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Jou Study of the Id Testament Volume 32.2 · December 2007

http://JSOT.sagepub.com

®SAGE Publications

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Editors: John Jarick (Oxford) and Keith W. Whitelam (Sheffield) Book List Editor: John Day (Oxford)

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Editorial Board Rainer Albertz (Münster), Graeme Auld (Edinburgh), Hans M. Barstad (Edinburgh), Timothy Beai (Cleveland), Keith Bodner (Moncton), Athalya Brenner (Amsterdam), Mark Brett (Melbourne), Eric Christianson (Chester), David Clines (Sheffield), Philip Davies (Sheffield), Kristin De Troyer (Claremont), David Gunn (Fort Worth), Judith McKinlay (Dunedin), Nadav Na'aman (Tel Aviv), Silvia Schroer (Bern), Yvonne Sherwood (Glasgow), Ellen van Wolde (Tilburg), Gerald West (Pietermaritzburg) Journal for the Study of the Old Testament is published five times a year, in March, June (two issues, one of which is the Society for Old Testament Study Book List), September and December. SAGE Publications Ltd 1 Oliver's Yard, 55 City Road, London EC1Y ISP Notes for Contributors are to be found on the inside back cover of this issue. BooL· for Review should be sent to the Book List Editor: Professor John Day, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford OX2 6QA. Annual subscription pnces (prices include second class postal delivery within the UK and air mail delivery elsewhere) for 2007 (5 issues) are Individuals Institutions Non-university-affiliated theological colleges and seminaries

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Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Volume 32.2

December 2007 CONTENTS

EVELINE J. VAN DER S T E E N AND KLAAS A . D . SMELIK

King Mesha and the Tribe of Dibon

139-162

JAMES C. OKOYE Sarah and Hagar: Genesis 16 and 21

163-175

STEVEN D.MASON Another Flood? Genesis 9 and Isaiah's Broken Eternal Covenant

177-198

ANDREW HOCK-SOON NG Revisiting Judges 19: A Gothic Perspective

199-215

NANCY TAN The Chronicler's Obed-edom': A Foreigner and/or a Lévite?

217-230

HECTOR M. PATMORE The Shorter and Longer Texts of Ezekiel: The Implications of the Manuscript Finds from Masada and Qumran

231-242

JONATHAN S. GREER A Marzeah and a Mizraq: A Prophet's Mêlée with Religious Diversity in Amos 6.4-7

243-262

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Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Vol 32.2 (2007): 139-162 © 2007 SAGE Publications, Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore DOI: 10.1177/0309089207085880 http://JSOT.sagepub.com

King Mesha and the Tribe of Dibon

EVELINE J. VAN DER STEEN AND KLAAS A.D. SMELIK University of Liverpool, Department of Archaeology, Hartley Building, Brownlow Street, Liverpool L69 3GS Faculteit Letteren en Wijsbegeerte, Universiteit Gent, Sint-Pietersplein 6, B-9000 Gent, Belgium

Abstract The Mesha Inscription has attracted much attention and scholarly debate ever since its discovery. King Mesha of Moab, mentioned in the Bible, threw off the yoke of Omride supremacy and reigned from his capital of Dibon over a kingdom that extended both north and south of the Wadi Mujib (the river Arnon). The identification of modern-day Dhiban with Dibon has never been doubted. In this article, however, it is suggested that Dibon, mentioned in the inscription, was not Mesha’s capital, but the tribe of which he was the leader. Mesha forged a tribal confederation into a tribal kingdom in Moab. The name of Mesha’s capital was Carchoh, also mentioned in the inscription and located at present-day Dhiban. Biblical Kir-Hareseth is identified with this same Carchoh, and the heartland of Mesha’s kingdom is north of the Wadi Mujib. Keywords: Mesha, Moab, Dibon, Kir-Hareseth, Carchoh, tribes, state formation.

Ever since its spectacular discovery, and the messy battle over its acquisition (Graham 1989), the Mesha Stela, or Moab Inscription, has been the subject of unceasing interest and study, as well as a fair amount of

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Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 32.2 (2007)

controversy (see articles in Dearman [ed.] 1989; Smelik 1992; Na’aman 1997; Finkelstein 2000; Rainey 2000; Steiner 2001; Routledge 2004: 13353, with references). This present article is concerned with one specific problem in the stela: that of the name of Dibon, and its generally accepted identification with the present-day village of Dhiban. We shall suggest here that when Mesha called himself a ‘Diboni’, he referred to a tribal affiliation. In other words, Mesha’s Dibon was a tribe rather than a town. The name ‘Dibon’ only became attached to the city of Karchoh after Mesha had made it his capital, not before. As a consequence, biblical Kir Hareseth, Mesha’s capital in the book of Kings, may be identified with Karchoh and therefore lie north of the Wadi Mujib, which has implications for our understanding of the borders of Moab. Our hypothesis also has consequences for the social and political organization of Moab in the time of Mesha, and for the status of Mesha as ruler of Moab. We suggest that Moab was a tribal kingdom, where the Diboni were the leading tribe. Various Problems Notwithstanding the fact that the contents of Mesha’s inscription is rather clear, there are various problems that scholars in the past have been struggling with. For example: 1. There is a tension between Mesha’s claims of authority over all of Moab and his need for major campaigns during his reign. This relates directly to the question whether Moab was a ‘real’ state, and if so, what kind of state. This question has been the subject of much speculation (Dearman 1989; Na’aman 1997; Rainey 2000; Steiner 2001; Routledge 2004). 2. General opinion on the territorial extension of Moab into the south, including Kerak and a place named Hawronen (which is identified with biblical Horonaim) rests on a rather shaky foundation: the find of a fragment of another possible stela that possibly bears the name of Mesha’s father, Kemosh-yat(ti), in Kerak; the possible identification of Kerak with Kir-Hareseth (based largely on similarity in sound) and the uncertain identification of Horonaim (Miller 1989: 34-35). A look at the map (Fig. 1) makes this clear: every place mentioned in the inscription lies north of the Wadi Mujib, with the exception of these two sites, which seem to be too far to the south to form a unity with the northern part of


VAN DER STEEN AND SMELIK King Mesha

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the kingdom. Routledge solves this problem by suggesting that other sites, in between, may have been mentioned on the missing part of the stela. This is not very likely (see Miller 1989: 36; see also the literary analysis of the stela by Smelik 1990 and 1992). 3. The Dibon/Karchoh controversy: one assumes that Dibon was Mesha’s capital, but in the stela this city is called Karchoh, not Dibon. The usual solution to this problem is to propose that Karchoh was the ‘acropolis’ of Dibon. But is this the most likely solution? 4. The discrepancy between Mesha’s account and the story in 2 Kings 3. According to Mesha, he defeated Israel completely; but according to the Bible, it was he who was defeated (see, e.g., Smelik 1992). Starting with the question of the identification of Dibon, we shall try to shed new light on some of these problems. Dibon/Dhiban The fact that the stela was found at Dhiban and mentioned Dibon, and that there is an obvious etymological similarity between the two names, made identification of Dibon with Dhiban inevitable, and the identification has never really been doubted so far. There are, however, some problems if we accept it. The first problem that arises with regard to the identification of Dibon with Dhiban originates long before Mesha, in the Late Bronze Age. There are several Egyptian sources that mention a city called Tpn or Tbn. The first is the famous topographical list from the reign of Thutmosis III (c. 1450 BCE). Here the name Tpn does not have a town-determinative, which leads Dearman, among others, to suggest that Tpn was a region rather than a town (Dearman 1989: 172; see also Kitchen 1992: 25).1 A topographical text from the forecourt of Ramesses II in the Luxor temple proved to be a palimpsest. The original text, which apparently also dated from the reign of Ramesses II, mentions a ‘Town that Pharaoh’s arm captured: Tbn’. Kitchen (1964) has identified Tbn with Dibon, almost as a 1. Redford’s suggestion (1982) that place-names 89-101 on the topographical list of Tutmoses represent an itinerary through Transjordan is tenuous to say the least. None of the identifications suggested by Redford are more than mere possibilities, and many are problematic. It is only the accumulation of these possibilities that leads him to his conclusion. See Na’aman 1994: 184 n. 7; van der Steen 2004: 8-9.


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matter of course, but this identification was refuted by Ahituv in an article from 1972 (see also Weippert 1979: 27 and Smelik 1984: 88). The main objection to Kitchen’s identification is the fact that there are no archaeological remains from the Late Bronze Age at Dhiban. Therefore, Ahituv (1984: 189) identifies Tbn/Tpn with Tibnin, instead of Dibon.

Figure 1



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Late Bronze Age settled occupation in southern Transjordan was sparse. Nelson Glueck, basing himself on his surveys of Eastern Palestine (Glueck 1934 and references in Sauer 1986: 1), stated that Transjordan was largely uninhabited in the Middle and Late Bronze Ages. Over the years, and as a result of more intensive surveys and an increasing knowledge of the pottery of Transjordan, numerous Late Bronze Age sites have been found in northern and central Transjordan, particularly on the Amman Plateau and in the Jordan Valley (Van der Steen 2004: Chapter 3 with references). However, for the southern regions, Moab and Edom, Glueck’s conclusions remain largely valid. Some transitional Late Bronze–Early Iron Age pottery has been found at sites such as Mudaynah el-Mu’arradjah (Olavarri 1983: Fig 6), Balu’a (Worschech and Ninow 1999), Lehun (Homès-Frédericq and Hennessy 1989: 355; HomèsFrédericq et al. 1997: 66) and (possibly) Ara’ir (Olavarri 1965: Figs. 1, 2, 3). Tomb A at Madaba (Harding and Isserlin 1953: Figs. 12-17) has revealed an extensive repertoire of Late Bronze–Early Iron Age transitional pottery, but so far no settled occupation has been found that can be associated with the tomb, suggesting that it was used by a nomadic population (Foran et al. 2004, with references). The JADIS database (Palumbo 1994), which is the most extensive and complete overview of surveyed and excavated sites in Jordan to date, confirms this pattern.2 In the Early Iron Age the number of sites in Moab increases to about 19 (depending on where exactly the borders are drawn). Hypotheses of early state formation in Moab in the transitional Late Bronze–Early Iron Age period (Worschech 1990; Zayadine 1991) are therefore not supported by archaeological evidence. As one could expect, those scholars who feel that the identification of Tbn with Dhiban is inevitable have put forward the usual counterarguments, such as: archaeological remains can be elusive, archaeologists 2. The JADIS (Jordanian Antiquities Database and Information System) database records 297 Late Bronze Age sites, 2.5% of the total number of sites recorded. 128 of these sites have been found by the Archaeological Survey of the Kerak Plateau conducted by Miller (1991). However, later research has shown that the pottery analysis of this survey is unreliable, and that practically all the pottery that has been attributed to the Late Bronze Age belongs to other periods (Bienkowski and Adams 1999). If this survey is excluded from the JADIS database, the number of sites in Moab with Late Bronze Age pottery diminishes dramatically to about twelve sites, most of which are north of the Wadi Mujib, and all of which, with the possible exception of Lehun, are mere sherd scatters. Dhiban is not one of these. Routledge recognizes a pattern of Late Bronze Age sites around Kerak, but he bases himself entirely on Miller’s survey of the Kerak Plateau.


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may have looked in the wrong place or may have missed or even not recognized the material (e.g. Kitchen 1992: 28-29). These arguments are not very convincing and suggestive of the circular reasoning so typical of Biblical Archaeology in the old days. Before we accept the identification Tpn = Dibon, we had better ask: What was actually found at Dhiban? Dhiban: The Remains After the discovery of the Mesha Stela in 1868 at Dhiban, the site became a focus for historical research; yet it was not until 1950 that the first excavations started. These excavations were sponsored by the American School of Oriental Research, and conducted by Winnett and Reed (Winnett and Reed 1964; Tushingham 1972). The initial results proved to be disappointing, with no evidence being found for the major capital that people had come to expect on the basis of the stela. Therefore, William Morton undertook three more seasons of excavation in 1955, 1956 and 1965. For these three seasons only very limited reports have been published (Morton 1955, 1957, 1989). Morton, however, claimed to have found substantial remains from the ninth century: a palace and the possible remains of a temple. Nearby was a gateway with the remains of a wall. This is the area where the stela was found. In another part of the tell possible domestic buildings were discovered, dated to the same period. An incense stand was found (out of context) and also dated to this period. Routledge (2004: 162-68) has (re)published some of Morton’s top plans and section drawings, as well as some of the pottery from Morton’s excavations. His main purpose in doing this was to be able to compare the ninth-century ‘palace’ of phases 1 and 2 with the prevalent monumental architecture of the period. The presence of Iron Age I pottery shows that the site was occupied before the ninth century, but no monumental architecture of that period has come to light and it seems that the ‘palace’ and the gateway may well be the buildings referred to in the Mesha Stela. Morton certainly believed so. Routledge makes no such claims, though he does date the palace to the ninth century and interpret it as belonging to a repertoire of ‘kingly things’, material expressions of kingship. Since, as he does further on in the same chapter, he identifies these expressions of kingship with Mesha and his inscription, the conclusion seems inevitable that Routledge also sees the palace as having been built by Mesha. In which case, it is



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probably one of the buildings mentioned in the stela in lines 21-24, which can be translated as follows: I myself have built Karchoh, the wall of the woods and the wall [22]of the citadel, and I myself have built its gates, and I myself have built its towers, and I myself [23]have built the house of the king, and I myself have made the double reser[voir for the spr]ing(?) in the innermost part [24]of the city.3

Mesha built a high place for Kemosh, in Karchoh, and placed the stela in or near this sanctuary (line 3). He also built a palace and a city wall with a gateway in Karchoh. Since the stela was found in Dhiban, Karchoh must also have been situated there—unless the stela had been moved afterwards. If Dhiban is to be identified with Dibon, Karchoh must be Dibon, or a part of Dibon. The usual explanation, followed by most scholars, is that Karchoh was Mesha’s Royal Quarter, added to an already existing village or town: Dibon. There is, however, nothing in the inscription that can confirm this interpretation. On the contrary, lines 24-25 state: Now, there was no cistern in the innermost part of the city, in Karchoh, and I said to all the people: Make, each [25]one of you, a cistern in his house.

This suggests that Karchoh cannot have been the acropolis, since it obviously contained also the living quarters of the people. Mesha’s town, his capital, situated at the site of contemporary Dhiban, was Karchoh. So, what was Dibon? Mesha the Dibonite The name ‘Dibon’ appears four times in the Mesha Stela. The first reference in the inscription refers to Mesha himself: he calls himself a Dibonite. Dearman states that ‘Mesha’s self-identification as a Dibonite king of Moab is unusual. He may have inherited the title and the city from his father; perhaps his was the leading family in the area of Dhiban’ (Dearman 1989: 171). Dearman’s own solution, which he applies equally to the problem of the Late Bronze Age identification of Tbn / Tpn with Dibon, is to suggest that Dibon was a region rather than a town: in his 3. The translation used here is that of Smelik 2000.


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opinion the kingdom of Moab incorporated more than one ‘tribal or territorial group’, each of which had its own regional centre. Dibon may have been the name of one of those regions (Dearman 1989: 172). If Dibon was the name of a tribal territory, it is only half a step to say that Dibon was also the name of a tribe. Dearman does not take that last half-step, mainly because in the Hebrew Bible Dibon is always mentioned as a town, and most likely the town that is now identified with the site of Dhiban. The second time Dibon is mentioned in the stela is in lines 20-21: …[20] I took two hundred men of Moab, all its division(?), and I led it up to Jahaz. And I have taken it [21] in order to add it to Dibon.

Routledge (2004: 145) sees an anomaly here, as the army comes from Moab, the country, but the annexation of Jahaz is to Dibon, not to Moab, as one would expect. If we interpret Dibon as a town, there is indeed a problem. However, if we see Dibon as a political entity, the leading tribe of the confederation of Moab, the situation makes much more sense. It is clear from the inscription that Moab is not just a territory or a geographical term. The first two lines leave no doubt about the political status of Moab: it is a state. It may be a tribal state, or a ‘segmentary’ state, or some other form of state, but it is definitely a form of state ruled by a king. At the same time, we should remember that certainly in the Late Bronze Age, according to the Egyptian texts mentioned above, Moab was a geographical name: the name of a region. It is likely that, since the name survived, the original meaning, that of a region, should also survive. So, Moab is the name of the region, and of the state, defining both the political borders (in relation to, for example, Israel) and the geographical borders. It seems that in line 20 Moab is used in its geographical sense. The annexation of Jahaz to Dibon must then be interpreted as the subjugation of the town of Jahaz to the tribe of Dibon. The next two references are to be found in line 28; they are related: [And the me]n of Dibon stood in battle-order, for all Dibon, they were in subjection.

Both instances refer to a group of people: ‘the men of Dibon’, and ‘all Dibon’. Whether these men are inhabitants of a town or members of a tribe is not immediately clear from the context. On the other hand, we may wonder why Mesha would bother to mention that ‘all Dibon, they were in subjection’, if Dibon was his home town and capital, and the men



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of Dibon its citizens, and therefore, his subjects. However, if the relationship between Mesha and the men of Dibon was that of a tribe and its leader, the situation is different. Ethno-archaeological examples show that a tribal leader, however powerful, could never automatically expect obedience from his tribe (see below). What is reflected in this sentence is rather the statement that Mesha was a successful leader who could rally his tribe behind him in order to re-conquer and rebuild the country that had been occupied and ravished by Israel during the reign of his father. So, in summary, every reference to Dibon in the Mesha Stela actually refers to a group of people, rather than to a town. In line 1 Mesha calls himself a Diboni. In line 21 Dibon is a political entity. And the two references in line 28 are to the ‘men of Dibon’ and to ‘all Dibon’, in the sense of ‘all the men of the tribe Dibon’, respectively. On the other hand, Karchoh is very clearly a town. Mesha made a high place for Kemosh in Karchoh. He built the walls of the parks, the walls of the acropolis, the gates, the towers, the palace, a large water reservoir and a moat. Moreover, he told the inhabitants to build their own cisterns in their houses, which were also situated in Karchoh. Therefore, Karchoh, the town of Mesha, is to be identified with present-day Dhiban, where his inscription was found. The Hebrew Bible, however, does not mention Karchoh. The Mesha Stela, on the other hand, does not mention Kir Hareseth, which in the book of Kings is the capital of Mesha’s Moab. This has led one of the authors of this article to suggest that biblical Kir Hareseth should be identified with Karchoh (Smelik 1992: 85-89). Kir Hareseth, meaning ‘Shard-city’, is probably a pun of the actual name of Mesha’s royal capital: Karchoh. From the Tribe of Dibon to the Town of Dibon As we saw above, the main reason why Dibon is always identified as a town is because the Bible mentions it as a town. So how did the tribe of Dibon become the town of Dibon? There are a number of examples in the history of the region where a town was renamed after the ruling tribe. The best known example is that of the town of Laish in the north of Israel, which was renamed after the tribe that had conquered it: Dan (Judg. 18.29).4 4. Although the situation may be somewhat more complex, a case can also be made for the name of the town of Ammon, Rabbath Ammon, or Rabbath Bene Ammon, as originating from the name of a tribe, the Bene Ammon (Bienkowski and van der Steen


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We also have a more recent example in nineteenth-century CE Palestine. In the eighteenth century a family immigrated from the Balkans and came to live in Qariat el-Anab, west of Jerusalem: the Abu Gosh family (Finn 1878: 228-32; Macalister and Masterman 1906: 33-50). In 1806, Abu Gosh sheikhs terrorized the region from their home village (Seetzen 1854–59: IIa, 65). The monasteries in Jerusalem paid them protection money to guarantee a safe passage for the many pilgrims to the Holy City. There was an ongoing feud in which some forty villages in the region of Jerusalem were involved, and in which the Abu Gosh family played a leading role. In 1834, Abu Gosh gained (very briefly) governorship of Jerusalem itself (Kinglake 1879: 321; Macalister and Masterman 1906: 35). In 1848, William Lynch passed the village and refered to it as Abu Gosh (Lynch 1849: 427). In 1906, the old name of the village, Qariat elAnab, was still known but the name Abu Ghosh was more commonly used (Baldensperger 1906: 192; Macalister and Masterman 1906: 44). These days, Abu Gosh is the official name of the village. It is still largely inhabited by members of the Abu Gosh family. A change in name from Karchoh to Dibon is, therefore, not as farfetched as it may seem at first sight. That this name-change would occur after Mesha had made his tribe the absolute leader of the coalition, and his town the monumental showpiece that he described in the stela, and not earlier, is only to be expected. The biblical texts in which Dibon occurs as a city are to be dated after Mesha’s reign. Dibon is mentioned in Num. 21.30; 32.3, 34; Josh. 13.9, 17; Isa. 15.2, 9; Jer. 48.18, 22, while in Num. 33.45-46 the combination ‘Dibon-Gad’ occurs. Of these passages, Num. 21.30 is assumed to be the most ancient. The fact, however, that we find a quite similar passage in Jer. 48.45-46 suggests that also the song cited in Num. 21.30 stems from the same period as the other anti-Moabite texts in Isaiah 15 and Jeremiah 48: the seventh or sixth century BCE, long after Mesha’s reign (Smelik 1984: 71-74). In Isa. 15.2, 9 we see the name of Dibon mentioned in a prophecy against Moab, but in the next chapter we find a second prophecy against Moab of another nature. In this second prophecy, Dibon is not mentioned but Kir-Chares(et) does occur (Isa. 16.7, 11). It stands twice parallel with the general designation, Moab.

2001: 35). Another example of a town named after a tribe is the ‘City of Amalek’ in 1 Sam. 15.5.



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In Jeremiah 48, however, we find the combination of Kir-cheres and Dibon within one chapter (Kir-cheres, 48.31, 36; Dibon, 48.18, 22). Are we dealing here with references to the same town? If so, why are here two names used instead of one? As is well-known, Jeremiah 48 is a composite text (Holladay 1989: 346). The passages in which the name Kir-cheres occurs are actually derived from the prophecy against Moab in Isaiah 16 already mentioned (Wildberger 1978: 608; Holladay 1989: 347-48). The passages in which Dibon is mentioned, however, stem from a different tradition or even from two different traditions (Holladay 1989: 343). In other words, the gradual replacement of the city name Karchoh/Kirchares(et) with the new designation Dibon is witnessed in a number of biblical passages. Tribes and Tribal Kingdoms The claim that Dibon was a tribe and Mesha its leader, has consequences for how we interpret the statehood of Moab. It is generally accepted that Mesha’s Moab was some form of state, with a formalized leadership, an administration, a capital. The discussion is rather about what kind of statehood we should ascribe to Moab. Steiner (2001) suggests it conformed to the ‘Early State’ as described by Claessen and Skalnik (1978). Others (Knauf 1992; Labianca and Younker 1995; Younker 1997) have suggested that Mesha’s Moab was a tribal state. Harrison (2001) and Routledge (2004) argue for a ‘segmentary’ state, in which the segments are formed by the population of the towns that are mentioned in the stela, together with their hinterlands.5 If, as we argue here, Mesha’s Dibon was a tribe, the leading tribe of a tribal confederation, and we accept, at the same time, that Moab was a state, or a kingdom, as Mesha claims, that would make Moab a tribal kingdom. But how do we define a ‘tribal kingdom’? Definitions of the words ‘tribe’ and ‘tribal’ have a long history in anthropology, much of which originates in anthropological research in Africa and the New World, and some in Turkey and Mesopotamia (see Parkinson 2002 for an overview of the history of the research, with extensive literature). There is still no consensus as to what a ‘tribe’ constitutes, or even whether we should use the word at all, but there are some basic 5. Although it has also been pointed out that while Routledge argues against Moab as a tribal state, his arguments go a long way towards actually making a case for the tribal state (Bienkowski forthcoming).


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traits that are generally accepted as indigenous to any ‘tribal’ society. These are: 1. A segmentary social structure based on an accepted unilineal lineage system. This is mostly (but not necessarily) patrilineal and consists of clans or families bonded by a system of sodalities or social networks that crosscut the clan system. The different clans may recognize one communal apical ancestor. This system does not so much represent actual kinship and descent relations, but is regularly reconstructed and manipulated for social and political purposes with the consent of the members. 2. Leadership of the tribe is maintained through a combination of ascribed and achieved qualities. In most studies the emphasis is on achieved qualities, and the leader is depicted as a ‘first among equals’. Other studies have pointed out however, that leadership is at least partly hereditary, within the leading family or clan of the tribe. 3. Social interaction within and between tribes is strongly determined by the concept of ‘honour’ (Eickelman 1981: 153; Lancaster 1981: 43-45; Abu-Lughod 1986 passim). Other traits and characteristics that have been ascribed to tribal societies, referring, for example, to their subsistence activities and economic development, their relation to territory, hierarchies, or the lack thereof within the tribe, and the nature of the sodalities that cut through the kinship structure, are often dependent on the tribe or group of tribes that has been studied by the researcher in question, the ecosystem in which the tribe functions, or even on the personal convictions of the researcher. They vary widely among tribal societies worldwide. The concept of Tribal State, or Tribal Kingdom, has been approached by LaBianca (1999), who has proposed a definition consisting of a number of structural traits. This is a model that, as he himself states, is still developing, and here we take the liberty of paraphrasing what we think are the most important characteristics: 1. A tribal kingdom would coalesce out of a tribal alliance usually under the influence of some outside pressure or threat. 2. The pre-monarchical tribal social structure would not be extinguished by the rise of kings. A ‘class-based’ society, with an urban class controlling a ‘rural class’, would not evolve.



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3. The intra- and intertribal social organization would be used and adapted in order to accommodate the bureaucracy that was the result of the kingdom structure. 4. Basic features of tribal society would continue to exist, such as the association of tribes with their traditional territories, an economy that continues to take place on the scale of the individual tribes, and an overlapping of territories among tribes for different economic purposes. 5. Tribal hinterlands would be administered from fortified centres, but most people would still be living in the hinterlands, in their own traditional tribal territory. 6. Power structures within the kingdom were heterarchical rather than hierarchical: there could be several power bases on the same level, basing their power on different resources, such as economic, religious or political resources. 7. The maintenance of a central militia, to protect the interests of the kingdom as a whole. The Ethnohistory of Tribal Societies Both ‘tribalism’ and ‘tribal states’ are still often seen as static, ahistorical concepts rather than historical processes (Routledge 2004: 115-23). However, this approach ignores a whole corpus of historical and ethno-historical evidence that shows that tribal state formation was a real phenomenon in many historical periods and that the basic conditions for the formation of a tribal state were always present. There is a plethora of nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century sources (mostly travel accounts and early anthropological studies) about the Southern Levant, that describe a politically autonomous tribal society that has since ceased to exist. A heterogeneous complex of tribes and tribal confederations interacted, both in a positive (alliances and cooperation) and in a negative (feuding, raiding and warfare) sense, continually shaping and reshaping the territorial and political landscape. These tribal groups and alliances, in their social organization, conformed to the three main traits of tribal societies mentioned above, but were shaped into specific power structures by the ecological and climatic conditions of the region (the presence or absence of water, flora and fauna), and political, social and historical contingencies.


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These power structures could and sometimes did evolve into a state-like organization. A well-documented case is that of the nineteenth-century emirate of Ibn Rashid in the Jebel Shammar on the Arabian peninsula (alRasheed 1991; Van der Steen 2005 and forthcoming). Another example may be the Majali control of the Kerak plateau (Dissard 1905; Peake 1958: 188-91; Gubser 1973: 14-20; references in Van der Steen 2007a, b). Both polities, however much they may have differed from each other, displayed many of the characteristics that feature in LaBianca’s model, such as the continuation and actual integration into the government of the tribal system; a tribal approach to territory and a tribally based local economy; and, in the case of the Rashidi, a professional militia. Their development also justifies the addition of two more characteristics to the model that were instrumental in the creation of the tribal state: the appearance at the right moment of a ‘strong man’ whose status and personality made him acceptable to all the tribes involved, and the existence of a strong economy that made it possible for the state to maintain its independence. Moab: A Tribal Kingdom Most of the characteristics of a tribal kingdom that have been postulated above can be found in the Mesha Stela. First, there was external pressure, from the side of Israel, that may have transformed the confederation of tribes that controlled the territory of Moab into a more state-like structure (a ‘kingdom’). Mesha claims that his father ruled over Moab before him (line 2), but it was Mesha who finally threw off the yoke of the Israelites, and transformed Moab into an independent ‘kingdom’.6 Second, the new, more integrated structure would not dissolve the tribal structure of society. Dibon, as we have argued above, was the leading tribe of the confederation. The ‘Men of Sharon’ and the ‘Men of Maharith’ (line 13), who were settled in Atarot, were probably tribes as well, as most scholars seem to agree (Dearman 1992: 73; Routledge 2004: 145). 6. Whether the transformation of the polity into a ‘kingdom’ also had an impact on Mesha’s title of ‘king’ is arguable. ‘Kings’ of Moab seem to be accounted for in earlier contexts (such as 1 Sam. 22.3). We have to be aware that the word ‘king’ (malek) was used among Arab tribes in different periods for tribal leaders that would not be counted as, or even claim to be, actual ‘kings’. They were paramount sheikhs, leaders of confederations (see Athamina 1998).



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Third, moreover, these tribes were given the territory of Atarot to dwell in; in other words, Mesha used or manipulated the tribal organization to consolidate and organize his kingdom. Fourth, Mesha presents himself in his stela as the strong leader, the right person who came at the right moment to liberate his country from the suppression of the Israelites, and who transformed and consolidated the kingdom of Moab. He compares his successful kingship with that of his father; he even extends the comparison by contrasting his achievements with those by Omri’s son, his adversary. Was this son (whose name is not mentioned out of contempt) unable to achieve what his father Omri had done, namely, the subjugation of Moab? Mesha did what his own father could not achieve: he made Moab free and crushed the enemy for ever. Fifth, Mesha turned the town of Karchoh into the fortified centre from which to govern the kingdom. In the Dhiban excavations, outside the gate, two large grain storage silos were found that may have played a role in the local economy (Morton 1989: 243). Sixth, a strong economy is implied in the extensive building activities, which would not have been possible otherwise. The Bible also suggests that Mesha was rich: his wealth was largely based on sheep-pastoralism (2 Kgs 3.4). Seventh, finally, Mesha refers to the presence of a central militia, or ‘standing army’. There are two references to Mesha’s army. The first one in line 20: [20]

I took two hundred men of Moab, all its division(?), and I led it up to Jahaz.

The second is a reference in line 28: [And the me]n of Dibon stood in battle-order, for all Dibon, they were in subjection.

Whether the second reference refers to a standing army is not clear, but the ‘two hundred men of Moab’ probably represented a professional militia at Mesha’s disposal. The settlement patterns according to the JADIS database show that there is a 50% increase in the total number of settlements in Moab north of the Arnon from the Iron Age I to Iron Age IIab: from 19 to 28. This is a trend that is representative for all of Jordan. Actually, the increase in Northern Moab is lower than in the rest of the country, where it is over 100%. With very few of these sites excavated, and even fewer published, it is difficult to draw conclusions, although there appears to be a certain


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stability and continuity in the transition from Iron Age I to Iron Age II. Of the five sites mentioned by Mesha that have actually been identified geographically (see below), only Nebo and Dibon have revealed Iron Age I material, and this mainly in burials. How Large was Mesha’s Kingdom? The final question explored in this article is: How large was Mesha’s kingdom? It has been suggested, on the basis of the identifications of Kir Hareseth as Kerak and Horonaim also as a city far south of the Arnon, that it extended over the whole Kerak Plateau. However, only five or possibly six out of Mesha’s thirteen place names have been identified with certainty, and only because they are still known by their ancient names: Dibon/Karchoh (Morton 1955, 1959, 1989; Tushingham 1972), Medeba (Harrison et al. 2003; Harrison and Barlow 2005), Nebo (Piccirillo and Alliata 1998), Ataroth (Ji 2002) and Aroer (Olavarri 1965, 1969), and possibly Baal Meon (MacDonald 2000: 117-18 with references7). Dibon/ Karchoh, Ataroth, Medeba and Aroer have revealed the presence of monumental architecture from the time of Mesha; the other two have not been excavated. The identification of the other sites is uncertain, although there are a number of important Iron Age II sites in Moab that must have played a role in Mesha’s kingdom, such as Mudeineh eth-Themed (Daviau 1997; Chadwick, Daviau and Steiner 2000; Daviau and Dion 2002), Khirbet Libb (Glueck 1934: 32; Zwickel 1990), Umm el-Amad (Ibach 1987: 16067; Zwickel 1990), and Jalul (Younker et al. 1996; Younker 2000), all north of the Arnon. Most of these, as well as others, have on various occasions been tentatively identified with place names in the Mesha Stela. MacDonald (2000: 171-83) gives an overview of the various identifications that have been proposed, all of which, with the exception of Hawronen/Horonaim and Kir Hareseth, lie north of the Arnon. Jahaz, for example, has been variously identified with Mudayneh eth-Themed, Khirbet Iskander, Jalul, Khirbet Libb and a number of other sites (MacDonald 2000: 104 with references). Both Umm el-Amad and Jalul have been put forward as possible locations for Bezer/Bozrah. (Another overview can be 7. The identification of Ba‘al-Me‘on with the site of Ma‘in, generally based on toponymic grounds, has now been made more likely since surveys on the site have revealed considerable numbers of Iron I and II pottery sherds (D. Foran, personal communication).



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found in Smelik 1992.) The main site south of the Arnon is Kerak, but its identification with Kir Hareseth is tenuous (Jones 1991; Miller 1992: 85). If, as we suggest, Kir Hareseth is identified with Karchoh, and hence with present-day Dhiban, the southernmost town of Moab that can be identified is Hawronen/Horonaim. The biblical evidence on Horonaim is not very clear. It is listed as one of the cities in Moab in Isa. 15.5 and Jer. 48.3, 5, 34. The only way to ascertain the location of this city is to look at the other places mentioned in the same verse. From this we can conclude that Horonaim was situated south of the Arnon (Wadi Mujib) and in the vicinity of the Dead Sea, but north of Kerak. A possible identification is ed Deir (Worschech and Knauf 1986; Mittmann and Schmitt 2001). Some biblical authors, however, suggest that the main part of Moab situated north of the Arnon once belonged to the Amorite kingdom of Sihon, king of Heshbon (Deut. 2.24). In this view, Moab consisted of the region south of the Arnon. Actually, the Amorite kingdom of Heshbon never existed; it was invented by these writers in order to claim this territory for Israel (Van Seters 1972; Smelik 1984). In the prophecies against Moab, Heshbon and its surroundings do belong to Moab (Isa. 15.4; 16.89; Jer. 48.2, 34, 45; 49.3), reflecting the actual situation in biblical times. Mesha’s reputation as a ‘shepherd-king’ (2 Kgs 3.4) also points to the region north of the Wadi Mujib as the core area of his kingdom. The Belqa, the land north of the Wadi Mujib had a reputation among subrecent tribes as the best grazing land in the country. According to Burckhardt: ‘The Bedouins have this saying, “Thou canst not find a country like the Belka.”—Methel el Belka ma teltaka…the beef and mutton of this district are preferred to those of all others’ (Burckhardt 1822: 368-69; also Seetzen 1854–49: I, 364; Merrill 1881: 240-41). It was contested territory between the herding tribes of the Beni Sakhr and the Adwan during much of the nineteenth century, as a result of which the settled population had largely disappeared (Buckingham 1825: 267; Oliphant 1880: 196; Peake 1958: 170). This does not mean that there was no cultivation in the Belqa. Both the Adwan and the Abbadi, another tribal confederation that had its tents in the Belqa, were engaged in both agriculture and sheep/goat herding, as well as cattle pastoralism (Buckingham 1825: 122; Burckhardt 1831: 40; Oliphant 1880: 196; Schumacher 1886: 307; Shryock 1997: 4344). The two large grain silos found outside the gate of Dhiban, together with large amounts of carbonized grain found elsewhere on the site radiocarbon dated to c. 850 BCE also suggest that grain was a major commodity in the economy of the kingdom (Morton 1989: 243).


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Conclusion The identification of ‘Dibon’ in the Mesha Inscription with both the biblical town of Dibon and the modern site of Dhiban in Jordan has never been doubted by scholars. However, in the inscription ‘Dibon’ never refers to a town, but always to a group of people, or a political entity. At the same time, the inscription clearly describes the town of Karchoh as the capital of Mesha’s kingdom, which is enlarged and embellished with monumental architecture during his reign. We therefore suggest here that in his days the name of Mesha’s capital was Karchoh and that it can be identified with the present-day site of Dhiban, on the basis of the discovery of the Mesha stele there. Mesha, the ‘Diboni’, was the leader of the tribe of Dibon. The Diboni, in their turn, were the leading tribe of a tribal confederation that was forged into a tribal kingdom by Mesha, and that forced out the Israelite occupation of the land. As Karchoh was the hometown, the ‘seat’ of the Diboni tribe, the name Dibon eventually became attached to the town, perhaps originally as ‘Karchoh of the Diboni’, later shortened to Dibon. This happened some time after Mesha’s death. This identification reinforces Smelik’s earlier identification of biblical Kir Hareseth, the capital of Moab, with Karchoh (Dhiban), instead of Kerak. As a consequence, the core of Mesha’s kingdom of Moab can be identified with the Belqa, the lands north of the Wadi Mujib, and the southern border may well have been just at the other side of this river, although Mesha tried to extend his kingdom not only to the north but also to the south by conquering Horonaim, which originally was not a part of Moab, and building a road to connect the territory north and south of the Arnon. Or should we follow Mesha and say it was Kemosh who enlarged Moab both to the north and the south? BIBLIOGRAPHY Abu-Lughod, L. 1986 Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press). Ahituv, S. 1972 ‘Did Ramses II Conquer Dibon?’, IEJ 22: 141-42. 1984 Canaanite Toponyms in Ancient Egyptian Documents (Jerusalem: Magnes Press). Al-Rasheed, M. 1991 Politics in an Arabian Oasis: The Rashidis of Saudi Arabia (London: I.B. Tauris).



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Athamina, Kh. 1998 ‘The Tribal Kings in Pre-Islamic Arabia: A Study of the Epithet malik or dhu al-taj in Early Arabic Traditions’, in Kh. Athamina (ed.), Studies in Early Islamic History: Socio-political and Religious Aspects in Medieval Islamic Society (Al-Bireh: Mediterranean Studies Unit, Al-Nashir Technical Service): 461-85. Baldensperger, Ph.G. 1906 ‘The Immovable East (part 2)’, PEFQS: 13-23, 97-102, 190-97. Bienkowski, P. (ed.) 1992 Early Edom and Moab: The Beginning of the Iron Age in Southern Jordan (Sheffield Archaeological Monographs, 7; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press). forthcoming Review of Routledge 2004, in NEA. Bienkowski, P., and R. Adams 1999 ‘Soundings at Ash-Shorabat and Khirbet Dubab in the Wadi Hasa, Jordan: The Pottery’, Levant 31: 149-72. Bienkowski. P., and E.J. van der Steen 2001 ‘Tribes, Trade and Towns: A New Framework for the Late Iron Age in Southern Jordan and the Negev’, BASOR 323: 21-47. Buckingham, J.S. 1825 Travels among the Arab tribes inhabiting the countries east of Syria and Palestine, including a journey from Nazareth to the mountains beyond the Dead Sea, and from thence through the plains of the Hauran to Bozra, Damascus, Tripoly, Lebanon, Baalbeck, and by the valley of the Orontes to Seleucia, Antioch, and Aleppo (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, & Green). Burckhardt, J.L. 1822 Travels in Syria and the Holy Land (London: John Murray). 1831 Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabis, Collected during his travels in the East (London: John Murray). Chadwick, R., P.M.M. Daviau and M.L. Steiner 2000 ‘Four Seasons of Excavations at Khirbat al-Mudayna on the Wadi athThamad, 1996–1999’, ADAJ 44: 257-70. Claessen, H.J.M., and P. Skalnik 1978 The Early State (The Hague: Mouton). Daviau, P.M.M. 1997 ‘Moab’s Northern Border: Khirbet al-Mudayna on the Wadi ath-Thamad’, BA 60: 222-28. Daviau, P.M.M., and P.-E. Dion 2002 ‘Economy-related Finds from Khirbat al-Mudayna (Wadi ath-Thamad, Jordan)’, BASOR 328: 31-48. Dearman, J.A. 1989 ‘Historical Reconstruction and the Mesha Inscription’, in Dearman (ed.) 1989: 155-210. 1992 ‘Settlement Patterns and the Beginning of the Iron Age in Moab’, in Bienkowski (ed.) 1992: 65-75.


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Dearman, J.A. (ed.) 1989 Studies in the Mesha Inscription and Moab (Atlanta: Scholars Press). Dissard, J. 1905 ‘Les migrations et les vicissitudes de la tribu des Amer’, RB 2: 410-25. Eickelman, D.F. 1981 The Middle East: An Anthropological Approach (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice–Hall). Finkelstein, I. 2000 ‘Omride Architecture’, ZDPV 116: 114-38. Finn, E.A. 1878 Stirring times, or, records from Jerusalem consular chronicles of 1853 to 1856 (London: Paul Kegan). Foran, D.C., et al. 2004 ‘The Tall Madaba Archaeological Project: Preliminary Report of the 2002 Field Season’, ADAJ 48: 79-96. Glueck, N. 1934 ‘Explorations in Eastern Palestine I’, AASOR 14: 1-114. Graham, M.P. 1989 ‘The Discovery and Reconstruction of the Mesha Inscription’, in Dearman (ed.) 1989: 41-92. Gubser, P. 1973 Politics and Change in el-Kerak, Jordan (London: Oxford University Press). Harding, G.L., and B.S.J. Isserlin 1953 ‘An Early Iron Age Tomb from Madaba’, PEFA 6: 27-47. Harrison, T.P. 2001 ‘The Construction and Negotiation of a National Identity in Iron Age Moab’ (paper presented at the eighth conference on the History and Archaeology of Jordan, Sydney 2001). Harrison, T.P., and C. Barlow 2005 ‘Mesha, the Mishor, and the Chronology of Iron Age Madaba’, in T.E. Levy and T. Higham (eds.), The Bible and Radiocarbon Dating: Archaeology, Text and Science (London: Equinox): 41-92. Harrison, T.P., et al. 2003 ‘The Tall Madaba Archaeological Project: Preliminary Report of the 1998–2000 Field Excavations’, ADAJ 47: 129-48. Holladay, W.L. 1989 Jeremiah 2 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press). Homès-Frédericq, D., and J.B. Hennessy 1989 Archaeology of Jordan II: Field Reports, Surveys and Sites (Leuven: Peeters). Homès-Frédericq, D., et al. 1997 Lehun et la Voie Royale (Brussels: Belgisch Comite voor Opgravingen in Jordanie).


VAN DER STEEN AND SMELIK King Mesha Ibach, R. 1987 Ji, C.C. 2002

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Archaeological Survey of the Hesban Region: Catalogue of Sites and Characterization of Periods (Berrien Springs: Andrews University Press). ‘The Iron Age Temple at Khirbat !Ataruz’ (paper presented at the ASOR meetings in Toronto, November 2002).

Jones, B. 1991

‘In Search of Kir-hereseth: A Case Study in Site Identification’, JSOT 52: 3-24. Kinglake, A.W. 1879 Eothen (London: William Blackwood & Sons, new edn). Kitchen, K.A. 1964 ‘Some New Light on the Asiatic Wars of Ramesses II’, JEA 50: 47-70. 1992 ‘The Egyptian Evidence on Ancient Jordan’, in Bienkowski (ed.) 1992: 21-34. Knauf, E.A. 1992 ‘The Cultural Impact of Secondary State Formation: The Cases of the Edomites and Moabites’, in Bienkowski (ed.) 1992: 47-54. LaBianca, O.S. 1999 ‘Salient Features of Iron Age Tribal Kingdoms’, in B. MacDonald and R.W. Younker (ed.), Ancient Ammon (Leiden: Brill): 19-23. LaBianca, O.S., and R.W. Younker 1995 ‘The Kingdoms of Ammon, Moab and Edom: The Archaeology of Society in Late Bronze / Iron Age Transjordan (ca. 1400–500 BC)’, in T.E. Levy (ed.), The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land (London: Leicester University Press): 399-415. Lancaster, W. 1981 The Rwala Bedouin Today (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Lynch, W.F. 1849 Narrative of the US Expedition to the River Jordan and the Dead Sea (Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard). Macalister, R.A.S., and E.W.G. Masterman 1906 ‘Occasional Papers on the Modern Inhabitants of Palestine’, PEFQS 38: 33-50, 110-14, 221-25, 286-91. Macdonald, B. 2000 East of the Jordan (Boston: ASOR). Merrill, S. 1881 East of the Jordan: A record of travel and observation in the countries of Moab, Gilead and Bashan during the years 1875–1877 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons). Miller, J.M. 1989 ‘Moab and the Moabites’, in Dearman (ed.) 1989: 1-40. 1991 Archaeological Survey of the Kerak Plateau (Atlanta: Scholars Press). 1992 ‘Early Monarchy in Moab?’, in Bienkowski (ed.) 1992: 77-91. Mittmann, S., and G. Schmitt 2001 Tübinger Bibelatlas (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft).


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Morton, W.H. 1955 ‘Report of the Director of the School in Jerusalem’, BASOR 140: 4-7. 1957 ‘Dhiban’, RB 64: 221-23. 1989 ‘A Summary of the 1955, 1956 and 1965 Excavations at Dhiban’, in Dearman (ed.) 1989: 237-46. Na’aman, N. 1994 ‘The Hurrians and the End of the Middle Bronze Age in Palestine’, Levant 26: 175-87 1997 ‘King Mesha and the Foundation of the Moabite Monarchy’, IEJ 47: 8392. Olavarri, E. 1965 ‘Sondages a Aro’er sur l’Arnon’, RB 72: 77-94. 1969 ‘Fouilles à Aro’er sur l’Arnon’, RB 76: 230-59. 1983 ‘La campagne de fouilles 1982 a Khirbet Medinet el-Mu’arradjeh près de Smakieh (Kerak)’, ADAJ 27: 165-78. Oliphant, L. 1880 The Land of Gilead, with Excursions in the Lebanon (Edinburgh: William Blackwood & Sons). Palumbo, G. (ed.) 1994 Jordan Antiquities Database and Information System (JADIS) (Amman: Department of Antiquities of Jordan and American Schools for Oriental Research). Parkinson, W.A. 2002 ‘Introduction: Archaeology and Tribal Societies’, in W.A. Parkinson (ed.), The Archaeology of Tribal Societies (Ann Arbor, MI: International Monographs in Prehistory): 237-46. Peake, F.G. 1958 History and Tribes of Jordan (Coral Gables: University of Miami Press). Piccirillo, M., and E. Alliata 1998 Mount Nebo: New Archaeological Excavations 1967–1997 (Jerusalem: Studium Biblicum Franciscanum). Rainey, A.F. 2000 ‘Following Up on the Ekron and Mesha Inscriptions’, IEJ 50: 116-17. Redford, D.B. 1982 ‘A Bronze Age Itinerary in Transjordan (nos 89-101 of Thutmose III’s List of Asiatic Toponyms)’, JSSEA 12: 55-74. Routledge, B. 2004 Moab in the Iron Age: Hegemony, Polity, Archaeology (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press). Sauer, J. 1986 ‘Transjordan in the Bronze and Iron Ages: A Critique of Glueck’s Synthesis’, BASOR 263: 1-26. Seetzen, U.J. 1854–59 Reisen durch Syrien, Palaestina, Phoenizien, die Trans-Jordanländer, Arabia-Petraea und Unter Ägypten (2 vols. in 3; Berlin: Georg Reimer).



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Schumacher, G. 1886 Across the Jordan: Being an exploration and survey of part of Hauran and Jaulan (London: Watt). Shryock, A. 1997 Nationalism and the Genealogical Imagination: Oral History and Textual Authority in Tribal Jordan (Berkeley: University of California Press). Smelik, K.A.D. 1984 ‘ “Een vuur gaat uit van Chesbon”: Een onderzoek naar Numeri 20.14-21; 21.10-35 en parallelplaatsen’, ACEBT 5: 61-109. 1990 ‘The Literary Structure of King Mesha’s Inscription’, JSOT 46: 21-30. 1992 Converting the Past: Studies in Ancient Israelite and Moabite Historiography (Leiden: Brill). 2000 ‘The Inscription of King Mesha’, in W.W. Hallo and K.L. Younger Jr (eds.), The Context of Scripture. II. Monumental Inscriptions from the Biblical World (Leiden: Brill): 137-38. Steen, E.J. van der 2004 Tribes and Territories in Transition (Leuven: Peeters). 2005 ‘Ottoman Society and Power Structures: The View from Ha’il’ (paper presented at the Ottoman seminar 2005, at the Albright Institute for Archaeological Research, Jerusalem, 5 June 2005). 2007a ‘Tribes and Power Structures in the Ottoman Empire’, NEA 69/1: 27-36. 2007b ‘Town and Countryside of the Kerak Plateau’, in E.J. van der Steen and B. Saidel (eds.), On the Fringe of Society (BAR Int. Series, 1657; Oxford: Archeopress). Forthcoming ‘Tribal States in History: The Emirate of Ibn Rashid as a Case Study’, in B. Saidel and E.J. van der Steen (eds.), Ottoman Archaeology. Steiner, M.L. 2001 ‘I Am Mesha, King of Moab, or: Economic Organization in Iron Age II’, SHAJ 7: 327-30. Tushingham, A.D. 1972 The Excavation at Dibon (Dhiban) in Moab: The Third Campaign 1952–1953 (Cambridge, MA: ASOR).

Van Seters, J. 1972 ‘The Conquest of Sihon’s Kingdom: A Literary Examination’, JBL 91: 182-97. Weippert, M. 1979 ‘The Israelite “Conquest” and the Evidence from Transjordan’, in F.M. Cross (ed.), Symposia Celebrating the Seventy-fifth Anniversary of the Founding of the American Schools for Oriental Research (1900–1975) (Cambridge, MA: ASOR): 15-34. Wildberger, H. 1978 Jesaja. II. Jesaja 13–27 (BKAT, 10/2; Neukirchen–Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag). Winnett, F.V., and W.L. Reed 1964 The Excavations at Dibon (Dhiban) in Moab (New Haven: American Schools of Oriental Research).


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Sarah and Hagar: Genesis 16 and 21*

JAMES C. OKOYE Catholic Theological Union, 5401 South Cornell Avenue, Chicago, IL 60615, USA

Abstract For many people, Scripture is sacrosanct, and examining the character of the god of its ‘story world’ is taboo. Biblical characters tend to be viewed as models and not mirrors of the human situation. The Hebrew Scriptures are both the national history of a people and an utterly religious account of the encounters of this people with their God. Aspects of this national history do not always measure up to the ideals of the religion, nor do certain things taken for granted in a particular period in the text meet the standards arrived at in the ongoing development of revelation. ‘Reading against the grain’, the present article views the story of Sarah and Hagar from the ‘downside of history’, as an African American would. Keywords: African Americans, Sarah, Hagar, Ideological Criticism, confession, national history.

Auerbach was on target in saying that Scripture exerts a tyranny on readers and forces them to subscribe to its own world as the only true and just world: * This article is a revised version of a paper presented at the Colloquium of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States (ACHTUS), San Antonio, Texas, 4–7 June 2006.


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Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 32.2 (2007) The world of the Scripture stories is not satisfied with claiming to be a historically true reality—it insists that it is the only real world, is destined for autocracy. All other scenes, issues, and ordinances have no right to appear independently of it, and it is promised that all of them, the history of all mankind, will be given their due place within its frame, will be subordinated to it. The Scripture stories do not, like Homer’s, court our favor, they do not flatter us that they may please us and enchant us—they seek to subject us, and if we refuse to be subjected we are rebels.1

The promise of Scripture that ‘the history of all [hu]mankind will be given their due place within its frame’ is often honored in the breaking by having that history ‘subordinated’ to that of the protagonist of the biblical story, the people of Israel. It must be remembered that the Old Testament emerged as sacred text from a religious community with a specific identity.2 It tells the story of a people with their God, Yahweh, while also claiming that this God is the universal Lord of all creation. Although parts of the story are open to the inclusion of all peoples under Yahweh, the narrative is first and foremost a history of Israel written with an overriding nationalistic focus. Some peoples are included in it only by having their history and their interests either wiped out or subordinated to those of Israel. The story of Sarah and Hagar is a case in point. As can be seen from the bibliographical references appearing in the footnotes of the present study, and the authors cited in the course of its development, scholars have examined the story of Sarah and Hagar from many different angles. The present article focuses on the ideology of the story, that is, what the narrator takes for granted as the right ordering of affairs and peoples in his or her world. It examines in particular how the history and interests of Hagar and her progeny have been co-opted and subordinated to those of Sarah and her progeny. As elsewhere in Genesis, so here ‘the Hebrew Bible presents information on the individual who will not be the Israelite lineal heir in the following generation’,3 that is, information on whose rights and interests do not count over against the claim that the ‘blessing’ belongs to Isaac, son of Sarah. God is invoked to sanction this perspective, just as God and the biblical text have been used 1. Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968), pp. 14-15. 2. Cf. Christopher R. Seitz, ‘Conclusion’, in idem, Word Without End: The Old Testament as Abiding Theological Witness (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2004), pp. 340-44 (341). 3. Naomi Steinberg, Kinship and Marriage in Genesis: A Household Economics Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), p. 42.


OKOYE Sarah and Hagar: Genesis 16 and 21

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in African American experience to sanction oppression and slavery in the mindset of ‘If it’s White, it’s right; if it’s Black, get back’.4 The story of Sarah and Hagar backs the claims of Isaac against those of Ishmael (and the progeny of these two), concerning both election and possession of the land of Canaan. The present study examines this advocacy and measures the behavior of the God of this ‘story world’ over against Israel’s confession of Yahweh as creator and universal Lord of all. The text tells the story of Sarah and Hagar from the dominant character’s point of view; the present article ‘rebels’ against the tyranny of Scripture and reads it from the point of view of the subordinated and marginalized character. Reading Texts is Reading Ourselves 5 African American biblical interpretation does not interpret texts, but life with the aid of texts. The present study reads the story of Sarah and Hagar consciously from the point of view of African Americans, long periods of whose history cast them in the mold of Hagar. On the surface, the story is one of how to provide progeny for a man whose wife is barren. As the story unfolds, however, the plot thickens and intertwined theological issues begin to emerge. It begins to look as if some people can be used for the ends of others. Yahweh seems so partial to Isaac as to be prepared to forego questions of justice and fairness when it comes to dealing with Ishmael. So, one can ask, whose God is the God of this story? Are all peoples equally under this God’s care? Does this God condone oppression and every human imposition of suffering on others or rather is against them? Who may inherit the Promised Land and on what basis? Who is called to covenantal relationship with this God and on what basis? Specifically, in relation to African American experience, is this text a pharmacon or a toxin,6 that is, does this text contain elements that can be used to kill, dehumanize, or marginalize others, as some biblical texts have been used in African American experience? 4. Cf. Latta R. Thomas, Biblical Faith and the Black American (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1976), p. 59. 5. Cf. Vincent L. Wimbush, ‘Reading Texts as Reading Ourselves: A Chapter in the History of African American Biblical Interpretation’, in Fernando Segovia and Mary Ann Tolbert (eds.), Reading from this Place. I. Social Location and Biblical Interpretation in the United States (Augsburg: Fortress Press, 1993), pp. 95-108. 6. I have borrowed these figures of speech from Theophus H. Smith, Conjuring Culture: Biblical Formations of Black America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 106.


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The treatment will be divided into three parts. The first will be a tour of the narrative units, examining especially the plot and the interplay of characters, including God. The second part will lift up the ideology of the text, what it takes for granted as the order of its world. Finally, the issues raised will be discussed in light of African American experience. Unless otherwise noted, the biblical text will be cited according to the New Jerusalem Bible version. Three Parallel Accounts The story of Sarah and Hagar is a doublet narrated in Gen. 16.1-16 and 21.8-21. Scholars categorize these pericopae as J and E, respectively. In the former, Hagar is maid of Sarai, the term for her being 9IA, while in the latter, Hagar is maid of Abraham, the term used being 9> . In the former, Hagar flees in defiance of her mistress; in the latter, she is cast out against her will.7 The final editor has, however, read the two versions consecutively, leading to a glaring discrepancy at Gen. 21.14 where Ishmael is a child who can be put on the shoulder of Hagar, while from internal evidence he was then about sixteen or seventeen years old.8 Between the two accounts is a P account of Abraham’s plea to God on behalf of Ishmael, God’s oracle about Ishmael, and the circumcision of Abraham and Ishmael on the self-same day (Gen. 17.18-27). This P account is later than the J and E accounts and has been constructed in order to resolve issues emerging from them of the family and religious belonging of Ishmael and his descendants. The Texts: The J Narrative, Genesis 16.1-16 Sarah bore no children for she was barren. Yet Yahweh had promised Abram that ‘your heir will be the issue of your own body’ (Gen. 15.4). Sarah had a plan that she thought was consistent with this promise. She took Hagar,9 her Egyptian maid,10 and gave her to Abram as wife,11 7. Hermann Gunkel, ‘The Hagar Traditions’, in K.C. Hanson (ed.), Water for a Thirsty Land: Israelite Literature and Religion (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), pp. 68-84 (82). 8. If in Gen. 16.16 Abram was 86 years old when Ishmael was born, while in Gen. 21.5 he was 100 years old at the birth of Isaac, then Ishmael was at least 14 years old when Isaac was born, and should be 16 or 17 at the weaning of Isaac! 9. Martin Noth, A History of Pentateuch Traditions (New York: Prentice–Hall, 1972), p. 108 n. 311, explains the name Hagar from Arabic hajara, ‘emigration’. He thinks that the name manifests the viewpoint of dwellers of arable land who used to meet the seminomadic descendants of Hagar, whom they called ‘emigrants’, at the well of Lahai-Roi.



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saying, ‘perhaps I shall be built up through her’ (Gen. 16.2). The verb, 9?3, is normally used of building up a house, EJ3. But the Hebrew word EJ3 may mean house as structure or house as family or dynasty. Sarah is focused on herself. She needs to be built up—children will secure her identity and status. Hagar is seen as a possession, a disposable commodity that can exchange hands at the will of the owner. She does not need to be asked what she feels about the arrangement; her feelings are of no consequence in the transaction. In the entire narrative, Sarah never speaks directly to Hagar. But Hagar had a mind of her own. Once she conceived, her mistress began to lack luster in her eyes. The verb, ‘to become light’, ==B, appears in Gen. 12.3 where Yahweh promises Abram that ‘I shall curse those who treat you lightly’. The reader thus expects Hagar to fall into bad times. In giving Hagar as wife to Abram, Sarah had transferred authority over her to Abraham.12 Then she cries D>I (‘violence’), a legal formula of appeal for redress and calls upon Yahweh to judge between her and Abram. The response of Abram was to strip Hagar of the status of secondary wife and to hand her back to Sarah. His words introduce the motif of power: ‘your slave-maid is in your hand, do to her what is good in your eyes’. The word ‘hand’ symbolizes power and will recur often in this narrative. Who has power over whom, and what that power is used for is a motif in the narrative. With Hagar abandoned by Abram and scorned by Sarah, the status of the innocent child at birth would be that of its mother—a slave. And so one would have the paradox immortalized by Frederick Douglass, who himself was the fruit of liaison between his master and one of his African slaves. He writes:

10. Gunkel in ‘The Hagar Traditions’, p. 84 n. 5 considers quite probable the opinion of Hugo Winckler who thinks that EJC4> (‘Egyptian’, Gen. 16.1) is not related to )JC4> (‘Egypt’) but to MÑr, a name of a Bedouin tribe in the south of Palestine. He points out that Hagar is at home in the wilderness. The reference for Hugo Winckler was not given and I was unable to have independent verification of his view. 11. At Gen. 16.3, the term for concubine, 8=JA, does not appear, rather 9 , ‘wife’, is used. Steinberg, Kinship and Marriage, pp. 63, 79, uses the socio-anthropological terms, ‘primary wife’ and ‘secondary wife’, the latter of which would be equivalent to concubine. She also says that primary marriage is established for property concerns, while concubinage separates property from procreation. There can, however, be multiple primary wives in societies that allow polycoity; witness the sisters Rachel and Leah. 12. McEvenue, ‘Hagar Stories’, p. 78 n. 4, challenges this assertion, saying that the text has ‘your maid is in your power’, not ‘the maid’, and ‘go in to my maid’, not ‘take my maid to yourself and go in to her’.


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Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 32.2 (2007) The whisper that my master was my father may or may not be true… [T]he fact remains, in all its glaring odiousness, that slaveholders have ordained, and by law established, that the children of slave women shall in all cases follow the condition of their mothers…for by this cunning arrangement, the slaveholder, in cases not a few, sustains to his slaves the double relation of master and father.13

Sarah oppressed Hagar. The verb 9? is the same verb used later for the oppression of Hebrews in Egypt. It is ironic that ‘Sarai does to a child of Egypt…what the Egyptians would later do to Sarai’s children’.14 Like every slave when oppression becomes unbearable, Hagar damned the consequences and fled from Sarah’s face. Her path could take her only through the desert, for Abram was in the area of Beersheba. She set her face towards freedom in Egypt, her homeland, and came by a spring near Shur. Shur means literally ‘wall’ and may refer to the Egyptian border forts.15 The angel of Yahweh (surrogate for Yahweh) met her there and asked her to return to her mistress and subject herself to her hand. The verb used is J?E9. Sarah oppressed (9?EH) Hagar and Yahweh tells her to submit to oppression (J?E9H)! The angel of Yahweh also made promises to Hagar (these were possibly later additions): ‘I shall make your descendants too numerous to be counted’ (Gen. 16.10). Hagar is told to name the boy she will bear Ishmael, which means, ‘may El hear’. The reason is that Yahweh has heard ‘your oppression’—(J? derives from the same root, 9? (‘to oppress’). So, Yahweh/the angel of Yahweh admits that Sarah is an oppressor, yet sends Hagar back to her. Trible16 rightly says in shock that these words strike at the root of exodus faith. Inexplicably, the God who later, seeing (rh) the suffering (!ǀnî) of a slave people, comes down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians (Exod. 3.7-8), here identifies with the oppressor and orders a servant to return not only to bondage but also to affliction.

A strange footnote is added to the promises. Ishmael will be a wild ass of a man. He will roam the desert like an ass. His hand will be against all 13. Henry Louis Gates, Jr, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself (New York: Laurel Books, 1997), p. 3. 14. M. Tsevat, ‘Hagar and the Birth of Ishmael’, in idem, The Meaning of the Book of Job and Other Biblical Studies: Essays on the Literature and Religion of the Hebrew Bible (New York: Ktav, 1980), pp. 53-76 (69). 15. Claus Westermann, Genesis 12–36: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1981), p. 244. 16. Phyllis Trible, Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), p. 16.



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and the hand of all against him. He will live his life in defiance of all his brothers. Is this a description of what the ancient Israelites knew of the Ishmaelites or prescription of what will be in the future? Is it blessing or curse? Hagar named Yahweh who spoke to her: ‘you are El Roi’ (Gen. 16.13). She is the first and only person in the Bible to name God. El Roi means ‘God of Vision’ or ‘God of my seeing’ or the ‘God who Sees Me’. Her name for this god relates to her personal experience. Because of her experience, the well is called Lahai-Roi, which means ‘the well of the Living One who sees me’ or, in the words of Westermann,17 the well of the one ‘who came to my aid in my distress’. Gunkel argues, plausibly, that Yahweh was absent in the original story and that El Roi was the tribal god of the Ishmaelites, whose chief seat and sanctuary was at the spring Lahai-roi.18 Hagar was the founding matriarch of the Ishmaelite Bedouin tribe. That in earlier traditions both Ishmael and Isaac were associated with the spring Lahai-roi is suggested by Gen. 25.11, which says that ‘after Abraham’s death, God blessed his son Isaac. Isaac settled near the well of Lahai-Roi.’ Noth19 opines that in the most ancient traditions Ishmael was primarily the brother of Isaac and that both were connected to the well of Lahai-Roi before traditions wove any genealogical link to Abraham or spoke of Yahweh. Both were ‘brothers’ as ancestors of two clans who shared the water of the well at Lahai-Roi and participated in the cult of El Roi who was worshiped there. The name Ishma-el is prefixed not on Yahweh (or it would be Shema-yah,20 ‘Yahweh hears’) but on El, the chief god of the Canaanite pantheon. But the editor has made El Roi just another epithet of Yahweh, the God of Israel, and in this manner both subsumed and subordinated the religious experience of the Ishmaelites to the interests of Israel. Hagar went back to Abram and bore a son for him and Abram called him Ishmael. One imagines that in naming the child Abram adopted him as son with all the rights accruing to that status. Yahweh, in the guise of El Roi, apparently both saved Hagar from her rebellious self and restored Abram’s child to him. Nevertheless, the text seems to deconstruct itself. Hagar was told to name the child in v. 11, but it was Abram who named 17. Claus Westermann, Genesis 12–36 (Minneapolis. Augsburg, 1985), p. 247. 18. Gunkel, ‘The Hagar Traditions’, pp. 73, 75. 19. Noth, A History of Pentateuchal Traditions, p. 108 and n. 311. See also McEvenue, ‘Hagar Stories’, p. 67. 20. Gunkel, ‘The Hagar Traditions’, p. 72.


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him in v. 15. The promises made to Hagar parallel those made elsewhere to Abram, and this is significant. Hagar is the only woman in the Old Testament who both receives an epiphany of God and a promise of progeny. However, this significant fact is deconstructed in the narrative: the promise lacks the covenant context so crucial to the patriarchal narratives,21 and with that the possession of the land of Canaan. Just as Hagar’s god, El Roi, is displaced and subsumed by Yahweh, so Ishmael, by being treated by the narrator as descendant of Hagar and not of Abraham, is on the way out of the direct line of promise! The text already envisages him living in the desert and defying all his brothers. That is, he is not counted among the chosen progeny of Abram and will not inherit any portion of the Promised Land. The Texts: The P Narrative, Genesis 17.18-27 Upon God’s promise that Sarah will bear him a child, Abraham bowed to the ground and laughed and pleaded with Yahweh saying, ‘may Ishmael live in your presence! That will be enough’ (Gen. 17.18). Echoing Yahweh’s promises to Hagar in ch. 16, God promised to bless Ishmael and to make him very numerous. God will make him father of twelve princes and will make him into a great nation. But ‘my covenant I shall maintain with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear you at this time next year’ (17.20). Ishmael was circumcised at the age of 13 with Abraham on the same day. In 17.11, circumcision was called the ‘sign of my covenant between myself and you’. The covenant was ‘to be your God and the God of your descendants after you’ (17.7). It included the promise that ‘to you and your descendants I will give the country where you are now immigrants’ (17.8). Something seems not quite right when Ishmael is both circumcised and excluded from God’s covenant and thus from the Promised Land. What is the value of Ishmael’s circumcision? What is the real attitude of the God of the ‘text world’ towards Ishmael? The Texts: The E Narrative, Genesis 21.8-21 Meanwhile Isaac was born and grew up. Abraham made a great feast on the occasion of the weaning of Isaac. On that occasion, Sarah saw Ishmael BI4>. This participle is a pun on the name Isaac. It could mean that Ishmael was ‘laughing’, or that he was ‘playing’. The LXX adds NFUB@ *TBBL UPV OJPV BVUI_K (‘with Isaac her son’) and thus has Ishmael playing 21. Trible, Texts of Terror, p. 16.



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with Isaac. But the meaning was probably that in Sarah’s eye Ishmael was ‘Isaacing’, that is, ‘playing Isaac’.22 The narrator was looking at the scene from the standpoint of Sarah and from that standpoint Ishmael was ‘the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she bore to Abraham’, while Isaac was ‘my son’. Sarah saw Ishmael as displacing Isaac. She could not bear the presence of Ishmael or the possibility of his inheriting with her son, so she insisted with Abraham, ‘drive out this slave-girl and her son, for the son of this slave-girl will not inherit with my son, with Isaac (Gen. 21.10). The demonstrative, ‘this’, expresses both Sarah’s repugnance and her feelings of distance from Hagar. The verb used for ‘to drive out’ is C8. This verb does double duty here. In the legal texts of the Old Testament it is the technical term for the putting away of a wife by the husband.23 Hence, Sarah is forcing Abraham to divorce Hagar (in this account Hagar was both maid and wife of Abraham) and revoke his adoption of Ishmael. But the verb is also used consistently for the driving out of the indigenous nations of Canaan. The implication is clear: the actions that Sarah wants Abraham to take will also effectively banish Ishmael from having a part in the possession of the Promised Land! Sarah viewed Ishmael as the son of Hagar; Abraham viewed him as his own son. So Sarah’s word was very evil in his eyes. But God intervened and asked him to obey Sarah, ‘for in Isaac will be named seed for you’. God also promised to make the son of the slave-girl into a nation, for he is Abraham’s seed (the LXX and some Versions add the word, ‘great’, to nation, as it appears in v. 18). But why may Ishmael not inherit with Isaac? Why should seed be named for Abraham in Isaac and not in Ishmael? In Genesis 30 both Rachel and Leah gave their slave-girls to Jacob who had sons through them and all were numbered in Israel. Steinberg asked the question, ‘why are the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah included as chosen heirs when earlier Hagar’s son Ishmael could not be so included?’24 She noted that at this point in the story genealogy moves from vertical/linear to segmented, and that the story in fact loses interest in choosing a lineal heir. She suggests two possible reasons. First, as 22. George W. Coats, ‘The Curse in the Blessing: Gen 12.1-4a in the Structure and Theology of the Yahwist’, in Jörg Jeremias and Lothar Perlitt (eds.), Die Botschaft und die Boten. Festschift für Hans Walter Wolff zum 70. Geburtstag (Neuchirchen–Vluyn: Neuchirchener Verlag, 1981), pp. 31-41 (37-38). 23. H. Ringgren, ‘C8’, in TDOT, III, p. 69—see also Lev. 21.7, 14; 22.13; Num. 30.9; and Ezek. 44.22. 24. Steinberg, Kinship and Marriage, p. 132.


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opposed to the lone voice of Ishmael, there were more sons competing for a place in the lineage. Her second reason is that Rachel and Leah were equal in status as primary wives of Jacob and they both named the sons borne them by secondary wives.25 To this author the first reason does not hold water, for outside the law of the jungle what is right and just does not usually depend on the number of people concerned. As to the second reason, one may note that Steinberg did not establish that in comparative kinship studies naming (hence adoption) by the wife was more potent than naming by the husband, in this case the naming of Ishmael by Abraham himself. The fact may have been that the exclusion of Ishmael from the inheritance seemed right to an editor who saw the material uniquely from the perspective of Israel. Abraham obeyed the voice of God. Early in the morning, Abraham put some bread and a skin of water on Hagar’s shoulder and also the child and sent her away. She wandered aimlessly in the wilderness of Beersheba till the skin of water ran out. Then she cast ((=) the boy under one of the bushes and withdrew a distance of a bow shot saying, ‘I shall not see the child die’. Sitting over against him she raised her voice and cried. God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven. ‘What is wrong, Hagar?’, he asked. ‘Do not be afraid, for God has heard the boy’s cry in his plight. Go and pick the boy up and hold him safe, for I shall make him into a great nation’. God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She filled the skin and gave water to the boy. God was with the boy; he grew up and dwelt in the desert of Paran and became an archer. His mother fetched him a wife from Egypt. That sounds a jagged note, for a strand of the Genesis tradition frowns on marrying outside the clan. Esau married into the Hittites and this was a bitter grief to Rebekah (Gen. 26.35). In fact, Isaac ordered Jacob not to marry any of the Canaanite women, but to go back to Paddan-Aram to look for a wife (28.2). The next we hear of Ishmael he is living in Havilahby-Shur just outside Egypt. He bore twelve chiefs and as many tribes and he lived in defiance of all his brothers, as foreseen in 16.12. When Abraham died, his sons, Isaac and Ishmael, buried him in the cave of Machpelah facing Mamre (Gen. 25.9 [P]). So, as far the narrator was concerned, Ishmael was content with his inheritance in the desert! In like manner, the oppressors in African American history tried to assuage their consciences with the myth of the ‘contented and happy black slave’. 25. Steinberg, Kinship and Marriage, pp. 133-34.



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Shall Not the Judge of the Whole World Act Justly? In the laws of Hammurabi and in ancient Nuzi law, a barren woman may offer her maid to her husband to bear a son through her. The son so born may be adopted by her and becomes her son with all the rights attached to that status. However, the slave-girl remains a slave and does not become her mistress’s equal. Yet once she bears a son she may not be cast out, as Hagar was. Sarah’s demand for the expulsion of Hagar and her child can thus be said to be against law and custom. But the story is driven by the underlying claims of Ishmael and Isaac (and the progeny of these two) to the Promised Land. It is at pains to explain that although Ishmael was son of Abraham and was circumcised with him, he did not inherit the Promised Land nor enter into God’s special covenant relationship with Israel as the elect people of God. He inherited the blessing of Abraham, which in his case was limited to numerous progeny and the desert as his habitat. Genesis 25.5-6 thus reports that Abraham left all his possessions to Isaac. To the sons of his concubines he made grants during his lifetime, sending them away from his son Isaac eastward. He made sure that no one would disturb Isaac’s possession of the Promised Land. Ever since Cain was banished to the land of Nod, east of Eden (Gen. 4.16), eastward became the direction of oblivion, away from the line of promise. In respect of Ishmael, God did not even follow God’s own principles laid out in the Torah concerning circumcision! The contradiction about circumcision may have been introduced in two ways. The P editor may have been concerned to make Abraham a model of keeping the law, so had him circumcised with his entire household, including Ishmael. But in so doing, P would have introduced the complication that Ishmael and his clan, who were circumcised, were nevertheless excluded from the very covenant relationship with God that circumcision was meant to symbolize! Or, it may have been an historical fact that the Ishmaelites were circumcised, though for them circumcision may have been merely a cultural, not a religious, symbol. Whatever may have been the case, the logic of the text demands that the circumcision of Ishmael should have led to his inclusion in both the covenant with God and the possession of the Promised Land. Conclusion: African Americans and the God of the Text Hagar’s god, El Roi, is her personal God. From her personal experience of this god as the One who accompanies her and ‘makes a way where there’s


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no way’, she named her god ‘the God who sees me’. In Gen. 21.20, the narrator assures us that ‘God was with the boy’. This God heard the cry of the child and was at hand to provide for him and his mother when both mother and child were in straits. For African Americans, God is not an abstract idea but a personal God who has been ‘the only one who was with them, who gave them a feeling of “somebodyness”, and who became the bedrock of black identity and sanity’.26 Only a deep relationship to a personal God who addressed black people in terms of who they were has kept black people self-assured and with a sense of their true humanity.27 Yet all the while, this same God was being presented by the dominant society as willing and decreeing their servitude. In a similar manner, the experience of Hagar has been subverted. The El Roi who took Hagar’s side has in the ‘story world’ vanished and become only a secondary epithet of Yahweh, the partisan of Isaac. Dozeman posits that Hagar, having been privileged with a founding theophany in the desert, was in some sense a prototype of Moses. He asserts that both for Hagar and Moses, expulsion is an act of liberation for the one being driven out, signifying release from slavery. The salvific character of expulsion for Hagar is made explicit when she receives a divine oracle of salvation in Gen. 21.17, with the stereotyped formula that she ‘not fear’.28

What Dozeman did not address was the probability that the founding story of a people has been both co-opted and subverted by the Isaac tradition. Trible’s remark seems more apposite: Hagar foreshadows Israel’s pilgrimage of faith through contrast. As a maid in bondage, she flees from suffering. Yet she experiences exodus without liberation, revelation without salvation, wilderness without covenant, wanderings without land, promise without fulfillment, and unmerited exile without return.29

This present study began with the consciousness that the Hebrew Scriptures canonize the national epic of a nation. One is therefore not surprised if tensions sometimes exist between the drift of the story and that nation’s ultimate faith confessions of Yahweh as universal Lord and 26. Major J. Jones, ‘Toward an Afro-Americanized God-Concept’, in idem, The Color of G.O.D. The Concept of God in Afro-American Thought (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1987), pp. 29-44 (36-37). 27. Jones, ‘Toward an Afro-Americanized God-Concept’, p. 33. 28. Thomas Dozeman, ‘The Wilderness and Salvation History in the Hagar Story’, JBL 117 (1998), pp. 23-43 (30). 29. Trible, Texts of Terror, p. 28.



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God. In the ancient stories of the tribes before the emergence of the canonical tradition, Ishmael and Isaac appear to have been ‘brother’ clans located at the well of Lahai-Roi where El Roi was worshiped. Hagar was probably the matriarch of the Ishmaelite clan. The current story makes Ishmael and Isaac both sons of Abraham, Ishmael being descended from him through an escaped or expelled secondary wife. The national epic of the Ishmaelites has been co-opted but now functions to show how and why Ishmael may neither inherit the land nor be included in the covenant with Yahweh. The narrator saw it fit that Ishmael was excluded from the covenant and given the desert as his divine inheritance. But Israel would later see inclusion in Yahweh’s covenant as the ‘blessing’ of Abraham for ‘all families of the earth’ (Gen. 12.3 read in light of Isa. 56.1-8 and 66.825). If this later consciousness had been present at the time of the story of Sarah and Hagar, perhaps Ishmael and his clan might have been included in the covenant blessing, and perhaps even in the co-possession of the Promised Land. Exegetes bear tremendous ethical responsibility for making sure that the biblical text is not used or interpreted as a toxin that kills individuals or peoples. Exegesis, to be true to the total message of the word of God, must sometimes resist the tyranny of Scripture and the ideology of certain of its texts. This is so especially where the ideology of the ‘story world’ runs afoul of the universal faith confessions of ancient Israel about their God and ours, as it apparently does in the story of Sarah and Hagar.



Another Flood? Genesis 9 and Isaiah’s Broken Eternal Covenant

STEVEN D. MASON LeTourneau University, P.O. Box 7001, 2100 S. Mobberly Ave., Longview, TX 75607-7001, USA

Abstract The pressing question regarding the broken eternal covenant of Isa. 24.5 is precisely, ‘Which eternal covenant of the Old Testament is in view?’ While scholars propose a range of possibilities, this study argues that the broken eternal covenant refers precisely to the Noachic eternal covenant established in Genesis 9. In contrast to traditional conceptions of the Noachic eternal covenant, a close reading of Gen. 9.1-17 reveals literary and conceptual features that reflect a conditional and bilateral covenant between God and humankind. Understanding the true nature of the eternal covenant in Genesis 9 brings clarity to the context of Isa. 24.5 whereby the prevalence of bloodshed and the dominion of Israel’s international enemies results in cosmic consequences on the earth. Keywords: covenant, flood, eternal, Genesis 9, rainbow, Isaiah 24, Noah, Isaiah 24, Genesis 9.

The earth lies polluted under its inhabitants; for they have transgressed laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant ()=H EJC3 HCA9). Therefore a curse devours the earth, and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt; therefore the inhabitants of the earth dwindled, and few people are left. (Isa. 24.5-6)


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The identity of the broken )=H EJC3 in Isa. 24.5 is an issue of continual debate in Isaiah scholarship. A cursory scan of Isaiah commentaries and general treatments of the passage demonstrates a lack of consensus as to which specific eternal covenant of the Old Testament is in view.1 Scholars traditionally propose one of four possible covenant backdrops to Isa. 24.5: (1) an original creation covenant;2 (2) the Noachic covenant;3 (3) the Mosaic covenant;4 or (4) a combination of covenants.5 While each of 1. The Old Testament story presents several eternal covenants that range in scope and character. The phrase )=H EJC3 occurs 18 times in the Hebrew Bible as a whole (eight times in the Pentateuch, seven times in the Major Prophets, and one time each in 2 Samuel, 1 Chronicles and the Psalms). )=H EJC3 represents ideas as wide-ranging as the promise never to flood the earth again, and also as narrow and specific as the command to set out the Bread of Presence every Sabbath at the tabernacle. This does not take into account the various places in the Hebrew Bible where a covenant and its everlasting nature may be alluded to in other ways. The present study is focusing on )=H EJC3 specifically, as a rather technical phrase, which often serves as the backdrop to passages which employ similar language and concepts. 2. E.g. W.J. Dumbrell, Covenant and Creation (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1984), p. 74; E.J. Young, The Book of Isaiah: A Commentary. II. Chapters 19–39 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), p. 158; J.N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah: Chapters 1–39 (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), p. 446. 3. E.g. Otto Kaiser, Isaiah 13–39: A Commentary (London: SCM Press, 1974), p. 183; Christopher R. Seitz, Isaiah 1–39 (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1993), pp. 180-84; Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2001), p. 179; Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 1–39 (AB, 19A; New York: Doubleday, 2000), pp. 351-52; Joseph Loete, ‘A Premature Hymn of Praise: The Meaning and Function of Isaiah 24.1416c in its Present Context’, in Hendrik Jan Bosman et al. (eds.), Studies in Isaiah 24–27 (Leiden: Brill, 2000), pp. 226-38 (229 n. 12); Bernhard W. Anderson, From Creation to New Creation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994), p. 203. 4. For the most succinct and thorough discussion in favor of a Mosaic covenant position against the Noachic covenant view, see Dan G. Johnson, From Chaos to Restoration: An Integrative Reading of Isaiah 24–27 (JSOTSup, 61; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1988), pp. 27-29. Other proponents of Mosaic reference include R.E. Clements, Isaiah 1–39 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), pp. 201-202 (though he sees the issue as uncertain); Donald C. Polaski, ‘Reflections on a Mosaic covenant: The Eternal Covenant (Isaiah 24.5) and Intertextuality’, JSOT 77 (1998), pp. 55-73 (Polaski sees Mosaic imagery as most prominent though in combination with other P covenants); E.J. Kissane, The Book of Isaiah: Translated from a Critically Revised Hebrew Text with Commentary (Dublin: Browne & Nolan, rev. edn, 1961), pp. 271-72; Otto Ludwig, Die Stadt in der Jesaja-Apokalpse: zur Datierung von Jes. 24–27 (Cologne: Kleikamp, 1961), pp. 108-109; Dominic Rudman, ‘Midrash in the Isaiah Apocalypse’, ZAW 112 (2000), pp. 404-408 (405). 5. E.g. Robert B. Chisholm, Jr, ‘“The Everlasting Covenant” and the “City of Chaos”: Intentional Ambiguity and Irony in Isaiah 24’, Criswell Theological Review 6 (1993), pp. 237-53; Polaski, ‘Reflections on a Mosaic Covenant’, pp. 55-73 (according to Polaski, the


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these positions possesses strengths, the lack of consensus reveals that each also has significant problems for interpretation. The following paragraphs attempt to shed some light on the disagree ment surrounding the broken )=H EJC3 in Isa. 24.5. This study argues that the )=H EJC3 of Isa. 24.5 solely refers to the Noachic eternal covenant of Genesis 9. However, instead of arguing this position by combating the other three common views, I would simply like to focus attention on a misconception regarding the nature of the Noachic eternal covenant which potentially influences one’s viewpoint of Isa. 24.5. This misconception is the idea that the Noachic eternal covenant is unbreakable. The notion that the Noachic )=H EJC3 is an unbreakable/unconditional covenant serves as the greatest obstacle for reading Isaiah 24 as a reference to the Noah story since Isa. 24.5 claims )=H EJC3 HCA9.6

P covenants serve as the Second Temple backdrop to the Mosaic Law and are alluded to in Isa. 24.5); J.A. Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1993), p. 199. Though peripheral to his argument and mentioned without explanation, Woudstra believes the broken eternal covenant of v. 5 refers to ‘that with Abraham’; see Martin H. Woudstra, ‘The Everlasting Covenant in Ezekiel 16.59-63’, CTJ 6 (1971), pp. 22-48 (32). 6. The terms ‘unbreakable’ and ‘unconditional’ (and their opposites) are used synonymously in this study. The literature pertaining to the issue of covenant conditionality and/or mutuality is vast since it is difficult to discuss any of the biblical covenants without addressing the nature of fulfillment. For specific works on covenant conditionality; cf., e.g., Jože Krašovec. ‘Two Types of Unconditional Covenant’, Horizons in Biblical Theology 18 (1996), pp. 55-77; Bruce K. Waltke, ‘The Phenomenon of Conditionality within Unconditional Covenants’, and William J. Dumbrell, ‘The Prospect of Unconditionality in the Sinaitic Covenant’, in Avraham Gileadi (ed.), Israel’s Apostasy and Restoration (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1988), pp. 123-39 and 141-55, respectively; Ronald Youngblood, ‘The Abrahamic Covenant: Conditional or Unconditional’, in Morris Inch and Ronald Youngblood (eds.), Living and Active Word of God (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1983), pp. 31-46. Some studies attempt to address the nature of covenants by appealing to the meaning of the term EJC3 itself. Cf. the helpful work of S. Van Den Eynde, ‘The Missing Link: EJC3 in the Flood Narrative: Meaning and Peculiarities of a Hebrew Key Word’, in A. Wénin (ed.), Studies in the Book of Genesis: Literature, Redaction and History (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2001), pp. 467-78. One of the ambitions of the present study is to allow the biblical text to determine the meaning of a word or the nature of a covenant, and to demonstrate the virtue in using terms such as ‘unconditional’ and ‘conditional’ carefully. While some covenants may fit nicely into this traditional scheme, most of the covenants between God and humanity/Israel are too dynamic to be categorized so simply. As to whether an ‘eternal’ covenant can actually be broken a priori, the Old Testament seems to answer in the affirmative. Cf. the threats of being ‘cut off’, for example, for breaking the )=H EJC3 of Abrahamic and Sabbath in Gen. 17 and Exod. 31, respectively, not to mention the failure of the Davidic monarchy, which is


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I will argue that the Noachic eternal covenant is a bilateral covenant with responsibilities placed on both God and creation (humanity and animals). It is a covenant too dynamic to fit into the traditional categories of (un)conditionality when one understands the consequences of breaking the )=H EJC3. Isaiah 24.5 thus refers to the Noachic eternal covenant of Genesis 9 because (1) the Noachic covenant never to flood the earth again and destroy all things is conceived as an eternal covenant which is bilateral and breakable,7 and (2) it best fits the context of Isaiah 24. In order to substantiate this position, I will first examine the text of Genesis 9 and then briefly visit Isaiah.8 I. The Noachic Eternal Covenant and its Conditionality The Traditional Reading of Genesis 9 The argument for the unconditionality of the Noachic eternal covenant is due in large part to appeals to a form-critical analysis of Genesis 9. It is widely accepted that the content of the Noachic )=H EJC3 resides solely within vv. 8-17 of Genesis 9. It is in this section of the chapter that God promises never to cut off all flesh and destroy the earth with a flood. He establishes this promise as a )=H EJC3 for all generations. Thus the message of Gen. 9.8-17 is clearly a promise of God to preserve the earth and all living things. Confining the contours of Noah’s eternal covenant to vv. 8-17 is a reflection of the view that the literary structure and content of Gen. 9.1-17 displays two distinct pericopes.9 Such a view recognizes a blessing section (vv. 1-7) and a covenant section (vv. 8-17).

termed a )=H EJC3 in 2 Sam. 23.5. On this point, cf. also Polaski, ‘Reflections on a Mosaic Covenant’, p. 64. 7. The complexities regarding how the covenant is broken will be discussed below. 8. For a comprehensive treatment of )=H EJC3 in the Pentateuch, cf. Steven D. Mason, Eternal Covenant in the Pentateuch (Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies; New York: T&T Clark International, forthcoming). 9. This is either explicitly mentioned or assumed. Cf., e.g., Gerhard von Rad, Genesis: A Commentary (trans. John H. Marks; London: SCM Press, 1972), pp. 130-34; Hermann Gunkel, Genesis (trans. Mark E. Biddle; Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1997), p. 149; Claus Westermann, Genesis 1–11: A Commentary (trans. John J. Scullion; London: SPCK, 1984), p. 461; Dumbrell, Creation and Covenant, p. 31; Van Den Eynde, ‘The Missing Link’, p. 472 n. 20; Gordon Wenham, Genesis 1–15 (Waco, TX: Word Books,



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The blessing pericope, designated as such because v. 1 reintroduces the creation mandate as a blessing like Gen. 1.28, is marked out by a verbal and conceptual inclusio. Verses 1 and 7 both share the imperative ‘be fruitful and multiply’ (H3CH HCA) along with the call to fill the earth and multiply in it, restating the original commands of Gen. 1.26-30.10 The phrase ‘subdue and rule’ (H5CH 93 JH at v. 8 and 17. This inclusio frames two sections of the covenant passage. The first (vv. 8-11) is the establishing of the covenant itself. The second is the establishing of the token or sign of the covenant (vv. 12-17). This covenant is called a EJC3 )=H in v. 16. 1987), p. 192; Thomas L. Brodie, Genesis as Dialogue (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 179-81. 10. The verses differ in the language used to fill the earth; => is used in v. 1, #C is used in v. 7. Verse 1’s command to ‘be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth’ is identical to Gen. 1.28. The word #C is often used in reference to the animal kingdom ‘swarming’ the earth (Gen. 1.20-21; 7.21; 8.17). 11. Harland, von Rad, Westermann and Wenham all offer slightly differing structures to 9.8-17, with varying rationales. See P.J. Harland, The Value of Human Life: A Study of the Story of the Flood (Genesis 6–9) (VTSup, 64; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996), pp. 130-32. Von Rad (Genesis, p. 130) sees the passage as full of doublets ‘so that two complete recensions can be distinguished without effort’. Westermann (Genesis 1–11, p. 470) takes v. 12 as the separation point of two sections by the P author. He believes that the use of EJC3 must be an attempt by the P author to ‘fit the flood narrative into the context of the Priestly theology as a whole’. Wenham (Genesis, p. 194) arranges the section chiastically, or ‘concentrically’, whereby the mention of the bow at 9.16 serves as the climax. Harland (The Value of Human Life, p. 131) agrees with Wenham and considers the structure of the section to hinge on three speeches which begin ‘and God said’, but feels the repetition in the passage is not simply to say the same thing, as the other three scholars hold, but to ‘serve as a means of inculcating the message of Gen 9’. Ultimately, the text could be doing several things at the same time. Determining how many P recensions or versions originally existed is difficult in the light of the possible literary and rhetorical features at play. Also, the sevenfold use of EJC3 in vv. 8-17 is probably a deliberate literary feature that argues against disparate layering. Cf. John Olley, ‘Mixed Blessings for Animals: The Contrasts of Genesis 9’, in Norman C. Habel and Shirley Wurst (eds.), Earth Story in Genesis (The Earth Bible, 2; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), pp. 130-39 (132).


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These literary and conceptual markers demarcate two, distinct pericopes, one consisting of a restatement of God’s original mandate for humankind, and the other establishing God’s )=H EJC3. Both sections make sense on their own without being genetically linked. About the latter, Barr thus notes, ‘God makes it, or “sets it up”, but no corresponding action or attitude on Noah’s part is required.’12 Barr feels that the fact that the term ‘covenant’ is not used in Gen. 9.1-7 demonstrates that this section ‘contrasts starkly with the situation in 8-17’ which is a covenantoriented pericope.13 Similarly, Zimmerli comments, ‘This “covenant” is a pure promise of God’s beneficence toward the entire world, given unconditionally. It is striking that the “Noachian laws” recorded in 9.1-7 precede the promise of the covenant totally independent of it, and have no conditional significance for the “covenant”.’14 This understanding of Genesis 9 directly impacts scholars’ interpretation of Isa. 24.5. In light of this accepted understanding of Gen. 9.1-17 whereby the stipulations of 9.1-7 are separate from the eternal covenant, Dan Johnson for example believes it is inappropriate to link the issue of bloodshed in the Isaiah 24 context, or some other human act, to the breaking of the Noachic eternal covenant since, in his reading, There is no mention of human responsibility, nor even of human involvement in this covenant… In the Genesis account the law against bloodshed and the covenant promise which God made to Noah are in two distinct and separate pericopae. The one is in no way contingent on the other.15

Robert Chisholm states, …a structural analysis of Genesis 9 reveals that the covenant mentioned there is a seemingly unconditional divine promise which does not appear to be linked formally to the mandate issued at the beginning of the chapter (Gen 9.17). Furthermore, Isa 54.9 refers to this promise and unilateral divine oath 12. James Barr, ‘Reflections on the Covenant with Noah’, in A.D.H. Mayes and R.B. Salters (eds.), Covenant as Context (Oxford: Oxford Press, 2003), pp. 11-22 (11). 13. Barr, ‘Reflections on the Covenant with Noah’, pp. 19-20. Interestingly, Barr compares the book of Jubilees’ recounting of the flood account with what Genesis is doing. His point is to notice that they are doing something different. Whereas Jubilees relates 9.1-7 and 8.20-22 with Israel’s festival and covenant renewal, Barr contends that the biblical text does not understand this section as part of the covenant. Cf. Barr, ‘Covenant with Noah’, pp. 20-22. 14. Walther Zimmerli, Old Testament Theology in Outline (trans. David E. Green; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1978), p. 56. 15. Johnson, Chaos to Restoration, pp. 28-29. On these respective points Johnson references von Rad, Genesis, pp. 133-34, and Kissane, Isaiah, p. 271.



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which God will not violate. Thus the Noahic covenant appears to be different in nature from the ‘everlasting covenant’ of Isaiah 24, which is clearly an arrangement that can be broken by humankind and has a curse attached.16

These views are representative of the scholarly consensus regarding the distinct pericopes of Genesis 9 and the eternal covenant’s unconditionality. The weight of this reading of Genesis 9 is even highlighted by those who prefer reading Isa. 24.5 as an exclusive reference to Genesis 9’s Noahic )=H EJC3. Such scholars are forced to conclude that Isa. 24.5 is doing something innovative with Noah’s covenant.17 For example, Christopher Seitz reads Isaiah 24 as reflecting something creative in respect to the eternal covenant of Genesis 9. He notes, ‘What was seemingly unthinkable—the breaking of an everlasting covenant—has tragically occurred. Humanity has encroached upon a covenant that God had established as inviolate.’ 18 Several scholars who contend that Isaiah is doing something innovative with the Noachic covenant recognize the apparent relationship in the Isaiah context between the covenant and the mandate of Gen. 9.1-7. For example, Chisholm writes, ‘In short, by giving the phrase “the everlasting covenant” a new twist, Isaiah is saying that the mandate is every bit as important as the promise and the violation of the mandate emasculates the promise of its practical value for humankind’.19 Chisholm believes that the phrase )=H EJC3 itself has been ‘transferred’ in Isaiah 24 to the mandate of Gen. 9.1-7 whereas in Genesis 9 it only pertains to God’s promise never to flood the earth again. In the same vein, Blenkinsopp believes that the Isaiah author is ‘incorporating his own reading of the primeval history’.20 He notes, The Isaian author appears to have understood the so-called laws of Noah as stated in Gen 9.1-7, especially the prohibition of shedding blood, in a different

16. Chisholm, ‘Intentional Ambiguity’, pp. 239-40. 17. In contrast to the scholars mentioned below, Bernhard Anderson does not seem to feel the need to discuss how the message of breaking the eternal covenant with Noah harmonizes with his view that the covenant is originally an unconditional commitment of God to his creation. Cf. Anderson, Creation to New Creation, pp. 136 and 203-206. 18. Seitz, Isaiah 1–39, p. 182. 19. Chisholm, ‘Intentional Ambiguity’, p. 247. Chisholm believes that there is intentional ambiguity in the reference to the eternal covenant to accommodate dual referentiality (Noahic and Mosaic covenant). 20. Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 1–39, pp. 351-52.


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Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 32.2 (2007) way from the Priestly author—namely, as stipulations attached to the perpetual covenant, the violation of which cancelled the divine promise not to destroy the earth a second time.21

Therefore, scholars who hold to Noachic referentiality to some degree argue that the Isaiah author is making an innovative move with Genesis 9’s )=H EJC3.22 A New Reading of Genesis 9 I would like to propose that there is another way to hold to the breakability of the Noachic eternal covenant rather than appealing to Isaiah’s inventiveness with the original covenant. On the contrary, I would like to appeal to the covenant’s inherent conditional character. Specifically, I would argue that there is both a literary and conceptual basis for reading the two pericopes of Genesis 9 together as two sides of the )=H EJC3, which produces and reflects an authentic conditional component to the Noachic eternal covenant. Literary connection of the pericopes. There is a fundamental literary/ structural feature of Gen. 9.1-17 that is overlooked in scholarship which prohibits the two sections from being separated. The clearest indication of the bilateral nature of the )=H EJC3 is grammatically and verbally marked off at vv. 7 and 9: 93H3CH #C 3 H4C H3CH HCA )E H As for you, be fruitful and multiply, abound on the earth and multiply in it. (Gen. 9.7) )<E JEJC3E )JB> J??9 J? H As for me, behold, I am establishing my covenant with you. (Gen. 9.9)

When one recognizes the Old Testament 9E /9?9 J? pattern employed in Genesis 9 it is clear that there are two sides to the Noachic eternal covenant. The phrase ‘as for you’, represented by )E H followed by a volitional idea (the imperative ‘be fruitful and multiply’ etc. in this case), combined with ‘as for me’, represented by the emphatic J??9 J? H, is a common construction in the Hebrew Bible used to demarcate the responsibilities of

21. Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 1–39, pp. 351-52. 22. Presumably this includes Otto Kaiser, who does not explain his Noachic covenant position.



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two parties within a single, direct discourse.23 The situation may involve a covenant explicitly or a rather loose arrangement. A prime example of the way this construction creates a bilateral arrangement may be found in Genesis 17, also a )=H EJC3 context, which significantly parallels this pattern as presented in Genesis 9: (E JEJC3 9?9 J? As for me, behold my covenant with you. (Gen. 17.4) )EC5= (JCI (CKH 9E C>E JEJC3E 9E H As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. (Gen. 17.9)

Both locations reflect a similar verbal and syntactical pattern. Man’s responsibility is marked out by a form of 9E followed by commands/ requests while God’s responsibilities are signified by a form of 9?9 J? followed by a non-temporal marker in presenting the covenant (participle in Gen. 9, no verb in Gen. 17). There are other links between these two eternal covenant passages. For example, 9.11 and 17.7 both use the phrase JEJC3E JE>
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Understanding these verses in the light of God’s promise in vv. 8-17 influences the point of v. 6c vis-à-vis parts a and b of the verse. It is conceivable that v. 6c ‘reasserts the unique status of man and explains why human life is specially protected, but animal life is not’.51 Thus, ‘The commandment against shedding human blood is substantiated by the fact that man is made in the image of God’.52 This implies that killing a human defames God. Another proposal is that v. 6c shows ‘that the murderer experiences exactly what he did,’53 a sort of ‘eye for an eye’ rationale. Unfortunately while these ideas may be inherent parts to being made in the image of God, these views miss the primary point of v. 6c. Verse 6 sanctions a human being to take the life of another in the place of God.54 In the light of v. 6ab, it is humankind, as bearers of God’s image, who will represent God in the reckoning of indiscriminate bloodshed. This maintains the idea of rulership and authority inherent in this section and within the image of God idea. This is what is new in light of God’s postflood promise. God relinquishes his own responsibility of just blood punishment. Now humankind ()5 ) holds that (new) position of responsibility since God will restrain himself from destroying all life. This contrast can only be understood when one understands that the eternal covenant of Noah has two sides, vv. 1-7 and 8-17. The precise relationship between the two major covenant ideas of 9.1-7 discussed above, humankind’s authority over his enemies and sanctioned bloodshed, is exemplified in the microcosm of the life of Israel. Exodus 32 illustrates how these ‘subduing’ ideas correspond to one another. The nation forgets who their true God is (vv. 1, 4, 8, 23) and falls into idolatry by building the calf and worshipping it. The potential negative reputation 51. Wenham, Genesis 1–15, pp. 193-94. 52. Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology, I (trans. D.M.G. Stalker; Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1962), p. 198. Cf. also Walther Zimmerli, Old Testament Theology in Outline (trans. David E. Green; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1978), p. 134. Similarly, cf. Westermann, Genesis 1–11, p. 468; Walther Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, II (OTL; London: SCM Press, 1967), p. 125; Laurence A. Turner, Genesis (Readings: A New Biblical Commentary; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), p. 53 (who contends that this is one of the main reasons); cf. Robert Davidson, Genesis 1–11 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), p. 88 (who sees the prohibition as a protection of the sanctity of life but recognizes the irony in sanctioning killing). 53. Gunkel, Genesis, p. 149. 54. Cf. von Rad, Genesis, pp. 132-33, which highlights this point (contra his Theology) because of the phrase ‘by man’. Also cf. Turner, Genesis, p. 53; Delitzsch, Genesis, pp. 286-87; Dillmann, Genesis, p. 287.


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of Israel as the people of God, and its military prowess vis-à-vis other nations and enemies, underpins this horrific sin (vv. 12, 17-18, 25). God threatens to destroy the entire nation (except for Moses, vv. 9-10), but Moses asks God to restrain his wrath and reminds him of his covenant with the patriarchs, which promised land and multiplication (v. 12-13). God relents from destroying the nation. However, it is the Levites who administer blood punishment (slaying 3000 people) and are blessed. This story significantly overlaps with Noah’s eternal covenant. Israel’s concession to idolatry is the product of failing to maintain the proper relationship to its enemies (and hence, their gods), which potentially affects Israel’s ability to overcome its enemies (thus failing to fulfill Gen. 9.2-3). God would destroy the nation, but his covenant prevents him from doing so (as in Gen. 9.8-17). This covenant concerns land (as in Gen. 9.8-17) and multiplication (as in Gen. 9.1-7).55 Instead, it is humankind who takes the responsibility for blood justice (~ Gen. 9.4-6). The story of Phinehas in Numbers 25, a )=H EJC3 passage, exemplifies these same qualities.56 Conclusion to Genesis 9 For conceptual and literary reasons, then, Gen. 9.1-7 should be viewed as the human side of the bilateral )=H EJC3 that God makes with Noah and his sons. The 9E /9?9 J? pattern employed in Genesis 9 formally connects the two sides of the covenant. The covenantal imagery of 9.1-7 also demonstrates that it belongs to the )=H EJC3. Thus, God can promise never to destroy the earth again because he has implemented a way to account for the enmity in the human–human, and human–animal, relationship. Humankind has been given God’s authority to execute blood 55. Amid the metaphors represented by the new human to animal relationship and stipulations regarding lifeblood, there are other lessons for Israel and their quest for the promised land. Not only do real animals pose a threat to Israel, but 9.2-4 indeed implies that what Israel eats is an important component of fruitfulness. That is, 9.2-4 stipulate that humankind may eat animals, adhering to certain rules, within the new post-flood economy. In turn, God is also interested in the food of Israel for carrying out its vocation. As with the universal post-flood setting of Gen. 9, God mandates certain food with rules in route to the promised land (e.g. manna on the Sabbath in Exod. 16). God provides food in Gen. 9 and God will provide food in the story of Israel. These are forms of fruitfulness in the land. 56. In Num. 25, for instance, another )=H EJC3 passage, Phinehas is rewarded with an eternal covenant of priesthood for killing an Israelite man who had yoked himself with a Midianite woman (and thus the God of Baal-Peor) in marriage. Phinehas is carrying out God’s proper judgment (cf. Num. 25.1-5) on those who worship other gods by marrying foreigners.



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punishment for the indiscriminate killing that instigated the flood. Genesis 9.2-6 details how humans are to subdue and rule the earth in order to be fruitful and multiply successfully. Thus, the )=H EJC3 is a covenant that God bestows to preserve the land (Gen. 9.8-17) and keep himself from exercising just punishment on a comprehensive scale. In return, God expects humankind to be fruitful and multiply (9.1-7), which involves the new responsibility of executing just blood punishment as an image bearer of God. As we leave the biblical story of Genesis 9, the consequences for breaking the covenant are not primarily in view. Rather, this covenant is established in Genesis 9 with the expectation that both parties will uphold their covenant responsibilities in order to rule the earth in harmony. Moreover, it is safe to say that God’s promise to remember (C where the Greek reads simply BQP , and 10.21 (line 6) reads 93C H (MT 3C H) where the Greek reads PLUX . Finally, in Frg. 3 col. ii, 23.46 (line 4) retains J5H against 7. Sanderson, ‘Ezekiel’, p. 209. A view supported by Lawrence A. Sinclair in his ‘A Qumran Biblical Fragment 4QEZEKa (EZEK. 10, 17–11, 11)’, RevQ 14 (1989), pp. 99105 (100). 8. For details see Sanderson, ‘Ezekiel’, p. 210. 9. See Sinclair ‘A Qumran Biblical Fragment 4QEZEKa (EZEK. 10, 17–11, 11)’, who supports a Proto-Masoretic identification of this fragment. Peuch sees a closer resemblance to Greek, but his argument is based principally on reconstructed sections of the text and as such ought not be granted any credence; see Émile Puech, ‘4QEza: Note Additionnelle’, RevQ 14 (1989), pp. 107-108. 10. Sanderson, ‘Ezekiel’, p. 216.


PATMORE The Shorter and Longer Texts of Ezekiel

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EH>5H, the reading of all the principal Versions and the MT. Fragment 6ii displays three examples of agreement with the MT against the Greek, where words are present in the MT but absent in the Greek: )J?AH 9 (Ezek. 1.21, col. v, frg. 6ii, l.3); CH?9 (Ezek 1.22, Frg. 6 col. ii l. 3); and 9?9= (Ezek. 1.23, Frg. 6 col. ii l. 8). So, again, the text closely resembles the Masoretic, but contains ‘independent’ variants probably resulting from ‘tidying’ by the scribe. The remaining fragment from Cave 4, 4QEzekc (4Q75), measures a mere 1.1 cm by 1.4 cm. It preserves just nine words (only three in full), which show no variants from MT consonantal text. Sanderson dates the script to the early or middle first century BCE. The last remaining Ezekiel manuscript from Qumran was found in Cave 11 (11Q4).11 Unfortunately, this manuscript survives only as ‘heavy solid lump’,12 having suffered considerably from water damage. Indeed, after extensive work on the scroll with Strugnell and Plenderleith, Brownlee concluded, ‘When one considers the total condition of the manuscript, it is a marvel that we can know that it is indeed a copy of the Book of Ezekiel’.13 Nevertheless, a few fragments were recovered, enough to identify this ‘dense, unopenable mass’14 as a scroll of Ezekiel, to date it to the late pre-Herodian period, and to engender a discussion of its relation to the MT in length, order and, to a lesser extent, wording. The text does contain some variants from the MT. Brownlee notes three occurrences which he suggests demonstrate agreement with the Greek: the omission of the conjunction before (4 H3CBEH, except for the lack of the pre-positional waw. Talmon observes a lacuna preceding EH>4 and suggests a letter is missing; he proposes -9, indicating the definite article, the reading of the Greek. Similarly, Talmon suggests that the restoration of a taw at the end of I>< in col. i, l. 5 might help explain a homoioarkton that appears to have occurred in the Greek of Ezek. 35.14-15. This argument, however, is somewhat spurious, since in reality the presence or absence of the taw would hardly have affected the homoioarkton—not only because the alleged confusion has occurred between the 9>> of 35.14 and 35.15, but also because in 35.15 (col. i l.6) the form is (EI>< with final kaph against (E)I>< in 35.14 (col. i l.5), so the taw is not likely to have influenced the scribes. These example are not strong, a point Talmon concedes: ‘the above differences do not obfuscate the basic textual identity of MasEzek with MT’.20 Talmon supports this view by drawing to our attention pluses and minuses between Masoretic and Greek: two examples where the Greek has additional text not found in MT Ezekiel or MasEzek; a further ten examples where MT Ezekiel and MasEzek contain text absent in the Greek version; and a further eleven examples where the Greek has a variant reading where MT Ezekiel and MasEzek are in accord. The text fragments from Qumran and Masada exhibit a number of variants that are all rightly classified as ‘minor’. While the fragments depart from the MT on some minor points—generally the construction of individual words (perhaps varying the suffix, person, or conjugation)— mostly they reflect the present MT. In the case of Qumran, it is interesting given the paucity of the material to note that there are a surprising number of what must be errors. None of those variants displayed in either the Qumran or Masada texts reflect any particular text family; the most likely explanation is that they reflect minor adjustments by individual scribes. Although we must caution against over-confidence (in total the fragments of Ezekiel from Qumran preserve a mere 340 words, many of which are preserved only in part, sometimes only a single letter, and require reconstruction), what we can say positively is that what data we do have do not reflect a prototype of the Greek recensions. At both Qumran and Masada we are able to cite examples where the text is in disagreement with the Greek; primarily, this is in cases where a text is found in the 20. Talmon, ‘1043–2220 (MasEzek) Ezekiel 35.11–38.14’, p. 70.


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Hebrew but absent in the Greek. Of course, Qumran and Masada provide only a snapshot of the state of the text of Ezekiel in the few centuries up to the turn of the eras. Although the fragments do cover portions of chapters from throughout Ezekiel (i.e. chs. 1, 10, 11, 23, 24, 35–38 and 41), the majority of the text remains unattested. The Historical Precedence of the Greek Text The question of the relationship between Greek and Masoretic versions of Ezekiel was brought into even sharper relief by the publication of Papyrus 967. Papyrus 967 contains a Greek version of Ezekiel that dates to the late second century CE,21 and therefore predates Codex Vaticanus by around one hundred years. By and large Papyrus 967 has been found to support the text witnessed in Codex Vaticanus, though it differs in several features (such as the rendering of 9H9J J?5 ). Based on the witness of Papyrus 967, Edmund Kase suggested that the Hebrew of the divine name had systematically been expanded (e.g. from 9H9J to 9H9J J?5 ), and that Papyrus 967, in fact, reflected an earlier form of the Hebrew text. The Hebrew text was later expanded, so Codex Vaticanus reflected an attempt to bring the Greek into line with this expanded Hebrew text.22 This basic hypothesis has been accepted, refined and expanded upon by both Johan Lust and Emmanuel Tov.23 Both accept that a long period of 21. Allan Chester Johnson, ‘Date’, in Allan Chester Johnson, Henry Snyder Gehman and Edmund Harris Kase Jr (eds.), The John H. Scheide Biblical Papyri: Ezekiel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1938), p. 5. 22. Edmund Harris Kase, ‘The Nomen Sacrum in Ezekiel’, in Johnson, Gehman and Kase (eds.), The John H. Scheide Biblical Papyri, pp. 48-52 (50-51). 23. See Johan Lust, ‘Major Divergences between LXX and MT in Ezekiel’, in Adrian Schenker (ed.), The Earliest Text of the Hebrew Bible: The Relationship between the Masoretic Text and the Hebrew Base of the Septuagint Reconsidered (SBLSCS, 52; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), pp. 83-92; ‘Textual Criticism of the Old Testament and of the New Testament: Stepbrothers?’, in A. Denaux (ed.), New Testament Criticism and Exegesis: Major Omissions in P967 Ezekiel (Festschrift J. Delobel; BETL, 161; Leuven: University Press/Peeters, 2002), pp. 15-31 (20-31); ‘The Use of Textual Witnesses for the Establishment of the Text: The Shorter and Longer Texts of Ezekiel’, in his Ezekiel and his Book, pp. 7-20; and Emanuel Tov, ‘Recensional Differences between the MT and LXX of Ezekiel’, ETL 62 (1986), pp. 89-101. Cf. John William Wevers (Ezekiel [The Century Bible; London: Thomas Nelson, 1969], p. 30), who also accepted that the Greek text ‘often attested an earlier stage in the history of tradition’; also Pierre-Maurice Bogaert, ‘Montagne Sainte, Jardin d’Éden en Sanctuaire (Hiérosolymitain) dans un Oracle d’Ézéchiel contre le Prince de Tyr (éz 28.11-19)’, in H. Limet and J. Ries (eds.), Le Mythe, son langage et son message: actes du colloque de Liège et Louvain-la-Neuve 1981 (Homo religiosus, 9; Louvain-la-Neuve: Centre d’Histoire des Religions, 1983), pp. 131-53 (135).



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formation of the text accompanied the period of transmission (and consequently translation). Thus Papyrus 967 apparently supported the widely held view that the Greek of Ezekiel represents an earlier redactional stage of the Hebrew than the MT.24 As Tov puts it, ‘we are confronted here with different stages in the literary development of the book (preserved in textual witnesses)’.25 Where Papyrus 967 lacked text present in Codex Vaticanus or the MT (‘minuses’), this was not necessarily to be explained, as Johnson proposed, ‘by the fact that the scribe or reader often allowed his eye to jump from words or phrases to others in the vicinity’.26 Rather, ‘they [the minuses] are witnesses to an earlier Hebrew text in which these sections were not yet added’.27 In short, the witnesses available to us reflect three successive stages in the literary growth of the Hebrew: earliest is Papyrus 967, which represents a shorter text; next comes the pre-Hexaplaric Greek sources (e.g. Codex Vaticanus), which reflect an adaptation of the shorter Greek towards an expanded form of the Hebrew; finally, we find the MT, which contains significant additional layering,28 as Tov puts it, ‘rather than taking the LXX as a short text, we should thus take MT as a long one’.29 Lust has provided a discussion of several longer ‘minuses’ or variations in order in Papyrus 967 (e.g. 7.6-9; 12.26-28, 13.7 and 36.23c-38), which he concludes ought to be regarded as insertions in the Masoretic rather than omissions in the Greek.30

24. See, for example, Wever, Ezekiel, p. 30, who notes, ‘the text of G. is usually shorter, but often attests an earlier stage in the history of tradition’; also Walther Eichrodt, Ezekiel: A Commentary (trans. Cosslett Quin; London: SCM Press, 1970), p. 12, who notes, ‘the terser Septuagint text guides us to an older recension of the Hebrew text, more reliable than the Masoretic text’; Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1 (Hermenia; trans. R.E. Clement; ed. F.M. Cross and K. Baltzer; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979), p. 75. 25. Tov, ‘Recensional Differences between the MT and LXX of Ezekiel’, p. 101. 26. Allan Chester Johnson, ‘Description of Text’, in Johnson, Gehman, and Kase (eds.), The John H. Scheide Biblical Papyri, p. 7. 27. Lust, ‘Major Divergences between LXX and MT in Ezekiel’, p. 85. 28. Tov (‘Recensional Differences between the MT and LXX of Ezekiel’, pp. 93-99) provides an extensive list of ‘pluses’ in the MT, broken down into the following categories: contextually secondary elements; addition of parallel words/phrases; exegetical additions; contextual clarification; harmonizing pluses; emphasis; new material; deuteronomistic formulations; and formulaic language. 29. Tov, ‘Recensional Differences between the MT and LXX of Ezekiel’, p. 92. 30. See Lust, ‘Major Divergences between LXX and MT in Ezekiel’; ‘Textual Criticism of the Old Testament and of the New Testament: Stepbrothers?’, pp. 23-28; ‘The Use of Textual Witnesses for the Establishment of the Text’, pp. 12-14.


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The conclusions of Lust and Tov can be thought correct in one respect, namely, that while smaller omissions can be accepted as being the result of parablepsis, larger omissions simply cannot, especially given the fairly ‘literal’ nature of the translation in Papyrus 967 as a whole. Yet, as a whole, their theory is brought into serious question by the finds at Masada and to a lesser extent, Qumran. Questions Raised by the Masada Finds The manuscript finds from Masada include the section Ezek. 36.23b-38, which is absent from Papyrus 967. The absence of 36.23b-38 from Papyrus 967 was explained by Lust as the result of a later insertion into the Hebrew text, composed to form a transition between chs. 36 and 37, in a text where ch. 37 followed 36, not ch. 39 as it had done in earlier versions31—a viewpoint supported by the obviously incongruous language of the section in both Hebrew and Greek, something Thackeray had earlier noted and attributed to the presence of a fragment of a different version (resembling Theodotion) due to lectionary usage.32 Tov accepted Lust’s explanation of the section’s absence.33 The presence of the section among the fragments at Masada is consequently problematic: Papyrus 967 dates from the late second century CE and does not contain the section; the Masada text dates from the second half of the last century BCE and does contain the section. So, ought we then conclude that Lust was wrong in his assessment, and that what we have here is in fact an omission in Papyrus 967? Three factors go against this. First, the size of the omission would require an explanation, as Lust rightly notes: ‘an omission of 1451 letters is too long for an accidental skip of the scribe’s eye’.34 An explanation for the omission is also required since no homoioteleuton is obvious. Secondly, the order of the Papyrus must also be taken into account, since the scribe jumps from 36.23 to 38.1 and places ch. 37 after 39. Finally, the same section of text is omitted in

31. Johan Lust, ‘Ezekiel 36–40 in the Oldest Greek Manuscript’, CBQ 43 (1981), pp. 517-33; cf. ‘Textual Criticism of the Old Testament and of the New Testament: Stepbrothers?’, pp. 22-31. 32. H.St.J. Thackeray, ‘The Greek Translators of Ezekiel’, JTS 4 (1903), pp. 398-411 (407-408). 33. Tov, ‘Recensional Differences between the MT and LXX of Ezekiel’, pp. 99-101. 34. Lust, ‘Textual Criticism of the Old Testament and of the New Testament: Stepbrothers?’, p. 28; cf. ‘Ezekiel 36–40 in the Oldest Greek Manuscript’, p. 520.



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the sixth-century CE Codex Wirceburgensis of the Vetus Latina. This witness is not apparently dependent on Papyrus 967 (although closer to it than the other Old Latin witnesses), so we must contend with the possibility that Papyrus 967 reflects a textual tradition, rather than simply being an isolated text. So, we have the unusual situation that the earliest manuscript (Masada) attests a proto-MT, while the later Papyrus 967 preserves a version that clearly represents a shorter Vorlage. If Papyrus 967 represents an ‘earlier’ or ‘more original’ text in a linear sequence, as Lust and Tov suppose, I do not see how that can be reconciled with the presences of 36.23-38 at Masada. Is the explanation that two (or more) co-existent recensions were in circulation not a better explanation of the data? Ought we to say that Papyrus 967 represents a ‘different’ text rather than an ‘earlier’ or ‘more original’ text? Are we right to think of an Urseptuagint at all, let alone an Urtext? It appears that Greek translations arose before the Hebrew text was stabilized, and thus they may reflect different Vorlagen. There does not seem to have been a single authoritative translation into Greek from which all other translations derived (an Urseptuaginta), although there is an obvious closeness between a number of the Greek versions. From a textcritical point of view, in the case of Ezekiel we ought not really to talk of ‘the Septuagint’ at all; rather, we can only speak properly of the ‘Greek versions’. The Greek versions may well reflect different redactional stages in the Hebrew; however, the manuscript evidence available to us does not allow the conclusion that these redactional stages were chronologically progressive with one version of the Hebrew text superseding another (so that we could see in Papyrus 967 an ‘earlier’ Hebrew text). The assumption lurking in the subtext of Lust and Tov’s theory is that at any one point in time only a single homogeneous text-type could have been in existence, as if the existing text would drop out of circulation as soon as the new text was produced. This, of course, is historically unlikely, and cannot be sustained by the available evidence. It appears that Papyrus 967 and the proto-MT from Masada (and Qumran) demonstrate that at some point two different versions of the Hebrew were in existence at the same time. The ‘longer’ (i.e. Masoretic) and ‘shorter’ (i.e. Greek) texts were in circulation concurrently and in Hebrew for at least 200 years. Both versions may have at one time stemmed from a Hebrew Urtext, but the data do not allow us to say which


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is now nearer to that Urtext. There was clearly a fluidity in the Hebrew text, so that in Papyrus 967 we see a ‘different’ text not necessarily an ‘earlier’ one.35 Concluding Comments So what is the significance of all this? If my conclusions are correct, this will have serious consequence for the way in which we approach and seek to understand the text of Ezekiel. The data from Masada and Qumran make the Urtext of Ezekiel a will-o’-the-wisp. Behind the texts of Papyrus 967 and the MT lie two distinct Vorlagen, and unless new materials come to light, there is no credible way of establishing the historical precedence or originality of either. As historical texts, both the shorter and longer texts (and the fact of their co-existence) illuminate our understanding of Jewish scripture during and shortly after the late Second Temple period. But as biblical texts, things are more complex (and this is a problem not only for the book of Ezekiel). The problem is one of authority: if authority is to be found in the ‘most original’ form of the text, what ought one do when two versions of a text exist, neither of which provide clear access to the Urtext? If ‘originality’ cannot be used as the yardstick of authority, on what other foundation might authority be built?

35. See Moshe Greenberg, ‘The Use of the Ancient Versions for Interpreting the Hebrew Text: A Sampling from Ezekiel ii 1–iii 11’, in International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament: Congress (1977 Göttingen) 9th Congress Volume: Göttingen, 1977 (VTSup, 29; Leiden: Brill, 1978), pp. 131-48 (144-48), in which Greenberg argues that the hypothesis of a single ‘original’ text is misleading since some variants between MT and the Versions, particularly in Ezekiel, demonstrably result from ancient non-MT Vorlagen rather than from the translators. He concludes that it is not always possible for the critic to derive one version from the other(s). Cf. Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–37 (AB, 22; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983), pp. 18-24.



A Marzea and a Mizraq: A Prophet’s Mêlée with Religious Diversity in Amos 6.4-7* JONATHAN S. GREER The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802-5500, USA

Abstract This article supports the hypothesis that the feast described in Amos 6.4-7 was a religious event, even a marzea banquet. The loungers’ practice of drinking from mizraq vessels is singled out as a definitively syncretistic practice adopted from the nations around them. Epigraphic and iconographic evidence is used to illustrate the prevalence of drinking from ritual vessels at cultic banquets in the ancient Near East, thus explaining the ready incorporation of such a custom by the Samarian elite and bringing greater clarity to Amos’s denouncement. Keywords: Israelite Religion, marzea, Amos, Assyrian reliefs, Phoenician bowls, syncretism.

Amos has long been recognized as ‘the’ prophet of social action. In the last few decades, however, several studies have suggested that the core of the prophet’s message was primarily religious polemic against the prevailing ‘idolatry’ of eighth-century Israel.1 This new paradigm has served * Adapted from a paper presented at ‘Diversity in the Book of the Twelve’, the annual meeting of the Old Testament Society of South Africa (1–4 September 2003), while serving as lecturer in Old Testament and Hebrew Language at the Theological


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as the impetus for fresh examinations of familiar pericopes usually viewed as promoting social justice, often altering previously held conclusions. One such passage is Amos 6.4-7, seemingly a description of an extravagant feast held by an arrogant Samarian aristocracy. Traditionally, Amos’s denouncement of the event has been viewed as a ‘woe’ of injustice, in that he condemned the rich for wallowing in luxury at the expense of the poor who suffered under oppression and neglect.2 Alternatively, the prophet’s ‘woe’ may be seen to have much more to do with a specific cultic event that deviated from the Yahwistic orthodoxy he promoted: the marzea banquet.3 Though Amos undoubtedly was concerned with the ethical depravity of the loungers of Samaria, it is argued that he was more troubled by their ‘religious diversity’ evidenced by their incorporation of a ritual feast practiced by the nations around them. College of Zimbabwe, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Much of the original research stems from graduate work under the direction of Professor Gary Pratico, for whose input I am most grateful. 1. See, most importantly, H. Barstad, The Religious Polemics of Amos (VTSup, 34; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1984). Others noting the religious connotations of Amos 6.4-7 include in particular: S.M. Paul, Amos (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991); J. Jeremias, The Book of Amos (OTL; Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1998); D.N. Freedman and F.I. Andersen, Amos (AB, 24A; New York: Doubleday, 1989). For a recent reaction against such views, see B.B. Schmidt, Israel’s Beneficent Dead: Ancestor Cult and Necromancy in Ancient Israelite Religion and Tradition (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1996), pp. 146-47, echoing J.A. Soggin, The Prophet Amos: A Translation and Commentary (trans. J. Bowden; London: SCM Press, 1987), p. 105. Though the traditional term ‘idolatry’ retained above is perhaps a dated, less-preferred designation by some, from the perspective of the biblical writers it was loaded with much of the negative and exclusivistic baggage that is still associated with the term. 2. Variations of this view are to be found in: W.R. Harper, Amos and Hosea (ICC; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1905); H.C.O. Lanchester, The Books of Joel and Amos (ed. S.R. Driver; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1942); E.A. Edghill, The Book of Amos (ed. G.A. Cooke; London: Methuen & Co., 2nd edn, 1926); H.W. Wolff, Joel and Amos (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1977); R.S. Cripps, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Amos (London: SPCK, 1969); E. Hammershaimb, The Book of Amos (trans. J. Sturdy; New York: Schocken Books, 1970); J.L. Mays, Amos: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1969); D. Stuart, Hosea– Jonah (WBC, 31; Waco, TX: Word Books, 1987); J. Niehaus, ‘Amos’, in T.E. McComiskey (ed.), The Minor Prophets: An Exegetical and Expository Commentary, I (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1992), pp. 315-494. 3. See, most notably, P.J. King, ‘The Marzeah Amos Denounces: Using Archaeology to Interpret a Biblical Text’, BAR 15.4 (1988), pp. 34-44, and ‘The Marzeah: Textual and Archaeological Evidence’, EI 20 (1989), pp. 101*-105*. Also see Barstad, Religious Polemics, pp. 127-42.


GREER A Marzea and a Mizraq

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This article will reiterate and affirm the hypothesis set forth by others that the feast described in Amos 6.4-7 was indeed a religious event, even directly related to the Semitic marzea institution and its banquet. Attention will be given to the individual elements described in this text that support such conclusions. Epigraphic and iconographic evidence will also be utilized, suggesting that the banqueters’ act of drinking from mizraq (BCK>) vessels mirrored a cultic practice common among Israel’s neighbors. These findings will highlight the ‘syncretistic’ nature of the banquet of Amos 6.4-7, and thus, the prophet’s condemnation of it. Amos 6.4-7 and the Marzea Banquet At first glance, the traditional understanding of the banquet described in Amos 6.4-7 as an aristocratic binge seems to be accurate—especially as it is rendered in many of the modern English translations. Consider the text of the NRSV alongside of the MT below: MT

NRSV

* EH>= )J3 >JC< )J=< H and calves from the stall; B3C> (HE> )J=8H =3?9 JA= )JCA9 5. who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp, and like David improvise on instruments of music; CJJ=< )9= H3I 5JH5< *JJ JBCK>3 )JE9 6. who drink wine from bowls, and anoint themselves with the finest oils, HI>J )J?> EJ CH but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph! ,DHJ C3= H=I? =H )J=8 C3 H=8J 9E * CDH

The text describes the rich reclining upon fancy couches, drinking wine, and eating ‘calves from the stall’ (i.e. veal)4 while one reads elsewhere in Amos that the poor were sold ‘for a pair of sandals’ (2.6; 8.6) and trampled upon (2.7; 5.11). What is known of the historical-political situation under Jeroboam II makes such a scenario all the more plausible. The existing political power vacuum, coupled with extensive trade and flourishing agriculture, had ushered in a second ‘golden age’ rivaled only

4. MT: B3C> (HE> )J=8. The term B3C> (‘stall’) is used to describe restrainment areas for the fattening of calves. See King, ‘The Marzeah Amos Denounces’, p. 40, and ‘The Marzeah: Textual and Archaeological Evidence’, p. 103*.


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by the Davidic–Solomonic era.5 This newfound wealth and power appears to have been held (and abused) by a privileged minority rather than by the masses. Therefore, a denouncement of a banquet at which opulent aristocrats lounged in luxury while the defenseless poor suffered in poverty seems to fit the context. A closer look, however, reveals that there was something more to this banquet. Indeed, cultic features abound, indicating the religious nature of the event and a connection with the Semitic marzea institution. There are already a number of detailed studies describing the marzea institution and its practices, so an exhaustive survey will not be given here.6 In brief, the marzea is known primarily through a patchwork of administrative, legal, ritual, and prophetic texts from Syria-Palestine dating from the fourteenth century BCE through the third century CE.7 This collection of Ugaritic, Phoenician, Nabatean, and Palmyrean texts, in addition to the biblical material and later rabbinic commentary, provides an image of a socio-religious association and its observances that maintained remarkable continuity throughout the centuries and across various cultures. The most prominent feature of the marzea (and the most applicable to this study of Amos 6.4-7) seems to have been its periodic cultic banquet, which was held by an elite membership, associated with a patron

5. The usual super-powers, Egypt, Babylon, and Assyria, were unusually weak. Egypt suffered great internal strife and political fragmentation (see A. Kuhrt, The Ancient Near East: c. 3000–330 B.C., II [New York: Routledge, 1995], p. 628). Babylon was in great disarray, as seen in regional records even indicating periods of anarchy (p. 577). Assyria was also in a period of decline, wracked by epidemics, famines, succession problems, revolts, and rival powers (i.e. Urartu to the north), though the empire managed to maintain control of its previously conquered territories (pp. 490-93). On the local scene, Israel’s rival Aram was still crippled by the earlier destruction of Damascus by Adad-Nirari III (c. 802 BCE) and relations between Israel and Judah were relatively peaceful after years of civil turmoil (Stuart, Amos, p. 283). On the ‘golden age’, see Paul, Amos, p. 1. 6. See D. Bryan, ‘Texts Relating to the Marzeah: A Study of an Ancient Semitic Institution’ (PhD dissertation, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 1973), and J.L. McLaughlin, The MarzƝa in the Prophetic Literature: References and Allusions in Light of the Extra-Biblical Evidence (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2001). McLaughlin has not only reexamined Bryan’s work, but also included the new discoveries of the past decades. He further provides an analysis of the various texts in the Hebrew Bible that have been identified as relating to the marzea in the secondary literature. A good bibliography is also found in Paul, Amos, pp. 210-11. 7. Though the term does occur both earlier, in texts from Ebla (third millennium BCE), and later, on the Madeba map (sixth century CE).



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deity, and marked by excessive drinking. The extent of a connection between the marzea and the cult of the dead continues to be debated.8 In the studies that identify the banquet of Amos 6.4-7 as a marzea banquet,9 several features are highlighted as evidence. Most importantly, the cognate term for the institution or the banquet itself is present in v. 7 (IKC>). Disappointingly, this is obscured in most of the modern English translations.10 Many translate the term in a general sense (e.g. ‘revelry’, as above in the NRSV reading)11 despite the wealth of epigraphic evidence that has come to light in the recent decades regarding the specific nature of the marzea and its banquet. A better translation for v. 7 might read, ‘…and the cultic institution [or cultic banquet] of the loungers shall pass away’.12

8. In support of a connection, see most notably: M.H. Pope, ‘The Cult of the Dead at Ugarit’, in G. Young (ed.), Ugarit in Retrospect (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1981), pp. 159-79 (169-77); ‘A Divine Banquet at Ugarit’, in J. Efrid (ed.), The Use of the Old Testament in the New and Other Essays: Studies in Honor of W.F. Steinspring (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1972), pp. 170-205; Song of Songs (AB, 7C; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977), p. 216. For more cautious views regarding the extent of the connection, see: T. Lewis, Cults of the Dead in Ancient Israel and Ugarit (HSM, 39; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989), p. 88; Bryan, Texts Relating to the Marzeah, p. 209; and Barstad, Religious Polemics, pp. 108-29. Schmidt, Israel’s Beneficent Dead, pp. 144-47, rejects any connection whatsoever. An up-to-date survey and evaluation of the views may be found in McLaughlin, MarzƝa in the Prophetic Literature, pp. 70-79. 9. See especially King, ‘The Marzeah Amos Denounces’, pp. 101*-105*; and ‘The Marzeah: Textual and Archaeological Evidence’; King and L.E. Stager, Life in Biblical Israel (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press: 2001), pp. 355-57; and Barstad, Religious Polemics, pp. 127-42. See also, in relation to the marzea, Jeremias, Amos, pp. 110-14; Paul, Amos, pp. 208-12; Freedman and Andersen, Amos, pp. 556-58; Greenfield, ‘The MarzƝa as a Social Institution’, in J. Harmatta and G. Komoroczy (eds.), Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft im alten Vorderasien (Budapest: Akademiai Kiado, 1976), pp. 451-55 (452-55). 10. The NRSV, NEB, and JB translate IKC> as ‘revelry’. The NASB translates it as, ‘banqueting’, the NKJV, ‘banquets’, and the NIV, ‘feasting’. The best may be the NJPS, ‘festive meal’. 11. Such translations carry forward the older understanding of this word based on an Arabic root (rz I, ‘to cry out’), originally proposed by O. Eissfeldt, ‘Kultvereine in Ugarit’, Ugaritica VI (1966), pp. 187-95, and followed particularly by Pope, in ‘Divine Banquet’, p. 195, and in his Song of Songs, pp. 221-22. More recently, see Niehaus, Amos, p. 441. For critiques see Bryan, Texts Relating to the Marzeah, p. 210, and Barstad, Religious Polemics, pp. 141-42. 12. It may even be better to leave it untranslated, as in Barstad, Religious Polemics, p. 128.


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In addition to the potentially religious images of loungers reclining on couches, eating meat, and drinking wine,13 the terms used to describe the nature of their music making, anointing, and drinking indicate the distinctly cultic nature of the banquet. For example, the loungers did not make their music with a CH? (‘to anoint’).17 The verb I> is reserved for ritual and formal anointings associated with the inauguration and dedication of prophets, priests, and kings,18 as opposed to the other Hebrew verb meaning ‘to anoint’ ((HD) used for secular anointings associated with cosmetic, hygienic, and perhaps occasionally medicinal 13. See Freedman and Andersen, Amos, pp. 562-67; King, ‘The Marzeah Amos Denounces’; ‘The Marzeah: Textual and Archaeological Evidence’, pp. 98*-106*; Greenfield, ‘The MarzƝa as a Social Institution’, pp. 452-55. 14. The term CH?< is thought to be used for the more common type of lyre and occurs 41 times in both secular and sacred settings. When appearing in sacred contexts, it often occurs with =3?. According to King (‘The Marzeah Amos Denounces’, p. 41), the =3? is the larger, more symmetrical type of lyre, likely having ten strings (cf. Ps. 33.2), which possibly carried a more somber sound than the smaller, asymmetrical CH? vessel instead of simply from a DH< (‘cup’, the usual drinking vessel).21 The technical term BCK> is employed in the Hebrew Bible to describe a gold, silver, or bronze bowl,22 used for both the presentation of offerings and the sprinkling of blood associated with the tabernacle and temple rituals.23 The term can be found

19. Again, Oswalt (‘I>’, p. 1124) demonstrates that the distinct connotation of each term is most evident in the one biblical passage where the two roots (I> and (HD) occur in the same context, namely, Exod. 30.30-32. This text specifies that the holy oil (5BEI>) used for ‘anointing’ (a verbal form of I>) Aaron and his sons was not to be used for any ordinary ‘anointing’ (a verbal form of (HD) of the body. 20. Note association with Akkadian interdialectal cognate and semantic equivalents šamnu rƝštu and šamnu rǌstu in Paul (Amos, pp. 208-209). Cf. an offering given by Shamshi-Adad I in the dedication of a temple of Enlil that included ‘the best [finest] oil’ (A.K. Grayson, Assyrian Royal Inscriptions [2 vols.; Weisbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1976], I, p. 20). On a connection with the #IC *> (‘washed/refined oil’) of the Samaria Ostraca, see Paul, Amos, p. 209 n. 88; L.E. Stager, ‘The Finest Olive Oil in Samaria’, JSS 28 (1983), pp. 241-45; and King and Stager, Life in Biblical Israel, p. 356. 21. The Versions may attest to the interpretive difficulty of a description of humans drinking from ritual vessels. The LXX translates the expression *JJ BCK>3 as UPO EJVMJTNFOPO PJOPO (‘refined/strained wine’), hinting at its confusion (Paul, Amos, p. 208 n. 76). The Vulgate and an unassigned translation cited by Justin Martyr (Dialogue with Trypho, p. 179, in Honeyman, below) recovered the cultic nature of the term translating BCK>3 as in phialis and FO GJBMBJK respectively, both terms used in religious and drinking contexts (A.M. Honeyman, ‘The Pottery Vessels of the Old Testament’, PEQ 71 [1939], pp. 76-90 [83]). 22. According to Honeyman (‘Pottery Vessels’, p. 83), the existence of earthenware EHBCK> should not be ruled out entirely simply because they are not specifically mentioned in the biblical text. He suggests that the Iron II four-handled krater with a ring base may serve as a material example of a BCK> (Honeyman, ‘Pottery Vessels’, pp. 83-84; followed by King, ‘The Marzeah: Textual and Archaeological Evidence’, pp. 98*-106*). All biblical examples, however, refer specifically to metal vessels (except for the few that do not overtly state the material of composition: Neh. 7.69 [Eng. v. 70]; Zech. 9.15; and 14.20 [Eng. v. 21]). The best material example discovered to date is a bronze bowl discovered at Tel Dan which this author plans to discuss in a future publication. The bowl has been published in A. Biran, ‘The Dancer from Dan, the Empty Tomb and the Altar Room’, IEJ 36 (1986), pp. 168-87, and in Biblical Dan (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1994). 23. On references to its use as an offering vessel, see n. 24 below. Its use for sprinkling blood is based on its derivation from BCK (‘to sprinkle/throw’), implying that the bowls may have also been used to catch and to sprinkle or throw the blood of sacrificed animals against an altar (cf. Exod. 24.6-8; 2 Kgs 16.13-15), according to Freedman


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thirty-one times in the Hebrew Bible outside of Amos, exclusively in cultic settings.24 It follows that the act of drinking from such BCK> vessels implies a clearly religious act (albeit ‘blasphemous’) and affirms a cultic context for the banquet.25 When the cumulative force of the cultic terminology used to describe the loungers’ music-making, anointing, and drinking is considered, it is difficult to ignore the religious overtones of the event described.26 Even if such a group of cult-related words occurred in isolation, a case might be made for a marzea banquet, but the specific use of the Hebrew term IKC> in the closing verse (v. 7) makes such a connection even more likely. Some may argue that the nature of the loungers’ music-making and anointing may indeed suggest a religious event (even a marzea banquet) without necessarily implying a heterodox affair that would have raised the ire of Amos.27 It will be argued that, even if religious music and ritual and Andersen, Amos, p. 564; and King, ‘The Marzeah Amos Denounces’, p. 42. Cf. also Zech. 14.20 (Eng. 21). 24. Cf. Exod. 27.3; 38.3; Num. 4.14; 7 (×14); 1 Kgs 7 (×3); 2 Kgs 12.14 (Eng. 13); 25.15; 1 Chron. 28.17; 2 Chron. 4 (×3); Jer. 52 (×2); Neh. 7.69 (Eng. 70); Zech. 9.15; 14.20 (Eng. 21). 25. Many commentators emphasize the large size of the vessel and link it to intemperance, including: Harper, Amos and Hosea, p. 149; Lanchester, Joel and Amos, p. 199; Edghill, Amos, p. 63; Stuart, Hosea–Jonah, p. 360; Niehaus, ‘Amos’, p. 440; Soggin, The Prophet Amos, pp. 103, 105. The NIV follows in its translation, ‘[Woe to those who]… drink wine by the bowlful’, similarly in the NJPS (‘straight from the wine bowls’), whereas the NRSV, NKJV, and NASB provide more literal renderings, ‘[Woe to those who]…drink wine from bowls (NASB “sacrificial bowls”)’. Emphasis is better placed on the cultic connotations, rather than its size, as seen below. 26. A.G. Auld, Amos (OTG; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1986), p. 62, notes that, ‘[t]he effective blasphemy of these revelers is placarded in the very Hebrew words that describe it’, and that, ‘the Hebrew [word choice] would have sent a frisson of horror up the spine of its first hearers’. 27. So S. Ackerman (‘A Marzea in Ezekiel 8.7-13?’, HTR 82 [1989], pp. 267-81 [279-81]). Though she does not isolate any of the practices, she suggests that the marzea of Amos 6.4-7 (and of Jer. 16.5-9 even more so) on the whole was ‘not condemned as religious apostasy, but as social abomination’ and that ‘there was nothing religiously unacceptable about the marzea institution in Israel or Judah’, hinting at the possibility of an ‘acceptable’ marzea for Yahweh (also see M.E. Polley, Amos and the Davidic Empire: A Socio-historical Approach [New York: Oxford University Press, 1989], p. 89). See a more forthright example of such an approach in G. Fleischer, Von Menschen verkaüfern, Baschankühen und Rechtsverkehrern: die Sozialkritik des Amosbuches in historischkritischer, sozialgeschichtlicher und archäologischer Perspektive (BBB, 74; Frankfurt am Main: Athenäum Verlag, 1989), p. 239, in McLaughlin, MarzƝa in the Prophetic Literature, p. 106 n. 139.



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anointing were not considered by the prophet to be inherently ‘pagan’, the act of drinking from ritual vessels was. Indeed, the choice of the banqueters to drink from sacred vessels was no mere coincidence; on the contrary, it echoed a well-established custom practiced by the nations around them, as shall be seen below. Drinking from Ritual Vessels at Cultic Banquets in the Ancient Near East Evidence for establishing the commonality of drinking from ritual vessels at cultic banquets (whether connected with the marzea or not) in other ancient Near Eastern cultures may, in fact, be observed in both texts and iconography. The most immediate literary parallel is found in another biblical text, Dan. 5.1-4, displayed below. The affinity is strikingly obvious; in both accounts, banqueters drink from ritual vessels at an extravagant banquet and are condemned by Yahweh through his prophets.28 (1) King Belshazzar made a great festival for a thousand of his lords, and he was drinking wine in the presence of the thousand. (2) Under the influence of the wine, Belshazzar commanded that they bring in the vessels of gold and silver that his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them. (3) So they brought in the vessels of gold and silver that had been taken out of the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines drank from them. (4) They drank the wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone.

Belshazzar’s ‘great festival’ was apparently cultic in nature, characterized by eating and drinking coupled with the ‘praise’ (I3) of the ‘gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone’ (Dan. 5.4).29 Further, the juxtaposition of the ‘drinking of wine’ and the ‘praising of gods’ may imply libations at a ritual feast, possibly an akƯtu festival.30 It is even 28. In rabbinic tradition, it was Belshazzar’s disrespect for the vessels that directly caused his death. See b. Ned. 62b, as in J.J. Collins, Daniel (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), p. 245. 29. But see J.E. Goldingay, Daniel (WBC, 30; Dallas: Word Books, 1989), p. 108, who finds no indication that it was primarily a religious festival. 30. See Collins, Daniel, pp. 243-46, consulting L.M. Wills, The Jew in the Court of a Foreign King: Ancient Jewish Court Legends (Harvard Dissertations in Religion, 26; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), pp. 123-24. Cf. the libation of wine at the akƯtu festival just prior to the fall of Babylon in the year 539 BCE mentioned in the Nabonidus Chronicle


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possible that BCK> vessels were among the )J? > (Aramaic: ‘vessels’) employed by the king and his entourage at their cultic feast for drinking wine, if not singled out specifically for this purpose as they were in Amos 6.6, based on the context and terminology employed.31 This Neo-Babylonian custom, as depicted in Dan. 5.1-4, resembles that of their Assyrian predecessors, dating more closely to the time of Amos. Consider a description of a banquet of Esarhaddon described below: Assur, Ishtar of Nineveh, all the gods of Assyria, I invited into its midst. Pure sacrifices in great numbers I offered before them and presented my gifts. Those gods blessed my kingship from the bottom of their hearts (lit., in the firmness of their hearts). The nobles and the people of my land, all of them, I made sit down therein, at feasts and banquets of choice dishes, and gratify their appetites. With grape-wine and sesame-wine I ‘sprinkled their hearts’, with the choicest oils I drenched their foreheads. (Col. VI, ll. 27-40)32

Though the vessels employed for eating and drinking are not named in the text, cultic overtones are evident in the invitation to the gods to join in the festivities, the mention of offered sacrifices and presented gifts, and even in the application of ‘the choicest oils’ (šamnu rƝštu) upon the foreheads of the banqueters (cf. Amos 6.6).33 Assyrian iconographic material provides greater specificity in regard to the actual practice of drinking from ritual vessels at cultic banquets. 7.7, cited by Collins (Daniel, pp. 243-44). Also see Goldingay, Daniel, p. 113; J.A. Montgomery, The Book of Daniel (ICC; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1927), p. 251. 31. Note that in Dan. 5.2 (also v. 23), Belshazzar demands the vessels that ‘Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem’. According to the biblical accounts of the Babylonian sack of Jerusalem (2 Kgs 25.14-15; Jer. 52.19), BCK> vessels were among the ‘vessels’ (Hebrew: )J=< = Aramaic: )J? >; compare Dan. 1.2; 2 Chron. 28.24; 36.18; and Neh. 13.9 with Ezra 5.14 and 6.5—also note the LXX translation of both terms as TLFVPK) taken as plunder. Further, in the 2 Kgs 25.14-15 account of the sack, the only vessels taken that could have been used for drinking and that were made of gold and silver were BCK> vessels (but cf. Jer. 52.19). 32. Translation from D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylon (2 vols.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1926–27), II, pp. 269-70; for the transliterated test, see R. Borger, Die Inschriften Asarhaddons Königs von Assyrien (Graz: Selbstverlage des Herausgebers, 1956), p. 63. The spelling ‘Assur’ is Luckenbill’s, though this writer uses ‘Ashur’ in the text. 33. In Akkadian texts, oil (šamnu) is used not only in cooking, as a fuel, and for medicinal purposes, but for ritual anointing of monuments, pouring out libations, and in divination. See J. Black, A. George and N. Postgate (eds.), A Concise Dictionary of Akkadian (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 2nd edn, 2000), p. 354, and CAD 17:321-30. Note especially a foundation ritual text (5R 66 I 11) that records an anointing of the first bricks with šamnu rƝšti (CAD 17:326).



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Consider the well-known banquet scene from the palace of Ashurbanipal (Fig.1),34 a depiction of a clearly cultic event evidenced in the presence of incense stands, an offering table, and (possibly) a kalû priest,35 in addition to an accompanying epigraph that may connect it to an akƯtu-festival.36

Figure 1. ‘Ashurbanipal’s Feast’ Copyright The Trustees of the British Museum37

34. The broken slabs of the scene were found on the floor of room S, apparently having fallen from the ‘upper chambers’ (room S1), in the western corner of his North Palace at Nineveh. See a description of the find in Barnett, Sculptures, p. 19.Both come from the western corner of his North Palace at Nineveh (Room S1; Upper Chambers). 35. See R.D. Barnett, Sculptures from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh, 668–627 B.C. (London: British Museum Publications, 1976), Pl. LXIII: Slab A. The kalû priest at the far left of Slab A (not shown in the detail of Fig. 1) is identified by his distinctive fish-tail headdress, according to Albenda (P. Albenda, ‘Lanscape Bas-Reliefs in the Bit-Hilani of Ashurbanipal’, BASOR 224 [1976], pp. 49-72 [62], and Figs. 5, 7) and Barnett (Sculptures, p. 57), though the panel is broken directly through the figure. See also Van Driel, The Cult of Aššur, p. 180. Barnett, Sculptures, p. 20, even adds an identification of Ashurbanipal’s couch as a ‘ritual couch’. 36. The epigraph (see transliteration and translation in Barnett, Sculptures, p. 57) clearly points to the defeat of Elam, as the defeated kings themselves are said and shown to be serving the meal, and is confirmed by the depiction of Teumman’s head hanging in a tree nearby. Connection to an akƯtu-festival is established by another text that also describes this same defeat of Teumman and a subsequent celebration of an akƯtu-festival, even mentioning the “decapitated head of Teumman” (Luckenbill, Ancient Records, II, p. 398 §1070-71). Barnett (‘Assurbanipal’s Feast’, EI 18 [1985], pp. 1*-6*) argues that the Ashurbanipal banquet scene depicts an actual marzea feast, though this writer agrees with King (‘The Marzeah: Textual and Archaeological Evidence’, p. 105*), who finds the suggestion ‘dubious’. 37. British Museum No. 124920. Plate taken from A. Moortgat, The Art of Ancient Mesopotamia: The Classical Art of the Near East (trans. J. Filson; London and New York: Phaidon, 1969), Fig. 287. Image used with the permission of the British Museum and the


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Figure 2. ‘Ashurbanipal’s Libation’ Copyright The Trustees of the British Museum38

In the relief, both the king and his queen, Ashur-sharrat, sip from seemingly identical bowls (though the king’s is damaged in part) that may in fact be cultic vessels. Confirmation of their cultic nature may be found when the bowls in the feasting scene are compared to those in another relief found in the same room of Ashurbanipal’s palace, namely, ‘Ashurbanipal’s Libation’ (Fig. 2), which shows the king (accompanied by a band of young attendants and harp-toting musicians)39 pouring out a libation to the unseen ‘gods of the hunt’40 over four lion carcasses laid before an incense altar and a offering table set with food.41 cooperation of Phaidon Press. For other quality plates of Figs. 1 and 2, see H.R. Hall, Babylonian Sculpture in the British Museum (Paris: Van Oest, 1928), Pl. XLI and LII; R.D. Barnett, (text) and A. Lorenzini (photographs), Assyrian Sculpture in the British Museum (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1975), Pl. 125, 169-73; Barnett, Sculptures, Pl. LXIV, LXV, LVII. 38. British Museum No. 124886-87. Plate taken from Moortgat, Art of Ancient Mesopotamia, Fig. 288. Image used with the permission of the British Museum and the cooperation of Phaidon Press. 39. Musicians are not shown in Fig. 2. See Moortgat, Art of Ancient Mesopotamia, Fig. 288; H.R. Hall, Babylonian Sculpture in the British Museum (Paris: Van Oest, 1928), Pl. LII; Barnett and Lorenzini, Assyrian Sculpture, Pl. 125. 40. Context for the libation scene is confirmed by the following epigraph: ‘I am Ashurbanipal, king of the Universe, king of Assyria, whom Ashur and Ninlil have endowed with surpassing strength the lions which I slew—the terrible bow of Ishtar, lady of battle, I aimed upon them. I brought an offering. I poured wine over them.’ See Barnett and Lorenzini, Assyrian Sculpture, Pl. 125. The act of pouring out a libation over the carcasses of slain animals is indicative of honoring the divine powers behind the



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The bowls portrayed in both the banqueting and libation scenes are seemingly identical (see a close-up comparison, Fig. 3). Each vessel exhibits a distinctly carinated body and flaring everted rim typical of Assyrian libation vessels (cf. the Ashurnasirpal II murals and material examples known from excavation).42 It appears, therefore, that Ashurbanipal and his queen were indeed drinking (Fig. 3a) from ritual vessels used for offering (Fig. 3b) at their cultic banquet.

a.

b.

Figure 3. Close-up Comparison of the Bowls in Figures 1 and 2 Copyright The Trustees of the British Museum

Such a practice is not only attested to in other Assyrian reliefs (e.g. the White Obelisk),43 but may also be suggested in other iconographic examples from the ancient Near East including the Megiddo ivories,44 a Ugaritic stela,45 and the Palmyrean tesserae.46 Of special importance is the corpus successful hunt. See P. Albenda, ‘Ashurnasirpal II Lion Hunt Relief BM 124534’, JNES 31 (1972), pp. 167-78 (178 n. 42). 41. Note the presence of both an incense altar (not shown in Fig. 2, above) and offering table identical to those portrayed in ‘Ashurbanipal’s Feast’. 42. See Ashurnasirpal pouring a libation over a lion (Moortgat, Art of Ancient Mesopotamia, Pl. 266; British Museum, Nimrud Gallery, No. 3b-4b), and over an ox (Barnett and Loerenzini, Assyrian Sculpture in the British Museum, Pl. 35; British Museum No. 124533). 43. Cf. the plates in E. Sollberger (‘The White Obelisk’, Iraq 36 [1974], pp. 231-39): Register A3 (Pl. XLII), Register D7 (Pl. XLV), and Register A7 (Pl. XLII). For probable material examples of the vessels portrayed in Assyrian reliefs, see R.W. Hamilton, ‘A Silver Bowl in the Ashmolean Museum’, Iraq 28 (1966), pp. 1-17, and R. Hestrin and E. Stern, ‘Two “Assyrian” Bowls from Israel’, IEJ 23 (1973), pp. 152-55. 44. See Megiddo Ivories A (ANEP, Pl. 332; H. Frankfort, The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient [Baltimore: Penguin Books, 4th edn, 1969], p. 159, Fig. 75) and B (Frankfort, Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient, p. 158, Fig. 74). 45. On the Ugaritic stela depicting El holding a cup, which some view as an offering, see A. Caquot and M. Sznycer, Ugaritic Religion (Iconography of Religion, 15/8; Leiden:


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of the so-called ‘Phoenician’ bowls that display incised banquet scenes; in fact, these bowls may have even been used in the banquets they depict.47

Figure 4. Phoenician Bowl Cy5 Line drawing courtesy of Dr E. F. Beach and Near Eastern Archaeology48 E.J. Brill, 1980), Pl. VII; B. Margalit, The Ugaritic Poem of AQHT: Text, Translation, Commentary (BZAW, 182; Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1989), pp. 281-82; N. Wyatt, ‘The Stela of the Seated God from Ugarit’, UF 15 (1983), pp. 271-77; and D.P. Wright, Ritual in Narrative: The Dynamics of Feasting, Mourning, and Retaliation Rites in the Ugaritic Tale of Aqhat (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbraus, 2001), pp. 71-72. On general examples of drinking/offering bowls in the ancient Near East, see a relief of an Egyptian princess sipping milk from a bowl (ANEP, Pl. 76) and a stela depicting King Yehawmilk of Byblos presenting a libation to the ‘Lady of Byblos’ (ANEP, Fig. 477). 46. On the tesserae and a connection between drinking and offering (and the marzea), see H. Ingholt et al., Recueil des tessères de Palmyre (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1955), R. no. 17 and 27 (Pl. I), as well as R. no. 697. Also see a similar sarcophagus lid in H.J.W. Drijvers, The Religion of Palmyra (Iconography of Religion, 15; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1976), Pl. LXXVI. 47. On the decorated Phoenician bowls, see G. Markoe, Phoenician Bronze and Silver Bowls from Cyprus and the Mediterranean (Classical Studies, 26; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), and R.D. Barnett, ‘Layard’s Nimrud Bronzes and Their Inscription’, EI 20 (1967), pp. 1-7. 48. From E.F. Beach, ‘The Samaria Ivories, Marzeah, and Texts’, BA 56 (1993), pp. 98-102, following the plate in Markoe, Phoenician Bronze and Silver Bowls, p. 251; British Museum Catalogue of Bronzes No. 186. The image is used with the kind



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One such bronze bowl (Fig. 4) dated to the seventh century BCE49 displays a banquet scene circling a central Egyptian-style motif50 that shows male and female figures reclining (some apparently engaged in sexual activity),51 eating, and drinking. It also shows a ritual procession of musicians followed by a votary with an upraised bowl.52

a.

b.

Figure 5. Close-up Comparison of the Bowls in Figure 4 Based on the line drawing courtesy of Dr E.F. Beach and Near Eastern Archaeology

Regardless of whether or not the scene specifically represents a marzea banquet,53 the similarities with Amos 6.4-7 abound (cf. the lounging on couches, music making, and drinking). Further, similar or identical bowls are again depicted as being used for drinking (Fig. 5b)54 permission of Dr Beach and Near Eastern Archaeology, with the cooperation of Dr Markoe and the British Museum. 49. See Markoe (Phoenician Bowls, pp. 149-56, following E. Gjerstad, ‘Decorated Metal Bowls from Cyprus’, Opus Arch 4 [1946], pp. 1-18), for a full discussion of bowl chronology. 50. Markoe, Phoenician Bowls, pp. 174-75, 251. 51. On the sexual nature of this banquet scene, see King and Stager, Life in Biblical Israel, pp. 356-57, and especially V. Karageorghis, ‘Erotica from Salamis’, RSFSup 21 (1993), pp. 7-13. 52. On the image and elements of a votive procession in both Mesopotamian and Egyptian art depicted on Phoenician bowls, see Markoe (Phoenician Bowls, pp. 56-59), who cites twelve examples in his catalog (note especially Cy3 on p. 246). On the votary, cf. Cy6 (pp. 252-53) and U6 (p. 347). 53. As some have suggested; cf. Karageorghis, ‘Erotica’, p. 11; and Beach, ‘The Samaria Ivories, Marzeah, and Texts’. Also see King and Stager, Biblical Israel, pp. 35657; and Markoe, Phoenician Bowls, p. 57. It is, of course, impossible to verify such claims with anepigraphic evidence alone. 54. Also see the parallel examples in Markoe, Phoenician Bowls: Cy13 (p. 264), E9 (p. 301), and U6 (p. 347).


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and for offering (Fig. 5a), thus suggesting a practice of drinking from ritual vessels at this cultic banquet.55

Figure 6. Phoenician Bowl G3 Line drawing courtesy of Yale University Press56

A second shallow bronze bowl (Fig. 6) dated to the ninth century BCE may bolster the case. It depicts a circling frieze around a star medallion divided into four scenes separated by two alternating naked goddesses holding their breasts and two bearded gods with their arms at their side, each flanked by lotus columns and topped with a winged sun disk.57 The panel scenes show two figures slaying a griffin, two alternating 55. The damaged state of the depictions prevents any certain conclusions with regard to a definite typological correlation between the vessels, but it may be observed that the bowls are generally of the same size and shape. 56. Plate from Frankfort, The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient, p. 198; also see the drawing and plate in Markoe, Phoenician Bronze and Silver Bowls, pp. 316-17; National Archaeological Museum, Athens. Inv. No. NM 7941. The image is used with the kind permission of Yale University Press and Dr Markoe, and the cooperation of the National Archaeological Museum of Athens. 57. Markoe, Phoenician Bowls, pp. 204-205, 316-19.



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cult-banquet scenes, and a procession of musicians. The deities (probably Asherah/Astarte and Resheph), cult-banquet scenes (likely showing a priest/priestess attending a deity),58 and votive procession all leave little doubt of the bowl’s cultic theme. Once again, it may be observed that similar bowls are depicted as being used for drinking (close-up, Fig. 7a) and offering (close-up, Fig. 7b),59 attesting to banqueters (whether human or divine) drinking from ritual bowls in a cult-banquet context.

a.

b.

Figure 7. Close-up of the Bowls in Figure 6 Based on the line drawing courtesy of Yale University Press

An undecorated Phoenician-style bowl dated to the fourth century BCE also deserves mention.60 Though plain, having only a simple exterior rosette around its omphalos base, it bears a one-line Phoenician inscription incised in dotted lettering on its flaring rim: > IKC>= E3C // *I? )3B We two cups are offerings for the mrz of Shamash.61

58. See Markoe, Phoenician Bowls, p. 204. Note also the presence of an altar and the handheld ankh. On the cultic significance of the ankh, see C.A.R. Andrews, ‘Amulets’, in OEAE, I, pp. 78-79. 59. As was the case with the scenes on the Cy5 bowl, determining a definite correlation between the vessels portrayed is not possible in light of the inadequacy of the plates and the absence of typological detail. 60. Published by N. Avigad and J.C. Greenfield, ‘A Bronze phialƝ with a Phoenician Dedicatory Inscription’, IEJ 32 (1982), pp. 118-28. 61. Following the translation by M.G. Guzzo Amadasi (‘Under Western Eyes’, Studi epigrafici e linguistici 4 [1987], pp. 121-28, in McLaughlin, MarzƝa in the Prophetic Literature, p. 38), as opposed to that of Avigad and Greenfield (‘A Bronze phialƝ’, p. 121), who read ‘2 cups we offer to the mrz of Shamash’.


260


If authentic,62 this find would confirm a connection between such carinated bowls and the marzea banquet. It may further illustrate the specific type of vessel used for drinking and offering at such events, remarkably complimenting the iconography. Going even further back in history prior to Amos, theological grounding for worshipers imbibing from ritual vessels at sacred banquets may be found in Ugaritic texts. The descriptions of the ‘banquets of the gods’ (associated with the marzea in some cases)63 may have served as heavenly paradigms for earthly cult-banquets, divine dramas acted out by human participants in the ritual presenting and partaking of food and drink.64 Offerings were considered as ‘food’ and libations as ‘drink’ for the gods,65 a concept not unknown to the biblical writers (cf. Deut. 32.3738). Acceptance was then symbolically represented in the Ugaritic narratives by the deity ‘cutting the meat’ to eat the offering or ‘taking the cup’ to drink the libation.66 Human priests and participants may have imitated their divine antitypes by carrying out these actions, eating the meat and drinking the wine in the ritual vessels in which they were offered, as an act of worship.67 Thus, a custom of banqueters drinking from ritual

62. The artifact comes from a private collection (Avigad and Greenfield, ‘A Bronze phialƝ’, 118). 63. Cf. KTU 1.114, and also 1.3 i 10-17, which bears considerable affinity with El’s banquet in KTU 1.114, though not specifically mentioning the term. 64. Cf. KTU 1.15 ii 9-18; 1.17 i 10-11. See also G. del Olmo Lete, Canaanite Religion According to the Liturgical Texts of Ugarit (Bethesda, MD: CDL Press, 1999), pp. 28, 331. On the opinion that many of the mythic narrative accounts functioned as liturgical texts read during specific festivals, ceremonies, and rituals, see T.H. Gaster, Thespis: Ritual, Myth, and Drama in the Ancient Near East (New York: W.W. Norton, 1977 [1950]), pp. 129, 316, and other examples in Wright, Ritual in Narrative, pp. 4-6, who acknowledges the general thesis but looks at the internal impact of ‘ritual’ in the myths and its effect on the plot. See also D. Clemens, Sources for Ugaritic Ritual and Sacrifice, I (Ugaritic and Ugarit Akkadian Texts; Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2001), especially Chapter 1. 65. See, for example, an invitation to Shapash: ‘Come, pray, to the fresh meat; yes, eat the offering-bread; pray, drink the libation wine’ (KTU 1.6 vi 42-45). Translation from N. Wyatt, Religious Texts from Ugarit: The Words of Ilimilku and his Colleagues (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), p. 143. Cf. also KTU 1.3 v 33-34; 1.17 i 10-11; 1.108 R 1. 66. E.g. KTU 1.4 vi 39-48; 1.15 ii 9-18, iv 24-25. See also discussion of ‘the cup’ as symbolic of acceptance in Wright, Ritual in Narrative, pp. 71-72; and Wyatt, Religious Texts, p. 208. 67. A possible illustration of this practice may be found in the first two lines of KTU 1.91; see Olmo Lette, Canaanite Religion, pp. 257, 259.



261

offering vessels at cultic banquets is at least consistent with this theology and hypothetical reconstruction. Such a custom may have maintained continuity in its practice at Ugarit and other nations around Israel until the time of Amos’s denouncements, even specifically as part of the marzea banquet. Though this Ugaritic genesis is admittedly speculative, by the time of the prophet drinking from ritual bowls at cult feasts was apparently widespread, as seen in the Babylonian, Assyrian, and Phoenician examples above. If it has now been established that the Samarian loungers were emulating their neighbors in the act of drinking from their own sacred vessels, Amos’s condemnation becomes clear. From the prophet’s perspective, this practice would have represented an importation of ‘pagan’ religion contrary to the ‘orthodox’ worship of Yahweh which demanded a clear distinction between man and God; libations were for pouring out to the deity, not for drinking. Thus, this Yahwistic purist’s root cause of ‘woe’ was the offense of syncretism, rather than simply the symptomatic neglect of the poor. According to Amos, it was such ‘religious diversity’ that angered Yahweh and sent these mizraq-sippers of Samaria into exile a few decades later.


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The Journalfor the Study of the Old Testament aims to offer the best in current scholarship on the Hebrew Bible across a range of critical methodologies. The Editors welcome contributions from both new and established scholars. All contributions are peer reviewed for publication, with the reviewers looking especially for original and creative approaches to the interpretation of the Old Testament literature and cognate fields of inquiry. Manuscripts for consideration should, if possible, be submitted in electronic form by e-mail to JSOTs Administrator, Ms Lindsay Burns, via <[email protected]>. The contribution should be presented in Microsoft Word format (if using WordPerfect, please convert to RTF). For the ancient languages, please ensure that the following fonts (available from ) are used: SPTiberian for Hebrew and Aramaic, SPIonic for Greek, and SPAtlantis for transliteration. Graphics other than tables should not be embedded in the document, but sent in a separate file (as an eps, jpg or tif at 300 dpi resolution). If it is not possible to submit the article electronically, then 2 copies of the manuscript and all accompanying illustrations (if any) should be posted to: Dr John Jarick, St Stephen's House, 16 Marston Street, Oxford 0X4 1JX, England. All manuscripts submitted for consideration should be in grammatical, idiomatic English, consistently employing gender-inclusive language where appropriate. Authors for whom English is not their native tongue are asked to have their manuscripts checked for errors in language and style prior to submission. Quotations from other languages (e.g. German, French) should be translated if in the main text; the original may be reproduced in a footnote if it is important. Either British spelling (for British and non-American contributors) or American spelling (for American contributors only) should be used; please do not mix spelling conventions. Either social-scientific (i.e. author-date) referencing or traditional footnote style is acceptable. Biblical references should be given in the following style: Gen. 4.2; Isa. 34.14-15; Eccl. 10-12 (note that full verse or chapter numbers should be given, not f. or ff). Quotations should be enclosed in single quotation marks, double quotation marks being reserved for quotations within a quoted sentence. Manuscripts or files sent for consideration must be complete, including all necessary bibliographical details, illustrations/charts/tables, and the text and footnotes (or endnotes) all set out in double-spaced lines. The author's name should not appear on the manuscript, but please ensure that in the covering e-mail or letter the name and full contact details (including postal address and telephone number) of the author are clearly given. Authors of accepted manuscripts will be required to assign copyright to SAGE Publications, subject to retaining their right to reuse the material in other publications written or edited by themselves and due to be published at least one year after initial publication in the journal. Accepted articles cannot be published in the absence of the signed copyright form. Authors will be given one copy of the journal and 25 credits for the downloading of electronic proofs of their article. Books for review should be sent to Professor John Day, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford 0X2 6QA, England.

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament D e c e m b e r 2007

Volume 32.2 CONTENTS EVELINE J. VAN D E R S T E E N A N D KLAAS A.D.

SMELIK

139-162

King Mesha and the Tribe of D i b o n JAMES C. O K O Y E

163-175

Sarah and Hagar: Genesis 16 and 21 S T E V E N D. M A S O N

Another Flood? Genesis 9 and Isaiah's Broken Eternal Covenant ANDREW HOCK-SOON

177-198

NG

Revisiting Judges 19: A Gothic Perspective

199-215

NANCY TAN

T h e Chronicler's O b e d - e d o m ' : A Foreigner a n d / o r a Lévite? H E C T O R M.

217-230

PATMORE

T h e Shorter and Longer Texts of Ezekiel: T h e Implications of the Manuscript Finds from Masada and Q u m r a n

231-242

J O N A T H A N S. G R E E R

A Marzeah and a Mizraq: A Prophet's Mêlée with Religious Diversity in Amos 6.4-7

®SAGE Publications www.sagepublications.com

243-262

0309-0892(200712)31:2; 1-4

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