on the people's role as listeners (e.g. 3.27b; 2.5, 7; 3.11; 20.39). But just as the people were not being speechless in Iheir communication relationship with God, so too they were not being effective listeners (cf. 3.7; 12.2; 33.30-32).

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as found in Ezek. 14.1-11 and 20.1-3, The speechlessness was therefore a contrastive display which provided an indictment against the people by demonstrating to them what their proper attitude should be. Throughout chs. 4-24, with the exception of the questions when the people asked about the meanings of Ezekiel's sign-acts, the people's 'speaking' was always presented in a negative manner. When they spoke to God in inquiry (cf. 14.1-11; 20.1-3), they were told that such was inappropriate because of their inward sinfulness. Whatever the people said in describing God's attitudes or intentions was refuted as being misspoken (cf. 8.12; 9.9; 11.3, 15; 12.22, 27; 18.2, 19, 25, 29; 20.32; 21.5). Whenever the 'false' prophets spoke, they were accused by Ezekiel of speaking without divine revelation (cf. 13.2, 6, 7, 10; 22.28). Thus in chs. 4-24, the people's 'speaking' in relationship to God is presented as being inappropriate, thus correlating with the message of Ezekiel's speechlessness that the people should not be speaking in normal, unrestricted dialogue with God. 1.8.2 Communicative Meaning of the Release from Speechlessness Ezekiel 24.25-27 recounts the prophet being foretold that the divinely imposed restraint of voluntary speechlessness would come to an end (v. 27) subsequent to the destruction of Jerusalem (v. 25) when the news of that disaster was reported to Ezekiel (v. 26).249 In 33.21-22, the 249. The construction in vv. 25, 26, and 27 of Sinn DV3...«inn DV3...DV3 reflects a collapsing of the time references between the event of the city's destruction and the survivor arriving with the news for Ezekiel and the exiles. The same collapsing of time between event and reception of news or reaction to the event is found in other Ezekiel prophecies. In 26.18, the coastlands will tremble 'on the day' of Tyre's fall. But the coastlands are all of those with whom Tyre had carried on sea trade, many of which were too distant to be aware of the city's fall on the very day of its occurrence. In 32.9-10, 'on the day' of Egypt's fall, lands which Egypt does not know (clearly farther away than one day's journey) would be appalled and afraid. Cf. also 30.9. In each of those cases, the reaction to the event is presented as occurring within the same time reference, although the reaction would not occur until some time after the event when awareness of the event occurred. Similarly in 24.25-27, DTD must be understood as a general time period rather than a literal 24-hour day. Such precludes having to understand Ezekiel's locale as Palestine so as to receive the news on the very day of the city's fall (contra Herntrich 1933: 112-13), or that Ezekiel expected a supernatural transport of the messenger from Jerusalem to Babylonia on the very same day of the city's fall (contra Halperin 1993: 196-98). Such also means that Sinn in v. 26 need not be


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narrative of the cessation of the speechlessness is given.250 Just as the injunction to be speechless had been received in a vision (3.22-24a), so too the return to normalcy in speaking was accompanied by a visionary experience on the evening before the news of Jerusalem's destruction arrived (33.22a). When the survivor 251 arrived in Tel Abib with the news that Jerusalem had fallen some six months previously,252 Ezekiel

deleted to make vv. 25 and 26 refer to two separate days (contra Cooke 1936: 273, 276; Eichrodt 1970: 330; Fohrer 1952b: 86, 242-43; 1968: 143; Stacey 1990: 177; Wevers 1969: 144; Zimmerli 1979: 508). Likewise the whole of v. 26 need not be stricken as an addition based on 33.21 to reconcile the supposed time differences between the two passages (contra Fohrer 1951: 44; 1968: 65, 67; Garscha 1974: 84; Herntrich 1933: 114; Herrmann 1908: 26, 75-76; Holscher 1924: 131; Lang 1981b: 29, 73; Te Stroete 1977: 169; Wevers 1969: 143-44). 250. The question as to whether 24.25-27 (with modifications) was originally literarily joined with 33.21-22 is tangential to the purpose of this study and need not be resolved here. The position here taken is that 24.25-27 records the announcement of the speechlessness' end which the prophet received sometime prior to the actual release from such at the messenger's arrival. The message to the prophet in 24.25-27 may have occurred around the time of the prophet's wife's death (as its literary placement and the thematic linking through similar phraseology of vv. 21 and 25 indicate) or as late as the evening before the messenger's arrival. If the latter was the case, then 24.25-27 would have comprised part of the message-content of the vision mentioned in 33.22a. 251. CTÊJ refers not to someone who has fled from the city in an attempt to escape the siege and destruction, but rather to one who was delivered from the danger in the sense of being spared the fate of the city. This is clear from Ezek. 6.810 where the masculine noun (as here) refers to those carried away into the nations, and the feminine noun in 14.22, to those going into exile. Thus the messenger was most probably one of the exiles forcefully deported to Babylonia after the city's destruction rather than a fugitive who made the journey on his own. 252. The MT's 'twelfth year' (33.21) can be retained with only a six months lapse between Jerusalem's destruction and the survivor's arrival in exile on the basis that either a vernal calendar was used in Ezekiel while the date of the city's fall in Jeremiah and Kings (cf. Jer. 39.2; 52.5-6; 2 Kgs 25.2-3), in the 'eleventh year of Zedekiah', was based on an autumnal calendar, or that there was precisely a one year difference because the Ezekiel calendric calculations were based on the years of exile and not Zedekiah's reign so the first year of the exile equalled the accession year (year zero) of Zedekiah (cf. Allen 1990: 152; Freedy and Redford 1970: 468; Greenberg 1958: 101; 1983: 11; 1997: 681; Kutsch 1985: 41-45; Lang 1981b: 39, 43; Vogt 1981: 100-101; Wevers 1969: 179). Therefore the emendation to 'eleventh', following the LXX, is unnecessary. The LXX's reading appears to be a harmonization with the dates in Jeremiah and Kings.

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was freed from the restrictions of speaking and was allowed to carry on normal conversation with the newsbearer (cf. 24.27: 'your mouth shall be opened with253 the survivor') and, from that point onward, with everyone else: 'And he [God] opened my mouth254 at [his, the newsbearer's255] coming to me in the morning, so that my mouth was opened and I was no longer speechless' (33.22b). Precisely at the point in time when the people felt that the dialogue with God had been shattered due to the loss of the Temple and Jerusalem (the cultic center for properly carrying out the dialogic relationship), the land (the proper locale for the dialogic relationship), the Davidic monarchy (the nonsacral, governmental avenue for the dialogic relationship) and the covenant (the whole basis for the dialogic relationship), Ezekiel through his normalcy in speaking proclaimed that the way was opening for the people to enter into dialogue with God freely and appropriately. On the communicative level, when Ezekiel returned to normal verbal interaction, he representationally portrayed, by performing in the role of the people, the future possibility of the people entering into dialogue with God. Ezekiel's renewal of speaking did not nonverbally depict that God was turning once again toward the people in a favorable disposition so as to speak with them, since it was not God who had previously refrained from speaking. Rather, it was the people who could once again speak with God. Previous to the destruction, the people's inquiries of God were deemed inappropriate and such attempts by the people at dialogue with God were cut short (cf. 14.1-11; 20.1-3). But after the destruction, as part of the restoration process, God would allow 253. B^SH PK: PK is not the direct object marker, but the preposition expressing association and temporal simultaneousness (cf. BOB 86a). In a communication interaction, PK signifies a dialogic relationship of mutual interaction rather than a monologic, static communication of speaker 'to' listener (cf. 3.22, 27 where God speaks 'with Ezekiel'). So here the meaning is that Ezekiel's mouth would be opened 'with' (i.e. in dialogue along with) the survivor'. 254. 33.22b CD PR np±n) does not connect with the preceding in the sense that in the evening before the survivor came God released Ezekiel from the speechlessness, but goes with the following RH ~Ii5. ~IU does not refer to the terminal point ('until'), but to concurrence in time (cf. BDB 724c) as in Judg. 3.26; Exod. 33.22; Job 7.19; Jon. 4.2, and 1 Sam. 14.19 (the latter two are also constructed with an infinitive). 255. KID must be understood either to have the third masculine suffix or be emended to have such.


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the people to speak to him (cf. 36.37) and he would honor their requests. The restoration would involve mutual dialogic interaction. The return to normal conversation correlated with the destruction of the city in that once the judgment had passed, the historical circumstances were set for the reestablishing of the dialogic relationship. The renewal of the dialogue with God was only one aspect of the new relationship which would emerge between God and his people, but Ezekiel's return to normalcy in verbal interaction metonymically stood for that new relationship in all of its facets. The timing of the release from speechlessness thus appropriately coincided with the change in emphasis of Ezekiel's messages which sought to inculcate the people with an attitude of hope for the future.256 Because Ezekiel's previous predictions of Jerusalem's fall were given credence by the historical events, the prophetic authority attributed to him by the people must have been heightened, thus making his forthcoming prophecies more credible and persuasively influential. But such issues were not communicatively transmitted by the return to normalcy in speaking, rather, they coincided with it. Although his enhanced credibility affected the interactive and informative levels in the prophet's subsequent message transmissions, the communicative message-content of the release from speechlessness was not that the prophet had gained a right to be heard or that he now had freedom to express his prophecies in a manner which he had been previously unable.257 The 256. Similarly in Isa. 35.6, one of the aspects of the new divine restorative work was that the dumb would be able to shout for joy. If during Ezekiel's time the motif of release from speechlessness was associated with a new divine work (as in Isa. 35.6), then this may be another case in which Ezekiel took a known verbal expression or motif and deliberately enacted it as a nonverbal behavior. 257. Contra Clark 1984: 294-95; Cooke 1936: 272; Greenberg 1983: 121; 1997: 513; Gronkowski 1937: 400; Klein 1988: 9; Taylor 1969: 183; Vogt 1981: 101102; Zimmerli 1969: 150; 1983: 194. The view that the release from speechlessness meant 'a right to be heard' or 'freedom to express prophecies in a new way' is based on HE) |inns in Ezek. 29.21 where the phrase can be understood as a metaphorical expression either meaning 'having a claim to be heard' in the sense that the ministry was now authenticated, or as having freedom of expression. Since 29.21 is not directly related to Ezekiel's speechlessness, and if dated with the preceding (vv. 17-20) it refers to a much later period, then the possible metaphorical use there does not obviate the literal understanding or the divergent communicative meaning of 'opening the mouth' in 3.26; 24.27; 33.22.

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communicated message was that the avenue was now open for the people once again to enter freely into the communication process with God, just as Ezekiel was now free to interact verbally with those around him.

\S3Rhetoric™ 1. Attention. Because of the informative aspect of the speechless behavior, whenever Ezekiel publicly spoke or nonverbally acted, the people were aware that he was doing so in the prophetic role since that was the only time he suspended his nonparticipation in verbal and social interaction. Whenever Ezekiel did speak, it should have drawn the people's attention because of the nature of their anticipation that what he said was a prophetic word. Since the distinction between whether Ezekiel was speaking in the prophetic role, or merely carrying on normal conversation, was resolved through the total refrainment from the latter, the focus of attention shifted onto the message-contents of the verbal pronouncements which were uttered.259 So while communicating a message-content through the speechlessness, Ezekiel, by the behavior, was also forcing the people to focus more attention upon the other prophetic messages which he proclaimed and enacted. 2. Comprehension. The reasons for and the meaning of the refrainment from normal verbal interaction were probably initially ambiguous to his fellow-exiles. Ezekiel had carried on normal conversation with those around him and then suddenly one day he ceased speaking with them. The people may have initially wondered whether he was suffering some kind of physical malady, whether he had been struck speechless by God as a reprimand for some misconduct, or whether he had decided, for some reason, to become a social recluse. Thus initially the behavior of speechlessness was ambiguous as to its meanings. Was it communicative of a prophetic message from God, or was it merely informative of Ezekiel's personal disposition? If communicative, was Ezekiel functioning in the role of God and thus reflecting God's not speaking? Yet how could that be reconciled to the fact that when the prophet spoke he was speaking the prophetic word, indicating God's ongoing speaking to the people? Were the speechlessness and seclusion 258. On the interactive functions of silence as nonverbal communication, see Bruneau 1973; Jensen 1973; Knapp 1978: 359-61. 259. Cf. Bruneau (1973: 35): 'when punctuated by long silences, words mean more'.


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forms of social protest reflecting God's or Ezekiel's anger? Or was Ezekiel modeling to the people what they should be doing? The nature of the message-content of the behavior was ambiguous, and, like other of the prophet's nonverbal actions, the uncertainty in meaning remained without further explanation from the prophet. Since in the book there is no specific interpretation of the behavior, it is uncertain whether Ezekiel explicitly defined the meaning for the people or whether he only made indirect references (cf. 16.63) thereby allowing the people to ascertain the meaning on their own. It may have been that in the silence of the speechlessness, Ezekiel allowed the people to ponder the nature of his action, and thereby created an ongoing inquisitiveness toward his behavior and verbal messages.260 3. Acceptance. In the pre-586 BCE period, Ezekiel's audience continued to speak to God as if the dialogue in the divine-human relationship still existed. In order to persuade the people that the dialogic relationship had indeed broken down because of their sinfulness and therefore that the only proper relationship was that of monologue by God to the people, Ezekiel used the dramatic demonstration of abstaining from dialogue with his fellow-exiles. One of the message strategies involved in the speechlessness was presenting contrastive behavior to that of the people's. As such, the people's behavior was brought under indictment, but in a subtle manner. Ezekiel's lack of conversation with them did not present an explicit frontal attack against the people's posture of inappropriate speaking, thus avoiding an initial negative reaction against the message, but attempted to persuade them gradually as they grappled with the action's ambiguity and then recognized the meaning of what he was nonverbally communicating. The message strategy of indictment through contrast was accompanied by the speaker strategy of performing in the role of the people. In that role, Ezekiel, as rhetor, should have created a closer bond and identification with the people. Any defensive attitude evoked by the indictment which was authoritatively presented through the prophetic role, was thus counterbalanced by the rhetor-audience identification. One of the speaker strategies which was employed was the high degree in which Ezekiel personally involved himself in the nonverbal 260. Cf. Bruneau (1973: 29-30): 'Lengthy interactive silences appear to allow each participant a chance to make inferences and judgments about the many possible meanings of a message (including the meaning of the silences).'

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Jeremiah's andEzekiel's Sign-Acts

behavior. Undoubtedly it was not easy for Ezekiel to abstain from normal verbal and social interaction when such must have been both personally desirable and culturally expected. When the audience perceived Ezekiel's behavior, they must have sensed that he acted as he did because of divine injunctions which he felt were placed upon him. That recognition by the audience should have given greater credence to Ezekiel's prophetic messages because of the divine authority which Ezekiel thereby ascribed to them. The behavior also involved climactic transition points over the span of its implementation. The two major climactic points were the initial transition from normal conversational relationships with the people to the speechlessness and then the return to normal speaking, with the minor climactic points being the periodic suspensions of the nonspeaking to utter prophetic words. The major climactic points should have drawn the most attention and speculation due to the sharp contrasts in the behavioral changes. From the audience's perspective, here was a fellow-exile who reported a visionary experience with God and then quite unexpectedly became a speechless recluse in his own house. Unless one ventured to his house, nothing was publicly seen nor heard from him except the occasions of his coming out to proclaim or enact prophetic messages. Then after seven years of such behavior—to which the people must have gradually become accustomed—Ezekiel returned to normalcy in speaking and social interaction. The timing of Ezekiel's release from speechlessness (concurrent with the reception of the news of Jerusalem's destruction) was also crucially important in the persuasive process so as to link it to the shift in Ezekiel's messages from doom to restoration. That point in time marked a radical shift between the addressed rhetorical situations. With the destruction of Jerusalem, the judgment on a national level had been accomplished, so the focus of attention could be directed to that which God would in the future do with the people who survived the destruction. While the people's attitudes and responses to Judah's destruction and to their extended exile were still in the seminal stages of development, Ezekiel, through his behavior, sought to shape the people's proper attitudinal response to that disaster. So at the point when the people felt the dialogue with God had been broken, Ezekiel's return to normal conversational demeanor was paradigmatic (like that of the non-mourning in 24.15-24) and thereby attempted to persuade the people that such was the proper attitude to be assumed as they moved


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into the future. Unlike the speechlessness' negative image of the suspended dialogue with God, the state of speaking presented a positive motif of the relationship's renewal. Thus the latter employed the rhetorical strategy of depicting a positive reward, which in this case was that the people would be able to enter into dialogue with God once again. 4. Remembrance. The repetitive nature of the behavior over an extended period of time must have made Ezekiel's not carrying on normal conversation memorable to the audience. Over the whole seven-year period they would have been constantly reminded that Ezekiel was functioning abnormally with respect to what was usual and expected in social interaction. That continual reminder of Ezekiel's nonverbal behavior should have served as an ever present reminder of the message about the people's conversational relationship with God which the behavior represented. 1.9 Ezekiel Chapters 4-5261 The specific sign-acts of chs. 4-5 can be literarily separated out, identifying the constituent nonverbal actions and artifacts. But questions still remain as to diachronic and synchronic interrelatedness of the actions. The literary interspersing of siege-related and exile-related nonverbal depictions lacks sequential movement with respect to those two addressed historical situations, and such has led some to conclude that the performances of the actions dealing with the two situations 261. Odell (1998) has argued that chs. 4-5 are not to be understood as reports of public proclamation. Rather, they are a continuation of the preceding report of Ezekiel's inaugural experience which function for Ezekiel as part of his transformational initiation into the newly given prophetic role (cf. 234). For the exiles the actions of chs. 4-5 confirm Ezckiel's new role as a prophet, and are thus informative but not communicative. Her arguments that these are not public proclamation reports are based on the structural unity of 3.16-5.17, that all of the elements expected in the literary genre of a report of a sign-act are not found (i.e. there is no execution statement and no record of any audience response), and that the term 'sign' (PIS) is not usually associated with sign-acts, but rather with call narratives (232-33). The latter two arguments are dealt with elsewhere in this study (see Chapter 1 §3.2). Although the links with the preceding call narrative are fully acknowledged, such does not obviate 4.1-5.4 being commands for public proclamation. Rarely in Ezekiel is there a 'report of a proclamation', rather everything is expressed in terms of 'reception' language. So 4.1-5.4 can be understood as the commands received in conjunction with the call narrative of 3.16-27 which were to be subsequently performed so as to inaugurate his public proclamation.

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must be separated chronologically from one another. Thus numerous commentators consider the siege displays as being an interrelated performance consisting of only three actions, or slight modifications thereof: (1) the model siege in 4.1-2 (and possibly the iron griddle in 4.3); (2) the eating of the rationed food in 4.9a, 10-11 (or alternately eating the unclean food in 4.12, 14-15 as a siege symbol); and (3) shaving and dispensing the three parts of hair in 5.1-2. Such a position then ascribes the actions of 4.4-8, 12-15 and 5.3-4 to: siege displays which were literarily altered into exilic references;262 chronologically separate performances by Ezekiel depicting the exile which were interpolated into a text originally only dealing with the siege;263 or nonperformed, literary inventions by either Ezekiel or his disciples which were created and interpolated after the exile had occurred.264 This assumption of chronological separation results in treating the actions as separate unrelated entities without attempting any synchronic understanding of the performed actions as an integrated whole. For theological reasons, the exilic references are often placed at a later, chronologically separate time from those of the siege displays because of the assumption that even though Ezekiel could depict the siege/destruction of Jerusalem before it occurred, he would not have depicted the exile either until afterit had occurred or was on the verge of happening. Such reasoning assumes that the issue of the exile was not relevant until the time of Jerusalem's destruction. But the arguments that the prophet would not speak of the themes of the city's destruction and exile within the same oracle are not cogent. Ezekiel had to deal realistically with both themes because of the ideological and historical contexts in which he existed. Ideologically, he prophesied that the city of Jerusalem would be destroyed, and historically, he lived in the midst of exile. For him and his immediate audience, the exile was not something that was yet to come and could therefore only be spoken of after Jerusalem's fall, rather it was a present reality of daily life. Therefore the issue of exile had relevance for Ezekiel's immediate audience since they were already active participants in it. 262. Cf. Cooke 1936: 50. 263. Cf. Brownlee 1978: 395; 1986: xxxii, xxxvi, 67, 70, 77, 84; Buzy 1923: 190-91; Cooke 1936: 49-54; Eichrodt 1970: 21, 76-77, 85; Fohrer 1952b: 31; 1955: 30; Zimmerli 1979: 70, 164. 264. Cf. Garscha 1974: 88-91; Stacey 1990: 180-92; Wevers 1969: 27, 32-33, 53; Uehlinger 1987: 115, 118-19; Zimmerli 1979: 155, 162, 171-72.


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The exile was spoken of by Ezekiel in other oracles and sign-acts dated prior to Jerusalem's fall. The three actions of 5.1-2, most often considered original even when other parts of chs. 4-5 are not, reflected the sequence of siege (during which one-third would die of famine), destruction (when the city fell, one-third would die by the sword), and dispersion/exile (the remaining third was scattered to the wind). In ch. 6 in prophesying against the mountains of Israel, he referred to the slain (vv. 3-7, 13), the ones dying by famine (v. 13), and then also the remnant (vv. 8-10) who would be scattered (see also 7.16-17; 11.16; 14.22). The sign-act of 12.1-16 (cf. especially vv. 14-16) dealt exclusively with the theme of going into exile. Since the 'exilic theme' was a consistent part of Ezekiel's pre-fall proclamations, it therefore need not be considered a later development which was, in chs. 4-5, subsequently attached to the topic of the city's siege. Thus, on the basis of content, there is no foundation for arguing that the actions of chs. 4—5 could not have been performed within the same timeframe. The exilic material has also been extracted for structural reasons because: (1) it interrupts the thematically cohesive siege-related actions; (2) if such exile-related material were to be originally included, the present placement does not conform to the more expected ultimate placement of such in the natural sequence of siege, destruction, dispersion; and (3) there is no reference to exile in the interpretation of 5.5-17. Yet these reasons for extracting the exilic material are not insurmountable. With respect to T and '2', as argued in the subsequent discussion, the literary recounting of the events is arranged thematically, and not chronologically either with respect to the sequence of the actions' performances or to the sequence of the actual historical occurrences. Also the chronological rearrangement of the actions' performances which is proposed in this study does place the nonverbal activities into the naturally expected sequence which corresponds with that of the referents' sequence of occurrence. With respect to '3', nonverbal communication need not be accompanied by verbal messages since it can substitute for the verbal. Since the exilic actions were self-evident, it could be argued that no verbal explanations were needed. But in fact, it is only 4.6, the lying on the right side, and 5.3, the activity with the scattered hair, which have no verbal interpretations in the literary account. The exilic food of 4.12 is clearly interpreted in 4.13; 5.4a is explained in 4b; 5.10b refers to the scattering, that is, the exile, of 5.2b.

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The present literary structure of chs. 4-5 can be explained through the thematic groupings of the same types of actions which has taken precedence over recounting the actions in the actual sequence which they were performed. Chapters 4-5 can be divided thematically into two main sections: 4.1-5.4 deal primarily with nonverbal actions, while 5.5-17 consists of verbalized information.265 With the bulk of the accompanying verbal addresses (5.5-17) coming after the series of instructions concerning the nonverbal activities, the two chapters have a general conformity to the typical literary structure of the sign-act genre in which the verbalized interpretation followed the nonverbally performed actions. The first section of 4.1-5.4 consists of four thematic groupings of nonverbal actions: A. 4.1-3: Actions concerning the model siege depiction. B. 4.4-6: Actions of lying on the sides. This section is internally structured according to the natural sequence from siege to exile with the descriptions of action and interpretation being in a: b: a': b1 parallelism: 1. siege. 2. exile. A1. 4.7: B1. 4.8:

a. action (4.4a: lying on left side);266 b. interpretation (4.4b-5); a', action (4.6a: lying on right side); b'. interpretation (4.6b).

Resumptive statement about the model siege.267 Resumptive statement about the lying on the sides.

265. In this study, 5.5-17 are considered summary statements of the verbalized prophecies which accompanied all of the actions of 4.1-5.4. By viewing the verses as a summary compilation, the argument that these verses comprise later accretions evidenced in the changes in number, gender and person of the addressees is negated since the prophet may well have changed the style of address in the chronologically dispersed verbal proclamations. The variances in addressees were simply not eliminated when the various proclamations were later summarily compiled into the present literary text. 266. For the detailed arguments assigning the meaning of the lying on the left side to the siege aspect of the message, see below in this chapter §1.9.1. 267. After the exilic reference in 4.6, v. 7, by its repetition of 4.3, can be a understood as a resumptive statement referring back to the model siege. Thus it need not be taken as an editorial gloss resulting from the intrusion of vv. 4-6, but rather a literary technique necessitated by the thematic arrangement of the actions.


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C. 4.9-17: Actions of eating foods. Rather than a confused arrangement, the commands and interpretations are arranged in a typical chiastic structure (cf. Parunak 1978: 183) with the narrative of the objection and alteration of the command in vv. 14-15 inserted between the interpretations: a. siege action (4.9-11); b. exile action (4.12); b'. exile interpretation (4.13); a', siege interpretation (4.16-17). D. 5.1-4: Shaving and subsequent actions with the hair: a. siege action (5.1-2a); b. exile action (5.2b-4). The literary account clearly presents the actions of 4.1-5.4 as part of an interrelated complex. There are sufficient indicators in the literary text so that the chronological sequence of performance can be reconstructed. One such indicator is the term "ITCQ in 4.3, 7, 8, and 5.2.268 In 4.3, the term signified the model city, that is, Jerusalem, inscribed on the brick. In 4.7, the prophet was commanded to set his face toward 'the siege of Jerusalem' (D^TT ~11^Q), that is, toward the brick and the model siege works which were in front of him. In 4.8 the time reference for turning from one side to the other was ~p1KQ ^ "[P'to "TU, that is, when the period relating to the model siege representation had been completed.269 In 5.2, the burning of the first third of hair temporally took place DK^QD "Tl^Qn ''Q1',270 that is, at the conclusion of the time of the model siege representation, and locationally T^H "pro, that is, on the brick.271 Thus See Parunak (1978: 178) who points out that the phrases 'siege' and 'set the face' in vv. 3 and 7 form an a: b: b': a' folded chiasmus. 268. On the structuring function ofnSQ in 4.1-5.17, see Parunak 1978: 176-77. 269. The nominal form, TI2SQ, nowhere has the meaning of 'binding' in the sense of being tied up. Thus its use in 4.8 should not be understood as a reference to any supposed literal binding or physical paralysis of the prophet. 270. This phrase has been deleted by some as a later gloss (cf. Eichrodt 1970 80; Fohrer 1951: 44; 1955: 33; Zimmerli 1979: 172). But it is here proposed that was a deliberate literary indicator pointing to the original chronological sequence of the events. 271. In 4.1 and 3, TU was used without modifiers to designate the brick city. There is no need to delete this locational designation from 5.2 as a gloss (contra Fohrer 1955: 33; Zimmerli 1979: 172) since such would leave the situatio

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the occurrences of ~n2£D imply that while the prophet was occupied with the model siege, he was to prophesy against the city (4.7) not shifting from the side he was lying on (4.8). But then when the days for the model siege were completed, he was to shave his head (5.2) and turn to lie on his right side (4.8). The foods of 4.9-11 and 4.12 are to be separated by the two interpretations given in 4.16-17 and 4.13. As noted above, the culinary siege actions (4.9-11) and interpretation (4.16-17) literarily bracket the exile actions (4.12, 14-15) and interpretation (4.13). That v. 13 goes with the actions of 4.12, 14-15 is indicated in that the commands to bake over dung bracket the interpretation. Since v. 13 interprets v. 12, the baking with dung did not have as a reference the people in the midst of siege. The actions of 4.9-11 and 4.12 were also two different types: the rationed food was representational, thus accurately depicting what would happen, while the food baked over dung was figurative (see the subsequent discussion). The latter did not represent how the people would cook their food, but rather demonstrated through the pungent metaphor of dung that all food, because of the exile, would be unclean. The only way v. 12 can be conjoined with the siege demonstrations of eating and drinking is through the unnecessary extraction or ignoring of v. 13.272 The food of 4.9-11, representational of the scarcity of food (not uncleanness due to the mixed nature), was explicitly stated in the text (4.9) to be eaten during the 390 days the prophet was on his side (singular, "pH *7D). This indicates, because of the correlation to the time in 4.5 of 390 days for lying on the left side, that the siege food was to be eaten only while upon the left side. The literary phrasing in 4.9 thus serves to clarify the exact time and side273 upon which the rationed food was to be eaten. This implies that the other food of 4.12, 14-15 was to be eaten while lying on the right side. undefined (cf. Cooke 1936: 157) and destroy the alliterative quality of the text (cf. Greenberg 1983: 108). 272. Contra Allen 1994: 69-71; Cooke 1936: 55; Eichrodt 1970: 79; Fohrer 1951: 44; 1952b: 80; 1955: 331; Fuhs 1984: 35; Uehlinger 1987: 115, 182; Zimmerli 1979: 149. The shorter form of the verse in LXX does not warrant taking the whole as a gloss. 273. The phrases of 4.9b need not be considered later glosses nor does the singular, IK, necessarily indicate that v. 6 was a later interpolation (contra Cooke 1936: 55; Cornill 1886: 196; Eichrodt 1970: 79; Fohrer 1951: 44; 1952b: 80; 1955: 31; 1968: 50-52; Freedy 1970: 140-41; Lang 1981b: 23-24; Uehlinger 1987: 115, 118; Wevers 1969: 27, 54, 56; Zimmerli 1979: 168).


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3. The instructions to lie on the right side in 4.6 begin with DK IT^D! n^K. The plural referent could either be: D'Q"1 in v. 5, that is, when the prophet had finished lying on the left side for the determined number of days, he was to turn onto the right;274 or, all of the previous siege actions expressed in vv. 1-4 (the model siege, the setting of the griddle, and the lying on the left side). In the latter case, the phrase would be synonymous with TKQn W H^^QD in 5.2, referring to the fact that the lying on the right side was to take place after the symbols of the siege had been finished. These literary indicators point to the reconstruction of the events in a sequence which was consistent with the coming historical sequence of siege-destruction-exile. Once the verbal interpretations and messages of 4.13, 16-17 and 5.5-17 are separated from the descriptions of the nonverbal communication, the verses can be ordered in a diachronic schema of performance:275 4.1-3, 4-5, 7-8 (accompanying verbal message: 5.5-9, lla, llbB), and 9-11 (accompanying verbal message: 4.1617;5.10a) occurring concurrently = siege; 5.1-4 (verbal message: 5.12-17, lOb, llba) = destruction and its consequences; 4.6, 12, 14-15 (accompanying verbal message: 4.13) occurring concurrently = exile. Siege depiction: The prophet first made the model of the besieged city (4.1-2), setting the iron griddle between himself and the model city (4.3). Then with that model in front of him, he lay on his left side (4.45) with his face set toward the model siege (4.3, 7) for 390 days to represent the period of the whole nation's ('the house of Israel's') culpability for iniquity which would culminate with the city's destruction. While in that position, he bared his arm and prophesied against the besieged Jerusalem (4.7), with 5.5-9 and portions of 10-11276 providing 274. Thus the phrase would negate taking the numbers in the MT in a concurrent manner that after 350 days the prophet turned over for 40 more making a total of 390. 275. This schema has been followed by Block 1997: 168-70. 276. In the literary composition, 5.10-11 are transitional. They incorporate elements associated both with the siege depiction and the subsequent hair actions showing the destruction: lOa, cannibalism = siege (the results of the famine, 4.911); lOb, scattering = destruction (5.2); lla, indictment = reasons for the siege

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a summary of the verbal messages given during that period. While lying on the left side facing the besieged model city, Ezekiel ate the siege food rations as specified in 4.8-11, and interpreted the action to the people as given in 4.16-17 and 5.10a. Destruction depiction: Once the period for the siege representation had been completed (cf. 5.2) he then performed the sign-acts of shaving his head, dividing the hair into three parts to show what would happen to Jerusalem's population at the time of its destruction (5.1-2) and gave the verbal message of 5.12-17, lOb to interpret the actions. Exile depiction: The scattered hair (5.3-4) was further used to display the nature of God's continued punishment and protection for those who were scattered. Continuing the theme of dispersion in exile, the prophet then lay on his right side (4.6) to indicate the length of the exile (40 years) during which he ate the unclean bread (4.12), interpreted in 4.13 as the people's eating unclean food among the nations. The communicative meaning and rhetoric of chs. 4-5 will be analyzed in three sections correlating with the above schema of the depictions of the siege, destruction and exile. A summary section which deals with the rhetoric of the whole as a unified complex will conclude the discussion. 1.9.1 Ezekiel 4.1-5, 7(5.5-9, 11); 4.8-11 (4.16-17; 5.10a) 1.9.1.1 Communicative Meaning 1. Model of the siege. The prophet was first commanded277 to take a brick and to set it in front of himself, and then to inscribe upon it a city,278 which, at that juncture, was identified to the prophet as Jeru-

which culminates in the destruction (cf. 'bearing the iniquity' on the left side, 4.45); llbfl, shaving = destruction (5.1); llbB, divine disposition = siege (cf. iron griddle, 4.3) and the resultant destruction. 277. Brownlee's (1986: 61) suggestion that vv. 1-2, by analogy to Ezek. 24.314, were a work song that Ezekiel sang while performing the representational siege is untenable. There is no indication that Ezek. 24.3-14 was enacted (see Chapter 1 §2), and the specification of address here, DTK p nflNI, points to these verses being personal instructional commands to the prophet which were not necessarily recounted during the nonverbal enactment. 278. The brick was used only to represent the city, not to show figuratively the quality of its defenses, since the text makes no point of specifying the composition of the brick, i.e. clay, in contrast to the specification that the griddle was to be of iron. The use of the clay brick seems to have been to facilitate the communication


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salem279 (4.1). Once the inscribing of the city on the brick was completed, Ezekiel was to set up a siege wall,280 build siege towers (i.e. the mobile siege engine towers which were pushed up to the walls),281 pour out a siege ramp (i.e. the earthen and wooden ramp placed against the city wall up which the siege engines were moved),282 set up camps,283

event by using an artifact which could be easily inscribed, rather than the clay quality bearing a communicative meaning. 279. The phrase D'PtOIT PS can be understood as an apposition for emphasis. Because of the grammatical inconsistency of an undetermined noun being followed by a determined noun in apposition, the phrase is often excised as an explanatory gloss which comes too soon in the narrative. The grammatical inconsistency of the undetermined city being specified as Jerusalem may indicate that Ezekiel's drawing was to be a sketch of a city without anything in the sketch pointing to any specific city. Yet for the purposes of the prophecy, the prophet was informed that the sketch would very specifically represent Jerusalem. In regard to the identification coming too soon, it must be noted that the literary account here is a report of the prophet's reception of the command to perform the actions and not a report of the performance. As such, it is feasible that from the beginning the prophet understood the depicted city to be Jerusalem, yet this does not mean that the identification was initially transmitted to the audience either verbally by the prophet or by a ready identification of the drawing. The identification to the audience may not have occurred until the prophet uttered the verbal pronouncement as recorded in 5.5. 280. "IIKQ can be: (1) a general term meaning 'state of siege' (cf. Ezek. 4.3, 7, 8; 5.2; Jer. 10.17; 52.5; Deut. 20.19; 2 Kgs 24.10; 25.2); (2) a general term for 'siege works'; or (3) a specific type of siege work, that of a 'siege wall', a 'circumvallation', which was built around the besieged city by the attackers for defense and for preventing escape from the city (cf. Hab. 2.1; Zech. 9.3). In 4.2, if the term means 'state of siege' or generally 'siege works', then it is a summary term followed by the specification of the items of which it is comprised. Whereas, if it means 'siege wall', then it is the first of the several specific items which the prophet was commanded to model. Although the term is used in the general sense in 4.3, 7, 8, and 5.2, here in 4.2 the specific meaning of 'siege wall' seems most appropriate because of its conjunction with the following delineated items. 281. pH (cf. Ezek. 17.17; 21.27; 26.8; Jer. 52.4; 2 Kgs 25.1) is either an Aramaic participial form or an Akkadian loan-word meaning 'siege tower' rather than an earthen mound, bulwark, rampart or trench (contra Bertholet 1897: 23; Wevers 1969: 55). 282. On rfÔ -|SiB, see Ezek. 26.8; Jer. 6.8; 2 Sam. 20.15; 2 Kgs 19.32; Isa. 37.33. 283. rrana can either be the place of encampment or the soldiers (cf. 2 Kgs 3.9). If the former, then Ezekiel built in miniature the attacker's walled camp, and if the latter the prophet set up soldiers all around the besieged city. Either of the depic-

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and place battering rams284 in position (4.2). In all of these activities, the prophet was taking on the theological role of God. Such was brought out in the verbal interpretation of 5.5-11. Just as Ezekiel inscribed the city of Jerusalem on the brick and set it in front of himself (4.1), so too God had set Jerusalem in the midst of the nations (5.5). Just as the public display of the model siege was open to the view of Ezekiel's audience, so too, the divine judgment would be seen by the nations (5.8). Just as Ezekiel had placed and maneuvered the siege works and machines around the city (4.2), so too God was the one who would bring judgment (5.8, 9) upon the city. Even though theologically God was considered to be the one actively directing the actions against Jerusalem, the historical outworkings of such were performed by the Babylonians. Thus distinction between the historical role of the enemy and the theological role of God was blurred, allowing Ezekiel to take on simultaneously the role of God and the enemy without a definite dichotomy being made between the two. Although the general commands concerning the model siege were recorded, the text lacks a description of details, such as where the actions were performed, the size of the brick,285 what the drawing of the city looked like (a map viewing the city from above or a side view), and the placement (or drawing) of the siege machines. Regardless of the specific details, the artifacts in vv. 1-2 were representational since they were a miniature depiction of the actual siege of a city.286 tions would have been possible, and the action by Ezekiel may have included both the camp enclosure and the soldiers. Driver's (1954: 148) suggestion, that this was the covered part of the siege tower which concealed the attackers, results from his misunderstanding that all the various terms of the verse refer to parts of one siege machine. 284. Whether D'-D (cf. Ezek. 21.27) comes from TO, 'lambs', or TD, 'to dig' (cf. Cooke 1936: 64) does not alter its designation as a mobile siege machine with a beam used to break down the city wall. 285. If it was the size of extant maps drawn upon bricks it would have been rather small, as the size of such was about 7 by 8 inches. But if it was the size of a normal brick used in buildings, its length and width would have ranged from roughly 16 by 8 inches to as much as 23 by 15 (cf. Kelso 1948: 34). Taylor (1969: 75) suggests that if Hj^b could mean 'brickwork1, although not its natural meaning, then it may mean that the scene was depicted on the outer wall of Ezekiel's house. 286. The brick and model siege were used strictly as representational, communicative artifacts, thus any comparative connection to the magical use of figures or


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The actions may have been performed in the vicinity of the prophet's house,287 but were certainly carried out where they were readily observable to the public as the phrase 'before their eyes' in 4.12 indicates. Although the inscribing of the brick with the city is often likened to that of maps from Mesopotamia288 in which the view of the city was from above,289 there is the possibility that the inscribed city was rather a sideview depicting the city walls (cf. Uehlinger 1987: 141-49). Such was a common way of illustrating in victory reliefs the triumphant campaign by the king against a foreign city. If the latter was the case, then the brick need not be thought of as lying flat on the ground, but rather set on edge with a sideview of the city depicted thereon. Since such depictions of cities under siege were very stylized, this heightens the possibility that the drawing of the city was not immediately identifiable to the spectators as Jerusalem.290 engraved stones as substitutes for idols or people is irrelevant (contra Fohrer 1968: 48-49; Fox 1913/14). The account in Pseudo-Callisthenes (cf. Budge 1933: 2-3) of the magical employment of figurines by Nectanebus (358 BCE), the last king of Egypt, provide an interesting comparison of external artifacts to Ezekiel's model (cf. Fox 1912: 304; Thompson 1908: 155-56). Whenever Nectanebus's country was threatened with invasion by sea, he filled a bronze vessel with water on which he floated tiny ships of wax to represent the enemy fleet. After he recited a magical spell, the wax ships would sink. If the invasion was by land, he made wax figurines of soldiers and horses to represent the enemy army. After saying a magical spell, the figurines would fall to the ground. (For other examples of the use of effigies in magical rituals to defeat one's military enemies before the battle, see Budge 1933: 219; Thompson 1908: 157-58.) But in Ezekiel's sign-act, there is no hint that the models were being used in a magical, cursing manner so that the similarity of external form does not mean identical purposes of usage. 287. Even though, based on 3.24, some have assumed that Ezekiel was inside his house when performing the activities of 4.1-5.4, that injunction need not be understood as excluding the performance of these actions outside his home in public view of all those who went by (see Chapter 2 §1.8). 288. For illustrations and discussions of such maps drawn on brick, see ANEP 260; Keel 1978: Fig. 4; Uehlinger 1987: 141-47. 289. Cf. Block 1997: 171; Brownlee 1986: 76; Cooke 1936: 50; Howie 1950: 18; Keel 1978: 18; Zimmerli 1979: 162. 290. There is no reason to assume the engraved city was easily identifiable to the audience (cf. Uehlinger 1987: 174; contra Stacey 1990: 181). Even if Ezekiel's drawing was patterned after an overhead map-type view, this would not necessarily ensure immediate recognition of the city since such drawings were also very schematized (e.g. see the illustrations in Yadin 1963:1, 146; II: 292-93, 432).

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The employment of various verbs to describe the placing and setting up of the siege works and machines (4.2: D'CC, ~[D2J, H3D, ]fl]), none of which corresponds with 'inscribing' (4.1: ppn), gives credence to the assumption that the siege works were separate objects strategically set up around the engraved brick (cf. Uehlinger 1987: 150-52) rather than drawings either on the same brick, on the ground, or on separate bricks. The command to 'lay siege' to the city (4.3: m^"i), may even indicate that Ezekiel was to maneuver the siege weapons into place during the course of the presentation like someone playing with toy soldiers. 2. Iron griddle. In conjunction with the model of the siege, Ezekiel was told to set up an iron griddle as an iron wall (4.3).291 Again the command does not elaborate upon the specifics of the execution of the action as to how the iron griddle was to be placed, only its location between the prophet and the city-brick and that the prophet was to face the iron griddle and the inscribed city (cf. vv. 3, 7). In 4.3, the referent of the feminine suffix in the command iT^K ~pD HN nnrDm is ambiguous as to whether it refers to the 'iron griddle' which is mentioned at the beginning of the verse, or the 'city' which is the immediately preceding referent. The object referent in the rest of the verse is clearly the model city (iT^y mxi) and v. 7 states that the prophet was to set his face against the whole model siege depiction. Thus the prophet must not be viewed as having his face pressed hard right up against the iron griddle, but rather the command only indicates that the prophet was to face the whole model siege with the iron griddle between himself and the model city. The exact interpretation of the iron griddle is ambiguous due both to the lack of any explicit interpretation in the text and to the figurative nature of the nonverbal artifact. It has been proposed that the iron griddle is a representational sign depicting the besieger's shield, many of

291. Some have considered 4.3 a secondary intrusion. The arguments for its exclusion are based either upon the nature of the action, i.e. it is figurative rather than representational like the actions of 4.1-2, or because the intransigent attitude which it portrayed was alien to the original. But there is nothing unacceptable about combining figurative and representational nonverbal behaviors, and the iron plate signifying an intransigent attitude was consistent with Ezekiel's presentation elsewhere of God's attitude toward the people. Thus there is no basis for excluding 4.3 from the complex of actions, or for assuming that 4.3 was a separate unrelated action since the meaning of the action was contingent upon vv. 1-2.


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which would have been set up in array against the city.292 In Isa. 37.33 = 2 Kgs 19.32, in the context of siege warfare, the shield is mentioned along with the siege mound. But if the griddle represented a shield, to refer to it as 'an iron wall' seems to be a very unusual and obfuscating way to speak of such. As a figurative 'wall' between the prophet and the city, the iron griddle has been understood (1) totally as a metaphor, thus reflecting the separation in the spiritual realm between God and the people with the iron indicating the impenetrable nature of the separating wall.293 If understood in this way, the one who erects the wall is either God, with the iron indicating the divine determination to carry out the punishment and the disposition towards the people,294 or the people, because of their sins295 on the analogy of Isa. 59.2. (2) The 'wall' could be understood as partially metaphorical and partially literal, meaning both a physical wall, either the besieger's siege wall or the fortifications of Jerusalem, with the quality of iron understood figuratively as, respectively, the severity of the siege296 or the strength of the city's defenses.297 Several factors argue against the griddle having as referents either the besieger's wall or the defenses of Jerusalem. That the griddle did not stand for the besieger's siege wall can be surmised from the shift in the representational displays of the model siege to the figurative display of the iron pan. Had the intent been to continue displaying an aspect of the siege works and machinery, it would have been most effectively accomplished through another representational model. The stylistic change to a figurative artifact fittingly indicated that a shift in meaning had also occurred. The misapprehension of the iron griddle as 292. Cf. Iwry 1961: 29-30. Although interpreting the griddle as primarily signifying the divine attitude, Krilger (1989: 128) also suggests that there may be an allusion here to Yahweh as 'shield', but in an inverted sense of being against, not protecting, Jerusalem. Understanding the griddle as 'shield', whether the Babylonians' or God as such, seems highly questionable in this passage. 293. Cf. Allen 1994: 65; Greenberg 1983: 104; Lang 1986: 299. 294. Cf. Block 1997: 173; Bron 1981: 25; Davidson 1893: 30; Eichrodt 1970: 83; Fohrer 1968: 48-49; Garner 1980: 178; Klein 1988: 41; Taylor 1969: 76; Wevers 1969: 55; Zimmerli 1979: 163. 295. Cf. Cooke 1936: 51; Keil 1976:1, 70. 296. Cf. Buzy 1923: 221; Lods 1950: 240; Uehlinger 1987: 180. In Jer. 15.12 the enemy from the north is described as unbreakable iron. 297. Cf. Davidson 1893: 30; Uehlinger 1987: 180. See also Brownlee's (1986: 64-65) interpretation of the griddle as a replacement for the brick.

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the strong and impregnable defenses of Jerusalem may have been imposed upon the nonverbal display by the spectators because of their convictions of Jerusalem's invincibility. That such was not the meaning imparted to the nonverbal artifact by the prophet is evidenced from the command that the griddle be set up between the prophet and the city. Since the walls of Jerusalem were already inscribed upon the brick, any display enhancing the fortifications of the city would have been more appropriately attached to the brick rather than independent of it. Since Ezekiel was acting primarily in the role of God, the griddle should be interpreted within that context. The coordination in performance of positioning the griddle (4.3), setting his face (4.3, 7), and baring his arm (4.7) associate the three actions in meaning.298 Since the latter two were displays of the divine disposition toward the city, the former should be interpreted similarly. In the verbal message (5.lib), the divine disposition toward the people which resulted in the siege was expressed: 'and my eye will not pity, and even I, 1 will not spare'. This disposition was portrayed in the nonverbal actions of 4.3, 7: God would have no pity or compassion but rather an iron determination and intensity, which would bring the siege upon the city. So the intensity figuratively depicted by the iron quality was that of the divine disposition rather than either that of the siege or of the historical besiegers;299 although that divine disposition would have been theologically understood as the motivation producing the harshness of the siege and the tenacity of the besiegers. The figurative use of the griddle for the divine emotion contrasted with the previous representational displays of the siege, and the stylistic shift correlated with the presentation's shift from objective facts (4.1-2) to subjective emotions (4.3, 7). This understanding of the iron griddle as displaying the divine disposition toward his opponents, the Judahites, corresponds well with the use of the metaphor in Jeremiah and Ezekiel of a hard metal or 298. Contra Uehlinger (1987: 179-80) who contends that the meaning of the iron griddle should not be interpreted as related to Yahweh or to the siege but rather to some aspect of the brick city, since according to the sequence of v. 3 the griddle was put in place (v. 3a) prior to the siege demonstration (v. 3b) and since up to this point in the text none of the actions are associated with Yahweh. Yet the siege in miniature has already been introduced in v. 2 and, theologically, such was held to be ultimately the activity of God. 299. Contra Buzy 1923: 222; Davidson 1893: 30; Fuhs 1984: 33.


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stone wall specifically for the disposition of the prophets in carrying out their ministry in relationship to their audiences. The Lord assured Jeremiah that when encountering opposition to the prophetic message, Jeremiah's face (i.e. emotional disposition) would be made like a pillar of iron and a wall of bronze (Jer. 1.18-19; 15.20). Ezekiel (3.8-9) was reassured that even though the opposition he faced was hard, his forehead (i.e. emotional disposition) would be made hard as stone (cf. Isa. 50.7). This similarity in imagery does not imply that the communicative purpose of the griddle was to reflect Ezekiel's attitude toward Jerusalem instead of God's. Rather, through the nonverbal artifact, Ezekiel sought to communicate the divine disposition not to inform of his own, even though Ezekiel, in his own feelings toward the people and about the siege, may have empathized with that divine pathos. Although the catalyst for God's withdrawing his compassion and mercy was the sin and wickedness of the people, the nonverbal artifact and actions associated with the iron griddle dealt not with the cause of the divine disposition but rather reflected only what the disposition was toward the city. The opaqueness of the iron griddle may have reflected the idea that God, in one sense, had concealed his face from the people of the city which allowed the besiegers to carry out their assault (cf. Ezek. 7.22; 39.23). If the iron griddle carried this connotation, then Ezekiel introduced an ironical twist into the actions: God had hidden his face, yet at the same time was fully cognizant of, and in fact, ordaining what was happening historically. 3. 'Setting the face'. As part of the display of the divine disposition toward the Jerusalemites, Ezekiel also 'set his face' (4.3, 7). Unlike ~p]S C'&J which in Ezekiel referred to an adversarial, emotive disposition in the act of prophesying without involving a nonverbal action (see Chapter 1 §2), the expression used in 4.3, 7, "pa ]'r>n, did refer to a nonverbal movement of turning the face in the direction of the model siege. The difference between the former verbal idiom and the latter actual nonverbal action was contextually evidenced by the command in 4.3, 7 being in the midst of other enjoined nonverbal gestures and actions and semantically indicated by the use of ]D (only here) rather than D^.300 The various biblical, idiomatic expressions of 'setting the 300. The use of ]D is thus not merely a matter of emphasis or intensification (contra Greenberg 1983: 104; Layton 1986: 173), but rather a viable way of semantically distinguishing between a nonverbal action which was actually performed

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face'301 toward or on an object indicated either favor (cf. ^ D^S D'GJ in 1 Kgs 2.15; similarly ^ GTS D'to in Jer. 24.6; 39.12; 40.4) or hostile intent. So the nonverbal directing of the face must be considered to communicate a specific emotion, and other accompanying facial features indicated whether or not the gaze was favorable. When God was the subject of 'setting the face', the idiom usually carried a negative connotation. The 'setting of the face' was the divine reaction to sin (almost always specifically enumerated) with the subsequent divine action being the execution of judgment which was always death (cf. ...3 D^S ]H] in Ezek. 14.8; 15.7a; Lev. 17.10; 20.3, 6; Lev. 26.17, and ...2 D'B n't) in Ezek. 15.7b; Jer. 44.11; Lev. 20.5). Especially instructive are the passages of Jer. 21.9-10 and Amos 9.4 which speak of the judgments in identical terms as do Ezekiel chs. 4-5: ' "He who dwells in this city will die by the sword and by famine and by pestilence... for 1 have set my face against (...3 C^D D'27) this city for harm and not for good", declares Yahweh. "It will be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it with fire'" (Jer. 21.9-10; cf. Ezek. 5.1-2); 'And though they go into captivity before their enemies, from there I will command the sword that it slay them, and I will set my eyes (D"1® 'JS DTJJ) against them for evil and not for good' (Amos 9.4; cf. Ezek. 5.2, 4). Although the specifics of the facial expression assumed by Ezekiel as he gazed toward the model siege are not given, the expression 'set the face', in this instance, must have expressed the hostile divine determination to execute wrathful judgment upon the city of Jerusalem which was represented by the brick. 4. Baring his arm. Appropriately in relationship with the model siege, Ezekiel was to bare his arm302 (4.7) as a warrior would have done in readiness for battle, and thereby again expressed an aggressive, hostile intent.303 Since this gesture was performed in conjunction with and a metaphorical expression which did not require any accompanying nonverbal behavior. 301. On the biblical expressions and their meanings, see Layton's (1986) study. 302. Unfounded is Helfmeyer's (1980: 136) view that Ezekiel did not perform this action, rather only turned his face so as to prophesy about Yahweh's bared arm. The second masculine suffix ('your arm') clearly continues the address to the prophet. 303. The LXX's tov ppa/lovd oov aiepecoaeii; (cf. Targum: ^'pnn ~]in"n), is most probably a paraphrasing (cf. Cooke 1936: 64) of a Vorlage identical to the MT. The LXX, by interpreting the meaning of the nonverbal gesture (incorrectly in this case), has removed the concreteness of the action.


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setting the face and prophesying, it too can be understood as indicating the divine intent with respect to the siege. The arm movement, because it was a military gesture and was enacted within the sphere of divine activity, also provided the theological clarification that the besiegers were not the ultimate enemy. The divine intent would merely be historically realized through the Babylonian besiegers, but it was God who, as warrior, orchestrated the siege. Such a theological perspective of divine hostility against his own city was contrary to beliefs within the popular theology. The only other biblical occurrence of the expression VHT ^ton is Isa. 52.10 where Yahweh bared his arm for the purpose of redeeming Jerusalem with the hostile intent directed against the city's enemies. If, during Ezekiel's time, the belief in divine protection was expressed through the figure of 'Yahweh baring his arm' so as to fight against Israel's enemies and save Jerusalem, then Ezekiel drew upon a verbal image which had a favorable meaning to the spectators, but nonverbally performed it with an ironic, contrasting meaning that Yahweh was prepared to wage war, not against Israel's enemies, but rather against Jerusalem itself.304 This reversal in meaning may not have been initially detected by the audience. They may have misunderstood who the recipients of the depicted disposition were and assumed it was the enemy's siege weapons and soldiers rather than the brick city. Thus, to display the divine disposition, Ezekiel coordinated three nonverbal features: the artifact of the iron griddle, the facial expression and movement of setting the face, and the bodily gesture of baring his arm. These actions also conjoined figuratively (the iron griddle) and representationally (setting the face and baring the arm) encoded nonverbal elements to communicate a similar emotive state. The latter two representational gestures must have been conventionally understood nonverbal displays, although the prophet used them in an idiosyncratic manner to inform the people of God's disposition by way of anthropomorphism. 5. Lying on his left side. Concurrently with the depiction of the model city under siege, Ezekiel was to lie on his left side for 390 days bearing the 'iniquity of the house of Israel' (4.4-5).

304. See Jeremiah's similar reversal in the object of God's warring activities in Jer. 21.5 where, with outstretched hand (iTQ] T), God attacks Jerusalem.

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The grouping of the various actions thematically within the literary account has resulted in the juxtaposition of the description of the lying on the left side and its correspondence to 'Israel' (4.4-5) to that of lying on the right side to bear the iniquity of 'the house of Judah' (4.6). This juxtaposition has resulted in the terms 'house of Israel' and 'house of Judah' often being interpreted in a contrasting manner of the former being the Northern Kingdom and the latter, the Southern Kingdom. It is then assumed that the lying on the left side must mean the Northern Kingdom's period of exile305 since the lying on the right side for the Southern Kingdom for 40 days (= 40 years) was clearly an indication of exile. Since the length of the Northern Kingdom's exile does not correlate with the number 390 (4.5, 9), the LXX's readings of 150 (4.4) and 190 (4.5, 9) are often considered correct.306 In contrast to the above interpretation, when the sequential arrangement of the nonverbal behaviors as proposed in this study is followed, then the terms 'Israel' and 'Judah' are no longer juxtaposed in a contrastive manner. That 'Israel' in 4.4, 5 should not be understood as a technical term for the Northern Kingdom is evident from the uses of the

305. Cf. Bertholet 1897: 25; Brownlee 1986: xxxii, xxxiii, 66; Buzy 1923: 22930; Cooke 1936: 49, 51; Cooper 1994: 95; Cornill 1886: 194-95, 198-99; Davidson 1893: 30; Fohrer 1952a: 109; 1952b: 31; Keil 1976:1, 72; Taylor 1969: 78; Wevers 1969: 14, 32, 55. 306. But the LXX's '190' in 4.5, 9 and '150' in 4.4 must be considered secondary, resulting from the misunderstanding due to the juxtaposition of the terms 'Israel' and 'Judah'. Because of the misunderstanding that the Northern and Southern Kingdoms were meant, '390' was altered to conform to the interpretation that 4.4-5 referred to the length of exile of the Northern Kingdom, which, calculated from the 730s or 720s BCE, was only 150 years (secondarily inserted in v. 4) to Jerusalem's fall plus another 40 years for the concurrent period of exile with Judah's. The mistranslation, 8ijo for ""]$ in 4.5 (cf. Targum) resulted from the same misinterpretation (cf. Cooke 1936: 64; Greenberg 1983: 105; Zimmerli 1979: 148). Bertholet (1897: 26) and Driver (1960: 126; 1966: 76-77) consider the LXX's 190 to be original and suggest that the MT number results from a gematrya of ~l(l)KQ in v. 9 or ^DKQ in v. 10 (contra Allen 1994: 51; Bertholet 1897: 28; Fohrer 1955: 31; Keil 1976: I, 81; Zimmerli 1979: 149, 170). The latter view, which requires reading an unexpressed comparison ('and like/as a barley cake you shall eat it', i.e. cooked on hot stones as opposed to wheat cakes cooked in an oven [Cooke 1936: 55], or treating the preparation like that of barley cakes [Keil 1976:1, 78, 81; Zimmerli 1979: 170]), comes from the wrong assumption that the commands about the food in vv. 9-10 are continued in v. 12 (similarly the LXX reading aired). That the command to eat the barley cake in v. 12 is unrelated to the food of vv. 9-10 is clearly made through the suffix attached to 'TOtfn in v. 12 being feminine while in vv. 9-10 the same verb (three times) bears the masculine suffix. 385. There is no need to assume that Ezekiel used the iron griddle mentioned in 4.3 (contra Fohrer 1955: 32; Uehlinger 1987: 178).


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But Ezekiel vehemently objected to the abhorrent uncleanness of human excrement (4.14).386 His objection was expressed in terms of his personal adherence to the ritual scruples of food consumption. The unclean foods mentioned in Ezekiel's objection correlated with the character of the unclean food the prophet was commanded to eat. The foods were not inherently unclean, but only became unclean because of the external conditions. Just as the animals, which were clean to eat, became unclean when they died a natural death (n'TO!!)387 or were killed by other animals (rfDItO),388 and the sacrificial food which was eaten became unclean when it became leftovers (ÎK),389 so too the barley cakes only became unclean by their contact with the dung.390 Just so, food which would have been clean in Israel became unclean by virtue of its being grown and prepared in a foreign land. The uncleanness was not inherent, but derived.391 Because of Ezekiel's objection, the compromise of cattle dung (4.15) was made. Apparently animal dung used for cooking purposes was 386. On the defiling nature of human excrement, see Deut. 23.12-14. Some commentators suggest that the use of human dung indicated a shortage of fuel (an assumption made when v. 12 is considered a siege sign, as done by Allen 1994: 69; Fohrer 1955: 33; Garner 1980: 179; Uehlinger 1987: 182-83). But such is obviated by the compromise to use animal dung, one of the very things which was supposedly in short supply which necessitated the prophet's use of human excrement. It is better to assume that the human dung was originally to be used because of its ability to signify extreme uncleanness. 387. Cf. Ezek. 44.31; Deut. 14.21; Lev. 7.24; 11.40; 22.8; 17.15. Since Ezekiel's objection concerned eating, n^D] must be understood in the sense of the carcass of a clean animal. When the term was used of the carcasses of inherently unclean animals, the prohibition was against even touching the dead animals (cf. Lev. 5.2; 11.8, 11, 24-25, 27-28, 35-38; Deut. 14.8). Thus a statement about eating such would be superfluous. 388. Cf. Ezek. 44.31; Exod. 22.30; Lev. 7.24; 17.15; 22.8. 389. Cf. Lev. 7.18; 19.7. Isa. 65.4 may, but does not necessarily, refer to that which was inherently unclean. 390. There is no reason (contra Gorg 1982) to resort to an etymological derivation of rttl? from Coptic 'mud' so that it means 'Scheusalskuchen'. 391. In v. 13, the MT might literarily indicate the distinction between inherent and derived uncleanness in the undetermined KQffl which follows the determined noun 'their bread'. Grammatically, 'unclean' is not an attributive adjective (i.e. not 'their unclean bread'). Rather, it is the predicate of an asyndetic relative clause, i.e. 'their bread (which) is unclean'. The inference of the asyndetic phrase may be 'their bread which has become unclean', i.e. because of the exilic situation.

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considered to transmit uncleanness to the food,392 although no other biblical passage corroborates such. The message-content being communicated dictates that the cattle dung substituted for human excrement, still conveyed, at least when used by the prophet,393 the message of uncleanness. Otherwise the point of the message (4.13) would have been contradicted and thereby obviated by the nonverbal behavior.394 It must therefore be assumed that the nonverbal behavior illustrated accurately the contentual message in a figurative manner with the animal dung, as one unclean thing, metonymically standing for all ritual uncleanness, which in this case was specified as the uncleanness of being in a foreign land. The compromise to use animal dung instead of human excrement was thus a matter of degree of uncleanness rather than a contrast between cleanness and uncleanness. 1.9.2.3 Rhetoric 1. Attention. The resemblance to the lying and eating during the siege depiction may have initially resulted in the audience assuming that Ezekiel was once again doing the same thing he did before. Yet the placement of the actions after an announcement of coming exile for the Jerusalemites should have engendered the expectation that he was going to continue with that theme. So the resemblance to his previous actions should have also caused the audience to focus their attention on the details and specific variations from those previously performed (he was now on the opposite side; the food and manner of cooking were different). By performing similar, yet different, actions the prophet focused attention on those differences which contained the important message-content: the shift in sides meant punishment rather than culpabil-

392. Contra Buzy (1923: 240-41), Cooke (1936: 56), Cooper (1994: 97-98), Taylor (1969: 83), Zimmerli (1979: 171) who maintain that animal dung was ritually pure for cooking. 393. It might be that the uncleanness in the use of animal dung was related to Ezekiel's priestly lineage: certain things, although practiced by nonsacredotals, were for sacerdotals considered unclean (cf. Greenberg 1983: 108). 394. Planas (1955: 155) suggests that the nonverbal cooking on animal dung need not have communicated uncleanness because such would have been done through the verbal recounting of the previous order concerning human excrement. But such still does not adequately remove the difficulty of the incongruence and contradiction between the nonverbal behavior and the intended communicated message.


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ity, and the manner of food preparation signified the exiles' unclean existence. 2. Comprehension. Any slight obfuscation of meaning because of the resemblance to the previous actions, should have been quickly cleared up. Since the actions followed immediately those depicting the destruction and scattering of Jerusalem's inhabitants, it was probably soon apparent that Ezekiel depicted exilic conditions. 3. Acceptance. In the exilic depictions, Ezekiel used the source strategy of total identification with his immediate audience in the role that he assumed. While lying on the side and eating the unclean food, he represented those in exile. The merging of various roles which had occurred previously was now lacking, so that the distancing from the audience in the previous role of divine adversary was eliminated. Ezekiel reflected a total empathy with and participation in the condition in which his audience currently resided and the condition in which those in Judah would be placed once they were brought into exile. In his role of identifying with his audience, Ezekiel invested a great depth of personal involvement, for he actually ate the unclean food. His objection to the use of human excrement showed that he was not just a detached actor assuming a role in his sign-acts, but was actively and personally involved. He would not perform, even at divine command, an action which to him was so repulsive that it went beyond the permissible proprieties of his religious convictions.395 The audience must have sensed this personal involvement as he ate the cake made unclean by the animal dung and as he verbally relayed the initial command which enjoined even a greater degree of defilement. The message strategy was that of 'direct address'. Because the ramifications of the message for his audience were explicitly expressed, there should have been no uncertainty about them. Any personal hope 395. The meaning is taken too far when Ezekiel's objection is viewed as part of the sign-act's message in which the prophet functioned in an intercessory role and God's accommodating response is interpreted as a concession to the exilic community (contra Clark 1984: 236-37) or taught the lesson that when the community asked for grace after turning aside from God's commands, it would be given (contra Zimmerli 1979: 171). Since the condition of exilic uncleanness was not obviated by the accommodation to animal dung, Ezekiel's objection must be viewed as serving a personal function with respect to the manner of nonverbally communicatin the message of uncleanness. He was allowed to use an artifact which, because of its lesser degree of uncleanness, was not as repugnant.

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that the audience may have imputed into the act of some of the scattered hairs being bound into the hem of the garment (5.4) was invalidated by the realization that Ezekiel's depiction of exile meant that for the immediate audience there was no hope: none of those observing Ezekiel's actions would be participants in a return to their homeland. Any promises or expectations of the exile ending were not applicable to the current generation. 4. Retention. The daily routine, extending over a month, of lying on the right side and eating a barley cake baked with dung should have embedded the image in the people's mind by its repetition. The repeated performance coupled with the direct implications for the audience should have made it a communication act long remembered after Ezekiel had ceased to perform his nonverbal actions publicly. Ezekiel's presentation of the unclean condition of exile employed a very common and daily event—eating. When the exiles themselves partook of food in their own homes, they would have been consciously reminded that they were in exile and in a state of ceremonial uncleanness. That connection between Ezekiel's act of eating and the audience's subsequent daily lives should have brought back to memory the totality of Ezekiel's message about the length of exile and the reason for it as displayed and verbalized in the prior message of Jerusalem's siege and destruction. 1.9.4 Rhetoric of the Sequential Actions in Chapters 4-5. As previously discussed, literary indicators suggest that the chronological sequence of the actions' performances followed the historical sequence of events: siege-destruction-exile. From a rhetorical standpoint, the siege depiction of 4.1-5, 7-11 was incomplete since it did not communicate the ultimate message Ezekiel was desiring to transmit. The pre-586 BCE message of Ezekiel was not that Jerusalem would be besieged by the Babylonians, but rather that Jerusalem would be destroyed.396 The concept that the city might punitively suffer under a siege could have been incorporated into the people's belief system just as the events of 597 BCE had been. What the popular theology would not accept was that the city would be utterly destroyed in judgment. Thus it was not the depiction of the siege in 4.1-5, 7-11, but rather the actions of 5.1-2 which

396. Cf. Ezek. 6.1-7, 12-14; 7.20-24; ch. 9; 12.19-20; 14.21; 16.38-41, where the messages were always those of destruction, not merely siege.


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were contrary to the popular theology. Since Ezekiel was attempting to alter the people's belief about what would happen to Jerusalem, the radicalness of the nonverbal message in 5.1-2 was what constituted the climax of the message. But the depiction of the destruction with its consequences of death by famine and pestilence, death by sword, and scattering (5.1-2) held a natural opening for the prophet to then address his immediate audience which was already experiencing the latter aspect of dispersion in exile. From a rhetorical standpoint there is no reason that the exilic actions of 5.3-4; 4.6, 12, 14-15 could not follow those of the siege and destruction, but rather their inclusion would have resulted in a compelling rhetorical strategy of stylistic shift in the nonverbal portrayals: the initially depicted events (the siege and destruction of distant Jerusalem) only had 'indirect' implications for Ezekiel's exilic audience while the events which culminated the sequence (the exile and existence therein) had 'direct' ramifications. Since the exilic audience would not experience the physical consequences of the siege and destruction, they could only empathically relate to those events. Yet they would existentially participate in the exilic situation. The two stylistic manners of address, that is, indirect and direct, corresponded with the two-pronged argument used to combat the exiles' hope of an early return from exile. Through the actions of the siege and destruction of Jerusalem (4.1-5, 78; 5.1-4), the argument was presented that the basis for their hope, which was the belief in the survival of Jerusalem, was not tenable, and in the concluding actions (4.6, 12-15), that their existence in exile would be an extended situation. In the sequence of actions there were two points of greatest dramatic impact in attracting attention. The first was the start of the complex of actions with the depiction of the model siege. But that soon became a monotonous, long-term presentation which, even though it was unusual in nature, because of its repetitiveness probably resulted in decreased attention. The second major dramatic point was the starkly contrasting depiction of destruction (5.1-4). But this too was followed by an extended monotonous demonstration, which then ended in a rather unclimactic manner. Upon the completion of the 40-days' lying and eating, the prophet apparently got up and went back to, what was for him, normal living. The uneventfulness of the cessation of the exilic nonverbal actions was so unlike the conclusion of the 390-days' siege depictions in which the prophet dramatically shaved his head. Although not

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explicitly expressed, the unclimactic ending of the exilic depictions correlated well with Ezekiel's belief that the people would rot away in the exile—an unimpressive conclusion to their exilic existence (Ezek. 24.23; 33.10; cf. also Lev. 26.38-39). 1.10 Ezekiel 6.11-12391

1.10.1 Communicative Meaning. To express an emotional mood, Ezekiel was commanded398 to clap his hands, stomp his feet, and utter an interjection, 'Ah!', which are best understood as repeated actions done prior to and then possibly concurrent with the uttering of the verbal message. But there is no need to interpret the actions as a specific form of dance. Within the account, these nonverbal behaviors are not explicitly interpreted as to their exact communicative meanings. Thus it is possible that this represents a case in which the nonverbal actions were not verbally interpreted to the audience and the significance was left for the people to figure out on their own. Commentators have proposed essentially two very different interpretations as to the type of emotional excitement which the behaviors were depicting:399 (1) delight,400 with the connotations of scorn, contempt or 397. Whether the verbal statements in vv. 13-14 are considered part of the original oracle and thus contemporaneously associated with the nonverbal actions of clapping and stomping does not affect the interpretation of those actions. 398. The formula miT "OIK ~)Qtf PD is not usual in Ezekiel for introducing a command to perform a nonverbal behavior. But the formula does introduce the sign-acts of Jer. 13.1-11; 19.1-13; 27.2-22. There is no reason to suppose the subject of these single imperatives is any other than the prophet. Brownlee (1986: 101-102), on the basis of the use of the introductory formula ('Thus says the Lord Yahweh'), directs the command to the people to perform these actions and views the words as a taunt song against their enemies. But the use of the second masculine singular is the typical form for an injunction directed to the prophet, while the second plural is used when addressing the people (cf. 6.3-10). 399. Another line of interpretation of the actions links them not to emotive expressions but to magical activity, as exemplified by Eichrodt (1970: 97) who suggests that clapping was a magical action which 'could make a misfortune firm and irrevocable, and even increase its power'; cf. also Hals 1989: 39-40. But there is no basis in the immediate context, or in the nature of the prophetic sign-acts, for such 'magical' qualities. 400. On the actions expressing delight, see Bertholet 1897: 36; Cooke 1936: 7 Fohrer 1955: 40; Fuhs 1984: 41; Greenberg 1983: 135; Halperin 1993: 213; Stacey 1990: 192; Taylor 1969:91.


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malicious joy over another's misfortunes, because of Yahweh's judgment which was to come, or (2) indignation tempered by grief and sadness.401 The former interpretation is based on other biblical references in which clapping the hands, stomping the foot, and an interjection reflect the actors' joy. Also to maintain the interpretation that the combination of actions indicates delight, the paralinguistic interjection (PIN) must be emended to the form which clearly expresses joy (flNi!), on which see below. But any nonverbal behavior must be interpreted within the context of the individual communication event without superimposing on the behavior one generalized 'dictionary' meaning, especially when clapping is a polysemic nonverbal action within the Bible.402 1. Clapping the hands. In biblical Hebrew there are four different verbal roots which are used for 'clapping' the hands (^D or T): (1)

(2) (3)

(4)

PC]: Besides its use in Ezekiel (here and in 21.19, 22; 22.13), it is only used in 2 Kgs 11.12. The latter case is in the context of a joyous celebration of anointing the king. NnQ: Used only in the context of joyful expressions (Ps. 98.8, // 'sing for joy'; Isa. 55.12; Ezek. 25.6, // FOD). NpD: A joyful mood is reflected in Ps. 47.2 (// 'shout for joy') and Nah. 3.19 in the context of rejoicing over Assyria's fall. The latter is parallel in context to the rejoicing over an enemy's defeat in Ezek. 25.6 (NPIQ). But sp Kpn in Proverbs signifies a gesture ratifying a bargain and thereby pledging surety (Prov. 6.1; 11.15; 17.18; 22.26). In Proverbs the gesture may not be a 'clapping' of one's own hands, but the 'mutual shaking of hands' by the two parties involved in the contract agreement (cf. Falk 1959: 268; Vorwahl 1932: 28). pDO: Associated with the emotions of anger (Num. 24.10) or mocking (// 'hiss' in Lam. 2.15 and Job 27.23).

401. Cf. Ackroyd et al 1986: 415; Allen 1994: 89; Block 1997: 234-35; Keil 1976; I, 97. Some commentators view the actions as stemming from mourning customs. On 'clapping the hands' and 'stamping the feet' as mourning customs in Judaism, see Stahlin 1965a: 152; 1965b: 843; Gen. R. 100.6; M. Qat. 27b, 28b. See also the Akkadian references to clapping the hands in the context of mourning in Gruber 1980: 474; also ANET289c in the Esarhaddon Prism. 402. Similarly in ancient Greek and Roman cultures, clapping the hands could be both an expression of joy or grief (cf. Sittl 1890: 18-19).

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Thus biblical attestations of clapping involve at least three different emotive dispositions: (1) joyful acclamation, either in praise to God (Pss. 47.2; 98.8; Isa. 55.12) or in honor of the king (2 Kgs 11.12); (2) joyful scorn over an enemy's defeat and destruction (Ezek. 25.6; Nah. 3.19; Lam. 2.15; Job 27.23); (3) anger (Num. 24.10). Therefore, one must not merely superimpose the meaning of joy onto the clapping in Ezek. 6.11, but must examine the specific context to ascertain the appropriate mood expressed by the gesture. Since the actions of Ezek. 6.11 reflected the mood elicited by the abominations of the house of Israel, the parallel with Num. 24.10 is more appropriate in which Balak, out of anger for Balaam's repeated disobedience, clapped his hands. Although the exact interpretation of the emotions expressed by the nonverbal behaviors cannot be made solely upon the basis of the literary terms used for the actions, it is significant that in Ezekiel, where clapping was clearly a gesture of joy (25.6), the root NTO was used. Here in 6.11 and also in 21.19, 22 (see Chapter 2 §1.14) and 22.13403 where the connotations are different, the root PD] is employed. The vocabulary used in Ezek. may be an intentional indication so as not to equate the meanings of the two similar nonverbal actions. 2. Stomping the feet. The only other biblical reference to such a nonverbal action is Ezek. 25.6 where it is clearly an expression of joy parallel to PlftCO. But because it expressed joy in that context does not dictate that it means such in 6.11. Rather it must be interpreted as an expression of the same mood as the clapping and the paralinguistic interjection in 6.11. 3. 'Ah!'. The interjection, PIN, has often been taken as a form of Pf^Pf which is used in Ezek. 25.3; 26.2; 36.2 as an expression of joy. But it may be that the deliberate use of PIN here and in 21.20 (see Chapter 2 §1.14) was to distinguish it from the term of delight, PIKPI.404 Since in the context of joy (Ezek. 25.3, 6) both the interjection (PIKPf) and the verb for clapping (NPfQ) are different than here in 6.11 (respectively PIN 403. The clapping in Ezek. 22.13 is frequently interpreted as reflecting God's scornful joy (cf. Cooke 1936: 242; Taylor 1969: 167). But it need not be interpreted as such, and can be understood equally well as a manifestation of indignation, vexation, or despair over the wickedness (cf. Ackroyd et al. 1986: 415, 424; Greenberg 1997: 456; Keil 1976:1, 313; Wevers 1969: 130). 404. Cf. Zimmerli 1979: 184-85. This would be similar to 'in and 'IN which are very similar in form, yet have different connotative meanings: the former being that of threat, and the latter, a cry of despair and anguish (cf. Zobel 1978).


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and !~D]), the supposition is reinforced that the different terms were intentional to express divergent emotional moods manifested by similar nonverbal actions. In the context of the clapping and stomping as mournful anger, the interjection can be understood as an expression of lamentation. The text clarifies that the actions were to be performed 'on account of all the abominations of evils405 of the house of Israel' (v. 11). The nonverbal actions were expressive of an emotional response, not to the destruction which was pronounced in the accompanying verbal message, but to the cause of the destruction—the people's wickedness. To maintain the interpretation that the actions expressed malicious joy, the motivating clause must be overlooked or deleted so that the nonverbally expressed mood reflects an attitude conjoined with the accomplishment, not the cause, of the judgment. Following that line of interpretation, the nonverbal behavior then either depicted God's or Ezekiel's attitude toward the Tightness of judgment, or it was an ironic display of Ezekiel assuming the role of the people's enemy and taunting the Judahites because of the judgment (cf. Fohrer 1955: 40). It seems unlikely that such a taunting attitude would have been assumed in the prophetic address when it is precisely that type of attitude which results in God's judgment against Judah's neighbors (cf. Ezek. 25.3, 6; 26.2; 36.2). In other passages, it is made clear that God's attitude toward the wickedness of the people was one of anger, and that in having to execute the judgment it was one of sorrow. God did not delight in the death of the wicked (Ezek. 18.23; 33.11). 405. If mm is an adjective, its indefiniteness is grammatically incorrect and its position breaks the construct chain. As is, it is most probably a genitive construction: 'abominations of evils' (cf. GKC 128c; Cooke 1936: 71). The Peshitta separates the two terms with a conjunction. But the LXX does not attest the term, either because it took the phrase mu~) rVQJJin as a hendiadys (cf. Parunak 1978: 192), or mu~l was not in its Vorlage. If the latter, the term might be a variant or marginal reading which was inserted into the MT resulting in an appositional construction. But the exact literary reading does not alter the fact that the prophet was to perform those nonverbal behaviors on account of the abominations/evils of the house of Israel. Brownlee (1986: 101) views JTnuin as the gloss and then interprets min not as 'evil' in the moral sense but as misfortunes which would overtake the house of Israel. But there is no textual basis for his suggestion, and the meaning 'misfortune' does not fit the use of the term's plural form elsewhere in Ezekiel (cf. 6.9 MT; 20.43).

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Thus to postulate that here God was rejoicing over the judgment which he was about to bring does not correlate with the pathos of God presented elsewhere in the book. The nonverbal behaviors in 6.11 are best understood as reflecting the divine emotion of indignation over the people's wicked practices of worshiping other gods which are enumerated in vv. 13-14. That emotion of indignation, when coupled with the destruction of the people (vv. 1 lb-12), would be motivated by sadness and mourning rather than scornful delight. But in depicting the divine emotion, the implication for the immediate audience was that their emotions should correlate with the divine emotions. For the audience, the outwardly manifested divine behaviors became examples of what their inward emotions should be in respect to the wickedness around them. So the actions were not only a communicative expression of the divine pathos but also inferentially displayed the mood which should characterize those who empathized with God. In the present literary context, the motivating phrase of 6.11 is thematically related to 6.9 (cf. Parunak 1978: 191) in which those who survived (Ezekiel's immediate audience which consisted of 'survivors' because of their presence in exile) were to acknowledge the wickedness in Judah, and as a result, to loathe (D!"P]SD ICDpT), an attitude of disgust and sorrow)406 such behavior. Throughout the pre-586 BCE oracles, Ezekiel pictured the 'righteous' person as one who was in empathy with the feelings of God which incorporated an attitude akin to mourning over the unrighteousness within Judah. In 7.15-16 (MT) in a description of judgment by sword, pestilence and famine, the survivors would moan over their own iniquity (131m GTN man D^D) and don garments of mourning (v. 18). In the vision of ch. 9, the ones marked for preservation were those who 'sigh' (n3N) and 'groan' (p]N), that is, perform paralinguistic behaviors of mourning (cf. Ezek. 24.17), over all the abominations which were done in the city's midst (v. 4). The prophet's groaning in Ezek. 21.11 was representative of what the people's reaction should be in light of the news of the coming destruction (see Chapter 2 §1.13). In 21.17, the prophet's crying and striking the thigh (a mourning gesture) in anticipation of the coming judgment is set in a comparative context to 406. Cf. Ezek. 20.43 and 36.31 (DD^SD DntDpTI). Cf. also Ps. 119.158, and Ps. 139.21 where CDlp//tWtD ('hate'). In all of these cases, 01p represents an indignant attitude against disobedience to God.


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juxtapose those actions with the irresponsible rejoicing of the people (see Chapter 2 §1.14). Both the immediate context and the larger context of chapters 4-24 point to the nonverbal behaviors of 6.11 as reflecting the divine emotion of indignation at the sin and of sorrow over the ensuing destruction. If the people were truly aware of the divine posture toward them, then such emotions should be emulated by them as well. I.W.2 Rhetoric I . Attention. As Ezekiel began to clap his hands, stomp his feet, and utter 'Ah!', he would have attracted the people's attention, especially if he performed these in a public place where he could be easily observed. Once he had diverted the people's attention toward himself and evoked curiosity as to exactly what he was doing, then the verbal message would have been delivered to an attentive audience. Since the behaviors themselves bore a communicative message, they not only drew the people's attention to the communication event, but also helped focus the attention on the message-content which was partially contained in the behaviors. 2. Comprehension. The popular theology held that God was on Judah's side and the people could not comprehend that actually God was displeased with them at that time. Thus the message that God was indignant over their abominations and would destroy them, was not a message which was favorable to the people's way of thinking. To avoid their immediate rejection of the message, the nonverbal behavior of Ezekiel was ambiguous enough so as to make the message initially uncertain. Such an initial avoidance of comprehension should have drawn the people into the communication event, for even if they recognized that he was expressing anger or sorrow, they need not have assumed at first that they or the residents in Judah were the focus of such emotions. Part of the ambiguity of the nonverbal behaviors may have been the closeness and similarity to actions which expressed rejoicing over an enemy's destruction. Without the total context of the verbal message and Ezekiel's tone in performing the actions, the people from a distance may have initially thought that Ezekiel was about to produce a taunt song over Judah's enemies as a way of predicting the enemies' (even Babylon's) defeat. Initially the people may have felt he was imitating the joyful mockery which they would be able to perform in the near

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future. The initial ambiguity should have raised the people's level of curiosity rather than evoking a defensive posture. But to their amazement when they fully understood what Ezekiel was doing, he was speaking not against their enemies, but against Judah. The ambiguous aspects of Ezekiel's nonverbal behavior were eliminated through the content and tone of the accompanying verbal proclamation. It was the totality of the conjoined nonverbal and verbal portions which clarified that the message was not one of joy over the enemies' defeat, but an expression of indignation on God's part toward the abominations and of sadness because of Judah's resultant destruction. 3. Acceptance. Beside the message strategy of delaying the defenses through ambiguity, the actions also appealed to the people on the emotional level. As displays of emotional sadness and mourning, these may have been actions which the people had performed at the event of their exile in 597 BCE when they left their land and families. Thus they would have been reminded and could relate to the mood that Ezekiel was expressing, although in this sign-act the focus of the prophet's message was on the cause for the coming destruction, which was the people's sin, rather than just an emotional response to the destruction. Since the actions not only depicted, in an anthropomorphic way, the emotions of God, but implied that this should be the attitude of the people, in his role representation, Ezekiel bridged the speaker-audience identification gap created by standing authoritatively in opposition against the people as he represented God in the indictment by simultaneously assuming the role of the audience as he displayed to them what their attitude should be. 4. Retention. By employing gestures which were conventional behaviors used to express deep emotions, on later occasions when the people themselves performed similar nonverbal actions in the expression of their anger or sorrow the opportunity was present for the people to be reminded of Ezekiel's message. Because of the outward similarity to behaviors expressive of joy over an enemy's defeat, when the people observed or performed even those actions expressing an emotion contrary to that which Ezekiel displayed, they could have been reminded of Ezekiel's actions which transmitted the opposite message both in regard to the emotions expressed and to confidence about Judah's sure deliverance.


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l.ll Ezekiel 12.1-16 1.11.1 Communicative Meaning*®1 In vv. 3-6 occur the commands to Ezekiel to perform the actions.408 In v. 3, after the specific command to prepare the exile baggage, all the other commands take on a general nature which should be understood as a summation409 of the specific commands which then follow in vv. 46.410 Following in v. 7 is a statement that he executed the actions. Then in vv. 8-16 is the accompanying verbalized interpretation of the nonverbal behaviors. In determining the actual sequence of what happened, primacy should be given to the first-person report of the execution of the actions in v. 7, which is a condensed version of the commands in vv. 4-6a, since it reflects the chronological movement by day, by evening, by twilight. Verse 7 focuses on only one key activity within the time schema of daytime-evening-twilight and thus there is a lack of mention of the 407. Halperin (1993: 227-30) argues that for 12.1-16, the conscious 'historical application cloaks a more elemental unconscious symbolism' (228), and explains it in the following manner. The 'prince' is a self-representation of Ezekiel, who as a fetus is expelled from the womb. The 'digging through the wall' symbolizes Ezekiel's imagined 'memory of his birth' (228), but also simultaneously expresses 'Ezekiel's yearning for reentry, by means of his penis' (229). The references in vv. 14-16 to the sword are Ezekiel unconsciously wielding his castrating sword against himself, and 'thereby punishes himself for the incestuous wish to "dig through the wall"' (230). The phrase ] in vv. 6 and 7 on the basis that it means a total darkness which would have rendered the action unobservable and which consider it an addition based on the interpretation of the action as Zedekiah's attempt to escape in v. 12 (contra Cooke 1936: 130-31; Garscha 1974: 104, 111; Zimmerli 1979: 272-73).

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part of the communication event. Possibly he did not return until the next morning at which time he gave the verbal message to the people (vv. 8-16). The understanding of Ezekiel's activities depends upon whether th nonverbal actions portrayed the general inhabitants of Jerusalem going into forced exile, or an attempt by them to escape the city, or an escape attempt specifically by Zedekiah and his men. That a forced exile was meant by the actions is indicated implicitly through the root H^ which elsewhere in Ezekiel refers to a forced exile,421 not to a voluntary fleeing to escape captivity, and explicitly in v. 11 where Hîn is appositioned by "QSD.422 As a portrayal of the Jerusalemites being forced into exile by the Babylonians, all the activities in which the artifact of the exile baggage was part of the specific focus of attention, can be interpreted as representational actions of Ezekiel performing in the role of the inhabitants of the city.423 Just as he prepared his baggage, so the 421. Cf. the verb in 39.23 (qal) and 39.28 (hiphil). The noun rftia is the normal designation of Ezekiel's audience which had been forcibly taken into exile in 597 BCE (1.1; 3.11, 15; 11.24, 25), and in 25.3 refers to the exile after Jerusalem's fall. The noun m'73 is the normal designation for the state of exile in Babylon (1.2; 33.21; 40.1). 422. Some consider the term 'into captivity' a gloss (cf. Cooke 1936: 134; Fohrer 1951: 42; 1952b: 192; 1955: 63; 1968: 56; Freedy 1970: 143; Wevers 1969: 82; Zimmerli 1979: 266). Even if it is an interpretative gloss, it still reflects the understanding of n^l3 as forced exile. 423. Contra Greenberg (1983: 212, 217-18) who understands Ezekiel's action of carrying the baggage as being both figurative and representational (Greenberg uses 'symbolic' and 'predictive' respectively) in that the baggage was more than just an artifact in the representational display but figuratively stood for the Jerusalemites who were borne away as captives. But nowhere in the text is the baggage explicitly attributed a figurative meaning, and the artifact is not the primary referent of the message-content. In vv. 6 and 11 the 'sign' is not the baggage, but the prophet. Although the baggage is the implied direct object in vv. 5, 6, 7, 12, its lack of specification results in the emphasis being on the action, not on the artifact. In v. 11 a, if DH^ niDV is understood in the passive sense of 'it shall be done unto them' (cf. Greenberg 1983: 217) with Ezekiel performing in the role of the Babylonians, then it is possible that the baggage had a figurative sense: just as Ezekiel carried out the baggage, so the Babylonians would carry out the Jerusalemites. But a passive sense in v. lla does not necessitate understanding the baggage as standing for the Jerusalemites. For even if the phrase is understood in the passive sense, Ezekiel can still be viewed as performing in the role of the Jerusalemites so that the meaning is, just as Ezekiel, under divine compulsion, went into exile, so too the Jerusalemites


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Jerusalemites would prepare their baggage for exile, and just as he carried it as he left his home, so the Jerusalemites, including their ruler, would go into exile carrying their baggage on their shoulders (vv. 1112): 'Just as I have done, thus it shall be done by them;424 into exile, into captivity they shall go. And the ruler who is in their midst, he shall bear [it] upon [his] shoulder; in the twilight .'425 Other commentators have suggested that both forced exile and voluntary fleeing were depicted in Ezekiel's actions (the former in v. 3, interpreted in v. 11, and the latter in vv. 4-6, interpreted in vv. 12-14426) or that the original sign-act of Ezekiel involved only forced exile, to which were subsequently added the aspects of escape (specifically digging through the wall [vv. 5, 7], the reference to twilight [vv. 6, 7], covering the eyes [v. 6], and the interpretation in vv. 10, 12-16) after the facts of Zedekiah's attempted escape had actually transpired.427 In maintaining the latter position, it is assumed that the prophet or his followers saw in the sign-act a further meaning than what had originally been intended. Although such subsequent reinterpretation is possible, it needs to be determined whether the actions in vv. 5-7 and the accompanying verbal interpretations in vv. 10, 12-14, which commentators have interpreted as referring to Zedekiah's attempted escape, unequivocally reflect an awareness of that event and therefore can only be interpreted in light of such. The following 'Excursus' deals with each of the issues involved.

would be forced to carry their baggage and go into exile. Also, if the figurative use of the baggage was meant, one would expect passives also in vv. 1 lb-12 instead of the active verbal forms. 424. DH^ n&iT: the preposition with the passive construction expresses personal agent or efficient cause, 'it shall be done by them' (cf. GKC 121-22), rather than 'it shall be done to them'. This rendering is supported by the subsequent parallel active construction ID'?1', 'they shall go', rather than a passive, 'they shall be taken'. 425. Reading K^T for the MT's Kin (the result of metathesis), so that the phrase is parallel to that in vv. 6, 7 (cf. Uffenheimer 1978: 54; Zimmerli 1979: 266-67). 426. Cf. Buzy 1923: 252-53. This view is based on the misassumption that all of the commands in v. 3 were separately carried out, followed by a different executing of the actions of v. 4 (against such, see above). 427. There is no unanimity among commentators regarding which elements are to be considered later additions referring to Zedekiah's escape attempt or whether they were made by Ezekiel or by later redactors.

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Excursus: Zedekiah's Attempted Escape and Ezekiel 12.5-7, 10, 12-14 In vv. 10428 and 12-14, the focus on 'the ruler' may have been because of his position as the representative of the people so that the verbal interpretation, rather than focusing on what would happen exclusively to the 'ruler' (Zedekiah), was using the ruler to refer metonymically to the corporate citizenry as the broadening in vv. lOb and 14-16 suggests.429 Since the preservation of both Jerusalem and the Davidic monarchy were key tenets of the popular theology which Ezekiel was here countering, the focus in the verbal interpretation upon the 'ruler' adds to the rhetorical impact: this exile not only meant the demise of the general populace of Jerusalem, but also of the Davidic monarchy. 428. DÎTD ntn K&on N^n has been variously translated and understood as follows: (1) The understanding preferred here is that K&Q is taken as a nominal verb, 'bearing', 'carrying' (cf. the same use in reference to carrying objects in Num. 4.24; 2 Chron. 20.25; 35.3, ^nra KtoD). The only other occurrence of the term in Ezekiel is 24.25 where it does not mean 'oracle', but 'uplifting'. The whole phrase in 12.10 then means 'this (act of) carrying (refers to) the ruler'. The understanding as the ''act of carrying the baggage' correlates precisely with the emphasis of the whole passage which is on the 'action' as having communicative meaning as evidenced by the direct object, understood as 'the baggage', being unspecified in vv. 5, 6, 7, 12, which causes the focus to be on the 'act' rather than on the 'artifact', and by the prophet (v. 11), not the baggage, being the 'sign', which indicates that the importance was on what he did. (2) N&Q means 'oracle' (literally 'burden') by analogy to the word-play in Jer. 23.33, so that the phrase means 'this oracle is [or, 'concerns', with an understood Û] the ruler in Jerusalem'. Against this understanding is the fact that N&Q is not used elsewhere in Ezekiel in the sense of 'oracle' or 'prophetic utterance'. (3) N27Q means literally 'load' or 'burden' and refers to the exile baggage of the sign-act: (a) in the figurative sense, 'the ruler in Jerusalem is the load' (cf. Block 1997: 363, 373-74; Greenberg 1983: 211-12, 217). According to this interpretation, Ezekiel's exile baggage figuratively stood for the Jerusalemites and the ruler. Against this understanding is that a figurative employment of the baggage does not carry through in vv. 11-12. Or, (b) K&Q refers to the burden of the baggage which the Jerusalemites would actually bear: 'the prince (will carry) this burden (of baggage) in Jerusalem' (cf. Syriac). 429. Similarly in the oracles against Tyre and Egypt (Ezek. 28.1-10, 11-19; 29.1-16; 30.20-26; 31.1-18; 32.1-10), the focus is judgments specifically on the king and Pharaoh respectively. Yet it is clear that these individuals are only representatives for the whole nations which will receive the judgments.


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The statements in vv. 13-14 are general statements about judgment contingent on rebellion and are therefore applicable to forced exiled and not exclusively to attempted flight. The 'spreading the net and capturing the ruler' in v. 13a is a general statement for coming under divine judgment. The expression was employed elsewhere by Ezekiel with reference to Zedekiah (Ezek. 17.20, which is clearly not a reference to an attempted escape), Jehoiachin (19.8-9) and Pharaoh (32.3).430 Thus, as a summary statement about the 'ruler', v. 13a refers to the whole episode of capturing the city and forcing the 'ruler' into exile without any specific reference to the particulars of the pursuit and capture of Zedekiah after his flight from Jerusalem. In v. 13b, the reference to exile and the ruler's death there (cf. Ezek. 17.16) reflects normal ancient Near Eastern policy against a rebellious people and king. The reference in v. 14 to his warriors and troops being scattered need not refer only to those who accompanied Zedekiah in his escape attempt, but may refer more generally to the whole of Zedekiah's army whose primary function was the defense of the city (cf. Ezek. 17.21 where there is no reference to an attempted escape). Thus, as part of the rhetorical argument, these military personnel were spoken of to show that those in whom the people had hoped for the protection of the city would prove to be insufficient for the task since they too would be dispersed into exile. The aspects which are singled out as supposedly showing the clearest reference to Zedekiah's circumstances of flight are in v. 12, 'he shall cover his face because he shall not see the land with [his] eye',431 and v.

430. The imagery of being ensnared in a net as the result of breaking a treaty is used in Ezek. 17.20-21; Jer. 48.43-44; 50.24; Isa. 8.14; 28.13; Hos. 7.12; ANET 540b, no. 82. On the motif as part of the curses for breaking vassal treaties, see Millers 1964: 69-70, and its use in the Poem of Erra and other Mesopotamian literature, see Bodi 1987: 136-59; 1991: 162-82. In the Nungal-Hymn, the goddess Ninegal executed judgment against the person who did not acknowledge the gods by casting her finely meshed net over the land to catch the evildoer, and then once caught, the person was led away blindfolded and naked (Frymer 1977: 81-82). 431. p«n HN Nin 'p'? PINT $b: even though the LXX is passive, 'in order that he shall not be seen by an eye', and is followed by many commentators, the MT should be retained. In the command to perform the action of covering the eyes (v. 6), the 'not seeing the land' cannot be understood passively because of the specified direct object. The reading in v. 6 dictates against the passive sense in v. 12 which can be maintained only if f~l^n HN Kin is deleted. Also in v. 12, the LXX

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13, 'and I shall bring him to Babylon... but he shall not see it'. If in the phrase of v. 13, 'he shall not see it', the antecedent of nniK is the immediately preceding 'land of the Chaldeans', then the meaning may be that because of blindness the ruler would not see the land into which he was exiled. For Zedekiah, this was actually fulfilled in his blinding at Riblah (2 Kgs 25.6-7; Jer. 39.6-7). Since the blinding of captives was practiced in the ancient Near East,432 the statements in vv. 12 and 13, could be general statements of judgment like the other phrases in vv. 13 and 14 without deriving from ex eventu knowledge of the specifics of the Zedekiah incident.433 But another possibility is that 'the land' (Judah) in v. 12 is the distant antecedent for the direct object in v. 13. Then the statement in v. 13 is the same as in vv. 6 and 12 (on which see below) and it comments on the permanence of the exile, and has no reference to blindness: the ruler would not see the land of Judah ever again. In the latter sense, the phrase is synonymous in meaning to the following: 'and there [in Babylon] he shall die'. Both phrases emphasized from two perspectives that the exile into which 'the ruler' was going would be, for him, an irreversible situation. This latter understanding of the phrase structurally fits the context better than the former. Another argument against the elements in vv. 5-6, 10, 12-14 being interpolations based on Zedekiah's attempted escape is that they do not correlate with that event as recounted in 2 Kgs 25.4-7; Jer. 39.4-7; 52.7-11. Zedekiah was said to have fled through the middle gate between the two walls (2 Kgs 25.4; Jer. 39.4; 52.7). There is no reference to his men having to dig through the wall in order to provide a means of escape for him. Had the facts of Zedekiah's flight been known, why would not the editor have made Ezekiel exit through one of the village retains both a passive and an active reading indicating an awareness of two interpretations, both of which were incorporated into the translation. 432. In the palace relief of Sargon II (eighth century BCE) the eyes of his captive are being put out (in Parrot 1955: 62 Fig. 23). In Sefire 1A.39, one of the consequences of breaking the treaty is being blinded (cf. AW£T660b). Similarly, in the Vassal-Treaties of Esarhaddon, 11. 422-24 (no. 40), 626-31 (no. 95), the curse for breaking the treaty involve blindness (cf. ANET 538c; 540c). In the Hittite 'soldier's oath' (ANET 353-54), the curse of blindness for those who betray the king is repeated twice. In the second occurrence, a blind woman was set before them to depict nonverbally what would happen to them if they broke the oath. 433. Cf. Deist (1971) who, on the basis of the Sefire inscription, proposes that Zedekiah's blinding was 'an inescapable consequence of breaching the oath of loyalty'.


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gates or the doorway of his house at night, so as to maintain the representational character of the action? The sequence of Ezekiel's actions also did not follow the chronology of the actions of Zedekiah's flight. Zedekiah's blinding did not occur until after the attempted escape had been aborted, while Ezekiel was to cover his eyes as he left the city with the exile baggage (v. 12). Certainly an editor supplementing Ezekiel's original actions with other activities and interpretations would have made the interpolations consistent with the event to which it had reference.434 There is nothing in the whole passage (vv. 1-14) which can be conclusively interpreted as making specific, ex eventu reference to the particulars of Zedekiah's attempted escape, and which, as such, needs be considered a later interpolation, or needs to be interpreted specifically as the attempted escape and blinding of Zedekiah. But rather, the signact indicated more generally, that Zedekiah along with his subjects would be taken into permanent exile when the Babylonians captured the city. 3. Digging through the wall. The activity which becomes difficult to interpret as representative of the people going into exile is the digging through the wall (vv. 5, 7, 12). For why would the ones being forced into exile dig through the walls of their homes or through the city wall before going out?435 Because of this anomaly, the digging has often been interpreted as standing for the people's,436 or specifically Zedekiah's and his men's,437 activity in their furtive and desperate attempts to

434. Block (1997: 366) also argues that if the Ezekiel account has been drawn from the Jeremianic or Deuteronomistic historian accounts, one would expect greater lexical links between them. 435. The interpretation that this meant the destruction of the people's homes (cf. Cooke 1936: 130; Eichrodt 1970: 151-52; Greenberg 1983: 210) to signify that the people would not return home, still leaves the difficulty of this action being executed by the inhabitants of the city. The dwellings were destroyed by the Babylonian conquerors, not by the Jerusalemites (cf. 2 Kgs 25.4, 8-10; 2 Chron. 36.19; Jer. 39.2, 8; 52.7, 12-14). 436. Cf. Brownlee 1983: 93; 1986: 170-71; Cooke 1936: 130; Greenberg 1983: 209-10; Taylor 1969: 115; Wevers 1969: 82; Zimmerli 1979: 267, 272. 437. Cf. Cooke 1936: 131; Greenberg 1983: 213, 218; Keil 1976:1, 160; Taylor 1969: 115.

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escape. But this understanding does not correlate with the explicit interpretation (v. 11) of the baggage-related actions that they illustrated not voluntary escaping, but forced exile. Within the context of forced exile, a feasible explanation of Ezekiel's digging through the wall is that he was functioning not in the role of the Jerusalemites, but rather in the role of the Babylonians. This could also explain the ambiguous third plural T~in!T438 in v. 12 which has no direct antecedent: 'through the wall they shall dig to bring [him/it]439 out through it'. The subject of the plural verb can be understood as the Babylonians. In the role of the besiegers, Ezekiel would then have been indicating either the Babylonians' breaching of the wall (cf. Jer. 39.2) or their complete tearing down of the wall which occurred just before the trek into exile (cf. 2 Kgs 25.10; Jer. 39.8; 52.14).440 The former seems more likely. This interpretation requires Ezekiel to switch roles in the midst of the performance. But this does not create an insurmountable difficulty since in other sign-acts he also functioned simultaneously in more than one role (cf. the complex of chs. 4-5). The indicator as to the switch in roles was the active use of the exile baggage: while functioning with the exile baggage, he portrayed the Jerusalemites, but when performing the activity of digging through the wall which was independent of the baggage, he functioned in a different role. If he dug through the wall from the outside, that too would have indicated penetration of the wall by the besiegers rather than by the inhabitants who were on the inside. Therefore, his appearances before the audience carried different meanings: when he initially appeared

438. There is no reason to emend to third-person singular on the basis of the LXX since such is a smoothing of the text (cf. Greenberg 1983: 218). 439. tîn1? is ambiguous as to whether the understood object refers to the ruler or to the exile baggage (as in vv. 5, 6, 7, 12a). If the diggers are the implied subjects of the infinitive ('to bring out'), and the diggers are the Babylonians, then a personal direct object is more appropriate giving the sense that they dug through the wall in order to bring out the ruler. But if 'the ruler' is considered the subject of the infinitive then 'the exile baggage' would appropriately be the implied object giving the sense that they (the Babylonians) dug through the wall for him (the ruler) to bring out his exile baggage. 440. Cf. Allen 1994: 179. Both Zimmerli (1979: 268, 272) and Garscha (1974: 111) interpret the digging as standing for the Babylonians' breaching or demolishing of the walls, but neither consider the action to have been carried out by the prophet.


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setting out the baggage for the audience's viewing, he representationally portrayed the Jerusalemites; when he reappeared and dug through the wall, and then disappeared into the house, he representationally portrayed the Babylonians; when he again reappeared from the inside through the hole in the wall, this time carrying the baggage, he representationally portrayed the Jerusalemites leaving through the breached city wall (cf. Amos 4.2-3). 4. Covering the face. As he left the community, Ezekiel also had his face, specifically his eyes, covered (v. 6). How he covered his face is not specified, only that it signified the communicated meaning of 'not seeing the land'. Because 'covering the face' is not mentioned in the execution statement in v. 7, it has often been assumed that it was not part of the original nonverbal actions, but added later, on the basis of v. 12, after the other actions were likened to Zedekiah's attempted escape and his blinding. According to that line of interpretation, the 'covering the face' was representational of Zedekiah's disguise to facilitate his escape,441 or figurative of his subsequent blindness,442 or figurative of the secrecy or fearful anxiety in the attempted escape.443 But as argued above, Ezekiel's actions need not have specific referents of Zedekiah's escape and capture. Others have interpreted 'the covering of the face' as reflecting the grief or humiliation444 which accompanied the city's destruction and the people's exile. It is true that biblically the gesture of 'covering the face/head' could signify 'grief (D'US 0^ in 2 Sam. 19.5; CJfcO HSH in 2 Sam. 15.30; Est. 6.12; D2& ^ ntDU in Ezek. 24.17, 22), or 'shame' and 'humiliation' (tffcn HSR in Jer. 14.3, 4; Est. 7.8; DD& ^ H£D^ in Mic. 3.7),445 or 'fear' in the presence of God (D'B oft in 1 Kgs 19.13). Yet different terminology than the DS]S HDD446 of Ezek. 12.6 and 12 is used to designate those various emotive behaviors. 441. Cf. Brownlee 1986: 174; Buzy 1923: 253; Cooke 1936: 132, 135; Stacey 1990: 194; Taylor 1969: 116; Wevers 1969: 82. 442. Cf. van den Born 1947: 74; Brownlee 1986: 172, 174; Cooke 1936: 130, 132; Fuhs 1984: 66; Holscher 1924: 80; Klein 1988: 47-48; Taylor 1969: 116. 443. Cf. Eichrodt 1970: 151. 444. Cf. Brownlee 1986: 170; Eichrodt 1970: 150; Fuhs 1984: 67; Keil 1976:1, 160; Lang 1978: 21-22; Uffenheimer 1978: 53; Zimmerli 1979: 270-71; 1980: 179. 445. Cf. Frymer (1977: 82) on the Hymn to Nungal in which the person who did not acknowledge his god was shamed by being led away blindfolded and naked. 446. This same expression occurs elsewhere biblically for: (1) a prostitute covering her face (Gen. 38.15); (2) as a literal gesture of reverence (Isa. 6.2, the

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Both times when 'the covering of the face' is mentioned here in Ezekiel 12, it is explained as 'not seeing the land' (vv. 6, 12447). The phrase 'shall not see the land' was used in Jer. 22.10-12 with reference to Jehoahaz to express the permanence of the exile into which he was taken.448 Thus by covering the face, Ezekiel was figuratively portraying the permanence of the exilic situation into which the Jerusalemites were going.449 The 'covering of the face' thus showed that from that point on, the land of Judah would no longer be seen. The 'covering of the face' therefore had an ironical component in that the people who currently still had the option of seeing (vv. 2-3) would eventually, as exiles, not be allowed to see.450 The 'covering', and thereby 'not seeing', in the sense of 'permanent physical separation from', fits well into this message of Ezekiel and into the rhetorical situation which Ezekiel was addressing. The immediate exilic audience was hoping for an imminent return from their exile. So to counter that unfounded expectation, Ezekiel figuratively portrayed the permanence of the coming exile. This was made explicit in the accompanying verbal message that the 'ruler', as representative of all the people taken into exile, would die in the foreign land (v. 13). 5. Time references. Another figurative element in the sign-act was the timing of the actions. Ezekiel set the baggage out in the daytime, dug through the wall in the evening, and carried the baggage out through the hole in the wall at twilight. In the timing of his actions, in moving seraphim); (3) a figurative expression meaning to render the office or normal functions ineffective (Job 9.24; cf. also Isa. 29.10, 2JK~1 HDD). But none of those meanings or situations correlates with this passage. 447. In v. 12, the expression and its interpretation are linked by ~I2?N ]JT, 'because'. This should not be emended (cf. Allen 1994: 173; Greenberg 1983: 21314), on the basis of LXX, to ]UQ^, 'in order that', which then, inappropriately, reflects a cause-effect relationship. 448. Cf. the curse for breaking the treaty made between Ashurnirari V and Mati'ilu (ANET 532d): 'just as this spring lamb, brought from its fold, will not return to its fold, will not behold its fold again, alas, Mati'ilu, together with his sons, daughters, officials, and the people of his land [will be ousted] from his country, will not return to his country, and not behold his country again'. 449. Cf. Block 1997: 375-76; Uffenheimer 1978: 53. Allen (1994: 180) generally agrees, but interprets the reference to seeing, in v. 13, as a redactional gloss referring to Zedekiah's blindness (176-77, 182). 450. See Isa. 44.18 in which God smeared over the people's eyes so that they could not see.


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progressively from daylight to darkness, Ezekiel figuratively portrayed the city's progressive decline to its ultimate demise. Before the end of the city had occurred (figuratively in the daylight), the besieged would recognize that the city's and their own fates were inevitable and would prepare their baggage for exile. Ezekiel's digging through the wall, which represented the breaching of the wall by the besiegers, occurred in the evening—the end of the nation was drawing closer but had not fully come. Finally, the going into exile was to occur at the point of twilight as full darkness approached.451 Darkness, as often used biblically, is a figure for calamity and termination.452 So the specific time schema (daytime-evening-twilight) figuratively aided the representational nonverbal activities in communicating the message of Jerusalem's end as an inhabited city. I . I I . 2 Rhetoric

1. Attention. When Ezekiel initiated the sequence of actions by setting his baggage out during the daytime, it certainly should have drawn the people's attention. Although through observation of the baggage, the spectators would have assumed that Ezekiel was preparing to go on a journey, even so the reason for his trip or its significance would not have been evident to them. So the people's curiosity must have been heightened as they expectantly awaited further actions or clarification by the prophet. The bizarre action of digging through the wall of his house probably caused consternation as to why he would destroy his own dwelling in such a manner. As he trudged off with the baggage 451. Thus the going out at twilight was not: (1) representational of the exiles setting out on the long trek in the coolness of night (contra Bertholet 1897: 65; Fohrer 1955: 64; Uffenheimer 1978: 48; Zimmerli 1979: 271; 1980: 178-79), for there is no reason to assume that the captors would have been so considerate of their captives; (2) representational of Zedekiah's (or other Jerusalemites') actual flight at night (contra Buzy 1923: 253); (3) figurative of the furtiveness in the desire to escape (contra Greenberg 1983: 210); (4) figurative of the gloom of the mental state of the exiles; (5) figurative of Zedekiah's blindness (contra van den Born 1947: 73-74; Holscher 1924: 80). None of the above interpretations seeks a unified or consistent understanding of the whole gamut of time references (daytime-evening-twilight) specified in the sign-act account. 452. Cf. Ezek. 32.7-8, the description of the coming destruction of Egypt. See also Jer. 13.16; 23.12; Isa. 24.11-12; Nah. 1.8; and darkness as a motif in 'the Day of Yahweh' imagery: Joel 2.2; 3.4; Amos 5.18, 20; Zeph. 1.15.

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over his shoulder, they must have wondered when or if he would return. Yet his performance of the whole sequence of actions was done in silence, without answering their inquiring questions as to what was the meaning of his actions (v. 9).453 The strategy of delaying the accompanying explanation until the following morning (v. 8) served the function of an attention-maintaining technique. Before delineating the meanings of his nonverbal actions, Ezekiel allowed his audience ample time to re-enact them mentally and to draw their own speculative conclusions as to what they meant. 2. Comprehension. The actions which Ezekiel performed were, to the observers, ambiguous as to their meanings and implications, as indicated by the audience response (v. 9). In light of the people's hopes for an imminent return from exile, they may have misread into his actions a message which was favorable to their own expectations. They may have thought that Ezekiel was enacting their own anticipated return to the homeland. Or, if they suspected that he was depicting exile from Jerusalem, they could have assumed that he was merely representing their own journey in 597 BCE, with the expectation that his return from wherever he had gone would communicate that they too would be returning to Judah. Although Ezekiel's prophecy was contrary to the people's hopes and expectations, the actions' ambiguities, which left open the possibility of the audience misinterpreting the message as favorable, allowed the people to remain open to the message which Ezekiel was communicating. By not initially understanding the message as opposing their viewpoint, the spectators would have delayed producing counterarguments against the message-content, thus drawing them into the persuasion process. From the standpoint of comprehension, the nonverbal activities (vv. 3-7) were preparatory message elements leading to the climax which occurred in the verbal proclamation (vv. 10-16) which was given the next morning. It was only in the accompanying verbal statements that the meanings and ramifications of the nonverbal elements were clarified. Only when the people heard the verbal message were they able to

453. The question in v. 9 indicates that the nonverbal actions were not concurrently accompanied by any verbal proclamation. Therefore vv. 3-6 must be considered words directed specifically to the prophet, and not a work song which Ezekiel sang as he carried out the divine command (contra Brownlee 1986: 171).


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realize fully that Ezekiel's oracle was diametrically opposed to that which they wanted to hear. 3. Acceptance. In order to communicate and persuade, Ezekiel employed the message strategies of indirect address and emotional appeals. Although Ezekiel was a 'sign' to his immediate exilic audience, his nonverbal depictions were a form of indirect address in that he portrayed what would happen to the Jerusalemites, rather than what would happen to his immediate audience. In v. 11 Ezekiel, declared to the exiles, 'I am your sign' (second plural suffix = immediate audience),454 and explained that what he had done would be done by 'them' (third plural suffix = Jerusalemites). Ezekiel only enacted the exile journey of the Jerusalem ruler and citizens, but did not explicitly depict or say in what way that event would affect the present exiles. The strategy in the indirect address was that of leaving the implications of the messagecontent up to the audience to decipher. The message contained an implied argument against the people's hope of an imminent return. Ezekiel's action of 'covering the face', which was interpreted as 'not seeing the land', figuratively communicated the permanence of the exilic situation for those whom Ezekiel depicted. The ramification was that the immediate audience's exilic situation would be permanent as well. If the future exiles would have no hope of return, why should the immediate exiles? The indirect address should have motivated Ezekiel's audience to enter into the prophet's thought processes, forcing the spectators to go beyond that which Ezekiel, as rhetor, did and said so as to perceive, for themselves, the logical conclusions of his arguments. The audience had to participate actively in the communication process to understand fully the message's ramifications. If the audience remained passive recipients, then they would fail to 'see' (v. 3) what the message for them really was. The message strategies also involved emotional appeals. Rather than presenting logical refutations of the audience's misdirected hope, Eze-

454. Although the second masculine plural suffix of DDD31D, is not represented in the LXX, it clearly refers to Ezekiel's immediate audience and provides a contrast to the third plurals in the rest of the verse which signify the Jerusalemites. Both the LXX's lack of the suffix and Syriac's translation of v. lib in second masculine plural are mistaken attempts to smooth the text (cf. Uffenheimer 1978: 45-46; Zimmerli 1979: 269).

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kiel provided, in predictive form, a concrete display of the Jerusalemites, which included family members and friends of the immediate audience, going into exile. It was not just a matter of who was being depicted, but it was also the issues themselves which were laden with emotion. Those theological tenets which were held with emotional fervor—the inviolability of Jerusalem, the permanence of the Davidic monarchy, the preservation of the people in the land—were being challenged by the prophet's message through the nonverbal portrayal of the exact opposites: the inviolable city would be breached, the ruler would be captured (verbally expressed in v. 13), and the ruler and people would be forced out of the land. For an emotional appeal to be effective, it needs to have a contact point within the audience to which the audience can relate emotionally. Ezekiel's nonverbal depictions effectively touched upon the audience's own past experiences. Since they themselves had been forced into exile in 597 BCE, the packing of the exile baggage for the long trek to Babylon and the departure from the land were actions with which they themselves were experientially acquainted. The emotional reminiscences of their own leaving of Jerusalem years before should have been stimulated by Ezekiel's visual presentation. In conjunction with the message strategies, Ezekiel primarily employed the speaker strategy of role identification with the audience in that the majority of the actions were performed in the role of the ones going into exile. The only exception to that was when he dug through the wall and thereby represented the besiegers. Although the role performance as the besiegers, who were the audience's enemy, could have had the effect of separating him from, and even placing him in opposition to, his audience, when functioning in the role of the Jerusalemites, Ezekiel aligned himself with his audience on the basis of the connections the audience had with their fellow-Jerusalemites. 4. Retention. The unusualness of the actions and the bizarreness of digging through the wall should have imprinted the prophet's activities on the people's memories so that they were not quickly forgotten. But it is also possible that for a period of time there was a 'residual reminder' of the activities. Nothing is said as to what happened to the hole in the wall. The possibility exists that Ezekiel merely left the wall as it was without making any repairs to it. Thus every time someone went by his house, they would see the gaping hole and again be reminded of Ezekiel's actions and their meanings. Or even when the hole was


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repaired, the act of repairing would have been a reminder of Ezekiel's activities. And once repaired with new material being placed over the old, the repair work might have been visibly evident for some time. Regardless of whether there was a physical, residual reminder of the action, the people's personal existence in exile was a catalyst for remembering the actions. Every time they discussed or contemplated their own exilic existence, even if in mistaken anticipation of it ending, the subject of the exile could have stimulated remembrance of Ezekiel's prediction that the other Jerusalemites would yet join them in exile. 1.11.3 Audience Response. In the account of this sign-act, the audience's attitude prior to the persuasion process (v. 2), and the inquisitive response to the nonverbal portion of the communication event (v. 9), are recounted. The section begins with a statement to Ezekiel about both the audience's attitudinal predisposition which elicited the specific, enjoined nonverbal communication, and also the difficulty of the persuasive task to which he was commissioned: they have eyes to see, but do not see; they have ears to hear, but they do not hear (v. 2). The 'not seeing' may reflect the disparity between the audience's level of awareness and divine perspective in that the people saw historical events occurring, but they did not have the insight to interpret them correctly.455 Or 'not seeing' may be a specific allusion to Ezekiel's previous nonverbal signacts.456 Then 'not seeing' along with 'not hearing' would form a merism referring to the lack of response to all of Ezekiel's prophetic actions and speeches. It is implied that either because of the people's lack of insight or because of their negative predisposition toward the divine word, that this new message must be presented in a forceful, attention-getting manner. So the prophet was commanded to perform the following nonverbal actions, the visual nature of which correlated with the emphasis throughout the passage that the actions were to be performed 'before their eyes' (vv. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7). The audience's attitudes prior to this communication event thus affected the manner of communication. But besides influencing the method of communication, the people's attitudes also affected the whole task of persuasion. Ezekiel was again 455. Cf. Wevers 1969: 81. 456. Cf. Cooke 1936: 129; Cooper 1994: 148; Greenberg 1983: 209; Taylor 1969: 115.

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reminded (cf. 2.3-7; 3.25) of the difficulty of persuading a people who held views diametrically opposed to those he was espousing. But he was given a slight sense of hope that his persuasive efforts would produce the intended results: 'perhaps they shall see' (v. 3). In the midst of the nonverbal performance, the audience inquired of the prophet, 'What are you doing?' (v. 9). Although in the literary account, the audience question has become subsumed under the divine word to the prophet, it must be considered as legitimately reflecting the sentiment of the audience as they observed the prophet's nonverbal actions.457 Since the form of the divine inquiry to the prophet K^n is a rhetorical question, it means that the people had asked,458 which affirms that the prophet's communication techniques had caught the people's attention and had aroused a curiosity as to the meanings of the actions. The question seems genuinely to have arisen from the ambiguity in the meanings of Ezekiel's nonverbal actions, yet also highlights the people's lack of perceptive understanding as noted in v. 2.459 After the nonverbal behaviors were amply clarified as to their meaning through the subsequent verbal message, were the people persuaded of Ezekiel's message? The account gives no indication about the overall effectiveness of the prophet's persuasive techniques upon the audience in this particular communication event. But in the following, separate, oracles of vv. 21-28, Ezekiel's exilic audience is characterized as having dismissed his messages (both nonverbal and verbal) as being irrelevant to the current situation (v. 27) and not truly descriptive of that which would happen (v. 22). The literary bracket created by vv. 2 and 21-28 suggests that the audience's attitude of deliberate rejection (v. 2) which evoked the nonverbal actions (vv. 3-7) persisted (vv. 2128) even in spite of Ezekiel's persuasive efforts.

457. Clark (1984: 71) classifies the question as 'representative' of the people's words. 458. Cf. Block 1997: 363; Greenberg 1983: 211; Keil 1976:1, 158. Cf. Brongers (1981: 181-83) who discusses the emphatic stress nature of K^n. 459. Clark (1984: 67) summarizes the rhetorical function of 'explanatory citations' (Ezek. 12.9; 21.5, 12; 24.19; 33.21; 37.18): 'Explanatory quotations sharpen the edge between sign-actions and their interpretations through a heightening of popular ignorance, thus weighting with greater significance the prophet's intended meaning.'


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1.12 Ezekiel 12.17-20 1.12.1 Communicative Meaning. Ezekiel was instructed that when he ate his food and drank water, he was to do so with a display of quaking (2JIH) and shaking (HT31). Since the imperfect forms in v. 18 are understood to function in an injunctive sense, the trembling should be viewed as a self-imposed action. Thus the shaking was unrelated to the prophet's physical or emotional condition in that it was not an involuntary affect display, that is, he did not feel the emotion which in turn unconsciously evoked the somatic nonverbal behavior, nor was it evoked through physiological or psychological stimuli or malady.460 If the latter were actually the case, then the nonverbal behavior would have merely been informative of Ezekiel's emotions or condition, which Ezekiel subsequently reinterpreted. The text gives no hint of such reinterpretation. Also if the trembling and shaking had been persistent, involuntary conditions which the prophet suffered, the specification in the injunction to do so while eating becomes meaningless, since the people would have observed his trembling whenever he did anything, not just when he ate. The specification to display only the trembling when eating and drinking indicates that this was a nonverbal display which the prophet consciously controlled and performed only on given occasions. Thus the text presents Ezekiel as intentionally using the external movements of trembling to illustrate representationally how others reacted emotionally to the situation in which they found themselves. The shaking and quaking must have been executed to the point of obvious noticeability (possibly even exaggerated) for the audience's sake.461 Because of the shaking, he possibly fumbled the food in his hands in attempting to pick it up. Possibly in bringing the food to his mouth, he missed placing it properly into the mouth because of the shaking of his hand and head. When taking the water, one imagines him spilling it over the edges of the container in attempting to drink. 460. Contra Brownlee 1986: 179; Eichrodt 1970: 153; Fuhs 1984: 68; Stacey 1990: 196;Zimmerli 1969: 141; 1974: 145-46; 1979: 278. 461. Konig's (1904: 175) argument that the shaking would not have been obvious and thus the action was never truly performed, is countered when Ezekiel's shaking is considered a dramatic, communicative performance. In the process of eating, when objects were handled, it probably did not take an extreme quantity of shaking for it to be noticeable. One need only think of the analogy of how a mime can very effectively communicate emotional states through gesture, body posture, and facial expression.

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When shaking while eating, one can infer from 27in, that there was not only the visual aspect, but an auditory one as well, since the term implies not only quaking but also a rattling sound.462 One can imagine the prophet's teeth chattering as he shook and the eating utensils and vessels clattering together as he attempted to use them with trembling hands. As with many nonverbal behaviors where a very similar type gesture or action can carry several different meanings depending upon the context, so too with shaking and trembling. For example, such behavior can be an affect display of various emotions, such as grief, happiness, fear or anger; or it can be an intrinsically coded action which is the result of physical or psychological stimuli, such as when one is cold, feverish, pained, cramped. But in this pericope, both the injunction to act (v. 18) and the verbal interpretation (v. 19) clarify the type of emotion the prophet's shaking was to represent. In the injunction, the clarification occurs through the terms used to describe the shaking and trembling. Elsewhere the verbal forms of 2Jm show the singular emotive connotation of fear. The verbal forms, although frequently used with 'earth' (or a synonym or complementary pair thereof, such as 'land', mountains', 'heavens'), rarely refer exclusively to the geological phenomenon of an 'earthquake'. In many cases the quaking of the 'earth' was a poetic expression which indicated that the inhabitants of the earth were quaking. This broader connotation is evident in Ezek. 38.20 where fish, birds, animals and people quake. Likewise, in Isa. 14.16, it was the 'kingdoms', and in Ezek. 31.16, the 'nations', which quaked, so that the quaking was a human response and not just a geological occurrence. In the contextual employment of the verbal forms of C7JJ"l, the occasions which elicited 'the earth's' (including its inhabitants) quaking are, almost without exception, either actualized or anticipated destruction. And the destruction is attributed to the divine execution of wrathful judgment.463 Thus the verbal form has virtually a singular connotative 462. The dual aspects of physical movement and accompanying sound are connotative meanings of 2?m which distinguish the term from other terms for shaking, trembling or agitation. In Ezek. 3.12, 13, the term is used of the sound during the theophany. In Ezek. 37.7 it is associated with the noise of the bones coming together. Similarly in several passages, the term means the sound of battle implements or fighting: Jer. 10.22; 47.3; Nah. 3.2; and possibly Job 41.21. 463. See the use of tDin in Judg. 5.4; 2 Sam. 22.8; Isa. 13.13; 24.18; Jer. 4.24;


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meaning of fear elicited by an enemy's destructive activity. The use of the nominal term here in Ezek. 12.18 fits into that connotative use as an appropriate nonverbal display of emotion in anticipation of impending destruction or in reaction to wreaked destruction, with the destruction specifically being recognized as the outworkings of the divine anger against the target of the destruction. Thus, given the connotations of the verbal forms in other passages, it is of minor significance that Ezek. 12.18 is the only case in which the noun464 is used for human quaking.465 T3"l, in its verbal, adjectival and common nominal forms (m~l; the form nDI in Ezek. 12.18 being unique), can mean trembling in anger (cf. Gen. 45.25; 2 Kgs 19.27, 28; Isa. 23.11; 28.21; 37.28, 29; Ezek. 16.43; Job 3.17; 12.6; Hab. 3.2),466 anticipatory excitement which was pleasurable (cf. Isa. 14.9; probably Job 39.24), grief (thus associated

8.16; 10.10; 49.21; 50.46; 51.29; Ezek. 26.10, 15; 27.28; Joel 2.10; 4.16; Amos 9.1; Nah. 1.5; Hag. 2.6, 7, 21; Pss. 18.8; 60.4. The verb T3"l, when applied to 'the earth', has an identical connotative meaning as well (cf. 1 Sam. 14.15; 2 Sam. 22.8; Isa. 5.25; 13.13; 14.16; Joel 2.10; Amos 8.8; Job 9.6; Pss. 18.8; 77.17, 19; 99.1; Prov. 30.21). 464. Elsewhere, the noun bears three meanings: (1) earthquake, which at times was clearly related to theophanies (1 Kgs 19.11, 12; Isa. 29.6; Ezek. 38.19—the latter two cases in a destructive sense) and in other cases a specific geological phenomenon (Amos 1.1; Zech. 14.5—but the latter was likened to the theophanic rending of the Mt. of Olives); (2) the sound in a theophany (Ezek. 3.12, 13); (3) either the sound created by or the earth's shaking caused by battle implements (Isa. 9.4, boots; Jer. 47.3 and Nah. 3.2, chariots; Job 39.24, war horse; Job 41.21, javelin; probably also Jer. 10.22, the commotion of the coming army). Although in these cases the nominal forms do not specifically connote fearful emotive responses, the noun is used in the contexts of either divine activity or battle situations. Both of those circumstances were regarded as those which could elicit fear on the part of the human participants. 465. On the basis of the noun's singular usage here for human shaking, at times it has been emended to (BID (= DUD) (cf. Fohrer 1955: 65). But that emendation is clearly misdirected since the connotative meaning of the verbal and nominal forms of OID/2JJJD in the prophetic books is almost exclusively 'anger' which does not fit the context in Ezek. 12.18. (Cf. ODD/tQUD as provoking to 'anger' in Ezek. 8.17; 16.26, 42; 20.28; Jer. 7.18, 19; 8.19; 11.17; 25.6, 7; 32.29, 30, 32; 44.3, 8; Isa. 65.3; Hos. 12,15. The only exception in the prophetic books is Ezek. 32.9 where it means 'fear'.) 466. Cf. also Ps. 4.5 and Prov. 29.9 where the connotation is probably that of 'anger', although 'fear' might be appropriate as well.

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with mourning rituals and gestures: 2 Sam. 19.1; Isa. 32.10, 11), pain (cf. Isa. 14.3; Job 14.1), or fear (cf. Exod. 15.14; Deut. 2.25; 28.65; 2 Sam. 7;10; 1 Chron. 17.9; Job 3.26; Isa. 23.11; 64.1; Jer. 33.9; 50.34; Joel 2.1; Mic. 7.17; Hab. 3.7, 16). Since the term carried such broad emotive connotations, defined only by context of use, the type Ezekiel was to perform was specified through the accompanying i~DN"m.467 The verbal and nominal forms of 3K"7 carry the connotation of 'fearful anxiety' as they are used for three types of situations: (1) response to calamitous news (Jer. 49.23; Prov. 12.25); (2) response to calamitous situations (Jer. 17.8; 38.19; 42.16; Ps. 38.19; Isa. 57.11); (3) anxiety over impending situations which were assumed to be potentially calamitous or distressful (1 Sam. 9.5; 10.2; Josh. 22.24). Thus the combination nJN"m nT3~O can be understood in a hendiadic sense of 'anxious/ fearful trembling'. The specific situation of fearful trembling which Ezekiel representationally displayed was the besieged Jerusalem residents' anticipation of the city's destruction at the culmination of the siege which the Babylonians were determined to carry through to fruition (vv. 19-20). That the sign-act illustrated the emotive response in anticipation of,468 rather than in consequence to, the city's destruction is indicated by the trembling being performed while eating, which linked the behavior to the prophet's previous, nonverbal, culinary illustrations of the period of the siege in 4.9-11, 16-17. The act of eating must be viewed as a linking element because it added nothing to the nonverbal message-content since the besieged people's reaction of fear would not have been confined only to the times at which they ate, but was a general dispositional state during the whole of the latter phases of the siege. When Ezekiel, on the separate occasion of 12.18-20 began the nonverbal display of eating, the audience would have been immediately reminded of the

467. Cf. Greenberg 1983: 222. The deletion of na«-m merely to produce better poetic balance is therefore unwarranted since such would leave unspecified to the prophet the type of emotion he was to depict through the shaking. 468. In many ancient Near Eastern texts, the conquering king describes the natives' reaction to his invasion of their land or to news of his power as one of fear and dread in anticipation of what he might do to them: cf. during Ramses Ill's war against the Sea Peoples (c. 1188 BCE), ANET 263b-c; from the reign of Tiglathpileser (744-727 BCE), ANET 283c; Sargon II (721-705 BCE), ANET 284c, 285a, 286d; Sennacherib (704-681 BCE), ANET 287c, 288d; Esarhaddon (680-669 BCE), ANET2S9d- Ashurbanipal (668-633 BCE), ANET295b, 299a.


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previous, extended, culinary display (4.9-11, 16-17), and its contextual and contentual meaning related to the siege. Rather than choosing some other aspect of the previous siege depiction (e.g. redoing the model siege of 4.1-3) to interpretively link the present action with, the eating may have been chosen because in biblical usage meals were frequently appropriate times to express the concomitant emotions elicited by the situation (cf. Eccl. 9.7; Pss. 42.4; 80.6; Job 3.24), and because in the portrayal of the siege (4.1-5, 7-11), the only activity in which Ezekiel functioned solely in the role of the people was that of eating (4.9-11). For the audience, that established connection with Ezekiel's previous action specified the circumstances of trembling rather than leaving the referent as some unspecified consternation over some general calamity.469 A literary link is also made between the two sign-actions by the terms rDKl and "pQQEJ. The two terms are used in Ezekiel only in 4.16 and 12.18-19. The exclusive use of the two terms in the two passages can be appropriately viewed as purposeful semantic indicators which link the two actions so that the latter is properly interpreted in the situational context of the former.470 For interpretive purposes, the two terms provided a semantic link just as the actions of eating provided a nonverbal connection. Since the links were for interpretative purposes, it does not mean that the two actions were at one time sequentially joined together so that 4.16 originally provided an introduction or conclusion to the actions of 12.18-19a,471 or that the account of 12.17-20 is a literary duplicate recension of 4.9-11, 16-17.472 Rather both sets of actions must be taken as separately enacted nonverbal displays, each of which had a distinctive message to communicate about the siege situation: 4.9-11, 16-17 illustrated the situation of scarcity of food and water during the siege, while 12.17-20 illustrated the people's emotive 469. Contra Eichrodt 1970: 153. 470. On the literary correspondence of the two passages, see Block 1997: 382; Parunak 1978: 218. The use of the identical terms in the two passages does not mean that in 4.16 the words were later editorial glosses, since in the accompanying verbal messages regarding the famine during the siege, Ezekiel may well have spoken about the people's fearful reaction to the siege without, at that time, nonverbally displaying such. 471. Contra Brownlee 1986: 76, 177-78; Herntrich 1933: 83. 472. Contra Bertholet 1897: 67; Holscher 1924: 82.

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response to the situation. In 12.17-20 there is no indication that the conditions of famine were also demonstrated in the manner of eating, either by the kind of food or by the quantities of food. The accompanying verbal interpretation in 12.19-20 focused only on the psychological effects upon the besieged. Although 4.16 specifies the fear as resulting from the famine (cf. Jer. 42.16), the fear of 12.18-19, seems to be more generally related to the inevitability of the siege situation. Because of its placement subsequent to the sign-act depicting the exit into exile in 12.1-16, Ezekiel's representation in vv. 17-20 has at times been interpreted as depicting the disposition of the survivors, that is, those left in the land, subsequent to Jerusalem's destruction.473 Although, elsewhere, Ezekiel referred to the 'trembling' of the survivors (7.18: m^D), such was associated with mourning rituals (e.g. putting on sackcloth, shaving the head) which expressed grief and sadness over the city's fall. The 'trembling' after the city's fall was not motivated by fear, like that of 12.17-20. Also vv. 17-20 begin with the introductory formula and must be considered a separate and distinct oracle from vv. 1-16. Therefore, it is not necessary to interpret the latter as depicting an event which was immediately sequential to the actions portrayed in vv. 1-16. The situational context in which the trembling of 12.17-20 is best understood is the siege. The fearful emotion displayed in the trembling would have been the emotional disposition which occurred once the besieged anticipated the unavoidability of the coming fate. The popular theology provided a basis upon which the people could have entered into the initial phases of the siege with a confidence and assurance that God would intervene on their behalf so that the siege would not culminate in a total destruction. Only after the siege began to produce a straitness upon their lives from which they perceived no release and only after they saw and heard reports of the wholesale destruction of the land and all its contents (vv. 19b-20) would the besieged have lost their confidence in their ability to hold out, thus evoking fear of the fate which would come upon them. 1.12.2 Rhetoric 1. Attention. Assuming that Ezekiel performed the actions in public view, his act of eating must have drawn the people's attention. Since 473. Cf. Fohrer 1952b: 32-33, 46; 1955: 65; 1968: 57; Fuhs 1984: 64; Garscha 1974: 100; Holscher 1924: 82; Stacey 1990: 195.


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the actions bore some resemblance to Ezekiel's previous culinary activities (4.9-11), the oeople may have wondered initially if Ezekiel was merely going to reperform actions they had already seen. Yet the realization that Ezekiel was not now performing the identical dining habits should have caused the people to focus on the distinctiveness of this new action which was his trembling and shaking. 2. Comprehension. Trembling is a multivalent nonverbal behavior, in that it can reflect various emotions such as anger, excitement, pain, fear or sorrow. Thus for the audience observing Ezekiel's shaking, the specific type of emotion (fearful anxiety) which he was thereby communicating may not have been discernible solely through the act of trembling. The emotion may have been made evident through other accompanying nonverbal behaviors such as fearful facial expressions, a cowering posture, or furtive eye movements. Or, the ambiguity of the type of emotion may have been allowed to remain for the audience until it was clarified through the accompanying verbalized interpretation. Without the accompanying verbal message (vv. 19-20), the central aspect of Ezekiel's message, which was the reason for the trembling, was not readily discernible to the audience by means of the nonverbal behaviors. Ezekiel's nonverbal behavior confined itself to the depiction of the emotional response, but left uncommunicated the motivation as to why he was acting in this manner and the identification of who he represented. These two aspects were the focus of the accompanying verbal interpretation: he performed representationally in the role of the Jerusalemites, and the reason for the fear was 'because474 its land shall be desolated... and the inhabited cities will be laid waste, and the land will become a desolation'. Also expressed was the reason for the desolation which caused the fear: 'on account of475 the violence of all the 474. ]UQ^ has been understood as: (1) providing the motive for the preceding emotive response: 'because' (cf. Allen 1994: 174; Fohrer 1955: 65; 1968: 65; Keil 1976: I, 162). It does provide a fitting motive for the preceding in that when the people saw the land around Jerusalem being devastated, they would respond in fear for their own lives and safety. (2) Expressing divine intention: 'in order that' (cf. Brownlee 1986: 177; Zimmerli 1979: 276). It may be elliptical for 'I, God, am doing this in order that'. But if it is a purpose clause, the best interpretation is to connect it with the concluding acknowledgment formula in the sense 'in order that you will know that I am Yahweh ... its land will be desolated'. (3) Expressing result: 'so (with the result) that' (cf. Block 1997: 380; Greenberg 1983: 223). 475. The preposition on DDFIQ is causative.

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inhabitants' (v. 19b). Although not explicitly expressed, there was an implied ironic twist in the indictment that just as the people in their perpetrating violence had made their victims tremble in fear, so now they became the victims who were trembling for their own lives. The nonverbal behavior, by its ambiguity, focused the climax of the message upon the verbal element of the oracle. The nonverbal aspect allowed the people to be drawn into the communication event and to receive with full force the verbal message, including the indictment against the people still in Judah. 3. Acceptance. Ezekiel used the message strategy of indirect address in that he depicted and spoke of emotions and circumstances which directly related to the people still living in Jerusalem but he did not draw out the implications for his immediate audience. The audience was expected to consider the ramifications of his message for themselves, thus forcing them to participate cognitively in the rhetorical event. One of the implications of Ezekiel's portrayal was that if the people of the besieged city had reached a point of extreme fear and lack of confidence in Jerusalem's deliverance and thus anticipated, as inevitable, the city's destruction, why should the exiles still hold tenaciously to the hope that the city was inviolable and that they would soon be able to return to it. By presenting a Jerusalem event which was in contrast to that hoped for by the audience, and by presenting that event as authentic and divinely foretold, Ezekiel was indirectly levelling an indictment against the beliefs and attitudes held by his immediate audience. Yet the indictment was not confrontationally explicated, only indirectly implied. This style of indirect address also allowed the audience members to distance themselves from the harshness of what Ezekiel was presenting in that what Ezekiel depicted would not directly happen to his audience. Yet distancing can result in dismissal of the message as being irrelevant, resulting in the audience not drawing out the implications for themselves. A countermeasure against the distancing is the message strategy of emotional appeal so as to draw the audience into the message. The emotional appeal of Ezekiel's action functioned on two levels: personal reminiscence and personal relationship. His fellow-exiles had personally gone through the siege experience of 597 BCE, so Ezekiel's trembling may have evoked responsive emotions within them. As they had experienced the siege, and were the ones led into captivity on that


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occasion, they must have experienced feelings of fear which were now recollected because of Ezekiel's demonstration. Thus an emotional empathy could have been created between Ezekiel's audience and the Jerusalemites whom Ezekiel was depicting. But Ezekiel's presentation was emotional also from the standpoint that in representing the inhabitants of Jerusalem, he focused on friends and family members whom his audience had been forced to leave behind. So Ezekiel was depicting a situation and persons with which the audience had deep kinship attachments. In the nonverbal actions, Ezekiel also employed the personal strategy of identification with the people. Every aspect of his display was performed in the role of the people, thus creating an identification bond between himself and those depicted. Such is a more persuasive strategy than the rhetor being perceived by the audience as totally distanced and distinct from them. 4. Retention. It is assumed that this trembling and shaking while eating was not just a one-time occurrence, but that it was performed over an extended period. Thus, by repetition, Ezekiel reinforced the message. By using the common daily event of eating and drinking with which to associate the message of quaking, Ezekiel was able effectively to create a setting in which his actions could be remembered. For as the spectators subsequently partook of bread and water, because of Ezekiel's trembling being attached to such activity, the possibility existed for Ezekiel's message to surface again in conscious recollection. So even long after Ezekiel had ceased his dining exhibit, the audience could have continued to remember its meaning and significance for themselves through their own daily routine of eating and drinking. 1.13 Ezekiel 21.11-12416 (LXX: 21.6-7)

1.13.1 Communicative Meaning. Ezekiel was commanded to perform a paralinguistic nonverbal expression of groaning (v. 11). It was to be done with such vehemence ('with breaking of loins477 and bitter 476. The extent of this particular unit is debated. Whereas some take vv. 11-12 to be a discrete unit (cf. Fohrer 1955: 120; 1968: 58; Guthrie 1962: 269; Wevers 1969: 123), others view the two verses as part of the preceding so that vv. 1-12, or alternately vv. 6-12, constitute a single unit (cf. Cooke 1936: 226; Hals 1989: 147; Holscher 1924: 11-12; Zimmerli 1979: 419, 421). 477. The 'loins', or alternately 'tendons', i.e. 'the strong muscular that links the

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grief478) in front of the people ('in their sight') that the spectators were expected to react to this nonverbal behavior (v. 12a). Apparently Ezekiel was initially only to perform the nonverbal behavior without any accompanying verbal explanation. Thus when the people's curiosity was duly aroused, it was expected that they would inquire as to what his behavior meant. At that juncture he was to explain verbally that the emotional mood he was displaying was the conventional means of reacting to bad news:479 'Concerning the report because it has come. And every heart should melt, and every hand should hang limp, and every spirit should grow faint, and every knee should run with water.480 Behold, it comes, and it shall be accomplished, declares the Lord Yahweh' (v. 12). Since groaning (n]N) was a paralinguistic nonverbal behavior expressing grief and distress,481 the prophet was demonstrating how the people were to react sorrowfully to the 'report'. But the extant verbal response leaves unanswered the question as to what the 'report' was, and thus the exact significance of the prophet's behavior has been variously interpreted. The 'report' may have reference to three things: (1) The report was of the fall of Jerusalem.482 In that case, Ezekiel depicted the future grief of his immediate exilic audience. Then the upper part of the body with the lower' (Greenberg 1997: 420-21), designated strength (cf. Job 40.16; Nah. 2.2), and their breaking signified complete nervous and physical collapse (cf. Ezek. 29.7; Deut. 33.11). 478. rn~P~IQ is a hapax legomenon. The connotation of the term is the bitterness of deep grief rather than bitterness of anger; cf. the adjective "1Q in Ezek. 27.30-31; Est. 4.1; Isa. 33.7; Zeph. 1.14. 479. Hillers (1965), from biblical (cf. Jer. 23.9; 30.5-6; 50.43; Exod. 15.14-16; Deut. 2.25; Josh. 5.1; 2 Sam. 4.1; Ps. 48.6-7; Isa. 21.3-4; Hab. 3.16) and Ugaritic (51, 2.12-20) parallels, notes that in the conventional reaction to bad news, the emotions designated by somatic language are (1) the hands falling helpless, (2) pains in the loins like labor pains, and (3) the melting of the heart. 480. D'Q riDD^n D^-Q 'PDl: cf. Ezek. 7.17. The reference is undoubtedly to urinating on oneself in fright (cf. LXX), with 'knees' possibly being a euphemism for the genitals. The Targum understood the phrase figuratively: 'all knees shall be poured out like water' referring to a state of weakness. There is no basis for Godbey's (1923: 98) suggestion that this phrase implies that Ezekiel performed a ritual of pouring water. 481. Cf. Ezek. 9.4; Exod. 2.23; Isa. 24.7; Lam. 1.4, 8, 11; Prov. 29.2. Cf. Ugaritic &nh, Aqht 2, 1.18. 482. Cf. Cooke 1936: 228; Fohrer 1952b: 232; 1955: 120; Klein 1988: 10, 49; Stacey 1990: 197.


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action predictively displayed how the people would react after Jerusalem's fall. But this view is contradicted by the sign-act of 24.15-24 (see Chapter 2 §2.2) in which Ezekiel refrained from mourning as a sign of what the people were to do upon receiving the news of the fall of Jerusalem. (2) The report was of the advance of the Babylonian army toward Jerusalem.483 The behavior of Ezekiel was then predictive of how in the future the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the exiles would respond to the Babylonians' decision to lay siege to Jerusalem. The difficulty with this interpretation is that in 21.28 (see Chapter 2 §1.15) the initial response of the Jerusalemites to the news is said to be one of disbelief, not of sorrow and fear.484 Such was based on a feeling of security, buttressed by the popular theology, that God would deliver his city and his people. (3) The report was the message of God's impending judgment which had already been given prophetically to the exiles.485 In this case the groaning behavior was not a predictive display of how the people would respond to the future reality of the judgment, but rather an exhortation of how the people should be responding to the divinely given messages as they anticipated the coming judgment which had already been announced and was assuredly coming.486 Thus Ezekiel used conventional behavior associated with the reception of bad news to demonstrate and model what the exiles' proper attitude and response should be: the reaction of the people to the divinely decreed coming judgment was to be one of deep grief. When linked with the other use of PUN in Ezekiel (9.4), where it is used for the nonverbal paralinguistic utterance 483. Cf. van den Born 1935: 106; 1947: 75; Keil 1976: I, 290-91; Taylor 1969: 161-62. 484. Ezekiel elsewhere depicted the attitude in the midst of the siege as being of fear and trembling (cf. 12.17-20, eating the food in trembling; cf. also 4.16). In Ezek. 7.17, the descriptions of 21.12 are likewise used. But the emotional reactions displayed or commented on in chs. 4, 7 and 12 were not the responses to any 'report' but rather to the realities of the situation. 485. If the oracle is linked to vv. 1-10, the news may refer specifically to the coming 'sword'. Cf. Harford (1935: 59), Herntrich (1933: 105-106) that the 'report' is the proclamations of vv. 2-4, 7-10, 13-21. This argument may be reinforced by the inclusio link of ^Q2J in v. 3 with ninDBJ in v. 12 (cf. Allen 1990: 23; Block 1997: 671). 486. Cf. Jer. 23.9; 50.43; Isa. 21.3-4; Hab. 3.16, where the prophets speak of similar reactions to the divine messages of judgments which were in anticipation of the consequences, and not subsequent to the calamities' occurrences.

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of those who were deeply distressed by the abominations being committed in Israel,487 the connotation is that the grief, as an anticipatory response, related not only to the reported predicted devastation but also to the motivating causes for that devastation. The action also implied an indictment against the people's attitude of security that all was well and against the receptive indifference toward Ezekiel's messages of destruction because they were perceived as being only allegories (cf. 21.5) or as being contemporarily irrelevant (cf. 12.21-28; 33.32). The literary text does not allow this nonverbal behavior to be interpreted as one which merely arose naturally out of Ezekiel's own emotional distress over the message of destruction which he, as a prophet, had to proclaim, and then only later interpreted as having been divinely commanded.488 In that case it would have been originally only an affect display informative of Ezekiel's personal emotional disposition. Rather, he was commanded to express the emotion—one with which he himself undoubtedly empathized—in order to communicate interactively a message to the people for the purpose of bringing their own attitude of indifference and security under indictment. 1.13.2 Rhetoric 1. Attention. Initially the action was performed to draw the people's attention, since it began with only the nonverbal behavior without any verbal explanation. That the people's curiosity over the behavior would be duly aroused is implied in the command to the prophet that when the people inquired as to its meaning, at that point he was verbally to proclaim the interpretation (v. 12). 2. Comprehension. The people's inquiry indicated that the nonverbal behavior was not clear enough in and of itself to communicate fully the total message. The people, although observing Ezekiel perform a conventional behavior signifying grief and deep distress, were unable to comprehend what was the cause of such a distressful reaction on Ezekiel's part. The comprehension, not of the meaning of the action, but of why it was being performed was thus delayed until the verbal message clarified and specified the exact cause. 3. Acceptance. Since the sign-action both explicitly modeled the proper attitude which the people should have and thereby implicitly 487. Cf. also its use in Lam. 1.8 in the context of Jerusalem groaning over her uncleanness. 488. Contra Fuhs 1984: 110; Zimmerli 1969: 141; 1974: 145; 1979: 421.


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indicted the people's attitudes, certain of the rhetorical strategies seem to counterbalance the polarity between the message-content and the audience's perspectives. Ezekiel employed the strategy of personal identification with the people. The role he assumed was that of the people and not of God, thus potentially enhancing the people's empathy with him. By communicating on the emotional level, Ezekiel was not trying to convince them through logical arguments that their present attitude was wrong, but was attempting to have the audience feel along with him the emotional distress which the news of impending judgment should have. The argument carried with it a touch of irony in that either the people would feel the grief in anticipation of the coming judgment, and thereby align their feelings, practices and beliefs with God's, or they would inappropriately express the grief (cf. Ezek. 24.15-24) after the destruction was over when the judgment had been irrevocably executed. 4. Retention. The nonverbal behavior with its explanation should have instilled in the people's mind a memory of grief display. Thus whenever in the future they heard further prophetic messages of judgment, they could mentally rehearse the proper emotive response as previously modeled in this sign-act by Ezekiel. 1.13.3 Audience Response. Verse 12 expresses that there was a verbal response by the audience to Ezekiel's paralinguistic behavior. This indicated that they observed and heard Ezekiel's nonverbal performance, that they perceived it to have implications for themselves, that they did not understand the significance of why he was acting in such a manner, that their curiosity was sufficiently aroused for them to inquire, and that they were receptive to what the prophet would further say or do. In the persuasive process, the response shows that Ezekiel had successfully aroused the people's attention both on the level of gaining a hearing and in focusing on the message-content. But the end result is not expressed as to whether the nonverbal act and accompanying verbal proclamation altered the people's attitudes and behaviors. 1.14 Ezekiel 21.13-224*9 (LXX: 21.8-17)

1.14.1 Communicative Meaning. Ezekiel was commanded to utter an oracle regarding a 'sword' (vv. 13-14), the instrument of destruction. 489. Verses 13-22 are usually considered to constitute a single literary unit, but

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Although not explicitly stated, the implication from the preceding literary context (vv. 8-10) is that the sword was the 'sword of Yahweh' which was being prepared for the executing of divine judgment. Because of the associated nonverbal behavior (vv. 17, 19) it is best to assume that the oracle was delivered in a sombre mood of judgment, with any resulting reaction of rejoicing arising only within the audience because of their expectations of whom the oracle might be against.490 the attribution of the whole to Ezekiel has been seriously questioned. Crucial to the present study is whether vv. 17, 19a, 22, which contain the two instructions for nonverbal communication and the latter's interpretation, and vv. 15b and 18, are considered part of the oracle. Cooke (1936: 229-30), Herntrich (1933: 105) and Holscher (1924: 112-13) delete all of the above verses along with 13, 14a in attempting to arrive at a poetic sword song. But this approach is based on the unfounded assumption that the prophetic oracles must have been comprised of a consistent metrical structure. Such an approach overlooks the possibility that Ezekiel may have taken a secular sword song or a previous sword oracle and modified it in significant ways, and it seeks only to recover the exact oral presentation of the oracle, rather than accepting the extant text's self-testimony not as a record of the proclamation, but rather as the divine command which also incorporated the injunctions about the nonverbal behaviors which were to accompany the auditory proclamation. Verse 17 is often excised as a later addition (cf. Funs 1984: 111; Garscha 1974: 129; Wevers 1969: 123-24; Zimmerli 1979: 432, 435) on the basis that it comes too soon in the oracle, that contentually it reflects grief rather than rejoicing, and that it presupposes the battle as already having happened and therefore must have been composed after Jerusalem's fall. But there is no basis for the presupposition that nonverbal reactions to a message must come at the end of an oracle, and in fact v. 17 does come at a very critical point in the oracle at the end of the first strophe (vv. 13-18). If the poem is not viewed as reflecting a bloodthirsty exultation, then the actions of grief are not out of place. If one understands the command to lament as a response to the message itself, rather than to the historical realization of the proclaimed events, then there is no basis for assuming it must be post-fall. Zimmerli (1979: 431) argues for the inclusion of vv. 19a and 22 on the basis of the catchword rp and Wevers (1969: 125) on the basis that their exclusion results in only a secular poem, not the proclamation of a divine word. Verses 15b and 18 are often viewed as wisdom insertions and therefore deleted. But the reason for excluding these verses primarily rests not on any contentual or textual basis, but on the difficulty of understanding and integrating them into the oracle. A proposal will be made in this study to interpret them within the present context. 490. This clarification must be made in light of those who have interpreted the whole oracle as expressing a bloodthirsty attitude of satisfaction and exultation at


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Within the context of the popular theology, the Judahites and exiles were expecting that when the divine sword of judgment went forth, it would do so against their enemies. Thus the announcement that the sword was being prepared for slaughter (vv. 14-16) could have raised the audience's expectations that Judah would be released from the Babylonian control, and their return from exile would quickly ensue. Such a perception may have initially fostered a mood of rejoicing and exultation in the audience that God was now about to vindicate his people. It seems that in v. 15b, the prophet echoed the audience's initial sentiment by stating 'Or, we shall rejoice.'491 The phrase is either an exclamation (possibly expressed mockingly) in which Ezekiel echoed the sentiments of the people at the news that the sword of divine judgment was being prepared, or a rhetorical question probably asked in a sarcastic tone, 'Or shall we rejoice?' Regardless of whether taken as exclamation or question, its purpose seems to be to express the mood of the audience which will be contrasted to the mood of mourning which Ezekiel was to display nonverbally (v. 17). Thus the first-person plural the sword's activity (cf. Cooke 1936: 230; Wevers 1969: 124). That interpretation is based largely on the premise that the clapping in vv. 19 and 22 reflected a triumphant attitude like that of the victor over an enemy. The paralinguistic behaviors of v. 17 must then be interpreted either correspondingly as cries of exultation or contrastively as expressions of grief. If the first option is not chosen, the latter option results in a mood which is contrary to that assumed for the oracle, and must be resolved by either excising the paralinguistic behaviors (v. 17) as later additions or by understanding them as reflecting the prophet's grief at the message in antithesis to the divine exultation. In this study, it is argued that the clapping of vv. 19 and 22 should be interpreted as indignation, and therefore corresponds with the nonverbal expressions of sorrow in v. 17. 491. The difficulty in translating v. 15b is readily acknowledged. The translation here proposed is based on the MT. "IK introduces an opposite case or exception to what has just been said (cf. Keil 1976: I, 292): for example 'Or'. The meaning is similar if taken as a corruption of the Akkadian prohibitive ai, thus 'Let us not rejoice!' (Block 1997: 672, 677). Either of the above is preferable to the translation of it as an exclamation, 'Oh!', cognate to an Akkadian expression, 'come then', which is a cry of excitement (cf. Cooke 1936: 237). As pointed in the MT, 2T2J] is a qal first-person plural imperfect. The LXX's ETOIUTI eiq TrapcxXvoiv can be retroverted either to H2J11K (cf. Cooke 1936: 237), or to a form of 01], 'to flee, escape' in the general sense of 'move' (cf. Parunak 1978: 306). The LXX is an attempt to render a difficult Hebrew passage.

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construction does not refer to God and the prophet rejoicing in mirth over the coming destruction,492 but to the people rejoicing inappropriately in anticipation of God's sword vindicating and protecting them. The prophet then immediately proceeded to remind the audience of their haughtiness with respect to other nations (v. 15b): 'the staff of my son [Yahweh's people] despises every tree493 [other nations]'.494 This 492. Contra Delitzsch 1885: 391. 493. In Ezekiel, |"J? is used in five different ways: (1) metaphorically for nations (cf. 15.2, 3, 6; 17.24; 31.4, 5, 8, 9, 14, 15, 16, 18; 37.16, 17, 18, 19, 20); (2) metaphorically for individuals (21.3, as interpreted by vv. 8-9); (3) metaphorically for idols (cf. 20.32; so understood here by Targum); (4) as part of the stereotyped phraseology locating the people's idolatrous worship ('under every green tree': 6.13; 20.28), and (5) literally for wood as fuel for fire (24.10; 39.10), building material (26.12; 41.16, 22, 25), or fruit trees (34.27; 36.30; 47.7, 12). In 21.15, the metaphorical use designating other nations best fits the context so that the imagery refers to Judah's unwillingness to be in submission to another nation, even if the submission was the divine will (cf. Jer. 27-28). 494. The MT (f I? ^D HONQ Tl Una;) has been translated and interpreted in several different ways: (1) The translation here takes "OH CDHttJ to be a construct chain and the subject of the feminine participle HOKQ, and j*# ^D, the object. The staff of my son' is understood as a reference to the leader's staff (cf. CDDtD in Ezek. 19.11, 14), which is a metonymic figure for the whole kingdom of Judah (cf. Ezek. 37.15-28 where fl? is so used, and the recurring phrase 'wn&r 'eoti in 37.19; 47.13, 21, 22; 48.19, 29, 31), and 'every tree', to other nations. Against this translation of the phrase it is argued that CD327 is usually masculine while here it is constructed with a feminine participle. But here and in v. 18 are the only occurrences in Ezekiel of the noun as subject, so the gender of an accompanying predicate cannot be compared elsewhere in the book. The term may be like i~!!2Q which can be coordinated with either masculine or feminine verbs (cf. Delitzsch 1885: 388-89; Keil 1976:1, 292). (2) If ^D QHCJ; and ftf ^D HONQ are taken as two independent clauses, then the former ('The staff, my son') is understood as the people's slogan which expressed, based on 2 Sam. 7 and Gen. 49.9-10, the sentiment of the inviolability of Jerusalem. The second phrase is then understood as the divine refutation which declares that city's utter destruction: 'It [the sword] despises every tree [every inhabitant]' (cf. Block 1997: 672, 677-78). Understanding 'every tree' as a reference to individuals correlates with the metaphor in 21.3, as interpreted in vv. 8-9. (3) ^3 has been interpreted as a vocative with 12327 being the direct object and f!} ^D an indirect object. This also necessitates altering the pointing of flOKQ to second masculine perfect: 'My son, you have despised the rod with everything of wood' (cf. Taylor 1969: 162). QD2J then refers to a rod of punishment (cf. Isa. 10.5 where the Assyrians are spoken of as the rod, CDD2J, of God's anger), with the whole phrase meaning that the Judahites had rejected all former punishments which were


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statement appears to be either a declarative statement by the prophet about the people to highlight their unwillingness to submit to the rule of any foreign nation, or it could be a quotation of the people which echoes their sentiments of assurance of God's covenantal promise to Judah, based on Gen. 49.9-10, which presumably ensured their protection from foreign incursions. The probability of the allusion here to Gen. 49.10 is strengthened by the allusion to that passage in Ezek. 21.32b. But the use of the first-person suffix ('my son'), which refers to God in the context of the divine address to the audience, seems to indicate that it is the prophet levelling a declarative and scathing indictment against the people. After having reiterated that the sword was given to the blacksmith to be made ready (v. 16a), the weapon was then given into the hand of the slayer (v. 16b). At this juncture in the oracle there is no explicit indication that the sword was not going to be used against Judah's enemies,

of wood, in contrast to the present sword which was of iron. Against this understanding is that the oracle makes no reference to the sword being of iron in contrast to wood. (4) The construct chain sn CO2J ('the rod of my son'), as subject of the sentence, means 'the rod [Babylon] that punishes my son'. The 'rejecting every tree' is then interpreted as exceeding in severity all rods of punishment made of wood (cf. Davidson 1893: 152; Haupt 1926: 316), exceeding in profitability of punishment (cf. Delitzsch 1885: 388), or rejecting in the sense of not going against any other nation ('every tree') but Israel. The first part of the verse can then be construed as a question 'Or shall we rejoice, when the rod of my son rejects every tree?' (5) The LXX translates the first three words as verbs: 'slay, set at nought, despise every tree'. But the LXX appears to be an attempt to understand a difficult Hebrew text (cf. Block 1997: 672; Parunak 1978: 306-307). (6) The Targum is very interpretive: 'Because the tribe of the House of Judah and Benjamin rejoiced over the tribes of Israel when they were exiled for having worshipped idols, they in turn went astray after images of wood.' Cf. Terrien (1996: 121), Tourney (1983: 251-52) who also understand p in the sense of wood idols as the means by which the despising occurs. (7) Numerous emendations have been proposed for v. 15b (cf. Bertholet 1897: 111; Bewer 1951: 197; 1953: 162; Cornill 1886: 300-303; Tournay 1983: 250-54). Allen (1989: 69-70; 1990: 19) proposes the translation 'Every tree: or the ruler(s) of Israel, the rejected scepter.' This requires 2T2J] to be understood as an abbreviation for L?$rW'1 C)K&] and emending POKO to a niphal participle. The whole then is taken as a misplaced gloss on v. 3 (explaining 'every tree') and unrelated to the 'sword song'.

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but only a hint of such, if the statement of v. 15b was expressed in a mocking or sarcastic tone, indicating that something was amiss. 1. Crying out and striking the thigh. Ezekiel was then commanded to accompany the verbal proclamation with nonverbal behaviors (v. 17): he was to cry out and wail and strike his thigh.495 There is no textual basis for assuming that from the very beginning of the oracle Ezekiel was performing an excited and frenzied 'sword dance' of which the nonverbal behaviors of vv. 17 and 19 were only a part.496 Although it is conceivable that the prophet may have been gyrating in that manner, the text does not indicate such. So only the nonverbal activities specified can be analyzed rhetorically. His crying out and wailing were nonverbal paralinguistic exclamations of mourning and his striking the thigh was a nonverbal gesture expressive of mourning (cf. Jer. 31.19).497 The reason for the mourning was because the sword had been prepared not for Judah's enemies, but for Judah itself (v. 17).

495. The instruction is clearly that of striking the thigh, not the breast (contra Cooper 1994: 213). The latter is expressed through the root HDD (cf. Gruber 1980: 434-56 on 2 Sam. 1.12; 3.31; Est. 4.3; Isa. 22.12; Jer. 4.8; 49.3; Joel 2.12) or through nn'P ^ rpn (Nan. 2.8). The LXX's KpOTT|0ov 87ii TT)v %eipd OOD presupposes ~[T; also Syriac. This was either the result of a textual error of a 1\1 interchange, or an alteration because of unfamiliarity with the gesture of 'striking the thigh' and the more common use of p£50 with clapping the hands (cf. Num. 24.10; Job 27.23; Lam. 2.15). 496. Contra Matheney 1965: 260; Terrien 1996. Terrien (1996) speculatively interprets the striking of the thigh as the prophet being cut by the sword which he had been juggling as part of the sword dance, and the crying out, mentioned at the beginning of v. 17, as the resultant 'shriek of pain at the impacting wound' (123). This act of mutilation of the part of the prophet (128) 'initiates a sympathetic rapport with the falling of the sword upon the people' (123), as well as signifies the self-immolation of Yahweh, who the prophet is portraying in the dance (130). In light of 'striking the thigh' with the hand being an ancient Near Eastern gesture of mourning, such can be maintained in this passage. 497. See also the references to the gesture in Mesopotamian literature (cf. Lipinski 1970: 495; Gruber 1980: 380-84; Viberg 1992: 50) and classical Greek literature (e.g. Iliad 15.113-14; 16.124-25; cf. Sittl 1890: 21, 25) where it is also a gesture of remorse and grief. Bodi (1987: 217; 1991: 238) suggests that it may be here an expression of anger and cites Akkadian literature where the gesture is a sign of anger and consternation. Also in classical Greek literature, besides being a mourning gesture, it also occurs as a gesture of anger (cf. Botha 1996: 8).


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With respect to the paralinguistic expressions, the terms pUT and L?L?'1 are used in parallel construction always in the context of expressing deep grief or sorrow (cf. Jer. 25.34; 47.2; 48.20, 31; Isa. 14.31; 15.2-4; Hos. 7.14). p^T is at times associated with other nonverbal customs expressive of extreme grief such as placing ashes on the head, shaving the head, wearing sackcloth, tearing one's garments (cf. Ezek. 27.3031; 2 Sam. 13.19; Isa. 15.2-4). Similarly ^ refers to distress and grief as in Isa. 65.14 ('wail with a broken spirit'). In Jer. 4.8; Joel 1.13 and Mic. 1.8 it is parallel to "ISO, and in Joel 1.5, parallel to PDD. It is used in the context of mourning behaviors of wearing sackcloth and shaving the head in Isa. 15.2-3. The only case where ^ is used for exultation is Isa. 52.5. But whenever it is conjoined with p^T, the context is always grief. Thus the mood expressed by the prophet should not be interpreted as that of exultation. The nonverbal behavior of Ezekiel was in marked contrast to the attitude that he attributed to the people (i.e. rejoicing, v. 15b). Ezekiel's indictment through contrastive nonverbal behavior is therefore similar to the verbal contrast made in Isa. 22.12-13 where the prophet, in anticipation of the coming threat had called the people to weeping, lamentation, shaving the head, and donning sackcloth (v. 12), but instead the people were rejoicing (]")&&) and feasting (v. 13). Therefore Ezekiel's nonverbal behavior became an indictment against the people's misunderstanding of the object of the sword's attack—a misunderstanding arising out of the popular theology that God was irrevocably for them. Ezekiel's behavior therefore portrayed to the people what their response should be in light of the divine proclamation he was giving. The nonverbal behavior must not therefore be interpreted as being indicative of the people's actual response to the divine message of destruction or predictive of the people's response to the reality of the Babylonian destruction,498 but rather demonstrative of what should be the appropriate response to the message of doom. That crying out and wailing were used not only for the natural reaction to a disaster already having occurred, but were appropriate emotive expressions in anticipation of disasters yet to come, is clear from Isa. 14.31 and Jer. 47.2 where forms of p£>T and L?t7* are conjointly used. In Jer. 47.2 the setting for crying out was the coming activity of the 'sword of Yahweh' (v. 6) which was about to occur (vv. 1, 4). In Isa. 498. Contra Stacey 1990: 197; Wevers 1969: 124.

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14.28-32, similar to Ezek. 21.15, 17, the people's (Philistia's) inappropriate attitude of rejoicing (v. 29: 'do not rejoice') because they thought they were secure (v. 29a) was contrasted with the appropriate response of grief (v. 31: 'Wail, O gate; cry out, O city') because of the destruction that was yet to come. Similarly, forms of ^ in Ezek. 30.2; Jer. 4.8; 49.3; Mic. 1.8 (in the latter three the term is parallel to ~I30), and pUT in Est. 4.1, indicate wailing not as a result of destruction but as appropriate anticipatory responses to the news that destruction was coming. Likewise, in Ezek. 21.11-12; 32.18, and Est. 4.3, groaning and wailing, although employing different Hebrew terms, occurs because of the threats of impending judgment. Besides wailing, other mourning gestures were considered appropriate anticipatory responses to an impending threat: donning sackcloth (Jer. 4.8; 6.26; 49.3; Est. 4.1, 3; Isa. 22.12), rolling in dust or ashes (Jer. 6.26; Est. 4.1, 3), weeping (Est. 4.3; Isa. 22.12) and removal of jewelry (Exod. 33.4). Such paralinguistic evocations and mourning gestures served a different function than when performed after a death, since those which anticipated a threat of judgment were done with the knowledge that they might affect a possible change in the circumstances (cf. 2 Sam. 12.15-23; Ps. 35.13-14). The transition to the second part of the oracle is in v. 18. The connection with v. 15b is evident in DOKQ ED£>. Just as v. 15b contained an initial iteration of the people's sentiments ('we shall rejoice') so too v. 18 can be interpreted as expressing the response of the people to the announcement that the sword of judgment was about to come upon them and not their enemies: 'For (it is) a testing!'499 In other words, they would accept the fact that some type of punitive judgment might come upon them (cf. Jer. 9.6), just as it had in 597 BCE, but that did no mean that it was in any sense an ultimate judgment. The people sought to take refuge in the fact that God would only test them with the sword of judgment which would vindicate their true mettle as the covenant 499. JPQ is understood as a noun, 'testing', rather than a pual perfect, 'it has been tested', or 'a testing has been made'. As a pual, the implied subject (that which has been tested) has been understood as being the rod of punishment (the sword), or the Babylonians (cf. Delitzsch 1885: 392; Haupt 1926: 316; Keil 1976:1, 293), or the people of Israel (cf. Davidson 1893: 153-4; Wevers 1969: 124). Taking it as a noun, Block (1997: 674, 679) suggests 'For the testing [is over]', with the referent being the sword which has been proven ready for its mission.

2. Jeremiah's andEzekiel's S

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people, yet not realizing that even if tested their character would be found wanting (cf. Jer. 6.27-30) and they would be rejected. The sentiment of the people is countered by the question 'And what if also the staff despises [this tree, which is Babylon]?' The response to the question is a divine pronounce that 'It shall not be [a testing]',500 implying that it will be much worse, specifically a total destruction, as the oracle goes on to describe. The second half of the oracle stresses the ferocity with which the sword will be wielded against the people. 2. Clapping the hands. In v. 19, Ezekiel was commanded to clap, and at the end of the oracle (v. 22), the clapping by the prophet was interpreted as being illustrative of God's clapping. The meaning of the clapping has been variously interpreted: (1) As expressing anger.501 The similar use of the gesture would be that in which Balaak angrily clapped his hands before Balaam who had

500. The words PITT1 $b POND antD 03 DN HOT have been variously interpreted: (1) If iTTT K1? is taken as a separate phrase, then the first phrase can be understood with (a) 'staff as the subject, and 'tree' (cf. v. 15; i.e. the nation here wielding the sword—Babylon) the implied direct object: 'And what if [the] staff [of my son] despises [even this tree]?' The answer is a declaration of God, 'It shall not be [a testing]', with the implied subject being the judgment that is about to come. Or, (b) 'sword' as the implied subject and 'staff, the direct object: 'And what if [the sword] despises the staff (cf. Wevers 1969: 124). rTTP 8*7 would then either be a question 'shall it not be?' implying the inevitability of the coming judgment, or a declaration 'it shall be no more', that as a result of the judgment Israel will be completely destroyed (cf. Block 1997: 674, 679). (2) Taking the whole as a single phrase, then nVP 8*7 must be part of the question: (a) with 'staff as the subject: 'What if [the] staff which despises should be no more?', that is, shall perish (cf. Davidson 1893: 154; Allen 1989: 67-69; 1990: 20, although he emends noRQ to a niphal participle, i.e. 'the rejected scepter'; Terrien 1996: 123), or shall not prove itself to possess strength (cf. Keil 1976: I, 293). Or, (b) emending POND to second masculine singular perfect and taking 'staff as the direct object: 'And why, if you despise [the] rod should it not take place?' referring to the appropriateness of the punishment (cf. Bewer 1951: 198; Fohrer 1955: 121). In the former (2a), entB is conjointly constructed with a feminine participle and a masculine imperfect and the question inappropriately remains unanswered in the context. The latter (2b) results in an interpretation similar in meaning to that followed in this study. 501. Cf. Ackroyd et al. 1986: 415; Block 1997: 679; Cooper 1994: 213; Greenberg 1997: 424; Vorwahl 1932: 217-18.

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not prophesied as the king desired (Num. 24.10). Anger is also the emotion in Ezek. 22.13. (2) As expressing grief.502 The emotion of grief need not be excluded from understanding the behavior as expressive of indignation for as in Ezek. 6.11-12 (see Chapter 2 §1.10), the gesture may have signified a combination of anger which was tempered by grief rather than anger associated with vindictive joy. In v. 20, the use of PIS,503 which is an exclamatory cry of grief in 6.11, carries through the paralinguistic behaviors of sorrow from v. 17 and therefore represents the blending of the two emotions when conjoined with the emotive display of clapping the hands (v. 19). (3) Analogous to clapping at the defeat of enemies (cf. Ezek. 25.6; Nah. 3.19; Lam. 2.15), as expressing scornful exultation in anticipatory triumph over the sword's enemies.504 As discussed under Ezek. 6.11 (see Chapter 2 §1.10), the biblical references to clapping do not confine the gesture to this meaning. By analogy to its usage in 6.11, the special terminology of ^]D !~D3, which is distinctive from the triumphant use of the gesture in Ezek. 25.6 (T KOD), points rather to indignation. (4) As a magical act causing the weapons to increase their fury.505 Thus by the gesture, the sword doubled506 and tripled (v. 19) its destruc502. Cf. Parunak 1978: 308. 503. Other ways of handling ITR include deleting it (cf. Wevers 1969: 125); considering it a shortened form of nKH (cf. Block 1997: 674); considering it an abbreviation for the preceding D~in nnDK which has been inserted alongside the full reading (cf. Allen 1990: 20; Driver 1960: 124; Rost 1904: 481); or emending it (cf. Bertholet 1897: 112; Cornill 1886: 306; Oort 1889: 512). But in light of 6.11 where this interjection is associated with clapping, it can here be understood in a similar manner. 504. Cf. Bertholet 1897: 112; Cooke 1936: 230-31; Delitzsch 1885: 391; Fohrer 1955: 121-22; 1968: 72; Fuhs 1984: 112; Taylor 1969: 163; Wevers 1969: 124; Zimmerli 1979: 434. 505. Cf. Bodi 1987: 218-19; 1991: 239-40; Eichrodt 1970: 293-95; Maarsingh 1986: 351; Oort 1889: 511; Terrien 1996: 124-25. Although Fuhs (1984: 112), Wevers (1969: 125), and Zimmerli (1979: 434) interpret the action as primarily a clap of exultation, they also combine with it a magical element of increasing the sword's fury. Although Hals (1989: 151) sees the setting of this oracle in the context of weapon magic, the 'clapping of hands is less clearly a part of this background'. 506. In v. 19, the LXX translated ^S^D as second masculine singular imperfect continuing the command to the prophet to take another sword (KOI SinXaavaaov po|i(j>aiav). But the MT's third feminine niphal seems more appropriate, so that the


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tive potential. But the only analogy to such an action which can be mustered is that of 2 Kgs 13.18 in which the king struck the arrows on the ground three times which was then interpreted as the number of times he would destroy the Arameans. But even if it is admitted that there is a magical element in the 2 Kgs 13.18 incident, the comparison is tenuous, for in Ezek. 21.19 the instrument of destruction (the sword) was not the object used for the striking (clapping) as were the arrows in 2 Kgs 13.18. The increasing of the sword's fury can be explained as resulting, not from a magical act of clapping, but from the divine anger which the emotive gesture of clapping expressed. In other words, because of his wrath, God made the sword's destructive power double and triple. (5) As a gesture to call a servant, which in this case is the sword. The prophet by clapping represented that God was about to summon the sword of judgment into action. The difficulty with this interpretation is that there are no other biblical examples which can be adduced of such a use of clapping.507 (6) As communicating the sound of the sword's blows and thereby indicating the intense fury of the activity. The major difficulty with this interpretation is that it lacks correspondence to the textual explanation of the action as reflective of God's clapping (v. 22). The most fitting interpretation is that the gesture expressed God's indignation at the rebelliousness of the people (i.e. their continued despising of even Babylon which was God's instrument of judgment at that juncture in history, alluded to in v. 18). In Ezekiel, the normal phraseology which expresses God's wrath is 'my anger/wrath will be fully spent' or 'I will fully vent my anger/wrath' (TOPI^N rto: 5.13; 6.12; 7.8; 13.15; 20.8, 21). Here in v. 22, this normal phraseology has been substituted by the expression 'and also I, I shall clap my hands, and I shall make my wrath rest (upon them)'.508 As a result of the

verb is not another nonverbal action commanded upon the prophet (contra Oort [1889: 511] who revocalizes both ^SDJl and nntzr^Ci to second masculine piel). In this verse, the LXX understood three swords to be involved which may indicate that the LXX translators envisioned the prophet performing a type of sword dance with multiple swords. 507. It is acknowledged, though, that clapping is a way of calling a servant in the East (e.g. Egypt, India); on which see MacCulloch 1955: 499. 508. Tinm, although possibly meaning 'causes the wrath to be abated', most

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divine anger, the sword's destructive ferocity increases (v. 19) and the sword is commanded to begin the action (v. 21).509 In this oracle, Ezekiel used conventional nonverbal expressions of emotion in a representational manner to demonstrate, not future emotional responses, but current ones. The first set of nonverbal behaviors (v. 17: crying out, wailing, slapping the thigh) represented how the people should appropriately respond to the news of the judgment coming upon them. The second set (vv. 19, 22: clapping the hands) represented both God's emotive response to the people's disposition and the divine indignation which lay behind the severe judgment. Even though the prophet had assumed the divine role in v. 19, the grief expressed while in the audience role of v. 17 was not completely abandoned. In the midst of expressing the divine sentiment, sadness was still present and expressed in the paralinguistic interjection of v. 20. Thus in the divine sentiment of anger there is a merging with the previously expressed human response of grief. It can be inferred that a similar merging is to be reflected in the human response, that in expressing sorrow over the fact of the judgment, the audience should empathize with the divine anger over the sins which necessitated the judgment. Thus the mood of the oracle as a whole can be understood as one of sorrow (v. 17) and indignation (v. 19), rather than expressing approval and anticipatory triumph at the judgment. 1.14.2 Rhetoric 1. Attention. These nonverbal actions were concurrent with the verbal oracle and were therefore not used as initial attention attractors like many of the other sign-acts in which the nonverbal actions were performed before any verbal proclamation was given. The people's attention was already directed toward the prophet who was in the process of likely means 'causes it to settle' on the object of the divine wrath (cf. Ezek. 5.13; 16.42; 24.13); cf. Ackroyd et al. 1986: 415. 509. The sword is addressed in v. 21, contra Guthrie (1962: 276; also Cooper 1994: 199) who takes the verse as an injunction addressed to the prophet. But he does so only by extracting vv. 19-22 as a separate oracle, deleting vv. 19b6-20, reading ^QDH (v. 19) as second-person perfect ('and double yourself up'), and emending the feminine imperatives in v. 21 to masculine ('twist around, go right, go left, wherever your face is pointing'). But his arguments are unconvincing because once the verses are removed from the context of the activity of the sword, the meaning and purpose of the resultant prophetic actions are left unexplained.


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verbally delivering the oracle. But the nonverbal elements in vv. 17 and 19 occurred at pivotal points in the oracle where the whole emphasis of the message was altered. At v. 17, the cries of mourning and slapping the thigh occurred in contrast to the mood of the audience which was one of joy over hearing the news of the divine sword's readiness which they anticipated was prepared to be used against their enemies (v. 15b). But the contrasting mood expressed by the nonverbal behaviors in v. 17 should have caused the people to halt abruptly in their emotive response. The unexpectedness of displays of mourning should have caused the people's attention to be heightened, producing a curiosity as to why the prophet, in the midst of a time which they felt should be one of rejoicing, was indeed mourning. The nonverbal behavior thus arrested the people's attention so that they did not miss the point which was subsequently made explicit by the verbal proclamation. The accompanying verbal message clarified the issue in the climax of this half of the oracle: 'For it is against my people' (v. 17). The clapping of the hands (v. 19) provided the transition point to the second part of the oracle which diverted the audience's attention away from themselves and their response to the divine message of doom, and onto the divine emotions and the sword, which in the latter part of the oracle took on an almost independent existence. 2. Comprehension. By physically displaying the conventional gesture and articulations of mourning (v. 17), Ezekiel left no doubt as to what type of reaction to the divine message was appropriate. But since the nonverbal behavior of clapping (v. 19) can have several meanings, the people may not initially have been certain of the type of emotion the prophet was thereby displaying—whether anger or exultation. Although the first behaviors (v. 17) were not explained verbally (their clarity as mourning gestures apparently precluded the necessity for such), the latter behavior (v. 19) needed further verbal clarification. In the audience's understanding of what the prophet was doing, there may have been not only an ambiguity over the meaning of the clapping, but also over whom the prophet was thereby portraying. As the people observed Ezekiel's clapping (v. 19), they may have initially felt that Ezekiel was continuing his role as representative of his fellow-citizens as in the previous nonverbal behaviors (v. 17). The aspects of who was clapping, and why, were clarified in the subsequent verbal declaration in v. 22. 3. Acceptance. The message which Ezekiel was proclaiming in this oracle was not a message which was amenable to the people's way of

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thinking. They anticipated the instrument of judgment to be used against their enemies, and if perchance it was coming against them, it would only do so in a disciplining manner (v. 18a). To facilitate the people's reception of the message which he gave, Ezekiel began the oracle in an enigmatic manner of proclaiming the preparedness of the sword of judgment without initially letting the audience know that it was to be used against them. The people's emotive response of anticipatory joy (v. 15b) would be similar to that of hearing an oracle against a foreign nation which, as a judgment against an enemy, would elicit a favorable audience response. Once the barriers of counterdefense had been minimized through this indetermination of the recipients of the judgment, then, through the nonverbal action of mourning (v. 17), the prophet turned the tables on the people. The suasive force of the prophet's arguments at that point was also enhanced by the fact that in assuming the role of the people, he identified with his audience even though, through the nonverbal behaviors, he was implicitly indicting them for their dissimilar emotive response. The emotions of sadness and sorrow which the prophet displayed must also have been his own emotions, so that as an active participant in the prophecy, he himself was deeply feeling the anguish.510 The sentiment of v. 18a ('For [it is] a testing') may indicate that the audience was receptive to the concept that the sword would be used against them, showing that Ezekiel's persuasive strategies were initially effective. But the prophet could not let the people settle into a complacency of rationalizing that the message of the first part of the oracle was only that of a punitive judgment of testing. The enigmatic verbal statement 'It shall not be' (v. 18b) could have been interpreted by the people in a different manner than that intended by the prophet. As the response to the question 'What if the staff despises?' the people may have supposed that the prophet meant that the tree which was going to punish them would be no more, and thereby expected the prophet to declare that the sword of judgment would not only be against Judah, but against its punishing enemy as well (just as the oracle of Ezek. 21.33-37 turns the sword against Ammon). Was the prophet now going

510. Davidson (1893: 151) views the emotional display of v. 17 as being Ezekiel's agitation at the thought of the coming destruction. That the prophet felt these emotions is affirmed, but the communicative aspect of his displaying those emotions to his audience must also be emphasized.


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to portray the sword's triumphant activity over the enemy that had tested them? If so, then they could still rejoice. Ezekiel stressed the divine displeasure and indignation directed against his fellow-people by clapping his hands (v. 19). Since clapping could signify not only anger, but also exultation over an enemy's defeat, Ezekiel's action could have initially been misconstrued by the people who thought that he was proclaiming what they anticipated. But the ambiguity of the nonverbal clapping may have been intentionally used by the prophet to once again restrict the audience's countering arguments against the undesired message that God was angered at his own people. When clapping and thereby performing in the divine role, Ezekiel employed an argument from authority. He assumed an authoritarian position and declared, as a prophet, that this was the manner in which God was acting. In the nonverbal behaviors, Ezekiel used strategies which were emotion arousing rather than logical or rational arguments. Rather than merely verbally arguing that in light of the coming judgment the people should be grieved, he nonverbally modeled the grief response to them. Rather than stating that God was angry with them, he nonverbally displayed that anger. By displaying the outward manifestations of those emotions, the prophet sought to elicit similar, imitative and empathic responses from his audience. 4. Retention. Because of the use of conventional displays of grief and anger, whenever the audience at subsequent times either employed such nonverbal behaviors or saw them being employed, they would have been kinetically and visually reminded of the prophetic oracle and its meaning for them. 1.15 Ezekiel 21.23-29s11 (LXX: 21.18-24) 1.15.1 Communicative Meaning. In vv. 24-25, Ezekiel is commanded to 'make two roads for the sword of the king of Babylon to come... And make a signpost; at the head of the way to the city make512 [it]. A 511. The extent of this oracle is debated as to whether vv. 30-32 are to be considered part of the originally delivered oracle or later additions. Since those verses only involve verbal material, their inclusion as part of the oracle is of secondary importance when analyzing the nonverbal behaviors of vv. 24-25. 512. The repeated use of R~Q in v. 24b has raised numerous questions about its appropriateness. Four solutions have generally been proposed:

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road you shall make for the sword to come.' The details are not given as to how the nonverbal representation was executed. It has been suggested that Ezekiel either drew the fork in the road upon the ground513 or in miniature upon a brick,514 and that the signpost was either a physical object which was erected515 or only a drawing 516 either on the ground or on the brick. The terms for making the roads and the signpost—respectively D'23 and K"n—are not those which usually refer to incising upon a brick (cf. 4.1 where the technical term ppn is used). The former verb is used in Isa. 43.19 for the actual construction of a road. Such usage also argues against Ezekiel merely choosing a fork in an already existing road within the village. Also, the separate command to make a signpost suggests that it was a distinct prop created by the prophet517 and not just a drawing on the ground. Thus it is most (1) Retain both uses and translate it as above. (2) Delete one of the two occurrences, thus 'and make a signpost at the head of the way to the city'. Since the first occurrence of the term is not represented in the LXX, it has been suggested that it is a miswritten dittography of the following

mil. (3) Emend one occurrence and retain the other. Lang (1978: 115-16) emends the first occurrence to C2N~n, thus forming a repetition understood in a distributive sense with the K~D at the end of the verse being the predicate. (4) Delete one occurrence and emend the other. Already assuming the deletion of the first occurrence, the second occurrence is then corrected by some as a miswriting of the preceding &9K~a. Following the LXX, vv. 24-25 are redivided so that T becomes the object of D'6?n. A repetition in a distributive sense results ('and a sign you shall place at the head of the way of the city, at the head of the way [of the city]') which implies the placing of two signs, one for each of the two respective roads. 513. Cf. Block 1997: 684; Cooke 1936: 231; Greenberg 1997: 426. 514. Cf. Allen 1990: 26; Buzy 1923: 255; Eichrodt 1970: 297-98; Keil 1976:1, 296. 515. Cf. Block 1997: 684; Wevers 1969: 125; Zimmerli 1979: 442. 516. Cf. Buzy 1923: 255. 517. Greenberg (1997: 416, 426-27) translates tCD Tl as 'and clear a place' on the basis that the piel of N"O means 'to hew down' (Josh. 17.15, 18) or 'to cleave' (Ezek. 23.47), and T has the meaning of 'place' in Deut. 23.13; Num. 2.17; Jer. 6.3. Thus Ezekiel was 'to clear a space...where he will act out what the king of Babylonia is described as doing' (427). Although the term T can mean 'place', the meaning of 'monumental stela' is also well attested from 1 Sam. 15.12; 2 Sam. 18.18; 1 Chron. 18.3; Isa. 56.5, and that meaning fits well here (cf. Ackroyd et al. 1986: 401-402; Talmon 1984: 9; Zimmerli 1979: 442). Cognates of K~D, such as Arabic bdra which means 'to form', 'to fashion by cutting', or 'to shape out, pare a


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probable that the roads were fashioned on the ground with a separate signpost set up so that the representation was large enough to be visually accessible to the audience. The exact nature of the signpost is also not given, and the text is ambiguous as to whether only a single signpost was used with both cities designated upon it, or if separate signposts were set up at the head of each of the two diverging roads. The material out of which it was made—whether stone or wood518—is left unanswered. The term 'hand' (I1), may indicate that the signpost was hand-shaped.519 But, if the sign was made out of stone, then, more probably, it was a monumental pillar520 like a milestone, with the respective directions to the two cities written or incised upon it.521 But whatever the exact mode of representing this locale, it must have been obvious to the spectators that it was a road with a fork in it with one of the roads leading to Jerusalem and the other to Rabbah in Ammon. Since the command to perform nonverbal actions extends only through v. 25, it is most probable that the prophet only depicted the setting at which Nebuchadnezzar would decide which of the two routes to take, and did not nonverbally mimic the Babylonian king performing the pagan divinatory rites.522 Once the prophet had, with the nonverbal reed for writing or a stick for an arrow' (cf. BDB 135b; Hanson 1972: 354), indicate that the term is appropriate for the fashioning of such a stela. 518. McComiskey (1980: 127), on the mistaken basis that N~D in the piel elsewhere is always used for cutting down wood, suggests that the term need not imply 'carving', but merely a branch or a sapling cut for a marker. But the piel in Ezek. 23.47 does not have reference to cutting wood, but rather cleaving humans with a sword. So the piel refers to a mode of action and is not specifically tied to a particular object. 519. Cf. Ackroyd et al. 1986: 401; Talmon 1984: 9. 520. Zimmerli (1979: 442) views the signpost as an inscribed stone pillar because T, as a marker, usually refers to a memorial stela. This contrasts to the usual word for signal (03) and to the terms for roadmarkers in Jer. 31.21 QVii, THDn). 521. The command (v. 25) seems to imply that the termini of both roads were designated in writing on the sign(s). This argues against van den Bern's (1935: 108) and Buzy's (1923: 156-58) contention that there was only one sign on the road to Jerusalem and the road to Ammon was left unmarked. It is thus argued that in this way the nonverbal representation also indicated the result of the king's divination. But there is no reason to assume that the nonverbal display depicted anything other than the setting which would have heightened the rhetorical impact by initially leaving the result of the presage uncertain. 522. Contra Taylor (1969: 163) that Ezekiel mimicked the divinatory actions.

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props, recreated a representation of the locale (vv. 24-25), he then verbally pronounced what would occur at the setting thus represented (vv. 26-27).523 The significant factor was not the prophet's making, setting in place, and arranging the nonverbal artifacts, for those actions were all preparatory to the verbal communication. The prophet's nonverbal bodily movements did not predict, in the manner of a simile, any future action which his fellow-people, God, or the Babylonians would take. Prior to the verbal pronouncement, the prophet was more like a stagehand who places the necessary props in their respective positions before the opening of the theatrical production. The nonverbal artifacts were employed to provide a visual and tangible setting which accentuated the thrust of the message which explained what would occur at the locale thus depicted. At the fork in the road the Babylonian king would perform the appropriate divinatory rites—belomancy, teraphim-inquiry, heptascopy—to determine which road was the appropriate one to take (v. 26). The divinations would all point to the road leading off toward Jerusalem (v. 27). The divinatory results must not be viewed as simply determining which road to take, but also incorporated the auspiciousness of the course of action under question.524 Thus the results of the divinations indicated that the expedition to Jerusalem would be favorable for the Babylonian army.

Cf. Zimmerli (1979: 440-41) who states that the command to portray in action the obtaining of the decision is expected, and thereby implies that Ezekiel did perform such, but the command is not present because the sign-act has been forced into the background in the literary text. In light of Jer. 43.9 where only the setting was created through the nonverbal activity, there is no reason to assume that Ezekiel had to do more than that here. 523. The shift from command in vv. 24-25 to description in vv. 26-29 does not mean that the actions of vv. 24-25 were only literary inventions (contra Holscher 1924: 114-15). 524. Cf. 1 Sam. 23.14; 30.7-8 where oracular inquiries and responses before military expeditions concerned not only the courses of action to take but the success of such actions. A striking parallel to Ezekiel's portrayal of the Babylonian king's activities is found in Mari letter 404.81-85: 'He (Atamrum) will arrive [either via] Saggaratum or via Terqa [or via Ma]ri. Concerning the three routes [ ] he is going to arrange [an oracular inquiry] and [if his gods render their consent], it is that (particular) route which shall be seized and he will arrive at my lord' (Malamat 1991: 188; cf. also Block 1997: 685-86).


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While the prophet almost blasphemously presented God as directing the Babylonian king through pagan divinatory rites which were clearly condemned within the Jerusalem priestly heritage, v. 28 provides the perspective of how the Judahites were viewing this activity by the Babylonian king: 'But to them it will be like divination of falsehood in their eyes.'525 For the Judahites, it was not a matter of whether the Babylonians could attack Jerusalem—although they apparently believed they would not do so at this time (cf. Jer. 37.19)—but it was the success of such an expedition as indicated by the divinatory rites which the Judahites viewed as false (v. 28a).526 They probably speculated that the answer could not possibly be true since it had been derived from pagan divinations and was incompatible with what they believed were God's promises to them. Part of the popular theology was the belief that even if the Babylonian army did march against Jerusalem, such a venture would be unsuccessful because the city was secure by virtue of God's protection. If the people's faith in the inviolability of Jerusalem is reflected in the nomenclature mi^3 D^CJIT (Jerusalem, the fortified, v. 25)527 then the popular theology against which this oracle was being pronounced by Ezekiel was underscored. That terminology subtly, yet ironically, contrasted the people's mistaken sense of security with the coming reality of the Babylonian siege and destruction (v. 27). 1.15.2 Rhetoric. The historical context of this action was most probably the departure of the Babylonian army under the direction of Nebuchadnezzar for a campaign in the west in 588/589 BCE. Word of the alliance

525. Some have understood the 'them' as a reference to Ezekiel's immediate exilic audience with the false divination referring to Ezekiel's predictions (cf. Eichrodt 1970: 300; Guthrie 1962: 278). But the referent of the divination is clearly that of the Babylonian king just spoken of. One would expect direct second-person plural address if Ezekiel's audience was the subject of the pronominal suffix. But it is also not denied that many of the exiles undoubtedly shared the Jerusalemites' perspective that the Babylonian king's pagan rituals were not valid. 526. Fohrer (1955: 124) contends that the implications of the divinations being false is that Nebuchadnezzar would therefore not follow those directives. But the perception of the divinations as false is textually not attributed to the Babylonians, who undoubtedly perceived them as valid and therefore would follow them, but to the Judahites. 527. Cf. Zimmerli (1979: 442) who retains the phrase rather than following the LXX ('in her midst').

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between Judah and Ammon, and the ensuing rebellion, must have previously reached the exiles and fueled the hopeful expectations that Judah would be delivered from Babylonian domination, which would pave the way for their imminent return to their homeland. Once the Babylonian army set out in response to the rebellion, the exiles undoubtedly awaited with eager anticipation reports of the army's military maneuvers. But Ezekiel sought to shatter the exiles' hopeful expectations by reporting that the Babylonian army, which was fresh and ready for battle, would focus its efforts first of all against Jerusalem.528 1. Attention. The prophet's actions of drawing the roads and then setting a signpost at the fork must have attracted attention. The people probably wondered what he was doing, and the attention so attracted by the act of setting the props in place provided a receptive opportunity for the ensuing verbal proclamation. 2. Comprehension. What was obvious to the spectators was that the prophet had represented a road leading out of Babylon coming to a fork with one road leading to their homeland Judah and the other leading to Ammon. But the message's implications which were associated with the roads could not have been discerned until the prophet began his verbal proclamation. If the exiles' hope of an imminent return to Judah was being expressed in terms like those of Jer. 31.21 ('Set up roadmarkers, place guideposts; direct your heart to the highway, the way by which you went; return, O virgin of Israel, return to these your cities') and Isa. 43.19 ('Behold I am doing a new thing... I am setting a road in the desert') then the exilic audience may initially have thought that the road depicted by Ezekiel was that which God was preparing for them to return to their homeland. Therefore, Ezekiel's audience may have expected a very favorable oracle dealing with an imminent end to the exile. Only the verbal pronouncement clarified that this was not the case. Rather than bolstering the people's hopes of returning home on the road to Judah, Ezekiel sought to shatter those hopes by declaring that it was Nebuchadnezzar, in his military campaign, who was traveling that road.

528. Cf. Allen 1990: 27; Hals 1989: 154. But Greenberg (1991: 268; 1997: 42830) argues that this depiction does not recount what actually had or would occur; rather the whole was merely an imaginary scene or 'figment', i.e. 'a piece of threatening rhetoric independent of events' (1997: 428), designed to express the conviction that Nebuchadnezzar would besiege Jerusalem.


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Since the departure of Nebuchadnezzar's army for the west was of recent import for the Jewish exiles, it is possible that the audience anticipated Ezekiel would give some kind of declaration about the Babylonian king's movements. Assuming what the general topic of the prophecy was to be, the audience's curiosity would have been aroused as to the specific associated message. Was the prophet going to pronounce that the Babylonians were going to attack Ammon? Such an action could either mean that Judah would be altogether spared a Babylonian attack or that there would be more time for Judah to prepare for the Babylonian onslaught and to appeal to the Egyptians for assistance, thus thwarting any later Babylonian advance against Judah. Would there be a divine intervention which would divert the Babylonians from going to Jerusalem? Or would the Babylonians choose neither road, but return home? So the nonverbal representation should have created questions in the people's mind either as to the topic of the prophecy—was it about their return home or about the movements of the Babylonian army? Or, as to the content of the message, would it be favorable or unfavorable? The nonverbal setting, although arousing the curiosity, delayed a full comprehension of its meaning until the verbal proclamation. 3. Acceptance. Because of the ambiguity related to the depicted setting, the people would not have known initially that the message would be unfavorable toward Jerusalem. Such lack of comprehension should have restricted the production of any counterarguments prior to hearing the verbal oracle. In fact, if the audience anticipated a message which correlated with their hopes and expectations, a favorable mood would have been created. The prophet also used the visual props as a rhetorical strategy to intensify the impact of the message upon the audience. Instead of creating only a mental image through verbal description, Ezekiel attempted to draw the audience into the communication event by creating a tangible setting which helped establish the impression that they were actually at the place and participating in the event itself. Such a strategy should have heightened the audience's emotional involvement in the communication event. The nonverbal artifacts set the stage for the climax of the message which was the verbal description of what would occur at such a place. As the prophet verbally told of the Babylonian king's coming to the

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fork (v. 26), and going through all the divinatory rites, the people's attention would have been further heightened as they awaited the prophet's declaration of the outcome of the rituals. The climax was reached (v. 27) with the declaration that the divination was against 'Jerusalem' with a listing of what the divination meant—a full siege of the city. 4. Retention. It is possible that Ezekiel, after having delivered his oral message, did not dismantle the represented setting, but left the signpost standing. If so, the signpost became an ongoing visual reminder to the people of the prophecy that the Babylonians would attack Jerusalem. The use of T to designate the signpost may indicate its more permanent nature, for this was the term often used to designate a monument set up as a perpetual reminder (cf. 2 Sam. 18.18; Isa. 56.5). But as a reminder, the roadmarker would have been ironic since memorials were set up to commemorate victories which the Israelites had achieved through God's help (cf. 1 Sam. 7.12), while Ezekiel's marker indicated God's intended defeat of his people. 2. Pre-586 BCE Transitional Sign-Acts Three of Jeremiah's and Ezekiel's sign-acts occurred just prior to, or at the point of, Jerusalem's destruction: Jeremiah's purchase of the field, Jeremiah 32; Ezekiel's lack of mourning at his wife's death, Ezek. 24.15-24; Ezekiel's release from the speechlessness, Ezek. 24.25-27 and 33.21-22 (dealt with above in Chapter 2 §1.8). These actions were performed at the transitional point when the people had to reformulate their perceptions and theology so as to adapt ideologically to the postdestruction situation. In performing these actions, Jeremiah and Ezekiel did not focus on the causes of the destruction, but rather sought to aid the people during this period of ideological transition by addressing the conditions subsequent to and the consequences resulting from the destruction. Thus the actions showed the people how to respond to the city's destruction (Ezek. 24.15-24), by illustrating the new relationship with God once the judgment had occurred (Ezek. 24.25-27; 33.21-22), and by depicting the new historical circumstances in the future (Jer. 32). The purpose of these actions was to give the people direction for the imminent future so that their responses to God's judgment would be the appropriate ones.


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2.1 Jeremiah 32.1-44 (LXX: 39.1-44) Jeremiah 32 divides into three major sections: First, vv. 1-5529 contain introductory comments and background information which give the date (v. 1) and location (v. 2), along with a parenthetical elaboration of the reason for Jeremiah's confinement (vv. 3-5). Verses 3-5 seem unrelated to vv. 6-44 in that the king's question ('Why do you prophesy judgment?') is in no way addressed or answered by vv. 6-44. Yet the literary juxtaposing of vv. 3-5 with vv. 6-44 thematically emphasizes the context of hopeless in which the sign-act is performed, and also heightens the contrast and incongruity between Jeremiah's message of destruction (vv. 3-5) and the sign-act of hope (vv. 6-15). Second, vv. 6-15530 report the sign-act in first-person narrative with a third-person introductory formula (v. 6a). Third, vv. 16-44 are Jeremiah's prayer and God's response which literarily highlight the incongruity of the message of the sign-act with the contemporary circumstances of judgment. Verses 16-25 are Jeremiah's prayer which seeks to clarify the appropriateness of his action and message. Verses 26-44 contain the divine response to his prayer reassuring Jeremiah of the validity of both the messages of destruction and of restoration.531 The issue of the original linkage of vv. 16-44 to the signact account will be discussed below under 'Rhetor Response'. 2.1.1 Communicative Meaning. The incident is dated in v. 1 to the tenth year of Zedekiah (588-587 BCE), and the repeated references to the locale as 'the court of the guard'532 in vv. 2, 8, 12 support this. According 529. Gevaryahu (1975: 55) suggests that vv. 1-5 were a marginal colophonic note of Baruch 'who supplemented various data to be preserved with the deed of purchase'. But the account of Zedekiah's interaction in vv. 3-5 serves a narrative function, not a colophonic one. 530. Lundbom (1986: 97-98), following Gevaryahu (1970: 370-72), suggests that vv. 6-15 are an 'extended colophon' to the deed of purchase, written by Baruch and possibly placed in the jar with the contract of sale. But as Lundbom himself (97) points out, Baruch's function is only described in vv. 12-14 as taking custody of the document to preserve it, and he is not described either as the scribe who wrote the document or as a signatory witness. The literary genre of vv. 6-15 is a narrative of a sign-act, rather than a colophon. 531. On the literary structure of, and literary devices employed in, vv. 16-44, see Brueggemann 1996; Kessler 1965: 71, 79-81, 176-85. 532. mtDD does not refer to a 'body of men', that is, the palace-guard. So the location was not the place where the soldiers who guarded the palace were

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to 37.11-12, Jeremiah attempted to leave the city533 during the temporary lifting of the siege when the Babylonians went to eliminate the Egyptian threat. Subsequent to his arrest and initial imprisonment 'for many days' (37.13-16), Jeremiah was confined to 'the court of the guard' (37.21; 38.6, 13) where he remained until the city was captured by the Babylonians (38.28). The situation, as indicated in ch. 32, was that the siege was in progress (v. 2) with the siege works completed and in full operation (v. 24). So this incident must be placed after the Babylonians' resumption of the siege,534 in the latter phases of the city's existence, and not during the temporary lifting of the siege.535 The rhetorical circumquartered (contra Balla 1943: 89; Shanks 1987: 64). Rather mcmn ~Kn (cf. Jer. 32.2, 8, 12; 33.1; 37.21; 38.6, 13, 28; 39.14, 15; Neh. 3.25; also moan "OT, Neh. 12.39) refers to the court in which the guarding took place (cf. Driver 1907: 367), that is, the court of the prison house which is presumed to have been a minimum security or 'protective custody' area for prisoners which allowed interactions with nonconfined individuals. 533. Some suggest that the activities of 37.11-12 and ch. 32 are related in that Jeremiah's attempt to leave the city to go to Anathoth in order to take care of the personal business of dividing up property (37.11-12) had to deal with the property offered by Hanamel in ch. 32 (cf. Carroll 1986: 620, 675; Cornill 1905: 357; Eissfeldt 1962; Holladay 1989: 33-34; McKane 1996: 840; Perrin 1963: 411; Rudolph 1958: 191; Thompson 1980: 588). But an explicit connection is not made between the two passages, and the 37.12 incident may not have involved the same piece of property nor the same relatives as that of ch. 32. Others view 37.11-12 and ch. 32 as variant accounts of the same incident (cf. Holladay 1974: 109-10; Stacey 1990: 157). But the differences between the two accounts seem too considerable to be attributable to variations in recounting the same event. 534. Migsch (1981: esp. 19 n. 42, 245, 254) contends that Jeremiah was placed in the court of the guard on two occasions: once before the lifting of the siege and once after. By linking 32.2-5 to 34.1-7, he maintains that the purchase of the field occurred before the lifting of the siege and before the incident of Jeremiah's property dealings of 37.11-12. The focus of the act was thus to counter any false hope which might have occurred due to the anticipated lifting of the siege by showing that there was hope only after the conquest (19 n. 42). To deal with Migsch's complex of arguments about the interrelatedness of the incidents 32.2-5 and 34.1-7 is beyond the scope of this study, but it is noted that the hypothesis of two separate, temporally unconnected, incarcerations in the court of the guard is tenuous and the setting of the sign-act of ch. 32 fits better after the resumption of the siege when the people's hope was waning rather than prior to the lifting of the siege when their hope was waxing. 535. Contra Chang 1984: 246; Duhm 1901:260; Galeotti 1978:163-64; Holladay


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stances of the siege's temporary lifting and that of the resumed siege were quite dissimilar. When the siege was lifted, the Judahites were anticipating that the Babylonians had permanently withdrawn (cf. 37.9) and that life would return to a condition of normalcy.536 So the acquiring of property under those circumstances would have been deemed by the people and even, to some degree, by Jeremiah (as evidenced by his attempt in 37.11-12) very appropriate. But once the Egyptians had retreated, the Jerusalem!tes' hope of an external deliverance by an ally was eliminated, since they could not have hoped to extricate themselves from the renewed siege. Therefore, the probable fate of the city had to be accepted even by those who had previously denied it. So the acquiring of property in the midst of the culmination of the renewed siege and certain destruction of the city, was totally incongruous with the external circumstances. It is this incongruity which was expressed by Jeremiah in the prayer (vv. 16-25), indicating that the incident occurred when the inevitability of the city's fate was becoming an assured reality. Jeremiah was instructed (vv. 6-7) that Hanamel, his cousin, would come and request Jeremiah to exercise his familial right of redemption.537 The implicit assumption in vv. 6-7, as evidenced by Jeremiah's subsequent action, is that Jeremiah was to accept the offer (cf. v. 25).538 No reason is given for Hanamel's desire to sell the property, but such could easily be attributed to the straits of the siege. In documents from Nippur, Babylon and Uruk, there are deeds transacted in the midst of siege circumstances in which the people temporarily sold family members and property, which could then be reclaimed after the siege was

1983: 158; 1986: 9; 1989: 33, 212-23; Huey 1993: 290; Thompson 1980: 586, 588, 592. 536. The attitude of a return to 'normalcy' is evidenced in the incident of 34.822 which is dated to the lifting of the siege: the people re-enslaved their servants whom they had previously emancipated. 537. On the role of the 'redeemer' in buying back family property which was sold out of necessity by the relative, see Lev. 25.24-34 and Ruth 4.1-12 (which also included levirite marriage). Cf. Westbrooke 1971. 538. Holladay (1989: 210) seeks to rectify there being no explicit divine command by moving the phrase 'buy (it) for yourself, which is lacking in LXX, from the end of v. 8a to the end of v. 7 where it is then part of the divine speech to Jeremiah.

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over (cf. Oppenheim 1955: 76, 81). Whatever the circumstances were which necessitated the sale, one possibility is that Hanamel hoped somehow to ensure that the property remained within the family lineage.539 There might have been speculation that when the city fell, the besiegers would spare those who espoused a pro-Babylonian position. Since one of the reasons for Jeremiah's confinement was his pro-Babylonian political stance (cf. 37.13), Hanamel may have assumed that Jeremiah's chances of surviving after the siege were greater than his own and thereby the land could be retained in the family line. Or another possibility is that Hanamel had no hope or expectation about the future of the property but was merely following social and legal protocol that when a family property was sold, the relatives were given the first option of purchase. It is not known whether Jeremiah was the closest kin, and thereby had the primary right and responsibility540 (although such is suggested by the LXX's variation in v. 8: Kai cru Tipeapmepo

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